Five years ago, we shared with you the vocation story of Sr. Po-Yee. This episode of Life Lounge, we will give you the 2nd episode of her vocation story. Sr. Po Yee will share with us her current mission and service in Peru and how she has been responding to God's call.

Superstition is a sin against the worship of God. Because our spiritual marriage to Him is exclusive, it is wrong to worship false gods and attribute God's power to created things. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were like an unfaithful woman, and worshipped foreign gods through the influence of neighbouring nations. Sacrilege is another sin against the worship of God, whereby one does not respect holy things. We must ensure that our sins are free of mortal sin before we receive the Eucharist, or else go to Confession first. We also ought not to trade in holy things, unless their price is set on other factors, such as their historical or material value. Catholics do not worship Mary, the saints, or the angels, but ask for their intercession before God on our behalf - this can be seen in the Mass liturgy, when sacrifice is offered to God alone. God gives us worldly blessings through other people, like our parents and teachers; He gives us spiritual blessings through our heavenly siblings so that we might experience membership in the heavenly family. To worship the saints and angels is a grave sin. And to pray before a holy statue or card is to pray to the person depicted, not to the statue or card itself. We ought to worship God through public liturgy and private prayer.

【 Life Lounge】Sr. Po-Yee Yeung, SPD - Mission in Peru 【Spiritual Talk】 Fr. Ho talks about the worship of God 【Edwin’s blog】October 19, 2019

Jackie Lau, a religious artist from Hong Kong, has hosted several exhibitions over the past decade. Prior to each exhibition, she has to draw a vast amount of paintings in a short time. What is it that motivates her to see drawing as her mission, to a point that she is willing to sacrifice for it?

In Heaven, faith ends and becomes sight, hope ends and becomes possession, but love is eternal. We have faith in God for His truth and hope in Him for His goodness, but we love God simply because He is God. When we sin, we betray that love. Venial sin causes spiritual sickness and can be forgiven without Confession, but mortal sin causes spiritual death and can only be forgiven through Confession. St. Bonaventure once described venial sin as inordinate attachment to a creature though not to the point of placing it above God, whereas mortal sin places a creature above the Creator. On the first Easter Sunday, Jesus breathed on His apostles and gave them the power to forgive sins. Through Confession, we can have our sins forgiven. In the Second World War, the Polish priest St. Maximilian Kolbe was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis. Although he was not permitted to, he continued his priestly duties and listened to Confessions late into the night. Once, a prisoner escaped and the authorities selected ten prisoners to be starved to death as a warning. A married man with children was chosen, but the unmarried and childless St. Maximilian volunteered to go in his stead and was martyred. He taught that the opposite of love was not hatred but indifference and that indifference was the worse of the two because one cannot both love and be indifferent to someone.

This episode of Theme Park will talk about Social Media.  We are living in a world of plastic.  Have we ever considered the impact to this earth of using all these plastic products?

【Theme Park】World of plastic 【Spiritual Talk】 Fr. Ho talks aboutthe virtue of love 【Edwin’s blog】October 12, 2019

Kintore College is an all-female student residence located in downtown Toronto. It is a home away from home that offers an excellent environment for study. It also seeks to meet the needs of students by providing laundry, meals, career guidance, social life, philosophy classes, as well as faith and spirituality. Kintore College is partly managed by Opus Dei, a personal Prelature of the Roman Catholic Church.

Since God is invisible, why do the bible says that when people see God, they will die?

The First Commandment includes having faith, hope, and worship in God. Hope is a supernatural virtue; it is the anticipation of attaining the glory of Heaven and the help of the grace of God. Against hope are two extremes: despair and presumption. When we despair, we abandon the possibility of forgiveness and when we are presumptuous, we claim to love God but do not follow up with actions. We can either do evil actions in the expectation that we have already been saved, or because we haven't done any egregiously evil actions claim that we are already saved. Presumption can fester in one's heart: either we grow complacent in living our faith over time or think we have no need to enter the Church because we are already good people. St. Thomas Aquinas taught us how to pray to be ensured of being saved by God: we must pray for (1) ourselves and (2) the things necessary for salvation, and to do so both (3) fervently and (4) diligently.

