為一位身患重病的中東背景中國基督徒姊妹禱告 （毅文）
Prayer For a Seriously Ill Chinese Christian Sister with Middle Eastern Heritage （Her Name is YiWen）

2025年3-7月的情況
Situation from March to July 2025

她患有心肌炎，加上过度劳累，病情反复发作。最终确诊为肾上腺腺瘤，造成严重的低血钾症和心律紊乱，曾多次被120送往急诊室，并下达病危通知书。需要手術治療，但是特殊病種難以獲得治療保障支持，而且可能因為心臟問題遲滯手術。她的父親已經病逝，母亲的类风湿病情加重，几乎无法走路，出门需依赖轮椅。父母和她都信了耶穌。經濟上很困難，需要幫扶。
She suffers from myocarditis, coupled with overwork, and the condition recurs repeatedly. The final diagnosis was adrenal adenoma, causing severe hypokalemia and arrhythmia. She was repeatedly sent to the emergency room by 120 and issued a critical condition notice. Surgical treatment is required, but it is difficult to obtain treatment guarantee support for special diseases，and may delay surgery due to heart problems. Her father has passed away, and her mother's rheumatoid arthritis condition has worsened, making it almost impossible to walk and requiring a wheelchair to go out. Both her parents and she believed in Jesus. Economically difficult and in need of assistance.

我祈禱她能獲得經濟上的幫助。也能找到合適的能見面的基督徒聚會。我也有中東背景，可以提供一些支持。
I pray that she can receive financial assistance, can also find suitable Christian gatherings where she can meet face to face. I also have Middle Eastern background and can provide some support.
任何的代禱都是非常感謝的。
Any prayer is greatly appreciated.

I have struggled with the gospel for over fifty years. It is as if I am just recently realizing that the Christian life is impossible without the Holy Spirit.

On the one hand, one can be saved in a moment. OTOH, one must take up one’s cross daily and those who persevere to the end will be saved.

Moment-by-moment motives matter. If one lives for Christ moment-by-moment, the indication is that one is saved. If one lives for self moment-by-moment, indications are that one is NOT saved.

I figure that one has to trust Christ and the Holy Spirit moment-by-moment to help one live for Christ instead of for self. If one mostly lets up from this quest, then apparently one is not saved. On the one hand, one can be saved in a moment. OTOH, one must relinquish self and trust God moment-by-moment from then on.

This salvation-in-a-moment versus moment-by-moment motives thing is a supernatural paradox. There are lots of paradoxes that have to do with the supernatural realm, that have to do with the reality of God.

I have figured that if I can only have a moment of real salvation, then I am set. Then I am Christ’s no matter what. There might be a struggle between the flesh and the Spirit from then on, till I die, but I am going to heaven no matter what. Since my mother died in 2011, I have striven to experience this moment of real salvation.

Just this morning, I was thinking about how one must live for Christ, moment-by-moment, instead of for self, moment-by-moment. And how one must keep looking up at Christ and the Holy Spirit to accomplish that. Realizing that, there were moments this morning wherein I asked Christ and the Spirit to help me live for Christ, instead of for self, moment-by-moment. But then I thought about having to keep this quest up, moment-by-moment, on an on-going basis. I thought, I am not going to be “able” to keep that up. Then I figured that, by default, I just live for self, moment-by-moment. So, I tend to figure, with my wavering faith, that I am not saved.

What must I do to be saved?

I was making a hole into a bottle of muriatic acid (29% concentration) I bought 2 days ago, and the bottle squirted its contents. I'm not wearing any protection and some of the liquid got to my bare skin in my hands and legs. Some of the liquid also got into the scissors I've used to make the hole and immediately started making white smoke, very pungent fumes, and visibly corroding/dissolving the scissor blade.

As for the acid that went to my skin, it did absolutely nothing. Absolutely no effect at all. So I wasn't in a hurry to wash it off but did anyway due to the smell after more than 10 seconds of exposure. The next day, there are still no signs of acid damage on my skin.

