Novena for home-educating mothers

As I'm frantically choosing what the children's learning will involve and how we're going to approach it this academic year, I was sent this lovely novena for home-educating mothers (or, as it originates in the US, "home schooling" mothers). The title describes it as 

A Nine Day Novena
With prayers adapted from
“Mother Love, A Manual for Christian Mothers”
by Pius Franciscus OFM, Cap.
Published in 1888 by Fr. Pustet & Co.

There are beautiful prayers on the different days for the mother's vocation as wife, mother, educator, home-keeper (sic), invocations to saints who are special patrons of Christian mothers as well as to Mary, Mother of Perpetual Help and to Saint Anne, as well as a prayer for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is illustrated with

I will be praying it, and I've shared it as I'm sure that I'm not the only one who could do with this sort of spiritual sustenance at this time of year.

Thank God for priests who aren't nice!

Do you go to a nice parish with a nice priest?...you know, one who's just really, really nice?  I'm glad I don't, and judging from this video, I reckon that Michael Voris feels the same way...

Quiz

Does anyone recognise the following view?

...or the surprisingly modern interior of this Church?

Where were we?

(...send guesses to the combox please)

Desecration, false tolerance, and the dangers of "traditional values"

Hot on the heel of ludicrous liberal media protests about the "severity" of the Pussy Riot verdict (look at the Guardian report - it doesn't even bother to mention that it's the most sacred of all Moscow churches, nor that a vile desecration took place - simply that there was "a protest" in "a cathedral", and even the usually sensible Spectator has been taken over by )... comes the very sad news that in Ukraine a group of self-proclaimed "militant feminists" FEMED have publically profaned a crucifix in the Kiev suburb of Majdanyj Nezalezhnost.

Equally stomach churning is the news that the OSCE (Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe) have criticized the verdict as representing a dangerous tendency towards curbing freedom of expression:

Charges of hooliganism and religious hatred should not be used to curb freedom of expression. Speech no matter how provocative, satirical or sensitive should not be restricted or suppressed and under no circumstances should it lead to imprisonment

So in other words, you can go into a church and say or do anything you like, as long as you claim that you're exercising your freedom of expression.

Does the OSCE actually believe that "under no circumstances" freedom of expression should be curbed? Holocaust deniers? Individuals inciting violence against groups of people or against the state itself? Mad mullahs exhorting loners to blow themselves up? Under no circumstances? Or does that just apply to people dissing Christianity? Would this extend to calmly and respectfully explaining the biblical position on homosexuality and marriage in a gay nightclub?

...or would that constitute a hate crime?

This is also the week that the UN Human Rights Council declared that many "traditional values are in conflict with human rights" and that "traditional and cultural values in Western countries propagate harmful practices, such as domestic violence".


Pray that our children will survive spiritually intact in this Brave New World.

Our Lady of Perpetual Succour: Ora pro nobis!

One question

...for anyone who actually thought that the Pussy Riot fiasco had anything to do with freedom of speech:

Would it be legitimate freedom of speech if somebody went into a "gay" nightclub and, using language and gestures calculated to offend and upset those present, disrupted proceedings for several minutes, frightening and alarming those in the club - saying afterwards that it was a just protest against the hand-in-glove relationship that homosexual advocasy groups have with our current government....

...or would it be a hate crime?


Just asking.


For what it's worth, I think the three women got off lightly.