Fr Ogundipe Sdv

Talk on Human Dignity - Delivered on 18th of July, 2020.  Audience: St. Vincent De Paul Society Members (Divine Mercy Catholic Church, Lekki. Lagos) Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law, politics and religion. What is "Human Dignity?" The English word dignity comes from the Latin word dignitas, which means "worthiness." Dignity implies that each person is worthy of honour and respect for who they are, not just for what they can do. In other words, human dignity cannot be earned and cannot be taken. No wonder Late Fela Anikulapo Kuti in his song "Beast of no Nation" says "Human right na my property, you can't dash me my property." Human dignity is a sense of self-worth. Therefore, dignity is a sense of pride in oneself that a human being has with them. This conscious sense makes human being feel that they deserve respect and h...

Young Catholic Students are called to resist evil and promote good in their motto "See, Judge and act" because when you nip evil in the bud, you truncate its capacity to full growth. For anyone to allow evil to stay is to have access to full subscription, remember too, whatever you feed will grow. Sin grows, evil grows, and evil people grow from mild sins to severe distortions just as King David started with pornography, developed in adultery, and ended in murder. However, the gospel today seems to have toed a countercultural line of thought that does not support evil to be uprooted as soon as it spotted which cast shadows on moral judgement. While It is striking in the gospel to think weed and wheat must grow together until the harvest; we need to look closely at the profound teachings of Jesus to determine why?  The gospel reading cast Jesus in the role of wisdom teacher using metaphorical techniques to make his points. He presents the farmer as one who demonstrates patienc...

My child  God will make a way where there seems to be no way God knows all about your inner pain Tell Him you do not know how to pray Your cry for help will not be in vain A heavy heart He can heal today. God will give you strength when weary And everything seems to go wrong Lift your hand and reach out to Him He will make a heavy heart strong. Let go and ask God to be your guide Release all doubts and foolish pride Trust Him to dry your eyes of tears And free a heavy heart from all fears. Look up to God, He holds the key And knows what is best for you and me Only He can make heartaches cease And fill a heavy heart with peace. Fr law cares

   Fr Victor Akinwale IBIYEMI  Pentecostalism is thriving in our times. The reasons are obvious; a faulty understanding of religion, the desire for false freedom, the hunger for contemporary innovations, profane novelties and dissentions from canonised authorities, the dictatorship of relativism, the enthronement of individualism, the craze for emotionalism, distaste for truth, an increasing demand for falsehood, an overwhelming gullibility of contemporary folks and many more.   Pentecostalism is the lure of the new age. By Pentecostalism, I refer to a new and defective movement in Christianity that places emphasis on peripheral-religiosity, spiritualism, emotionalism and syncretism. Pentecostalism is a mixture of many things. The movement is marked by an overwhelming emphasis on externalities such as speaking in tongues, healing, prophesying, deliverance, visions, dreams and revelatory interpretations. While these religious experiences might not be the problem,...

Some years ago, reading the award-winning epic novel "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe; I was petrified literally at the scene where Okonkwo insists on taking part in the execution of Ikemefuna despite the fact that the boy calls him "Father". That irony runs deep as no sane Father goes about killing or maiming his children. Naturally, when a child is in danger, he runs to the protective hands of his Father, but events and realities teach us the hard lessons that some children are developing adaptive mechanism from fathers who see child-support as a burden that nature has placed on them.  Though children may be heady and difficult, the fathers don’t save and them by pushing them on the side-lines, they redeem them with good counsel and affection. Realistically, there are some burdens that the earthly Fathers can't bear but they can share with great concerns. Thus,  children, who have been failed by their biological Fathers, spiritual fathers or poster fathers...