Puttin' on a Ritz...

with the great Fred Astaire

Fun music from Jeeves and Wooster

Some news about a former parish priest

My mother and sister were discussing a certain parish priest back in Oman and I Googled his name.

The appointment of Catholic priest Fr Lester Mendonca as Military Chaplain to the Canadian Forces at their Educational Training base at Borden, Ontario, is indeed a great honour for Canadians and immigrants of Indian origin in Canada...Fr Lester Mendonca who is also a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus, was ordained in Ontario in 1992 by the Vicar Apostolic of Arabia Bishop B Gremoli. His family has been in Canada since nearly three decades. As an incardinated member of the Vicariate of Arabia, he has served as assistant parish priest in Bahrain (1993-1997), in Muscat (1997-2002) and as parish priest in Qatar (2002-2005). Fr Lester was sent to Rome to complete his seminary studies at the Urban College of Propaganda Fide where he completed his doctoral dissertation in Biblical Theology many years later. Fluent in Italian, French, Urdu and Arabic, Fr Lester brings a lot of freshness into his pastoral ministry.

Read the rest here.

Quite amazing to see a former parish priest now dressed up like this:

The prelate in white is Bishop Bernard Grimoli, the former Vicar Apostolic of Arabia. He confirmed me.

Very interesting...from what he says, Fr Lester is still attached to the Vicariate of Arabia...

Hear Me

Hear me, Lord, for I am a sinner, which means I have nothing except prayer.

Protect me from the day of dryness and impotence.

When neither a swallow's flight nor peonoes, daffodils and irises in the flower marhet are a sign of Your glory.

When I will be surrounded by scoffers and unable, against their arguments, to remember any miracle of Yours.

When I will seem to myself an imposter and swindler because I take part in religious rites.

When I will accuse You of establishing the universal law of death.

When I am ready at last to bow down to nothingness and call life on earth a devil's vaudeville.

~ Czeslaw Milosz.

I discovered this poem in an anthology of this 1980 Nobel Literature Prize winner when I was searching the library for Polish literature.

Some old posts

Was searching for something in my old blog.

Here are a few old posts that caught my eye :)

"Call Her Virgin, Call Her Mother..." Various titles of our Blessed Lady.

Secrets

Mother Mary, will you listen
To the things I wish to say?
How your sweet eyes used to glisten
As you watched Him at His play!

And when He'd creep up to your knee,
And when He'd pause for rest,
You'd lift Him, O so tenderly,
And clasp Him to your breast.

Baby lips would lisp their secrets-
Precious words into your ear.
And you held Him tight and listened,
listened
While you wiped away a tear.

Mother Mary, I've been playing,
And I've come to you for rest.
Lift me up as you did Jesus-
Clasp me safely to your breast.

I will whisper all my secrets-
Halting words into your ear. Though they're not as sweet as His were,
Mother Mary, won't you hear?
Author unknown

and

Some Exam Prayers

The Elephant in the Room: In praise of Catholic priests who dare to teach and enforce

By Rick Santorum(Philadelphia Inquirer)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a self-proclaimed "ardent, practicing Catholic," had an opportunity last week to meet a fellow ardent Catholic, Pope Benedict XVI.

It appears that the pope used the visit to educate a confused Pelosi about the Roman Catholic Church's long-held position on the life issue.

Appearing on Meet the Press just prior to the Democratic National Convention, Pelosi told the country that, over the centuries, the Catholic Church had been unable to define when life begins. "We just don't know," she chirped.

The Vatican's statement after last week's meeting between Pelosi and the pope began: "His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the church's consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death."

Pope Benedict did not allow any photos of the meeting, making a second and equally bracing instructional point: Dissenting Catholic politicians who deliberately mislead others about the church's core teachings will not be given another chance to do so by having their picture taken with the vicar of Christ.

The pope heads a long list of church leaders who have used the speaker's comments to teach the faithful. It includes our own Cardinal Justin Rigali.

Pelosi made it easy for the bishops to confront an offense against church teaching, because, rather than state her own position, she misstated the church's position. To the church, this is akin to wearing a "Kick me" sign on your backside.

Sadly, the church hierarchy has been less assertive when public figures' policy positions openly dissent from core teachings.

That's why Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino got so much national attention last fall. Martino, formerly the auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia, made the welcome decision to publicly bar then Sen. Joe Biden and other abortion advocates from receiving Communion in the Scranton Diocese. Then, after the November election, he admonished his brother bishops for their reluctance to deal with the issue faithfully.

Last month, Martino took on the most influential family in his diocese, the Caseys. He excoriated Sen. Bob Casey, who claims to be pro-life, for voting to give taxpayer dollars to overseas organizations that perform abortions. He warned that Casey was "formally cooperating with evil."

Martino was not done. Two weeks ago, the Philadelphia native and St. Joseph's Prep graduate issued a strong statement of disapproval to a local, nominally Catholic college, Misericordia University, that had scheduled a speech on campus by someone advocating same-sex marriage. "The faithful of the Diocese of Scranton should be in no doubt," Martino said, "that Misericordia University in this instance is seriously failing in maintaining its Catholic identity."

Then, last week, Martino took on some more of the biggest guns in the diocese: the Irish clubs that organize the largest public Catholic event of the year, the St. Patrick's Day festivities. Through a letter from his Irish auxiliary bishop, Martino warned that if any of these groups went ahead with plans that in any way honor politicians who are not pro-life, he would close the cathedral where Mass is usually held prior to the parade, as well as other diocesan churches. He said he would not countenance anything that created confusion about the teachings of the church.

The reason for the letter: Scranton's St. Patrick's Day parade last year featured Hillary Clinton.

Many of his brother bishops will look at Martino as they do at other uncompromising defenders of the faith, worrying about the world's reaction. As a Philly guy, though, his excellency knows something about being booed. He also knows his job and calling: to be the good shepherd who faithfully leads and protects his flock from those who would lead them astray.

