...with parents of First Communicants at the parish of Our Lady and St George, Walthamstow. I was invited to speak about the Church and women: it's a subject on which it is important to explain about Mother Church, the women saints and heroines, and the deep truth at the core of it all - the Bridegroom and His Bride, the nuptial meaning of the Eucharist...and more...
It's actually men who are too often marginalised in the Church, and this is something that needs to be addressed. An understanding of the essential complementarity of men and women is of central importance, and this document is useful in grasping this...as is the material produced at this conference...
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Friday, March 20, 2015
Discussion...
...should the Pope have gone to confession in public? Lent last year...see here). Was it showing off? Or trying to give an authentic example to others, to get people to go to confession, to show there is nothing embarrassing about it?
The Pope is popular with the media, but some people are disturbed by what they see as his displays of false humility.
It certainly got people thinking about confession, didn't it?
The Pope is popular with the media, but some people are disturbed by what they see as his displays of false humility.
It certainly got people thinking about confession, didn't it?
...and on the Feast of the Annunciation...
...March 25th, I will be in Devon, celebrating this importrant anniversary...
Theology of the Body...
...and this evening I'll be attending this lecture in London by Dr peter Kahn. All are welcome.
St John Pauls Theology of the Body offers answers to the muddle, misery and heartache that has permeated through people's lives following the sexual confusion of recent years. It's important to be informed on all of this - and this great Pope offers inspiration, hope and a sense of joy in life too.
Come along this evening: 6.45pm, Vaughan House, Francis St, Westminster - nearest tube VICTORIA.
St John Pauls Theology of the Body offers answers to the muddle, misery and heartache that has permeated through people's lives following the sexual confusion of recent years. It's important to be informed on all of this - and this great Pope offers inspiration, hope and a sense of joy in life too.
Come along this evening: 6.45pm, Vaughan House, Francis St, Westminster - nearest tube VICTORIA.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
On St Joseph's Day...
special greetings to this wonderful parish...
The Mary Garden at this parish recently featured on an EWTN programme tracing London's history along the Thames. The parish priest, and the wonderful family team who created and now maintain the Garden, were interviewed, and it was a delight.
I personally owe a lot to this parish, and whenever I am in the church there is a sense of somehow being at home.
The Mary Garden at this parish recently featured on an EWTN programme tracing London's history along the Thames. The parish priest, and the wonderful family team who created and now maintain the Garden, were interviewed, and it was a delight.
I personally owe a lot to this parish, and whenever I am in the church there is a sense of somehow being at home.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Prison...
...and the Catholic chaplain had led a well-attended teaching session this morning, and I was busy doing some follow-up this afternoon. Using the ANCHOR programme, and it works well...it has some of the most glorious art and explores Catholic teachings by using this, and opening up the truths revealed, backed by Scripture and the Catechism...
While all this was going on, the Moslems were having a session in a neighbouring room. They have a place for ritual washing and an arrow sign pointing to Mecca. The chaplaincy area offers space to the various groups, all the chaplains have good facilities, and prisoners help with running it all. Mass is celebrated in a large room where the Chaplain has placed a fine large picture of the Divine Mercy - a print of the original Lthuanian picture, not the later one from Krakow - Stations of the Cross, a good cruciifix etc. There is a proper and well-equipped sacristy: for Mass, an altar is erected and everything is brought out, candles, altar cloths, missal, chalice and paten etc etc...there are also vestments and everything neccessary, all of good quality. The room is large (needed, because numbers for Mass are substantial here) and doesn't feel prison-like...this is a modern prison and although there is a lot of security and locking and unlocking of doors etc, the place isn't as oppressive as older prisons are, and it's clean.
Religion is a big thing in prison. Catholic prisoners - and others - wear rosaries round their necks (often three or more of them). They like to have a Bible because the Moslem prisoners set great store by talking about the Koran, so Christians want to show that they know all about having a sacred book too. They like prayer cards and pictures, and Novenas and prayers to learn by heart.
The Moslem presence is strong and confident: it offers a forthright, apparently simple, gutsy sort of solution to the why-am-I-here-everything-is-horrible feeling which must be overwhelming in prison. The Christian message soaks through at a different - deeper? - level. Certainly for some Catholic prisoners, meeting the chaplain is an opportunity to reconnect with a faith abandoned or forgotten, and some speak movingly about what it means to rediscover the Church, to go to confession, to learn or re-learn prayers, to study the Faith.
Not sure if my efforts at helping with the programme are useful...but at least a visitor shows that the world of prison hasn't been forgotten by those on the "outside". And I can keep the prisoners in my prayers and would like to think that some readers of this Blog might now do so too...
While all this was going on, the Moslems were having a session in a neighbouring room. They have a place for ritual washing and an arrow sign pointing to Mecca. The chaplaincy area offers space to the various groups, all the chaplains have good facilities, and prisoners help with running it all. Mass is celebrated in a large room where the Chaplain has placed a fine large picture of the Divine Mercy - a print of the original Lthuanian picture, not the later one from Krakow - Stations of the Cross, a good cruciifix etc. There is a proper and well-equipped sacristy: for Mass, an altar is erected and everything is brought out, candles, altar cloths, missal, chalice and paten etc etc...there are also vestments and everything neccessary, all of good quality. The room is large (needed, because numbers for Mass are substantial here) and doesn't feel prison-like...this is a modern prison and although there is a lot of security and locking and unlocking of doors etc, the place isn't as oppressive as older prisons are, and it's clean.
Religion is a big thing in prison. Catholic prisoners - and others - wear rosaries round their necks (often three or more of them). They like to have a Bible because the Moslem prisoners set great store by talking about the Koran, so Christians want to show that they know all about having a sacred book too. They like prayer cards and pictures, and Novenas and prayers to learn by heart.
The Moslem presence is strong and confident: it offers a forthright, apparently simple, gutsy sort of solution to the why-am-I-here-everything-is-horrible feeling which must be overwhelming in prison. The Christian message soaks through at a different - deeper? - level. Certainly for some Catholic prisoners, meeting the chaplain is an opportunity to reconnect with a faith abandoned or forgotten, and some speak movingly about what it means to rediscover the Church, to go to confession, to learn or re-learn prayers, to study the Faith.
Not sure if my efforts at helping with the programme are useful...but at least a visitor shows that the world of prison hasn't been forgotten by those on the "outside". And I can keep the prisoners in my prayers and would like to think that some readers of this Blog might now do so too...
The Church: defending marriage and family...
...the World Meeting of Families in September, whi ch the Pope will attend, will be of great importance. A bit of preparatory reading here...
To Pembury...
...in Kent, where Fr Ed Tomlinson of the Ordinariate and his team are transforming a rather bleak hall into a real church. It's a busy place now, with well-attended Sunday Masses. But at present the Sunday school meets in the sacristy, the children jammed in on the floor, under and on the tables, and on any available ledge or worktop. Fun, but sort of impracticable in the long-term as numbers continue to grow. The tiny weekday chapel - we had a beautiful Mass there - has stacks of the embroidered kneelers that some of us are making, and which on Sundays are used for Mass in the main hall. I had brought a further kneeler, just completed: I wanted to deliver it in person as I had dedicated it in memory of a young relative and wanted to hand it over personally: Fr Ed blessed it and we used it as a kneeler for Communion, and now it takes its place with the others...
It was good to be at Mass in this little village on a Spring weekday,and afterwards to talk over news and ideas with Fr Ed. Outside, the land hs been cleared for the new extension that will enable a proper use of the church and halls and include a garden and a shrine. There will be a good entrance and the church, already a local landmark, will be a real presence in the area. There is a large Crucifix with its own roof that will stand as part of the new scheme. It will all have the look and feel of "a little English village church".
But much to ponder. While things are going well at Pembury, there is a general feeling of worry in the Church: the Synod this Autumn (prayers needed),the rising official pressures on Church schools with attempts to impose gross forms of propaganda under the guise of "sex education"....
Pray for the Pope. Pray for our Bishops.
It was good to be at Mass in this little village on a Spring weekday,and afterwards to talk over news and ideas with Fr Ed. Outside, the land hs been cleared for the new extension that will enable a proper use of the church and halls and include a garden and a shrine. There will be a good entrance and the church, already a local landmark, will be a real presence in the area. There is a large Crucifix with its own roof that will stand as part of the new scheme. It will all have the look and feel of "a little English village church".
But much to ponder. While things are going well at Pembury, there is a general feeling of worry in the Church: the Synod this Autumn (prayers needed),the rising official pressures on Church schools with attempts to impose gross forms of propaganda under the guise of "sex education"....
Pray for the Pope. Pray for our Bishops.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Church shools...
...Sir Edward leigh MP has made an excellent intervention in the House of Commons. read here...
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Rorate Caeli...
..."Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above..."
I was remembering those words today when reading about Ukraine.
In the last years of Communism, and especially in the last months, it became possible to make Christian radio broadcasts, and to send Christian literature, into countries which had been starved of good reading material for decades. Prayer books, explanations of Church teachings, devotional materials of all kinds poured into Ukraine and, later, into Russia. It wasn't random stuff. People who listened to various radio broadcasts could write to Aid to the Church in Need, and get a package of materials, and, where possible, specific answers to various questions etc.
ACN's founder, Fr Werenfried van Straaten, the "bacon priest" who had championed the cause of Catholics behind what was then called the Iron Curtain for decades, was in his element. The project was called "Rorate Caeli". He and the team running it were hugely moved by the letters can came pouring in, especially from the young - asking questions about Christian teachings, wanting Catholic books, hungry for information Many were unhappy, with lives that had been damaged by abortion or alcoholism....the same problems that were then (and now) affecting the young in the West. Many were simply confused, with a limited understanding of the Church but a great desire to know more.
Well, the project flourished, and meanwhile history was rolling on...the collapse of Communism...the end of the USSR... new independence of Ukraine...
I remember Fr Werenfried warning that the collapse of Communism didn't mean that everything would be glorious. There was going to be an ideological void - not a sudden ability to flourish with bright new hopes, but a confused what-comes-after-communism ugliness in which over-optimism and unrealistic expectations could jostle with weariness and cyncism, and in which old animosities could flourish and new ones emerge,..
And now it's 2015, and a new era and Russia and Ukraine are fighting and it seems as though the suffering or the Soviet years, with the starvation famines and the Gulag and the KGB and the horror were not enough, and now a new generation is barking out nationalistic slogans and the death toll rises.
Back in the 1960s and 70s and 80s, many of us prayed regularly for the people "behind the Iron Ciurtain" who were not free to practice their Christian faith: Communism was a big blanket-style ideological Enemy. Now, in the more confused era, it's harder to know how to direct our prayers. But it feels all wrong that we should ignore it all.
Reminder: let's pray for peace. "Drop dew, yea heavens..."
I was remembering those words today when reading about Ukraine.
In the last years of Communism, and especially in the last months, it became possible to make Christian radio broadcasts, and to send Christian literature, into countries which had been starved of good reading material for decades. Prayer books, explanations of Church teachings, devotional materials of all kinds poured into Ukraine and, later, into Russia. It wasn't random stuff. People who listened to various radio broadcasts could write to Aid to the Church in Need, and get a package of materials, and, where possible, specific answers to various questions etc.
ACN's founder, Fr Werenfried van Straaten, the "bacon priest" who had championed the cause of Catholics behind what was then called the Iron Curtain for decades, was in his element. The project was called "Rorate Caeli". He and the team running it were hugely moved by the letters can came pouring in, especially from the young - asking questions about Christian teachings, wanting Catholic books, hungry for information Many were unhappy, with lives that had been damaged by abortion or alcoholism....the same problems that were then (and now) affecting the young in the West. Many were simply confused, with a limited understanding of the Church but a great desire to know more.
Well, the project flourished, and meanwhile history was rolling on...the collapse of Communism...the end of the USSR... new independence of Ukraine...
