defénde nos in proélio

3 books - a Kindle Schmindle

2012-02-28T16:33:00.001Z

I love books. In my (much) younger days as an irritating, impetuous little know-it-all I was once found on the Left Bank of the Seine proclaiming loudly "I'd rather see people killed than books thrown away!" in response to seeing a Parisian outdoor bookseller discarding his unwanted stock at the end of a working day. I hardly need point out that this is a sentiment I cannot relate to now. However a couple of decades ago, a first-class literature degree under my scrawny bohemian belt, I was horrified by the idea that books could be discarded so casually (ironically, as a self-defined non-Catholic at the time who had just spent four years in an astonishingly relativist academic milieu, the discarding of tiny humans didn't even enter my consciousness). As soon as the bookseller had departed, I raced to the bin and liberated the violated tomes (a real mish-mash of genres and periods) and placed them lovingly along the wall of the seine with a large handwritten sign proclaiming (in French) "FREE BOOKS - HELP YOURSELF".

My poor partner-in-crime (now long-suffering husband) and I watched from a bench in the distance (with a bottle of wine, natch) as passersby stopped, read the sign and browsed the books - sometimes continuing their journey with empty hands, but more commonly snatching a copy with a furtive look around and departing clutching a new (to them) paperback friend and with a spring in their step. Eventually all the orphaned volumes, barring one abstruse work by a French surrealist, found new homes, and we were able to wander off to a cafe for more wine and some decent food, satisfied in a job well done.

Samuel Pepys: what would he have made of the Kindle?

Why mention this at all? Well, my pal, fellow parishioner, senior blogger and venerable cat-charmer Mac of Mulier Fortis fame has kindly tagged me in her Kindle-o-rama meme to name three books I'd recommend that she buy to read on her shiny new kindle (actually, it's a bit less shiny now than it was when she first tagged me - it's taken a fortnight to wrest my laptop from the possession of my children and get back to my blog, but that's another story...) Anyway - here I hit a moral dilemma: I love paper books. I love the way that they smell, and age and the fact that you can read them in the bath, in the rain and get them half buried in sand on the beach. I like the fact that you can chuck them into the fire if you really really disapprove (have only done this once and it was good fun). My children are reading paperback novels that I read 35 years ago that were tatty and old when they were passed down to me by friends of the family. You can't do that with a kindle.

On the other hand, my eyes are getting dodgier as I get older, and the notion of larger type starts to sound attractive. Not to mention having an entire library in my handbag. Books are an expensive habit, not so much in their acquisition as much as in the storage space that they take up. We're currently trying to figure out how to convert an outbuilding into a library. Yes, that many books.

The Pepys Library at my old Alma mater: if only my books were so well organised!

Mac on the other hand, is sensible enough to equip herself with a Kindle, and be able to carry the equivalent of the boxes and boxes filling my loft, cupboards and garage (labelled "boring books", "rodent diseases/dissection", "m/physical poets" and so forth) in something that can slip into a pocket. So I'm going to run with the fact that she already has one, rather than debate the rights and wrongs of electronic reading devices, and recommend a little light reading. I know that the meme was really a Desert Island Discs sort of "three essential books" but I change my mind so often that I thought it better to recommend some pacy relief to the worthy and weighty tomes that would be truly indispensable.. Not quite chicklit, but I've been into the sort-of-girly apocalypso genre of late, and so my recommendations are:

[1] Fatherless/Motherless/Childless by Brian J Gail
Ok so this is a bit of a cheat. Three books in one. But it's worth sticking with Fatherless to get to Motherless which allows you to get to Childless. Sound Catholic novels just shouldn't be this much fun. Oh - and if you buy Motherless then you get Childless free in the Kindle edition: the "preview" is actually the whole novel. A kindle-reading friend pointed this out to me - she reckons that Brain J Gail just wants to get the book "out there" and as widely read as possible. I can see why.

[2] Eclipse of the Sun by Michael D O'Brien.
The catch with this one is that it's two books - really you should read the much shorter Plague Journal to get full benefit form Eclipse. Plague Journal might even be a better book, but the end of Eclipse make the journey worthwhile. Strictly speaking these two are the end of a trilogy (that is itself part of a series of seven books) but I'm not as ardent about Strangers and Sojourners as I am about the others. Almost anything by Michael D O'Brien could have been on this list - particularly Father Elijah (probably his best known) and The Island of the World (his most elegantly written work). There's something about the characters and images in "Plague Journal" and "Eclipse of the Sun that ring true. Warning: not good bedtime reading for the paranoid.

[3] Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson
Scarily prescient Catholic science-fiction novel written over 100 years ago but eerily contemporary. Unputdownable. And it's FREE on Kindle.

I'm going to tag five other bloggers for fairly random reasons: OTSOTA because he's already a Kindle lover and prolific reader and a real cleverclogs in a good way, Mundabor because his blog makes me punch the air and say "Yessssssss!" and because I'm curious to see what he'll recommend, Jean of KiwiTrad and Anna's Song blogs because she lives in New Zealand which gives her a different perspective, Bara Brith because she's a font of musical knowledge and all-round good egg and Joseph K of my "brother blog" Defend us in Battle who wages spiritual warfare from the frozen wilds of Alaska.

Closed: anything to do with the Kindle?

I've just said a Hail Mary for the reader...

2012-02-28T16:22:00.001Z

...who found my blog using the search terms "green + ink + secularist"

Whoever you are you made my day!

Mark Steyn: Obama goes Henry VIII on the church

2012-02-11T17:04:00.001Z

I wish I'd written this:

http://m.ocregister.com/opinion/church-339789-one-catholic.html

Urgent prayer request

2012-02-05T21:18:00.000Z

I'd be really grateful for any prayers that can be offered...

A good friend's God-daughter was diagnosed out of the blue with a very invasive brain tumour last week. She's 3 1/2 . She will be going in for surgery tomorrow (Monday 6th January 2012). Apparently the doctors have already said that they will not be able to remove the whole tumour, and will assess whether or not it would be helpful to give her radiotherapy afterwards.

Her mum says:

"For those of you who don't yet know, we received the devastating news this week that our beautiful little girl Amelia has a brain tumour. Unfortunately her outlook we have been told is quite bleak, but rather than no hope there is some hope. The tumour is in a very bad place and quite big we are told. For those of you who believe, please pray, for those of you who don't please keep Amelia in your thoughts. Words cannot describe how we feel, we just have to cling on to the hope that they may be able to do something for her."

Please pray for her, her family and her doctors. Her name is Amelia-Kate

Many thanks and God bless,

Annie-Elizabeth

Christ the Redeemer Statue to watch over London?

2012-01-28T02:05:00.000Z

In a move destined to send the National Secularist Society into paroxysms of froth-mouthed green-ink rage, the Brazilian government has proposed a plan to erect a 30 foot replica of the statue of Christ the Redeemer that overlooks Rio de Janeiro on London's Primrose Hill. The hush-hush plans, discovered and published by the local Camden New Journal, are intended to celebrate the end of the London 2012 Olympic games and promote the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Although planning permission has not yet been sought, it is believed that the statue would only be in place for the four years between the two Olympic games. It is also thought that the plans were being kept secret so that there would be a "wow factor" when the statue was unveiled at the end of the 2012 games.

All news reports point to the "obvious" controversial nature of the statue, and to the requisite foaming at the mouth by the NSS who have already helpfully supplied outraged comments. I'm rather perplexed as to why it is so very controversial to put a statue of Our Lord up in a country in which the culture, law, architecture, language and education system are all the direct inheritance of Christian civilisation. Presumably even the National Secularist Society cannot deny the Christian foundation of our Western European civilisation. I imagine that the Brazilian government will be bemused by the extreme reactions.

I'm hoping that the plan goes ahead - what a blessing to have a statue of Our Lord looking over the "Epicentre of the Culture of Death". Surely some lasting good would come from four years of London being reminded of the saving presence of the risen Christ.

And there would always be the question of where the statue would live afterwards. Hmmmm, that fourth plinth on Trafalgar square still doesn't have a permanent statue...

Is "The Way" leading Catholics astray?

2012-01-21T21:56:00.002Z

I first encountered the Neo-Catechumenal Way (NCW) about eight years ago. What initially made me curious about it was how secretive the members were about what went on in their closed, private services. I was puzzled as to why a local Catholic family who were clearly more than Catholics In Name Only went miles away to a parish that wasn't a Latin Mass parish (the only reason I'd ever found for people to travel long distances to Mass when there were plenty of local churches) and why they only ever went to Mass on Saturday night. I wanted to find out more about what they called "The Way" but I wasn't getting any information from the members... so I went to the Internet and found some information, and a lot of opinion. I didn't like the sound of much of what I found but felt that the sources all had an axe to grind. What I wanted was to hear about the Neo-Catechumenal Movement (NCM) directly from Neo-Catchumenates themselves.

Fast forward six or so years. By this time I'd met many other Neo-Cat families but all had the same degree of caginess about talking their community. I found this odd -- I genuinely wanted to know more about them from them not from a secondary source. Also, most Catholics I know who are keen on their faith, are also eager to share - to evangelise. If you have a great parish, don't you invite people to Mass with you? If you're onto a good thing - and a good thing in this situation can save souls - don't you want to share it? In the case of the NeoCats I met - apparently not. Apparently this isn't uncommon - the NCM recruits from outside the Church, not from within.

In addition to the Neo-Catechumenal families I've met over the years, we've also had two aupairs from the Neo-Catechumenal movement. One wasn't fully "in" yet - although her mother had been a member for several years. The second is a fully signed member, several years into her journey, with her own "community" in her home country, and who found a temporary "community" to take her in while she was living in London. The first aupair - the one who hadn't yet committed to "The Way" was very positive about it, but limited in her knowledge: even though she had been to some Neocatechumenal "Eucharists" with her mother there were many things that she couldn't know unless she was to commit to joining "The Way". In her mid 20s and perspicacious, I felt that she was a very reliable witness. The second aupair was some eight years younger and full of enthusiasm for "The Way". She talked about how special it was to sing and dance around "the table decorated with flowers" (altar to you and me) and how all the children look forward to being able to bring the flowers home afterwards. But other things that she said gave me the heebie jeebies, although she obviously saw nothing wrong with them. The first was that her family rarely went to Mass together. Three of the children have their "own" separate Neo-Catechumenal communities, and the mother went to another with the youngest children. The father went to Mass alone in the "normal" (i.e. parish) church as he hadn't joined "The Way" : so that's five different Masses for a family of 7, and the assumption is that the younger children will eventually join their own communities which would make 7 different Masses! At Christmas and Easter the family would go to Mass together in the local parish church, but the rest of the time they were fractured - at different services in different rooms often in the same building. She told me that even when a church is available, they prefer to meet in a small plain meeting room and use a table instead of the altar.

In 2005 Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments wrote a letter to Kiko Arguello, Carmen Hernandez and Fr Mario Pezzi (a member of the international team responsible for the Neo-Catechumenal Way) outlining serious concerns about irregularities in the way the NCM celebrated the sacred liturgy. Dated December 1, 2005, the letter begins:

“Following the conversations with this Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments on the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist in the communities of the Neocatechumenal Way, in keeping with the guidelines issued in the meeting with you on November 11 of this year, I am to inform you of the Holy Father’s decisions.”

The main points were that:

• The Neo-Catechumenal Way must enter into dialogue with the diocesan bishop in order to make it clear that the community of the Neo-Catechumenal Way is incorporated into the parish — even in the context of the liturgical celebrations. At least one Sunday per month, the communities of the Neo-Catechumenal Way must participate in the Holy Mass of the parish — community

• As for any admonitions issued before the readings, these must be brief.

• On the exchange of peace, permission is granted to the Neo-Catechumenal Way to continue using the indult already granted, pending further instructions. [In the NCW Eucharist, the Kiss of Peace occurs before the beginning of the Offertory.]

• On the manner of receiving Holy Communion, a period of transition (not exceeding two years) is granted to the Neo-Catechumenal Way to pass from the widespread manner of receiving Holy Communion in its communities (seated, with a cloth-covered table placed at the center of the church instead of the dedicated altar in the sanctuary) to the normal way in which the entire Church receives Holy Communion.

It seems that six years later nothing has changed. the Neo-Catechumenal way has not changed the way it receives Holy Communion (Kiko Aguilla the founder of the NCM said that sacrifice has no place in the Mass: "“Perhaps God requires the blood of His Son, His Sacrifice, to appease Himself? But what kind of a God have we done [sic]? We have arrived to think that God appeases His Wrath in the sacrifice of His Son in the manner of the pagan gods"), still encourages rambling "admonitions" (or personal reflections before and after the readings), and the NCM is no more integrated into the host parishes than it was in 2006. Furthermore, non-members of the NCM are not allowed to come to "Eucharist" (the term "Mass" is not approved of, because of the connotations of sacrifice).

Why do I care about this? There are loads of different "flavours" within Catholicism - I don't waste time moaning about folk masses, or evangelical groups, or even grey-muddy-beige novus-ordo parishes. But I think that the Neocatechumenal Movement (NCM) is different for many reasons, most of them worrying.

[1] the NCM functions in a cult-like way. Note, I am not saying that the NCM is a cult, but it does use protocols similar to techniques that cults use to recruit and retain members, namely - separation of the individual from friends and family, creepy psychological techniques (public confession of sins and failings ["tell the group the worst thing you've ever done"] followed by "love bombing" to bond the individual to the group),

[2] the NCM creates loyalty to "The Way" not to the Catholic Church, in fact many church teachings are derided or dismissed. The NCM belief is that the Catholic Church has become polluted with superstition and paganism over the centuries and "The Way" can show individuals how to worship as Christ intended. It might seem unbelievable that a respectable "new movement" could ride rough-shod over church doctrine, but Kiko is on record as saying

“So we’ve got the assembly that meets. Nobody thought in terms of an individual rite. The Hebrews cannot celebrate a Passover unless there are at least eleven people in the family. For the sacrament is not only the bread and wine but also the assembly, the whole Church which proclaims the Eucharist. Without this assembly proclaiming the Eucharist there can be no Eucharist.” (source: The Neo-Catechumenal Way Gathers No Moss)

As Mark Alesso, member of the Neo-Catechumenal Way for 7 years and former NCM seminarian,says "Without this assembly proclaiming the Eucharist there can be no Eucharist. To the NCW founders, there is no intrinsic value to the Mass. It receives its power and its very reason for being from the assembly. A priest saying Mass by himself in order to make reparation to God and implore blessings for the world might just as well be playing solitaire." and notes that "[i]n the world-view of the NCW founders, the Mass quickly degenerated from a fervent and inspired banquet of praise to a static, superstitious routine filled with destructive images of “sacrifice.” Thankfully, the NCW founders happened along in the 20th Century to take over and set the Church back on course, via a “Eucharist” (the NCW founders seem to scorn the term, “Mass”) which at-tempts to recover the supposed joy of the primitive Christian “banquets.”

[3] A cult of personality built around Kiko himself: . I've heard many oddly gushing descriptions of Kiko the living saint, however what really brought this home to me was our young NCM aupair describing World Youth Day 2010 in Madrid. "Did you see the Holy Father?" I asked . "Yes" she replied "were were at his Mass but the next day we actually got to see Kiko - you know, the founder of the Neocatechumenal Way, we saw him in person, and that was wonderful". Pope - ho hum. Kiko - life changing experience. Hmmm...

See also

If you wanted to destroy the Church from within, you couldn't find a better weapon than an ostensibly Catholic organisation that used persuasive psychological techniques to recruit and retain new members, whilst "recatechising" them and subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) undermining some of the most basic tenets of the faith. Tell them that to kneel is superstitious, and have them receive Our Lord sitting down. Tell them that the idea of the Mass being a bloodless sacrifice is a pagan pollution of Jesus's intention. Reject the idea of a priesthood, of altars, of altar stones: in Kiko's words
"“In Christianity there is no temple, no altar, no priest in the sense of religiosity .... The temple in Christianity are the Christians ... Neither are there altars in the sense of sacred stones which no one can touch or go near to .... Nor do we have priests in the sense of people whom we pick out from among men so that in our name they may get in contact with the Godhead. Because our priest, who intercedes for us, is Christ. And since we are His Body we are all priests.”" (Source:Where do Rome and the Neo-Catechumenal Way Stand In 2006?)
Denigrate the "Real Presence" by calling it a "problem" as Carmen does.

Described as “an obsession as to whether Christ was in the bread and wine,” this problem was caused, says Carmen, by the theologians of the 16th Century, whose work she dismisses as “mental gymnastics with little biblical experience of where the Eucharist stems from.” So much for the theologians of Trent and the infallible dogmas of the Council of Trent! Carmen continues, letting us know in no certain terms where her doctrinal allegiance lies:“The mystery is centered in the Presence; the Protestants say this, Calvin says this. And the Catholic Church gets such an obsession over the Presence that for the Church the whole thing becomes the real Presence.”The NCW “Eucharist” is the perfect vehicle by which to give form to Kiko and Carmen’s liturgical agenda, an agenda based on a willful rejection of infallible Catholic doctrine that Catholics must believe for salvation. Jesus Christ is mentioned very often in the NCW Saturday night liturgy, but it is the men and women of the NCW communities who rule therein. In fact by the time one gets through the admonitions and the post-Gospel “sharing,” the distribution of the bread and wine seems like an afterthought." (Mark Alessio, former NCW seminarian and member for 7 years)

Believe it or not, this is a First Holy Communion. photo: Rorate-Caeli

Yes, you read that right. The founder of the NCM is agreeing with Calvin and the Protestants on the subject of the Real Presence. They wilfully reject infallible Catholic doctrine. This would explain why they have no qualms using a normal baked loaf (to Kiko's recipe - two parts white flour to one part wholemeal: very similar to what my bread machine churns out every morning) to celebrate "Eucharist" and have no worries about the crumbs scattered everywhere.

photo: http://neocatecumenali.blogspot.com/

While you were at it you might want to denigrate the priesthood further by removing the priest's communion from the "Banquet" and have him wait until everyone has been served then "eat the bread" at the same time as everyone else in a symbolic gesture of community.

How can this be described as Catholic? How can this be tolerated - and indeed, approved - when it's still virtually impossible to get TLM celebrated in many dioceses, despite Summorum Pontificum?

I suspect the answer is numbers: there are over 40000 Neo-Catechumenal communities world-wide. Each of these has 20-30 members. Assuming an average of 25 that would make 1 million members of the neocatechumenate world wide. The vast majority of these are converts or reverts, so "new" Catholics. Clearly the NCM is good for the balance sheet: but will they translate into members of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church or will they remain a sort of internal separated brethren, members of the "Church of Kiko and Carmen"?

Kiko has described the Neo-Catechumenal Way as being the fruit of the Second Vatican Council. I think it's fair to say that the success of the NCM is the result of the failure of mainstream Catholicism to reach out to souls hungry for contact with Our Lord, and that this failure can be directly attributed to the spiritual fallout from the "Spirit" of Vatican 2: relativism, lack of confidence, discarding of tradition, watering down the Faith, heterodoxy.