Yes, scores of people are reportedly protesting and threatening to leave the church. In the end, however, people leaving the church because of a bishop who enforces its teachings are a blessing compared with the alternative: people leaving because bishops and their priests don't teach, much less enforce, those teachings.

---

E-mail Rick Santorum at rsantorum@phillynews.com.

Apocalypse, maybe.

They're hilarious as usual

Rendering Unto Caesar: The Catholic Political Vision

Excerpts from a speech by the great Archbishop Charles J. Chaput:

As Christians, we can't claim to love God and then ignore the needs of our neighbors. Loving God is like loving a spouse. A husband may tell his wife that he loves her, and of course that's very beautiful. But she'll still want to see the proof in his actions. Likewise if we claim to be "Catholic," we need to prove it by our behavior. And serving other people by working for justice, charity and truth in our nation's political life is one of the very important ways we do that.

The "separation of Church and state" does not mean -- and it can never mean -- separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. That kind of separation would require Christians to deny who we are; to repudiate Jesus when he commands us to be "leaven in the world" and to "make disciples of all nations." That kind of radical separation steals the moral content of a society. It's the equivalent of telling a married man that he can't act married in public. Of course, he can certainly do that, but he won't stay married for long.

...

First, all political leaders draw their authority from God. We owe no leader any submission or cooperation in the pursuit of grave evil. In fact, we have the duty to change bad laws and resist grave evil in our public life, both by our words and our non-violent actions. The truest respect we can show to civil authority is the witness of our Catholic faith and our moral convictions, without excuses or apologies.

Second, in democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs. It's worth recalling that despite two ugly wars, an unpopular Republican president, a fractured Republican party, the support of most of the American news media and massively out-spending his opponent, our new president actually trailed in the election polls the week before the economic meltdown. This subtracts nothing from the legitimacy of his office. It also takes nothing away from our obligation to respect the president's leadership.

But it does place some of today's talk about a "new American mandate" in perspective. Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis. That's the mandate. They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion. That retooling could easily happen, and it clearly will happen -- but only if Catholics and other religious believers allow it. It's instructive to note that the one lesson many activists on the American cultural left learned from their loss in the 2004 election -- and then applied in 2008 -- was how to use a religious vocabulary while ignoring some of the key beliefs and values that religious people actually hold dear.

Here's the third thing to remember. It doesn't matter what we claim to believe if we're unwilling to act on our beliefs. What we say about our Catholic faith is the easy part. What we do with it shapes who we really are. Many good Catholics voted for President Obama. Many voted for Senator McCain. Both parties have plenty of decent people in their ranks.

But when we hear that 54 percent of American Catholics voted for President Obama last November, and that this somehow shows a sea change in their social thinking, we can reasonably ask: How many of them practice their faith on a regular basis? And when we do that, we learn that most practicing Catholics actually voted for Senator McCain. Of course, that doesn't really tell us whether anyone vo;ted for either candidate for the right reasons. Nobody can do a survey of the secret places of the human heart. But it does tell us that numbers can be used to prove just about anything. We won't be judged on our knowledge of poll data. We'll be judged on whether we proved it by our actions when we said "I am a Catholic, and Jesus Christ is Lord."

Here's the fourth and final thing to remember, and there's no easy way to say it. The Church in the United States has done a poor job of forming the faith and conscience of Catholics for more than 40 years. And now we're harvesting the results -- in the public square, in our families and in the confusion of our personal lives. I could name many good people and programs that seem to disprove what I just said. But I could name many more that do prove it, and some of them work in Washington.

The problem with mistakes in our past is that they compound themselves geometrically into the future unless we face them and fix them. The truth is, the American electorate is changing, both ethnically and in age. And unless Catholics have a conversion of heart that helps us see what we've become -- that we haven't just "assimilated" to American culture, but that we've also been absorbed and bleached and digested by it -- then we'll fail in our duties to a new generation and a new electorate. And a real Catholic presence in American life will continue to weaken and disappear.

...
One of the words we heard endlessly in the last U.S. election was "hope." I think "hope" is the only word in the English language more badly misused than "love." It's our go-to anxiety word -- as in, "I sure hope I don't say anything stupid tonight." But for Christians, hope is a virtue, not an emotional crutch or a political slogan. Virtus, the Latin root of virtue, means strength or courage. Real hope is unsentimental. It has nothing to do with the cheesy optimism of election campaigns. Hope assumes and demands a spine in believers. And that's why -- at least for a Christian -- hope sustains us when the real answer to the problems or hard choices in life is "no, we can't," instead of "yes, we can."

...
We serve Caesar best by serving God first. We honor our nation best by living our Catholic faith honestly and vigorously, and bringing it without apology into the public square and its debates. We're citizens of heaven first. But just as God so loved the world that he sent his only son, so the glory and irony of the Christian life is this: The more faithfully we love God, the more truly we serve the world.

Read the entire speech here.

I love this line from Fr Thomas Rosica's introduction of Archbishop Chaput:

Earlier this month in a major address delivered in Ireland, Archbishop Chaput ended his comments stating that it was important for pro-lifers to "be strategic." He said: "History shows that guerrilla wars, if well planned and methodically carried out, can defeat great armies. And we should never forget that the greatest 'guerrilla' leader of them all wasn't Mao (Zedong) or Che (Guevara), but a young shepherd named David, who became a king."

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a courageous, young, dynamic and articulate Franciscan -- not a king, but a good shepherd; the Archbishop of Denver, Most Reverend Charles Chaput.