I remember Fr Werenfried warning that the collapse of Communism didn't mean that everything would be glorious. There was going to be an ideological void - not a sudden ability to flourish with bright new hopes, but a confused what-comes-after-communism ugliness in which over-optimism and unrealistic expectations could jostle with weariness and cyncism, and in which old animosities could flourish and new ones emerge,..
And now it's 2015, and a new era and Russia and Ukraine are fighting and it seems as though the suffering or the Soviet years, with the starvation famines and the Gulag and the KGB and the horror were not enough, and now a new generation is barking out nationalistic slogans and the death toll rises.
Back in the 1960s and 70s and 80s, many of us prayed regularly for the people "behind the Iron Ciurtain" who were not free to practice their Christian faith: Communism was a big blanket-style ideological Enemy. Now, in the more confused era, it's harder to know how to direct our prayers. But it feels all wrong that we should ignore it all.
Reminder: let's pray for peace. "Drop dew, yea heavens..."
Friday, March 13, 2015
...and you will also enjoy....
...this description of how things are going. in the Ordinariate parish along by the Thames..
You might enjoy...
this, which updates you on a good project that will be a morale-boost for all who value Christianity in Britain...
Celebration...
...this weekend (mid-Lent, Laetare, opportunity to take a break and rejoice) with co-author Clare Anderson and her family. This is a long overdue celebration. When Clare and I produced our book about St John Paul the Great, we dedicated it to our husbands, grateful for their patience and good humour throughout the project. And we told each other that we'd have a lovely just-the-four-of-us dinner party...and meanwhile there were other commitments, with family and (in Clare's case) a house-move and two family weddings, and (in mine) a new academic venture with some post-graduate study, and (for us both) travelling, and work, and more...and finally, some six months after the book's appearance, here we are! So, armed with chox and wine, Jamie and I are off to the Andersons and a happy time...
Thursday, March 12, 2015
St Mary's University...
...at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, has an atmosphere of great friendliness. Tonight the lively Cathsoc met, over freshly-brewed coffee in the comfortable coffee-room...lots of pleasant chat as people gathered and were joined by the young chaplain in his Dominican robes...
It was a real delight and pleasure to be their speaker for the evening. Topic was St John Paul - a figure known to them only from their childhood memories, honoured and venerated but somewhat mistily, covered by the decade that has passed since his death and by the enormous changes that occurred in and through his pontificate...
Where to start? I began by explaining to them something of what Poland was like under Communism - and as I spoke the memories were suddenly back: the shortages of everyday items, the shop windows with displays of dusty paper flowers because the proper goods weren't available...it's strange what details one remembers. I first visited Warsaw in the 1980s under martial law, with a thumping heart, a suitcase crammed wth books and other materials for the then-banned Solidarity movement, some names and addresses hidden on my person, and detailed instructions about how to circumvent the secret police surveillance and ensure that the whole operation went well. Golly, it's all so long ago...
But St John Paul the Great was - is - about more, much, much more than just the collapse of Communism. More than just World Youth Day, more than just the radical Theology of the Body and the magnificent teaching of the Divine Mercy, more than just a great revival of Eucharistic devotion, more than just the fresh presentation of the Rosary, more than just great missionary journeys, more than just magnificent teaching and leadership . He was a hero was survived an assaination attempt - and forgave his would-be murderer, from his heart - he was a poet, a playwright, a great preacher,a philosopher, a mystic. He was a sportsman, a man of the mountains, a man of prayer, a priest whose celebration of Mass took him into such deep Communion with the Lord that he seemed oblivious to everything else even when he was with a crowd of millions.
When John Paul gave his first inspiring calls to the young, I was young. But his message still rings true for today's generation in the Church:"Young people: Christ calls you, the Church needs you, and the Pope believes in you, and expects great things of you."
This was a happy and very special evening.
It was a real delight and pleasure to be their speaker for the evening. Topic was St John Paul - a figure known to them only from their childhood memories, honoured and venerated but somewhat mistily, covered by the decade that has passed since his death and by the enormous changes that occurred in and through his pontificate...
Where to start? I began by explaining to them something of what Poland was like under Communism - and as I spoke the memories were suddenly back: the shortages of everyday items, the shop windows with displays of dusty paper flowers because the proper goods weren't available...it's strange what details one remembers. I first visited Warsaw in the 1980s under martial law, with a thumping heart, a suitcase crammed wth books and other materials for the then-banned Solidarity movement, some names and addresses hidden on my person, and detailed instructions about how to circumvent the secret police surveillance and ensure that the whole operation went well. Golly, it's all so long ago...
But St John Paul the Great was - is - about more, much, much more than just the collapse of Communism. More than just World Youth Day, more than just the radical Theology of the Body and the magnificent teaching of the Divine Mercy, more than just a great revival of Eucharistic devotion, more than just the fresh presentation of the Rosary, more than just great missionary journeys, more than just magnificent teaching and leadership . He was a hero was survived an assaination attempt - and forgave his would-be murderer, from his heart - he was a poet, a playwright, a great preacher,a philosopher, a mystic. He was a sportsman, a man of the mountains, a man of prayer, a priest whose celebration of Mass took him into such deep Communion with the Lord that he seemed oblivious to everything else even when he was with a crowd of millions.
When John Paul gave his first inspiring calls to the young, I was young. But his message still rings true for today's generation in the Church:"Young people: Christ calls you, the Church needs you, and the Pope believes in you, and expects great things of you."
This was a happy and very special evening.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
To Whitstable...
...via a lovely train ride through Kent and along by the sea. Whitstable has a PROPER seaside, with a greensward and beach-huts, as well as a little harbour and fish-and-chips and of course oysters...
I lunched with the team that are producing the Made for Glory Youtube films...
I lunched with the team that are producing the Made for Glory Youtube films...
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Sunday...
...and as I arrived at London Bridge with half an hour to spare before Mass, I walked along by the river.,...the tide was out, and the wide beach revealed so many hints of history, fragments of this and that, an old jetty long soaked in mud, some chunks of masonry that were once part of some dockside structure. A pleasure boat chugged by, with the announcer's voice coming across the water, telling people about Blackfriars and the Oxo Tower, and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre...
On to the Church of the Most Precious Blood for Mass.Afterwards, we had the parish Annual Meeting - as per Anglican Patrimony and the Ordinariate and all that...the news is good, the parish is on track for mission, numbers at Mass are rising (an extra Mass has had to be added during the past year), there was talk of how we'll celebrate the feast of the Precious Blood in July...discussion about encouraging people to come to Adoration on the First Friday of every month and, more prosaically, about the new floor now that the heating has been installed...
Later, over a pub lunch, much talk and other ideas about what could and should be done: Papa Benedict gave the Ordinariate a mission, and there is a great deal of love and enthusiasm in response...
Spent the rest of the afternoon with a beloved elderly relative, comfortably settled back in the (Catholic) care home where she lives, and where her family feel absolutely at home too. I sat sewing and chatting, my elderly relative enjoyed buttered toast and freshly-made soup, and there was a buzz of friendly talk and swapping of news.
On the bus home I finished the cross-stitch work on hassock I've been making, which will join others at this church.
On to the Church of the Most Precious Blood for Mass.Afterwards, we had the parish Annual Meeting - as per Anglican Patrimony and the Ordinariate and all that...the news is good, the parish is on track for mission, numbers at Mass are rising (an extra Mass has had to be added during the past year), there was talk of how we'll celebrate the feast of the Precious Blood in July...discussion about encouraging people to come to Adoration on the First Friday of every month and, more prosaically, about the new floor now that the heating has been installed...
Later, over a pub lunch, much talk and other ideas about what could and should be done: Papa Benedict gave the Ordinariate a mission, and there is a great deal of love and enthusiasm in response...
Spent the rest of the afternoon with a beloved elderly relative, comfortably settled back in the (Catholic) care home where she lives, and where her family feel absolutely at home too. I sat sewing and chatting, my elderly relative enjoyed buttered toast and freshly-made soup, and there was a buzz of friendly talk and swapping of news.
On the bus home I finished the cross-stitch work on hassock I've been making, which will join others at this church.
I looked at...
...the website of the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph to catch up with their news, and learned that Sister Hyacinthe and Sister Michelle had been leading a retreat in the UAE. "How suitable" I thought "A University...perhaps they mean UEA (University of East Anglia)". But no. They've been in the United Arab Emirates...where by all accounts the Church is growing rapidly. And it looked so joyful, and somehow exciting and invigorating: lots of young people, lots of joy - and, yes, the obligatory posing with camels...
It's so strange pondering the future: Mohammedans gleefully growing stronger and stronger in Europe, and Christianity on the march in what were once the desert heartlands of the Mohammedan faith.
But the Sisters are renewing the Faith here in England too - there's no stopping them. Want to be part of it? Prepared to do a lot of praying and walking? Click here for getting on to the St John Paul II PIlgrimage for the New Evangelisation. Book yourself in: remember John Paul 's call:"Young people: Christ calls you, the Church needs you, and the Pope believes in you and expects great things of you." For those who were young when the great JPII made that call - come and show the way to the next generation. And for those who are young today:come, come - there are great things ahead...
It's so strange pondering the future: Mohammedans gleefully growing stronger and stronger in Europe, and Christianity on the march in what were once the desert heartlands of the Mohammedan faith.
But the Sisters are renewing the Faith here in England too - there's no stopping them. Want to be part of it? Prepared to do a lot of praying and walking? Click here for getting on to the St John Paul II PIlgrimage for the New Evangelisation. Book yourself in: remember John Paul 's call:"Young people: Christ calls you, the Church needs you, and the Pope believes in you and expects great things of you." For those who were young when the great JPII made that call - come and show the way to the next generation. And for those who are young today:come, come - there are great things ahead...
Friday, March 06, 2015
Dietrich von Hildebrand...
...and his facinating diaries of life in Germany and Austria in the 1930s...read Auntie's review here...
I'm impressed by...
...our big local hospital.
I spent the day at one of HM prisons, using the catechetical skills taught me here. The young men were v. kind and took part w. apparent interest - though this may have been because the Chaplain told them that I was doing this as part of a training test, and would be marked on it (which was true: we have to send in a report and account of how each lessons goes, ideas for improvement etc...). This appealed to the innate sense of let's-help-this-poor--thing-out...
Then after mugs of tea and good conversation, I went on to church for Evesong and Mass...and while there recieved a telephone message saying that an elderly relatives had been taken to hospital....by Providence, I was virtually on top of a major tube station, so hurried along on the Northern Line and was soon at the hospital. I cannot speak too highly of the care and attention that this beloved elderly relative received, all carried out with great goodwill and gentleness. There was also much kindness and a freshly-made cups of tea for me, and all of this in a busy department with people being rushed in for emergency care etc...
When my elderly relative was comfortably settled for the night - crisp fresh sheets, a calm atmosphere, great care taken to check all sorts of small details even down to her watch and specs being put just where she wanted them to be etc - we said prayers together as we always do, and I looked up to see the nurse quietly joining in in with the "Hail Mary", and crossing herself at the end...
Sometimes, just sometinmes, modern London surprises with its goodness...
I spent the day at one of HM prisons, using the catechetical skills taught me here. The young men were v. kind and took part w. apparent interest - though this may have been because the Chaplain told them that I was doing this as part of a training test, and would be marked on it (which was true: we have to send in a report and account of how each lessons goes, ideas for improvement etc...). This appealed to the innate sense of let's-help-this-poor--thing-out...
Then after mugs of tea and good conversation, I went on to church for Evesong and Mass...and while there recieved a telephone message saying that an elderly relatives had been taken to hospital....by Providence, I was virtually on top of a major tube station, so hurried along on the Northern Line and was soon at the hospital. I cannot speak too highly of the care and attention that this beloved elderly relative received, all carried out with great goodwill and gentleness. There was also much kindness and a freshly-made cups of tea for me, and all of this in a busy department with people being rushed in for emergency care etc...