I have no axe to grind against individual members of the NCM, indeed I thought long and hard before writing this as there are many, many individuals in the NCM whom I hold in very high esteem as fundamentally decent people and exemplary Christians. I suspect that most of the ordinary members are attracted to the NCM because the movement has a confidence and an insistence on Truth that many ordinary Catholic parishes lack What worries me is that, by being told that they're learning "The Way" - defined as something separate from the Catechism of the Catholic Church - which sets them apart from "mainstream Catholics": they're being deprived of the full truth and the awesome beauty of the bloodless sacrifice of the Holy Mass. They're taught that mainstream Catholicism is tainted with pagan superstitions: the Protestant Truth Society couldn't come out with better anti-Catholic rhetoric than some of what Kiko has written.

As the former NCM seminarian puts it " The problem is that so many of the NCW members are men and women who had once been far away from the Church. The “Church of Kiko & Carmen” is either the only one they know, or the only one whose heads have spoken to them with fire and conviction. Thus, they believe that “the Way” is really and truly .... The Way. Period."

And that's what I think should set the alarm bells ringing.

Spot the difference

2012-01-14T23:03:00.000Z

...between this

and this:

Doing the hokey-cokey? Nope, they're praying. Honestly.

The first is a group of children dancing the hokey-cokey. Lots of fun in a theme-park or playground. Not really the sort of thing you associate with the Sacrifice on the Cross.

The second is, apparently - if rumours are to be believed, on the verge of becoming an accepted form of the sacred liturgy of the Catholic Church.

Apart from the costumes, I can't see much difference.

Twitch of the mantilla to Fr. John Boyle

Bohemian Catholic

2012-01-12T22:44:00.000Z

While this blog is on a bit of a hiatus (in part as I recover from being thrown from my horse and with a bruised tailbone can't sit comfortably for long enough to blog!) why not go and read LizzieBoo's story of an unconventional, but not so unusual, Catholic childhood... and her before and after story of reconversion: "My very own Groundhog Day". Stirring stuff.

before: "is this ok for church?"

ET VERBUM CARO FACTUM EST

2011-12-24T23:59:00.006Z

... et habitavit in nobis et vidimus gloriam ejus, gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre, plenum gratiae et veritatis

May God grant you all a happy, holy and peaceful Christmas.

I will remember all my readers (all five of you ;-) ) at Midnight Mass (solemn High Mass) tonight. (Thanks to automatic publishing I'll be singing carols when this goes live)...

God bless, Annie Elizabeth & family xxx

And the winning name...

2011-12-24T20:46:00.001Z

...for our lovely black brindle and white Bull Terrier pup is TREACLE!

For non-English readers (and those of you living north of Watford) Treacle is Cockney rhyming slang for "sweetheart"... As she's an Essex girl and one of her breeders is a very nice Cockney gent, the name seemed appropriate. Treacle = treacle tart = sweetheart.

...and she is!

Note the non-stop wagging tail!

Meeting the chickens... They're bigger than her - for now!

(That's it for dog posts, we can now resume regular programming)

Restoration, Declaration, Illumination...

2011-12-24T20:09:00.000Z

We bought outdoor Christmas lights for the first time last year - largely because I was delighted to find a Christian company making (shock!) Christian decorations for Christmas! I like to think that our nativity and star go some way to counter the cultural tide of flashing Santas, reindeer and "Winterval" type decorations..

If you're interested in getting some illuminated angels, stars, or a nativity of your own I heartily recommend Silent Lights - I have no connection with them, apart from being a very happy customer.

Mantilla mayhem

2011-12-07T00:51:00.000Z

Somehow, somewhere our family has managed to lose three mantillas at church in as many months. It's annoying and puzzling in equal measures. I lose my red leather gloves, they turn up in the lost and found box. But three mantillas -- zoop! -- disappeared forever. Or have they? It's sort of like a lacy version of Schrödinger's cat. Mac suggested that I check the spare mantilla drawer, but no luck there either. Yes, I did say Spare Mantilla Drawer. How cool is that? Does your church have one? Nyah-nyah.

And speaking of cool -- well, just check this out. A parish like ours is worth any number of self-vapourising mantillas: perhaps it's fueled by mantilla power. I may stock up on a few extras just in case...

Anathema sit!

2011-11-27T10:43:00.029Z

We will have a new family member joining our household on 10th December - a black-brindle English Bull Terrier bitch puppy (she'll look similar to - but, obviously even prettier than - the one on the left of the picture). We've waited a long time to have a dog join our family: I've been the retiscent one - as much as I love dogs I have my hands full with four (home educated) children, a teenage lodger/aupair, thirteen chickens, two rabbits, two cats, two fancy rats, six mice, two tanks of tropical fish, and a husband as well. But now I've relented - with my youngest growing out of his "puppylike phase", I think we're equipped to cope with another small needy creature in the house. We've been waiting for the right puppy from the right breeder for a while, and are very excited about our new furry family member... BUT... we can't agree on a name!

...in a household full of people with strong ideas (OK, the children come by it honestly and I'm sure this is my comeuppance for having been equally, erm, opinionated in my youth, obviously not at all now...) it's difficult to reach a consensus. What we want to avoid is a compromise with a name that no-one really likes. So I thought that I'd throw a few ideas out to my readers in cyberspace and see what comes back. Vote in the combox OR better yet, come up with a new idea. I'd love a catchy name that was somehow recussant Catholic - would be so suitable for an English Bull Terrier.

...Although local accents must be taken into account. When someone (only half jokingly) suggested "Thurible", I pointed out that in South East London dialect that would translate as "Furry Bawl" and you can imagine fellow dog walkers saying "I don't understand why that terrier's called "Furry Ball" cos she ain't furry or round". Equally, another favourite name, "Stella" fell at the first hurdle when I realised that bawling "Stella" across the dog walking fields would make me new friends among the drinking-tins-from-paper-bags-before-10am crowd....

So - our current list of names is:

Binky

Chess
Lux

Oxlea

Rosa

Treacle
Vita

What do you think? Please vote now!

Photo Credit: Cute Bull Terrier puppy photo with thanks from www.free-pet-wallpapers.com

"...how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties..."

2011-11-26T13:57:00.002Z

"Conception to birth, visualised" is a stunning use of MRI technology to show the development of the human baby. I was interested to note that the video's subtitles say "baby's first division" at 24h showing the initial cell division, not "embryo" or "clump of cells" or "blob" or other dehumanising euphemisms that we've become inured to. The video's creator, Alexander Tsiaras, Chief of Scientific Visualization in the department of Medicine at Yale University, seems almost overwhelmed by the miracle of developing human life. It is, he says, beyond any human imagining.

Indeed. Whilst the video was clearly not made with a pro-life agenda (it's the result of scientists enjoying the fruits of new technology) it's virtually impossible not to take a pro-life message as a given, particularly if you have any understanding of the science. What is clear here is that the miracle of human life is evident from the very first moments after conception; describing the moments before conception Tsiaras says "these two simple cells ... have this unbelievable machinery that will become the magic of you" then notes that at four weeks "[heart] cells are developing at one million cells per second".

It's rare to hear a high-profile scientist using words like "it's a mystery, it's magic, it's divinity..." and the video would would be worth watching for this alone, but the conception to birth imagery is so breathtakingly beautiful that it stands alone, needing no explanation. It makes a sobering contrast with recent stories about the new RCOG abortion/feticide guidelines and the tragic story of the Australian 32-week-gestation twins killed in utero (one by "accident" the other deliberately).

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you..."

2011-11-12T00:42:00.001Z

“Even at that early stage [moments after fertilization], the complexity of the living cell is so great that it is beyond our comprehension. It is a privilege to be allowed to protect and nurture it,”

- Dr. Hymie Gordon (d. 1995), Chief Medical Geneticist, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be

(Psalm 139)

Prayer to St. Raphael, Angel of Happy Meetings

2011-11-09T21:34:00.000Z

O Raphael, lead us towards those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us!

Raphael, Angel of Happy Meetings, lead us by the hand towards those we are looking for!

May all our movements, all their movements, be guided by your Light

and transfigured by your Joy.

Angel Guide of Tobias, lay the request we now address to you

at the feet of Him on whose unveiled Face you are privileged to gaze.

Lonely and tired, crushed by the separations and sorrows of earth,

we feel the need of calling to you and of pleading for the protection of your wings,

so that we may not be as strangers in the Province of Joy,

all ignorant of the concerns of our country.

Remember the weak, you who are strong--you whose home lies beyond the region of thunder,

in a land that is always peaceful, always serene,

and bright with the resplendent glory of God.

Amen.

Baby Raphael, gone back to God after 10 weeks in my womb,

pray for us your family who love you so very much, until we meet again,

under the gaze of our loving Father in heaven.

The biggest baby and toddler group imaginable

2011-11-02T13:15:00.000Z

That's how our much-loved parish priest described those innumerable tiny saints in Our Lady's care in his homily for the family Mass on the feast of All Saints yesterday. In addition to the children who have died, there are the babies who may have only lived for a few weeks, days or even hours, as well as so many tiny babies who went back to Our Lord long before birth, before their mothers ever had the chance to hold them, kiss them or stroke their cheek in sleep. What a beautiful image, and what a great comfort to those who have tiny saints watching over them in Heaven, safe under Our Lady's mantle.

The unimaginable joy of being united with God's love

2011-11-02T12:59:00.000Z

Many years ago I read a description of Purgatory as a cleansing process that allowed us to move from the darkness of sin to the brightness of God's love; that in a similar way to when we are momentarily blinded when going from a dark room into bright sunlight, the spiritual shock at going from the gloom of an earthly life stained with sin into the radiance of God's love would be unbearable to our soul, and that the cleansing of purgatory allowed us to repair, atone and prepare our soul for joyful union with God's love.

I'm no theologian and can't remember where I originally read this (I thought it was Saint Therese, but I haven't been able to find anything even close in her writings today) but it helped me understand the point of Purgatory beyond the simply punitive.

Pray for the Holy Souls - and if you can, visit a cemetery between 1 and 8 November and pray for the dead, thereby gaining a plenary indulgence which some soul in Purgatory will be - literally - eternally grateful for.

Is this worth celebrating? Not really, but the re-conversion of England certainly would be

2011-10-28T22:27:00.001+01:00

photo: Swanson Media

So in around four years the Act of Settlement (1701) will have been re-written and a Catholic will be able to marry the heir to the throne in England. Is this something worth celebrating? I asked my two daughters - 4 and 7 - what they thought, as it had a greater chance of affecting their lives than mine. My seven year old looked pensive for a moment and said "well, I suppose if the Catholic person who married the person who would be King could convert the King and he could convert the country then that might be a good thing, but otherwise I don't think that it really matters..."

She has a point. For a Catholic to marry the heir to the throne (who will henceforth be the oldest child, rather than the oldest son) s/he would almost certainly have to marry in the Church of England as s/he would be marrying the future "Defender of the Faith" and head of that sect. I'm not completely clear on this, but wouldn't that be an invalid marriage for a Catholic? And if you're a Catholic willing to participate in an invalid marriage then, surely, you're not that bound to your faith? So is today's news that a Catholic will soon be able to marry the heir to the throne, or that a lapsed / ex- / lukewarm Catholic will be able to marry the heir to the throne? Unless, of course, as my seven-year-old speculated, the Catholic may have ulterior motives and manage to convert the monarch and return England to her earlier and happier state as Mary's Dowry...

I suppose the fact that a piece of anti-Catholic discrimination dating back to the reign of William III will be removed from the statute books can only be considered a good thing. Until today's announcement takes effect, a satanist, an animist, an atheist or a Moonie can marry the heir to the throne, but a Catholic is forbidden to by law. Clearly this is no more than a symptom of the deep-seated Catholophobia from which Britain suffers. Weirdly, Catholicism is seen as the foreign interloper rather than the made-it-up-as-we-go-along strains of Protestantism that are widely considered to be more "native", even by thinking, educated people. It's as though Merrie Olde England only existed in legend before the Tudor period, as though England was simply waiting to be "liberated" from that foreign Catholicism by the hodge-podge of Luther and Calvin's ideas that formed and informed the various protestant sects that are now seen as "truly British". The only problem is that there wasn't much, er, British about either Calvin or Luther... In fact they were an awful lot less British than the native Catholic faith that had flourished for almost a thousand years and that these sects sought to supplant.

In fact here's a thought - the British Isles have been Catholic for much more of their history than they have been protestant: it isn't the Catholic faith that's the foreign upstart! Pray for the re-conversion of England and her neighbours!

O Mary! O Mother! Reign o'er us once more,

Be England thy Dowry as in days of yore.

Ave Verum Corpus

2011-10-25T22:47:00.001+01:00

We've been singing the Elgar version in our church choir recently, and it's been playing repeatedly in my head for the past fortnight, providing no little comfort in a rather difficult period.

I've also been wondering whether any sublimely beautiful music has been written by a non-believer. Is it possible to create music (or art) that aspires to the sublime without a belief in God? I doubt it.

For now just enjoy this version from the Hereford Cathedral Choir. Yes, they should give us back our cathedral, but it's a jolly good choir and sings the Ave Verum Corpus at a decent speed: it's amazing how many dirge-like recordings of it there are on YouTube.

And if that inspires you, here's a PDF of the music:

Free sheet music

Elgar, Edward
Ave Verum, Op. 1, No. 2 (Op. 1, No. 2)
+ MIDIChoral SATB, Organ
Mass; Choir; Sacred

The only thing worse than a gypsy is a Catholic gypsy...

2011-10-16T01:26:00.001+01:00

French Gypsies at Lourdes: Catholicism is part of their identity even though they may feel excluded from the mainstream Church (photo: Iglisia Descalza)

...at least that appears to be the gist of a rather bizarre article by Germaine Greer in Saturday's Telegraph. It's an oddly written opinion piece that veers from extreme nimbyism at having travellers living in her village to evoking warm fuzzy images of "nomadic peoples". One of the worst things about the travellers that we have here in the UK, the article suggests, is that they're Catholic. My comments are in bold.

How diverse are British nomads? They include English Romanichal and New Age Travellers and Roma refugees from eastern Europe, but the largest group is the Irish Travellers. These are not only Irish; they are also Roman Catholic. This is not the same as being simply Irish Catholic (we can, apparently, tolerate "cultural Catholics" as they're no different from the rest of us) : the travellers are more Catholic than other Irishmen and women (Ack! More Catholic! Than the Irish! As in they might actually BE Catholic). Traveller women have no sex before marriage (Oh the horror! And how bad for the contraceptive/abortion industry: think of the economy!) , marry young within the community (This is a problem? Why?), and bear more children than any other women in Europe (I say hooray for them! Germaine clearly sees this as A Bad Thing).
The highest value in traveller society is the family (what's wrong with that?), and the honour of the family resides in its women (wasn't it Archbishop Fulton Sheen that said that the value of a society can be measured by its womenfolk? So the travellers are in good company)....
Prolonged contact with the more relaxed mores of the host community carries a high risk for traveller families, who dread their children becoming involved in under-age drinking, experimentation with drugs and casual sex. (That would be true of many of us who don't want our children to adopt the normative behavior of the sewer; I'm with the travellers here as are most parents I know). When travellers are housed by local authorities it is invariably in the kinds of housing estates where all these are rife (well a caravan in a field looks like a good option then, doesn't it?)

Greer gives some anecdotal evidence which largely amounts to Why She Does Not Like Travellers But Is Too Liberal to Say So. She relates feeling "uneasy" when visiting a traveller site:

One day an official letter for a Mr King was delivered at my house, and I took the opportunity to visit the encampment. I drove past the piles of rubbish which were all we neighbours got to see and found myself in a compound swept clear of every speck of mud, surrounded by caravans that sparkled in the afternoon sun. The only people I saw were children, who formed a solid phalanx between me and the caravans.
“Does Mr King live here?’ I asked.
The children did not respond. Their faces were closed and blank. I showed them the letter and asked if I should leave it with them. They neither moved nor spoke.
There was something familiar about the whole situation, the size and shape of the compound overlooked by the invisible mothers in their caravans and the implacable mien of the guardian children. For a while I couldn’t place it and then I realised that I could have been in a Rajasthani village.

Oooh, not a Rajasthani village, the sort of place where people have better things to do than read ~~tripe~~ books by Germaine Greer. And what's with the "invisible mothers in their caravans" - how unbelievably patronising! How denigrating of motherhood. How does she know that they aren't all at the supermarket, or enjoying a cup of tea and a laugh while looking after their babies, or happily making their family's lunch. Should they have dropped everything and rushed out to greet the important feminist academic? Or perhaps they should all be at work, their babies in second rate substitute childcare. As for the "implacable guardian children", well, I reckon that Germaine doesn't have a lot of contact with children. Round our way she'd likely find herself escorted by a phalanx of stony-faced warriors, and would count herself lucky if she wasn't tied to a tree "Just-William" style if she let herself onto our land without invitation. Face it, Germaine, an elderly scary lady brandishing an envelope and speaking in clipped antipodean tones is hardly going to put a group of children at their ease. Why, who knows, maybe they'd read your books and were too scared to speak.

Germaine Greer argued in Sex and Destiny (1985) that the nuclear family was a bad environment in which to raise children. Her criticism of British/Irish Travellers appears to be rooted in a morbid distrust of the natural family augmented by a profound anti-Catholicism. In this article she gives a series of unsubstantiated "facts" (e.g. "traveller women have twice the rate of miscarriage as the UK average" - this without being able to specify how many travellers are in the UK) pointing the the "obvious" conclusion that it would be in the travellers' own best interests to be brought into the mainstream. Then the children could be sexualised at a young age, the babies born out of wedlock, the mothers could all go out to work full-time, families could break down and they'd be just like the dysfunctional moral sewer of mainstream British society . You'd like that, wouldn't you, Germaine? That the Travellers value family, chastity and children irritates you no end. I'm sorry to tell you that that's exactly what some of us admire in them; that and the fact that they -- and we -- will out breed your sterile feminist intelligentsia with joy and alacrity. And that's the real reason that you're worried, isn't it?

.

Science and theology

2011-10-12T13:14:00.000+01:00

Superb letter in today's Irish Times (12/10/11) by somebody called Maolsheachlann O Ceallaigh who appears at one point to have published a blog called "The Irish Chestertonian". An exerpt from today's letter below:

"The doyen of modern atheism, Richard Dawkins, has written that “the universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
I suggest that such a response can only come from someone spectacularly tone-deaf to the music of existence. Mankind’s craving for ultimate truth goes deeper than can be satisfied by any scientific explanation of empirical facts (which simply pushes the explanation back one more stage to some mysterious “laws of nature”); as St Augustine wrote, “our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee.”

The rest of the letter's worth a read too. Unfortunately the way the Irish Times webpage is set up means that it is not possible to link to an individual letter, so by tomorrow the link will be out of date.

Nothing under the Sun is new....

2011-10-11T22:58:00.000+01:00

"The more they called themselves philosophers the more stupid they grew"

Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.

These words from Ecclesiastes 1:10 (Douay Rheims) came to mind as I listened to the reading from St Paul's letter to the Romans in this morning's N.O. Mass. It is easy to assume that the sarcasm and know-it-all dismissiveness of the likes of Richard Dawkins and Philip Pullman are a contemporary phenomena. That this attitude is a reflection of late 20thC/early 21stC disaffection with religion, fetishisation of knowledge and surrender to concupiscence. It's good to be reminded that the clever-clogs brigade has always existed: believing that they are too intelligent for God, mocking the faithful.

