The Young Christian Workers are an international Catholic organisation founded in 1924. It's work is based on the encyclicals of Leo XIII (hurray) and Pius XI. It was immensely successful in the first half of the twentieth century with Wikipedia mentioning a rally of 75,000 members in Paris in 1938. The founder of the movement served as an advisor at Vatican II and was made a cardinal. Alas, the good times didn't last and along with all the other old movements (Leigion of Mary etc) the decline set in. These days there are an estimated 20,000 YCW members and only 400 were at a recent gathering in Paris, a bit down from 75,000. The once strong YCW in our Diocese vanished long ago.

That's the background, but the YCW are attempting a comeback. This weekend the president of UK YCW (or was it YWC?) brought members of his team to a big meeting at the Endsleigh Centre in Hull. The diocese are billing them as the Next Big Thing in Youth Work and there was much in the way of triumphant talk about the YCW and how it works and groups grow which is very confident and inspiring but one wonders how much of that growth is due to the magic of the YCW way and how much of it is down to the YCW consisting mainly of a team of full time workers with a lot of time to devote to these things.

Anyway...

What the Bishop Said

Bishop Drainey is pro-YCW and I've heard good things about them in the past, the distant past that is - Fr Tony Storey was involved with them way back when everything was black and white. The Bishop told of a great experience of being in a YCW parish with several generations of YCW people and his joy at having the YCW around.

He recalled the moment at World Youth Day when Pope Benedict lead adoration with the young people and the tangible silence that descended on Randwick Racecourse. He said that he would have spent the money and gone to Australia just for that moment. He said that what he wants for our young people is the freedom and truth to choose what is good and in doing so find joy.

Contradiction Between Life and Faith

The YCW began by speaking about the reality of young people's lives under four headings. Home and Family, Work and Study, Leisure and Friends and Local Community (including the Parish). They asked us all to write our concerns about young people in these areas on coloured cards which were then stuck on cardboard cutouts of young people. The result was a view of the world more negative even than something I would have written.

Then the words "Life to the Full (John 10:10)" were projected on the wall and we were asked to do the same activity only this time describe what life to the full means. Clearly there is a big difference between the reality of life, and life to the full. The purpose of the YCW is to work to rectify this difference.

The Pastoral Response

I always cringe when somebody uses the word 'Pastoral'. It's become a sort of code word for "a solution that doesn't involve asking people to do anything religious". Still, it's a step up from an inspirational response. In this case though I don't think the word pastoral was being abused.

At this point we were told a little more YCW history, that the founder was working with young workers and was concerned about what was going on at their places of work in the factories. He couldn't go in the factory (there was, apparently, a 'No Clerics' sign) so he formed groups of young people who could then do the work of Christ in the factory. Think Lumen Gentium 35.

See Judge Act

The core activity of a YCW group is based around the "See Judge Act" method. Which "celebrates the reality that young people are best placed to transform their lives". The basic gist is, well, you see the world around you, look at your life etc. Then you judge it in light of the scriptures and finally you act and do something about it.

I'm a little suprised that they can throw the word 'Judge' around like that. I thought judge was one of those forbidden words like 'Latin' and 'Dogma'. Ah well...

Leaders

The goal of the whole exercise is to turn young people in to "leaders". Not leaders in the conventional sense (people who lead, like kings and popes) but leaders in the sense that they lead their lives. It's an active participation thing.

The booklet we were given says "A leader is someone who has come to understand the responsibility they have in life towards their friends. They have an influence on those around them, on other young people"

Come on James, Say something horrible...

That's why you're here isn't it. To see what horrible things James will say. Well I don't really have anything horrible to say about the YCW, I think it's a good thing. I wish them well and hope they grow and do much good in the world.

But...

As I see it, YCW exists as a response to the Gospel. Young Christian Workers. Having discovered freedom and truth in Christ the young person feels called to communion with others and a call to go out in to the world to live out their vocation. In that context, I think YCW is the wrong answer to the current problem.

The problem as I see it is that we have a generation of parents and youngsters who have yet to be evangelized. Who have little concept of a personal relationship with Christ. These people are not saying "I have found God and I am doing my best to improve my relationship with him and to do what he wants", these people are saying "I don't really think God exists and I don't see why I should have to go to Church". The overwhelming majority of Catholics in my generation are ex-Catholics.

Like I said, YCW exists as a response to the Gospel. It pre-supposes Christian values. It assumes that young people will accept statements like "we should do what Jesus wants" as true. It worked spectacularly well a few generations ago, when youngsters were growing up in Catholic families with Catholic beliefs and were trying to apply those beliefs to their daily lives. Today is quite different, most young people are growing up in a secular environment.

In that context, I didn't hear very much at the meeting that would have sounded out of place at the National Secular Society. Get groups of youngsters together, challenge them to look at their lives and the world around them and make changes. This improves the youngsters as people and hopefully gets new members.

I don't think that's the basis on which the YCW is founded, but I suspect that's the basis under which it will be employed in our diocese. It will be used as a framework that can be used with totally secular teenagers in Catholic schools by unimaginative Youth Workers that don't seem to know anything beyond social justice.

It's a shame, because the lack of evangelisation will starve the YCW of the very thing it needs. Young Catholics.

Social justice is not the Church's core activity. The Church "exists to evangelize", our primary concern with young people should be evangelisation and forming them with the tools they need to evangelize. Yet another club for kids who recycle isn't going to do that.

How do you eat yours?

Who knew?

The Truth about Him
The Truth about Us
The Truth about Them
The Truth about The Other

Four sessions in Lent huh? Plagiarists!

(Our Bishop thought of it first...)

Here we are again, the latest instalment in the series of leaflets from priests of the West Hull deanery. Following in the footsteps of Is there any future for the Church?, Sunday Mass as an Experience of God and Sunday Mass - An Event in Christ we now have Sunday Mass as Hospitality

I don't have a lot of time to write about this one, so you will have to read it yourself...

Chapter 3
OUR SUNDAY MASS - AS HOSPITALITY

It was natural for Jesus to go into the synagogue
on the Sabbath day.
After all, it was the day set aside for work
so that people could spend time
in intimate communion with God
and their faith family
- the very reason why we should make Sunday special

Jesus had gone to the synagogue every Sabbath
since his earliest years.
But now he went with a different intention.
He was beginning his public ministry.
His purpose now was to be among the people
in order to meet their needs.
He taught with authority:
he revealed the truth about God and life
in a way that he had never done before.
He healed.
His purpose was to heal the spiritual ailments of the people,
to set them free from the bondage of sin,
to dispel their spiritual darkness caused through ignorance.
His physical healings were done
simply to express his power to heal the whole person.
But how many failed to recognise that and sought him
only for the spectacular and 'see-able' miracles?

What sort of miracle would we excitedly tell people about?

In all this, Jesus gave his undivided attention
to doing his Father's will.
He offers us today in our Mass
this 'Word of God in words of men'
precisely to meet our needs.
We have a need to understand more deeply the reason for
and meaning of
our Sunday and the Mass we come to celebrate
- we need to take a 'fresh look'.
We, too, look for healing and teaching.
Our guide is the 'living example' of Jesus.
We come to appreciate that example when,
like Saint Paul,
we wait on the Lord and attend to his presence and word.
At Mass we are with the Lord.
His personal presence brings us to life and gives meaning
to all that is done at Mass.
He pays attention to us.
He encourages us to pay attention to each other:
"Love one another as I have loved you."

We all try to be good, to be like Christ,
but we are so discouraged by our failures.
Is this because we try to do good
rather than share in goodness with one another?
Are we kind to one another?
Is the foundation of our community
the hospitality we show to one another and to visitors?

In it's Latin root, hospitality means
'to make room for someone'
We can show hospitality by giving people a room.
More especially, we show hospitality
by making ready a space in our hearts and lives.
This is what we do at Mass...
not just make a space on a bench but open our hearts to people.
We need to welcome and be welcomed in a very genuine way,
so that we can all find space
to grow in love with God and one another.
This cannot be forced.
Such hospitality is not an option:
it is a responsibility for each of us to fulfil.
It is the way in which Jesus welcomed and accepted people
that gave them the feeling of being wanted
and the inspiration to change their lives for good.
Just as we would like to feel wanted and accepted,
we must want and accept all who come into our midst at Mass.
Here is the source of grace
that persuades us to give and receive with generosity at Mass.

Hospitality can also be understood as 'paying attention',
being awake to all that is happening around us,
so that we can act quickly and generously to perceive needs,
This does take time and trouble.

Firstly, we pay attention to one another,
to be aware of what we share in our faith
and why we are together at Mass.

Secondly, we pay attention to others
as we act together in our songs, readings, silences and prayers
...especially the Eucharistic Prayer.
It means that readers and listeners,
choirs and singing people,
ministers and those they serve
priests and all who are gathered,
are all aware of and paying attention to each other.

Thirdly, we must pay attention to ourselves,
so that we can be inspired
by the encouragement Christ is giving us
in all that is around us at Mass.
The Church calls us to a full, active and conscious sharing
...and to do this in memory of Jesus.

