...and while Parliament debates, I am in one of HM prisons teaching Prevenient Grace to a young catechumen.
N. is preparing for baptism, and my task today was to look at the way in which God is really the initiator: he loves us first, and so it isn't a question of us saying earnestly "We should all try to be holy". It is essentially just about saying "Yes" to God and responding to his love...we looked at St paul teaching this to the Ephesians...
I hadn't much wanted to go to the prison this afternoon...apart from anything else, the walk from the railway station is a rather horrid one, and also I had wanted to stay on at college where the research for the dissertation is just getting interesting. Which just shows how rather spoiled and fussy I am. I always learn a lot from the young prisoners, and although I suspect I don't really help them very much, at least they get a visitor and, I hope, an ordinary sense that being in prison doesn't make any difference to being part of the Church - we're all together when we pray, and all just Catholics.
Home, and thinking about bombing Syria. Is it a good plan? Bombing places from the air never really seems to work: there'll be TV scenes of burned children, and it will all go on into a terrible muddle, getting worse and worse, while the guerilla-types on the ground, hide out, building strength, knowing their own territory and telling the local people how horrible we are.
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Japan was bombed into submission. Ever since then, the USA has been addicted to dropping bombs on anything though to be a problem. But in fact it's of limited value. A Brimstone missile costs 100,000 pounds, for the missile alone, before you've paid for the plane to deliver it. And if we take out one Daesh media personality, it's hailed as a huge success. But there's no shortage of kids wanting to be the next Jihadi John, and Daesh don't have to pay them 100,000 pounds salary. So it's a win for them rather than for us.
That's not to say we shouldn't buy some A10s, which the USA is thinking of getting rid of, and fly them over the battlefield in support of the Kurds. I'm not opposed to all air power. But the effectiveness of our tiny and largely obsolete air force is being over-rated.
YOU are more help THAN you know
to those prisoners!
Keep up the GOOD WORK
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