When my elderly relative was comfortably settled for the night - crisp fresh sheets, a calm atmosphere, great care taken to check all sorts of small details even down to her watch and specs being put just where she wanted them to be etc - we said prayers together as we always do, and I looked up to see the nurse quietly joining in in with the "Hail Mary", and crossing herself at the end...
Sometimes, just sometinmes, modern London surprises with its goodness...
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Watched...
...the new film version of Testament of Youth.
Do watch it.
The walk home took me along by the Common, silent and dark, the trees still wintry. This morning: hurrying to work, the reality of modern Britain.
Do watch it.
The walk home took me along by the Common, silent and dark, the trees still wintry. This morning: hurrying to work, the reality of modern Britain.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
It was disconcerting....
...and not a little scary. Working busily in a library on my laptop, a figure hurried in, black-clad and masked. It is rather horrible to be suddenlyconfronted with some one who will not reveal his or her face. I jumped for a moment.
My next thought: I must not, I dare not, show any fear. Even a slight expression of concern might get me into serious trouble.
She used computer next to mine and, without any of the usual exchange of smiles - absolutely impossible when masked - speedily clicked on to whatever she wanted, and then left. No face visible, only eyes in a slit above the fully masked face, and a vast black robe cloaking her to the floor.
In everyday life, a masked face sends a message of hostility: in present circumstances it is particularly unpleasant. Probably the most fearsome thing, however, was my immediate realisation that if I were to show any normal fear or worry in the face of such hostility I could be punished. In theory at least, there is a possibility of the masked figure denouncing me for having shown an emotion she regarded as offensive and to demand that some form of official actio be taken against me.
I am rather glad that the tradition in whch I was brought up encouraged me not to give way to fear and not to make a fuss when something unpleasant suddenly came my way. This has stood me in good stead over the years and will continue to do so.
The Britain in which I learned these things was one in which no one could have imagined my need of it in these circumstances.
My next thought: I must not, I dare not, show any fear. Even a slight expression of concern might get me into serious trouble.
She used computer next to mine and, without any of the usual exchange of smiles - absolutely impossible when masked - speedily clicked on to whatever she wanted, and then left. No face visible, only eyes in a slit above the fully masked face, and a vast black robe cloaking her to the floor.
In everyday life, a masked face sends a message of hostility: in present circumstances it is particularly unpleasant. Probably the most fearsome thing, however, was my immediate realisation that if I were to show any normal fear or worry in the face of such hostility I could be punished. In theory at least, there is a possibility of the masked figure denouncing me for having shown an emotion she regarded as offensive and to demand that some form of official actio be taken against me.
I am rather glad that the tradition in whch I was brought up encouraged me not to give way to fear and not to make a fuss when something unpleasant suddenly came my way. This has stood me in good stead over the years and will continue to do so.
The Britain in which I learned these things was one in which no one could have imagined my need of it in these circumstances.
Sunday, March 01, 2015
Read Auntie in....
The Portal, the on-line magazine of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Latest issue here...
Devon...
...and a wonderful weekend at Buckfast Abbey, attending a study course run by the new School of the Annunciation. This course is for catechists, and the theme is the New Evangelisation - the aim of the school is to train up catechists who bring the message of Christ, as the Angel brought Christ to Mary...
We were a mixed group of students, from varius parishes and groups, and we all found that it was rather powerful to be studying in the Benedictine atmosphere of the great Abbey: we joined the monks for the main offices of the day (although not the one at 5.45 in the morning!) and especially loved being in the great Abbey Church each night for Compline, and being blessed with holy water by the Abbot before we all retired for the night...
We were staying in the extremely comfortable Guest House, and there was delicious food in The Grange, which welcomes vast numbers of tourists every year. The Abbey is extremely popular and seems to be on the Devon tourist trail - even on a cold wet February weekend there were a good many people there, and in summer they get vast crowds enjoying the various gardens (one dedicated to medicinal herbs, another to lavender, etc). The setting of the Abbey is just superb, and each night I was lulled to sleep by the rushing waters of the river that was first channelled by the monks who arrived almost a thousand years ago...
The School of the Annunciation is well organised, and the course was excellent - hard work, but immensely interesting. The days are long gone when it could be assumed that children can simply "pick up" the Faith and be happily at Mass in their teens through a combination of family tradition and school RE. The School of the Annunciation will be playing a majr role in many people's lives over the next few years. BTW, is is running various Summer Schools that sound rather good - and the experience of staying at the Abbey in this most glorious part of Devon is simply wonderful.
After our final session on Sunday morning I thought I'd go for a wander around the grounds before Mass - I was enjoying this as the Abbey bell started to peal, and the crowds at Mass were such that I only found a seat with some difficulty. A fine choir and absolutely superb music. Then a final lunch and farewells...
We were a mixed group of students, from varius parishes and groups, and we all found that it was rather powerful to be studying in the Benedictine atmosphere of the great Abbey: we joined the monks for the main offices of the day (although not the one at 5.45 in the morning!) and especially loved being in the great Abbey Church each night for Compline, and being blessed with holy water by the Abbot before we all retired for the night...
We were staying in the extremely comfortable Guest House, and there was delicious food in The Grange, which welcomes vast numbers of tourists every year. The Abbey is extremely popular and seems to be on the Devon tourist trail - even on a cold wet February weekend there were a good many people there, and in summer they get vast crowds enjoying the various gardens (one dedicated to medicinal herbs, another to lavender, etc). The setting of the Abbey is just superb, and each night I was lulled to sleep by the rushing waters of the river that was first channelled by the monks who arrived almost a thousand years ago...
The School of the Annunciation is well organised, and the course was excellent - hard work, but immensely interesting. The days are long gone when it could be assumed that children can simply "pick up" the Faith and be happily at Mass in their teens through a combination of family tradition and school RE. The School of the Annunciation will be playing a majr role in many people's lives over the next few years. BTW, is is running various Summer Schools that sound rather good - and the experience of staying at the Abbey in this most glorious part of Devon is simply wonderful.
After our final session on Sunday morning I thought I'd go for a wander around the grounds before Mass - I was enjoying this as the Abbey bell started to peal, and the crowds at Mass were such that I only found a seat with some difficulty. A fine choir and absolutely superb music. Then a final lunch and farewells...
Friday, February 27, 2015
...on Monday...
....March 2nd, at 6.30pm the Ladies Ordinariate Group (LOGS) meets at St George's Cathedral, Southwark, for a tour, finishing with the Stations of the Cross....anyone is welcome to join us. Nearest tube: LAMBETH NORTH or WATERLOO....
...at Paddington station...
...there's a place where my co-author Clare Anderson and I meet, starting with morning coffee and working on through lunch, tackling our various projects. So far, two TV feature programmes on St John Paul II, one telling his life story and one exploring his legacy and its message. The first was broadcast a while ago (we've had some good feedback) and the second will be broadcast shortly - info from EWTN.
As regular readers of this Blog will know, we've also produced a book...
And we spent yesterday working on the next project. Not telling what it is - let's get the work done first. The staff at the cheerful and friendly place where we meet are delightful, and know us well, asking us how the book/TV/whatever projects are going, and keeping us supplied with pots of tea...
As regular readers of this Blog will know, we've also produced a book...
And we spent yesterday working on the next project. Not telling what it is - let's get the work done first. The staff at the cheerful and friendly place where we meet are delightful, and know us well, asking us how the book/TV/whatever projects are going, and keeping us supplied with pots of tea...
Last night...
...we gathered for a Lenten meditation and discussion, focusing on evangelisation. We're using this document...
It took me a while to "get" St John Paul's call for a New Evangelisation. Now I'm committed. Our cynical, unhappy and worried culture needs a new hope and new life. A local church isn't there to serve consumer-needs but to create disciples of Jesus Christ...
Read here to get the idea...
It took me a while to "get" St John Paul's call for a New Evangelisation. Now I'm committed. Our cynical, unhappy and worried culture needs a new hope and new life. A local church isn't there to serve consumer-needs but to create disciples of Jesus Christ...
Read here to get the idea...
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
..and this is good news...
Philip Booth is a distinguished economist, who has written extensively on Catholic social teaching.It is excellent that he has been appointed to this university.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
And here's wisdom and common sense on the topic of sex education...
We've had crude, inaccurate, ill-informed material foisted on young pupils for far too long. We need a fresh approach, respectful of children, mindful of what is age-appropriate, valuing them as individuals with needs.
One day, there will be great anger and bitterness launched by men and women who were victims of the hideous experiments in sexual coercion and propaganda imposed over recent years.
Read here...
...and next weekend...
...Auntie is off to Devon, to attend a Catechist course at the new School of the Annunciation at Buckfast....
Monday, February 23, 2015
How weird...
...it is to sit in an English village and read of girls in our capital city enthusiastically hurrying to support Jihad against our country.
How fearsome to realise that girls and boys in our country's schools have been given little or no vision of the civilisation they have inherited here, or the beauty of the Christian faith on which is based and with which it has been nourished.
The followers of Mahommed include many misguided souls, and many angry young ones, hungry for some spiritual food.
How fearsome to realise that girls and boys in our country's schools have been given little or no vision of the civilisation they have inherited here, or the beauty of the Christian faith on which is based and with which it has been nourished.
The followers of Mahommed include many misguided souls, and many angry young ones, hungry for some spiritual food.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
...after Sunday Mass in London...
...some hurried packing at home, and then off to Somerset on a family visit. I'm writing this overlooking Exmoor, a wild wind blowing, and that huge darkness beyond the glow of the house-lights across the lawn. The house wher we are staying is snug and I have books to read, work to do, and some sewing with which to relax. And wellies packed for a good walk tomorrow.
I'm reading Rebuilt...hugely enjoyable, with useful things to learn. Wise in that crunchy, American-don't-let's-waste-time style.And a sort of exciting story too...
I'm reading Rebuilt...hugely enjoyable, with useful things to learn. Wise in that crunchy, American-don't-let's-waste-time style.And a sort of exciting story too...
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Along the City Road...
... a corner of London all rich in Dickens and centuries of history...to Ashwell House to give a lecture. This University Hall of Residence has young women from all over the world as well as from Britain: I gave them a Tube map and explained the origins of the place-names: Angel, Blackfriars, Westminster...and we looked at the centuries of history, Saxons and Normans, and the Medieval era, and the arrival of the Tudors with Henry VII attempting to evoke powerful folk-memories by naming his first son Arthur...then the tragedy of Henry VIII and so on and so on...
We tackled important historical events and ideas, but there was also room for other stuff, and they knew about the local pub, the Eagle, featuring in the famous nursery rhyme, and I told them about the horrid origins of the jack-in-the-box toy: it seems to date back to militant anti-Catholicism and be a mockery of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist in the Taberbacle (old versions of the toy have thw words "Hocus Pocus" on the lid, a corruption of the words of the Consecration)...
We tackled important historical events and ideas, but there was also room for other stuff, and they knew about the local pub, the Eagle, featuring in the famous nursery rhyme, and I told them about the horrid origins of the jack-in-the-box toy: it seems to date back to militant anti-Catholicism and be a mockery of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist in the Taberbacle (old versions of the toy have thw words "Hocus Pocus" on the lid, a corruption of the words of the Consecration)...
Chichester...
...and a cheery meeting to plan various History Walks and associated projects. But first a visit to that glorious Cathedral: it's been lovingly restored and cherished in recent decades, and has a warm sense of welcome. The shrine to St Richard is flanked by candles and icons. Every side chapel is clean and well cared-for, some set aside specifically aside for silent prayer, some displaying discreet notices explaining some item of interest. There were children scurrying about doing half-term activities learning the history and finding out about saints and shrines and things, and there were volunteers dressed in Historical Costumes waiting to be asked to talk. It felt like the sort of Britain one used to know.
