On the eve of the double canonization of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, Vicky, a pilgrim from Toronto, toured the streets of Rome to meet other pilgrims from around the world. She also went to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus to visit Fr. Antonio Chung, SDB. Through the sharing of different people, Fountain of Grace takes a closer look at these two saintly popes.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 22:34-40. A scholar of the law questioned Jesus which commandment was the most important and Jesus responded: first, to love God with all your heart, strength, and will; and secondly, to love your neighbour as yourself. At that time, Jewish scholars constantly debated the precedence of the hundreds of commandments, so Jesus had just resolved the age-old debate: love. Jesus had taken the commandment to love God from Deuteronomy 6, which all Jews had memorized and yet which the Pharisees failed to live out. In fact, we can sometimes be like the Pharisees and think that we must completely understand God through our intellect, but God wants us to love whole-heartedly even more. For lower things like eating and drinking, we should choose with our intellect. But for higher things like religion, we should choose with our will. In recent years, numerous mystics have constantly reminded us that without love, the amount of money or time we give is worth nothing. There was once a priest who passed by a tombstone that read: this person died at age 90, but only lived three years. On asking what this meant, he was told that the deceased person began loving God at age 87 and wanted others to know after their death that only their final three years could be considered as truly living.

 
「Candy of Blessings」We are inviting to join this "Candy of Blessings" action in this Covid-impacted Halloween.
「Spiritual Talk」Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Fr. Anthony Ho
「Edwin's Blog」- October 24, 2020

Fountain of Grace's production team followed a pilgrim, Vicky, on her journey to witness the canonization of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II and learned about them from different perspectives through her encounters with various people on her journey. In the first episode, Vicky venerated a precious relic, the bloodstained undershirt worn by John Paul II when he was shot, and she interviewed Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai about his reflection on the canonization of the two Popes.

Our Lady of Akita urges prayers for clergy and reparation for sins. In 1973 Our Lady gave three messages to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa through a statue. From Jan. 4, 1975, to Sept. 15, 1981, the statue shed tears 101 times. The statue also shed blood and perspired with sweet perfume.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 22:15-22. The Pharisees, Herodians, and other religious leaders were trying to ensnare Jesus with questions and they asked Him whether it was lawful to pay tax to Caesar. If Jesus responded yes, the Jews would see Him as a traitor to the Romans; if He responded no, then He could be accused of sedition before the Romans. Jesus instead accused His questioners of hypocrisy for asking Him questions out of a desire to test Him instead of a desire to discover the truth - they were doing the work of the devil. He told them to bring out a Roman coin - it had the image of a pagan god or king and was seen as idolatrous by the Jews. The religious leaders immediately brought such a coin, showing how they were just as worldly as the tax collectors they so despised. Jesus asked them whose image was on the coin and they responded, "Caesar's." He then said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's." In those days, there were two taxes: a national tax to support the administration and a temple tax to support the liturgy and charitable works. Coins bearing pagan gods or kings had to be exchanged before paying the temple tax, so at the most basic level, Jesus was simply pointing out which coin could be used to pay tax. But at a deeper level, He was saying that we have a duty to the state. In the end, however, countries will end and what they can give us is limited, while we all have the image of God and belong to the everlasting Kingdom of God. History is filled with Caesars who sought to appropriate God's majesty, such as the state worship demanded by Communism. Christians ought to strongly resist such tendencies.

 
「Sound Colour Pilgrimage」Our Lady of Akita : Our Lady of Akita urges prayers for clergy and reparation for sins. In 1973 Our Lady gave three messages to Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa through a statue. From Jan. 4, 1975, to Sept. 15, 1981, the statue shed tears 101 times. The statue also shed blood and perspired with sweet perfume.
「Spiritual Talk」Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Fr. Anthony Ho
「Edwin's Blog」- October 17, 2020

April 27, 2014 is Divine Mercy Sunday. It is also the day that marks the first-ever canonization of two Popes together in the Catholic Church. "Fountain of Grace" introduces to you the lives of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, their journeys to sainthood, as well as their impact on the Church and the world.

In this episode, we will share a song sung by Jay Fung - the Countdown. If you know when is the end of times, what would you be doing? What are the most important things in life?

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Eighty Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 22:1-14. Jesus tells the Parable of the Wedding Feast: a king was holding a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to invite his guests. But the guests not only made excuses and rejected the invitations, they also insulted and killed the servants. The king then sent his servants to invite people from the street and one of the new guests entered without a wedding garment, so the king drove him out. In this parable, the wedding feast of course represents the Heaven that God has already prepared for us and the wedding garment is sanctifying grace. In those days, wedding hosts would provide the wedding garments for his guests, so that travelling guests would not have them dirtied by the dust from the road. Thus, a guest who did not wear a wedding garment could only be insulting the host. Our souls are the life of our bodies and only with grace can we attain eternal life. Once we have received grace, we can only lose it through mortal sin, and fortunately we have the Sacraments of Baptism and Confession to restore us to grace. God has already prepared the eternal wedding banquet for us and paid the greatest price: the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, which is the source of all seven Sacraments. We ought to beseech God to open our hearts and make us worthy to enter into the eternal Heavenly banquet.

