PAKISTANI CANDIDATE FOR SAINTHOOD
Servant of God Akash Bashir
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Today is the death anniversary of the Servant of God Akash Bashir. He was a Pakistani layperson, the first native of his country to be called “Servant of God” as a purported martyr. He served as a volunteer security guard of a Church. One day, a suicide bomber attempted to enter the Church. “I will die but I will not let you go in,” he told the terrorist. The attacker set off a bomb, immediately killing himself and Bashir. He was only 20.

The first photo of Pope Francis in a month, taken in hospital.

Tucker Carlson says that despite the fact he is not Catholic he thinks the Sacrament of Confession is the “coolest thing they do.”

Btw I’ve now officially gone through the entire Bible and I gotta say I cannot find one single fault, contradiction or blemish. 10/10, would recommend both as a work of literature and as divinely inspired truth.

Big shoutout to Fr Mike Schmitz and the 10,000 miles on my car and my solitary job for making it possible

For those who were waiting on my long ago exposition on the theology of the body and human sexuality I accidentally did it in replying to somebody saying “Sex is not a blessing, children are”

Another person has commented from the catechism so the matter is put to bed however I would just contribute and expound upon the topic. By your logic, men would be talking turkey blasters and women merely incubators. This would obviously be an affront to human dignity and would be utterly usurious. The conjugal act is the way we create children, but physical union is the blessing, in a very real way children are the byproduct. Sexual union is the completion of the covenant of marriage, without it the marriage is not actually finalised. Sex is - and it is not blasphemy to say - the the spouses equivalent of the Eucharist. It is the spouses saying with their actions, quite literally, “This is my body, which will be given unto you”. If there were ever to be an 8th sacrament, it would be sexual union since, it is an outward sign of the inward grace of marriage itself; you enter into each other, you become one body as you are one soul, one mind. It’s really quite a beautiful thing which predates sin, remember how when Adam wakes up and see Eve he says “Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh”, the Hebrew language does not have superlative words like greatest, biggest, best, etc. The way you therefore express the magnitude of something being exalted above other things is with repeating the adjective “Holy, Holy, Holy” and also with affirming specifically their greatness over things “King of Kings, Lord of Lords”. Consider then, when Adam says “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” he is not simply observing the origin of his new “helpmate” (a term which itself is almost always a title for God), it is a passionate and exuberant expression of joy and saying she is the best and most perfected version of him. I don’t think it’s anachronistic to say that when he says “Flesh of my flesh” he’s considering getting as close to her as possible (namely one flesh), especially considering they’re both naked anyway.

Consider this, and I bring it up since it was the the first reading of Mass today (when I wrote this days ago) and I feel like that is God trying to encourage me to write this since I have been considering how to reply for about days now since your (don’t take this the wrong way) missing the point cut me to heart, both as the romantic and as a Catholic. Now, the ancient way to enter a covenant in the Near East was to cut animals in half and to walk through the severed halves, essentially saying “If I go back on this covenant cut me in half”. God requests to Abraham - as we know - to enter the covenant by cutting a few species of animals in half. The notable thing about the way Abraham enters covenant with God is that God walks through the two halves of the animal, I doubt Moloch would do that, but I digress. Consider then - as a metaphor, two halves of flesh divided, which then is entered into to consecrate the covenant. My friend, that sexual union, I’m sure you’re familiar enough with the female anatomy that I don’t need to elaborate on the metaphor further.

Humour me - if you are still reading, which I doubt - and let me go further. There are in 3 dimensions to sex. The first, which is prized by the church is the expression of a “total giving of self”, the entering into each other and into covenant with each other, this is partially always present in sex behind the ramp at the skate park aged 15, with a woman you met a few hours ago on tinder, if you dubious, remeber that “he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’" (1 Corinthians 6:16). The marital act, with the sanctity of sex in tact with one’s wife is blessed, this leads on nicely to the 2nd dimension to the conjugal act; children. The conjugal act should - of course - always be open to life, children are used as a synonym for blessings multiple times throughout the Bible, but in couples who are sterile, sex is still permitted, if sex itself wasn’t a blessing in itself, the second your wife hits menopause the church would forbid the conjugal act.