We need and must secure space in our Mass
for a long, loving look at what is real!
We must pray for the Holy Spirit to awaken hospitality in us.

I don't have time to write very much this week. I've a talk to work on, a wife to spend time with and a bed to go to before midnight.

When people look back on this period of history I think it will be clear that there were two very distinct views of the Mass. It is either a time to receive Christ, or a time to be nice to one another. This is not to say that we should not love one another, or that Christ is not to be found in other people. We should, and he is. My point is this - the Mass is not just another part of our lives, like going to the supermarket or the gym (who am I kidding?). Mass is not a training session for being nice, a meet and greet for Christians to make friends. Unlike shopping and exercise, which we do in particular places at particular times - we are actually supposed to be nice to each other all the time.

If we view the Mass as just a special time for being nice to people then we really miss the point. At the Mass we are made really present at Calvary, at the cross. That's what people mean when they talk about The Sacrifice of the Mass. It is the point of origin, it is the place from where all other graces flow. If we view Mass as a time to receive Christ, then we will have the graces we need to be nice the rest of the time. If we view Mass as a special moment to be religious and cuddly then we will spend the rest of the time feeling like we have done our bit of nice for the week and we can go back to being crabby old women. Yes - I said women.

That's why I find this leaflet a bit troubling. It's a recipe for a "let's be nice" club... "attention to one another", "pay attention to others as we act together", "Pay attention to ourselves" because "The Church calls us to a full, active and conscious sharing".

We need to promote Mass from the rank of "a time to be nice" to "a time to receive from Him who is the source of all niceness". We need to promote it from "a time to be holy" to "a time to receive from Him who is the source of all Holiness. Only then will the time to be nice, the time to be holy, become all of the time.

Has she seen Gladiator?

When I was pregnant with my first child and worried about the outcome, a friend said: "Don't be downhearted by the doctors. Whatever happens, even if, God forbid, the baby dies, he is still your son for eternity." To conceive a child is to be the co-creator of a human soul, to commit an irreversible act that echoes through eternity.

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I liked that.

Via Catholic Action UK...

Will Heaven, York student and Catholic Herald contributor:

I went to a Mass in York Minster on Thursday to celebrate 400 years since Mary Ward founded the Loreto sisters. It was a historic occasion - it's not often the Anglican dean and chapter lend the magnificent building to the Catholic Church for Mass.

But we blew it. Although most of the service was lovely, just before the Gospel the Bible was danced down the nave by five teenage girls in sashes doing a sort of modern expressive dance.

Mickens [ghastly Rome correspondent of the Tablet] would have loved it. And Cormac Murphy-O'Connor sure looked as if he enjoyed the show from his throne. But it was clearly a youth mass, so did young Catholics like what they saw? The Catholic girls I went with - all educated by Mary Ward sisters - buried their heads in their hands when the dance started. I tried to speak to one of the dancers at the end, but she rushed out of the Church very quickly. I wonder why.

Will Heaven is a twenty-something year old man, like myself. If only we were both sixty year old women we would probably get votes. But we don't.

Anyway, Catholic Action UK is asking that everybody write to Bishop Drainey about this. They've even provided a picture so we will recognise him if we happen to pass in the street...

They write...

Action: readers in the diocese of Middlesbrough should complain to the newly ordained Bishop Drainey, and copy their letters to the Congregation for Divine Worship. Refresh your memories of Cardinal Arinze's views on liturgical dance here.

Curial Office, 50a The Avenue,
Linthorpe, Middlesbrough TS5 6QT
E-mail: financialsecretary@dioceseofmiddlesbrough.co.uk

Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments
10 Piazza Pio XII
00120 Vatican
Italy

Bishop Drainey, the Cardinal and several other Bishops were there for heaven's sake. They know what happened.

If they are going to do anything about it, they will do it secretly behind closed doors. That's the modern way. Leave as many laypeople as possible thinking something is allowed by not condemning it and then quietly in private if pushed admit that it's not okay. That way you have laypeople in parishes saying "it happened in York and the Bishop was there so it must be okay" and priests saying "well it's not allowed". Good way to create unity in the Church - give a different message to different people.

Confusion is the way of the future!

Personally, I think Bishops are public teachers and are supposed to teach. If liturgical dancing is unacceptable, it should be made clear. We need to see headlines in newspapers: "Grumpy Bishops Ban Dance". Then we'll know where we stand.

If watermelons are a bit healthy for your liking... why not try a Bacon Explosion?

If only we had a BBQ... and it wasn't snowing.

Amy Welborn writes...

Michael collapsed this morning at the gym and was not able to be revived despite the efforts of EMTs and hospital personnel.

We are devastated and beg your prayers.

[link]

I nearly wrote "I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to lose a spouse and be left to cope with young children", but that's not true. I can begin but I can go no further, because it's too much.

Amy is like practically the founder of Catholic blogging and has been an inspiration to me over the years and a fine example of what I should be, especially when I'm not. Her and her husband are our prayers, please keep them in your prayers also.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace
Amen.

Leo XIII doesn't mince his words...

Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers." To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent. Now, faith, as a virtue, is a great boon of divine grace and goodness; nevertheless, the objects themselves to which faith is to be applied are scarcely known in any other way than through the hearing. "How shall they believe Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Faith then cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ."(14) Since, then, faith is necessary for salvation, it follows that the word of Christ must be preached. The office, indeed, of preaching, that is, of teaching, lies by divine right in the province of the pastors, namely, of the bishops whom "the Holy Spirit has placed to rule the Church of God."(15) It belongs, above all, to the Roman Pontiff, vicar of Jesus Christ, established as head of the universal Church, teacher of all :hat pertains to morals and faith.

No one, however, must entertain the notion that private individuals are prevented from taking some active part in this duty of teaching, especially those on whom God has bestowed gifts of mind with the strong wish of rendering themselves useful. These, so often as circumstances demand, may take upon themselves, not, indeed, the office of the pastor, but the task of communicating to others what they have themselves received, becoming, as it were, living echoes of their masters in the faith. Such co-operation on the part of the laity has seemed to the Fathers of the Vatican Council so opportune and fruitful of good that they thought well to invite it. "All faithful Christians, but those chiefly who are in a prominent position, or engaged in teaching, we entreat, by the compassion of Jesus Christ, and enjoin by the authority of the same God and Saviour, that they bring aid to ward off and eliminate these errors from holy Church, and contribute their zealous help in spreading abroad the light of undefiled faith." Let each one, therefore, bear in mind that he both can and should, so far as may be, preach the Catholic faith by the authority of his example, and by open and constant profession of the obligations it imposes. In respect, consequently, to the duties that bind us to God and the Church, it should be borne earnestly in mind that in propagating Christian truth and warding off errors the zeal of the laity should, as far as possible, be brought actively into play.

[link]

I am a Waffle and My Wife is a Plate of Spaghetti.

Now you know.

NOTICE: The information in this poster is wrong...

Talk about random chance, there's more shuffle than an iPod going on here. Due to heavy snow in Scotland, the first talk had to be cancelled.

The priest doing the second talk also can't make it.

So... It looks like James will be doing the third second first talk. This Monday. Talk about short notice. If you were hoping to come along and throw rotten fruit, this Monday is the day.

Hopefully Scotland will have thawed out in time for the third talk.

The correct (for now) times are below:

Random Chance?

Monday 9rd February
What Young People Really Want
James Preece

Monday 23nd February
Man - Darwin's Monkey or Something More?
Father Kevin Douglas

The background image is highly symbolic - the fish being a kind of evolutionary thing, the swirls symolise the centre of the universe and Middlesbrough Cathedral Reredos symbolises how rubbish the third talk will probably be.

Oh yes... Following in the footsteps of Joanna Bogle, Fr Tim Finigan, Mark Shea and Jack Valero (not to mention the previous Bishop of Middlesbrough). Yours truly will be giving the third first talk at the Hull Faith Forum.

I think this is Fr Massie's idea of a joke.

The following video is probably not a lot like the British Juggling Convention but it has appropriately themed music for a religious blog...

For those of you who are jugglers, clubbers, unicyclers, unicyclists, etc...

British Juggling Convention 2009
"www.bjc2009.com"
Start Time: Wednesday, April 15 at 4:00pm
End Time: Sunday, April 19 at 4:00pm
Where: University of East Anglia

To be honest, if you're not a juggler or what have you it's probably a very exciting thing to go along to. We approve of this years logo... Skulls are in this season.

Enjoy the way this cat sneaks up on you like the date of a talk you have to give.

Two videos in one day? Outrageous.

My hosting provider has just upgraded from PHP4 to PHP5. It's a bit of a jump, think Windows 98 to XP. A lot of peoples old games are going to stop working.

Having written my own blog software, I'm pretty sure everything will work fine. But if you could let me know if you see anything untoward that would be great.

Thanks

This is how people think I want Church to be like.

They are only half wrong...

I did my talk last night... it seemed to go okay. Public speaking is not something I've done a lot of (I don't really count five minute introductions to youth groups) so it was a bit nerve racking but I was enjoying it by the end despite my stupid laptop which kept cutting out.

