FULLY CATHOLIC

Pope Benedict XVI declared a "Year of Faith" which will start this October 2012, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. He did so while presiding over the celebration of the Holy Eucharist at Vatican City on October 16th, 2011.The Year of Faith will run from October 11th, 2012, till November 24th, 2013, which is the Solemnity of Christ the King.  "It will be a period of grace and dedication to a more complete conversion to God, to strengthen our faith in Him and proclaim Him with joy to the people of our time," stated the Pope, making his announcement at Sunday Mass at St. Peter's Basilica.

Quite recently the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago lamented the fact that divorces are on the increase here in our land. He was only echoing what many of us have been saying over the years. There are many factors which contribute to this increase, not least among which is the cultural phenomenon of the growing inability of people to have long term commitments. The truth is that stability is no longer a value. No longer are business persons impressed by individuals who work in the same firm for thirty or forty years. Today, by the age of forty, many persons have worked in three or four different jobs. The loss of the value of stability has disastrous consequences when it affects institutions, which for the betterment of society need permanence. Marriage is one of these institutions. To understand why marriage is meant to be permanent or stable institution, we need to understand the meaning of sacrament.

Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of "converging and convincing arguments", which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These "ways" of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:

The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.

Baptism is God's most beautiful and magnificent gift....We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most precious gift. It is called gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; clothing since it veils our shame; bath because it washes; and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God's Lordship (CCC. 1216)