The Sudanese Civil War, sometimes referred to as the Fourth Sudanese Civil War or the War of the Generals, is an armed conflict that began on April 15, 2023, in Sudan, pitting the country’s armed forces against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force. Clashes then erupted throughout the country, primarily in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and in the Darfur region.

The clashes began when the RSF attempted to seize power and launched attacks on key government sites. Airstrikes, artillery fire, and heavy gunfire were reported throughout Sudan, including Khartoum. RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo claimed control of most government sites, including the state television headquarters, the presidential palace, Khartoum International Airport, and the army chief’s official residence. However, de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan also claimed control of all of these locations. The conflict between the two generals led Sudan to a fourth civil war, following those of 1955-1972, 1983-2005, and 2003-2020.

In 18 months, the war claimed tens of thousands of lives, displaced more than 10 million people, and triggered a severe humanitarian crisis. Famine was declared in July in the Zamzam displacement camp in Darfur. More than 25 million of the 45 million Sudanese people require humanitarian aid to survive in a context of chronic food and water shortages, according to the United Nations.

The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon, also known as the Ambazonia War, is an armed conflict that has been raging since 2017 in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, the Northwest and Southwest, pitting the Cameroonian government against various separatist groups. This conflict has been linked to the specific socio-political situation in these regions since late 2016. This crisis, initially based on corporatist demands by lawyers and teachers, has gradually shifted towards intense secessionist demands due to what were deemed insufficient government responses, the refusal to open a debate on a return to federalism, and numerous human rights violations by security forces.

In September 2017, separatists took up arms and launched a campaign of attacks against government forces, public places, and schools. On October 1, 2017, separatist leader Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe symbolically declared the independence of the Anglophone regions under the name of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, triggering protests that were bloodily suppressed. In November 2017, a series of deadly attacks targeting security forces were attributed to the separatists. In response, the authorities launched military operations in the Anglophone regions in December of that year.

In January 2018, separatist leader Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe and nine of his supporters were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon. On August 20, 2019, they were sentenced to life imprisonment. On September 11, 2019, President Paul Biya announced that a “major national dialogue” would take place at the end of the month to resolve the conflict. Following this consultation, a “special status” was granted to the Anglophone regions. Despite this incident, violence continues.

Since its outbreak, the conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives and forced more than a thousand people to flee their homes, with abuses committed or attributed to both government forces and their allies and separatist groups.

July 21 – St. Lawrence
July 22 – St. Mary Magdalene

July 23 – St. Bridget of Sweden
July 24 – St. Christina the Astonishing | St. Sharbel | National Natural Family Planning Week | World Day for Grandparents
July 25 – St. James the Apostle

July 26 – Sts. Joachim and Anne

July 28 – Bl. Stanley Rother
July 29 – St. Martha

July 30 – St. Peter Chrysologus
July 31 – St. Ignatius

I spend my Friday evening with Bishop Marie at the movies, and even though we have seen it many times, we still cannot understand how a human being can hurt another human being that way…

For the ones that were not born and the ones that are too young to remember, once upon a time, in the Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, most scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died, primarily men. The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbours, and widespread sexual violence, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped.

The genocide was rooted in long-standing ethnic tensions, most recently from the Rwandan Hutu Revolution from 1959 to 1962, which resulted in Rwandan Tutsi fleeing to Uganda due to the ethnic violence that had occurred. Hostilities were then exacerbated further due to the Rwandan Civil War, which began in 1990 when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a predominantly Tutsi rebel group, invaded Rwanda from Uganda. The war reached a tentative peace with the signing of the Arusha Accords in 1993. However, the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994 ignited the genocide, as Hutu extremists used the power vacuum to target Tutsi and moderate Hutu leaders.

Despite the scale of the atrocities, the international community failed to intervene to stop the killings. The RPF resumed military operations in response to the genocide, eventually defeating the government forces and ending the genocide by capturing all government-controlled territory. This led to the flight of the génocidaires and many Hutu refugees into Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), contributing to regional instability and triggering the First Congo War in 1996.

The legacy of the genocide remains significant in Rwanda. The country has instituted public holidays to commemorate the event and passed laws criminalizing “genocide ideology” and “divisionism”.

Wikipedia.org

• Un dimanche à Kigali (A Sunday in Kigali)
• Hotel Rwanda
• I shake hands with the devil

True prayer must begin with the humble recognition of our weakness and need for God.

When you pray, how do you pray? What is the disposition of your heart and for what do you pray? Begin by considering the physical position in which you pray. Though we can pray standing, sitting, kneeling or event lying prostrate. It doesn’t mean we have to do so the entire time we pray, but it is a good practice to kneel, bow your head or fall down prostrate before God at least for a moment each day. Do you do this? If not, consider making this a daily habit.

O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I bow before You, most glorious and merciful God. I offer You my praise and gratitude for Your abundant mercy in my life. I am not worthy of You and Your grace, but You bestow it anyway. For that I thank You with profound gratitude and beg for the ongoing gift of Your grace. Jesus, I trust in You.

Source of content: mycatholic.life

True prayer must begin with the humble recognition of our weakness and need for God.