People said they liked it. "It was a good talk" they said, but then they would. That's what people do. I have a strange feeling of not having heard what I said - if that makes sense. Perhaps people who do public speaking will know what I'm on about there. It's new to me.

The title of the talk was "What Young People Really Want" but I decided to look at that question in a different way to what you might expect making it "What Young People Really Want". I took three things young people want: Freedom, Truth and Love and demonstrated how limiting, temporary and rubbish these are in an earthly sense and how awesome, liberating and beautiful they are when fulfilled by a relationship with God. Because ultimately, that's what young people really want.

Congratulations to Fr Tim Finigan who has just celebrated the millionth visit to his blog. To put things in perspective: We get two-hundred a day, at that rate it will take us thirteen years to reach a million. On the bright side - we'll still be younger than he is now... :)

On the other hand, Jackie Parkes, the heroic Catholic mother of ten who famously vanquished Labour abortionista Clare Short has sadly made the decision to exit the world of blogging to spend more time with her family. She will be missed. Jackie - thanks for all the good times!

There's a scene in the Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers. At Helms Deep, King Theoden stands upon the walls and looks out over an army of orcs who are arrayed for battle. The situation looks hopeless and Theoden asks...

"How did it come to this?"

By this point in the book the answer has already been given. King Theoden was asleep at the wheel. He allowed his snivelling advisor, Wormtongue, to convince him that a few orcs on the border weren't a problem. A few more? Better not to make a fuss. A few more? It's hardly an army. Then one day he finds himself looking over a sea of orcs. How did it come to this?

I'm reminded of that story when I read about a parish in Australia in Brisbane.

It started with a few minor bits and pieces. Editing of prayers, dodgy theology from the pulpit. The Bishop received complaints from "conservatives" and asked the priest to stop. He didn't. Things got worse, lay lead services, the laity joining in the Eucharistic Prayer. The Bishop asked the priest to stop. He didn't. During world youth day young pilgrims complained that the priest had an altar to Buddha. The Bishop did nothing.

Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby is considering whether the controversial St Mary's parish at South Brisbane "is in communion with the Catholic Church" after a parishioner protested to the Vatican over a Buddha-like statue.

A member of St Mary's South Brisbane Church told The Courier-Mail that it was understood Archbishop John Bathersby was weighing up the future of the church, after complaints were forwarded from the Vatican.

"A very right wing parishioner came and was offended by some of the artwork in the church, including some indigenous art, and an image of a praying monk which they mistook as a Buddha," the parishioner said.

"That person took photos and sent them to Rome and Rome wrote to the bishop."

However, the statue - which was about 1 metre tall - had since been taken out of the church by a disgruntled person and smashed.

Parish priest Fr Peter Kennedy, who has headed St Mary's for nearly 28 years, said he was unable to comment until he had heard further from Archbishop Bathersby.

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Notice that - people had to write to Rome before the Bishop acted, and even then he did nothing. He was weighing it up.

Eventually things came to a head with an invalid Baptismal formula...

A baptism at St Mary's Church, South Brisbane, that was videoed and uploaded on Youtube, may be invalid, commentators say.

The priest then added: "That's good, nice and cool" and invited "everyone to put water on him".

Catholic commentator and editor of Annals magazine, Fr Paul Stenhouse, told the paper that he doubted the baptism was valid "because the form of the Sacrament cannot be varied".

"It sounds like green theology to me," Fr Stenhouse said.

The legitimate form of baptism is: "I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

The two priests at St Mary's, Father Fitzpatrick and Peter Kennedy, were ordered to revert to the correct form of baptism in 2004 after it emerged that hundreds of children had been baptised using the wrong formula.

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Notice - it had to be on YouTube before anything happened. In 2004 he was told to stop. 2004! That's years ago.

Eventually, a new Bishop. The Bishop has finally written (pdf) to the Parish Priest and ordered him to sort things out. The Priest is now threatening to set up his own Church... um, I mean, ecclesiastical community.

According to the Courier Mail, Father Kennedy said he didn’t have faith in the Pope but wanted to remain an active Catholic priest.

“You've got to be relevant to people's lives - Jesus broke the rules all the time for the sake of the people,” he claimed.

In a Friday letter, Archbishop Bathersby responded to Fr. Kennedy’s Jan. 12 letter asking to meet for further discussion.

“I see no reason to do so. I have repeatedly asked for changes but you and the community have not budged an inch,” the archbishop wrote. “Moreover South Brisbane’s instant disclosure of my letters and comments in the media gives me no reason to enter into discussion.”

The archbishop said there is doubt about the validity of many baptisms performed at the parish and announced that he would name a special day at St. Stephen’s Cathedral to perform and certify baptisms for parents or adult converts who are concerned about the validity of St. Mary’s Church baptisms.

Father Kennedy said he is prepared to be arrested at the church and claimed a few dozen parishioners may try to be arrested as well.

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A special day at the Cathedral to fix baptisms...

How did it come to this?

Here's an idea: Don't leave dodgy priests in the same place for twenty eight years to build their own personality cult based on how wonderful Father Fun is for doing what Jesus did which was mainly breaking the rules.

Rocket science it isn't.

On Monday I had the day off and we took Leona to the park in the snow. Leona lurves the swings...

I should point out that she wasn't actually anywhere near as upside-down as the photo makes it appear. It's the miracle of photography...

I like this one...

I got this one by jumping in to the path of the swing and jumping out again. Leona thought this was hilarious, which makes for a good photo...

Oh, and lest you be wondering how enormous she is these days. She's now walking down steps. Sort of.

John Smeaton, director of SPUC recently drew attention to the fact that the governments own leaflet on smoking during pregnancy refers to the unborn child as a baby and not as "the pregnancy".

Along similar lines, I thought you might enjoy this video in which an NHS expert talks about sex during pregnancy...

I mentioned recently that Amy Welborn's husband Micheal died suddenly at the gym last week. Like Amy, Michael was also an author and he wrote columns for a Diocesan paper. The last column he wrote is poignant indeed.

While in Washington, D.C. several weeks ago, I ran into an old friend, Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, with whom I have collaborated on several books. We met after a Mass for pro-life leaders at Trinity College. It was exactly five years and 10 days from that night in Orlando, FL when Father Benedict nearly lost his life in a tragic accident, and almost four years to the day that I spent a week with him in New York, assisting him in putting the finishing touches on a book that he co-authored with Bishop Baker.

Working with a very frail Father Benedict at the time, I was reminded of an interview that he had given some years earlier at EWTN with Doug Keck on Booknotes. During that interview, when Father Benedict’s book Arise From Darkness was first published, Doug asked Father Benedict to elaborate on something that Father had called the “big lie” in his book. The “big lie,” Father Benedict said, (and I’m paraphrasing him at this point), is to think that if we say all the right prayers and live correctly, then nothing bad will ever happen to us. Sadly, there are many good people who have lost their faith by believing such a lie, and that makes it a big one indeed!

One only has to think of Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, and how much He suffered on the cross, to correct one’s view on this matter. In our own day, there are many whom we know have lived saintly lives, many who have prayed much, and yet have suffered too.

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Amy has been doing some beautiful blogging in the last few days as she shares some of her thoughts at what must be an obscenely difficult time. If you don't follow her blog, now would be good time to start.

I'm sure you all remember the Millennium Bug. When computers storing the year as 96, 97, 98, 99 were going to suddenly hit 100 and cause all sort of problems. It turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax and no aeroplanes fell out of the sky or anything.

Anyway. While we were all worrying about the year, many of our computers were not storing the year at all. Most computers actually store the date using a figure called the "Unix Epoch". This is the number of seconds since 1st January 1970 UTC (Universal Central Time). That's great because it means you can store the date as a number and add one to it each second and not have any problems with the millennium at all. Though it's not particularly human readable.

The bad news is that in 2038 we run out of numbers causing the 2038 problem.

The good news is that it makes today 1234567890 day!

On Friday 13th no less!

You can watch the clock here.

Oof - It was an iron bar! No seriously, Paul Inwood walks in to his local and the barman... the barperson asks him what he would like to drink. Ordering a small glass of his favourite fair trade sparkling white wine he takes a seat at the bar. Over the next few hours he drinks heavily - three, maybe four sips before he starts to sing. His singing is bothering the other customers and one of them complains to the barperson who wanders over to where Paul is sitting and asks him to stop.

"Do you know who I am?" he says. "I'm Paul Inwood, I'm Director of Liturgy at Portsmouth Diocese. My name is in the back of hymnals and song books. If I want to sing, I'm going to sing!" "Yeah right" says the barman, "and I'm the King of England. I think you've had enough to drink today."

"I can prove it to you" says Inwood, "You pick any word you like, and I will get it sung at Church - though obviously it can't be a swearword". "That's easy", the barperson retorts. "You'll just slip my word in to verse three and have it sung at a youth mass, you can get people to sing anything at those".

"Wow..." says Paul, "You seem to know a lot about liturgy! Have you been to one of my days for Musicians?"

"Listen", says the barperson. "If you really want to prove yourself as undisputed Lord of the Sings, you're going to have to do something really special". "Like what?" Inwood asks. "Well, for a start, hymns are too easy - you can have any words you like, if you want to impress me you will need to get my word in to the Gospel Acclamation. The Church provides the words of the Gospel Acclamation as part of the Mass so it's not like you can just write your own."

