WYD Sydney 2008

I missed a great deal of the World Youth Day (WYD) events. I did not even log in to EWTN to witness the event live. I was a poor Catholic who was oblivious of what had actually happend in Sydney. I felt bad, very bad.

However, I got to know a little bit about how God worked on the youth through Andre's sharing during SWYF meetings. According to his summary:

1. There were peace across the whole city. The police was on the alert and standby, but they were amazed that, with a million Catholic youths gathering at teh city, there were a record of low crime rates during the WYD week. Only 2 recorded incidents happened - a Catholic assaulted WYD protesters, and a seminary was broken into due to teh reason that all seminarians were out attending the WYD events.

2. Priests were hearing confessions across the streets of Sydney. People were seeking repentence and reconciliation everywhere.

3. Every event seemed like a charismatic event. People are experiencing the strong manifested presence of the Holy Spirit everywhere in Sydney. Even through the monitor screen can the presence be felt.

These testimonies did increase our faith on how God worked on the youths who, of every nation and tribe, were united under one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, under the leadership of none other than our Pope Benedict XVI. Definitely the work of God brought alive through the willing hands the faithful ones who does according to His will.
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Many anti-Catholic people out there were quick at spotting things that are seemingly pleasing to them in heavily attacking the Catholic Church. One particular attack comes right on the WYD website being an OCCULT website. I happened to notice it (quite some time ago) when I posted "Receive The Power" YouTube Video. This YouTube user by the name of "whilechildrenstarve" has seemingly justified himself in using the website's CSS code to sort of "reveal" all "OCCULT" numbers within the website. You can view the YouTube video here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdXbKzdwCEM

Well, I could say that the "revelation" is bullshxt. Just to begin with, the number six is NOT a Satan's number. It is a mere number created by God. You may then argue, simply by quoting the infamous Scripture verse from the movie "Damian: Omen 2", which is Revelation 13:18. The number 666 is there. Well, many people have been caught up with the reverse hence the wrong order of cause-and-effect argument. We know that everything God created is good. Numbers are created by God. Thus, there are no particular numbers that is marked as a "bad" or "occult" numbers. We all know that God created the universe in 7 days. God supposedly created everything in 6 days, but creation is not considered complete without a rest day, or a holy day (of Sabbath). With this, the Hebrews have been observing the number "7" as a number symbolizing completion or perfection. "6", being a number short of "7", symbolizes a step short of completion, or rather, incompletion or imperfection. Satan, being the fallen angel Lucifer, who always wanted to be God, can never be perfect because of his pride, hence eternal imperfection - we use "6" to symbolize Satan. See the cause-and-effect argument?

WRONG: 6 = Satan's number/Number of Satan. 6 was created for Satan, hence called Satan's number.
CORRECT: 6 was created by God, hence it is good. It is just being used to symbolize Satan for being an imperfect trying to be but can never be perfect.

Cannot accept it? Think of another way. We all know that in Genesis 3, the serpent symbolizes Satan. However, in Numbers 21, Moses was commanded by God to place a fiery serpent on a staff, so that those bitten, by looking at it, would not die. Can we say that serpent = Satan? Definitely NOT! It is just a case where Satan appearing as a talking serpent (in Genesis 3)! God created serpent not for Satan's sake. It is Satan's choice to appear as a serpent.

So many numbers that was being put up in the video, including 3, 9, 11, 13, and even the letter "F". For God's sake, every single website contains CSS code that contains "FFFFFF"! It is a 24-bit color coding for white background! Tell you what, YouTube uses white background. The video was posted into a white background. And guess what... you are attacking the so-called occultish website using a website that contains the "occultish" "FFFFFF" coding. Gotcha... Sorry pal, all websites are full of 6's and F's! 毋上网啦,笨!

Saying "3" as an occult number is a blasphemy. One true God in 3 persons - Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What say you? 毋信天主啦,笨!

Saying "11" as an occult number means that the 11 Apostles who does not sell Jesus to the Pharisees form an occult. Don't ever use font size 11, moron!

Saying "13" as an occult number means that you are demanding God to stop blessing us with sunshine and rain whenever Friday the 13th occurs. Why not just erase Friday 13th from your own calendar, moron! Btw, there were 13 people at the table of the Lord's Supper.

To a skeptic, every number is cursed. Living a life like that, a life that constantly avoiding numbers, man, is a suffering. An unnecessary suffering which was supposed to be taken away by Jesus' suffering on the cross. Rather, an unnecessary agony at things that are created by God - things that are supposed to be used to glorify God.

The video also asked to "boycott WYD08, feed starving children instead". Isn't it the same argument of the disciples when the woman anointed Jesus' head with an alabaster jar of ointment (Mark 14:3-9)? The disciples argued that the expensive ointment could be sold to get money for food for the poor, but Jesus refuted them. She had just done great work for the Lord. And, with the youth willing to give to the Lord by going to Sydney to do great work for the Lord by serving in WYD, is there not a revival happening?

And one last thing. In Acts 1:8, Jesus promised us to receive the power from the Holy Spirit. Never does the WYD theme state that we receive the power from WYD! Get your facts correct, moron!
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Just to recap, the testimonies shows that it is through the Goodness of God that all these things in WYD happen. It is out of God's love that He works in awesome ways. The love that only God can give. The love that Satan can never be capable of giving.