This was actually the 2nd time I had skin contact with the same acid product. The first time with moist/wet skin because I'm cleaning the bathroom caused a very mild effect similar to bleach and nothing else, no pain, no lingering effects.

I checked the internet afterwards and to my disbelief, I saw most articles saying some sort of immediate harm upon contact like 1st to 3rd degree burns, severe burns for >25% concentrated hydrochloric acid, wash with running water for some minutes.

None of that happened to me. Why would these articles lie about things like these? The main reason I posted here is seeing quite different real life results from what is said. If I can't even trust even seemingly highly reputable sources of information, who then can I trust?

There are a lot of unscrupulous officials in my state, and take it from me it is not a good idea to keep someone with financial responsibility who has a record of violating the law.

Through my younger decades, I looked to my elders for wisdom and sense.

I didn’t find it. In the end I gave up. I keep my ear open for wisdom and sense but don’t expect it from the older generation. Indeed - in more than a good share of my dealing with them, they come across as entitled, spoiled, spiritually and emotionally immature. Further, they talk about their life as though they had it really hard - then, list examples that are actually describing a lovely easy life. Not perfect, but far far better than I’ve had it.
(Houses, the odd holiday, overtime pay for extra hours and decent pension arrangements to name a few things - I think it was due to rebuilding after the war maybe?? I suspect it was making lots of money without actually creating anything better - just bringing us back to standard).

I just can’t seem to tolerate them any more. It’s the spoilt attitude, the entitlement, the thoughtless emotional outbursts.
(Example. I was changing my son’s messy nappy (diaper), in a special disabled / baby changing toilet. A group of old ladies crowded outside, decided they had waited long enough, then started passive aggressively commenting loudly outside the door, then knocking to hurry me along. It was only a few minutes. It’s things like this that happen all the time that have well and truly turned me off that generation. I guess somewhere along the line I stopped making excuses for them??!! Common sense should have said that I’m changing my sons messy nappy, I’m moving as fast as I can, you might be uncomfortable but you do have to wait your turn or prepare in some other way. Even if you are uncomfortable or in pain, it’s no excuse for acting like spoilt bratty children).

I guess to summarise, tradition tells you where wisdom is, who your heroes are. But don’t listen to tradition mindlessly. Question it.
I’ve started looking elsewhere. I’ve written off the boomer generation and subsequent (up to millennials I guess??) and hope I can provide wisdom, humility and sense to the youngsters.

Does anyone have similar experiences to me?
Does anyone have a better experience with the older generation? With examples??

"When we allow fear to eclipse our responsibilities to admonish grave wrongs and encourage virtue over vice, we abandon duties central to Christianity. Instructing the ignorant and admonishing the sinner are spiritual works of mercy that we seem to have abandoned due to the misguided notion that it harms rather than helps our neighbor."

I mean, regardless if it was true or not. Which in this case it wasn't.

For years my Grandmother had been bragging to people telling them we were related to royalty, to Queen Mary of Scots no less. Well, we got so sick and tired of hearing it that we finally had a DNA test done to see if it was true. Turns out it was not true! HA! We are not royalty after all! I think this evidence embarrassed her really bad that she had been proven wrong and she hasn't talked about it since.

The test told us we were 99% English and only 1% Scottish. Any link to Scottish royalty is far too weak to count.

I just don't understand why people make outlandish claims without any evidence backing up such claims. And besides, even if someone is of royal blood, why does that make them special?

Evangelist Franklin Graham has accused Democrats in Washington of selling their souls for power, speaking out against lawmakers who urged the U.S. Supreme Court to allow male trans-identified athletes to participate in sports designated for females.

On Monday, Graham, the son of late evangelist Billy Graham and head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, posted on social media in response to 130 Democratic members of Congress (including nine senators) joining an amicus brief in the cases of Little vs. Hecox and West Virginia vs. BPJ cases.

