BLOG OF ELOY ROY - EVERYBODY GOES TO HEAVEN

From the chimney of the Sistine Chapel rises white smoke and the bells of St. Peter are pealing out. The Cardinal Protodeacon appears majestically at the balcony of the basilica and announces to the world that the Catholic Church has a new pope. But the name of the newly elected cannot be clearly heard. The procession cross then appears and behind it the silhouette of someone whose face, because of a problem with lighting, does not show clearly.  It seems that it can be detected that he does not wear the usual papal insignia, and maybe he is without even a Roman collar and the white skullcap. He is seen greeting with sweeping gestures the crowd which fills up St. Peter square, and in turn the crowd answers him back with deafening cheers, but also with large interrogation marks in the eyes. And so, who is that pope indeed? That pope with a vague contour carries a Bible in his hand, opens it and going near the microphones begins to read in a vibrant voice:  -...

  Everybody goes to heaven, «bad and good alike». Jesus says so in a short story where he tells us about a king who gives a wedding feast for his son who gets married. But all are not in agreement…Today like yesterday.                                                                                   (Matthew 22: 1-14)   The King The son of the king is getting married with the most beautiful girl in the country. The father is beside himself with bliss. The wedding will be something grandiose. The king himself prepares with great care a lavish banquet at which he has the joy of inviting all ...

Trying to identify the fellow who, in the parable of the wedding feast, does not wear the wedding garment. A Hondurian reading. (Matt. 22 :1-14)    The bus is full like an egg. You could not add even a needle. But, who cares! At the first corner, the driver picks up three more passengers and four others a little further, and then two more...and so forth. When, in this country, there is no more space, still there is plenty! On the roof of the bus: a mountain of luggage and even animals… The bus goes at full speed. The steepest slopes, the closest curves, with the cows lying in the middle of the road, the ravines, nothing scares it. The travelers are cramped together like sardines and are sweating, slumbering, and holding fast. And nobody objects. Except one who, in his corner, pulls out all the stops in order that no one will touch him. He is smoking and twisting his body so that he can read his newspaper. He grumbles non-stop and co...

Too many people who dream of bringing Good News to the whole Creation keep turning a blind eye to the slow death of the Earth. I am made of earth, water, fire and air. I am made of birds, of branches, of fish and of insects. I am made of what I feed myself with. I am made of metal and of parcels of dust coming from far away galaxies. The solar system, the planet Earth, plants, animals, humans, my own body, all of us are connected through an infinite number of particles of the same nature. A same energy moves us by pushing us towards the grandiose dance of the cosmos.             I am a child of the earth, of the water and of the fire, and the breath of air that inhabits me makes me the brother of the wind. With the flesh and the blood, with all the cells, the fibers and the energies of my being, I am tied up to the universe. My breath is the umbilical cord which ties me to it; it makes me breathe with hi...

FOR THE NEW EVANGELIZATION      God speaks through the cries and the silences of the impoverished of the Earth. The new evangelization will have to pick up that voice; if not, it will only be a new miscarriage.                                                        Lazarus (Luke 16, 21)  EVERYTHING WAS STOLEN FROM THE POOR, EVEN THE GOSPEL        Nothing can be done about it. The intellectuals, the church people, the biblical experts, the televangelists, the priests, the pastors, the bishops or the popes are not the owners of the gospel. The gospel does not belong to them or to me.  It belongs to the poor.    That is sim...

          A mere detail concerning the New Evangelization : within a society where secularism and “laicity” are nearly the norm, the Church who herself is massively made up of  lay people should not feel like a fish out of its element…since the Church is first of all  made up of 99.9997% of lay people,  and Jesus is one of them!          A CATHOLIC AND… LAY CHURCH                            The word «lay» is an old term that the Church uses to designate the people who are not part of the «clergy». On a world scale, the catholic clergy adds up to about 413 000 members, while the official number of lay people (including a non-practicing majority) amounts more or less to 1 195  600 000. And so, the clergy forms about 0.0003% of the Catholic Church, and the lay people 99.9997%. We can say that it is within...