On to a tasty and talkative lunch: lots of good plans for the year ahead (watch this Blog for info).
On to visit an elderly aunt a few miles along the coast: Tea (served formally and properly, so it merits a Captital Letter) and buttered buns and coffee-and-walnut-cake... and we talked of family news and old times...her daughter was one of my bridesmaids, and we recalled that lovely wedding and many other family gatherings over the years...
And finally back to Chichester. The driver was friendly and helpful - I thanked him for coming a long way out of the city to get me "Only too glad" he said "I was sitting waiting by the station, with drunken girls shouting horrible, slutty stuff, swearing obscenities - can't repeat them. I was glad to get away." In the waiting-room, a man and child lurched out, rather awkwardly. I settled with a book after exchanging a sort of nod to two other passengers, as one does..."Glad you're here" one said "It's been vile. Some woman came in, dead drunk, and shouting at her daughters on her mobile phone, Horrible language.Some row about a party they were having . Then a man came in with his little boy: the man was drunk, and the child was made to carry a bag of clanking bottles.They've just left."
Chichester, Sussex, on a February night. What are our big cities going to be like this summer?
On to a tasty and talkative lunch: lots of good plans for the year ahead (watch this Blog for info).
On to visit an elderly aunt a few miles along the coast: Tea (served formally and properly, so it merits a Captital Letter) and buttered buns and coffee-and-walnut-cake... and we talked of family news and old times...her daughter was one of my bridesmaids, and we recalled that lovely wedding and many other family gatherings over the years...
And finally back to Chichester. The driver was friendly and helpful - I thanked him for coming a long way out of the city to get me "Only too glad" he said "I was sitting waiting by the station, with drunken girls shouting horrible, slutty stuff, swearing obscenities - can't repeat them. I was glad to get away." In the waiting-room, a man and child lurched out, rather awkwardly. I settled with a book after exchanging a sort of nod to two other passengers, as one does..."Glad you're here" one said "It's been vile. Some woman came in, dead drunk, and shouting at her daughters on her mobile phone, Horrible language.Some row about a party they were having . Then a man came in with his little boy: the man was drunk, and the child was made to carry a bag of clanking bottles.They've just left."
Chichester, Sussex, on a February night. What are our big cities going to be like this summer?
A joy-filled letter...
...from a Sister of St Cecilia's Abbey on the Isle of Wight. They keep busy there...and have six new novices and are thriving. Their newsletter is full of good things - but also solemn ones, including letters from sisters in the Middle East, , forced out of Iraq along with so many other refugees, pursued by bombing and slaughtering...
There is also a fascinating and profound meditation on silence...referencing St John of the Cross..."God utters only one Word. He utters Himself in that Word totally, interiorly, in an eternal silence..." "Everyone has a sacred stillness at the core of their being, the place where they are present in secret to God and God is present to them..." As a terrible chetterer, Auntie is gently soaking herself in this meditation....
There is also a fascinating and profound meditation on silence...referencing St John of the Cross..."God utters only one Word. He utters Himself in that Word totally, interiorly, in an eternal silence..." "Everyone has a sacred stillness at the core of their being, the place where they are present in secret to God and God is present to them..." As a terrible chetterer, Auntie is gently soaking herself in this meditation....
Friday, February 20, 2015
Lent...
...and ashes distributed at a crowded Mass in a London church. Years ago, I remember dear Fr Michael Napier of Brompton Oratory saying that the day that drew the largest crowds was Ash Wednesday. More than any Holyday of Obligation, more than any popular saint's day. I think it's because people like something tangible - ashes on the forehead, the reality of it, the thingness of it. Very incarnational.
And from there, with smudged forehead, to the train... and thence to the prison, where they'd had a distribution of ashes that morning, too...and talking to a couple of prisoners. One, in particular, is in a particularly distressing position, a young man from a devout family, caught up in ghastly events: please pray for him: no need to know his name or anything, just Carpenter will do (that isn't his name, and he isn't a carpenter).
Next day, to college for some work in the library...along the corridors there were still a couple of notices left from the previous day, from the Chaplaincy, reminding people about getting ashes. I hope they got good numbers too. In the evening, a gathering at St Paul's Bookshop next to Westminster Cathedral, where the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, blessed the new Website project and, clicking on to a computer, set it in motion. It was all rather delightful, and again, incarnational - holy water sprinkled about, in the shop and on us, and on everything, Scriptures read, prayers said...and then we all enjoyed some light refreshments.
It's hopeless having an event like that in a bookshop - the shelves are so full of good things and it's all irresistible. I bought Scott Hahn's Evangelizing Catholics, and it's a good read.
And from there, with smudged forehead, to the train... and thence to the prison, where they'd had a distribution of ashes that morning, too...and talking to a couple of prisoners. One, in particular, is in a particularly distressing position, a young man from a devout family, caught up in ghastly events: please pray for him: no need to know his name or anything, just Carpenter will do (that isn't his name, and he isn't a carpenter).
Next day, to college for some work in the library...along the corridors there were still a couple of notices left from the previous day, from the Chaplaincy, reminding people about getting ashes. I hope they got good numbers too. In the evening, a gathering at St Paul's Bookshop next to Westminster Cathedral, where the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, blessed the new Website project and, clicking on to a computer, set it in motion. It was all rather delightful, and again, incarnational - holy water sprinkled about, in the shop and on us, and on everything, Scriptures read, prayers said...and then we all enjoyed some light refreshments.
It's hopeless having an event like that in a bookshop - the shelves are so full of good things and it's all irresistible. I bought Scott Hahn's Evangelizing Catholics, and it's a good read.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Snub for homosexual lobbying group...
...in Rome today. They had wanted to be welcomed publicly and give themselves a cheer - standard procedure for any group visiting St Peter's and crowding in to one of the big Papal audiences in the vast Paul VI Hall. Instead, the nearest the group got was a mention of their geographical area - which may have meant them and may not - while at the gathering in St Peter's Square where the Pope greets pilgrims, they got no mention at all.
Anyone can go to the gatherings in the Paul VI Hall and it's not hard to get seats near the front if you persevere. An official reads out the names of groups, and it's traditional to stand and get some applause - maybe even sing a song or call out a rousing greeting.
Failure to get a mention is a snub - not a particularly cruel one, just evidence of a prudent concern by the papal bureaucracy to ensure that loopy groups are, as far as possible, gently avoided.
Embarrassed, the organisers of the group contacted the media, and posed in St Peter's Square, announcing that they were greeted at the Vatican - untrue - and claiming that the Church's teaching on the wrongfulness of homosexual activity will change, which it won't.
All are welcome in the Church, lobby groups and all. But they need to be truthful: if they get invited in for tea it won't mean that Church teaching can change. As it happens, they weren't. And it won't because it can't.
Anyone can go to the gatherings in the Paul VI Hall and it's not hard to get seats near the front if you persevere. An official reads out the names of groups, and it's traditional to stand and get some applause - maybe even sing a song or call out a rousing greeting.
Failure to get a mention is a snub - not a particularly cruel one, just evidence of a prudent concern by the papal bureaucracy to ensure that loopy groups are, as far as possible, gently avoided.
Embarrassed, the organisers of the group contacted the media, and posed in St Peter's Square, announcing that they were greeted at the Vatican - untrue - and claiming that the Church's teaching on the wrongfulness of homosexual activity will change, which it won't.
All are welcome in the Church, lobby groups and all. But they need to be truthful: if they get invited in for tea it won't mean that Church teaching can change. As it happens, they weren't. And it won't because it can't.
...and the Dominican Sisters...
...of St Joseph (see pic below) invite young women to share the Sacred Triduum (ie Maundy Thursday to Holy Saturday, 2nd to 4th April) with them in the New Forest...
Their motto is "To Praise, to Bless, to Preach".
You can find out more by emailing them: dominican.sisters@talk21.com
Their motto is "To Praise, to Bless, to Preach".
You can find out more by emailing them: dominican.sisters@talk21.com
Shrove Tuesday...
...and for most people in Britain it's Pancake Day. I'm glad the tradition still flourishes. Pics in the press of children at a choir school running, fully robed, wth frying-pans in a Pancake Race. Advertisments reminding people to buy flour, sugar, lemons. And delicious pancakes on offer at various eateries, with syrup or with chocolate sauce or with ce cream.
The "Shrove" doesn't, of course, refer to pancakes, but to confessing our sins and being shriven: ie receiving absolution. And with Ash Wednesday Lent begins, the season of penance and prayer leading up to the great events of Holy Week and Easter...
The carnival tradition, Mardi Gras, celebrating and partying before Lent begins, still lingers: our British pancake day is a rather - well - British version of it.
I've often wondered - comments welcome - does the tradition of the clown-with-a-tear, the harlequin with a sad face, somehow echo the idea of the partying that ends with Ash Wednesday? Somehow the song "The Carnival is over" echoes the theme too...
Auntie marked Shrove Tuesday with sticky chocolate cake enjoyed with a young relative, then pancakes-and syrup at home very late.
I'm writing this after midnight, so now it's Lent.
The "Shrove" doesn't, of course, refer to pancakes, but to confessing our sins and being shriven: ie receiving absolution. And with Ash Wednesday Lent begins, the season of penance and prayer leading up to the great events of Holy Week and Easter...
The carnival tradition, Mardi Gras, celebrating and partying before Lent begins, still lingers: our British pancake day is a rather - well - British version of it.
I've often wondered - comments welcome - does the tradition of the clown-with-a-tear, the harlequin with a sad face, somehow echo the idea of the partying that ends with Ash Wednesday? Somehow the song "The Carnival is over" echoes the theme too...
Auntie marked Shrove Tuesday with sticky chocolate cake enjoyed with a young relative, then pancakes-and syrup at home very late.
I'm writing this after midnight, so now it's Lent.
...and further to my recent blog post about conspiracy theorists...
...(for which see below), I found this comment by Mark Shea to be of interest.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Cardinal Jean Danielou...
...was one of the great forerunners of the Second Vatican Council, in the sense that his ideas and writings hugely influenced it. And he spoke with passion and wisdom about how the message and teachings of the Council were lost and distorted in the immediate post-Council years. He is now coming into his own...read here to find out more.
His thinking was in tune with that of Fr (later Cardinal) Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI...over the next years, students for the priesthood will be hugely influenced by both, to the great good of the Church.
His thinking was in tune with that of Fr (later Cardinal) Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI...over the next years, students for the priesthood will be hugely influenced by both, to the great good of the Church.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
For those who relish conspiracy theories...
...this will be something of a blow. But it's important to read it all the same.
The vile Ratzinger-is-a-liar line has long been peddled by the posers of the there's-a-deep-dark-secret-about-Fatima-that-he's-kept-from-us groupies, and it's now been extended.
Remember that line about Pope Paul VI being held as a prisoner in the Vatican basements and another man replacing him for public occasions? Popular among the they're-tunneling-under-your-house types in the 1970s. (I think the idea was that you could check by looking at his ears, or something).
The vile Ratzinger-is-a-liar line has long been peddled by the posers of the there's-a-deep-dark-secret-about-Fatima-that-he's-kept-from-us groupies, and it's now been extended.
Remember that line about Pope Paul VI being held as a prisoner in the Vatican basements and another man replacing him for public occasions? Popular among the they're-tunneling-under-your-house types in the 1970s. (I think the idea was that you could check by looking at his ears, or something).
and here is auntie...
with the lovely Dominican Sisters of St Joseph who came to London for their Day Out, enjoying Westminster Cathedral and then Tea with the ladies of the Ordinariate...
They are the most enormous fun. Whennever I am with them, we seem to spend so much of the time in laughter. And its infectious - they really do spread joy wherever they go...
A MUST-READ...
...is the superb talk given by Mgr Mark Langham to the priests of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham when they gathered last week. Read it here...
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Chelsea...