The Democrats argued that state policies, such as those in West Virginia and Idaho, that categorically prohibit male trans-identified individuals from competing in female-only athletic contests “are the improper tool to address participation in youth sports teams,” citing concerns related to “privacy, safety, health and rights of the American people.”

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I’m increasingly convinced that the real issue beneath many of our political, moral, and cultural failures is not simply which system we choose, but whether its guiding mores are genuinely shared rather than imposed.

Any community without commonly held moral commitments will eventually fragment. At a global scale, a world that denies universal moral reference points has no principled way to resist violence or corruption—only temporary power arrangements. History suggests those arrangements do not hold.

This helps explain why the former USSR did not collapse merely because communism was economically flawed, but because Marxist ideals were imposed rather than embraced. Compliance replaced conviction. That moral dissonance was compounded by widespread corruption among the leadership, whose relative luxury stood in stark hypocrisy to the egalitarian ideals they espoused. Once legitimacy was lost, cohesion followed. Capitalism is not immune to the same fate; when it degenerates into crony capitalism and becomes rife with corruption, it too loses moral credibility.

All of this brings us to the God question, and more specifically to Jesus—arguably the most radically counterintuitive moral figure in human history. His teachings invert every instinct of power and survival: strength through weakness, love of enemies, living at peace when possible, going the second mile when coerced to go one. In this sense, Jesus stands even against nature itself, which operates by survival of the fittest. His ethic does not arise from biology, self-interest, or power; it directly contradicts them.

Crucially, Jesus does not impose this moral vision. He invites it. His kingdom advances only where hearts are transformed, never by coercion. That alone sets Him apart from every political ideology. And it may be precisely why His teachings remain both so disruptive—and so enduring.

Hello all,

Is it ok to have devotion to them?

I know they were removed from the calendar in the early 1960s, but both of them used to be very heavily venerated by many faithful and much loved Saints.

Any thoughts?

Peace

Hi all,

Does the EO recognize St. Philomena?

She used to be heavily venerated in the West until recent times.

Philomena

Peace

I get the impression that the Bible says that Jesus the Son existed eternally before the universe was created and that he was omniscient. What about when he was born on Earth? Did he still know what he knew before? Or did he only have access to that knowledge at a later point in time?

Well, it's a lot about brains, research, that the state decides over you, space research, sex, that there is no soul, artificial intelligence, that you have to scroll your mobile for news, that you have to be interested in politics, etc.

I turned it all down, I've only been strength training and singing, like I've been doing since I was 15. 40 now.

I often meet people they call npc along the walkway, they feed someone with a lot of strange things about their body language. Everyone denies that they do.

Every time I've been to the grocery store, they think I'm just a little behind, so they feed someone with everything they know. Actually, they don't know anything, but that's the norm. Recently, a foreign girl said and fed me that the state owns my body, I felt I had to fight for my freedom then. Recently, she thought that I was just a little behind one, so it was very strange that there is no soul, the eyes just pretend there is one and that they might be able to fix that I have some gray hair with gene therapy. I noticed her becoming violent, but I just looked at her like she was insane.

People also stare because I'm just myself, there was someone who tried to convince me that she wasn't insane also because she followed society. Actually, she was insane, I saw that, I think a lot was because she scrolls news on her mobile, but I didn't say anything.



It started as just as an experiment really, I didn't want to be used as a piece of meat only, but it's fascinating all the violence and the abuse. I still don't see the point in the future, people are just mad at the store, and it's not like you get the obstacle of finding aliens fixed because you're limited by the speed of light. I firmly believe that I have a soul too. Now it must be said that I have a physique and the ability to sing far beyond what the future can bring, I think I have actually gained some followers. I don't care much about the violence, I'm smarter and stronger anyway, mostly sleep well even though I can be annoyed at times because they fuss about the future, but it's been fun

I am a 38-year-old single Christian woman who is looking for her soulmate. I am straight, which means I only like men.