Hymn Titles By Occupation

From Teresa:

Dentist’s Hymn………………………….Crown Him with Many Crowns

Weatherman’s Hymn…………………There Shall BeShowers of Blessings

Contractor’s Hymn……………………The Church Has One Foundation

The Tailor’s Hymn……………………..Holy, Holy, Holy

The Golfer’s Hymn…………………….On a Hill Far Away stood an old rugged ……

The Politician’s Hymn………………..Standing on the Promises

Optometrist’s Hymn…………………..Open My Eyes Lord

The IRS Agent’s Hymn………………..I Surrender All

The Gossiper’s Hymn…………………….Pass It On

Electrician’s Hymn……………….Shine Jesus shine

The Shopper’s Hymn…………………..Sweet Bye and Bye

The Realtor’s Hymn……………………..I’ve Got a Mansion Just over the Hilltop

The Massage Therapists Hymn…….He Touched Me

The Doctor’s Hymn……………………….The Great Physician

AND for those who speed on the highway - a few hymns:

45mph……………….God Will Take Care of You

65mph……………….Nearer My God To Thee

85mph……………….This World Is Not My Home

95mph………………..Lord, I’m Coming Home

100mph………………Precious Memories

Life, Liberty, and Abortion Reduction

By James Kerian

First Things

Thursday, February 26, 2009, 9:00 AM

In 1860 the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, endorsed a plan for compensated emancipation. Under this plan the government would purchase slaves for the purpose of setting them free. It seemed, initially, like a brilliant political solution. The country had endured decades of bickering over whether black Americans were fully human, and, if they were human, whether they were entitled to the same legal rights as the rest of Americans. Lincoln believed he had found a way to bring abolitionists and slavery advocates together, respecting everyone’s point of view and ending the partisan divisions, while at the same time reducing slavery and perhaps someday bringing it to an end.

In 2009 the Democratic Party, now led by another president from Illinois, endorsed a similar plan to help heal the partisan wounds of one of the great political battles of our time. After decades of intense debate over the humanity and rights of the unborn, it has been proposed that we should leave this argument behind us and unite behind an agenda of abortion reduction. The two pillars of this agenda are expanded access to contraceptives in our schools and an expansion of the social safety net for mothers in poverty.

Not long ago on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, President Obama pronounced: “No matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies [and] reduce the need for abortion.” The promise, once again, is that we will move beyond a polarizing issue that divides us and cooperate to create a better world. Unfortunately, the proposal is deeply flawed both principally and practically, and the promise is as empty now as the promise of compensated emancipation was in 1860.

With the support of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, the newly strengthened Democratic majority in Congress has introduced several pieces of legislation to promote the President’s abortion-reduction plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has personally introduced the Prevention First Act to funnel more federal dollars to family-planning groups.

Pro-life advocates across the nation have objected that this agenda does nothing to address the flaw in our legal system that currently denies basic human rights to unborn children. Their integrity has been questioned, their intelligence has been denied, and they have been frequently berated for using abortion as a wedge issue, but even the promise of bipartisan cooperation and the chance to save thousands of lives has not persuaded millions of American to give up their hopes of securing legal rights for the unborn.

Lincoln faced a similar problem. It might have been expected that abolitionists would eagerly seize the opportunity for federal assistance in the freeing of slaves. But Frederick Douglass wrote that the idea was “absurd, preposterous, and Heaven-insulting.” Douglass was joined in his criticism by other black abolitionists and the majority of their white colleagues. Promoting his plan to Southern congressman, Lincoln explained that “such a proposition on the part of the general government sets up no claim of a right by federal authority to interfere with slavery. . . . It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice.” It was precisely this “free choice,” this complete failure of principle, which the abolitionists could not accept.

The federal government never implemented the Republican plan for compensated emancipation, but several individuals in the North took up the cause as a private matter. Despite the objections of men like Douglass, these northerners believed that the practical advantages of helping the slaves they were purchasing outweighed the principled concerns of the absolute abolitionists.

Unfortunately, as often happens when principles are ignored for the sake of practicality, there were horrendous practical side effects to these private attempts at compensated emancipation. After escaping from slavery himself, Henry Bibb argued in his newspaper Voice of the Fugitive that “a great mistake has been made here in the north, by purchasing the freedom of fugitive slaves. It has only served to stimulate the hunt for fugitives.” While emancipated compensation undoubtedly improved the conditions for the slave who was purchased, it hurt the abolitionist cause as a whole.

Comprehensive sex education (i.e., the promotion of contraceptives through schools) can be similarly counterproductive. For years family planning groups have steadfastly denied any link between access to contraceptives and increased sexual activity in teenagers and, therefore, increased teenage pregnancy. In 2004, however, a study presented to the Royal Economic Society and reported in The Times (London) conclusively demonstrated what any parent with an ounce of common sense could have predicted. Government programs for “expanding contraceptive services [to schoolchildren] . . . encouraged sexual behavior.” Dr. David Paton, the author of the study, observed that “teenage sexual behavior appears to be little different to other fields in at least one important respect: Incentives matter to teenagers too.”

Contraception undoubtedly decreases the chances of an individual act of intercourse leading to an abortion, but the increased promiscuity resulting from comprehensive sex education can lead to the death of even more unborn children. A recent study published in the Australian Journal of Public Health showed that 70 percent of women seeking abortions were using contraception at the time they conceived. That number may seem high to those who are not familiar with the published failure rates for contraception, but it is actually not very surprising. Nor is it surprising that the abortion rate climbed in the United States every single year from 1973 to 1990, when it peaked, even as contraception became more widely available.

Actually, to say the abortion rate climbed is a dramatic understatement. The number of abortions each year exploded from just over 615,000 to nearly 1.5 million. But one thing that grew faster than the abortion rate was the size of our social safety net. Total annual social welfare expenditures were close to $250 billion in 1973, but by 1990 they had quadrupled to slightly over one trillion dollars. In a recent Newsweek article George Weigel observed that “Sweden, with a much thicker social safety net than the United States, has precisely the same rate (25 percent) of abortions per pregnancy as America.”

All in all, there is an abysmal lack of evidence to support the idea that any part of the abortion-reduction agenda will actually reduce abortion.

Compensated emancipation was used successfully in many countries when it was implemented alongside the banning of slavery. Financial aid for unplanned pregnancies may also be a wise policy when implemented alongside the banning of abortion. But to attempt simply to substitute the former for the latter is not only unprincipled but also impractical.