The anger of God is being revealed from heaven against all the impiety and depravity of men who keep truth imprisoned in their wickedness... such people are without excuse: they knew God and yet refused to honour him as God or to thank him; instead, they made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened. The more they called themselves philosophers the more stupid they grew, until they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a worthless imitation...That is why God left them to their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonour their own bodies, since they have given up divine truth for a lie... (Romans 1:16-25 passim)

I think that the opening words of today's reading - "I am not ashamed of the Good News: it is the power of God saving all who have faith... as scripture says: The upright man finds life through faith" set the tone for the Church Militant today... as they did 2000 years ago.

Hurrah for Sir Nicholas Windsor! Queen's cousin stands up for human life

2011-10-10T17:41:00.000+01:00

"The world doesn't have a right to abortion" writes Lord Nicholas Windsor, the Queen's cousin and a Catholic convert, in today's Daily Telegraph.

Lord Windsor's writes that his robust defense of the right to life comes on the day that

an important project is launched today in the House of Lords by parliamentarians and experts, as it was last week in the United Nations General Assembly and around the world.
The aim of this, based on a document called the San José Articles, is to stop the practice we've been talking about from being foisted on to countries that don't want it. The Articles aim to show that there is no "right to abortion" to be found in international law that would oblige such countries to "conform, or else". This is in spite of the UN and other agencies' claims to the contrary.
Human rights lawyers of a certain stamp around the world are taking the same pro-abortion line, manipulating the current provisions of international law. Frankly, officials and politicians in developing countries are being bullied into writing such a right to abortion into their domestic law. This project aims to help them to fight back.

This campaign is one to watch and support. And no prizes for guessing who my favourite member of the Royal family is!

"Ignore science, this is about opinions"

2011-10-05T22:57:00.001+01:00

That's what representatives of Planned Parenthood told American university students at a debate in Colorado on 20 October 2010. Anyone with a basic understanding of human biology would find it difficult to argue a pro-abortion stance using science, but I've never before heard someone say "just ignore the science. This isn't about science, it's a matter of opinion". Oh, and isn't it a bit scary that the brightest and best that Planned Parenthood could put together for the debate think that a baby's heart starts beating at 24 weeks?! Yes, weeks!

Watch the video with commentary on Lifesite News ; a video of the whole debate, including the impressive pro-life arguments is on the EternityImpact website.

Evidence is one of the things that will win minds and hearts in this debate. But the pro-life movement needs foot soldiers and prayers as well. If you're near London, please consider signing for an hour praying at the 40 Days for Life vigil at Bedford Square. Details and how to sign up are on the 40 Days for Life London website (click on "vigil schedule" link at top of page).

A Michaelmas miscellany

2011-09-29T01:07:00.000+01:00

Holy Michael the Archangel is one of our family's favourite saints: the clue's in the blog title, really. St Michael is the patron saint of this blog. We have pictures of him in several places in the house which are comforting reminders that his aid can be invoked in time of need. We pray the "Saint Michael" prayer at least twice daily, and I like to think of Saint Michael poised to help us in our hour of need. He's traditionally been invoked in times of war, is the champion of warriors (including the spiritual kind, I have no doubt) and is usually pictured carrying the scales of judgement and often simultaneously casting Satan down into Hell.

Until I returned to the Church, "Michaelmas" didn't really mean much to me. I knew that it was the name of the first term at Cambridge (and the other place, apparently as well) but assumed that this was down to an old and long forgotten English folk tradition. Basically, I didn't have a clue. (That's where going to a heterodox Catholic school in the 1970s will get you!)

Later on I learned that St Michael is patron of the Church, especially called upon in times of great need or crisis; he is also the patron saint of the dying, of the holy souls in purgatory, of the Jewish nation, sick people, mariners, and grocers. He is the Captain of the Heavenly Host, the fearless warrior angel who banished Lucifer to the depths of Hell; for this he has been known as the "love that conquers pride".

Years later, I realised that Michaelmas wasn't just the feast of St Michael, but also of all the angels: the other two archangels mentioned in the canonical scriptures are Sts Gabriel and Raphael. No other angels are mentioned by name in the Bible.

Michaelmas is bound up with folk traditions: one of the most well known is that on his eviction from Heaven, the Devil supposedly landed in a bramble patch and spat upon the berries in his anger. This is why it's said that blackberries are no good after 29 September, and why blackberry pie is traditionally eaten on this day (Quick! Use them up before the Devil gets them!). Goose is the meat traditionally eaten at Michaelmas in Britain, but I think that this may be a protestant addition as it supposedly dates back to Queen Elizabeth hearing the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada whilst eating goose, and declared that goose should always be eaten on Michaelmas Day. Perhaps she was eating what was already a traditional meal for the day - does anybody know?

The Benedictine monastery at Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy was built by St. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, and according to the legend, by direct command of the Archangel Michael himself, who appeared to the Bishop in a dream on three separate occasions. Some versions of the story claim that the bishop ignored the Archangel's repeated requests until St Michael burned a hole in the Aubert's skull with his finger. Ignore an Archangel's request at your peril!

If you have a waffle iron or waffle maker you might like to try this French recipe for "St Michael's Waffles". Obviously to keep it authentic you'll want to make a blackberry syrup to eat them with. Failing that, fresh blackberries (picked before today's feast) and whipped cream would be delicious as well.

GAUFRES

(St. Michael's Waffles)

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/3 cups flour

3/4-1 cup milk

4 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Blend eggs and sugar. Add flour and milk alternately. Beat hard. Add butter and vanilla. The mixture is thin and should spread evenly on the preheated iron. If Gaufres tend to stick, butter both sides of the iron. Serve hot or cold. (thanks to Catholic Cuisine for the recipe)

St Michael's name is invoked four times in the Bible (all texts in full below): twice in the book of Daniel 10:13 and 12); IN the Epistle of Saint Jude where the Jewish tradition of a battle between Satan and Saint Michael over the body of Moses is alluded to (Satan attempted to dupe the Jewish people into the sin of hero-worship by disclosing Moses's tomb to them; Saint Michael had previously concealed the tomb to avoid subjecting the Jewish people to this temptation); and, probably most well known, in the book of the Apocalypse when Saint Michael and his army of angels vanquish Satan and his demons - the battle at the end of time reflecting the battle at the beginning of time. Interestingly Jesus describes the fall of Satan from Heaven in Luke 10:18: "And he said to them: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven". Lucifer's fall from grace is described in Isaiah 14.

Daniel 10:13 But the prince of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me one and twenty days: and behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I remained there by the king of the Persians. (Princeps autem regni Persarum restitit mihi viginti et uno diebus : et ecce Michaël, unus de principibus primis, venit in adjutorium meum, et ego remansi ibi juxta regem Persarum. )

Daniel 12: But at that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who stands for the children of your people: and a time shall come, such as never was from the time that nations began, even until that time. And at that time shall your people be saved, every one that shall be found written in the book. ( In tempore autem illo consurget Michaël princeps magnus, qui stat pro filiis populi tui : et veniet tempus quale non fuit ab eo ex quo gentes esse cœperunt usque ad tempus illud. Et in tempore illo salvabitur populus tuus, omnis qui inventus fuerit scriptus in libro.)

Jude: ...When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he dared not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command you.(Cum Michaël Archangelus cum diabolo disputans altercaretur de Moysi corpore, non est ausus judicium inferre blasphemiæ : sed dixit : Imperet tibi Dominus. )

Revelation 12:7 And there was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they prevailed not: neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduces the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth: and his angels were thrown down with him.(Et factum est prælium magnum in cælo : Michaël et angeli ejus præliabantur cum dracone, et draco pugnabat, et angeli ejus: 8 et non valuerunt, neque locus inventus est eorum amplius in cælo)

The Catholic Encyclopedia also says " According to the Fathers there is often question of St. Michael in Scripture where his name is not mentioned. They say he was the cherub who stood at the gate of paradise, "to keep the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24), the angel through whom God published the Decalogue to his chosen people, the angel who stood in the way against Balaam (Numbers 22:22 sqq.), the angel who routed the army of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:35)."

There are lots of recipes for St Michael's Bannock on the internet -- Bannock is a cakey bread traditionally eaten in Ireland and Scotland. Here's one that's easy and sounds tasty (we haven't tested it yet) from Our house of joyful noise

St. Michael’s Bannock

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Mix together:
2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Cut in 2 tablespoons butter (not margarine)
1 cup buttermilk or yogurt
handful of raisins or currants
On a floured surface, knead the dough until smooth, then pat into an 8 inch round loaf, and bake on a greased baking tray for 40 minutes... and enjoy!

... I think all this post is missing is the obvious:

Holy Michael, the Archangel,

defend us in our day of battle.

Be our safeguard

against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;

and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,

by the power of God

thrust down into hell

Satan and all evil spirits

who wander through the world

for the ruin of souls.

Amen.

Sáncte Míchael Archángele,

defénde nos in proélio,

cóntra nequítiam et insídias diáboli ésto præsídium.

Ímperet ílli Déus, súpplices deprecámur:

tuque, prínceps milítiæ cæléstis,

Sátanam aliósque spíritus malígnos,

qui ad perditiónem animárum pervagántur in múndo,

divína virtúte, in inférnum detrúde.

Ámen

Sancte Michael Archangele - defénde nos in proélio - Ora pro nobis!

Toddler catechism fail

2011-09-26T17:41:00.004+01:00

We've been using the Baltimore Catechism at home with the children: it's so simple, and straightforward that even the youngest one picks up bits and pieces. As he's only two, we focus on the easy stuff like "Who made you? / God made you" and I thought that things were going well in his little head until...

...yesterday evening he toddled in from the garden with a smeared and dirty face, evidence of a feast in the blackberry bushes. "How did your face get so dirty?" I asked as I wiped his cheeks. The little brows furrowed for a moment, then he suddenly beamed and announced with the certainty of one who has learned his lesson well: "God make my face so dirty!"

I guess we still have some way to go...

Every life has value

2011-09-24T21:02:00.000+01:00

Twitch of the mantilla to Fiorella @ Monstrous Regiment of Women for this utterly inspirational video.

I'd love to know more about this young man's family. After watching this video I couldn't help but think about the baby at the centre of the successful $4.5 million dollar "wrongful birth" lawsuit in Florida. That baby was born with no arms and only one leg; his parents sued as had the ultrasounds been read correctly they would have aborted the baby because of his disabilities.

Given the current moral and ethical climate today, I wonder whether Nick Vujicic would have been allowed to live, or whether his parents would have had to fight his corner against medical "advice".

I think this video should be shared widely -- it's a wonderful rebuttal to the "quality of life" arguments put forward for aborting disabled babies. Equally importantly, I think that lack of familiarity with disabled people creates an environment where fear of the unknown panics mothers into aborting children with even minor disabilities. Seeing a person like Nick Vujicic living a happy, fulfilling life goes some way to redress the balance. Please share this, and show it to your children.

Friday Menu ideas 2

2011-09-23T22:11:00.000+01:00

No photo this time, I'm afraid, but a blissfully simple, very tasty meat-free meal that's scalable from a singleton portion to an extended family. I'm not even going to give weights and measures - just use common sense and make enough to satisfy however many you need to feed... This is also a great fall back as it's a store-cupboard recipe - you can keep everything (except the potatoes) on hand for when you need them. It comes from an American friend of mine: I think that Americans are really good at simple, tasty recipes of this kind. I used to be somewhat snooty about this sort of meal - made from tins from the larder; now I'm grateful for the time saved on days when I'd rather be doing something fun with my children than spending hours in the kitchen. I usually make this with milk or cream, but to get the full benefit of the American store-cupboard cooking it's best made with cream of mushroom soup.

Easy Tuna-fish pie

Ingredients:
tinned tuna (drained)
sweetcorn (tinned or frozen; drained if tinned)
potatoes (mashed - with milk, butter, salt and pepper -- or however you like them).
cream of mushroom soup (tin) - OR milk or cream
optional - grated cheese

Mix tuna, sweetcorn and soup (or milk/cream) in the bottom of a baking dish.
Top with mashed potato.
Sprinkle grated cheese on top, if you like that sort of thing.
Bake at a sensible temperature (say Gas mk 4 / 180C / 350F) for 20-30 minutes.
Enjoy with steamed green beans on the side, or a salad.

Ban on "street prayer" fuels attack on pro-lifers

2011-09-22T08:17:00.002+01:00

Photo Anne Kerjean

A French commentator has claimed that the recent French ban on "street prayer" was a critical factor last Saturday's attack on a peaceful pro-life protest in Paris. More than 200 pro-abortion militants from the Partie de Gauche attacked a small group of pro-life advocates who were protesting peacefully and legally outside a hospital that has recently resumed performing abortions (see the full story here). The pro-lifers, from SOS Tout-petits had to be protected by police who were forced to charge to leftist militants on two occasions in order to protect the group of seven pro-lifers praying the Rosary. The militants mocked the pro-life protesters, shouted blasphemous slogans, insulted the Blessed Virgin Mary and slandered the Catholic Church. They physically and verbally attacked protesters on several occasions; "it was pure hatred" said a witness.

Eyewitness and photographer Anne Kerjean, writing on Nephtar et Nephtali, points out that the leftists have never before taken the risk of mounting a counter-demonstration until the ban on street prayers came into force. This view is supported by the call to action on the Partie de Gauche website which refers to SOS-Tout-petits as "Catholic fundamentalists" and, with reference to the proposed Rosary protest, declares that "the Partie Gauche reminds you that religion has no right to interfere in our secular republic and denounces the fundamentalists who attack women's rights." Anne Kerjean writes that within a day of the ban on street prayer legislation, the Partie Gauche "demonstrated their cowardice by physically and verbally attacking a small group of men and women who were, thankfully, well protected by numerous policemen".

She had intended to join the protest, but lost her way and, arriving late, was bewildered to find a large and belligerently aggressive crowd shouting pro-abortion and anti-Catholic slogans where she had expected to find a small, quiet group praying the rosary. Blending into the crowd she took photos, trying get a record of this unexpected event. As she came through the crowd she spotted a line of police officers in riot gear and realised that behind them were seven pro-lifers, quietly praying the Rosary. they looked frightened, and she exchanged glances and smiles of recognition with them. Unfortunately this gave her away as one of the "enemy" and she found herself physically attacked by leftists demanding that she give them her camera; she reports that she was grabbed, pushed and hit, and had several people trying to take her camera and backpack from her while screaming abuse. The police intervened and put her in the "safe zone" with the pro-life protesters; she was later escorted to safety alone by the police.She has put her photos of the event online, and has subsequently been inundated by abuse and threats from members of the Partie Gauche.

Another witness, Jean Vincent at Lesalonbeige, reports that there was originally a larger group of pro-life protesters but that they were split up by aggressive action by the Partie Gauche, leaving the group of seven "stranded" against the hospital railings - cornered (which is why they needed police protection). This second group were (deliberately) prevented from joining the rest of the pro-life group by the Partie Gauche extremists, but managed were to pray the rosary unimpeded until the 4th decade when they were pelted with eggs by the pro-abortion group which then attacked them from two sides. The police were confused by the tactic, and the protesters were outnumbered more than 5 to 1. The priest who was leading the Rosary and several others were assaulted, thrown to the ground and beaten.
"It is one thing to disagree" writes Jean Vincent, "but to attack peaceful people, praying the Rosary, with a ratio of five to one is shameful".

Anne Kerjean notes that the groups that had a "call to action" against the Rosary protest included Alternative libertaire, L es marxistes révolutionnaires, Le parti de gauche, L'Union Syndicale Solidaire, Le front de gauche, and Les anarchistes de Montreuil -- or as she puts it wryly "...feminists, transexuals, homosexuals ... and not there for a Techno-Parade -- they were all there for us!"

We saw extraordinary pictures recently from Madrid of warped protesters verbally attacking children praying in the public arena; last Saturday in Paris it seems that the public recitation of the Rosary was as much a motivator to the pro-abortion rainbow coalition as anything else. I've not commented until now on the French law banning street prayer because I've not been sure how I've felt about it. on one hand I sympathise with those who do not want roads provocatively taken over by Muslims on Friday afternoons: this is the supposed motivation behind the legislation. On the other hand, Christine at Laudem Gloriae makes the apt point that the new law could be just as easily applied to a Eucharistic procession or the Paris-Chartres pilgrimage. I think that it's essential that prayer remains in the public sphere, that prayer doesn't become something invisible, something that only happens behind closed doors between consenting adults. So what can we, the average pewsitter, do about this? Here are a few ideas: say grace when you're out in public. No, it isn't rude or weird or antisocial. Nobody bats an eyelid when people raise a glass of wine in a toast; how much more important is making the sign of the cross, saying grace, and then making the sign of the cross again?! Over the years our family has grown in boldness with this: we used to only say grace if we were in a semi-public space -- having a picnic for example. Then we started saying it in restaurants, and now we say it everywhere. Nobody has ever taken offense -- if we're in a home where grace isn't said, we'll say "we usually say grace at home before a meal, do you mind if we do the same here?" Nobody has ever minded. My husband and I say grace before our meal when we eat out together; we don't flaunt it, but nor do we hide it. We just say it. OK, perhaps somebody somewhere will think we're a bit odd, but more importantly it's a witness to our Faith, to Our Lord, and is a small sacrifice to make for all the good things that we've been given.

I was recently at the Treasures of Heaven exhibition at the British Museum with a small group of families on a tour led by a priest. As there are many relics, including more than one relic of the True Cross, we were reminded that these are objects worthy of veneration, not simply "exhibits". Accordingly the priest led us all in adoration of the relic of the True Cross. It was humbling and powerful to kneel and pray in that secular space. I suspect that some people viewing the exhibition might have been a little taken aback, but I'd be surprised if anyone had been offended. I don't know if I would have had the courage to do that if I'd been at the exhibition on my own, but I felt that kneeling and praying before a relic of the cross on which Our Lord suffered and died provided both a powerful witness whilst buttressing my faith.

Public prayer can be awkward whether you're used to it or not. Human beings have a natural fear of ridicule, of looking silly, of contempt by our fellow humans. But here's a thought to bolster your courage: look at the photo at the top of this page. Next time you feel sheepish about saying grace in Starbucks or Pizza Express, just think about the seven frail elderly people praying the Rosary surrounded by a violent and baying mob. A few funny looks isn't much to put up with really, is it?

Neonatologist: fight against abortion reflects end of humankind

2011-09-21T22:34:00.000+01:00

A French neonatologist involved in the pro-life movement has commented that the fight against abortion is “eschatological,”, that is, a reflection of the end of the world, the destruction of mankind. LifeSite News reports Dr. Xavier Dor's comments which followed violent attacks by pro-abortion counter-protesters on a legal and peaceful pro-life protest outside a Paris Hospital which has recently re-started performing abortions. The pro-life protesters had to be defended by the police who were forced to charge the counter-protesters twice in order to prevent them harming the pro-life group. The pro-lifers, a group called, SOS Tout-petits (SOS Tiny-ones), managed to pray a complete Rosary under police protection before being escorted away by the police for their own protection.

