4 THINGS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW
YOUR MOBILE PHONE COULD DO

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival.
Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST
Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND
Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.
Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

*Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

THIRD
Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370#
Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can’t use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

ATM - PIN Number Reversal - Good to Know

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN # in reverse. For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognizes that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location.

This information was recently broadcast on CTV by Crime Stoppers; however it is seldom used because people just don't know about it. Please share this information along to everyone.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

Power of Examples

When I was little, Dibby's cousin had a dog, just a mutt, and the dog was pregnant. I don't know how long dogs are pregnant, but she was due to have her puppies in about a week. She was out in the yard one day and got in the way of the lawn mower, and her two hind legs got cut off. They rushed her to the vet and he said, "I can sew her up, or you can put her to sleep if you want, but the puppies are okay. She'll be able to deliver the puppies."

Dibby's cousin said, "Keep her alive."

So the vet sewed up her backside and over the next week the dog learned to walk. She didn't spend any time worrying, she just learned to walk by taking two steps in the front and flipping up her backside, and then taking two steps and flipping up her backside again.

She gave birth to six little puppies, all in perfect health. She nursed them and then weaned them. And when they learned to walk, they all walked like her.


I always thought the story was a little exaggerated, yet I believe, it has a strong lesson to impart – the tremendous influence parental examples, both good and bad, have on their children. How awesome!

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

Take time to think

Take Time To:

Take time to think ~ It is the source of all power

Take time to read ~ It is the foundation of all wisdom

Take time to play ~ It is the source of perpetual youth

Take time to be quiet ~ It is the opportunity, to seek God

Take time to be aware ~ It is the opportunity, to help others

Take times to love and be loved ~ It is God's greatest gift

Take time to laugh ~ It is the music of the soul

Take time to be friendly ~ It is the road to happiness

Take time to dream ~ It is what the future is made of

Take time to pray ~ It is the greatest power on earth

Take time to give ~ It is too short a day to be selfish

Take time to work ~ It is the price of success

Today , take time or rather make time for what's really important in your life.


Remember to share a smile , give a hug, hold the door open for another person,
be courteous when driving , call someone you, haven't talked to for awhile ,
write a letter to a loved one and tell those close to you that you love them...

Life is too short to go around living it with Anger or Hatred.
Live your life with malice towards none, but with love and respect for all the living.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

"Sink or sail, we are in it together"

In the Same Boat

Two men were out on the ocean in a boat.

One of them began drilling in the bottom of the boat as he wanted to do some ‘hole fishing;’ and the other, aghast said "What are you doing? Stop drilling!"

And the first man replied: "It's all right. I'm only drilling on my side."

The next time you want to tell someone that what you do is not anybody else’s concern, remember that being social beings, your actions could affect many others around you. When one of us is threatened, all of us are at risk. If the boat takes in water, it is not just your side of the boat that sinks.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

"Train yourself well to confront the vicissitudes that life throws up before you"

Marathon of Life

“Who do you think I am?” In 1896, after fifteen centuries, Athens renewed the Olympic Games, thus fulfilling the dream of Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. You can imagine how proud the Greeks were to host the first modern Olympics. You can also imagine how disappointed they were at their athletes' lack of success in event after event.

The last competition was the marathon. Greece's entrant was named Louis, a shepherd without competitive background. He'd trained alone in the hills near his flock. When the race started, Louis was far back in the pack of marathoners. But as the miles passed he moved steadily up.

One by one the champions began to falter. The Frenchman dropped out in agony. The hero from the United States had to quit the race. Soon, word reached the stadium that a lone runner was approaching the arena, and the emblem of Greece was on his chest! As the excitement grew, Prince George of Greece hurried to the stadium entrance where he met Louis and ran with him to the finish line.

In the ‘marathon of life’, which university you attended, who your coaches were, which elite club you belonged to, or what your credentials were, etc. have very little bearing. All that matters would be how well you have trained yourself to confront the vicissitudes that life throws up before you.

Fr Chris...

23rd Sunday of the Year - A
Ezekiel 33:7-9 Romans 13:8-10 Mathew 18: 15-20

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

A drunk decides to go ice fishing; so he gathers his gear and goes walking around until he finds a big patch of ice. He heads into the center of the ice and begins to saw a hole. All of sudden, a loud booming voice comes out of the sky. "You will find no fish under that ice." The drunk looks around, but sees no one. He starts sawing again. Once more, the voice speaks. "As I said before, there are no fish under the ice." The drunk looks all around, high and low, but can't see a single soul. He picks up the saw and tries one more time to finish. Before he can even start cutting, the huge voice interrupts. "I have warned you three times now. This is not a lake and there are no fish!" The drunk is now flustered and somewhat scared; so he asks the voice, "How do you know there are no fish? Are you God trying to warn me?" "No," the voice replied. "I am the manager of this ice hockey rink." Today’s readings are about correcting our brothers and sisters with loving concern for the temporal and spiritual welfare of the community.