【Ask Fr. Francis】 Why does God say whoever sees His face will die? 【Spiritual Talk】 Fr. Ho talks about the First Commandments 【Edwin’s blog】October 5, 2019

In the mid-20th century, two European missionaries went to Macau to serve the poorest of the poor. They were Fr. Luis Ruiz, who was regarded as the Father of the Poor in Macau; and Fr. Caetano Nicosia, who was termed the Angel of the Lepers. How did they dedicate their whole lives to rewrite the stories of the lives of the marginalized in Macau and in Mainland China?

The Ten Commandments teach us how to get to Heaven. Simply believing in Jesus is not enough, we must have a living faith. When we meditate on each Commandment, we can ponder the things they prescribe and forbid. The First Commandment is to love God above all, and it prescribes four things: to believe in, hope in, love, and worship God; and it forbids their opposites, namely: disbelief, despair, hate, and superstition. Faith requires that we learn God's revealed Truth to the best of our ability, firmly believe it, and openly proclaim it. If we lack understanding in anything, we must seek the help of others. Once, there was a monk who read a passage of the Bible for a long time but even after praying for understanding, still could not understand its meaning. He had just decided to ask a neighbouring monk for help when an angel appeared, praised his humility, and rewarded him by revealing the meaning of the passage to him. God sometimes reveals the truths of the faith through others; some saints have revealed that God makes His will known to lesser angels through greater angels. If faith is weak, it is often because we are proud and seek to control all knowledge in our heads. In our modern society, faith suffers innumerable attacks. We must increase our faith through prayer.

The Ten Commandments teach us how to get to Heaven. Simply believing in Jesus is not enough, we must have a living faith. When we meditate on each Commandment, we can ponder the things they prescribe and forbid. The First Commandment is to love God above all, and it prescribes four things: to believe in, hope in, love, and worship God; and it forbids their opposites, namely: disbelief, despair, hate, and superstition. Faith requires that we learn God's revealed Truth to the best of our ability, firmly believe it, and openly proclaim it. If we lack understanding in anything, we must seek the help of others. Once, there was a monk who read a passage of the Bible for a long time but even after praying for understanding, still could not understand its meaning. He had just decided to ask a neighbouring monk for help when an angel appeared, praised his humility, and rewarded him by revealing the meaning of the passage to him. God sometimes reveals the truths of the faith through others; some saints have revealed that God makes His will known to lesser angels through greater angels. If faith is weak, it is often because we are proud and seek to control all knowledge in our heads. In our modern society, faith suffers innumerable attacks. We must increase our faith through prayer.

【Music of the Heart】 Streetlight Dinner by Janice Vidal 【Spiritual Talk】 Fr. Ho talks about the Ten Commandments 【Edwin’s blog】September 27, 2019

Among the ministries of the Chinese Catholic community in San Francisco is a long-running Bible study group. What moviates the group to study the Bible together? What have they gained from the Bible?

Joseph Shu is an accomplished electrical engineer. Since 1997, he has been travelling around the world to preach the gospel. Fountain of Grace invited him to share how his habit of reading the scriptures early in the morning has transformed his life.

How was the Bible passed down to us through the ages? Fountain of Grace invited Stanislaus Lee, a biblical scholar, to explain the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for today's Christians.

Who is the first educator for our children? As a parent, how could we teach our children the right values?

Among the Ten Commandments, the first three concern loving God and the last seven concern loving your neighbour. Some command us to do things; these are positive commandments. Others forbid us from doing things; these are negative commandments. Positive commandments are to be followed in certain circumstances, but negative commandments hold at all times and places. There are three levels to assessing morality: (1) the object, (2) the intention, and (3) the circumstances. Some actions are objectively wrong and we cannot justify them with an intention to do good. An evil intention can make a good action evil, but neither can a good intention make an evil action good. Circumstances can modify the morality of an action; for example, performing evil in front of others increases the harm. We should strive to do good actions with good intentions under good circumstances.