MISSION IN PERU- MAY 2008
 
I arrived in Lima on the first of May and began a two-week mission. Peru still is a Catholic country where abortion laws have not been passed even though hellish predators from neighboring countries and world powers keep on moving in with all kinds of ideas in that direction. One can still feel the peace that a country with this moral conditions offers. It takes the prayers of all of us Catholics around the world to make sure they can continue to stand firm in God.
 
I spoke in various parishes of Lima, where I have been a few times in the past. The venues were fully attended, and the response was very enthusiastic, and very spiritual. When I say very spiritual, it differs from some places in the Catholic church where people come to the gatherings but are guided more by a spirit of curiosity or entertainment, than that of a true spiritual hunger to penetrate the deep ocean of the love of God.
 
Perpetual adoration chapels are being opened in Lima. This is great news for the whole universal church,  where we are losing too many religious traditional orders to new age practices and modern theologies, so these adoration chapels are the best way to repair and to somehow occupy those empty spaces left by these unfaithful Catholics.
 
I missioned in Iquitos, which is a city right in the heart of the Amazon jungle, a city where you can only arrive by plane from the mainland. The only other way of transportation is by boat on the many rivers. I met with the Spanish Augustinian missionaries there. I was very happy to know that many of them who have been there since over a hundred years, never go back to their country of origin, and stay in this jungle for the rest of their lives. We are talking about a true vocation. How much I would like all of the urban religious of today's church who consider a difficult life that of being in comfortable monasteries, with air condition and internet, practicing yoga, playing with anagram machines, and demanding gay rights, to see how a real religious vocation is truly dying to self and not claiming any other rights than those of crucifying themselves with Jesus for the salvation of souls.
 
I gave a day retreat and flew back to Lima the next day to prepare my trip to the north pacific of Peru in the petrol oil zone of the country, the cities of Piura, Talara and Tumbes. It was uplifting and reinforcing to see so much thirst for God among the humble and the poor and to see a traditional Catholic Church alive.
 
We should give thanks to God for the Catholics of Peru and to ask Him to bless them and protect them from so much evil and danger at work against them.