Dr Dor commented that the well organised and violent reaction to his group's protest shows how seriously the power of prayer is taken, even when only a few people gather to pray the Rosary for the victims of abortion - babies and mothers - as well as for those who participate in this evil. Apparently there have been no violent reactions to pro-life demonstrations by SOS Tout-petits in the last 12 years, but Dr Dor fears that things are changing.

His comments remind me of what Mary Wakefield wrote in the Spectator a couple of weeks ago about the change in social attitudes towards abortion : "that abortion is not just a necessary evil, but a jolly good thing. That being pro-choice no longer means just accepting that a woman has a right to decide, but that abortion must be celebrated and all doubters deemed religious nut jobs". This sort of attitude gives protesters a perverse permission to attack pro-life demonstrations as the pro-lifers are seen as "beyond the pale", expressing socially unacceptable opinions. The debate about abortion is changing - the pro-abortion lobby is finding it harder to make any argument based on logic or science (there aren't any), and has to resort to subjective "rights" and "choices". This makes the pro-abortion reaction "personal" and emotional. I hope and pray that we do not see scenes like those in Paris here in London. Given the current disproportionate bias against Christian belief in the public sphere, I wonder whether our police would protect the legal pro-life protesters or see them as trouble-makers and ask them to move on?

I never thought I'd like a bouncy-castle church...

2011-09-20T16:38:00.000+01:00

...but this inflatable church, made in Poland to be used in Russia is absolutely brilliant! Father Krzysztof Kowal the Catholic parish priest of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the far East of Russia had requested permission to build a Catholic church in the area but had been turned down repeatedly by the uncooperative local government. A novel solution was proposed by a Polish friend, Robert Wojcik, whose usual business is building inflatable toys for children in Kolobrzeg, Poland. Wojeck created an inflatable gothic-style chapel, weighing 100 pounds and easily transportable. Being a temporary structure and inflatable means that Fr. Kowal can dodge the planning restrictions that have thus far thwarted his efforts. The inflatable chapel will be the first Catholic church on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

"This is a real Gothic structure which stirs a lot of interest. Many people are unaware that there is a Catholic priest in the city, as there is no real Catholic church; and when we get together at home people think we are some kind of a sect," the priest said. Before the arrival of the inflatable church local Catholics gathered in homes, hotel rooms or outdoors near rivers or lakes for Mass. Because the inflatable chapel is portable Fr. Kowal will be able to move it to suit the needs of his congregation in the winter months when the weather is often -40'C. I can only guess that there aren't many Catholics in the region, as the inflatable church appears to be tiny.

Clearly this isn't an ideal scenario - you can only imagine the potential for abuse in the wrong environment - but the various news reports about this consistently point to a local government unwilling to allow the construction of a Catholic church, simply because it is a Catholic church. This isn't an unusual situation in Russia -- two days before the inflatable chapel arrived in Kamchatka, a chapel boat carrying the relics of eight saints began a voyage down the Volga in an attempt to reach communities where there is no church. The chapel boat is an ecumenical project between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church and carries the relics of John the Baptist, Anne, Bartholomew the Apostle, the martyrs Stephen and Lawrence, George, John Chrysostom and Cyril, the missionary to the Slav people, all of whom are important to both Churches. The relics are a gift from the Catholic Church to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the boat has been paid for by Aid to the Church in Need who help the persecuted church with both practical and spiritual aid. Help them to help priests like Father Kowal.

Hopefully the publicity generated by this story - and by Father Kowal's novel solution to bureaucratic intransigence - will encourage the authorities to allow the construction of a dignified, permanent church for the Catholics of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Things could be much worse -- and much more expensive: an inflatable church might not be your cup of tea, but at least it looks like a church unlike this

or, closer to home, this.

Photo Credits: AsiaNews.it (inflatable church), and Wikipedia (Liverpool and LA Cathedrals)

Who says traditional habits aren't cool?

2011-09-16T22:30:00.000+01:00

OSB: The original hoodies

Photo: BroDavidOSB

We've had a really nice Benedictine Brother visiting our parish recently, much to the interest of my eldest son who is 9. After Mass this morning I reminded my son -- as always -- that it's anti-social to walk around with the hood of his jumper worn up.

"Sorry mum, you can't ask me to put my hood down any more..." was his reply "...I'm practising to be a Benedictine."

Indeed!

Friday Menu ideas 1

2011-09-16T21:56:00.001+01:00

I'm delighted by the reestablishment of the Friday penance. Although we've been observing the traditional meatless Friday since the children were small only a few Catholic families that we're friends with have done the same which has lead to comments ranging from "ooooh, aren't you good" (not particularly, actually, but we do make an effort to do the penance) to "isn't that a bit old fashioned" (your point is?) and "my Granny used to do that". Now we're not the only Friday fisheaters on the block, and I'm really glad -- not because the silly comments will cease, but because my children will see their friends doing as we've always done which will reaffirm and confirm a small part of their Catholic identity.

Given how expensive a lot of fish is, and how gloriously tasty a good vegetarian Indian take-away can be, we've added a few other rules over the years. We try to keep things simple, modest and inexpensive on Fridays in addition to cutting out meat, although as I've had to point out to one of my sons, this doesn't mean that we aren't allowed to enjoy our food ("Mum, this soup is too tasty for a Friday!" Oh dear!)

I'm going to try to share a few easy Friday meal ideas over the next weeks -- take them or leave them, change them or adapt them. The best recipes are the ones that you try and tweak to make your own. Bon appétit!

Spinach Soup (it's a meal in itself with some good bread).
(serves 10 as main meal - reduce proportions for smaller number or save the rest: it freezes beautifully):

Ingredients:
1 kg frozen spinach
500g onions
6 med/lg sized potatoes peeled and quartered
6 crushed garlic cloves (or to taste - we all like Garlic)
pepper
salt *or* Marigold vegetable stock powder
glug of olive oil

Sweat onions and garlic in olive oil until soft in large casserole, then add potatoes and cover with water (approx 2l). Simmer for 20 minutes until potatoes coming apart. Add spinach - cook for 4-5 minutes, gentle simmer. If using frozen spinach, stick it straight into the pot (don't bother to defrost) add a few minutes cooking time. Add salt and pepper to taste. Or add pepper and Marigold vegetable stock powder to taste.

If you have a stick blender (hand blender) whizz up the soup until it is smooth. Otherwise do the same with a potato masher. It's thick, tasty and satisfying and, unbelievably, children (even sceptical visiting ones) love it.

Speedy method for cheats: buy your spinach, onions and garlic pre-chopped and frozen (Waitrose or Sainsbury's both do decent chopped onions and garlic). If you keep these in the freezer you'll have a potential meal ready with the addition of a few potatoes.

Cost for 10 people: less than £5; considerably less if you buy your potatoes at Lidl, chop your own onions and garlic and use frozen spinach. Practically free if you grow the stuff yourself.
.

A tale of two murders: where the logic of abortion leads

2011-09-15T11:36:00.003+01:00

Dead seals: not as shocking as dead babies

Two news stories about murder caught my eye this week, both in western Canada. One was, thankfully, a non-murder -- the abduction of a young child from his home in the middle of the night -- everyone feared the worst, but he was returned unharmed to the family home. The other case was that of a newborn, strangled after birth by his mother, and his body dumped over a neighbour's fence. This, as reported by Lifesite News, was also a non-murder, at least according to the judge who downgraded the mother's sentence from Infanticide (4 years) to a suspended sentence last Friday in the Alberta Court of Appeal. The sentence had already been downgraded from murder (with a maximum life sentence) to Infanticide (with a maximum of five years in jail) last May. The most recent downgrading of the sentence means that the mother will serve a maximum of sixteen days in jail for the crime of disposing of her baby's body by dumping it over a fence, but no punishment at all for the murder itself.

The judge, Justice Joanne Veit of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, explained that the logic behind this relates to Canada's lack of abortion laws which, she said, reflects that "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support," and went on to say that "Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant's death, especially at the hands of the infant's mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother."

Ahhhh. So this is basically just a late term abortion then? And that makes it OK. And abortion is a "less than ideal solution"? A solution for whom? And "less than ideal" for whom?

You'd imagine that this shocking case would be all over the Canadian media, and that there might even be a debate about whether or not abortion and infanticide are legally equivalent, and perhaps whether or not it might just be a good idea to consider implementing some abortion laws just in case somebody decides to, say, "abort" their pesky teenager when they get fed up with them. But no. I've just done a cursory search of several national and regional Canadian papers, and unless you actually search for this case by name, nothing appears. What there *is* a lot of is "what if" and "wouldn't it have been awful if..." articles about the abducted child.

I'm not trying to minimise the awfulness of having a child abducted, nor the horror of what might have happened. But I'm rather shocked that there isn't at least as much furore about what just happened in a courtroom where the murder of a born child was swept under the carpet because, hey, people don't mind killing the unborn here in Canada so we need to be a little more understanding of those mothers who can't cope with their born children. Presumably if the abducted toddler's mother had simply decided to strangle him and dump his body in a neighbour's garden, then it wouldn't be a news story at all.

And before I'm accused of having no compassion for the mother who killed her child, I can assure you that I do, and that I have prayed and will pray again for both her and her child. However this does not change the fact that she murdered her child and that a judge, echoing the views of Princeton Bioethicist Peter Singer ('Simply killing an infant is never equivalent to killing a person.'') decided that murder of a newborn simply isn't murder.

Lifesite News has a good angle on the argument that cases of postpartum depression should excuse infanticide:

Post-partum depression, this decision would seem to indicate, serves as an excuse to strangling your newborn. If you can prove you were depressed, killing your child is something that is understandable and if you listen to this judge, acceptable. If abortion advocates actually believe that women are so fragile after childbirth that strangling their child is understandable, I wonder what they would say if the same judge proposed that new mothers have to prove their sanity before taking custody of their newborn children? It is absurd to simultaneously claim that women are strong enough to do anything they choose in the world, but that childbirth, something they are biologically designed to do, will result in a spasm of murder. The only natural instinct abortion advocates believe women lack is the maternal instinct.

None of this should be surprising: if you allow abortion without restriction, the next logical step is to legalise infanticide. I mean, you could argue, theoretically, that any baby could possibly have been born a few days later, which would mean that they could, theoretically, have still been in utero when they were killed, so it's not infanticide, right? Wrong. Just plain wrong.

Pro-life advocates have warned about this sort of slippery slope thinking for years, and have been called alarmists. How could abortion possibly lead to infanticide? It's easy when you can make the argument that infanticide is more ethical than abortion. Two bioethicists have published an enthusiastic defence of the Groningen Protocol, and in 2005 a pair of Dutch doctors belonging to a team who use the Groningen Protocol to end the lives of newborns reported that 600 of the 1000 babies each year who die in their first 12 months in the Netherlands die as a result of a deliberate medical decision: either passive (withdrawl of treatment) or active euthanasia.

Welcome to the Brave New World.

...And if you're wondering why there's a photo of a seal hunt at the top of this post, it's because if you google "Canada's shame" you get loads of stories about why it's wrong to kill baby seals. But not one about why it's wrong to kill baby humans.

Photo credit: Russiablog

Unambiguously Pro-Life cover story in this week's Spectator magazine

2011-09-12T14:02:00.000+01:00

There's an interesting article on abortion in this week's Spectator. Assistant Editor, Mary Wakefield outs herself as a "religious nutjob" (read: "Catholic") but makes a cogent argument for the the pro-life case without recourse to her religious belief, thereby making it accessible to anyone with a scrap of logic or humanity in them. She points out that "you don’t have to be Catholic, or even Christian, to think it odd to adopt a completely cavalier attitude towards the unborn."

Science is on the side of the pro-life movement. Presumably this is why the pro-abortion movement's rhetoric circles with great sophistry around the false mantra of "choice" (for whom?) and avoids the stark realities of icky science bit. You know, the bit that makes it impossible that the pre-born are not human. The bit that shows what happens to those tiny human beings who don't have a "choice" but who are the victims of somebody else's "choice". This week James Preece makes the point that the Wikipedia account of the abolition of the slave trade does not "tell the charming story of how William Wilberforce suggested abolishing the slave trade and everybody said "what a jolly good idea" but of "a long protracted campaign that had to contend with vested business interests and even claims that those who opposed slavery were traitors in the war against France. It tells of lost vote after lost vote after lost vote." He draws an acute parallel with the campaign to bring an end to abortion. I think that ending abortion is an even more difficult battle as the multifarious vested interests permeate all levels of society on a global scale, and the victims are easier to push "out of sight". The parallel still holds though, and the difficulties in the struggle are no reason to let up the pressure to end the mass slaughter of millions of innocents every year.

There is a personal twist to Mary Wakefield's article. She and her twin brother were born at 29 weeks, she writes, at a time when the upper limit for abortion was 28 weeks. " I was a premature baby, my twin brother and I were born over two months early, at around 29 weeks. We were tiny and I was covered in hair like a spider. As we fought for our lives in incubators, at that time in the mid-Seventies, the abortion limit was just a week earlier: 28 weeks. As we struggled to breathe, elsewhere, a few of our tiny, spidery peer group were being killed. And so I feel this one personally, from the perspective of the voiceless pre-born."

She attacks the "strange and unpleasant consensus which has risen up .... not just on the left, but across the centre too, and throughout Westminster ... from the debate about [Nadine Dorries’s ill-fated abortion bill] ... that abortion is not just a necessary evil, but a jolly good thing. That being pro-choice no longer means just accepting that a woman has a right to decide, but that abortion must be celebrated and all doubters deemed religious nut jobs".

The article describes the commentariat's hysterical reaction: [they said] "first of all, it’s absolute nonsense to say that we need fewer abortions. Second, those who frown on abortion might be awarded contracts. Christians for example." Oh the horror. We have come to a place in human history where believing that killing a child in the womb might not be the best outcome for both mother and child is controversial and would exclude anyone holding it from being involved in counselling women with "crisis pregnancies". Have mercy on us!

Wakefield acknowledges that most Catholics were against the Dorries proposal anyway, but wonders why the simple act of publicly questioning whether it might be a good thing to reduce the abortion rate is so controversial, citing the hounding of Dr Liam Fox for stating that he would support any measure that reduced the number of abortions in the UK: "I think the level is far too high" he said. What ensued was what Wakefield calls a "Fox hunt": "Instead of commending him on an uncharacteristic burst of common sense, a Halloo! went up across Fleet street and spread across the Twittering classes. What on earth does Fox mean, ‘too high?’ What a bigot! What a misogynist!"

I was surprised and pleased to see such an unambiguously pro-life article as the cover story of an influential mainstream publication: Mary Wakefield deserves praise for this. She makes many interesting and logical anti-abortion arguments including the ethical/utilitarian (adoption), politically correct (father's rights), neuroanatomy (if scientists think that dolphins should be "given rights", how much more deserving are unborn humans?), and blunt ("so how do you feel about killing kittens then?").

Wakefield's overarching point is that "it doesn’t make you a bigot to be melancholy about the considered killing of 200,000 embryos a year ... it just makes you human". It's worth going over to Spectator.co.uk and reading it now before it goes into the subscriber's archive.

Litaniae Beatae Virginis Mariae

2011-09-08T22:44:00.002+01:00

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

2011-09-08T22:43:00.000+01:00

Happy Feast Day of Our Lady's Birth!

I found this exerpt from a sermon by St John Damascene (A.D. 676-754/787) thought-provoking reading for today's celebration:

Joachim and Anne were the parents of Mary. Joachim kept as strict a watch over his thoughts as a shepherd over his flock, having them entirely under his control. For the Lord God led him as a sheep, and he wanted for none of the best things. When I say best, let no one think I mean what is commonly acceptable to the multitude, that upon which greedy minds are fixed, the pleasures of life that can neither endure nor make their possessors better, nor confer real strength. They follow the downward course of human life and cease all in a moment, even if they abounded before. Far be it from us to cherish these things, nor is this the portion of those who fear God. But the good things which are a matter of desire to those who possess true knowledge, delighting God, and fruitful to their possessors, namely, virtues, bearing fruit in due season, that is, in eternity, will reward with eternal life those who have laboured worthily and have persevered in their acquisition as far as possible. The labour goes before, eternal happiness follows. Joachim ever shepherded his thoughts. In the place of pastures, dwelling by contemplation on the words of sacred Scripture, made glad on the restful waters of divine grace, withdrawn from foolishness, he walked in the path of justice. And Anne, whose name means grace, was no less a companion in her life than a wife, blessed with all good gifts, though afflicted for a mystical reason with sterility. Grace in very truth remained sterile, not being able to produce fruit in the souls of men. Therefore, men declined from good and degenerated; there was not one of understanding nor one who sought after God. Then His divine goodness, taking pity on the work of His hands, and wishing to save it, put an end to that mystical barrenness, that of holy Anne, I mean, and she gave birth to a child, whose equal had never been created and never can be. The end of barrenness proved clearly that the world's sterility would cease and that the withered trunk would be crowned with vigorous and mystical life. Hence the Mother of our Lord is announced. An angel foretells her birth. It was fitting that in this, too, she, who was to be the human Mother of the one true and living God, should be marked out above every one else. Then she was offered in God's holy temple, and remained there, showing to all a great example of zeal and holiness, withdrawn from frivolous society. When, however, she reached full age and the law required that she should leave the temple, she was entrusted by the priests to Joseph, her bridegroom, as the guardian of her virginity, a steadfast observer of the law from his youth. Mary, the holy and undefiled, went to Joseph, contenting herself with her household matters, and knowing nothing beyond her four walls. In the fulness of time, as the divine apostle says, the angel Gabriel was sent to this true child of God, and saluted her in the words, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." Beautiful is the angel's salutation to her who is greater than an angel. He is the bearer of joy to the whole world. She was troubled at his words, not being used to speak with men, for she had resolved to keep her virginity unsullied. She pondered in herself what this greeting might be. Then the angel said to her: "Fear not, Mary. Thou hast found grace before God." In very deed, she who was worthy of grace had found it. She found grace who had done the deeds of race, and had reaped its fulness. She found grace who brought forth the source of grace, and was a rich harvest of grace. She found an abyss of grace who kept undefiled her double virginity, her virginal soul no less spotless than her body; hence her perfect virginity. "Thou shalt bring forth a Son," he said, "and shalt call His name Jesus" (Jesus is interpreted Saviour). "He shall save His people from their sins." What did she, who is true wisdom, reply? She does not imitate our first mother Eve, but rather improves upon her incautiousness, and calling in nature to support her, thus answers the angel: "How is this to be, since I know not man? What you say is impossible, for it goes beyond the natural laws laid down by the Creator. I will not be called a second Eve and disobey the will of my God. If you are not speaking godless things, explain the mystery by saying how it is to be accomplished." Then the messenger of truth answered her: "The Holy Spirit shall come to thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. Therefore He who is born to thee shall be called the Son of God." That which is foretold is not subservient to the laws of nature. For God, the Creator of nature, can alter its laws. And she, listening in holy reverence to that sacred name, which she had ever desired, signified her obedience in words full of humility and joy: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word."