I heard there were some single men on here. But I am going to need a picture of you if you even want me to consider.

I just wish I knew the first thing of me uploading a picture of myself onto here, but I've never done it before...

I saw that my son has dangerous winds where he is. It says to stay away from windows. Please pray that God will protect my son Jakeb and Lyric from the wind and that they are safe and not cold. Dear God please protect them. Please let them say in contact with me. Please allow them power so they can be warm. I love You Dear God and I love You Dear Jesus. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. God bless you all.

The resignation of Mohammad Reza Farzin was reported by state TV, as hundreds of traders and shopkeepers rallied in Saadi Street in downtown Tehran as well as in the Shush neighborhood near Tehran's main Grand Bazaar.

Anti-regime outlet Iran International (live updates):

Protests spread to several Iranian cities, with chants targeting Khamenei​

• Protest rallies turned violent in several parts of Iran, with security forces shooting directly at protesters in Hamadan and firing tear gas in Tehran and Malard.
• Nighttime protests were held in several parts of Iran, from Qeshm Island in the south, to Zanjan and Hamadan in the north.
• Tehran shopkeepers vowed to continue their strikes and protests on Tuesday. Shahid Beheshti University students also announced plans for a protest gathering on Tuesday morning.
• Protesters in several parts of Tehran province chanted 'death to the dictator' during nighttime demonstrations, videos obtained by Iran International show.

Monsignor Maurizio Gronchi, an expert consultant for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, clarified that the measure established last month regarding the use of the titles “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix” for the Virgin Mary is “not an absolute prohibition” and that these titles can still be used in popular piety, provided their meaning is understood.

“It’s not an absolute prohibition, but it will no longer be used in official documents or in the liturgy. But if used in popular devotion, understanding its meaning, no one will be reprimanded for it,” the expert said in an interview with “EWTN Noticias,” the Spanish-language broadcast edition of EWTN News.

The interview took place after the Nov. 4 publication of the doctrinal note “ Mother of the Faithful People” in which the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Víctor Fernández, stated that the use of the title “Co-Redemptrix” is “always inappropriate” and encourages “special prudence” regarding the title “Mediatrix of All Graces.” The text has sparked controversy among the faithful, especially among those who use these terms within the Catholic Church.

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The charges relate to alleged public incitement to terrorism using online platforms. The offence carries a maximum sentence of seven years under Russian law.

Kasparov, a long-time critic of President Vladimir Putin, lives outside Russia and has not returned since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He co-founded the Free Russia Forum, an exiled opposition movement that organises conferences and campaigns against the war in Ukraine.

Kasparov was added to Russia’s list of “foreign agents” in May 2022. In 2024, authorities also designated him as a terrorist and extremist.

China launched its most extensive war games around Taiwan on Monday to showcase Beijing's ability to cut off the island from outside support in a conflict, testing Taipei's resolve to defend itself and its arsenal of U.S.-made weapons.

The Eastern Theatre Command said it had deployed troops, warships, fighter jets and artillery for its "Justice Mission 2025" exercises to encircle the democratically governed island, conduct live fire and simulated strikes on land and sea targets, and drills to blockade Taiwan's main ports.

The exercises began 11 days after the U.S. announced $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever weapons package for the island, drawing a protest from China's defence ministry and warnings the military would "take forceful measures" in response.

Analysts say Beijing's drills increasingly blur the line between routine military training exercises and what could be stage-setting for an attack, a strategy intended to give the U.S. and its allies minimal warning of an assault.

The Chinese military also released a video depicting automated humanoid robots, microdrones and weaponised robotic dogs attacking the island, futuristic technology China has never showcased before.

SEALING OFF PORT CITIES​

The Chinese military released a series of propaganda posters along with a graphic depicting four locations across the island with targets locking on, following the drill announcement.

China's state broadcaster said the exercises would focus on sealing off Taiwan's vital deep-water Port of Keelung to the island's north and Kaohsiung to Taiwan's south, the island's largest port city.

