Friday, August 04, 2017

The Rosary...

...said - and sung - as a vast procession made its way down to the ancient Walsingham Priory, and then the cool lawn beneath one's feet as we settled for Mass in the Priory grounds...this is always one of the highlights of the New Dawn gathering. An enormous crowd - if the old Priory Church had still been standing, we would have filled it. Thanks to Henry VIII we were in the ruins, and spilling out from what would have been the church, into all the ancilliary areas, and still the crowd kept coming, singing, down the Holy Mile from the Slipper Chapel at Houghton St Giles...

New Dawn was a glorious few days, and it was a delight to meet friends, to have some wonderful discussions, to celebrate the Faith and to tackle serious subjects in an atmosphere of prayer...

There is an underlying seriousness when Catholics get together at present. Things in our country feel bleak, with a sense of social and moral fragility and breakdown,  an awareness of great confusion and anger among too many of the young who have been given no understanding of what life is about or how much they are loved by God...

The poor old CofE is not helping much...read Auntie on the subject here...

2 comments:

Malcolm said...

I think we need to see the connections between what are commonly regarded as "sexual ethics" issues - abortion, gay rights, and so forth, and self-harm and suicide. The logic of abortion - this is my body so I can do what I want with it - is very closely tied to the logic of suicide. Self-harm is, obviously, suicide-lite. But it is also usually very closely tied to sexual self-image.

Francis said...

I think one of the joys of the Catholic faith (whatever the differences of views on various topics) is the clear guidance on moral issues and long may that continue. Once you temper religious practices to coincide with modern fashions or mores (and politicians naturally do this) then there is no stopping. The Church of England being part of the state and headed by the monarch is open to these pressures. We are not.