This is not to say that no incremental progress can be made before abortion is once again made illegal. The abolitionists saved thousands from slavery by limiting the slave trade and fighting to keep slavery out of the border states. Parental consent laws, mandatory waiting periods, bans on specific procedures, and laws to protect doctors with conscientious objections have all been shown to reduce abortions and save lives. These are means that should be pursued by anyone who truly wishes to reduce the number of abortions, especially since they do not undermine the fundamental principals at stake.

Ultimately, of course, limiting atrocities is insufficient. To be true to itself this nation has had to return, over and over again, to the fact that we are all created equal. However inconvenient it might be for abortionists or plantation owners, the founders of our nation insisted that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to both life and liberty. Neither of these rights can be left a matter of “free choice.” For, as the founders explained, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”

James Kerian is a member of the Board of Directors of the North Dakota Family Alliance.

Actress Wendy Richard dies at 65

She was wonderful as Ms Brahms in Are You Being Served. May her soul rest in peace.

Former EastEnders actress Wendy Richard has died at the age of 65, her agent has confirmed.

The star, who played Pauline Fowler in the BBC One soap opera for 21 years, had been suffering from cancer.

Her agent Kevin Francis said: "She was incredibly brave and retained her sense of humour right to the end."

Last October, Richard revealed she had an aggressive, terminal form of cancer. Soon after that she married her long-term partner John Burns.

Planned funeral

Francis said the star passed away in the Harley Street Clinic in London with her husband by her side.

In an interview with the Sunday Express last year, Richard revealed she had already planned her funeral and written her will.

She discovered the disease had returned after her usual annual check-up, which revealed cancerous cells in her left armpit.

She told the paper: "Now I have a cancerous growth on my right kidney and the cancer has spread to my bones.

"It's more aggressive this time, unfortunately, and has spread to the top of my spine and left ribs."

Minder star Shane Ritchie, who played EastEnders' character Alfie Moon alongside Richard until 2005, said he was, "absolutely devastated" by news of her death.

"I send all my love to John and her immediate family," he added.

Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, said: "Wendy Richard is going to be incredibly missed by the BBC and by our audiences."

Veteran actress, June Whitfield, added: "She was always delightful.

"I'm very, very sorry. I did not work with Wendy. We met at dos. It's very sad."

'Funny and witty'

Presenter Dale Winton had known Richard for years.

"I'm very saddened to hear the news, she was a real fighter and actually a very kind and funny lady in her own right," he said.

"My thoughts are with her family, she will be missed."

In 2000, Richard was awarded the MBE for services to television and in 2007 she was given a British Soap Award for Lifetime Achievement for her role in EastEnders.

As well as her 21 years on Albert Square, Richard starred in sitcoms Are You Being Served?, Dad's Army and Grace and Favour.

She joined EastEnders when the programme began in 1985 and remained in it until 2006, when her character died.

The reason she gave for her departure was because she objected to a storyline that saw her character remarry.

"I left because I wasn't happy," she revealed in 2008. "Also, I couldn't believe in what they wanted me to do and unless I can find some truth in what I am doing, I cannot play it.

"Pauline remarrying was wrong. Some women never remarry. My mother never remarried after Daddy died. I always had it in my heart that Arthur was Pauline's husband and that was that."

THE CAREER OF WENDY RICHARD

1965 Aged 22, joins the cast of soap The Newcomers

1970-73 Stars in four episodes of Dad's Army as Private Walker's girlfriend, Shirley

1972 Plays Miss Willing in Carry On Matron

1972-85 Stars as Miss Brahms in the series Are You Being Served? (pictured)

1985-2006 Appears in more than 1,400 episodes of EastEnders as Pauline Fowler

2008 Films her last TV role as Mrs Crump in Marple: A Pocket Full Of Rye

What a messed up culture

AmP reader Don writes:

The [Maryland] House of Delegates approved a measure to require consent for minors who want a tatoo.

And yet our legislators continue to support a state law that does NOT require consent for an abortion!

A prayer book on your mobile phone!

Rina, a friend of ours, has come up with this really cool Mobile Prayerbook. She designed it to raise money for grad school.

She's offering it free of charge during Lent, so the only payment she asks is that you say a prayer for her when you use it.
But do drop her a donation if you can.

And do check out her blog - Catholic+Linus+Monkey: Catholic. Monkeying around Linux

The economic crisis and the faith...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Turning to Religion - Jim Martin

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

Conservative Party leader David Cameron's disabled son Ivan has died.

(The Press Association)

The six-year-old, who suffered from cerebral palsy and a rare and severe epilepsy syndrome, was taken ill overnight and died at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London.

Ivan, who required round-the-clock care all his life, was the eldest child of the Tory leader and his wife Samantha.

Prime Minister's Questions, which Mr Cameron had been due to attend at noon, was called off at Gordon Brown's suggestion.

The Prime Minister, whose own baby daughter died in 2002, said: "Sarah and I were very saddened to hear of the death of Ivan and we have sent our condolences to David and Samantha. The death of a child is a loss no parent should have to bear.

"I know Ivan was a child who brought joy to all those who knew him and his was a life surrounded by love. The thoughts and prayers of the whole country are with David, Samantha and their family."

Buckingham Palace said the Queen has sent a private message of sympathy to the Camerons.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "It is with great sadness that David and Samantha Cameron must confirm the death of their six-year-old son Ivan. David and Samantha would ask that their privacy is respected at this terribly difficult time."

Mr and Mrs Cameron have two other children, Nancy, five, and Arthur, three.

It is understood the Camerons were with Ivan at the time of his death. Ivan was diagnosed with Ohtahara Syndrome - a very rare epilepsy syndrome that occurs in childhood.

Prophetic!