 
「Music of the Heart」The Countdown - Jay Fung : In this episode, we will share a song sung by Jay Fung - the Countdown. If you know when is the end of times, what would you be doing? What are the most important things in life?
「Spiritual Talk」Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Fr. Anthony Ho
「Edwin's Blog」- October 10, 2020

In terms of the scope of work, a scientist is completely different from a priest. Yet when a person is both a priest and a scientist, what kind of experiences would his dual-identity bring about? Fr. John McCarthy, SJ is a Catholic priest who is also a scientist that has a great love in lichen, a symbiotic species. He would take us to the forest and his laboratory to get to know lichens, as well as to share with us reflections on his faith that he got from scientific research.

This episode of Sound Colour Pilgrimage will take you to two places of Our Lady in Spain: Covadonga and Prado Nuevo. We will also summarize our experience from the past 10 episodes of pilgrimage in Spain.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 21:33-46. Jesus tells two parables to accuse the religious authorities of injustice: the first tells of ungrateful vineyard tenants who refuse to give their produce to their master and kill the servants and son who are sent; and the second tells of the stone that the builders rejected that became the cornerstone. In the first parable, the master is clearly God, the vineyard is Israel, the fence is the Law, the tenants are the religious leaders, the servants are the prophets, and the son is Jesus. Jesus knew that the religious leaders planned to kill Him, so He prophesied what would happen to the vineyard once He was killed: the tenants would be evicted and the vineyard given over to new tenants. This predicted the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Romans, which rendered the priestly profession obselete and left only the perfect sacrifice of Christ. The tenants did not recognize the master as their master, just as we often do not see God as our Lord, because we twist His Commandments and set ourselves as our own masters. Frequently, misfortune befalls us before we sin and we question where God was when in fact this was an opportunity given by God to repent. We ought to take full advantage of these opportunities and recognize God as our true master, offering up all the fruits of our life's work to Him.

 
「Sound Colour Pilgrimage」Covadonga, Prado Nuevo : This episode of Sound Colour Pilgrimage will take you to two places of Our Lady in Spain: Covadonga and Prado Nuevo. We will also summarize our experience from the past 10 episodes of pilgrimage in Spain.
「Spiritual Talk」Twenty Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time - Fr. Anthony Ho
「Edwin's Blog」- October 3, 2020

Estella Lee, who is well-known among the Chinese community in New Zealand, used to be just a school teacher. But God has led her to a fruitful life that is out of the ordinary. Estella has a great love for the nature, and has been very active in promoting environmental awareness. She co-founded the "Chinese Conservation Education Trust" with a few friends in New Zealand, in order to bring the message of environmental protection to the Chinese community.

This weekend, the Church celebrates the Twenty Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time and today's Gospel reading comes from Matthew 21:28-32. The religious leaders question Jesus' authority, He asks them about the origin of John the Baptist's baptism: God or man. The leaders were afraid of the crowd and did not care to seek the truth. They refused to say John's baptism came from man, because they knew the crowd saw him as a prophet. They also refused to say his baptism came from God, because Jesus would ask them why they did not follow John. In the end, Jesus criticized them through a parable. Once, there was a father who told his two sons to do some work: the first agreed but ended up not doing the work, while the second refused but ended up doing it. Jesus asked which son did the will of the father and the leaders answered the second son. Jesus then said that the tax collectors and prostitutes would enter heaven before them because they refused to believe John the Baptist even after seeing him. From this, we can see that actions are greater than words and even a lay person who keeps the commandments is greater than a hypocritical consecrated person. Religious leaders must always be mindful of their station and must not praise God with their lips while doing the opposite in their actions. They are vulnerable to pride because they often delude themselves into thinking they cannot sin, whereas public sinners tend to realize their faults and repent. Perhaps we, because of lack of discipline, waste much time on the Internet and forsake our duties like the first son. We should practice discipline and serve God instead of ourselves.

 
The story of Poon's family : We will share the story of Dominic Poon. Poon's family has served the Church for multiple generations, and has many vocations.
「Spiritual Talk」Twenty Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time - Fr. Anthony Ho
「Edwin's Blog」- September 26, 2020

In recent years, the public has become increasingly concerned about the hazards of pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and genetically modified foods. Some people have started to grow their own produce for health reasons, and some Catholic religious also promote organic gardening. How is organic gardening related to our faith?