The common theme of today’s readings is the impact of our membership in the Church on our “private” lives. Being a member of the Church means we belong to a community of brothers and sisters in Christ. We are, therefore, the “keepers” of our brothers and sisters, for each one of us is important to all others in our faith community. That is why we have to be meaningfully present to, and take responsibility for, other people. Inhuman behaviour against defenceless people, like child abuse, elder abuse or spouse abuse, is something about which we need to be really concerned, to the point of taking appropriate action to protect the victims. This individual responsibility in a Christian society includes, as today’s readings remind us, our responsibility for each other. Perhaps the most painful obligations of watchful love are fraternal correction and generosity in forgiving and forgetting injuries.

Matthew expands a saying of Jesus, originally concerned primarily with forgiveness (compare the shorter version in Luke 17:3-4), into a four-step procedure for disciplining members in the new eschatological community of the church. In the seventeenth century, the great Anglican priest and poet John Donne reminded us, “No man is an island, entire unto himself.” In today’s gospel, Jesus instructed his disciples about relationships among members of the church, because through baptism we assume a serious responsibility for our fellow-believers. Suppose a son or daughter, friend or acquaintance, relative, neighbour, even parent or teacher, does “something wrong,” whether the sin is of commission or omission. By outlining a four-step process of confrontation, negotiation, adjudication and excommunication, Jesus tells us how to mend a broken relationship within the Christian fellowship.

1) Confrontation: The worst thing that we can do about a wrong done to us is to brood about it. Brooding can poison our whole mind and life, until we can think of nothing else but our sense of personal injury. We mustn’t gossip either. Hence the first step proposed by Jesus to the one who has been wronged is that he should go to meet the offender in person, and point out lovingly, but in all seriousness, the harm he has done. This first stage is designed to let the two people concerned solve the issue between them. If it works out at that level, that is the ideal situation. "You have won back your brother."

2) Negotiation: Suppose the first step does not resolve the situation and the person refuses to admit wrong, continuing in a behaviour bad for him or her as well as others. This creates a problem, for example, among young persons where a friend steals or shoplifts, uses drugs or drinks excessively, hangs around with a bad crowd, plans to run away, contemplates suicide or abortion, or just "goofs off" in school. Here, the second step is to take one or two other members of the church along with the wronged person to speak to the wrongdoer and to act as confirming witnesses. The taking of the witnesses is not meant to be a way of proving to a man that he has committed an offence. It is meant to assist the process of reconciliation by emphasizing and explaining calmly the gravity of the situation. Nowadays, we call that an “intervention” and the group may also include a qualified third party - counsellor, teacher, priest or physician. The Rabbis had a wise saying, "Judge not alone, for none may judge alone except God."

3) Adjudication: If the negotiation step does not resolve the situation either, the third step is to have the whole church or community of believers confront the wrongdoer. The case is brought to the Christian fellowship because troubles are never amicably settled by going to a civil court of law. Further, the Church provides an atmosphere of Christian prayer, Christian love and Christian fellowship in which personal relationships may be righted in the light of love and of the Gospel. Finally, in matters of honour and shame, the community is the final arbiter, for the community as a whole suffers from the wrong.

4) Excommunication: If the offender chooses to disregard the believing community's judgment, the consequence is “excommunication.” This means that if none of the three steps has brought a resolution of the situation, then the wrongdoer should be treated like "a Gentile or a tax collector." That is, the wrongdoer should be put out of the church with the hope that temporary alienation alone may bring the erring person to repentance and change. The sinner is expelled because every obvious case of un-repented sin denies the Gospel's power and the Church's mission of reconciling sinners to God and to the community. But the excommunication should be carried out with genuine grief (1 Cor 5:2), not vindictive glee over another's "fall" or self-righteous pride.

Jesus concludes the action plan by stating that all his disciples have authority to “bind or loose,” that is, to settle conflicts and legal cases between community members. In addition, Jesus gives the assurance that when the Church community gathers in Jesus' name, in the spirit of prayer, to hear a legal case, Jesus is there to guide and ratify the procedure.