St Anselm's prayer written in honour of Our Lady's Nativity

Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O sacred Virgin; give me strength against thine enemies, and against the enemy of the whole human race. Give me strength humbly to pray to thee. Give me strength to praise thee in prayer with all my powers, through the merits of thy most sacred nativity, which for the entire Christian world was a birth of joy, the hope and solace of its life.

When thou wast born, O most holy Virgin, then was the world made light.

Happy is thy stock, holy thy root, and blessed thy fruit, for thou alone as a virgin, filled with the Holy Spirit, didst merit to conceive thy God, as a virgin to bear Thy God, as a virgin to bring Him forth, and after His birth to remain a virgin. Have mercy therefore upon me a sinner, and give me aid, O Lady, so that just as thy nativity, glorious from the seed of Abraham, sprung from the tribe of Juda, illustrious from the stock of David, didst announce joy to the entire world, so may it fill me with true joy and cleanse me from every sin.

Pray for me, O Virgin most prudent, that the gladsome joys of thy most helpful nativity may put a cloak over all my sins. O holy Mother of God, flowering as the lily, pray to thy sweet Son for me, a wretched sinner.

Amen.

Mater Amabilis, Ora Pro Nobis!

Prayer and St. Anslem's Sermon from Fisheaters

Maredonian Icon of the Birth of The Theotokos, from IconStudio

What is "Catholic Coke" doing on the YouCat website?

2011-09-06T10:00:00.003+01:00

I don't know who has editorial control of the YOUCAT website, but the inclusion of the "Catholic Coke" video on a page that describes its function thus:

What moves you? Two minutes can flitter away quickly ... But in two minutes, you can also say a lot - and learn a lot! Have a good listen...

seems utterly inappropriate, not to mention scandalous. Am I missing something or is this really offensive? What is anyone going to "learn" about the Catholic Faith from this video? It makes me feel queasy.

(I'm not sure how to link directly to the embedded video on the YOUCAT page, but have linked to the source on YouTube).

Living the Faith, Radically. Make up your own mind!

2011-09-05T23:24:00.007+01:00

For those who weren't at the talk, here it is. Listen and make up your own minds. Listening again, I still think it's great. Oh, and you can play spot the blogger in the audience as well. Extra points if you spot two Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma bloggers sitting side-by-side.

Rosary

2011-09-05T17:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we said goodbye to a young Romanian woman who has been living with us for the last four and a half months. She's not Catholic - she's Romanian Orthodox, but (like most young people she knows) very lapsed. Initially she came to Mass with us because we asked her to, but she soon began coming because she wanted to, although not every week. She made Mary's crown for our Parish's Crowning of Mary, and immersed herself in prayer during our EF parish masses. She's also often joined in enthusiastically with our family prayers.

As we said our last goodbyes, I gave her a rosary, a miraculous medal and one of the ACN rosary leaflets. She welled up with tears at the rosary and said that she'd always wanted one, but didn't know where to get one. I think she's going to use it. She said that she's going to try to find a Catholic Church when she gets home.

Please join me in praying that she does.

Campaign for Real Catholic Camping

2011-09-02T00:43:00.002+01:00

We've just returned from a camping trip in the North of England where mud is thicker, stickier and, well, muddier than it is down in the soft southern climes that we're used to. It was cold and it rained and the wind howled up on the moors but we were safe and warm and cozy in our very Catholic tent.

Catholic tent?

Well, if you can split digital technology into Catholic and Protestant as Umberto Eco apparently did* then I don't see why you can't have Catholic tents. And if there is such a thing as a Catholic tent, then my lovely bell tent is it. Here's why:

Tried and tested - design hasn't changed significantly since the 12th C, and not at all since the 18th. The design is simple and elegant, strong and utterly weatherproof. There are modern versions -- we can call then Episcopalian bell tents if you like -- with nylon guy-ropes (ugh!) instead of hemp, and spring-loaded metal poles instead of wooden ones, and zips (zips!) instead of dutch lacing, and rubber mud-flaps instead of hessian, but these are about as Catholic as a Barbie Doll in a Biretta and quite frankly if you aren't going to have the real thing you'd be as well going the whole hog and getting a nylon pop-up tent.
It's often the last tent standing: we've been the only tent remaining after severe weather on several occasions over the years, when our fellow campers have blown-away, had plastic (poly-carbon-wotsit) tent-poles snap, had leaky roofs, wind-torn nylon walls and have been forced to pack up, our tent has remained solidly anchored, built to withstand whatever weather it encounters.
People are curious / hostile / amused by it at first, but often impressed in the long run. We're often asked "why" we chose this tent over a "normal" one - the answer is easy: it's fast to pitch (one person can do it in 10 minutes, two in 5), utterly weather-proof, has beautiful light inside, is warm in the cold and cool in the warmth, and, for those of a green bent, is utterly ecologically sound - it can always be repaired easily if need be, but if abandoned, it will eventually break down leaving only a few metal eyelets to show that it existed. I have a friend in her late 50s who has a bell tent that her parents acquired when she was 10; they had been given it second hand from a woman who had owned it for at least 30 years before that. My friend still uses her tent several times a year and reckons that her children will be using it for decades once she's past her camping days.

Bell tents are simple yet robust - traditionally they slept up to 13 men each, each sleeping with his feet up to the central pole. They're inexpensive to buy, and last pretty much forever. If you forget to bring your pole, you can do as a friend of mine did and simply cut down a sapling and use it in place of a pole. Bell tents are still used by the army for relief work in trouble spots, particularly camps for displaced persons, as they're robust, yet comfortable enough for a family to live in, if need be, for an extended period. The light that comes through the white canvas is lovely as well. They do have a downside -- they're heavy: you wouldn't want to go hiking with one, but as most people go camping in a car, the downside isn't really relevant.

Oh, and every Catholic tent needs a good Catholic flag! I highly recommend getting a telescopic flagpole to take camping with you, and flying the Papal flag: we've been doing it for years. The supervisor at the top secret location we were camping in said to me on our last morning, "You know, your papal flag has caused no end of consternation this week" (verbatim). I think he meant interest, not consternation, but what I thought was most curious was that people had *recognised* the flag. Is Lancashire still Catholic at heart? Apparently he had been asked if there was a "Catholic group" camping, "no, just a Catholic family" he'd told people. Usually we just get hippies hiking past saying "cool flag, man" clearly not having a clue what it is. People fly all sorts of crazy things around their tents when camping - we've got some whirly-dragonflies and a windsock as well as some colourful bunting -- so why not a papal flag as well? Why not give it a try next time you're camping?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I want some papal bunting too. I noticed that Father Simon Henry has some particularly fine bunting made from miniature papal flags at the entrance of St Catherine Labouré when we traveled across Lancashire for Mass there last Sunday. It was well worth the trek for the Sunday morning Low Latin Mass, lovely to see Fr. Simon again as well as meeting a priest friend of his. We were given a really warm welcome, despite being slightly scruffy, having spent several nights in a muddy field on the moors.

The church is a really good example of how a previously soul-less modernist space can be salvaged with a little thought and some traditionally-minded reordering (or should that be retro-ordering?). The wooden High Altar is particularly fine, and there's a lovely statue of St Catherine Labouré. I wanted to get a closer look at the Tabernacle but it was obscured by the Mass cards; it looked rather beautiful from what I could see and I'm going to keep an eye out next time we're up there.

----------------------------------------

**(btw, I'm so not an Apple person, largely because I find their "hey, are you a cool Apple sort of person like us or some kind dorky loser who uses a PC?" campaign offensive. Not to mention that the last time I upgraded my computer (admittedly 4 years ago so things may have changed), it would have cost twice as much to have the same spec on an Apple as it did on a Dell. I decided that I was happy to be an unhip-PC-using dork and save a grand).

Praying for your children's future spouses and their families

2011-08-28T10:52:00.001+01:00

I first saw this suggested years ago on a Catholic email list and thought it was a lovely idea.

Think about it: somewhere in the world there is a child who will marry one of your children. That child has a family. Someday your paths will all cross, but only Our Lord knows the day and the hour.

Pray for their faith, health, safety and well being as well as that of their families.

And if your child is called to the religious life, I'm sure the prayers for his/her spouse will not be wasted: Our Lord will have seen that one coming long before you did!

Prayer for the Family - Pope John Paul II

Lord God, from you every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.

Father, you are Love and Life.

Through your Son, Jesus Christ, born of woman, and through the Holy Spirit, fountain of divine charity, grant that every family on earth may become for each successive generation a true shrine of life and love.

Grant that your grace may guide the thoughts and actions of husbands and wives for the good of their families and of all the families in the world.

Grant that the young may find in the family solid support for their human dignity and for their growth in truth and love.

Grant that love, strengthened by the grace of the sacrament of
marriage, may prove mightier than all the weakness and trials through which our families sometimes pass.

Through the intercession of the Holy Family of Nazareth,
grant that the Church may fruitfully carry out her worldwide mission in the family and through the family.

Through Christ our Lord, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life
for ever and ever.
Amen.+

"Change Your Life!" Michael Voris in London

2011-08-25T17:41:00.002+01:00

I'm really glad that I went to the Michael Voris talk last night: it exceeded expectations. Beforehand, as we waited, one of our group joked that he might run onto the stage to some rousing music; I suggested the "Rocky" theme. We all snickered. I felt somewhat ashamed when he did come on and had a real spirit of humility about him: sure he's a practised orator, albeit in a very casual style. So much for the better -- it's hard to hold an audience in thrall for an hour unless you're a skilled speaker -- but he came across as sincere, authentic and profoundly Catholic. You got the sense that you were listening to a man with an genuine love for Christ, who is profoundly grateful for his re-conversion and the shot at eternity it gives him. A man who has discovered the pearl of great price, and wants to share it with as many people as possible.

He started and ended with prayer, and constantly redirected our focus to the Holy Trinity. This was not the "Michael Voris" show, he was the medium not the message. Some highlights included Voris's memory of Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen's response to a hippy who wanted him to read a book combining Catholicism and Eastern mysticism: "Get out! Get out! The Catholic Faith is a gift from Almightly God and I won't have you polluting it!" (a Vortex with the same incident is linked to below) and his question to the audience: how will you measure up in heaven against the martyrs of the early centuries of the Church?

That last question underlined much of the talk: it is not enough, argued Voris to be "a Catholic", to fully embrace the Faith one needs to be "Catholic", no indefinite article, no qualification, no secondary identity. To be Catholic is to embrace Our Lord fully and to be prepared to accept His cross. You might be made fun of, you might lose a few friends or compromise your career, but, argued Voris, none of these measure up to the sacrifices made by early Christians so that we could have the Faith handed down to us.

Voris pointed out that God's word through the Catholic Church is Truth: when faced with Truth you can either reject it or embrace it. Embracing Truth means changing your life. Taking up your cross to follow Christ. Keeping one eye on eternity while trying to live the Truth here on earth. God didn't intend us to pick and choose the bits we like, to water down Truths to suit fashion and cultural climate, or to accommodate those who oppose the Truth. This is where Michael Voris comes most into conflict with those who disagree with him: those who feel that he promotes a Catholicism that is too rigid, too unyielding, not gentle or accommodating or palatable enough for those who disagree with parts of the Magesterium or who believe that all religions are essentially aiming for the same place. Voris would argue that these people misunderstand the meaning of the word charity -> caritas -> love. He argued, persuasively, that to elide the Truth in order to prevent hurt feelings or offended sensibilities is the direct opposite of charity. Charity - love for the other - involves biting the bullet and telling the Truth in those matters that affect the salvation of souls. Hurt feelings are nothing compared to an eternity in Hell. Having been given a wake-up call by his dying mother, Voris is profoundly grateful for her lack of tact in addressing his dissolute lifestyle and the slippery slope to Hell it was leading him down. He she been tactful, he'd probably not be standing in front a a full house at the Regent Hall in London, exhorting his listeners to save souls, embrace the Faith and live radically.

Based on last night's talk, I'd say that none of the criticisms I've heard leveled at Michael Voris would stick. He was humble, charitable, amusing, self-effacing, meticulously faithful to the Magesterium, Catholic down to his very essence. Oh, and to knock another myth on the head: his hair was clearly all his own.

Among the people I went with there was (at least) one skeptic who, by the end of the talk was utterly convinced of Voris's sincerity and orthodoxy. The general consensus was "What's not to like"? followed by "Why are our shepherds not speaking as clearly and plainly as Michael Voris?"

*****************************************************************************

Another reason that last night was good fun was because it was a sort of accidental blognic -- and I got to go to the pub(!) which is a rare occurrence. It was great to meet fellow Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma bloggers Lawrence "Bones" England (even if he didn't have a clue who I was! See if I scribble in your combox again! :-P), Paul "OTSOTA" Priest, and Dylan "Reluctant Sinner" Perry, as well as seeing pals Mac "Mulier Fortis" McLernon and Bara Brith. There were lots of familiar faces in the audience (which was packed to capacity on the ground floor) including some new friends from the recent NACF pilgrimage to Walsingham. I also discovered that a fellow parishioner is, like me, a former rat fancier: now there's an essay topic - "Connections between Extraordinary Form Mass-goers and small livestock fancying". The mind boggles. It was good to see such a strong turnout from faithful Catholics, many of whom had traveled a considerable distance to get to the talk. Having an opportunity to socialise afterwards was a bonus, and made me wonder whether or not some "Juventutem" style evenings could be arranged for oldies like "Mr.Annie Elizabeth" & me who are well beyond Juventutem age but who enjoy good conversation and socialising with faithful Catholics?

As a last aside, I'll leave you with a rare sighting of the Lesser Spotted Mulier Fortis left (literally) holding the baby!

Countercultural family life

2011-08-24T10:21:00.004+01:00

Picture credit: A Catholic Notebook

A post about Distinctive Catholic Markers on Father Ray Blake's blog got me thinking, not only about those visible things that set us aside as Catholics, but also those small matters of attitude that are so different from mainstream thought as to be truly counter cultural. One that I've mused on a lot in recent months is the idea of vocation as opposed to "career" for our children.

When I was growing up there was a lot of talk about exams and achievements that were expected, and later on stuff about careers but nothing at all about vocation. No sense that I needed God in order to make sense of what I should be doing with my life. It's probably not surprising that I made a bit of a hash of things: Oh I got the academic laurels and had the glittering career all right, but I squandered more than a decade of my life living a life that was fairly spiritually empty, never sure what I should be doing, constantly trying to fill a God shaped hole, and looking in all the wrong places. I can only say that it's thanks to the workings of the Holy Spirit that I didn't continue barreling down the wrong path.

Clearly the Holy Spirit works in ways that we can not even begin to understand. A very holy priest friend of ours came from an unlikely background: one parent a lapsed Catholic, the other an atheist. The children brought up without even a cursory reference to God. Siblings all went into the hard sciences and are not believers, but the eldest became a priest. How? Briefly - a blinding flash of a conversion in his late teens, followed by a baptism and the sacraments. The atheist father said he'd accept his son becoming a Catholic "as long as you don't become a priest". Not many years later, the son entered the seminary and the rest is, as they say, history.

But this is really the exception to the rule. It's difficult to underestimate the importance of Catholic families who encourage their children to think about their vocation from an early age, so that those children can take on board the idea that God has a plan for each of us, and that our role in life is to try to discern what He wants us to do, and how He wants us to use the talents that we have been given. This applies to the married vocation as much as religious vocations. Thinking about the idea of "vocation" at all is, I think, a very Catholic thing; the idea that we need to discern what God wants us to do with our lives.

One common problem is that many people in their late teens and early twenties tend to take themselves very seriously (it goes with the territory, it's a phase), and if they haven't had a serious spiritual grounding, been given a good sense of perspective, can lose their way very easily in the mire of post-adolescent egotism and cargo-cult spirituality. If, on the other hand, we've understood from a young age that we have a role in God's plan, that we have God-given gifts, talents and skill that we need to use to their best potential in order to fulfill God's work, then we are handed a lifeline during the post-adolescent years.

So the family is crucial is vital in providing a perspective that counters that of Society, but the message needs to be imbibed at the breast so to speak, not introduced in adolescence. A child who knows from the time he can lisp his first prayers that God made him to know him, love him and serve him in this life and to be happy with him forever in the next will not find it incongruous at the age of seven or eight to start considering what God's plan for him might be. This groundwork means that the "conversation" is already open by the time that adolescence beckons.

Don't ask me how we do it -- those lucky enough to have been brought up in faith filled families have a template to use; the rest of us simply do our best and muddle through with the information, advice and help we have. And we pray. A lot. Ideally as a family. And we pester people too: so please don't be offended if you're a never-lapsed cradle Catholic and a nosy woman starts asking you about what you think your parents did right. I'm not just being nosy, I'm just trying to add to the sum of my knowledge in order to give my children the best shot at keeping it Catholic as they get older. I don't think that it's rocket science - the things that seem to make the most difference are (in no order): having a father as well as a mother who is a practising Catholic, seeing your father pray, praying as a family, having Catholic friends, having Catholic family friends, having a good understanding of the Faith... Please add to my list in the combox if you can.

The heroin model: why I don't have a TV

2011-08-22T22:24:00.000+01:00

Years ago, long before I had children, I worked for a large sinister media corporation (I've worked for a few). My experience one afternoon in a commissioning meeting for a high profile pre-school television series made me decide instantly: "when I have children I'll never let them watch TV". On the surface it was a strange snap decision to make given that I was surrounded by (childless) TV and multimedia types glowing with enthusiasm for this educational and thoroughly worthwhile project for the kiddies. It was a throwaway comment that made all the difference, that exposed what it was really all about:

"It's the heroin addiction model"

Huh?

Well, as it turned out, education and entertainment were secondary considerations in the commissioning of this popular children's programme. "We need to get children hooked on the brand from an earlier age so that they'll be loyal consumers later in life" was the actual rational for spending a small fortune on programming for pre-verbal infants in nappies. Publically it was all about "early years education" and "developmentally appropriate on-screen learning". Of course.

Not my children, I thought.

And so, we're a TV-free household.

We're not completely weird Luddite freaks - we do have computers and watch dvds, but rarely. A few times a year my husband and I will watch something online, but it usually only serves to reinforce our view that TV is rubbish. Screen based entertainment features very low in our familiy's life, in large part because we just don't have the time. We're busy doing all the things that people don't do when they're watching TV, and nobody is hooked on "the brand".

Why are they so miserable?

2011-08-21T20:40:00.000+01:00

I'm continually struck by how angry, unhappy and, frankly, messed-up anti-Catholic protesters always seem to be. Looking at the photos of "protesters" verbally attacking young pilgrims at WYD in Madrid made me feel physically sick: it was as though the "protesters" were trying to destroy the peace and happiness they saw manifested before them. As though they, having rejected the pearl of great price, wanted to snatch it from the hands of the pilgrims and trample it underfoot.

Photo: Reuters

(twitch of the mantilla to Joe @ Defend Us in Battle)

Compare the posture of the pilgrims with that of the person confronting them. Contrast the scabs on the central girl pilgrim's knees with the bitter accusatory look on the figure to the right. There are more photos that tell the same story on the Reuters website.