“Nations die of softening of the brain, which, for a long time, passes for softening of the heart.” (Coventry Patmore)

Lenten trivia from the Curt Jester

The capybara kap-i-'bar-uh, hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, is a semi-aquatic rodent of South and Central America. It is the only species in its genus, which belongs to the family Hydrochoeridae, order Rodentia.

When the Spanish missionaries found the capybara in Brazil during the 16th century, they wrote to the Pope to ask - there's an animal here that's scaly but also hairy, spends most of its time in the water but occasionally comes on land; can we classify it as a fish (and thus, the indigenous people could continue to eat it during Lent)?. Not having a clear description of the animal (and not wanting the petitioners to starve), the Pope agreed and declared it to be a fish.

Jimmy Akin has a good roundup of Lenten information.

Jimmy also has the guidelines for fasting from the Code of Canon Law.

Read the rest here

And as usual the Curt Jester has his cute Lenten graphic on:

Have a blessed Lent!

It was their faith...

To Europe was given, after 1945, a period of peace of such duration as our continent had never seen in its entire history. To no small degree, this was the accomplishment of the first generation of post-war politicians -- Churchill, Adenauer, Schuman, De Gasperi - whom we have to thank at this hour: We are to give thanks that it was not punishment that was fixed upon, nor again revenge and the humiliation of the defeated, but rather that all should be accorded their rights.

Let us say it openly: These politicians took their moral ideas of state and right, peace and responsibility, from their Christian faith, a faith that had undergone the tests of the Enlightenment, and in opposing the perversion of justice and morality of the party-states, had emerged re-purified. They did not want to found a state upon religious faith, but rather a state informed by moral reason, yet it was their faith that helped them to raise up again a reason once distorted by, and held in thrall to ideological tyranny.

-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

SJVB

Ash Wednesday

Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return

Have a blessed Lent, all - may it be a renewal of our cimmitment to repent and believe in the Gospels.

And what better time than today to read our Holy Father's lenten message?

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
FOR LENT 2009

"He fasted for forty days and forty nights,
and afterwards he was hungry" (Mt 4,1-2)

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

At the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition – prayer, almsgiving, fasting – to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that, as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, “dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace and humbles earthly pride” (Paschal Præconium). For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting. Indeed, Lent recalls the forty days of our Lord’s fasting in the desert, which He undertook before entering into His public ministry. We read in the Gospel: “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry” (Mt 4,1-2). Like Moses, who fasted before receiving the tablets of the Law (cf. Ex 34,28) and Elijah’s fast before meeting the Lord on Mount Horeb (cf. 1 Kings 19,8), Jesus, too, through prayer and fasting, prepared Himself for the mission that lay before Him, marked at the start by a serious battle with the tempter.

We might wonder what value and meaning there is for us Christians in depriving ourselves of something that in itself is good and useful for our bodily sustenance. The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it. For this reason, the history of salvation is replete with occasions that invite fasting. In the very first pages of Sacred Scripture, the Lord commands man to abstain from partaking of the prohibited fruit: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gn 2, 16-17). Commenting on the divine injunction, Saint Basil observes that “fasting was ordained in Paradise,” and “the first commandment in this sense was delivered to Adam.” He thus concludes: “ ‘You shall not eat’ is a law of fasting and abstinence” (cf. Sermo de jejunio: PG 31, 163, 98). Since all of us are weighed down by sin and its consequences, fasting is proposed to us as an instrument to restore friendship with God. Such was the case with Ezra, who, in preparation for the journey from exile back to the Promised Land, calls upon the assembled people to fast so that “we might humble ourselves before our God” (8,21). The Almighty heard their prayer and assured them of His favor and protection. In the same way, the people of Nineveh, responding to Jonah’s call to repentance, proclaimed a fast, as a sign of their sincerity, saying: “Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?” (3,9). In this instance, too, God saw their works and spared them.

In the New Testament, Jesus brings to light the profound motive for fasting, condemning the attitude of the Pharisees, who scrupulously observed the prescriptions of the law, but whose hearts were far from God. True fasting, as the divine Master repeats elsewhere, is rather to do the will of the Heavenly Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you” (Mt 6,18). He Himself sets the example, answering Satan, at the end of the forty days spent in the desert that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4,4). The true fast is thus directed to eating the “true food,” which is to do the Father’s will (cf. Jn 4,34). If, therefore, Adam disobeyed the Lord’s command “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” the believer, through fasting, intends to submit himself humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy.

The practice of fasting is very present in the first Christian community (cf. Acts 13,3; 14,22; 27,21; 2 Cor 6,5). The Church Fathers, too, speak of the force of fasting to bridle sin, especially the lusts of the “old Adam,” and open in the heart of the believer a path to God. Moreover, fasting is a practice that is encountered frequently and recommended by the saints of every age. Saint Peter Chrysologus writes: “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself” (Sermo 43: PL 52, 320. 322).

In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting certainly bring benefits to physical well-being, but for believers, it is, in the first place, a “therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God. In the Apostolic Constitution Pænitemini of 1966, the Servant of God Paul VI saw the need to present fasting within the call of every Christian to “no longer live for himself, but for Him who loves him and gave himself for him … he will also have to live for his brethren“ (cf. Ch. I). Lent could be a propitious time to present again the norms contained in the Apostolic Constitution, so that the authentic and perennial significance of this long held practice may be rediscovered, and thus assist us to mortify our egoism and open our heart to love of God and neighbor, the first and greatest Commandment of the new Law and compendium of the entire Gospel (cf. Mt 22, 34-40).

The faithful practice of fasting contributes, moreover, to conferring unity to the whole person, body and soul, helping to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the Lord. Saint Augustine, who knew all too well his own negative impulses, defining them as “twisted and tangled knottiness” (Confessions, II, 10.18), writes: “I will certainly impose privation, but it is so that he will forgive me, to be pleasing in his eyes, that I may enjoy his delightfulness” (Sermo 400, 3, 3: PL 40, 708). Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.

At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf. Encyclical Deus caritas est, 15). By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent.