When you pray, how do you pray? What is the disposition of your heart, and for what do you pray? Begin by considering the physical position in which you pray. Though we can pray standing, sitting, kneeling, or even lying prostrate. It doesn’t mean we have to do so the entire time we pray, but it is a good practice to kneel, bow your head or fall down prostrate before God at least for a moment each day. Do you do this? If not, consider making this a daily habit.

O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I bow before You, most glorious and merciful God. I offer You my praise and gratitude for Your abundant mercy in my life. I am not worthy of You and Your grace, but You bestow it anyway. For that I thank You with profound gratitude and beg for the ongoing gift of Your grace. Jesus, I trust in You.

Source of content: mycatholic.life

The Third Order of Eric Michel Ministries International (OFS) is a religious family comprising friars, sisters, and lay people. We lead a community life in the tradition of the Franciscan Order, a mendicant order. We dedicated ourselves to Mary under her title of High Grace. We have provinces in Africa, America and Asia. In Canada, there is one of the Three Marys provinces with its headquarters in Brownsburg.

Mission:
We gather in fraternal missionary work as a small community to be with those in need and support our chaplains.

With Mary as our model and St. Francis as our companion, we commit ourselves in a particular way to comfort those who suffer. We strive to heal the broken and reconcile those in our world divided by age, nationality, race, religion, wealth, and education.

Are you hearing Holy Mary calling you?
Contact us at ofs@ericmichelministries.org

A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus. While sometimes described as a type of vision, apparitions are generally regarded as external manifestations, whereas visions are more often understood as internal, spiritual experiences. Throughout history, both Marian apparitions and visions have been associated with religious messages, devotional practices, and pilgrimage traditions.

In the Catholic Church, for a reported appearance to be classified as a Marian apparition, the person or persons who claim to see Mary (the “seers”) must claim to see her visually present in their environment. If the person claims to hear Mary but not see her, this is known as an interior locution, not an apparition. Also excluded from the category of apparitions are dreams, visions experienced in the imagination, and the claimed perception of Mary in ordinarily explainable natural phenomena.

The Catholic Church believes that supernatural Marian apparitions can occur, but also believes that many claimed apparitions are fabricated by the seer or the result of something other than divine intervention. For this reason, the Catholic Church has a formal evaluation process established for assessing claimed apparitions.

The 1978 norms were superseded by new guidelines issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in May 2024. Investigations into alleged apparitions still typically fall first within the jurisdiction of the local ordinary (i.e., the diocesan bishop). The document recommends that incidents of phenomena be carefully assessed to ensure that they are not fraudulent or motivated by monetary gain.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is a department of the Roman Curia responsible for the religious discipline of the Catholic Church. The Dicastery is the oldest department among the Roman Curia’s departments. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome, just outside Vatican City. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsible for promulgating and defending Catholic doctrine.

This institution was founded by Pope Paul III on 21 July 1542, as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. It was then renamed in 1908 as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office of the Roman Rota. In 1965, it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF; Latin: Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei). Since 2022, it has been named the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is still informally known as the Holy Office (Latin: Sanctum Officium) in many Catholic countries. The sole objective of the dicastery is to “spread sound Catholic doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines.”

Marian shrines

Apparition request from Mary for the construction of a shrine on the place of the apparition. Such Marian shrines often become popular sites of Christian pilgrimage. The most-visited Marian shrine in the world is the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, which attracts approximately 10 million pilgrims annually. Other popular apparition-related Marian pilgrimage sites include the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima in Portugal (6 million visitors per year) and the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France (1.5 million visitors annually).

(Wikipedia.org)

Eric Michel Ministries International, Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary Ministry of the TOFE & TOFI Marian Shrines Pelgrimages.

Rev. Marie and I went for a Sunday drive as we love the road and nature, going by Beauharnois Quebec, I spot an antique store going by the name La Chaise Rouge (The Red Chair) so we stop and explore the store, with the blessing of Rev. Marie we purchased two items, 1st a frame of Expo 67, Canada Exhibition for the 100 anniversary of Canada 1867-1967. It’s an air view of the Island without Saint Helen’s Island so no Midway or any of the rides on the picture.

The 2nd item is a Bible, the French title is Histoire de la saint Bible Edition: Maison Alfred Mame et fils Tours France, written by L’abbé Cruchet.

It is a real history book or an adapted version of the Bible, it has no Chapters and Verses like the Bible, No Genesis, Kings, Mathew, Act and Revelation, it is divided into chapters like this: Old Testament Book 1 The world to Abraham’s vocation, Book 7 The judges government,  in the New Testament Book 1 birth and childhood of Jesus, etc.

It was common to see that here, anyway, in Quebec. In school, we read the Holy History and studied the catechism, as I attended a Catholic School.

I noticed on the web,  it has lots of versions of this book for sale, the book itself has no copyright date it says the fourth edition, I found 1840 and 1893 in many places, the book has approval by two Superior of the clergy and signed on August 11 and August 14 both in 1891. Price goes from 15 Euros to 295$US.

Cannot find anything on the web about the author L’abbé Cruchet.

For the price we paid, it was a good buy. Now, according to Rev. Marie, I must read it, lol.