Perhaps some good may come from this darkness: Fr. Ray Blake writes about a lapsed Catholic woman who's came back to the Church as a result of comparing and contrasting the faces of the pilgrims and protesters at last years's Papal visit.

She saw the the anti-Pope snarling mob led by Dawkins and Tatchel, with their plastic devil horns and inflated condoms, sex "toys" and angry faces and she saw the sheer joy of those cheering the Pope and the banners carried by the enthusiastic youth. She said it wasn't about arguments, it was about faces. Dawkins & co. glaring and hopeless, those who were there cheering the Pope full of hope and smiling - anger and joy, hate and love

Hopefully in Madrid comparing and contrasting the the pilgrims and protesters will bring about similar conversions of heart.

All this week whenever I've seen photos like the one above, lines from Matthew 18 have kept coming to mind:

[6] But he that shall scandalise one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. [7] Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.

I find it hard to pray for people like the so-called protesters, but I suppose they are the ones in most need of our prayer. It is hard to muster charity for those so intent on destroying the faith and happiness of others.

Biretta Barbie

2011-08-21T11:39:00.000+01:00

This is just so very, very WRONG.

So wrong, in fact, that it's actually an eloquent essay in why the whole idea of female ordination is a non-starter, pictures being worth a thousand words and all that jazz. Where do you start?

...it's from a state-side Episcopalian blog, if you hadn't already guessed.

New to the Extraordinary Form? Here's a great new resource.

2011-08-19T19:15:00.004+01:00

A new blog that does exactly what it says on the tin: "New to the Extraordinary Form: An irenic* guide for perplexed inquirers to the older form of the Roman Mass" is a project by "an enthusiast for the Traditional Latin Mass, ...[who] wish[es] to share [his] experiences and love of the liturgy with others." The blog has only been running since 12 August and is already a valuable resource for those unfamiliar with the Extraordinary Form or who would simply like to learn more about it. There are some lovely photos and old pictures on the site.

A note in the sidebar points out that the a blog author will very shortly be beginning seminary formation with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter, at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Nebraska. He's very kindly offered to answer any question through the combox (" ask as many questions as you like: nothing is too stupid!") but warns that "[i]f you are here looking for polemics, sorry, wrong place. You won't get it here. Take your fight elsewhere please."

You can also support the seminarian(-to-be)/blogger during his formation at the FSSP seminary with prayers and material help: he gives information in the sidebar.

I think this is a really worthwhile project -- pop over and have a look.

**BTW, I had to look up "irenic" as it's a word I'd not come across before. According to Dictionary.com it's a "part of Christian theology concerned with reconciling different denominations and sects". So now you know too!

Even Martin Luther...

2011-08-19T08:17:00.003+01:00

...wouldn't have done this:

It's edifying when one's gut instinct is backed up with science, research, or at least history. Those "I knew it but couldn't prove it until now" moments are precious. Here's a little one: not exactly proof, but an interesting historical perspective of the rights and wrongs of communion in the hand from Fr. Simon Henry's blog. Fr Simon (also known as The Priest In The Hat), quotes Bishop Athanasius Schneider who argues that Communion in the hand is a Calvinist novelty: apparently even a ~~heretic~~ ~~schismatic~~ protestant like Luther wouldn't have countenanced it. In the shortish period when communion in the hand was permitted, the hands would be purified both before and after holding the host, which was never picked up in the communicant's fingers but taken directly off the hand with the tongue. The hand was then licked to ensure that no fragments remained. Women received Holy Communion from a white cloth draped over their hands; a type of corporal. A deacon supervised the purification of hands.

This is in essence much closer to communion on the tongue as we know it than to the modern sense of "communion in the hand" - a shuffling queue to take the Blessed Sacrament from the hands of a layperson (all too often) then wandering back to the pew while putting it casually into mouth. Perhaps it should be insisted that communion in the hand is permitted, but must be done *properly* -- as above.

"Yes of course you may receive Communion in the hand, just join that queue over there to have your hands purified, Deacon Pius will make sure that you do it properly, then you can join the "in the hand" queue with extra purification afterwards. Or you could just join the no-hassle queue, kneel down and receive on the tongue."

See how long it would last then!

Read the whole piece here.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Michael Voris in London: Living the Faith, Radically

2011-08-18T22:17:00.000+01:00

Unless you've been on a desert island, avoiding the Catholic blogosphere, Catholic press and the noticeboard in your parish, you probably know that Michael Voris, coiffed, t-shirted-and-suit-jacketed presenter of Real Catholic TV and scourge of cafeteria Catholics, will be speaking at the Regent Hall, 275 Oxford Street, London W1C 2DJ, this coming Wednesday 24th August at 7pm.

I'm not sure how I feel about Michael Voris: so often he's spot-on, eviscerating liturgical flab and sniping at heresy. He's very entertaining and is, on the whole, a force for good. Sometimes, though, he appears to be on a different planet: for example, can anyone explain to me what he means when he says that most American Catholics dress like protestants?

Then there's the hair. I only mention it because it's a stumbling block to getting people out to see him. I think there are huge cultural differences between the UK and US in terms of presentation, regarding what's acceptable and what's, well, a bit too wacky. On the plus side, Voris's Vortex episodes are fresh, vigorous and in-your-face in a way that we don't often get in the UK, particularly from religious broadcasting. Think "Thought for the day"! Pfffft! But I think we British are naturally wary of slick presentation: it's more often associated with selling used cars than exposing heterodoxy. So the hair (sorry to dwell on it, but I'm wary of trusting any man who clearly spends much longer on his hair than I do on mine), the "hey guys!" showman-slickness - it all puts people off. The showbiz presentation certainly put off several people whom I've invited to come this week which is a real shame.

Still I'll be there: I want to hear what Michael V has to say in person. Is he as abrasive live as he is on screen? Perhaps he's a big softie when not surrounded by rabid liberals and the evening will be a cozy chat. Maybe, but I doubt it. Besides, it's possible that some of his favourite target-types may come out to ~~bait~~ observe him. How controversial will his talk be? Apparently it's brand new, written specifically for this engagement. One thing's for sure, next Wednesday night will be interesting. Whether you love Voris or loathe him, I reckon the Regent Hall is the place to be for Catholics in London on the 24th. I look forward to meeting some of you; perhaps a post-gig discussion in a local eatery/hostelry might be in order?

Tickets are still available to buy (or reserve) online from Smeaton's Corner.

Oh, and make sure you don't dress like a protestant...

Luther and Calvin - clearly not a good look...

Too much information: NFP and the Eeeew! factor

2011-08-15T22:31:00.002+01:00

** gentle warning - the following blog entry dips into the nitty gritty of fertility awareness, just a little bit. If that kind of thing makes you feel queasy, then perhaps read about one of my favourite cities here **

Picture credit: Joaopisco

Not everything needs to be shared...

A long, long time ago in the bad old days women used to give birth surrounded by birth attendants (midwives, doctors, nurses) while the father nervously paced outside the birth-room anxiously awaiting the arrival of his child. Then, in the 1970s, a pioneering French obstetrician called Michel Odent introduced (amidst some excellent obstetric reforms) the notion of the father being present at the birth. From the exception, the presence of fathers at a birth became the rule. In time, Fathers who were not present at their children's births were considered to be insensitive oafs, even if their fretting often became a distraction to the birth attendants and a source of stress to the labouring mother. These days the norm is that the father is present at the birth, and if he chooses not to, it is considered odd. And yet... and yet...

...now Michel Odent has changed his tune. He says that he never meant the presence of fathers at the birth to become an orthodoxy. He never meant it to be compulsory. He simply didn't want to exclude those fathers who wanted -- and were wanted by their wives -- to be present at the birth of their child. Now he says that the new orthodoxy of having fathers present - whether they want to or not -- is bad for the birthing woman and, crucially for my point below, bad for the relationship of the parents. Put simply - being down at the "business end" of a birth is traumatic for many men, and can affect their relationship with their wife.

I have similar thoughts about NFP. Done properly, a sympto-thermal approach to fertility awareness involves recording temperature, the position of the cervix and texture/colour of cervical mucus as well as any minor symptoms. Is it really either necessary or desirable for a husband to get involved with this? What possible positive outcome can a discussion of cervical mucus have? The breakfast table conversation just doesn't bear thinking about.

I know there's a tendency for "new men" to like to demonstrate that they are incredibly sensitive and understanding of their women's trials and tribulations. There's even a syndrome whereby men believe themselves to "suffer" from morning sickness when their wives are pregnant (ahem!). But surely it's madness to expect a couple to "discuss" a woman's fertility symptoms on a regular basis? Even the idea of a couple in together with an instructor to be "trained" in fertility awareness / NFP seems a bit eeeeew.

Is the inclusion of men simply a nod to political correctness - if men are supposed to be at the birth of their child, the least they can do is involve themselves with the fertility business beforehand? Is this an echo of the contraception mantra that "men must take responsibility too"? As Catholics we know that men and women were made differently: our bodies are different, and so are our roles. Any attempt to make fertility awareness a "team effort" is a sham: the best a man is going be able to do is nod sympathetically; further involvement is, as the French say, grossière (a nice amalgamation of coarse, vulgar and yuck!).

Fertility awareness is a really valuable tool, it's helpful for a woman to understand her cycle, to know what's normal and what's not. Recording fertiliity data can helpful in diagnosing the reasons for infertility, secondary inferility, or point towards causes of miscarriage. The issues around the information gleaned from practicing fertility awareness could be useful to a couple - for example being aware that cycles are (likely to be) fertile again after a birth - and subjects for legitimate discussion. However I don't see any rationale for including men in the teaching of fertility awareness or NFP. For Catholics, sex is about much more than the mechanics. Including men in the practice of NFP focuses the mind on the body rather than the whole person. It seems like a cringe-making bit of political correctness, and surely is unhelpful to a couple's intimate life. What wife wants her husband to be thinking "Temperature - check! Cevical mucus - check! Cervix open - check!" rather than a simple "Wow, I really love this person!"?

Where are all the Catholic Philanthropists?

2011-08-08T17:09:00.001+01:00

Just askin'.

I don't mean the grand-gesture industrial magnates who throw a cool million or two towards a papal visit or a new school. These guys are useful, helpful, and obviously every little penny helps, but the "grand gesture" philanthropists aren't -- or at least shouldn't be - the bread-and-butter of giving to the Church.

When WW2 broke out and Belfast was being hammered by the Luftwaffe, my grandfather, a self-made man, gave away all but one of his collection of six or seven cars to local priests to enable them to visit the sick, injured and dying. Today this seems like a grand gesture, but I don't think that my grandfather saw it as such. He just did what was needed. He gave without counting the cost as an old Parish Priest of ours was fond of saying. Anyone in his position would have done the same, and it was never mentioned in his lifetime; he would have been mortified. He simply did what he could to help, as did many, many other people. For people of that generation it was taken for granted that helping to the best of your abilities or resources is what you did.

In a similar vein - unremarkable then, remarkable now: our former parish church, like many, was paid for entirely by the local population. It was built in the early 20th C, but had extensive additions later on, also paid for by the local population. People saved and gave. I remember reading the history of the parish and wondering whether it would be possible, less than a hundred years later, to have the same thing happen if the church needed to be replaced for some reason. I doubt it, not because local people aren't devoted to their parish, nor because the parish lacks a stable congregation (it doesn't, it's a thriving and much more affluent parish than it would have been a century ago). People's priorities are different now. There's an assumption that somebody else pays. That "somebody" might be a corporate body, or "the Church" (clearly removing ourselves from the equation), or the government, or one of the super-rich, but I don't think that the layperson in the pews sees himself as a philanthropic giver in the way that people used, a few short generations ago.

Reading Fr. Finigan's post about Sacred Heart Church in Limerick and thinking about the money needed for the new ICKSP apostolate in New Birghton Wirral made me wonder about the "whos" and "hows" of funding such projects.

It's entirely up to us: me and you. If we don't take responsibility for the things that matter, then who will? The time is now to give and not count the cost.

Shame the devil - Support the first Traditional Parish in the United Kingdom

2011-08-05T22:48:00.000+01:00

As regular readers will be aware, I love the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest and this blog occasionally reads like something of an unofficial fan club for the order. The ICRSP (or ICKSP in English, but I'm finding the K hard to get used to!) are an inspiring and successful Traditional order with a healthy stream of vocations and are a solid bulwark of orthodoxy in an increasingly heterodox French church. They describe themselves thus:

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is a Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right whose goal is the honor of God and the sanctification of priests in the service of the Church and souls. Its specific aim is missionary: to spread the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ in all spheres of human life. Our work is carried out under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, to Whom the Institute is consecrated. (ICKSP US Website)

In France they have flourishing parishes, run academically and doctrinally rigorous schools, summer camps and scout groups. They have 35 houses in ten countries, 50 priests, and more than 60 seminarians in 15 years. How often I have wished that we had an apostolate of theirs here!

Naturally, then, I was delighted by the news in June that the Right Rev. Mark Davies has invited the order to set up the first completely Traditional parish in England and Wales. It will be set up as a Personal Parish under the provision of the Motu Proprio, 'Summorum Pontificium' for all faithful attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. It is the first time that an Ecclesia Dei institute has taken over a parish in the UK, and as such is a breakthrough for the Traditional Form of the Roman Rite here.

The ICRSP will be taking over and restoring the church of SS Peter and Paul, in New Brighton, Wirral. The church is built in a classical style on a grand scale -- it was originally built by the contributions of the faithful, and the IRCSP are hoping that the necessary renovations can be funded in the same way. I'm sure that there are many, particularly among the secular lobby, who would say "certainly that sort of thing may have happened in times past, but there's no way that it could happen today!" Let's prove them wrong and get this church renovated and opened on time for the Greater Glory of God!

The latest edition of Mass of Ages has an article about the order, the new parish and the church, as well as giving some indication of the momentous renovation task facing the order before the parish can open in September. In an insert to Mass of Ages, Canon William Hudson of the ICKSP says:

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is delighted to announce that it will be opening the first Traditional Parish in England and Wales. This is a major breakthrough for the Traditional Mass. The Bishop of Shrewsbury, the Right Rev. Mark Davies, has invited the Institute to make an important foundation in his diocese, based in the imposing church of SS Peter and Paul, New Brighton, Wirral.

In September three members of the Institute will be taking up residence in the presbytery and starting this new and hugely exciting apostolate.

But we urgently need your help to make this a reality!

In the long term the church will need considerable work. But in the immediate future we are aiming to raise £40,000 to cover essential restoration of the presbytery and other 'start up' costs.

Without your generosity this project cannot go ahead!

Thank you for helping make this project a reality.

Yours sincerely in Christ the King,

Canon William Hudson
ICKSP

You can contribute to the appeal by sending a (UK) cheque made out to: Institute of Christ the King
and sent to:
Canon William Hudson, ICKSP Brussels International Catholic School, Chaussée de Wavre 457, 1040 Brussels, Belgium

Non-UK readers could send an International Money Order in UK Pounds made out to the same details at the same address.

I would also ask you all to join me in an extra prayer for Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury who has made this possible by inviting the Institute of Christ the King in this momentous venture. Bishop Davies specifically wants SS Peter and Paul to be a centre of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and so "to be open to all Catholics and for it to be a model in this regard for the entire diocese" (Mass of Ages, Aug 2011, p15).

On so many counts it is important that this venture is successful -- not least of all because the Devil himself will want it to fail, knowing as he will how many souls a parish like this will save.

God bless the IRCSP! God bless Bishop Mark Davies! God bless our Pope!

NFP or Fertility Awareness? Time for a rethink?

2011-08-05T00:43:00.001+01:00

I've always been uncomfortable with the "planning" aspect of so-called "Natural Family Planning". It struck me years ago that surely "planning" is the last thing that we as Catholics should be doing with our families -- either God gives us children, or He doesn't. Planning jars with an attitude of unconditional openness to new life. We shouldn't schedule children in between jobs, or degrees, or at a convenient time. Of course there is the dispensation that NFP can licitly be used to delay the potential conception of a child for "grave reasons", and this is often stated in support of the NFP-as-Catholic-contraception point of view. But surely truly "grave reasons" are rare. I imagine that very few families encounter genuinely "grave" reasons to avoid another pregnancy. I don't reckon that "we can't afford another set of private school fees" (I'm not making that up) or even "we only have one/two/three bedrooms" counts as a "grave reason". God provides. Often not in the ways that we imagine that we need provision, or in the ways that we would choose, but He provides what we need. Remember the birds of the air and the lilies of the field in Matthew 6.

Much is often made of a couple being "ready" for the responsibility of parenthood. This usually means that they're settled, both gainfully and securely employed, have reasonable financial resources (savings, pensions, etc.) to draw upon, have access to a strong support network of paid (nannies, cleaners) or unpaid (grandparents, neighbours) help. How unrealistic is that? There's also the unarticulated sense that "ready" for parenthood means that you've had some "me time" (or "us time" for a couple) before complicating life with the pesky and messy reality of children. A sense that once you get your ducks lined up -- home, finances, support, have had all the "me time/ us time" needed -- then, and only then, will a couple be "ready" to have children.

I have news for anyone who believes this. Nobody is ever entirely ready to have children. Nobody. The "right time" to have a baby is the day your baby arrives, and you need to embrace it and accept that your life has changed forever: unimaginably, wonderfully. Don't even get me started on the "having a baby needn't change your life" brigade. There's something seriously wrong if having a baby doesn't change your life. It's one of the few things that you'll ever do that is, literally, life changing. Embrace it. Move on. Thank God for the great gift that each new life is. But whatever happens, don't wait for the "right time" -- it will never arrive. The same goes for subsequent children. You'll never be ready, trust me, but you'll love them when they arrive and, with God's help, will cope with whatever comes your way.

So if the "right" time to have your baby is when your baby arrives, what's all the guff about being "ready"? Why the pressure to wait? I once took the headmaster of a Catholic primary school to task about this at a meeting, asking how the advice he'd just given (to parents, as part of a demonstration of what the school was planning to teach in a sex-education course) which was that it was important NOT to have a baby before having stable employment, savings, and preferably having bought a house (!) could be squared with Catholic teaching. He backtracked and said that, in fact, he and his wife hadn't done any of this -- they married at university, lived on a shoestring with young children, and so forth -- but that he felt that it was the school's role to teach children about responsible parenting. Ahem.

My discomfort with the "planning" aspect of NFP was amplified several years ago when I met a young married Catholic couple on a pilgrimage. They had recently had their first child, and were interested in learning about NFP, largely because they had been told that they ought to. They had been directed to the local branch of the Family Planning Association who apparently had somebody who could teach them about NFP. The wife confided that she felt profoundly uncomfortable going into a building belonging to an organisation that provided abortion referrals, emergency "contraception", and so forth, but hadn't been able to find anywhere else nearby. As it turned out, the venue was too off putting, and they only ever went once. I don't know if they ever managed to find another NFP instructor.