"That's easy" Paul responds, "We've been writing our own Gospel Acclamations for ages, though we call them 'Alleluias' because 'Acclamations' is a long word so it's a bit exclusive. We also write our own Glorias and Holy Holies..." The barperson interrupts "Holy Holies? Do you mean the Sanctus?" "Now that sounds like Latin" replies Inwood. "You're not one of those traditionalists are you?"

"You also have to get it published by a proper music publisher" the barman adds, "Somebody with a website". "That's easy as well" says Paul Inwood. "My mates at OCP will publish anything".

"Well" says the barperson. "You haven't heard my choice of word yet. Before I tell you, let's make a deal. If you manage to get this word in a published alleluia you get free drinks here for a year. If you fail, you are barred - for life"

"Sounds fair" says Paul Inwood. "What's the word?"

So the barman says... "Well, I'm a big David Bowie fan. You know his song: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes?"

"Changes? Inwood replies, "As in... The changes after Vatican II? Surely that's too easy."

"No" the barman says "Not 'changes' - that would be easy!"

"So what's the word then?"

"Ch-Ch."

"Ch-Ch?"

"Ch-Ch."

"Really?"

"Yes"

"Is that even a word?" Paul Inwood asks. The barperson leans forward.. "It's my bar and my challenge. If I say it's a word, it's a word. Now finish your fair trade wine and don't come back unless you get that alleluia published."

So Paul Inwood gets up to leave and the barperson says... "Why the long face?"

...

As punchlines go, that one's not very good.

Speaking of not very good. Have you heard the latest alleluia by Paul Inwood?

Ella and I have never really done Valentines day. This year we didn't make one of these:

There are full instructions for making your own bloody valentines heart and someday I hope to follow them, in the meantime I will simply share this cartoon:

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Honesty is the best policy.

Perhaps if you are lucky we will share what we actually did do this valentines day, which was rather a lot more than we usually do. Including various heart shaped foods (but none you will be able to guess) and the worlds best valentines card ever made by me of course, for the worlds best wife. Awwww.

The Catholic Herald has an interesting interview this week with the Marriage and Family life people who are responsible for the Celebrating Family project which has been going on nationally since Listening 2004 but will be kicking off in our area this Wednesday when our shiny new Diosesan Family Life Person holds a meeting at the Endsleigh Centre.

You can read the interview here.

Personally I have found the Marriage and Family people to be good people who are working very hard to solve the wrong problem.

Ultimately it comes down to this: In the Catholic faith we have the best thing in the world... a living relationship with Jesus Christ. To quote Pope Benedict: "Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation.".

If we are aware of and value that relationship then we will do anything to get it. We will be like the man who finds a treasure in a field and sells everything he has to buy the field and get that treasure. We will ask our friends to cut a hole in the roof and lower us down on a stretcher.

When we are willing to go to such extremes, will we be phased by a grumpy priest or a parish where nobody welcomes us as we walk through the door? Certainly not! If being unhappy with the Priest were a reason not to go I would have left ages ago.

If somebody told you they had found a great treasure in a field and were going to sell everything they own to buy the field at great profit. Would you not be a tad surpised when they decided not to do it because the estate agents office didn't have a doormat with "welcome" written on it?

The reason nobody is interested in buying the field is that they think it is just a field. Putting a welcome mat in the estate agents office will not change that. The only thing that will change that is to tell them about the treasure.

That's not to say we shouldn't be nice, or that welcoming is not a great thing to do, or that we shouldn't be sensitive to people in difficult situations. Of course we should do those things! But those things are not the solution to the problem.

What families need is a positive vision. Something to look at and say "Yes! That is what we want to be! That is wonderful! Let us do everything we can to acheive it..."

If we want to help families, we will present the beautiful vision of Marriage as a Sacrament with the potential to transform the family in a living icon of the trinity, the domestic church where all facets of life are sanctified and made holy. No human family matches that standard, but it is a glorious treasure and we will give much in an attempt to acheive something close to it.

Then we should offer them the tools they need to work towards that vision - regular confession (we go every couple of months), weekly Eucharist and regular prayer as a family, at the very least at mealtimes and bedtimes. We will give catechesis and study days for parents as the first teachers of their children, whose need for knowledge is far greater than that of extraordinary ministers.

If all we offer is welcome and affirmation, all we are doing is telling families that what they are is what they are. That they have no potential, that there is nothing greater that they could be. That the Church has nothing to offer them.

It was on National Youth Sunday that we first heard Bishop Drainey's invitation to young people...

Each week during Lent I will come to Hull, York and Middlesbrough. I hope to meet you there. If you are open to what the Lord is saying, life will never be the same again. I promise. Together, I want us to begin to answer Jesus' challenging question: "Who do you say I am?"

Now the event is getting nearer we have more information about it. Fr Stephen Maughan has penned a theme song entitled "Who do you say I am" which I haven't heard yet myself but Ella has been practicing it with the Music group at Church, I look forward to hearing it. How exciting. Things don't usually get a theme song.

Various preparation materials are now online on the Middlesbrough Diocese website and we now have the titles and readings for the four sessions...

Each time you come to meet with Bishop Terry and the other young people of the Diocese during lent, you will be asked to concentrate on a small part of St Mark’s Gospel.

You will be using a style of prayer called Lectio Divina which Bishop Terry has tells you about in an article which accompanies this material.

Here we offer you and your friends a chance to get ready for that experience by doing something similar, either on your own or in small groups before we all meet together.

All you need to do is read these Gospel passages together, pray and talk about them. Try to discover what message there is for us today.

Jesus asks us, ‘Who do you say I am?’ Let us begin to discover an answer.

• Session One: Will you tell me who I am for you?
• Session Two: Will you let me tell you who you are?
• Session Three: Will you come and follow me?
• Session Four: Will you serve as I serve?

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Yeah. Because I'm in any position to be making fun of people's mis-spellings. James who couldn't spell is own face if he saw it in the mirror. I can has glass house (shouldn't stone throws).

So... anyway... Bishop Drainey's article on Lexio is really good:

As we get ready for Who Do You Say I Am? Bishop Terry tells us about a style of prayer that will be the bedrock of what we do in Lent 2009…

Be Still before the Word

Whatever you have been doing, wherever you have come from, just place it all before the Lord; put all the people, all the situations that are in your mind and in your heart into God’s hands and leave them there. Empty your mind and calm your whole body and mind as you approach the Lord. He wishes to speak to you; he wants to pour his gifts on you. But you have to be ready and open and waiting.

Read the Word

Slowly, with your mind, with your hearts, with your spirit, read and listen to the Word of God. Read it out loud if you are on your own. Let God’s Word surround you and fill you. Listen in a way that allows the Word to speak to your very soul.

Think on the Word

What is God trying to say to you in this passage? Use your mind, use your imagination. Enter into the scene, be present as the Lord is speaking to you. What does it feel like, what does it look like, how are you reacting to what God is saying?

Pray the Word

Is there someone/something you want to pray for/about as a result of listening, reading and thinking on the Word? Perhaps its just good to be with the Lord, knowing that he is speaking to your heart. Enjoy, tell him how you like being with him and just stay there quiet and still.

Share the Word

Talk to others; tell them what the passage meant for you. You don’t have to be an expert, just speak of your personal experience. Perhaps you felt nothing, heard nothing; listen to what it meant to other people and perhaps that will help you.

Act on the Word

How are you going to begin to live and act as a result of listening to what God has had to say to you through his Word and through listening to others? If what you have heard has been challenging then you will need courage to act on the Word. Ask for that courage. God will never refuse an honest, open heart. But be prepared for an adventure. When God answers your prayers you never know where you will end up…..except you will be filled with his joy, his peace, his love. There is nothing like it in the world. Honest!

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Be prepared for adventure.

Okay, Okay, So Susan had it right...

Heart shaped burgers - it's a classic. You can find instructions for making your own burgers but Ella decided to walk in to P Imison's butchers and ask for unshaped burger meat for making heart shaped burgers. Simple.

But the big feature this year was our spectacular Gingerbread House. Ella's parents got us a gingerbread house at Christmas but by the time we got around to doing anything with it Christmas was well in the past, so we saved it for Valentines Day...

The tree in the garden was decorated by Leona who stuck the pieces on herself very tastefully indeed. It's highly symbolic, with hearts and our names and everything.

Ella also made heart shaped jellies in a heart shaped ice cube rack with which she could have made heart shaped ice cubes if valentines day was in the summer. The jellies were very cool.

The jellies were not very structurally sound and tricky to pick up. Rather than getting a spook, I decided to slurp mine up apple-bobbing-stylee...

Leona decided to copy me...

In the evening we had Chinese takeaway (people with toddlers can't go to restaurants). All in all, a romantic day was had by all.

Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue of Lancaster Diocese recently gave a talk to the Newman Society at Oxford University.

It's a very interesting talk to those of us living in the crazy-topsy-turvy-upside land of English Catholicism where people who read documents and try to do what the pope says are controversial outcasts.