...and an afternoon of Marriage Preparation at St Mary's Church, Cadogan Street - or, strictly speaking, in the new St John Southworth Room in the church/school grounds. Several young couples all taking part - Auntie's role was to speak on the Catholic understanding of marriage. Over the years, this talk has grown more theological, and I have found that they like this: God's original plan, Christ and his Church: the Bridegroom and the Bride, Cana in Galilee, water into wine...the nuptial meaning of the Eucharist...the Marriage Feast of the Lamb...
St Mary's is a most beautiful church, popular for weddings...although many of the couples I meet at these sessions are marrying abroad: this is London and many are people from two different countries who met here. There is a sense of real commitment to this Preparation Course..they attend talks on prayer, the Church's teaching on marriage, family life, and more...
St Mary's is a most beautiful church, popular for weddings...although many of the couples I meet at these sessions are marrying abroad: this is London and many are people from two different countries who met here. There is a sense of real commitment to this Preparation Course..they attend talks on prayer, the Church's teaching on marriage, family life, and more...
Friday, February 13, 2015
Been re-reading...
...Rowland's Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, Excellent. Also von Balthasar's To the Heart of the Mystery of Redemption - the influence of von Balthasar on Ratzinger, Wojtila, and Vatican II is going to be one of those standard things-to-write-about in seminaries and theology departments over the next decades.
Hugely busy with various projects for schools - the first entries have started arriving in the big "Our Father" venture organised for primary schools...
Lent starts next week: pleasingly, I have a a long-booked engagement for Shrove Tuesday with a young niece, which promises pancakes and chocolate and other delights in great abundance...
And at this time of year the summer diary starts to fill up: although Auntie relishes winter and dislikes hot weather, the prospect of mild sunshine and long outdoor days is not unattractive, and some lovely things are planned for 2015 including a trip to Ireland, and a glorious walking-pilgrimage through Norfolk...
But meanwhile, the wallpaper of everyday life at present is all Stephen Fry and his horrid ramblings, plus posters and advertisments everywhere for a film celebrating sado-masochism, plus one news story after another about teachers engaging in lesbian relationships with pupils...oh, it's all so ugly,
Hugely busy with various projects for schools - the first entries have started arriving in the big "Our Father" venture organised for primary schools...
Lent starts next week: pleasingly, I have a a long-booked engagement for Shrove Tuesday with a young niece, which promises pancakes and chocolate and other delights in great abundance...
And at this time of year the summer diary starts to fill up: although Auntie relishes winter and dislikes hot weather, the prospect of mild sunshine and long outdoor days is not unattractive, and some lovely things are planned for 2015 including a trip to Ireland, and a glorious walking-pilgrimage through Norfolk...
But meanwhile, the wallpaper of everyday life at present is all Stephen Fry and his horrid ramblings, plus posters and advertisments everywhere for a film celebrating sado-masochism, plus one news story after another about teachers engaging in lesbian relationships with pupils...oh, it's all so ugly,
A brief note...
to say that there will no Catholic History Walk on Feb 16th: the next is MONDAY MARCH 2nd, at St George's Cathedral, Southwark. Meet 6.30pm at the main door. Nearest tube: WATERLOO or LAMBETH NORTH. We will have a tour of the Cathedral: this is being organised in association with the Ladies Ordinariate Group.
Tradition and history, ...
.. and a sense of good new things happening...
On Wednesday evening, a meeting of The Keys, the Catholic Writers Guild. Speaker: Jacon Rees-Mogg MP. An excellent evening, Our Guild Church is St Mary Moorfields, and things begin with Mass, followed by drinks and much talk, and then a hearty Dinner, after which we gather round for the talk. This evening's topic centred on Britain's relationship with the European Community, our tradition of law, the tensions involved with other traditions...
Members of the Guild can bring guests, and this evening was particularly popular. J. and I had invited Patti Fordyce, of the Association of Catholic Women (and the Ladies Ordinariate Group)..Delia Gaze, secretary of the Guild, had invited Fr Christopher Pearson of the Ordinariate of OL of Walsingham.
The next day was an Ordinariate Day, big time. The Ordinaries from Australia and the USA are visiting Britain, and all the Ordinariate clergy were invited to a gathering at Westminster Cathedral Hall. The Ladies Ordinariate Group (LOGS) had volunteered to organise the food. Patti (see para above) did a magnificent job with a delicious array of sandwiches, and I brought to the Cathedral Hall the large coffee-machine that we use at the annual TOWARDS ADVENT Festival.
People carry coffee-machines around on buses and Tubes all the time, don't they? I mean, it's perfectly normal to wrap one up in layers and layers of plastic bags and trundle it about, looking helpless at the bottom of stairs and escalators?
One feels awfully silly lugging the awkward thing about...for the final lap I hailed a cab. Worth every penny.
During the afternoon I broke away from the conference to lead a splendid group of nuns on a tour of Westminster Cathedral.It was their annual Day Out in London, and they were having a wonderful time: among the best bits was the sight of them all munching sandwiches on benches near the Cathedral, with people hurrying to take photographs...if you haven't experienced a Pilgrimage or some other event with this hilarious team of Dominicans, you ust make arrangements to do so as soon as possible...
Great good cheer when the Sisters met Fr Christopher (see above) who has worked with them on pilgrimages etc...
Things were rounded off with tea (provided by LOGS) and photographs...I'll post one here in due course...
The Ordinariate gathering was excellent - it was actually rather moving to see all these priests together, and especially so in the evening when they walked in a great procession for a concelebrated Mass...
Later, exhausted, the LOGS team settled at a pub with glasses of wine. Most satisying.
On Wednesday evening, a meeting of The Keys, the Catholic Writers Guild. Speaker: Jacon Rees-Mogg MP. An excellent evening, Our Guild Church is St Mary Moorfields, and things begin with Mass, followed by drinks and much talk, and then a hearty Dinner, after which we gather round for the talk. This evening's topic centred on Britain's relationship with the European Community, our tradition of law, the tensions involved with other traditions...
Members of the Guild can bring guests, and this evening was particularly popular. J. and I had invited Patti Fordyce, of the Association of Catholic Women (and the Ladies Ordinariate Group)..Delia Gaze, secretary of the Guild, had invited Fr Christopher Pearson of the Ordinariate of OL of Walsingham.
The next day was an Ordinariate Day, big time. The Ordinaries from Australia and the USA are visiting Britain, and all the Ordinariate clergy were invited to a gathering at Westminster Cathedral Hall. The Ladies Ordinariate Group (LOGS) had volunteered to organise the food. Patti (see para above) did a magnificent job with a delicious array of sandwiches, and I brought to the Cathedral Hall the large coffee-machine that we use at the annual TOWARDS ADVENT Festival.
People carry coffee-machines around on buses and Tubes all the time, don't they? I mean, it's perfectly normal to wrap one up in layers and layers of plastic bags and trundle it about, looking helpless at the bottom of stairs and escalators?
One feels awfully silly lugging the awkward thing about...for the final lap I hailed a cab. Worth every penny.
During the afternoon I broke away from the conference to lead a splendid group of nuns on a tour of Westminster Cathedral.It was their annual Day Out in London, and they were having a wonderful time: among the best bits was the sight of them all munching sandwiches on benches near the Cathedral, with people hurrying to take photographs...if you haven't experienced a Pilgrimage or some other event with this hilarious team of Dominicans, you ust make arrangements to do so as soon as possible...
Great good cheer when the Sisters met Fr Christopher (see above) who has worked with them on pilgrimages etc...
Things were rounded off with tea (provided by LOGS) and photographs...I'll post one here in due course...
The Ordinariate gathering was excellent - it was actually rather moving to see all these priests together, and especially so in the evening when they walked in a great procession for a concelebrated Mass...
Later, exhausted, the LOGS team settled at a pub with glasses of wine. Most satisying.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
We met at...
...St Patrick's, Soho, for a lunchtime Mass, to be followed by a Catholic History Walk.
On appropriate feast-days, the Mass at St P's is said at an appropriate side-altar - thus today being the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Mass was at an altar dedicated to her. But because there are always good numbers for Mass at this busy London church, most of us had to use the main pews, which face the main altar - so we were all kneeling sideways to be at the Mass...however, this gave a sort of awkward intimacy which was not without its charm....afterwards a group gathered outside and we set off to explore the area and learn the history... At St Giles-in-the-Fields the Rector made us welcome (he and his congregation welcome the procession of the Blessed Sacrament from St Patrick's every summer, allow Benediction in the churchyard, and offer wine and refreshments afterwards...) . At Bloomsbury Baptist Church we were again greeted in a most friendly way and the kind lady at the desk was very helpful and the visit ended with us all saying the Lord's Prayer together...
The Walk finished at SS Anselm and Cecilia, Holborn, and the nearby Ship Inn, where Bishop Richard Challonger used to say Mass and meet his flock, in recusant times...
NEXT HISTORY WALK: Monday March 2nd, meet 6.30pm at St George's Cathedral, Southwark (nearest tube: Lambeth North or WATERLOO). We will make a tour inside St George's.
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY: Sunday June 21st, 1.30pm meet at St Sepulchre's Church, near the Old Bailey for THE MARTYRS' WALK. Nearest tube: St Paul's.
On appropriate feast-days, the Mass at St P's is said at an appropriate side-altar - thus today being the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Mass was at an altar dedicated to her. But because there are always good numbers for Mass at this busy London church, most of us had to use the main pews, which face the main altar - so we were all kneeling sideways to be at the Mass...however, this gave a sort of awkward intimacy which was not without its charm....afterwards a group gathered outside and we set off to explore the area and learn the history... At St Giles-in-the-Fields the Rector made us welcome (he and his congregation welcome the procession of the Blessed Sacrament from St Patrick's every summer, allow Benediction in the churchyard, and offer wine and refreshments afterwards...) . At Bloomsbury Baptist Church we were again greeted in a most friendly way and the kind lady at the desk was very helpful and the visit ended with us all saying the Lord's Prayer together...
The Walk finished at SS Anselm and Cecilia, Holborn, and the nearby Ship Inn, where Bishop Richard Challonger used to say Mass and meet his flock, in recusant times...
NEXT HISTORY WALK: Monday March 2nd, meet 6.30pm at St George's Cathedral, Southwark (nearest tube: Lambeth North or WATERLOO). We will make a tour inside St George's.
DATE FOR YOUR DIARY: Sunday June 21st, 1.30pm meet at St Sepulchre's Church, near the Old Bailey for THE MARTYRS' WALK. Nearest tube: St Paul's.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
LOGS...
...aka the Ladies Ordinariate Group. A lively and useful meeting, at which we made plans for the year ahead...the first entries have arrived for our 2015 Schools Project and it all looks set to be a big success. We enjoyed looking at the children's work: this year's project involves copying out a well-known prayer and answering some questions to show an understanding of it, and so far the entries look very good...the work of reading through all the entries, allocating prizes, posting them off, and/or visiting schools to present them will be a major activity this summer. We also plan a weekend in Walsingham, talks on a number of topics ranging from the work of a uniuversity chaplain to the state of the Church in Zimbabwe, our annual summer outing to Whitstable - Mass, lunch, talks, and a garden Rosary at the Vocations Centre, plus a visit to the sea - and some fund-raising for various good causes...
The leaders of the Ordinariates in the USA and Australia are currently visiting Britain and a LOGS team led by the splendid Patti Fordyce has understaken to tackle all the neccessary refreshments for a big gathering at Westminster.
And we're already looking ahead and booking our place at a big railway station to sing carols in December - a lot of groups like to sing (which is good) and it's important to book ahead...
The leaders of the Ordinariates in the USA and Australia are currently visiting Britain and a LOGS team led by the splendid Patti Fordyce has understaken to tackle all the neccessary refreshments for a big gathering at Westminster.
And we're already looking ahead and booking our place at a big railway station to sing carols in December - a lot of groups like to sing (which is good) and it's important to book ahead...
