Occasional dispatches from the front line of spiritual battle. A Catholic blog. Postings often conceived in the garden, at the playground or at the kitchen sink and hastily typed out far too late at night after putting the children to bed.
Blog started on the Feast of The Divine Mercy 2011, the day of the Beatification of Pope John Paul II. Blessed Pope John Paul II - Ora Pro Nobis!
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.+
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!
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
**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!