He begins by talking about his four motivations to write Fit For Mission: Church?

1. The desire to celebrate the great blessings we all receive through the Church.

As I wrote in this week's Catholic Herald, the documents of Vatican II are the Magna Carta of the Holy Spirit for this generation of Catholics.

Pope John XXIII firmly believed that he called the Council as a direct inspiration of the Lord. I believe that God, in His provident and merciful care of the Church knew the apostasy and suffering, humanity was about to endure in the late 20th and 21st centuries.

Through the Second Vatican Council He has given us the graces and tools to face the challenges. It's now up to us to fully embrace the 'true' teaching and decisions of the Council, and abandon the 'fictions' foisted on us by some clergy, religious and laity who are disobedient and arrogant in their will-to-power. So, I am calling for an enquiring fidelity to the teaching of the Council.

The 'true' teachings and decisions of the Council have been buried away and 'fictions' have been foisted on us by clergy and laity who are disobedient. That is definitely true! How often have we been told that "Vatican II got rid of Latin" when it actually says (Sacrosanctum Concillium) "the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites" and "steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin". That's the 'true' teaching of the council. Don't get me started on Gregorian Chant.

Bishop O'Donoghue calls for an 'enquiring fidelity' to the teaching of the council, but this doesn't rest on him. This isn't a "do you agree with the Bishop of Lancaster?" situation. Anybody who claims to be a faithful Catholic and then flagrantly disregards the authentic teaching of the council is ignorant or a liar (or a raving traditionalist nutter). Simple as that. They are also depriving my family of our patrimony and heritage. They either don't know what they are doing, or they are thieves and liars. Either way it's not good.

I mention the Latin only because it's a clear example. There are dozens of other things.

2. To openly and honestly acknowledge as a Bishop the trials and troubles facing us all in the Church in England and Wales.

Good Pope John's purpose for the Council was to guard and better present the 'precious deposit of Christian doctrine in order to make it more accessible to the Christian faithful and to all people of good will'.

Looking around at the pathetic situation of catechetics in this country, and the extent of ignorance and apostasy among generations of Catholics since the Council, we have to ask ourselves, 'Why has Pope John's vision for the Council not been realised in this country?'

One conclusion I've come to is that, simply put, I am convinced that we will only experience the full renewal heralded by Vatican II when Catholics – particularly in positions of leadership in schools, seminaries, parishes, and dioceses – no longer place obstacles in the way of the authentic implementation of the Council but positively engage with it.

Why for instance, are some Catholic education authorities, even bishops in this country, so fearful of Fit for Mission Schools? After all, it only re-iterates the teaching of the Church and it is has been widely and publically welcomed by the Vatican and many bishops, clergy and laity around the world?

I wish more Bishops would openly and honestly acknowledge the "pathetic situation of catechetics in this country" and "extent of ignorance and apostasy among generations of Catholics since the Council". Perhaps they are not aware? All this talk of the Priestly Vocations Crisis has distracted us from the real far more problem: The "most Catholics don't know what a Catechism is" crisis. The "most Catholics stopped learning Catholicism when they were Six" crisis. Thank goodnes for Jane, Caroline and Co who are doing what they can to eliviate this problem but it's an uphill struggle.

Then Bishop Patrick points to the real problem... Catholics in positions of leadership in schools and diocese "place obstacles in the way of the authentic implementation of the Council". Face facts. The teachers in the so called Catholic secondary school, St Mary's College in Hull only reluctantly "embrace" Catholicism.

If our Bishop wants to test that theory here is a suggestion: St Mary's College allows Connexions to come in to the school and hand out a materials with web address for a website where young people can procure advice on how to get an abortion without parental knowledge. That is clearly a very dodgy situation. If I am wrong and the school is truly Catholic, there will surely be no resistance if the Bishop makes a friendly suggestion that perhaps the School should find an alternative careers advice service...

Bishop O'Donoghue then goes on to suggest obstacles that have blocked the true vision and grace of the council...

Rejection of the past

Many Catholics in this country have interpreted the Council as signalling a wholesale rejection of aspects of the Church's identity, out of a desire to be open to modernity.

We have seen the diminishment of the Catholic understanding of sin, man's need for redemption, the sacrificial nature of the Mass. Correspondingly, we have witnessed the virtual abandonment of Confession, the marginalisation of devotion to Mary, the intercessions of the saints, and adoration of the Blessed sacrament.

Rejection of the moral authority of Church in favour of the authority of conscience.

As a consequence for some Catholics the objective authority of the Church's doctrine, morality and discipline has been replaced by a subjective, personal judgement of the so called 'pick and mix' generation of Catholics.

In some circles the infallibility of the Pope has been replaced by the infallibility of individual conscience.

Influence of secularism in the Church.

Rejecting much that is essential to Catholic faith and practice, relentlessly criticising the Church's past, placing their own judgement above the authority of the Church, these 'Catholics' advocate, and import into the Church, what the secular world holds up as 'good' as being in keeping with the 'tolerance' and 'compassion' of Jesus – divorce, contraception, abortion, IVF, homosexual acts/unions, embryonic stem cell research.

They also attempt to impose a political model of decision-making on the Church, misusing the term 'Sensus fidelium' to mean the democratic rule of the majority. The unspoken assumption is that the Church develops doctrine like a secular government, through lobbying, protest, and pressure groups.

This is a travesty of Lumen Gentium's understanding of how the 'sense of faith' operates (LG 12): It always operates under 'the guidance of the sacred teaching authority', and never apart from or contrary to it.

Scepticism or at least down playing of the supernatural.

Hand in hand with the infiltration of secularism into the Church, the secular mindset has gained a foothold in the lives of many Catholics, clergy and laity. This is characterised by a certain scepticism or embarrassed reserve about the supernatural dimension of the Faith. Some central aspects have been abandoned as superstitious relics, such as the Church's teaching on Angels and demons, even though they play such an important role in the Gospel.

The supernatural dimension of Jesus' identity and role has been eclipsed on occasions by an emphasis on His humanity, emphasising His role as a great moral teacher. The trouble with this is that once you downplay the Incarnation, His self-consciousness of being God, the atonement, it's an easy step to portray Jesus as just one great moral teacher among the other moral teachers of the world religions.

Where we find this secular humanism, we see essential doctrines of the Church downplayed or ignored, explaining the ease with which teaching the Trinity, the Real Presence, the Immaculate Conception, the sacrificial nature of the Mass are dropped. These bedrocks of the faith are either ignored or passed over quickly as unintelligible, irrelevant to our young people.

Humanity becomes the measure of everything.

For all the above reasons, many Catholics are not able to get beyond the human in their understanding and practice of the Faith. We have the community Mass, whose sole function is to build up the sense of community solidarity. We have clergy and laity criticising the Church as if she were only a human institution, not one that originates in the divine will, we have theologians arguing that Jesus' claims to divinity are only the product of second century Christians, we have Christianity reduced to an agency for the social betterment of mankind.

There is too much to comment on it all... "the virtual abandonment of Confession", "the marginalisation of devotion to Mary", "'pick and mix' generation", "essential doctrines of the Church downplayed or ignored", "the Trinity, the Real Presence, the Immaculate Conception, the sacrificial nature of the Mass are dropped", "bedrocks of the faith are either ignored or passed over quickly as unintelligible, irrelevant to our young people", "the community Mass, whose sole function is to build up the sense of community solidarity", "Christianity reduced to an agency for the social betterment of mankind"...

Sound familiar? So reads the epitaph. Here lies English Catholicism.

3. To make clear the need for us all – bishops, clergy, religious and laity – to re-embrace sacrifice as the hallmark of Catholic life.

I am convinced that the remedy for all these trials and troubles in the Church in England and Wales is for each one of us to embrace sacrifice as the hallmark of our lives in the world and in the church, the hallmark of our spirituality. In Christ, we come to resurrection, new life, through the Cross.

I want to propose to all of you here tonight the following acts of sacrifice to counter the trials and troubles I have just outlined to you.

The following suggestions are excellent...

Embrace the Tradition of the Church.

To counter the rejection of the past, I want you to sacrifice the modern compulsion for novelty and fashion through embracing the Tradition of the Church, which is nothing more than the source of God's revelation, along with Scripture.

I want you to re-discover the joys and beauty of personal prayer, as well as family and community prayer. Also, to re-discover liturgical prayer, to counter an undue focus on our own human activity. So often the sacred is swamped by the volume of words, noise and activity!

I want you to re-discover the devotions of the Church, such as praying the rosary, the Stations of the Cross, Benediction. I want you to embrace the discipline of praying the daily Office of the Church; the practice of regular confession. The Holy Father goes every week, so why not us also. I want you to know the four Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council inside out, start with the wonderful Constitution on revelation, Dei Verbum.

He's talking about embracing tradition, not being traditionalist. That means not spitting out your dummy at the merest suggestion that perhaps the average Catholic in the average parish aught to at least occasionally hear a tiny bit of Latin.