So let's get to the nitty gritty. What is "NFP" about? Is it an acceptable form of "pro-life" contraception, or is it not? On its own, NFP is essentially a tool box of knowledge -- in and of itself it is morally neutral: it is how we choose to use this knowledge that makes it licit or illicit. I think the truth is that it is often implicitly "marketed" as "Catholic contraception", perhaps as an attempt to appeal to couples currently using artificial means of contraception in the hope that they'll change to a morally "better" method. I think that this conversion from artificial contraception to NFP-used-as-contraception it is often seen as the "least bad" scenario, the most "realistic" if you will. This is simply wrong. The notion of "planning" denotes the same sort of "control" that artificial contraception promotes. Not ready for a baby:? Don't worry about it, just avoid your danger days and -- hey -- no pesky infants to worry about.

It may be semantics, but what we say often guides our actions and our thoughts. Even if we teach "Natural Family Planning" in the best conscience, the fact that we're calling it "family planning" makes it (to my mind at least) unsound from a Catholic perspective. We're on a slippery slope to thinking that we can control the show, or, if not control it, then at least stack the odds against having a baby / another baby. This is utterly at odds with being open to the gift of new life.

There are benefits to understanding the fertility that God has blessed us with, but that's why I prefer the term "fertility awareness" to NFP which has a ring of contraception-by-stealth about it. "Fertility awareness" is a more accurate and more acceptable label: one that is open to life. By calling the various observational practises under the NFP umbrella "fertility awareness" we're simply stating the fact that we're aware of our fertility, not that we're trying to control, sideline, or otherwise distort the natural order. We're not using the contraceptive mentality of "control" and "planning". There are very good licit reasons for a woman to be aware of her fertility signs - increasing the chances of conception, being aware of changes that flag occult medical problems at an early stage (e.g. ovarian cancer, cysts, fibroids: all things with very subtle symptoms that are better treated sooner rather than later); being aware of and therefore better able to manage the menopause, and so forth.. Being aware of her fertility signs also means that a woman can be aware of a return to fertility after a baby, or have a better understanding about why she and her husband are not conceiving (the length of various parts of the cycle can indicate particular problems; for example, a short luteal phase, which would make it difficult or impossible for a fertilised egg to implant, usually indicates subnormal levels of progesterone). Understanding these little things mean that couples can self-help, or at least understand the sort of help they need to seek.

Thinking about it from this perspective, should "fertility awareness" be a female only domain? That's the next instalment. Watch this space.

"I will show you the way to Heaven"

2011-08-03T17:16:00.001+01:00

"You have shown me the way to Ars, now I will show you the way to Heaven." This is what Saint Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney said to the little boy who had just shown him how to find the village of Ars.

St Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney, patron saint of priests, on the priesthood:

"Without the priest, the passion and death of our Lord would be of no avail. It is the priest who continues the work of redemption here on earth...What use would be a house filled with gold, were there no one to open its door? The priest holds the key to the treasures of heaven: it is he who opens the door: he is the steward of the good Lord; the administrator of His goods...Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest and they will end by worshipping the beasts there..The priest is not a priest for himself, he is a priest for you."

With Saint Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney's feast day coming up -- 4th in the August Ordinary Form and 8th August in the Extraordinary Form -- it is a good time to reflect on the sacrifices made by those priests with whom we have a relationship: those who have baptised us and our children, who have heard our confessions, married us, prayed for us and with us; who have nourished our souls with the Body and Blood of our Blessed Saviour. Reflect and, of course, pray for them: for those priests who are struggling with their vocation; those who feel alone, perhaps unsupported by their brother priests or bishops; for those young men who are considering whether or not God is calling them to his Holy Priesthood; for those young boys who may one day become priests, and for their families, that they may foster their budding vocations. For all those who show us -- and who will one day show our children -- the way to heaven.

God bless our priests! Saint Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney pray for our priests! Pray for us!

Child-like vs childish

2011-07-31T16:00:00.000+01:00

The problem with gearing the Mass towards children (and we're obviously talking about the Novus ordo here) is that it becomes childish in the worst sense. Worse is the outcome of making the Mass childish: eventually the children grow up and feel that the Faith is something that they can put away, along with other childish things -- as they are now adults. The flipside is that the adults who accompany the children feel foolish doing "childish things" like kneeling, praying, abandoning themselves to Our Lord as these are associated with balloons, facepaint, colouring sheets pinned to the altar cloth, blessing of soft toys, singing "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam" etc.

And yet ... if we are to embrace Our Lord fully we need to become as a little child. But somewhere along the way this got confused with being childish. To feel genuine humility before the sacrifice at Calvary, to receive the Blessed Sacrament on the tongue whilst kneeling, to open ourselves to the possibilities of God's love -- that is being like a child, without guile, without barriers. How did this get turned into clown Masses and teddy-bear's picnic Masses?

Were the Apostles childish or child-like in their faith?

I love the following prayer from St. Alphonse Ligouri's Stations of the Cross, and use it as a penitential prayer at night. It's impossible to say without becoming as a child but impossible to say meaningfully with a childish attitude. Even my 7 year old understands the difference.

I love Thee, Jesus my love above all things; I repent with my whole heart for having offended Thee. Never permit me to separate myself from Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt.

Are you a Mary or a Martha?

2011-07-29T23:27:00.000+01:00

I'm naturally more of a Mary, but God in his wisdom has given me a more Martha-like role to play.

I grew up a creature of the intellect and spirit, and managed to reach my late twenties without knowing how to change a baby's nappy, bake a cake, or even keep a houseplant alive. I was good with animals -- always had been -- but not much good at anything else that didn't involve brain-work. I was thoroughly undomesticated.

The first meal I ever made for the man who became my husband was a green pepper sandwich. Yes, you read that right. He was utterly bemused, not sure whether I was absolutely hopeless in the kitchen, or whether thinly sliced green-pepper on granary bread was a sophisticated delicacy that he'd yet to come across. I was 21 and had no idea how to make a sandwich. None. But I had some bread, and a green pepper in my fridge, and a green-pepper sandwich seemed perfectly logical to me at the time. And no, there was no butter on it.

I was the woman who would break out into a sweat if she saw someone approaching her with a baby, lest they try to encourage me to actually hold it. Holding a baby always resulted in the baby screaming and me handing the baby back with a grimace as pronounced as the one on the tiny wailing face in my arms.

I was most comfortable in international academic conferences, in late-night intellectual debates over port in smoky MCRs, in later years in boardrooms, thriving on competing and winning in a male-dominated industry. I'm not sure if I was the nicest person, though, nor whether I was even a little bit happy.

I said earlier that as a child I'd been a creature of the intellect and of the spirit. This was true until my teens when a lack of spiritual formation lead that aspect of my life to become sidelined by all the things that the world (and my nearest and dearest) told me were important: academic success, a good career, and subliminally the message was that if I was clever and successful then I'd be lovable as well. I was profoundly religious as a young child, particularly in the years after my first communion. I think my family found it a little embarrassing, and hoped I'd get over this stage quickly. I was told that I shouldn't practise saying Mass as I couldn't be a priest, but if I wanted to be religious I could be a nun. When I asked what this entailed, I got a woolly answer ("um, don't know... lots of praying") which didn't appeal to the 9 year old me. I've often wondered if things would have been different if I'd had some spiritual formation at that stage in my life. God only knows.

Oh I rebelled against the high-achieving expectations -- who didn't in their late teens? But the "rebellion" was of the pre-scripted kind. Nihilism, despair, feminism, drugs and rock-and-roll ... a gentle roll down the slope of agnosticism. I wore black, I pierced my nose, I shaved my head, I wore combat boots. Oooh, how very rebellious I was! I read Lautréamont and Jerzy Kosiński and was convinced that mankind was evil and doomed. I thought religion was the opiate of the masses. I thought I was so much cleverer than everyone else. I didn't realise quite what a silly sheep I was.

My conversion came not as a thunderbolt, but as a whisper. A gentle call: persistent, loving. Somehow we began going to Mass, at first occasionally, then more regularly. By the time we were married we were properly back in the fold, but still heading towards the Church's living beating heart, still making up time for all the years we strayed, still learning all the catechisis we missed.

And now? Well we still have several thousand books in the house, most of which are still in boxes from our last move. My life circles around four lovely little people and my husband through whom I've gained an insight into God's unconditional love; five chickens, three rabbits, two cats, a pair of fancy mice and another pair of fancy rats, and two tanks of tropical fish complete the household. I feed and nurture all of these creatures; God has given me the job of looking after them. I've actually become a reasonably good cook -- cakes, soups, stews, jam, bread -- I can tackle it, and it will taste good, unlike that green pepper sandwich of twenty years ago. I can more or less keep order in our home, grow a fair bit of our own food, wrangle a sewing machine well enough to whizz up angel costumes when required or, more prosaically, mend clothes. My intellect and education are being put to better use than I ever could have imagined, educating my own children. I've often wondered why in the eyes of the world it would be OK if I had continued teaching undergraduates - other people's children - at university, but it's a "waste of all that education" when I teach my own. Funny that.

One of my uncles was very sporty and a real outdoorsman in his youth. Then in his mid-20s he was struck down with a debilitating disease that put a stop to all of his physical pursuits. A couple of decades later, I was looking through old photos with him. I asked him how he felt about not being able to mountain-climb and cycle and water-ski. He was glad, he said. He felt that his illness and disability had opened doors that he'd previously not known had existed. A world of art and music and culture more than filled the void left by his sporting activities, and he felt certain that had he not been so "unfortunate" he would never have gained the rich life that he lead.

And so, I'm a reluctant Martha but not so reluctant that I don't rejoice in my apple harvest, dote on my chickens, gain a real creative buzz from cooking and baking, and cherish the time that I spend with my family. I've found a great joy in service - this is something utterly novel to me as it isn't something that I saw modelled as a child. Small tasks, done lovingly, give great satisfaction. In my "Martha" role I've gained more riches than I ever thought would be possible, and God has given me a happiness that I never dared to hope for in my youth. The girl who used to need 9 hours sleep is now the woman who loves it when her toddler sneaks into her bed at 6 in the morning, giggling to himself as he takes her face in his fat little hands and plants a big wet kiss exclaiming "Mummy I LOVE you!"

There is a part of me that longs for order and silence and peace on days that are noisy and chaotic. That longs for mental stimulation on days when laundry and nappy changes seem overwhelming. That fantasises about entering an enclosed order and living a cloistered life of prayer and contemplation. But that isn't my life, and, to be honest, I'm not sure that the reality would suit me. I still read copiously when I can, think far too much, and find as much time for personal prayer as I can in a day that rotates around the needs of others. This blog is just one escape valve for my mutterings. My life has taught me to share -- something I managed not to learn as a child -- and to put the needs of others first. Like my uncle who found new life in his changed life, I'm thriving as a Martha; God took me out of my comfort zone and threw a lifetime's worth of challenges at me, and in so doing opened up spiritual, emotional and intellectual dimensions that I'd never imagined existed. Nurturing my own babies has given me a tiny glimmer of insight into God's boundless love for us all, and family life has taken me from a lost soul who felt that she had to achieve worldly glory in order to be lovable to a contented wife and mother who is beginning to understand that her Saviour's love is boundless and unconditional.

The elephant in the room: breastfeeding and NFP

2011-07-29T01:45:00.002+01:00

This post isn't about NFP pros and cons, it's about whether political correctness or perhaps ignorance is making us approach fertility awareness in an unscientific way. It's also about whether our approach, in the way that it ignores and therefore inadvertently subverts the natural order is, in some way morally flawed.

Amongst other things I'm a trained and qualified lay breastfeeding counsellor. I've racked up enough clinical hours in a voluntary capacity over the past nine or so years to qualify to sit the IBCLC certification, normally reserved for medical professionals. I only mention this to point out that, apart from my other areas of interest [(doctoral dissertation (literature) and professional life (IT), and hobbies (small mammal colour genetics)] breastfeeding is my specialist subject. Even though I'm no longer active as a counsellor, the journal Breastfeeding Abstracts still drops onto my doorstep every quarter: it's fascinating stuff.

But what does this have to do with NFP? I'm asked this a lot when I get onto my breastfeeding and NFP hobby horse. Breastfeeding is just one of many parenting choices that some mothers make, right? Natural family planning is something completely separate, right? Wrong.

I first got thinking about the relationship between breastfeeding and Catholic mothering about six years ago when I was helping a mother who was having difficulties nursing her third child. She had nursed her first two easily but things were more complicated with the third and, having been failed by the NHS, she had sought out help from a breastfeeding charity. She was about my age and over the next few weeks we had some interesting conversations. One of the reasons that she was determined to nurse her baby was because she was a Muslim and, as she told me, "breastfeeding is an important part of our religion". Always competitive, I bounced back, "and part of mine too" while thinking "erm, exactly why did I say that?".

I had been reading a fair bit about the Theology of the Body at the time, and was convinced that Blessed Pope John Paul II's definition of self-giving was a perfect illustration of the nursing relationship. Around the same time I read "Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood" and saw that Sheila Kippley had explicitly drawn the same conclusion. More importantly, I accepted the necessity of openness to new life as a fundamental aspect of Catholic belief, but saw an inherent contradiction in the absence of any discussion about breastfeeding as part of the same conversation.

A few years earlier our diocese had held a consultation to find out how to make parishes more family-friendly (or at least that's how it was presented to us in the parish we were in at the time). My husband and I and our then only child went to the meeting along with a friend and her husband and toddler of a similar age. When asked what the parish could do for families we all asked to have a Billings or other NFP counsellor accessible to the parish. What we were eventually given, was a "ministry of welcome" which was as much use as... well, chocolate teapot metaphors in the combox please. This "consultation" got me thinking about NFP in the parish context and comparing the families who wanted it and their reasons for wanting it with those mothers I'd been working with as a breastfeeding counsellor. The families in the parish were often afraid of having a second (or subsequent) child too soon after a first; on the other hand, many of the mothers I knew through my breastfeeding work were keen to have another baby sooner rather than later and were looking for help in ways to increase their fertility. The difference was that the latter group were often breastfeeding in a biologically normal manner: that is to say for a biologically rather than culturally normal length of time (>=2 years). The mothers in the parish group were almost all either using artificial milk, the cultural norm, or mixed feeding, and/or weaning within the first year. They had a rapid return to full fertility and often had a second or subsequent baby before nature would have allowed had natural law been followed. At that time the cultural norm was a maximum of six months (anything else was seen as a bit wacky), encouraged by the NHS, against all scientific evidence which pointed (and still points) towards a minimum of two years nursing (WHO guidelines). A comment I read many years ago (I don't remember where) that really struck me was that the only thing that the Vatican and the World Health Organisation have ever wholly agreed on is breastfeeding.

This is about following Natural Law. God's perfect plan for families includes breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is nature's way of spacing babies. It's nature's way of ensuring that the mother's body had had time to recover, that the nursing baby is strong enough and mature enough to deal with a sibling, that everyone has had time to catch their breath between births. Research shows that for European women, with natural duration breastfeeding (i.e. nursing a baby for a natural amount of time) menstruation returns (on average) between 13 and 15 months post-partum (depending on the study). Even if a mother was to conceive on her first visible cycle, she would have a minimum gap of almost two years between her babies. However if she's still nursing her toddler several times a day as nature intended, her fertility will probably be reduced for several more months. Thus many mothers who are committed to natural duration breastfeeding find that they actually need to change their nursing pattern (dropping an early morning feed works wonders) or even wean their child in order to conceive their next baby. These women allow breastfeeding to maintain a subfertile period of months (sometimes years), allowing nature to space their babies. Yet in Catholic parishes, we're teaching people how to avoid their fertile period while not talking about breastfeeding at all. We are creating, or at least condoning, an artificial rupture with the natural order. Why?

Breastfeeding is a hot topic: feminists see it as a way for flat-earthers to chain women to domestic slavery. "We won't be equal with men," they argue, "until we're able to share parenting equally". As a sociological construct, the concept of "sharing parenting equally" might just be able to pass muster, but from a scientific perspective it's an utter nonsense. There is nothing equal about parenting -- men and women have differentiated roles that should be embraced not ignored. Some social conservatives appear to see breastfeeding as some sort of feminista statement, and I've read more than one unpleasant comment associating breastfeeding with "feminazis" over the years. Breastfeeding isn't a feminist issue. It's shouldn't be an "issue" of any kind. It's simply what mothers with babies do in order to feed them, stimulate the development of their neural pathways, widen their dental arch, provide immunological support to an immature system, and kick-start the endocrine system. And that's just (some of) what it does for the baby; there are profound physical effects on the mother as well: positively impacting behaviour, emotions, and fertility.

So it's not all about the food. This means that we can wipe the "breast vs bottle" arguments from the slate. Research over the past decade or so has proven what mothers have instinctively known for millennia: there's more to breastfeeding than food. The "first milk" or colostrum is not a milk at all, but a secretion that kick-starts the endocrine system: this is why babies who miss out on this precious fluid in the first days of life have a considerably raised risk of developing diabetes later on in life. The immunological benefits of breastfeeding are better known, as are the decreased risk of allergies. Less well known is the benefit to dentition -- breastfeeding in the second year of life is nature's way of widening the dental arch, thereby decreasing the chance of overcrowded and misaligned teeth. Did you ever wonder why more and more people have misaligned teeth and need braces? It's not simply down to vanity. One American dentist did, and he did a massive retrospective study of orthodontic patients, finding a direct correlation between not being breastfed and needing dental work for malocclusion. Braces and expensive orthodontics were not in God's plan, but breastfeeding for the first couple of years clearly was. Then there's the neural pathway development: the skin-to-skin contact facilitated by the nursing relationship is the primary mechanism stimulating the development of neural pathways in the early weeks of life; this is part of “building the brain” outside the womb, creating the ability for a wide range of emotional responses. I could go on, but this post isn't about the wonders of breastfeeding, it's about why we, as Catholics, don't include this vital aspect of fertility in our fertility education.

Clearly humans can survive without being breastfed. I'm not arguing that point. I wasn't breastfed, and I'm still reasonably intelligent, relatively sane, and if not glowing with health, at least I'm still alive. This isn't about bare minimum: if we Catholics believed that bare minimum was good enough we'd hand out condoms and tell teens to only use them if they really really can't do otherwise. But we know that's wrong. What is just as wrong is subverting the natural order and calling it “Natural family planning”.

But what about those women who can't / won't / dont' want to breastfeed. I have no patience with “won't” and “don't want to”. You have a baby and you don't want to feed it as God intended: tough. I bet you don't fancy changing nappies, being woken up twelve times a night, and cleaning projectile vomit out of your hair either, but you'll have to do it at some point (or possibly several) as a parent. As for those who “can't” -- well, that's different. Fewer than 1% of mothers have a medical problem that makes breastfeeding impossible; these can be either physical (mastectomy) or endocrinological/hormonal affecting milk production.

Many of us have neighbours / mothers / sisters / friends who have been “unable” to breastfeed because they have been told that they don't have enough milk, aren't producing enough milk, will never produce enough milk. It is far more likely that they were not supported properly, and were attended to by people with an incomplete knowledge of lactation than that they fall into the <1% with a physical impairment. Having spent years dealing with the fall-out from women discharged from hospital or by community midwives, I think that learning and support are the two things that would make a big difference to breastfeeding success. It is my perception (and I have nothing but my own experience to back this up) that a greater proportion of Catholic mothers breastfeed (for some length of time) than among the population at large. There is a huge potential support network of mother-to-mother help available. Another option would be to co-opt existing breastfeeding support agencies like La Leche League into NFP programmes and to provide free helpline numbers at a parish level (La Leche League is an international single-issue organisation providing breastfeeding support set up by seven Catholic women and their Catholic GP in 1956. It was named after a shrine to Our Lady. Whilst having no relationship with the Catholic Church, there is nothing in the organistion's beliefs that contradicts Catholic teaching - it exists simply to support and provide information to mothers who wish to breastfeed and takes no stand on other issues).