Monday, February 09, 2015
The Synod on the Family...
...needs and deserves our prayers.
People often see the Church's teaching as harsh or as unrealistic. Not so...the Church seeks tobe Christ's bride, and a mother to all he faithful, born in baptism. We don't seek to turn her into a nagging mother, or one who fails to understand her children's problems or the hardships faced in trying to sort them out. She cannot compromise on offering what is good, true, and beautiful. She is the custodian, not the inventor, of God's loving plan for humankind...
People often see the Church's teaching as harsh or as unrealistic. Not so...the Church seeks tobe Christ's bride, and a mother to all he faithful, born in baptism. We don't seek to turn her into a nagging mother, or one who fails to understand her children's problems or the hardships faced in trying to sort them out. She cannot compromise on offering what is good, true, and beautiful. She is the custodian, not the inventor, of God's loving plan for humankind...
Sunday, February 08, 2015
...and if you would like to experience a Catholic History Walk...
...join us this Wednesday (Feb 11th) at St Patrick's, Soho. Mass 12.45 and the Walk starts afterwards. We'll look at St-Giles-in-the-Fields, Holborn, and the pub where Bishop Richard Challoner used to preach, and more...
...and here is Auntie...
with young people from various countries (Croatia, Nigeria, Latvia) who were in London to discuss plans for the 40 Days for Life campaign. Organiser Robert Colquhoun asked me if I would take the group on a London History Walk, and so we gathered for Mass at Westminster Cathedral and then went off down Ambrosden Avenue, and on towards the river...looking at Parliament and the Abbey and more...
We finished with a late and hearty lunch with much lively talk...v. interesting to hear the Croatians talking about their country's recent history, the civil war etc etc...
They were all rather well-informed about Britain,having studied English since primary school and being familiar with topics ranging from Henry VIII to Big Ben. They picked up nuances of language, enjoyed my dislike of "Uwwazyke" (as in some one describing a conversation concerning something astonishing: "Uuwwazyke 'yeh, that's amazing, and eewuzzyke 'yeh whatever' and uwwazyke 'yeh'...and so on and so on...). They recognised the realities of life in Britain: I dislike giving cliche versions of British history or of our current problems. The conversation was open, honest, challenging, filled with good humour, and I learned a lot.
As a thank-you gift I've been offered to choose any book I like, and I'm going to get something by von Balthasar (see previous blog posts)...
Walking back down Victoria Street after this enjoyable day I had another delightful encounter - a cheery group of sandalled grey-clad Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, just crossing the Cathedral piazza after Vespers. Warm greetings, and it was a particular pleasure to meet three new postulants, newly arrived from the USA...
...and it was all rather providential, because on my "to do" list from last week's meeting of the Towards Advent Festival planning group was "Contact Franciscan Friars of Renewal and see if they will come and speak." They are keen, so we'll have a team of them speaking at the Festival and telling us what it means to be a friar and why anyone would ditch all material luxuries, wear a patched grey robe, and pledge to serve God and the poor for the whole of life in complete obedience to whatever the mission field demands...
Saturday, February 07, 2015
More on that pic of St John Paul the Great...
...and Auntie, and embroidery, and the Ordinatriate, and a pilgrimage to Walsingham....
Scarborough...
...at its most beautiful in sparkling winter sunshine.
St Peter's is a fine church and there were a large number of people at weekday Mass - so many, in fact, that I thought it was some sort of a special day...but no, it was just the normal nmber for a Thursday morning. Fr William Massie is a hard-working and cheery priest and we were soon busy on a couple of projects for the FAITH Movement...this involved a lot of checking things on the internet. The splendid 19th century Rectory is a fine building of four storeys and thick walls but the latter poses some problems for internet access when you are on the higher storeys, so I sat on the comfortable thickly-carpeted staircase where all worked well.
While Fr went off on various home-Communion visits, I took letters to post and enjoyed the sands and sea. The sun was glittering so sharply on the gleaming silver of the water that it hurt the eyes - I had to walk with the light behind me, heading out around those glorious cliffs topped with the fortifications... here the sea was blue'grey, cold and swooshing, and along the Parade the seaside-in-winter feeling was in full force, the sellers of ice-cream and local seafood all closed up...but there was delicious coffee and shortbread at a friendly coffee-shop and people sitting in the sunshine. A group of workmen in blue overalls had been busy with enormous rebuilding projects further along the shore and were tucking into a large fry-ups. It was lovely. I sat tackling some letters and enjoyed the latest Scott Hahn (called, with an agreeable nod to the fitness of things Consuming the Word).
An evening train to Leeds. The White Rise eaterie at the station is one of many places where you can get good food, and it had the irreistible offer of eggs-on-toast and freshly brewed coffee between 5 and 6pm at a special price. Delicious.
Lecture on St John Paul the Great. This took place at Holy Trinity Church in the city centre, a fine building with wonderful monuments to local worthies, solid pews, and good accoustics. The shopping centre is named in honour of the Trinity too, which gives a pleasing irony to the splendid gothic Unitarian Church which stands at its entrance.
St Peter's is a fine church and there were a large number of people at weekday Mass - so many, in fact, that I thought it was some sort of a special day...but no, it was just the normal nmber for a Thursday morning. Fr William Massie is a hard-working and cheery priest and we were soon busy on a couple of projects for the FAITH Movement...this involved a lot of checking things on the internet. The splendid 19th century Rectory is a fine building of four storeys and thick walls but the latter poses some problems for internet access when you are on the higher storeys, so I sat on the comfortable thickly-carpeted staircase where all worked well.
While Fr went off on various home-Communion visits, I took letters to post and enjoyed the sands and sea. The sun was glittering so sharply on the gleaming silver of the water that it hurt the eyes - I had to walk with the light behind me, heading out around those glorious cliffs topped with the fortifications... here the sea was blue'grey, cold and swooshing, and along the Parade the seaside-in-winter feeling was in full force, the sellers of ice-cream and local seafood all closed up...but there was delicious coffee and shortbread at a friendly coffee-shop and people sitting in the sunshine. A group of workmen in blue overalls had been busy with enormous rebuilding projects further along the shore and were tucking into a large fry-ups. It was lovely. I sat tackling some letters and enjoyed the latest Scott Hahn (called, with an agreeable nod to the fitness of things Consuming the Word).
An evening train to Leeds. The White Rise eaterie at the station is one of many places where you can get good food, and it had the irreistible offer of eggs-on-toast and freshly brewed coffee between 5 and 6pm at a special price. Delicious.
Lecture on St John Paul the Great. This took place at Holy Trinity Church in the city centre, a fine building with wonderful monuments to local worthies, solid pews, and good accoustics. The shopping centre is named in honour of the Trinity too, which gives a pleasing irony to the splendid gothic Unitarian Church which stands at its entrance.
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Been reading...
...Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Marvellous stuff.
Long years ago, I discovered that the measure of a good book is wishing a train journey to be longer in order to be able to go on reading undisturbed...or, sometimes, missing one's station and whoizzing on because of being so absorbed in the book...
Long years ago, I discovered that the measure of a good book is wishing a train journey to be longer in order to be able to go on reading undisturbed...or, sometimes, missing one's station and whoizzing on because of being so absorbed in the book...
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
Candles...
...at Westminster Cathedral for Candlemas, but alas I was late for Mass because of various meetings...everyone had lovely guttering candles, I was sorry to have missed getting one...
And so the 40 days of the Christmas season ends...and I spent part of the afternoon at Premier Radio, doing an interview about Ash Wednesday.Why do we get ashes on our foreheads? The interviewer asked "I've seen Catholics with crosses marked on their forehead with ash on that day, and often wodered about it..."and so we went on, and tackled Shrove Tuesday, pancakes, Lent...
Sat in a cafe to tackle some emails, and a chap was reading a large Hebrew Bible opposite me. We got talking - long intense conversation. He came from the Czech Republic...to one of my generation (he was rather younger) there is something interesting, and rather depressing, about meeting people formed by the aftermath of post-Communism. They are not atheists, certainly not socialists, they are not paricularly idealistic although they are interested in spiritual things, and they are almost as ignorant about such things as their counterparts in Western Europe. This one was a bit different from most, being uninterested in the sex-and-shopping cult that dominates life for so many.I remember Fr Werenfried van Straaten in the early 1990s talking about the people who belonged to "what-comes-after-Communism", the emptiness and the sense of not particularlybelonging anywhere, of not havng a spiritual home...now we are into the second generation of that experience.
And so the 40 days of the Christmas season ends...and I spent part of the afternoon at Premier Radio, doing an interview about Ash Wednesday.Why do we get ashes on our foreheads? The interviewer asked "I've seen Catholics with crosses marked on their forehead with ash on that day, and often wodered about it..."and so we went on, and tackled Shrove Tuesday, pancakes, Lent...
Sat in a cafe to tackle some emails, and a chap was reading a large Hebrew Bible opposite me. We got talking - long intense conversation. He came from the Czech Republic...to one of my generation (he was rather younger) there is something interesting, and rather depressing, about meeting people formed by the aftermath of post-Communism. They are not atheists, certainly not socialists, they are not paricularly idealistic although they are interested in spiritual things, and they are almost as ignorant about such things as their counterparts in Western Europe. This one was a bit different from most, being uninterested in the sex-and-shopping cult that dominates life for so many.I remember Fr Werenfried van Straaten in the early 1990s talking about the people who belonged to "what-comes-after-Communism", the emptiness and the sense of not particularlybelonging anywhere, of not havng a spiritual home...now we are into the second generation of that experience.
Monday, February 02, 2015
Stilll...
...getting Comments sent to my SPAM box. If you have sent a Comment in the last 12 hours and not had it printed, do send it again...
Sunday, February 01, 2015
You might enjoy...
...Auntie's description of the 4th anniversary celebration of the Ordinariate of O.L. of Walsingham, in the latest issue of The Portal...
Dublin on a Sunday morning....
...and Mass in the Pro-Cathedral. The Palestrina Choir sang gloriously: lots of - well - Palestrina, and also Credo III with a special elaborate bit added for the "incarnatus est". It was St Brigid's Day and she got a special mention in the sermon and in the Bidding Prayers...
A largely middle-aged-to-elderly congregation, some young people but almost no children, except for the boys in the choir, who were reverent in their blue robes and white cottas: it was a touching sight to see them coming up for Holy Communion. They will be singing in Washington and New York in the Spring - USA readers note.
It probably doesn't really matter...but I think it's a great mistake to have too many ladies of Auntie's age and upwards, pottering about, distributing Holy Communion. They are not needed, and somehow it just looks sort of fussy-ladies-wanting-to-do-things-ish. When they first got out of their seats and went to put their handbags down by the side of the sanctuary, I thought perhaps they were getting a special blessing for St Brigid's Day or something...but no, it was just fussing-about-when-not-really-required...there were no large crowds for Holy Communion, and two priests were present, plus an adult altar server...
A largely middle-aged-to-elderly congregation, some young people but almost no children, except for the boys in the choir, who were reverent in their blue robes and white cottas: it was a touching sight to see them coming up for Holy Communion. They will be singing in Washington and New York in the Spring - USA readers note.
It probably doesn't really matter...but I think it's a great mistake to have too many ladies of Auntie's age and upwards, pottering about, distributing Holy Communion. They are not needed, and somehow it just looks sort of fussy-ladies-wanting-to-do-things-ish. When they first got out of their seats and went to put their handbags down by the side of the sanctuary, I thought perhaps they were getting a special blessing for St Brigid's Day or something...but no, it was just fussing-about-when-not-really-required...there were no large crowds for Holy Communion, and two priests were present, plus an adult altar server...
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Next Catholic History Walk...
...Wednesday February 11th, starts with 12.45pm Mass at St Patrick's, Soho. We'll explore Holborn, visit St-Giles-in-the-Fields, head down toards Fleet Street...all welcome, no need to book, just turn up.
Ireland...