Praying the office is an excellent suggestion, again, perhaps an example could be given by using the office when leading prayers at adult formation meetings, parish councils and "Who Do You Say I Am?". Night prayer takes all of six minutes, the priests involved will be saying it anyway. I don't understand why these so called "Spirit of Vatican II" priests who are usually so enthusiastic to have laypeople live out their "priestly ministry" are not so keen to involve laypeople in night prayer. Instead of takign on the added burden of having to write something, why not encourage laypeople join in the prayer of the Church?

As for confession, it's very simple. In his 2007 apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis Pope Benedict wrote... "it is important that the confessionals in our churches should be clearly visible expressions of the importance of this sacrament". There is a parish in our deanery where the confessional is being used as a cupboard. That's a pretty clear expression of the importance of this sacrament in our deanery! I wonder why the Bishop (who has visited that parish) doesn't simply tell them to sort it out?

Embrace a self-critical conscience:

To counter the rejection of the authority of the Church, I want you to sacrifice the notion that 'if it feels OK, and it doesn't seemingly harm anyone else, it's morally right to do'.

I want you to re-discover the ancient Catholic attitude of a self-critical conscience that includes suspicion about the obsessions and cravings of human nature. Notice I say, 'obsessions and cravings'. Of course, there are good and natural human desires, like the desire for trust and commitment in sexual love that can only come through life-long commitment in marriage that is open to life.

But so much that is held up nowadays as harmless and 'good' is really unbalanced and distorted, such as pornography, lap dancing, homosexuality, so called 'comfort' sex between friends. Obsession and craving are at the heart of this unbalanced and dehumanising behaviour.

A self critical conscience is a hard thing to maintain. That's why we should regularly go through a good examination of conciense and go to regular confession. Of course, it's even harder when priests are wandering around saying things like "Don't waste my time with confession, you've never done any real sins"

Embrace obedience to the teachings of the Church.

To counter the infiltration of secular ideas such as relativism, utilitarianism, and hedonism into the Church, sacrifice the automatic assumption that your ideas about doctrine and morals must be right, and the Church's 2,000 years reflection on God's revelation must be wrong.

I want you to take a leap of faith, based on trust in the person of Jesus Christ, and start from the assumption that the Church has good reasons for teaching the doctrines and morals that she teaches. Search out those reasons, make the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church the most thumbed and creased books in your libraries. Go, read the Fathers of the Church and St Thomas Aquinas' Summae, with a good guide. Go, study the books and homilies of Pope Benedict XVI, and other good Catholic literature.

And if you hear any Catholic say or teach something that goes against the teaching and discipline of the Church, as safe-guarded by the Pope, politely, but firmly, challenge them, be they a lay catechist, teacher, deacon, priest or even a bishop.

"start from the assumption that the Church has good reasons for teaching the doctrines and morals that she teaches. Search out those reasons, make the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church the most thumbed and creased books in your libraries."

"And if you hear any Catholic say or teach something that goes against the teaching and discipline of the Church, as safe-guarded by the Pope, politely, but firmly, challenge them, be they a lay catechist, teacher, deacon, priest or even a bishop."

Read the Catechism. Challenge people who go against it.

Do that and see how popular you are with the local clergy (not very?).

Embrace the total Catholic world view.

To counter the modern embarrassment about the supernatural and the sacred, sacrifice the comfort of silence and conformity, sacrifice the safety of mental reservation and secular 'commonsense, and accept the fullness of God's word in revelation which speaks of a reality beyond sense-data.

I want you to take seriously the Church's teaching – based on revelation – that you have a totally unique, immortal soul directly created by God, that when you die you will experience purgatory, and heaven, or hell. I want you to take seriously – because Jesus did – the reality of angels and demons, but do it lightly, not in an obsessive way. I want you to pray to the saints and pray for the souls in purgatory. I want you to deepen your adoration and love of Jesus really, truly and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament.

Why is it important to take the supernatural seriously? Because we are like amphibians, made of body and soul and meant to live both in the material world and in the spiritual world. If you ignore either world, you miss the whole point of human existence.

To deepen your appreciation and experience of the supernatural, go on retreat, go on pilgrimage to holy sites in this country and around the world, and you will gradually become more attuned to this dimension of reality. Experience God among the hills and lakes, in the forests and fields – nature too, can help to lead us to God.

Soul. The last time I heard anybody give serious catechesis about the soul it was me in my talk to the Hull Faith Forum. Before that...? I can't remember. Traditionalist speak of the soul as if it is a lifeless white/dirty rag, cleaned at confession, dirtied by sin and checked by a grumpy suspicious God. Progressives speak of the soul as if it is a little ghost that follows us around, something we have to "find". They talk about "getting in touch with it". Both views are totally wrong. The soul is you. To quote CS Lewis... "You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."

The fact that most Catholics have no idea what the soul is, demonstrates the catastrophic failure of catechesis in our parishes.

Embrace the divinity and humanity of Jesus.

To counter making humanity the measure of everything, sacrifice the attitude that your limited experience of being human is the rule against which to measure everything. There is only one human being who knows and shows what it means to be truly human, and that person is Jesus Christ, both God and man.

I want you to reject that wrong-headed view that dominates academic theology and New Testament studies that Jesus did not know himself to the divine, the incarnate Son of God. I want you to read Pope Benedict's book, Jesus of Nazareth, and the work of scholars that are rejecting that the New Testament claims about the divinity of Christ are 'holy fictions' created by second generation Christians. Nothing can be so destructive of faith than this unfounded and speculative heresy.

Pray and study the Scriptures, study good Catholic commentaries and literature, go to Mass regularly, study the account of Jesus in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Jesus will grow clearer and more present in your life.

Read Pope Benedicts book. Read the Bible. Read the Catechism. A lot of reading going on here. That's because Catholicism is an adult faith that needs intellectual nourishment at an adult level. We are fools if we think we can be adult Catholics if we do not bring our faith education at least to the level of our regular education. It is appalling that young people capable of A-Level maths are not given something meaty to chew on theologically beyond "sing this song and light a candle".

Finally, Bishop O'Donoghue moves on to his fourth reason for Fit For Mission: Church?...

4. A passion that – as Cardinal Newman puts it – the truth is spread to a wide extent among this people of Great Britain.

It is a sad truth that many people are so alienated from the Church, the language of the Bible, and their need for salvation, that they are either indifferent or violently allergic to Christianity. Also, it is heart-breaking to admit that the behaviour of some Catholics, such as paedophile priests and the failure of some in authority in the Church, has damaged the credibility of the Church.

I am convinced that in order to evangelise this generation we must follow the advice of Newman and de Foucauld and concentrate our missionary efforts on showing the unconditional love of Christ for suffering humanity though practical acts of justice and peace. In particular, we must act in solidarity with the poor and all those on the margins of society, migrants, drug addicts, alcoholics, men and women in the sex industry, those suffering mental illness.

We must do this without any ulterior motives, such as seeking converts. We must only undertake this work to show them the love of Jesus Christ.

It is only when or if they ask us why we do this work, that we can gently begin to talk to them about Jesus, and only at the pace that they want. If they reject Jesus, but accept His practical love through our actions, we must be content with that.

Sadly, so much of the social justice work in the Church today is reduced to the level of fundraising, with the poor kept at arms length. Thank goodness for the fantastic work of people who work in places like the St Charles drop in centre. People like me should spend less time writing our blogs and spend some time going down there and helping out.

You can read the full text here. Thanks to Catholic Action UK for the heads up.

This is a shame..

The Latin Mass Society is organising a conference at St Cuthberts College, Ushaw at which priests will receive training in the celebration of the Mass in the usus antiquior. It is open to all priests, but priests of the northern dioceses are particularly welcome. Bookings are coming in steadily, but alas, none have been received so far from priests of the Middlesbrough Diocese. This is a great shame because Bishop Drainey is supportive of moves to improve the provision of traditional rite Masses in the diocese.

It is a regrettable fact that in this diocese, we are desparately short of priests able to celebrate Mass in the older form. In fact we are at the bottom of the league. Even smaller dioceses like Hallam, Menevia and Wrexham do better than us in this respect. If you know of a priest who you think might be interested, please suggest to him that he attends the conference. They need some encouragement.

The conference is from Mon 20th to Thurs 23rd April, and the fee for attending is £85. The magnificent St Cuthbert's Chapel will be used for all the liturgies and the rural setting is just perfect.

[link]

I reckon there are plenty of priests in Middlesbrough Diocese who would have an interest in this but for the last fourty years anybody showing and interest in Latin has been ostracised and treated like a nutter. They'd be mad to sign up to something like this and risk getting tarred with the Latin brush.

If Bishop Drainey is supportive, why doesn't he just say "You, You, You and You... Go"? Then it would be a bit less witchunt like, a bit less "does anybody want to own up to having an interest in the extraordinary form so I can send them to Africa?"

Here's a great idea. Only got one bod? With modern technology you can splice yourself together and sing with yourself. Sing Zelda with yourself.

This first one is full of ethnic goodness (and he looks a bit like Ben)...

This second one is awesome...

This one feels more acheivable by ordinary human beings (Yay Gerudo!)...

Okay, okay! Last one... This guy has the same instruments that Ella and I have. We could learn to do this one.. and it's my favouritest of Zelda tunes!

Go around and Around!