So what does this all have to do with the Catholic Church? Well, if we believe that God created us in His likeness, and that the natural order is a good thing, then we should seek to maintain that natural order. This means encouraging breastfeeding as part of NFP programmes or, better yet, treating it as the norm within the context of family fertility awareness teaching. Breastfeeding might be natural, but it is a learned skill, and over the past few generations we've seen a complete rupture with the past in terms of mothering particularly with regard to breastfeeding. Marriage preparation and NFP classes should be scientifically as well as morally coherent. They should emphasise the whole picture with regard to fertility, not just the “contracept-or-not” bit thereby allowing parents-to-be to see and understand the whole big beautiful picture of procreation that God has given us.

Pictures from the Breastfeeding Art Gallery with thanks

UPDATE (5th August 2011): More on NFP here

Biretta heaven

2011-07-23T22:23:00.000+01:00

Maybe I ought to get out more, but I've just spent a very enjoyable hour browsing the Phillipi Collection website which is described as being:

...currently the world’s largest collection of clerical, ecclesiastical and religious head coverings and is unique in both its scope and size. Whether they are ceremonial or worn as a part of everyday life, you’ll find examples of headwear from every religious persuasion around the globe. In addition, the collection includes 116 religious objects.

The site has everything you ever wanted to know about borlas, boat-hats, galeros and, of course, birettas galore (who would have guessed that there were so many different types, including tiny teddy-bear sized ones). I was interested to see that a toque is a kind of academic headgear. I spent some years growing up in Canada where "toque" was a common term for a much less elegant woolly winter hat.

There's a great dry sense of humour in the commentary: I particularly liked the understatement in the description of the camouflage biretta: "Indeed a strange biretta!" and the inclusion of Biretta art: the amazing levitating Biretta installation (pictured above).

For the serious aficionado (or for those mothers being pestered by children wanting miniature vestments) there are patterns for birettas -- both collapsible and and the ordinary sort. The site recommends an Italian supplier for the silk pompoms on top, but for children I reckon that a DIY version made by the children themselves will do the trick.

Get your rhetoric off my family!

2011-07-22T07:59:00.001+01:00

Twitch of the mantilla to John Smeaton for pointing out the hypocrisy of the "family planning" movement which bases its arguments around the rhetoric of "choice". Statements from Simon Ross of Population Matters (formerly the Optimum Population Trust) in last Sunday's Observer suggest that "choice" is only acceptable if you choose what the population-limiters find acceptable. To paraphrase Henry Ford, you can choose to have any size family you like, as long as it's below population replacement levels. David Beckham and Boris Johnson are singled out as "very bad role models with their large families". Ross goes on to suggest that society needs to "change the incentives to make the environmental case that one or two children are fine but three or four are just being selfish"

The irony of this is presumably lost on Ross and it would be funny if we didn't know that this sort of population control already happens in China (paid for, dear reader, with taxes that your government and mine gives to the United Nations Population Fund - the UK also funds the UNPFA -- see top of p14 on the Multilateral Aid Review, published March 2011 ) and that "incentives to make the ... case that one or two children are fine" are a slippery slope towards the government deciding how many children a family is allowed to have. It starts with tax incentives, it ends in coerced abortion.

Public attitudes to family size are changing too. People feel that they have the right to pass judgement. Here's a real life example: several years ago, I was shouted at by a well-dressed, well-spoken woman in her 50s in an upmarket optician's shop in central London. After my eye appointment, I had taken my children into the loo and each little one had needed a turn and then the baby's nappy had needed changing. When we came out this woman complained that we'd taken too long. I apologised and explained that several of us had been using the loo and that I had also had to change the baby's nappy. "I heard them playing in there" she retorted "it's not a playroom!". "They're only children" I said as patiently as I could, between gritted teeth, "there's no harm in them being happy and chattering while I change the baby's nappy". This really got her goat -- "THE SELFISH GENE!!" she shrieked "you all get it as soon as you have a baby! You think you can just do as you like! How selfish having so many children! Don't you care about the planet?" (As absurd as this sounds, I swear that I'm not making it up -- this is a verbatim account). I was completely floored by this twist in the conversation, and said quietly "my children will be the doctors and nurses giving you medicines and wiping your bottom when you're old and helpless. They are a gift. God bless you." She flounced into the lavatory and slammed the door, and I ushered the children out. The younger ones were oblivious to what had happened, but the eldest asked "Mummy what was wrong with that lady - why was she shouting at us?" I told his that I thought she was probably ill, and that's why she had behaved the way she had.

The sad thing is that her attitude is all too common, and to a large extent condoned by the mainstream media which in turn is informed by Population Matters and other population-control cronies like the Green Party, various "family planning" organisations that treat pregnancy as a disease, and so forth.

I'm really tired of this anti-child, anti-life, anti-family and, crucially, anti-woman rhetoric. Children matter, families matter, and -- if you look at the science -- the declining birth rate and resultant population implosion is going to have a devastating impact economically and socially unless we find a way of redressing the balance. I think we need to be pro-active in fighting these attitudes -- for the sake of our own children and their children.

Fortunately I meet more people who are positive about children and families than people like the woman described above, but then again I steer clear of posh optician's shops and order my contact lenses online these days...

You can help stop the rot in Austria

2011-07-21T19:40:00.005+01:00

Pierre Le Gros the Younger (1666-1719), Religion overthrowing Heresy and Hatred, Altar of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Chiesa del Gesù, Rome

photo credit: Nick in Exsilio

Mundabor flags up an urgently serious matter within the Church in Austria: 313 priests and deacons have signed up to a "call to disobedience" citing "the Roman refusal of a long-overdue Church reform and the inaction of bishops" and declaring that they will:

- pray for Church reform at every liturgy, since “in the presence of God there is freedom of speech”

- not to deny the Holy Eucharist to “believers of good will,” including non-Catholic Christians and those who have remarried outside the Church

- avoid offering Mass more than once on Sundays and holy days and to avoid making use of visiting priests--instead holding a “self-designed” Liturgy of the Word

- to describe such a Liturgy of the Word with the distribution of Holy Communion as a “priestless Eucharistic celebration”; “thus we fulfil the Sunday obligation in a time of priest shortage”

- to “ignore” canonical norms that restrict the preaching of the homily to clergy

- to oppose parish mergers, insisting instead that each parish have its own individual leader, “whether man or woman”

- to “use every opportunity to speak out openly in favour of the admission of the married and of women to the priesthood” (Reported by CatholicCulture.org)

So essentially what these 313 clergy are saying is that they are not Catholic. End of story. No ifs, ands or buts. They disagree with Church teaching, they dissent from the Truths of the Faith, they refuse to be obedient to the Magesterium of the Church; so rather than a "statement of disobedience" surely this is a statement declaring themselves no longer Catholic. One would assume that Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna would take swift action to nip this outrageous dissent in the bud, particularly as it is being done in a high-profile and flamboyantly public way, deliberately causing scandal.

Sadly not - whilst Cardinal Schönborn professes to be "shocked", rather than immediately putting anyone signing up to this initiative on probation (and, frankly, surely he's able to sack them on the spot for a stunt like this) he is going to "meet with the initiative’s leaders and point out its 'inconsistencies', such as 'priestless Eucharist'" . Good grief -- point out its inconsistencies? I would have thought that signing up to this sort of thing would get a seminarian dismissed from his studies, never mind priests and deacons who continue to be allowed to lead souls into perdition by preaching this heresy.

Mundabor, Fr Z and EF Pastor Emeritus have wise words on the subject of the "call to disobedience" and what ought to be done as soon as possible.

But first, please, please PLEASE send an email protesting the fact that these priests and deacons are allowed to continue their ministry, openly preaching heresy, promoting disrespect for and encouraging disobedience to the Church, and leading souls astray. That this situation is allowed to continue is a major scandal. The 2011 Vienna Western Mass was stopped by a petition and public outrage, please God that this scandal may be ended as soon as possible as well.

Please email:
Congregation for the Clergy: clero@cclergy.va
Papal Nuncio in Austria: nuntius@nuntiatur.at
Holy Father: benedictxvi@vatican.va

Four new servants of God

2011-07-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to the four new canons of the Institut du Christ-Roi Souverain Prêtre. As any regular reader of this blog will have noticed, we're a sort of unofficial fan-club of the order. I was delighted to see a link on Fr Ray Blake's blog to some splendid photographs of the ordination at the church of San Michele e Gaetano in Florence, on 7th July this year - solemn, splendid, and sacred. Just right.

Set 1 - photos from the floor
Set 2 - photos from the balcony

Currently in the combox for Fr. Ray's post about the ordination photos there's a majority saying "ugh! it's so over the top. Why so fancy? Why the lace? Surely there's a middle way." To these people I say: judge them by their fruits.

The ICRSP have a steady stream of vocations for the priesthood and of women to the religious life. Their parishes are so demographically healthy that anyone much over 40 will be at the top end of the age bell-curve. They run excellent schools, academically and doctrinally rigorous, educating children in the Faith. They run orthodox Catholic summer camps for boys and girls, and traditional Catholic scout groups. In short, they are a massive success story. So why the nay-saying? Moreover, the four young men in these pictures are doing something of such magnitude and importance that the mind boggles. They are becoming consecrated servants of God. They will hear our confessions, baptise our babies, anoint our sick bodies, and feed our souls with the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ transubstantiated in their consecrated hands. They have left the world behind in order to serve Our Lord and to serve us. While there are photographs of family and friends with this year's ordinands, it not always the case that a new priest will have anyone to support him at his ordination: priests come from all backgrounds, and in a secular society this may mean that they've had to endure hostility and even rejection from family (and/or friends) to get to their ordination day. This is not idle speculation, I know more than one priest for whom this is the case and for whom following Christ has meant leaving his family behind. Bearing all of this in mind, is it not a bit churlish to begrudge a bit of high ceremony on a day of such magnitude in a young man's life?

Besides, I defy anyone to remain dry-eyed looking at the photographs of the family and friends' blessings (page 10 on this set of photos).

Please pray for these four young priests, and all their brother priests, that God may strengthen them and help them always in their vocation.

God bless the ICRSP! God bless all of our priests!

Q. When is a good Catholic school not a Catholic school?

2011-07-19T00:07:00.001+01:00

Catholic education: back to the future?

Photo credit: Foxtongue on Flickr

A. When it wants to remain faithful to the Magesterium.

...or at least so I'm told. A friend in France recently told me about a wonderful Catholic school: the headmaster is a Catholic priest, the majority of the teachers are also Catholic priests and the remainder are faithful lay-persons. ALL of the students are Catholic. The Faith imbues every aspect of the children's education, and they learn the catechism, history and laws of the Church in the most traditional way.

This is unusual in France where diocesan Catholic schools have teachers' salaries paid by the state, but have a contribution made by the diocese (and often by parents as well) and the buildings are owned by the Church. Despite being largely state funded, these are often called "private". Parental contribution aside, this sounds remarkably similar to what we call "grant maintained" here. Ah yes, and the diocesan schools have the same problems as our grant-maintained schools here in the UK: the government dictates curriculum and admissions. In France, I've been told, state funded schools are not allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religion for admissions, so "Catholic" schools can end up in the ludicrous position of having few if any Catholic students. Sound familiar?

Another problem is meddling from the educational teams within the diocese. Schools are persuaded to follow government guidelines, implement politically correct agendas, and downplay the aspects of the Faith less palatable to the liberal intelligentsia (or "Marxists" as my correspondent grimly calls them).

So how has the school in question avoided all of these pitfalls and managed to remain a truly Catholic school for Catholic children? Simple. Technically it isn't a Catholic school. By not calling itself a Catholic school, it has no obligation to have any administrative relationship with the diocese. By not taking any money from the state it has no obligation to teach any particular curriculum. Parents pay a small amount every month (subsidised where necessary) and benefactors make up the rest. The total annual cost for each student is less than the monthly fees for a cheap independent school in the South East of England. The school is run on a shoe-string but provides a first-class classical education and a sound Catholic foundation at both primary and secondary levels. What's not to like?

I think there's a lesson to be learned, and in the UK's current political climate we may have an advantage here over our Gallic cousins: the government's extended Academies programme promises state-funded schools the kind of autonomy that independent schools currently have in terms of curriculum and admissions. Why not create a truly independent, traditional, rigorously Catholic school -- just keep the word "Catholic" out of the name to maintain its independence. Failing that, perhaps it's time to ignore the ludicrous UK "market rate" for independent education, and see what is feasible with the financial input of Catholic philanthropists of both large and ordinary means.

Vaughan parents take heart - there must be another way!

Bastille Day: not a lot to celebrate

2011-07-15T01:50:00.000+01:00

A priest friend of ours in France says that he thinks the root of all that is wrong with his country lies in the French Revolution. Apart from a few years of respite during the first restoration, the country has gone - almost literally - to Hell in a handbasket since then.

Being an ornery sort, I had to disagree. I felt that things had started going awry a couple of hundred years earlier with the wars of Religion and the various Protestant uprisings, but that the '89 Revolution had cemented the damage. Either way, France has ended up a viciously secular country with a deeply ingrained anti-clericism that I imagine Richard Dawkins and his ilk can only envy.

There's a forceful and thought provoking passage from Joseph de Maistre on the French Revolution ("essentially Satanic...") worth reading at Rorate Caeli, and Richard Collins at Linen On The Hedgerow remembers the many Catholics martyred during the French Revolution, particularly those from the Vendee. Today I thought of our local martyr Charles François de Saint Simon Sandricourt,the last Bishop of Agde and one of the last victims of The Terror, guillotined in Paris on July 26, 1794 as well as the 17 Carmelite nuns who went to the guilletine singing the Veni Creator Spiritus.

That gentle reminder....

2011-07-15T00:27:00.000+01:00

Today's Gospel reading always seems to come around when I most need to hear its message:

'Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.' Matthew 11:28-30

It takes a great act of will to surrender oneself and simply trust God - the temptation is great to fret, to worry, over-analyse. I know I certainly do. It is human to crave certainty, to try to predict the future but I think we move closer to God when we can simply let go and have confidence that God will guide us, will carry us through whatever life brings.

Do not look forward to the changes and chances of this life with fear. Rather, look to them with full confidence that, as they arise, God to whom you belong will in his love enable you to profit by them. He has guided you thus far in life. Do you but hold fast to His dear hand, and He will lead you safely through all trials. Whenever you cannot stand, He will carry you lovingly in his arms.
Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow. The same Eternal Father who takes care of you today will take care of you tomorrow, and every day of your life. Either He will shield you from suffering or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it
Be at peace then, and put aside all useless thoughts, all vain dreads and all anxious imaginations.
Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Too Modern to Mantilla

2011-07-09T15:25:00.001+01:00

One of the things that surprised me about attending Mass in the Extraordinary Form in France was that even in a busy church, not a single mantilla was to be seen, and I was planning on asking our priest (or Monsieur le Chanoine as he is known) about this at lunch a couple of days before we came back to the UK.

As it happened, I didn't need to bring it up: he did. He was very happy, he said, to see me and the girls wearing our mantillas, and (gulp!) had apparently spoken about this in his sermon the Sunday we were away from his parish playing Cathedral dodge. He hoped that seeing ours might have encourage some of his French parishioners to consider wearing a mantilla.

But why don't women wear them? I asked. Is there an association with la voile intégrale as the (banned) Islamic niquab is called? Not at all, he replied. French women simply don't like the idea of wearing a mantilla because they (French women) are modern.

Huh?

He continued: there is an idea that being modern is good. That the mantilla is not modern. Therefore French women don't wear the mantilla.

Hang on, I protested. We're not talking about the average French woman in the queue at the boulangerie here. We're talking about women who attend the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Who are faithful to the Magisterium. Who are open to the gift of life and have large families. Who home-educate. Who nurture vocations. I've met these women. They're sound. Surely these women are not held back from wearing a mantilla simply because it's seen as being "unmodern".

But his response was that apparently they are. Modernism has crept into all corners of the French church: this would explain why the EF Mass in France was a bit of a mélange - a dialogue Mass with more standing and less kneeling than I'm used to. And the tension between being a Traditional Catholic and a Modern French woman, means that, at the moment, the mantilla loses out.

I know the whole subject is controversial -- Fr. Z's poll earlier this year showed as much. But to not see even one mantilla in a busy Traditional parish is, I think, very odd. I feel that the mantilla is part of our identity as traditional Catholic women, and to not even have it on your radar as an option feels wrong. It is, apparently, worn by all women in the SSPX Masses in France, but this hasn't helped its reputation within the EF community as it's linked with stories - whether apocryphal or not - of women at SSPX Masses being refused Holy Communion because they were wearing trousers / a skirt that was too short / no mantilla.

That was the end of that part of the conversation and we moved onto other matters (and dessert), except to say that I suggested having a few mantillas available for purchase within the parish: supply may dictate demand. Stranger things have happened.

(***Ok, ok so "mantilla" isn't a verb. Perhaps it should be. Repeat after me: I mantilla, you mantilla, she mantillas, they mantilla, we mantilla...)

St Thomas More and St John Fisher: Ora pro nobis!

2011-07-09T09:09:00.000+01:00

"Blessed Thomas More is important today, but he is not as important now as he will be in one hundred years from today."
-G.K. Chesterton (1929)

"I condemn no other man’s conscience: their conscience may save them, and mine must save me. We should remember, in all the controversies in which we engage, to treat our opponents as if they were acting in good faith, even if they seem to us to be acting out of spite or self-interest."
-St John Fisher

St Thomas More and St John Fisher, pray for the Church, pray for us!

One of the best presents I've ever received...

2011-07-03T21:55:00.001+01:00

...is this beautiful 1952 Missel Vespéral Romain, given to me this afternoon by our lovely Priest from Chapelle Saint Rita in Béziers when he realised that my missal was Latin-English only. I was interested to find out that it has the "correct" translation of the Lord's Prayer:

...et ne nous laissez pas succomber a la tentation

rather than the modern

...et ne nous soumets pas a la tentation

The difference is roughly "...and do not let us succumb to temptation" as opposed to "...lead us not into temptation." Obviously the modern French version mirrors our own English translation. My 1962 Latin-English missal has the same translation. Does anybody know whether an earlier English translation exists similar to the old French? The difference between asking Our Lord to help us not to succumb to temptation rather than asking Him not to lead us into temptation (would God do such a thing?) is striking.

Cœur Sacré de Jésus j'ai confiance en Vous

2011-07-01T23:55:00.002+01:00

Happy Feast Day! We celebrated with Adoration, Benediction, Confession and Mass (EF) at Chapelle Saint-Rita in Béziers... then went home to Agde to have moules-frites and glaces in a cafe on the promenade. It was almost 30 degrees at 10 pm...