...is having to vote in a referendum on whether or not the government should impose same-sex marriage. The Irish Bishops have issued a pastoral letter with a sound and useful message on the subject. They are to be commended. Politicians seeking to impose the planned law are making some very poor attempts to justify themselves...the whole project has a silly sloganised feel to it.
It would be glorious if Ireland could have an outbreak of quiet wisdom, kindness, and common sense and vote "No".
It would be glorious if Ireland could have an outbreak of quiet wisdom, kindness, and common sense and vote "No".
Random discussion recently...
...about the Harry Potter books. There's a whole urban-myth thing that has developed about them that has its fans "Didn't you know that in fact there's secret witchcraft language in there? Oh, it's all been researched..." and mothers who believe all this have banned the books from their homes and urge others to do the same. I'm unconvinced,
I've been getting, over recent weeks, various panicky messages...
...from Catholics who describe themselves as Traditionalist (often with a captital T) and who don't like the way Pope Francis talks. They seem to feel that they ought to feel all comfortable and gosh-this-is-absolutely-right about everything that a Pope says and does. And they get angry when they don't feel that way. They panic and worry and write a lot of complicated stuff. Some get postively weird about it...
Ordinary orthodox faithful Catholics don't feel this way. It isn't the way ordinary faithful Catholics are. I like and admire a lot of what Papa Francis is doing and saying. But even if I didn't, I wouldn't panic about it. I remember reading a book about Pius IX - he's been beatified - and deciding that he was on the wrong foot on a couple of tactical issues, and not particularly aware of damage done - I don't think I would have been a great fan of his (though the book enthused about him and apparently he was a perfectly jolly soul with people he knew and liked, said his prayers faithfully etc).
You don't have to worship Popes. You can stand and cheer a Pope simply because he is the successor of St Peter. Or you can cheer with a full heart - as so many of us did with beloved St John Paul the Great and beloved Papa Benedict when they each came to Britain - because you also have deep affection, admiration and love added to the knowledge that this man is Peter's successor.
But you are perfectly entitled to have reservations about a Pope's tactics or conversations. There's no need to panic, and no need to wish him ill. Think Catholic, don't give yourself a factional label, and be prepared to think along larger lines.
Ordinary orthodox faithful Catholics don't feel this way. It isn't the way ordinary faithful Catholics are. I like and admire a lot of what Papa Francis is doing and saying. But even if I didn't, I wouldn't panic about it. I remember reading a book about Pius IX - he's been beatified - and deciding that he was on the wrong foot on a couple of tactical issues, and not particularly aware of damage done - I don't think I would have been a great fan of his (though the book enthused about him and apparently he was a perfectly jolly soul with people he knew and liked, said his prayers faithfully etc).
You don't have to worship Popes. You can stand and cheer a Pope simply because he is the successor of St Peter. Or you can cheer with a full heart - as so many of us did with beloved St John Paul the Great and beloved Papa Benedict when they each came to Britain - because you also have deep affection, admiration and love added to the knowledge that this man is Peter's successor.
But you are perfectly entitled to have reservations about a Pope's tactics or conversations. There's no need to panic, and no need to wish him ill. Think Catholic, don't give yourself a factional label, and be prepared to think along larger lines.
HLI Ireland...
...that stands for Human Life International, a group run by the splendidly energetic Patrick McCrystal...we gathered at a large hotel on the outskirts of Dublin. Excellent talk from Joseph Meaney, HLI representative in Rome...discussing the Synod on the Family, the recent gathering of large families addressed with such enthusiasm by Pope Francis, etc...
Friday, January 30, 2015
Auntie is in Ireland...
...to give a talk at a conference in Dublin. My self-chosen topic for my talk is St John Paul and his message about family, human dignity and the value of each human life. His message is not widely understood. People like to think of the Church as having "strict rules", which can be affirmed, broken, or changed depending on whether or not you agree with them. But it's not like that at all. God calls us to fullness of life, to be part of his glorious idea for his beloved humanity - humanity so beloved that he arrived to become one of us...and the Church is custodian of the truth of all that, and can too easily mess things up if she becomes a nagging voice talking about rules instead of a mother who explains and teaches and cherishes the truth...
Today's press...
...brings a lot of comment about planned legislation to make it easier for women to allege rape. Apparently there is a plan to make it legally neccessary obtain evidence of full consent before sexual activity commences. There are all sorts of obvious flaws to this scheme, and all sorts commentators are pointing these out. But one commentator today starts her full-page analysis in the Daily Mail with the chatty statement that "We've all done it..." referring to meeting some one casually - perhaps sharing a taxi and getting chatting, or whatever - and then engaging in sexual activity. Apparently we are meant to assume that it's an absolutely normal thing to do and that afterwards, one has a bath and perhaps a bit of a weep with a girlfriend while chatting it over, and that's that. Uh??? Does she really, honestly think that's how most women behave? Or are we all meant to pretend that we do?
What a very odd country we now inhabit.
What a very odd country we now inhabit.
...and on the subject of marriage...
...this speech brought a recent conference in Rome to its feet in a standing ovation....and is an inspiring read...
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Every now and then...
...I reproduce on this Blog an extract from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is because I want to make a statement about human freedom - specifically, the freedom to state truths that are important and currently unfashionable.
I started doing this because a little while ago some one quoted the Catechism during a conversation about same-sex unions, and was immediately told:"You can't say that!". And I have been told on various occasions that the Catechism "should be banned" or " should be burned".
So:
I started doing this because a little while ago some one quoted the Catechism during a conversation about same-sex unions, and was immediately told:"You can't say that!". And I have been told on various occasions that the Catechism "should be banned" or " should be burned".
So:
"Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity." "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God."
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." All human generations proceed from this union.
The 2015 Catholic Women of the Year...
...will be chosen in the summer, and honoured at a Luncheon in October. Nominations are now being sought - you can read more about it here. The idea is to honour Catholic women who serve the Church and the community by neighbourliness and caring for the poor, the sick, the elderly, the imprisoned, helping with education, supporting charities and good community projects...those who are elected as Women of the Year don't get any prize, just warm recognition at a Luncheon, and the whole project is aimed at foistering a spirit of service and general goodwill. Find out more by following that link...
Speaker at this year's Luncheon in October will be Fr Alexander Sherbrook of St Patrick's, Soho.
Speaker at this year's Luncheon in October will be Fr Alexander Sherbrook of St Patrick's, Soho.
Bitterly cold...
...in London - Westminster Cathedral glowing with candles and a sense of welcome. Auntie writes each month in the Cathedral magazine, OREMUS. Took a copy to read on the bus going home. The Cathedral has just launched a new group, named in honour of London martyr St John Southworth, to act as guides and to welcome visitors, show the various chapels, etc. Apparently the most frequently asked question is "Is this the place where Prince William married Kate?"
"FHB"...
..."Family Hold Back"...the old expression used in Britain when there were unexpected guests and not enough food to go round. You held back, pretended you weren''t hungry, so the guests could eat well.
In today's Daily Telegraph, there is a wonderful interview with the daughter of the founder of Abbeyfield, the network of care homes for the elderly. She recalled her father, Richard Carr-Gomm - a soldier, decorated for bravery in WWII - who raised his family in a household where unexpected visitors could include ex-prisoners, homeless people and - on two occasions - Mother Teresa. On one of her visits, Mother Teresa was too frail to manage the steep staircase, and Carr-Gomm gave her a piggy-back ride.
Carr-Gomm's daughter recalls not only "FHB" being announced by her mother at meals when sudden hungry guests turned up, but also the whole atmosphere of a house where service to others was regarded as the norm and her memories are warm, loving, and joyful...it's absolutely the reverse of so much of today's fashionable thinking on child-rearing and instant gratification - and it's an inspiration. Do read it.
In today's Daily Telegraph, there is a wonderful interview with the daughter of the founder of Abbeyfield, the network of care homes for the elderly. She recalled her father, Richard Carr-Gomm - a soldier, decorated for bravery in WWII - who raised his family in a household where unexpected visitors could include ex-prisoners, homeless people and - on two occasions - Mother Teresa. On one of her visits, Mother Teresa was too frail to manage the steep staircase, and Carr-Gomm gave her a piggy-back ride.
Carr-Gomm's daughter recalls not only "FHB" being announced by her mother at meals when sudden hungry guests turned up, but also the whole atmosphere of a house where service to others was regarded as the norm and her memories are warm, loving, and joyful...it's absolutely the reverse of so much of today's fashionable thinking on child-rearing and instant gratification - and it's an inspiration. Do read it.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Excellent evening...
...with the FAITH Movement, with a talk by Mgr Keith Barltrop, tackling the question of scandals in the Church. It was honest, thoughtful, and extremely useful. He began with the description of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles - the small community of believers united in faith, holding things in common, praying together, and then at the growth of the Church and the problems that can arise when the Church - or any instiutution - becomes powerful...
Among other issues, he explored how things that can of themselves be good - respect for privacy and confidentiality, or a sense of brotherly unity among priests - can become bad. Much food for thought there...and other issues tackled were the need for good spiritual support for priests, a sound understanding of the Church's teaching on sexual ethics, and an authentic sense of communion within the Church. In this he included a recognition of the different and complementary roles of priests and lay people, and a good relationship between the two - something which is emerging in some of the New Movements although these too can have their problems.
There was much more in the talk, and in the discussions that followed. These Evenings of Faith are provng extremely popular, and the parish hall at Warwick Street is packed. The meetings are held on alternate Tuesdays, starting at 7.30pm: more info here...
Among other issues, he explored how things that can of themselves be good - respect for privacy and confidentiality, or a sense of brotherly unity among priests - can become bad. Much food for thought there...and other issues tackled were the need for good spiritual support for priests, a sound understanding of the Church's teaching on sexual ethics, and an authentic sense of communion within the Church. In this he included a recognition of the different and complementary roles of priests and lay people, and a good relationship between the two - something which is emerging in some of the New Movements although these too can have their problems.
There was much more in the talk, and in the discussions that followed. These Evenings of Faith are provng extremely popular, and the parish hall at Warwick Street is packed. The meetings are held on alternate Tuesdays, starting at 7.30pm: more info here...
Monday, January 26, 2015
"Inclusive" or exclusive?...
...odd the way some words are used. The other day, visiting an Anglican church in London, we came across a group of people who were engaged in something they called an "inclusive Church" project. All part of a lobbying group aimed at the General Synod. Turns out it isn't about an inclusive Church at all...it aims at a specifically exclusive Church, dominated by a politically-correct mindset. It seems that the aim is to squash vocal opposition to same-sex unions, and to take every opportunity of making things difficult for anyone who still opposes having priestesses in the CofE. It's all very sad and somehow has a tired, flagging sort of feel to it. Rather stale jargon, and made-up prayers that deliberately avoid calling God "Father" and so on and so on...I expect they'll do well at the Synod.
The liveliest parts of the CofE are the Evangelical churches that run youth groups and gatherings with rousing hymns and a sense of mission centred on teaching people about Christ. They tend to avoid the bureacratic mindset that produces "non-sexist" prayers and to be committed to a more daring and authentic grasp of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...
The liveliest parts of the CofE are the Evangelical churches that run youth groups and gatherings with rousing hymns and a sense of mission centred on teaching people about Christ. They tend to avoid the bureacratic mindset that produces "non-sexist" prayers and to be committed to a more daring and authentic grasp of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...
Latest issue...
...of FAITH magazine plops through our letterbox. A review of two of Auntie's books, Saints and Heroes and Saints and Heroines ..."In writing these books Joanna Bogle has provided an entertaining and robust alternative to reading about celebrity culture. She has presented us with a vision of faith and courage and examples of true heroism."
BTW, you can find out more about these two books here and here...
The reviewer says they would make excellent gifts to young people preparing for Confirmation and wanting to choose a patron saint...
More about the FAITH Movement here...