I hope they made you as happy as they made me.

Pope Benedict turned his eye to England at his most recent wednesday audience where he spoke about the Venerable Bede.

His Ecclesiastical History recounts the Church's missionary expansion and growth among the English people. Bede's rich ecclesial, liturgical and historical vision enable his writings to serve as a guide for the Church's teachers, pastors and religious in living out their vocations in the service of the Church's mission.

[link]

In his Ecclesiastical History Bede recounts St Wilfrid who said...

"But as for you and your companions, you certainly sin, if, having heard the decrees of the Apostolic See, and of the universal church, and that the same is confirmed by holy writ, you refuse to follow them; for, though your fathers were holy, do you think that their small number, in a corner of the remotest island, is to be preferred before the universal church of Christ throughout the world?"

Those words are as true today as they were when St Wilfrid himself spoke them at the Synod of Whitby.

They just don't make Bishop's like they used too...

Just wanted to draw your attention to an excellent series of posts on National Marriage Week by Joe over on Catholic Commentary...

He talks about how marriage can only be between a man and a woman and shares some testimonies in part one. Then covers the permanence of marriage and forgiveness in marriage in part two. In part three he covers marriage as open to the gift of life. What is love? forms the basis of part four and then finally he talks about the World Meeting of Families in part five.

Well worth a read.

Update: Joe has added a Part six about education.

I recently did a post on a talk given by Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue of Lancaster Diocese to the Newman Society at Oxford University.

Mark thought it'd be a good way to approach Lent, so he's posted it with some handy links.

Anybody who has ever criticised my blog for publicaly criticising parishes and priests by name has a moral duty to complain to The Tablet who have published an article criticising Fr Tim Finigan by name.

From now on I will consider any priest that chooses to distribute The Tablet in his parish to be fair game for blogging, since they obviously approve.

Not fair?

I suppose the difference is that The Tablet are reporting only good things about Fr Tim Finigan...

Haw Haw...

No but seriously, now that you've played the "draw attention to it" card what comes next? The thing about people who are not trying to undermine the Church is that they don't mind if people find out about it.

Unlike those who are...

"Shhhhhh... We're not doing anything wrong or anything but don't tell anybody!"

Remember St Mary's Brisbane?

The Parish in Australia where the priest decided to put an enormous statue of Buddha in front of the altar and the Bishop did nothing until World Youth Day pilgrims comlained to Rome and even then he just said he was "weighing up" the situation until somebody took matters in to their own hands and smashed it.

The same parish that used an invalid Baptismal formula and... guess what... the Bishop did nothing until people complained to Rome. What is it about Bishops and doing nothing until pushed in to doing so?

The Archbishop has finally acted by removing the rebel priest and appointing the Cathedral dean as the new priest. Guess what? The rebel priest is having none of it.

About 1000 assembled at the church, mainly in support of embattled priest Peter Kennedy, who received his marching orders last week after a long-running dispute with the Brisbane Archdiocese.

Archbishop John Bathersby formally terminated Father Kennedy's tenure over the controversial priest's unorthodox practices, which included blessing homosexual couples, not wearing traditional vestments and allowing parishioners to lead parts of the service.

At last night's Mass, long-time parishioner Nina Morgente delivered the homily on the theme of forgiveness.

She spoke of the fighting spirit of the St Mary's community, likening Father Kennedy and assistant priest Father Terry Fitzpatrick to birds who took on the task of building a "renewed church".

"We are a community who tried damned hard to make those birds fly," Ms Morgente said.

The furore over St Mary's has reached the Vatican and, since Christmas, Archbishop Bathersby has been under increasing pressure to resolve the situation.

Yesterday, police warned Archbishop Bathersby and Father Kennedy's temporary replacement, St Stephen's Dean Ken Howell, to stay away from St Mary's after the archbishop received a bomb threat at his office.

[link]

A bomb threat. It's gone that far.

Here's St Mary's Brisbane on the news in Australia...

I repeat my previous suggestion: Don't leave dodgy priests in the same place for twenty eight years to build their own personality cult based on how wonderful Father Fun is for doing what Jesus did which was mainly breaking the rules.

Here's an additional suggestion: Maybe the overly negative people who complained about Fr Fun when he was just doing smalltime things like using his confessional as a cupboard had a point?

The latest advice for parents from the government...

PARENTS should avoid trying to convince their teenage children of the difference between right and wrong when talking to them about sex, a new government leaflet is to advise.

[...]

It advises: “Discussing your values with your teenagers will help them to form their own. Remember, though, that trying to convince them of what’s right and wrong may discourage them from being open.”

[...]

Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist, said educating older children and teenagers about sex had to be a process of negotiation. “We do not know what is right and wrong; right and wrong is relative, although your child does need clear guidelines,” she said.

[link]

"We do not know what is right and wrong; right and wrong is relative"

I think she means right and wrong are relative.

Either way she's wrong.

The relativistic view of right and wrong says that there is no absolute meausure of right and wrong. Things are righter and wronger, but never right or wrong. Some things that seem wrong to us might seem right to other people. It's all relative.

That's a bit like saying that boxes don't have a size, they are only smaller or bigger. It is clearly nonsense. You can measure a box and give it's absolute dimensions. You can measure an act and say "this is right" or "this is wrong".

A relativistic morality sounds quite reasonable. If everybody around me is doing something then it must be okay. If I do the same, then I must be a good person. It can't be wrong if everybody is doing it? right?

Wrong.

The problem with a relativistic morality is that we can only judge our own actions based on the actions of those around us. That ties us down to the culture we live in, if we live in an age where slavery is considered acceptable, we will probably consider slavary to be acceptable. If we live in an age that see's women as inferior to men, we will probably see women as inferior to men. If we live in an age where abortion is seen as a human right, we will probably see abortion as a human right.

Only an absolute measure of right and wrong allows us to escape the degrading slavery of being a child of our age.

Do not be a child of your age. Do not measure right and wrong on the basis of the majority who happen to be living and breathing around you for the time being. Someday they will be gone and people will look back on them and say "that was wrong, but they didn't know any better because that was what people did back then".

God is the ultimate Good. Only in a relationship with Jesus Christ will we find the truth about right and wrong which will set us free to rise above the whims of fashion and allow us to objectively choose what is really good.

Absolute freedom to choose between right and wrong with moral responsibility for your own actions or degrading slavery to the dictatorship of relativism... I know which one sounds most appealing to me.

If you don't like this joke...

[source]

Then perhaps you will enjoy this adorable mouse who is playing the flute...

You can see more of him and his Russian mates here.

Awwwww.

In the interests of getting the largest possible audience for their ineffective liberal propaganda machine, the clever folks at The Tablet have asked Fr Tim Finigan to remove his fisk of their article from his website.

The trouble is, Fr Tim just can't help himself. He's a hardned compulsive criminal. Just look at this photo he put on his website...

We should all pray for him.

It's Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known as Jif Lemon Day...

There's a longstanding tradition of clearing out all the cupboards, we make pancakes with sugar and lemon but tradition holds that people would clear out everything from their cupboards and throw it all in to a pan. The idea being to empty the cupboards in preparation for Ash Wednesday tomorrow and the feast of lent.

Anyway, I have decided to give up blogging for lent. So it is time to clear out my blogging cupboard. I have a place where I put things I plan to maybe blog someday (many of them get lost in the end) and I am now going to very rapidly blog them all...

The Priority of Strengthening Families - I wanted to write a bit more about this and how families are important but the Government pisses all over them.

Preaching to Young Adults Today - I never did get around to sharing this excellent article by a Dominican chap who is the undersecretary to the CDF. The youth department should print this out and read it carefully.

10 Rules for Handling Disagreement like a Christian - from Bishop Allen Vigneron. Something I should probably reflect on through Lent.

Old Ladies - In contrast to the above, I was planning to direct you to this article on the Middlesbrough Diocese website and say: Look! They are all women! Perhaps I have a point when I say that all this mushy inspirational stuff is offputting to men.

The Youth of the Church - An article by GK Chesterton, not on the Youth of the Church but the Youth of the Church.

Who Needs a Creed? - Article by Mark Shea. Very relevant in the West Hull Parishes where Fr Massie has been talking about the creed a lot in his homilies lately.

Dinosaur Comics does Relativism - The published this just after I told a room full of kids that relativism binds you to the degrading slavery of being a child of your age.

Monsters, Moralists and Happiness - Mark Shea writes about GK Chesterton and Alfred Hitchcock. Interesting stuff.

If you want a job doing... - Video of Pope Benedict promoting confession at his Wednesday audience, something many English Bishops seem to find it impossible to do.

Bishop Conry's Pastoral Letter for Lent - The Bishop that advised against frequent confession (here) writes a pastoral letter promoting confession. Which is good. Well done him.

Christ and Nothing and Witches and Nothing - Two articles on the blog of John C Wright, one of my favourite bloggers. They are all about people who profess to believe nothing but in reality depend on large chunks of Christianity.

Gaudium et Spes - John Kearney posts an exerpt from Vatican II. Includes "man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure" which would have tied in well with my talk (and will if I end up doing it again which it looks like I might).