From what I have said thus far, it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: “Utamur ergo parcius, / verbis cibis et potibus, / somno, iocis et arctius / perstemus in custodia – Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.”

Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God (cf. Encyclical Veritatis splendor, 21). May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Causa nostrae laetitiae, accompany and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it evermore a “living tabernacle of God.” With these wishes, while assuring every believer and ecclesial community of my prayer for a fruitful Lenten journey, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 11 December 2008.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Human rights? Not that important in the White House anymore

From CRM

On her first trip to Asia as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the following to say concerning human rights:

"our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis."

This comment should send chills down your spine; make you fear for the future of freedom. The subjugation of freedom and human rights to security is the first building block of tyranny. Allowing government to place human rights as secondary to other needs should be resisted.

Look at the verbiage of the Obama administration which is crisis, crisis, crisis. Think the administration officials are all reading from the same playbook? If history teaches us anything it is that fear, more than any other emotion, leads to tyranny. And crises stoke fear.

What's even scarier is the list of issues which, according to the Secretary of State, take precedence over human rights including the economy, security, and global warming. That puts freedom as fourth on the agenda; a worrisome placement to say the least.

A number of human rights activists in China were put under house arrest for Clinton's visit. Imagine their hearing her formulation of priorities. Hillary Clinton has effectively announced the state's victory over human rights.

Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said "Beijing will be much relieved and happy that human rights and issues on Tibet and Taiwan have not been raised by Secretary Clinton," he said. "Beijing will take it as a good and friendly gesture extended by Washington."

When the Bush administration dealt with China they did it with the expressed purpose that economic trade would inspire capitalism and freedom in China. The two ideals of economic security and freedom, were linked. Hillary Clinton has separated them.

Ronald Reagan infamously told Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." Hillary Clinton announced yesterday that walls don't bother the United States so much as long as money can pass over it.

Salve Regina

Reform of the reform

Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith
Secretary, Congregation for Divine Worship(SJVB)
VATICAN LITURGICAL OFFICIAL MAKES NEW PLEA FOR 'REFORM OF THE REFORM'
Catholic Culture

A key Vatican official has called for "bold and courageous" decisions to address liturgical abuses that have arisen since the reforms of Vatican II.

Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, cites a flawed understanding of Vatican II teachings and the influence of secular ideologies are reasons to conclude that-- as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in 1985-- "the true time of Vatican II has not yet come." Particularly in the realm of the liturgy, Archbishop Ranjith says, "The reform has to go on."

Archbishop Ranjith, who was called to the Vatican personally by Pope Benedict to serve as a papal ally in the quest to restore a sense of reverence in the liturgy, makes his comments in the Foreword to a new book based on the diaries and notes of Cardinal Fernando Antonelli, who was a key figure in the liturgical-reform movement both before and after Vatican II.

The writings of Cardinal Antonelli, Archbishop Ranjith says, help the reader "to understand the complex inner workings of the liturgical reform prior to an immediately following the Council." The Vatican official concludes that implementation of the Council's suggested reforms often veered away from the actual intent of the Council fathers. As a result, Archbishop Ranjith concludes, the liturgy today is not a true realization of the vision put forward in the key liturgical document of Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium (doc).

Specifically, Archbishop Ranjith writes:

Some practices which Sacrosanctum Concilium had never even contemplated were allowed into the Liturgy, like Mass versus populum, Holy Communion in the hand, altogether giving up on the Latin and Gregorian Chant in favor of the vernacular and songs and hymns without much space for God, and extension beyond any reasonable limits of the faculty to concelebrate at Holy Mass. There was also the gross misinterpretation of the principle of "active participation."

The Sri Lankan prelate argues that it in order to carry out a "reform of the reform," it is essential to recognize how the liturgical vision of Vatican lI became distorted. He praises the book on Cardinal Antonelli for allowing the reader to gain a better understanding of "which figures or attitudes caused the present situation." This, the archbishop says, is an inquiry "which, in the name of truth, we cannot abandon."

While acknowledging "the turbulent mood of the years that immediately followed the Council," Archbishop Ranjith reminds readers that in summoning the world's bishops to an ecumenical council, Blessed John XXIII intended "a fortification of the faith." The Council, in the eyes of Pope John, was "certainly not a call to go along with the spirit of the times."

However, he continues, the Council took place at a time of great worldwide intellectual turmoil, and in its aftermath especially, many would-be interpreters saw the event as a break from the prior traditions of the Church. As Archbishop Ranjith puts it:

Basic concepts and themes like Sacrifice and Redemption, Mission, Proclamation and Conversion, Adoration as an integral element of Communion, and the need of the Church for salvation--all were sidelined, while Dialogue, Inculturation, Ecumenism, Eucharist-as-Banquet, Evangelization-as-Witness, etc., became more important. Absolute values were disdained.

Even in the work of the Consilium, the Vatican agency assigned to implement liturgical changes, these influences were clearly felt, the archbishop notes:

An exaggerated sense of antiquarianism, anthopologism, confusion of roles between the ordained and the non-ordained, a limitless provision of space for experimentation-- and indeed, the tendency to look down upon some aspects of the development of the Liturgy in the second millennium-- were increasingly visible among certain liturgical schools.

Today, Archbishop Ranjith writes, the Church can look back and recognize the influences that distorted the original intent of the Council. That recognition, he says, should "help us to be courageous in improving or changing that which was erroneously introduced and which appears to be incompatible with the true dignity of the Liturgy." A much-needed "reform of the reform," he argues, should be inspired by "not merely a desire to correct past mistakes but much more the need to be true to what the Liturgy in fact is and means to us and what the Council itself defined it to be."

Archbishop Ranjith's 10-page Foreword appears in the English-language edition of a book entitled True Development of the Liturgy is written by Msgr. Nicola Giampietro, who serves on the staff of the Congregation for Divine Worship. It will be available in September from Roman Catholic Books.