BTW, you can find out more about these two books here and here...
The reviewer says they would make excellent gifts to young people preparing for Confirmation and wanting to choose a patron saint...
More about the FAITH Movement here...
Saturday, January 24, 2015
"Where does the family start?" mused Sir Winston Churchll...
"...It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl. No superior alternative has yet been found."
Today he would be roundly denounced for saying that, and probably made to retract the statement.
Oh, please let's bring back sanity to Britain, so that people can make kindly remarks about blindingly obvious truths on marriage and family without fear of formal censure .
Today he would be roundly denounced for saying that, and probably made to retract the statement.
Oh, please let's bring back sanity to Britain, so that people can make kindly remarks about blindingly obvious truths on marriage and family without fear of formal censure .
On a crisp, cold London January morning...
...we walked from church to church around The Borough as part of Christian Unity week. Southwark is so rich in history, and I've mostly known about London Bridge and the river, and Saxon battles against the Vikings, and so on...but there's simply lots and lots to explore as you walk through the network of streets that lie between the Borough High Street and Waterloo station.
St George the Martyr is all 18th-century-with-high-pulpit, then tucked away in a side-road is a Welsh Chapel, built by the substantial Welsh community that settled in these parts in the 19th century - it's largely disused but, pleasingly, it does host occasional services which the local MP, Simon Hughes is invited to address as he speaks good Welsh... Not far away is the charming garden which marks where a big and once popular "High Church" Anglican parish thrived: the church was hit by enemy bombing in WWII and only one part now remains, owned by the Anglicans but now closed...and then only a few streets from that is another former High Church bastion which also suffered from WWII but has a small house with some Anglican Franciscans in it, who kindly invited us to visit a charming tiny chapel restored in the 1970s...
And of course there is the great St Saviour's Cathedral - a glorious peal of bells every Sunday - and then the Church of the Precious Blood which will be familiar to readers of this Blog...
I had a dozen things that needed doing at home, but am so glad that this cold day of bright winter sunshine was given over to a throrough exploration of a corner of London I have come to love. I first knew Southwark as a young woman, visiting my father's office at Tower House, Hopton Street, next to Blackfriars Bridge. I remember a tall rather bleak building but with superb views over the Thames, and, excitingly, down below, magnificent printing works gloriously clattering and rolling with a satisfying noise, and the smell of ink...
St George the Martyr is all 18th-century-with-high-pulpit, then tucked away in a side-road is a Welsh Chapel, built by the substantial Welsh community that settled in these parts in the 19th century - it's largely disused but, pleasingly, it does host occasional services which the local MP, Simon Hughes is invited to address as he speaks good Welsh... Not far away is the charming garden which marks where a big and once popular "High Church" Anglican parish thrived: the church was hit by enemy bombing in WWII and only one part now remains, owned by the Anglicans but now closed...and then only a few streets from that is another former High Church bastion which also suffered from WWII but has a small house with some Anglican Franciscans in it, who kindly invited us to visit a charming tiny chapel restored in the 1970s...
And of course there is the great St Saviour's Cathedral - a glorious peal of bells every Sunday - and then the Church of the Precious Blood which will be familiar to readers of this Blog...
I had a dozen things that needed doing at home, but am so glad that this cold day of bright winter sunshine was given over to a throrough exploration of a corner of London I have come to love. I first knew Southwark as a young woman, visiting my father's office at Tower House, Hopton Street, next to Blackfriars Bridge. I remember a tall rather bleak building but with superb views over the Thames, and, excitingly, down below, magnificent printing works gloriously clattering and rolling with a satisfying noise, and the smell of ink...
Friday, January 23, 2015
for family reasons...
...this tune came back into our lives today. It has a charm that hasn't faded.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
THE FIRST CATHOLIC HISTORY WALK OF 2015...
...will take place on Wednesday January 28th, starting at 6.30pm (after the 5.30pm Mass), at Westminster Cathedral. Meet on the Cathedral steps. All welcome - no need to book, just turn up. Wear suitable clothes and shoes for walking! We'll be going down to the river, discovering the origins of the Greencoat Boy pub, the Virgin on the Westminster City coat-of-arms, and the name "Westminster" itself, among much else. Come and join us!
And book these future dates in your diary:
WEDNESDAY February 11th - a lunchtime walk. Meet at the 12.45pm Mass at St Patrick's, Soho.,
MONDAY March 2nd, 6.30pm - a tour INSIDE St George's Cathedral, Southwark. Meet at the door of the Cathedral. Nearest tube: Lambeth North or WATERLOO.
and, looking further ahead: SUNDAY JUNE 21st, the Martyrs' Walk through London. Starts 1.30pm at the churchyard of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, (near the Old Bailey - nearest Tube is St Paul's). Finishes with Benediction and Tea at Tyburn Convent.)
And book these future dates in your diary:
WEDNESDAY February 11th - a lunchtime walk. Meet at the 12.45pm Mass at St Patrick's, Soho.,
MONDAY March 2nd, 6.30pm - a tour INSIDE St George's Cathedral, Southwark. Meet at the door of the Cathedral. Nearest tube: Lambeth North or WATERLOO.
and, looking further ahead: SUNDAY JUNE 21st, the Martyrs' Walk through London. Starts 1.30pm at the churchyard of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, (near the Old Bailey - nearest Tube is St Paul's). Finishes with Benediction and Tea at Tyburn Convent.)
"Our Father, who art in Heaven..."
...a prayer that every child in our country ought to know.
And if you are teaching at a Church of England or Roman Catholic primary school in Greater London, your pupils can take part in the great "Our Father" project. Send a Comment to this Blog, WITH AN EMAIL ADDRESS AT WHICH I CAN CONTACT YOU, and I will arrange for you to be sent details.
And if you are teaching at a Church of England or Roman Catholic primary school in Greater London, your pupils can take part in the great "Our Father" project. Send a Comment to this Blog, WITH AN EMAIL ADDRESS AT WHICH I CAN CONTACT YOU, and I will arrange for you to be sent details.
Faith, freedom, human dignity...
...and a young priest whose cause for canonisation seems to be drawing nearer...read here.
Auntie feels, along with many other people, a personal link with this because of adventures taking aid to Poland back in the 1980s...
Auntie feels, along with many other people, a personal link with this because of adventures taking aid to Poland back in the 1980s...
Monday, January 19, 2015
AAARGH!!! SPAM!!!
...by which I mean not the pink squares of meat that we used to have fried in batter as Spam Fritters, but that sort of junk email that begins "Dear Friend, I am In Need of Help and Kno That you will be of Good Kindness" and asks for your bank account details.
But I discovered today, following an anguished phone call from a work colleague "Why haven't you answered my emails?" that a number of emails from friends and colleagues have, over the past three to four weeks, gone into the SPAM folder on my laptop. AAAAARGH!!!
I have now tackled all the emails - not without embarrassment and difficulty - but the Comments sent to this blog have proved impossible to recover. One can't post them once they have been deemed to be Spam. Alas...
While I was tackling this, a colleague had to deal with the horrible mess resulting from his email having been hacked...
And we both agreed that the whole Internet thing is, at best, a very very mixed blessing.
But I discovered today, following an anguished phone call from a work colleague "Why haven't you answered my emails?" that a number of emails from friends and colleagues have, over the past three to four weeks, gone into the SPAM folder on my laptop. AAAAARGH!!!
I have now tackled all the emails - not without embarrassment and difficulty - but the Comments sent to this blog have proved impossible to recover. One can't post them once they have been deemed to be Spam. Alas...
While I was tackling this, a colleague had to deal with the horrible mess resulting from his email having been hacked...
And we both agreed that the whole Internet thing is, at best, a very very mixed blessing.
A joyful celebration...
..for the fourth anniversary of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. See here...
Approximately seven million people...
(according to TV and internet) attended Mass celebrated by Papa Francis in the Philippines, in horrid weather but with huge enthusiasm. Golly. Even if it was half or two-thirds of that number, it's an awful lot of people.
Next time you are told the Church is dying, remember that.
The Church is growing and growing: 653.6 million Catholics worldwide in 1965, and the latest figure is 1.229 BILLION.
BTW, an interesting analysis of the situation of Catholics in the USA is here...
Next time you are told the Church is dying, remember that.
The Church is growing and growing: 653.6 million Catholics worldwide in 1965, and the latest figure is 1.229 BILLION.
BTW, an interesting analysis of the situation of Catholics in the USA is here...
To the author in George, USA...
...who would like to send me the outline of his book: I would love to be in touch about this but PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL ADDRESS AT WHICH I CAN REACH YOU.
I am unable to reply to a Comment on this blog. The system is specifically designed so that it is impossible for me, or anyone else, to contact you via the Comment.
It is necessary for you to send me a Comment - which I will not publish - which includes you email address. I can then contact you.
I am unable to reply to a Comment on this blog. The system is specifically designed so that it is impossible for me, or anyone else, to contact you via the Comment.
It is necessary for you to send me a Comment - which I will not publish - which includes you email address. I can then contact you.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
The Evening with the FAITH Movement...
...this week at the church hall at 24 Golden Square WI (near Piccadilly CIrcus) was excellent. The speaker was Fr Stephen Dingley, who lectures at St John's Seminary, Wonersh, and looked at the whole question of human life and its meaning, tackling the deep questions. Do human beings have an eternal destiny? Are we different from animals? Why is the universe here? And even: what makes us want to ask these questions?
The hall was full. These Evenings of Faith conclude with wine and pizza and much talk. Lots of young people, mostly students. Older people are welcome too, of course. The hall is in the crypt and . on a winter night, going down the iron steps in the dark and into the warm glowing room has a slightly early-Christians-meeting-in-secret feeling to it...
Next meeting is on Tuesday Jan 27th, 7.30pm - all welcome. Speaker: Mgr Keith Barltrop. More info here
The hall was full. These Evenings of Faith conclude with wine and pizza and much talk. Lots of young people, mostly students. Older people are welcome too, of course. The hall is in the crypt and . on a winter night, going down the iron steps in the dark and into the warm glowing room has a slightly early-Christians-meeting-in-secret feeling to it...
Next meeting is on Tuesday Jan 27th, 7.30pm - all welcome. Speaker: Mgr Keith Barltrop. More info here
"Love is...
...patient and kind...love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things...Love never ends."
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
This blog...
...will be absent for a few days.
Please pray for the dear soul of Jenny Bogle, beloved wife of Professor David Bogle, and mother of their young daughter. Jenny, a much-loved sister-in-law of this writer, died this morning after a long illness.
A loving wife and mother, a gifted musician, a woman of courage and kindness.
"We do not mourn as those without hope".
Please pray for the dear soul of Jenny Bogle, beloved wife of Professor David Bogle, and mother of their young daughter. Jenny, a much-loved sister-in-law of this writer, died this morning after a long illness.
A loving wife and mother, a gifted musician, a woman of courage and kindness.
"We do not mourn as those without hope".
Monday, January 12, 2015
On Saturday January 31st...
BISHOP PHILIP EGAN will be the speaker at a special day conference on
THE PARISH AND THE NEW EVANGELISATION
looking at the message of
Evangelii Gaudium
at St Patrick's, Soho, London W1
Other speakers will include Fr Alexander Sherbrooke (St Patrick's) and Dr Caroline Fairey (School of the Annunciation).
The day starts with coffee at 10 am, and includes Mass and Vespers.
To book, contact: guildofourladyandstjoseph@gmail.com
More information from The School of the Annunciation
THE PARISH AND THE NEW EVANGELISATION
looking at the message of
Evangelii Gaudium
at St Patrick's, Soho, London W1
Other speakers will include Fr Alexander Sherbrooke (St Patrick's) and Dr Caroline Fairey (School of the Annunciation).
The day starts with coffee at 10 am, and includes Mass and Vespers.
To book, contact: guildofourladyandstjoseph@gmail.com
More information from The School of the Annunciation
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