LIFE MESSAGES:

1) We are our brother’s/sister’s keeper. Modern believers tend to think that they have no right to intervene in the private lives of their fellow believers; so they pay no heed to the serious obligation of encouraging an erring brother or sister to give up his or her sinful ways. Others evade the issue saying, “As a sinner, I don’t have the moral courage or the right to correct someone else.” But Jesus emphatically affirms that we are our brothers' keepers, and we have the serious obligation to correct others in order to help our neighbours retain their Christian faith and practice, especially through our model Christian lives. Have we offered advice and encouragement to our friends and neighbours and coworkers when it was needed, and loving correction in private where that was possible? Let us admit the fact that a great degree of indifference to religion shown by our young men and women is due to lack of parental control, training and example. If the children of Christian families grow up as practical pagans, it is mainly because the Christian faith has meant little or nothing to their parents. It is a well known fact that when parents are loyal to their faith in their daily lives, their children will, as a rule, be loyal to it.

2) Gather in Jesus’ name and work miracles: Today's Gospel reminds us of the good we can do together, and of how we can do it. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” If any group of us will gather, work, and act with the Holy Spirit guiding us, we become much more than simply the collective number of people we are. Two becomes more than two, and three becomes more than three. The sum of our individual ideas, resources and abilities becomes much more because of the synergy that God’s presence provides. In our faith community, we act together so that we may help one another in God’s name, thereby multiplying our resources and ability to do what God calls us to do. Today, Jesus makes it clear how important we are, one to another. Through our links to one another in Christ, there is a capacity in our community which enables us to use God’s power to make healing and life-giving love more effective among His people. We come together, we stay together, we work together—in our Lord's name, bringing to focus the presence of God and unleashing the power of the Spirit – to transform our lives and the lives of all God’s children.

We do gather in Jesus’ name and invoke his presence, and that makes him a part of us and of what we do. That is what we experience at each Eucharist—we in him and he in us.

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!

“Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

The Circus

Once when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus. Finally, there was only one family between us and the ticket counter.

This family made a big impression on me. There were eight children, all probably under the age of 12. You could tell they didn't have a lot of money. Their clothes were not expensive, but they were clean.

The children were well-behaved, all of them standing in line, two-by- two behind their parents, holding hands. They were excitedly jabbering about the clowns, elephants and other acts they would see that night. One could sense they had never been to the circus before. It promised to be a highlight of their young lives.

The father and mother were at the head of the pack standing proud as could be. The mother was holding her husband's hand, looking up at him as if to say, "You're my knight in shining armor." He was smiling and basking in pride, looking at her as if to reply, "You got that right."

The ticket lady asked the father how many tickets he wanted. He proudly responded, "Please let me buy eight children's tickets and two adult tickets so I can take my family to the circus."

The ticket lady quoted the price. The man's wife let go of his hand, her head dropped, the man's lip began to quiver. The father leaned a little closer and asked, "How much did you say?"

The ticket lady again quoted the price. The man didn't have enough money.

How was he supposed to turn and tell his eight kids that he didn't have enough money to take them to the circus?

Seeing what was going on, my dad put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill and dropped it on the ground. (We were not wealthy in any sense of the word!) My father reached down, picked up the bill, tapped the man on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket."

The man knew what was going on. He wasn't begging for a handout but certainly appreciated the help in a desperate, heartbreaking, embarrassing situation. He looked straight into my dad's eyes, took my dad's hand in both of his, squeezed tightly onto the $20 bill, and with his lip quivering and a tear streaming down his cheek, he replied, "Thank you, thank you, sir. This really means a lot to me and my family."

My father and I went back to our car and drove home. We didn't go to the circus that night, but we didn't go without.

Many a time charity robs its beneficiaries of their dignity. A simple example could be the public way in which free books or scholarships are distributed exposing the ‘poor children’ to the rest of their class or school mates. Organized charities claim that otherwise they would not be able to collect the necessary funds.

People would sponsor any project, big or small, if they would be remembered with a public record like an announcement in the ‘Bulletins’, declaration from the pulpit, ‘plaque’, etc. But imagine for example the negative exposure of a ‘poor’ family living and growing up in a house with a clear, decent ‘plaque’ – much like branding with a burning iron. When there is no advantage of public acknowledgement there would be very few donors. For this reason Christ would condemn the Pharisees and say, “Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

Fr Chris...

Thought for the day!
Care to share

Share Your Little Blessings

Thou shall not forget to share your material and spiritual blessings, such as, joy, peace, faith etc., with those around you. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live an upright life must help others to do the same, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, because the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. Care to share.

Fr Chris...