Delusion

Jay Nordlinger from NRO writes about the delusional and schizophrenic world we live in:

A woman named Sycloria Williams went for an abortion outside Miami. She was almost six months pregnant, and she paid $1,200. At the appointed hour, she was in the chair, ready to go. But something went wrong: She delivered a baby girl. The doctor had not yet arrived; he was late.

I now quote the Associated Press: “What Williams and the Health Department say happened next has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of the clinic’s owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant’s umbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out. Police recovered the decomposing remains in a cardboard box a week later after getting anonymous tips.”

Williams is now suing the doctor (for arriving late, I suppose). Her lawyer said, “I don’t care what your politics are, what your morals are, this should not be happening in our community.” I wonder what the lawyer’s problem is. I wonder what Williams’s is, too. She went for an abortion; she wanted the baby gone—and the baby got gone, one way or the other.

Did you notice a particular line from the AP report? The case “has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate.” But why? Does five minutes make all that much difference—or 45, or an hour, or whatever? Is the moral gap that great? One minute, the baby is a “fetus,” and perfectly abortable; the next minute, he is a “baby,” and off-limits.

The gruesome cases make you think a little harder. But, of course, they’re all gruesome—some are just less seen than others. Sycloria Williams was shaken up on seeing her baby. The baby’s death was very messy—visible to those who were around. But the baby’s death was going to be pretty bad, anyway—just behind the curtain, so to speak. All nice ’n’ clinical.

The lawyer said, “She came face to face with a human being. And that changed everything.” Yeah, but why? The baby existed—same size, as a matter of fact—before it emerged from the womb. Williams had gone to the clinic to be rid of it. Afterward, she even named the baby (Shanice). Oh, cripe. You go in to get rid of your baby, then you catch sight of it and get all gooey? And the rest of us are supposed to go “Awww”? And penalize the doctor who did not quite get there in time?

Why not penalize you for scheduling the procedure in the first place? You’re the one who asked him; this is not Communist China, you know.

Read the rest here

H/T to Igntaius Insight

Some Engrish

www.engrish.com

Cultural criticism

But I'd like to suggest, with all the diffidence I can muster, that there is something better to do here - or at any rate something that should be done in addition to this. And the essence of the matter is fairly simple, despite the daunting complexity that arises when we descend to the nitty-gritty level where the real work has to be done. The first thing to see, as I said before, is that Christianity is indeed engaged in a conflict, a battle. There is indeed a battle between the Christian community and the forces of unbelief. This contest rages in many areas of contemporary culture-the courts and in the so-called media-but perhaps most particularly in academia. And the second thing to see is that important cultural forces such as science are not neutral with respect to this conflict - though of course certain parts of contemporary science and many contemporary scientists might very well be. It is of the first importance that we discern in detail just how contemporary science-and contemporary history, literary criticism and so on-is involved in the struggle. This is a complicated many-sided matter; it varies from discipline to discipline, and from area to area within a given discipline. One of our chief tasks, therefore, must be that of cultural criticism. We must test the spirits, not automatically welcome them in because of their great academic prestige. Academic prestige, wide, even nearly unanimous acceptance in academia, declarations of certainty by important scientists-none of these is a guarantee that what is proposed is true, or a genuine deliverance of reason, or plausible from a theistic point of view. Indeed, none is a guarantee that what is proposed is not animated by a spirit wholly antithetical to Christianity. We must discern the religious and ideological connections; we can't automatically take the word of the experts, because their word might be dead wrong.

- Alvin Plantinga, "When Faith and Reason Clash:Evolution and the Bible"

As Dr Kelly Clark said at a seminar I attended on evolutionary psychology, scientists have become today's high priests. Anything they say - no matter how poorly they prove it or how incompetent they are on the subject - is accepted by the majority as "scientific" and trustworthy.

Richard Dawkins, for example, might be a good biologist, but he probably is a poor historian or philosopher. But people don't seem to get that. Because he attaches the label of "scientist" to his name, all his pronouncements tend to be taken as the absolute truth.

On Dawkin's militant atheism.

The inescapable conclusion is that Dawkins and materialists of his sort do not in fact “stand up full-face into the keen wind of understanding.” They don’t face the implications of their ideas. If they did, they would have to dismiss all talk of morality, rebellion against nature, and intellectual freedom as so much sentimentality.

The same failure to think things through is evident in Dawkins’ views on religion. There is nothing in Darwinism, even in its most naturalistic form, that must lead one to despise religion as Dawkins does. There is every indication that religion is natural to man and conducive, on the whole, to his survival. It can give him hope in adversity, strengthen family bonds, and motivate sacrifice for the common good. Dawkins calls it a virus; but if it is, it is one that, according to the latest research, makes us healthier. “Faith sufferers,” as Dawkins calls them, seem to suffer less from a wide array of ills. Among other things, they are less given to depression, anxiety, addiction, criminality, suicide, and divorce. To state these facts is not to preach the prosperity gospel, but to see the weakness of Dawkins’ position even on its own naturalistic terms.

Without religion, says Dawkins, we would not have wars of religion or religious persecution. True. And without sex, fathers, families, material possessions, and governments, we would not have sex crimes, abusive fathers, dysfunctional families, greed for material possessions, and oppressive governments. Every natural and necessary thing can be perverted, even reason. Religion has led to hateful ideas, but has any Christian writer ever published ideas as hateful as the social Darwinism of H. G. Wells? Religion has led to persecutions, but none even nearly as massive as those produced by militant irreligion. More people were killed by the “scientific atheism” of communism on an average day than the Spanish Inquisition killed in an average decade. And largely responsible for this fact was a teaching of contempt for religion of exactly the kind that Dawkins propagates.

Dawkins gave an interview to Belief.net recently. He was asked whether he could think of anything, just “one positive, if minor, thing” that religion has done for the good. No, he replied, he really couldn’t. What about great religious art? “That’s not religion,” said Dawkins, “it is just because the Church had the money. Great artists like . . . Bach . . . would have done whatever they were told to do.” So Johann Sebastian Bach was just in it for the money. What this sordid remark reveals, apart from amazing ignorance and philistinism, is the mind of a true fanatic. It is not enough for Dawkins to say that religion is bad on the whole; it must be wholly bad.

