Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, we love you! And here's why...

Unusually, I have just spent a week away from connectivity - no Internet, mobile phone or other data connection: our family had travelled up to the Lancashire moors to celebrate my Grandfather-in-law's 100th birthday. We had a wonderful time, with family from all over the world coming to celebrate until...

...yesterday morning, For no discernible reason I felt an 'itch' to turn on the television. As we don't own a TV at home, this is quite unusual . We had been staying in rooms above a pub in the edge of the Lancashire moors, and my husband and children had gone off after breakfast to pick up my in-laws who were visiting from North America. I was tidying our room and suddenly decided on a whim to see whether or not the TV worked and just happened to switch on BBC News 24 to see images of our Holy Father broadcast live with the announcement that he had just made.

I'm not the first Catholic blogger to say that I was shocked. Shocked is probably the wrong word. Bereaved comes closer. While I understand on an intellectual level what Cardinal Arinze is getting at here


I think that everyone who heard the news has been affected in a profoundly personal way. I felt bereft. My first thought was "Holy Father, where should we go? What should we do?" I felt small and childlike and lost. Were is my father going? I dropped down to my knees and prayed a decade of the Rosary. I wondered: " Beloved Pope Benedict - our Holy Father - what will we do without you?"

I instantly remembered how I felt when I heard that Pope Benedict had been elected in 2005: ELATED. At the time I didn't know why, exactly, it was so important to me that he became Pope rather than any other - but I was already blundering towards traditionalism (blundering meaning that nothing else felt right, nothing else answered the questions that had been left unanswered by decades in the Novus Ordo) - and I had a deep sense that having the then Cardinal Joesph Ratzinger as Pope mattered. 

Years on, I can confirm that it was a defining moment in my reversion to Holy Mother Church. Yes, I was already a Catholic "revert" but Pope Benedict defined and refined my faith through his encyclicals and books. I devoured them. I professed - and continue to profess - gratitude for his clarification of the position of the Traditional Latin Mass. When the Moto Proprio came out in 2007 I was primed and receptive. Hungry for spiritual nourishment, I asked my (then) pp whether we might have a monthly Traditional Latin Mass as there were several families in the parish who were very keen to have one. I was told that I was getting all the Latin I could expect in our Novus Ordo use of the Gloria, Agnus Dei and Sanctus from Mass VIII throughout the year. We had "some" Latin - what more could I want?

Indeed: how much Latin could anybody want? "Feed my sheep" said our Lord, and indeed. as a family, we were hungry.Starving. Both my husband and myself had come from nominally Catholic families. "Culturally" Catholic families, one could say. We had reverted from an agnostic / atheistic / lackadaisically Catholic point of view, towards an orthodox, traditionalist point of view. Pope Benedict XIV provided spiritual food for the last stages of that journey, and for that we will be forever grateful. He provided the signposts that gave our journey direction.

I was born in 1969. I received my First Holy Communion in 1978 with little or no catechises. I was confirmed in 1983 with even less catechises: I didn't even manage to have a saint's name for my confirmation name! (Priestly readers: is there any remedy for this?)

I returned to the Church I believe in large part due to the workings of the Holy Spirit. My husband and I were married and had our children baptised. We went to church every Sunday and Holy day of Obligation, and I often took the children on weekdays. We felt as though we were hungry. We were looking for more, and as well-meaning as it was, our Novus Ordo parish wasn' t giving us the spiritual food that we craved.

I mention this all to explain why I consider myself to be of the "Benedict XVI" generation. Sure, I was 35 when Cardinal Ratzinger became our Holy Father, but for me (and for many of my age and generation) this was a defining moment. Pope Benedict XVI was unambiguous about Church teachings. He directed us towards timeless Tradition and Truth and in doing so filled the spiritual chasm that had been an irritant since adolescence. I cannot be the only person who has felt this.

In real terms this affected our family. Over time we gravitated towards traditional devotions, such as a nightly Rosary and saying the Angelus at noon, and later the traditional Latin Mass. We later moved house so that we could be attached to a parish with a priest who supported us in our decision to home educate our children and who offered our family a parish with a rich and nourishing spiritual life. As a family we became attached to traditional spiritual devotions, and became immersed in a broader and richer spiritual life than we had access to in the pre-moto-proprio days. Certainly these aspects of Catholicism existed before the pontificate of Benedict XVI, but his encouragement certainly served as a catalyst for our family.

I feel immensely grateful that our family has been privileged to pray with the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, at the beatification Mass of Blessed John Henry Newman at the Mass in Birmingham as well as having prayed the Angelus with him when we went to Rome in November 2012 in thanksgiving for the 5th Anniversary of the Moto Proprio for the Una Cum Papa Nostro pilgrimage.

Do you remember where you were on 19th April 2005?  I do. I was in my dining room, close to the kitchen door, and I heard BBC Radio 4 announce the outcome of the conclave. I remember punching the air. It felt so very important at the time, and I don't think I realised how important it actually was until much much later on.

I will never forget where I was sometime after 10:30 am GMT on 11 February 2013: I was in a rented guest room above a pub on the moors in Lancashire. There was no mobile or internet reception. I had turned on the  TV news utterly randomly.

There has been much talk of the JPII generation. I consider myself to be of the BXVI generation: sure, I was born in the late'60s but I came "of age" spiritually under the guidance of our current Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. And for this reason I will forever be in his debt.

Thank you Holy Father. Thank you. thank you, thank you. May Almighty God always bless and protect you.

"Change Your Life!" Michael Voris in London

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?"


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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

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.

Traditional catechism for children in Paris

Emmanuel Delhoume's blog laments the lack of availability of traditional Catholic catechesis for children and families in France (I think we can concur that the situation is little or no better in the UK) despite there being both a need and a desire for traditional catechetics to be taught at a parish level. His blog announces the start of a new initiative aimed particularly at families in East Paris (12ieme, 13ieme, and 20ieme Arr.) offering fortnightly catechism lessons with a priest from Ecclesia Dei, specifically seeking to prepare children to receive sacraments in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. As M. Delhoume says "It is our duty as Catholic parents to prepare our children thoroughly for the sacraments and instruct them in the Truths of the Faith". Amen to that!

Please pass on to friends and family in Paris. Interested families can contact Emmanuel Delhoume on 06 67  28 33 38 or edelhoume@voila.fr

Interestingly, one French commentator on this new initiative notes that if Summorum Pontificum is to be implemented fully in parishes, it should go beyond simply offering Sunday Mass in the E.F. but also include a thorough traditional preparation for the Sacraments. I would add that sessions on traditional catechesis and the Truths of the Faith would also be invaluable for adults of my generation, many of whom - myself included - received no real formation in the Faith as children either at school, in our parishs or at home.