DRILLS FORCE FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS​

The Transport Ministry said more than 100,000 passengers on scheduled international flights will be affected by Tuesday's drills, while around 80 domestic flights are set to be cancelled.

First came the scorched boat. Then the mangled bodies. Then the packets with traces of marijuana. Now, fishermen fear the ocean that feeds them.
A thunderous boom rang out through the windless late-afternoon air. Seconds later, smoke began rising out of the sea as if the horizon were on fire.

Watching from the shore on Nov. 6, Erika Palacio Fernández whipped out her phone, she said, unwittingly recording the only verified and independent video known to date of the aftermath of an airstrike in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it calls “narco-terrorists.”

Two days later, on that same shore, a scorched 30-foot-long boat itself would wash up. Then, two mangled bodies. Then charred jerrycans, life jackets and dozens of packets that were observed by The New York Times and were similar to others that have been found after anti-narcotics operations in the region. Most packets were empty, though traces of a substance that looked and smelled like marijuana were found in the lining of a few. NYT

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Please don't tell me evidence shows Fentanyl was not being ran through the seas, but rather marijuana.
Something that is not only legal here.
Something Trump just eased restrictions on here in America.
Please tell me we are not enacting war crimes over weed.

President Donald Trump’s White House has taken the astonishing step of commandeering the Department of Justice’s X account, Axios reported Wednesday, a day after the latest tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files contained several mentions of the president’s name.​

​

“Axios has learned the White House has begun managing the DOJ’s account on X,” Axios reported in its Christmas Eve morning newsletter. “The account is taking a sharper tone with a more rapid-response campaign edge.”​

​

It’s unclear when the White House first took over the account, but a post by the Department of Justice announcing the latest Epstein files’ release on Tuesday was quick to absolve the president of any wrongdoing.​

​

“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the X post read. “To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.” HERE​

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After the DOJ failed to keep this Epstein to fellow Pedophile Larry Nassar from the public, the White house took control of the DOJ's social media so "they" could accuse the letter as being faked.

“Dear L.N.,” As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home. Good luck! We shared one thing … our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our President also shares our love of young, nubile girls.” The letter makes another lewd reference to Trump’s treatment of women. “Life is unfair,”​

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They don't even pretend to hide it anymore.

The number of transgender-identified characters on TV is on the rise even as many of the shows on which they appear won't return next season, according to a report from an LGBT media watchdog.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation 2025 "Where We Are on TV" study found that while the number of transgender-identified characters increased slightly from last year, only four such characters appear on series that have been officially renewed for another season. This could open the door "for a potential huge decrease in transgender representation" in the next year, the group notes.

Across primetime scripted broadcast, primetime scripted cable and scripted streaming original series that premiered a new season between June 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025, GLAAD counted 489 LGBT-identified characters in total, a 4% increase, up from 468 characters counted in the previous season.

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Biden FBI Spied on Eight Republican Senators as Part of Arctic Frost Investigation, Grassley Oversight Reveals​

WASHINGTON – An explosive FBI documentobtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) reveals the FBI targeted eight Republican senators’ personal cell phones for “tolling data” as part of its Arctic Frost investigation. One Republican member of the House of Representatives was also impacted. The Arctic Frost investigation formed the basis of Jack Smith’s elector case against President Donald Trump.

During the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “Charlie started a political movement but unleashed a spiritual revival.” Many people have, in fact, used the word revival to describe what has happened, especially among young people, since the September 10th assassination of the Turning Point USA founder.

According to a FOX News article published a few weeks after his death, pastors and religious leaders across the U.S., including Arizona where Kirk was based, reported a 15% to 30% increase in church attendance, and many of the new attendees referred to Kirk’s death as a wake-up call about mortality and faith.

JP De Gance, the founder and president of Communio, a ministry that helps churches strengthen marriages, told The Christian Post,

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We cannot give in to terrorism.