- Stephen M. Barr,"The Devil's Chaplain". First Things (2004)

Barr is a theoretical particle physicist at the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware. He is the author of Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (University of Notre Dame Press).

Read the rest of the article. It's an interesting one.

Where Have You Gone Atticus Finch?

In 1962 Gregory Peck won the Best Actor Award for "To Kill a Mockingbird" for his portrayal of Atticus Finch. Peck, in that role, embodied for many all that is noble and great in the American man. The roles celebrated by the Academy nowadays seem to be a little different.

1990 - Jeremy Irons - Claus Von Bulow who murdered his wife
1991 - Anthony Hopkins - Cannibalistic Hannibal Lecter
1993 - Tom Hanks - Gay lawyer with AIDS
1994 - Tom Hanks - Mentally challenged optimist Forrest Gump
1995 - Nicolas Cage - Drinks himself to death with hooker
1997 - Jack Nicholson - OCD racist
1999 - Kevin Spacey - Unemployed pedophile wanna-be
2001 - Denzel Washington - Crooked murderous cop
2005 - Philip Seymour Hoffman - Played Truman Capote.
2006 - Forest Whitaker - Murderous tyrant Idi Amin.
2007 - Daniel Day-Lewis - Murderous Amoral Capitalist
2008 - Sean Penn - Gay Activist Harvey Milk

I think this list says a lot more about how Hollywood sees America than it does America as a whole.

Read the rest at CRM

St Polycarp, bishop and martyr (and the Chair of St Peter)

Polycarp was born between the years 75 and 80. He became a Christian when the followers of Jesus were still few. In fact, Polycarp was a disciple of one of the original apostles, St. John. All that Polycarp learned from St. John he taught to others. Polycarp became a priest and then bishop of Smyrna in present-day Turkey. He was Smyrna's bishop for many years. The Christians recognized him as a holy, brave shepherd. Christians in Polycarp's time faced persecution and death under Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Someone betrayed Polycarp to the authorities. When his captors came to arrest him, he invited them first to share a meal with him. Then he asked them to let him pray a while. The judge tried to force Bishop Polycarp to save himself from death by cursing Jesus. "I have served Jesus all my life," answered the saint, "and he has never done me any wrong. How can I curse my King who died for me?" The soldiers tied St. Polycarp's hands behind his back. The old bishop was then placed on a burning pile. But the fire did not harm him. One of the soldiers then stabbed a lance into his heart. And so, in the year 155, Polycarp died a martyr. He went to be forever with the Divine Master he had served so bravely. "For eighty-six years I have served Jesus Christ and he has never abandoned me" -St. Polycar

PRAYER (traditional language) O God, the maker of heaven and earth, who didst give to thy venerable servant, the holy and gentle Polycarp, boldness to confess Jesus Christ as King and Saviour, and steadfastness to die for his faith: Give us grace, after his example, to share the cup of Christ and rise to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

And yesterday would have been the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter if it hadn't been a Sunday. We remember the authority Christ has entrusted to Peter and his successors and we pray for God's wisdom and grace for Pope Benedict as he exercises his Petrine mission.

Here's a hymn, featured by AmP that I like. I remember singing it in church once in Sri Lanka, after the election of Pope Benedict:

Full in the panting heart of Rome
Beneath the apostle's crowning dome.
From pilgrim's lips that kiss the ground,
Breathes in all tongues one only sound:

GOD BLESS OUR POPE, GOD BLESS OUR POPE,
GOD BLESS OUR POPE, THE GREAT THE GOOD!

The golden roof, the marble walls,
The Vatican's majestic halls,
The note redoubles, till it fills
With echoes sweet the seven hills

GOD BLESS OUR POPE, GOD BLESS OUR POPE,
GOD BLESS OUR POPE, THE GREAT THE GOOD!

Then surging through each hallowed gate,
Where martyrs glory, in peace await
It sweeps beyond the solemn plain,
Peals over Alps, across the main.

GOD BLESS OUR POPE, GOD BLESS OUR POPE,
GOD BLESS OUR POPE, THE GREAT THE GOOD!

From torrid south to frozen north,
The wave harmonious stretches forth,
Yet strikes no chord more true to Rome's,
Than rings within our hearts and homes.

GOD BLESS OUR POPE, GOD BLESS OUR POPE,
GOD BLESS OUR POPE, THE GREAT THE GOOD!

- Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster (1802 - 1865)

Thesis: progress report #4

It's been a while since my last progress report.

Word count is now 4600.
I sent my first chapter over to Prof to check. Nick had some suggestions for improvement too.

I think I'm behind schedule. And the hardest parts are still to come.

Many thanks for the prayers and words of encouragement!

Here's something I've written about Spain:

In the year 1919, at the Cerro de los Angeles, a hilltop just outside Madrid, and the geographic heart of Spain, King Alfonso XIII consecrated Spain to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The monument unveiled at this consecration depicted the Spanish nation prostrate before Christ’s Sacred Heart. King Alfonso led his government in an act of reparation, lamenting those who “cast you aside, scorning your commandments.” The prayer of consecration, said by Catholics around the world, implores God to ensure that praises to the Sacred Heart would resound throughout the world, “from pole to pole.” A new statue was enthroned at the Cerro with the words “You will reign in Spain” engraved at its base.”

This is the monument at the Cerro de los Angeles. It's a restored version: the original was destroyed and desecrated by the Republicans during the Civil War.



And here's the prayer that is mentioned above. It's actually a favourite of mine:

Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thee. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but, to be more surely united with Thee, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them all to Thy most Sacred Heart.

Be Thou King, 0 Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.

Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and the unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.

Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; Give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: "Praise to the divine Heart that wrought our salvation: to it be glory and honor forever."

Amen.