Make your £5 go Further - I always mean't to point out the importance of gift aiding donations. If you pay tax and you gift aid a donation, the government has to give back your tax to the charity. That's good one.

Year of Saint Paul - There will be big Masses, um, maybe not, it says "prayerful liturgies", in Middlesbrough and Hull. The Hull one is at St Charles this Thursday at 7pm. Get yourself along if you can.

Phew!

That's my whole blogging cupboard of things to blog cleared out, ready for lent. That feels good. More on my plans for lent later today.

Wierd...

Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith works in the Vatican as the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship. That means he probably knows a thing or two about the liturgy. He 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."

Today [...] 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."

[link]

In years to come the period shortly after the 1960's will be but a footnote in the history of the Church. The short period of turbulence that follows any council of the Church.

The question Catholics have to ask themselves now is simple. Will they use their free will to read the council documents and choose the good of what the Liturgy in fact is and what the Council defined it to be? Or will they submit to the degrading slavary of being children of their age?

I'm giving up blogging for lent and in the spirit of Fat Tuesday I'm having a clean out of all my bloggable material, just like the people of old who used to clear out all their cupboards of meat in preparation for the fast. I posted a load of stuff this morning but I have just found a final few more...

How to Enjoy a Plate of Waffles and Spaghetti - The ever practical I am Husband completes the trilogy just in time for Lent. How handy.

Can fonts make you want to exercise less? - Answer is yes apparently. To cut a long story short: All the people who send email in Comic Sans should stop.

Shrove Tuesday Revelations - Laurence England, another of my favourite bloggers, makes a corny joke about pancake day. I mainly include this as an excuse to tell you that his blog is excellent (and not usually about pancakes at all) and you should start reading it.

The Paternal Order of Priests - The legendary Scott Hahn writes about a homily by St Augustine in which the great saint referred to dads as "my fellow bishops" telling them "a man is called a bishop because he supervises and takes care of others, every man who heads a household also holds the office of bishop — supervising the way his people believe, and seeing that none of them fall into heresy, not his wife, or son, or daughter, or even his servant." Servant? Clearly St Augustine was writing before the credit crunch...

Ciao, probably - Berenike, who used to comment here until she stopped because she felt her commenting was ruining my otherwise friendly blog has also stepped out for lent, unless something particularly profound strikes her.

That's that.

I have decided to put my blog on hold for lent and spend the time I usually spend blogging on more productive things.

I am definitely going to spend some of that time reading the scriptures, particularly the Gospel of Mark (because of something Amy said) and the Letters of St Paul. It feels like an age since I simply sat and read the Bible, instead of using it to look up proofs for things.

I need to spend more time with Ella, more time with Leona and if Fr Massie is really nice I may even get the parish website sorted out. Maybe.

This is also a very good opportunity to reflect on the nature and purpose of my blogging. I try my best to uphold what is true and to despise what is false, I know that I do not always succeed. While there are people who tell me I am a hero and a prophet, there are others grow angry at the mention of my name.

Are they angry because I have spoken the truth and exposed their faults? or are they angry because I have sinned against them? Probably both. I know that there have sinned against others with this blog and I ask your forgiveness.

In the spirit of the lenten season, if anybody I have wronged, misunderstood or otherwise fallen out with would like to send me an email and talk about it, I give you my word that nothing you say will ever find it's way on to the internet or be shared with anybody. For the sake of the unity of the Body of Christ in our area, it would be a great thing if we could begin to understand one another.

I leave you now with a the a quote from Lumen Gentium that I first read around six months before I got married. Since then, it has been a blueprint for my life as a husband and a father.

Christ, the great Prophet, who proclaimed the Kingdom of His Father both by the testimony of His life and the power of His words, continually fulfills His prophetic office until the complete manifestation of glory. He does this not only through the hierarchy who teach in His name and with His authority, but also through the laity whom He made His witnesses and to whom He gave understanding of the faith (sensu fidei) and an attractiveness in speech) so that the power of the Gospel might shine forth in their daily social and family life. They conduct themselves as children of the promise, and thus strong in faith and in hope they make the most of the present, and with patience await the glory that is to come. Let them not, then, hide this hope in the depths of their hearts, but even in the program of their secular life let them express it by a continual conversion and by wrestling "against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness.

Just as the sacraments of the New Law, by which the life and the apostolate of the faithful are nourished, prefigure a new heaven and a new earth, so too the laity go forth as powerful proclaimers of a faith in things to be hoped for, when they courageously join to their profession of faith a life springing from faith. This evangelization, that is, this announcing of Christ by a living testimony as well as by the spoken word, takes on a specific quality and a special force in that it is carried out in the ordinary surroundings of the world.

In connection with the prophetic function, that state of life which is sanctified by a special sacrament obviously of great importance, namely, married and family life. For where Christianity pervades the entire mode of family life, ala gradually transforms it, one will find there both the practice and an excellent school of the lay apostolate. In such a home husbands and wives find their proper vocation in being witnesses of the faith and love of Christ to one another and to their children. The Christian family loudly proclaims both the present virtues of the Kingdom of God and the hope of a blessed life to come. Thus by its example and its witness it accuses the world of sin and enlightens those who seek the truth.

Consequently, even when preoccupied with temporal cares, the laity can and must perform a work of great value for the evangelization of the world. For even if some of them have to fulfill their religious duties on their own, when there are no sacred ministers or in times of persecution; and even if many of them devote all their energies to apostolic work; still it remains for each one of them to cooperate in the external spread and the dynamic growth of the Kingdom of Christ in the world. Therefore, let the laity devotedly strive to acquire a more profound grasp of revealed truth, and let them insistently beg of God the gift of wisdom.

[Lumen Gentium]

For the curious: I will be looking at comments, but not responding. If you want a response send me an email. I will not be doing any "Sunday doesn't count" blog entries though I reserve the right to do some "Sunday doesn't count" playing of computer games. Sue me.

See you on the other side.

Last night we went to the celebrations of St Paul at St Charles.

It was a good event, so nice to have the themes of St Paul's letters strung together to offer us encouragement as we enter Lent but the whole thing flowed nicely. It began with a procession of light with the reading from Ephesians on being children of the light.

Fr Jim O'Brian gave the homily summing up Paul's life, talking about the difficulties and hardships he faced and how this seemed to not matter to him. How Paul encourages us to live as Christ as he did for that is where we can draw our strength from.

We all got to light our candles (which Leona had taken to pieces and put back together again) a symbol of Christ's light in our lives and us being children of the light. These were was naturally lit from the pascal candle showing our unity as the body of Christ through our baptism as we not only strive to be a light ourselves but together as a community. There was a point when Canon Loughlin was almost lit instead of his candle but all was well.

We were then given a prayer card with a passage from St Paul on it. These were nicely decorated by children from the various primary schools in Hull.

Our youth club was asked to do the readings and they worked hard and did us proud, especially as there was a slight hiccup in the order, the lady reading the piece of scripture was too zealous and keenly got up before them but it phased them not and I doubt anyone noticed as it all went smoothly along.

The plan is to make the letters of St Paul my study through lent and so to have this event so perfectly timed was a real treat for me :o)

Many thanks to Jane for such a smoothly and beautifully run event and naturally to the Bishop for coming all that way.

I am very excited about what I am taking for the shared lunch at the family day tomorrow. The talk is on the Passover so I have gone for themed “Charoset” it is tasty and symbolic. It symbolises the mortar the Hebrews used to build the bricks with. Any get this the version I have made contains 40 different fruit and nuts symbolising the 40 days crossing the desert. So there we have 40days of lent with the joy (sweetness) of salvation at the end.

This symbolism reminds me of how much I love the importance of this Lenten season. As Catholics we don't do the whole Jewish passover but I think it's important to look at the point Jesus instituted the new covenant as we hear all about it every Sunday at Communion but because we do not look at what the passover meal entailed we miss out on that first revelation the 12 disciples partook in all those years ago and it is just so exciting...

We all know the story of the Passover, the Hebrew people were enslaved by Pharaoh and Worked as slave labour making bricks until God sent Moses to free His people. Pharaoh did not want to loose His slave labour so God sent a series of plagues to try to persuade him, the last being the death of all first born sons. God did not want to kill the first born of the Hebrew people so he asked for a lamb to e sacrificed instead, with its blood spread on the door posts so the angel would 'pass over' (Ex 12:21-30). This celebration of freedom was commemorated every year by the Hebrew/Jewish people.

The meal is celebrated in the family and was a re-actualisation of the event, not a commemoration – the same as our celebration of the Pascal Mystery.

The first pretty obvious thing is that they eat unleavened bread. This is because before the Passover the houses were cleaned of all the yeast. Firstly, because at the first Passover they didn’t have time to let the bread rise, before they left in haste and secondly the way you got yeast was by leaving a little piece of the dough you used to one side. The yeast would grow in the dough and you could mix it in with the next batch of bread. Therefore clearing out all your yeast is symbolic of a new start, like leaving Egypt. Just as we have new life in Christ.

So at this re-actualisation that Jesus is celebrating with his followers he holds up the bread, what he would usually say is:

“This is the Bread of affliction, which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. All who hunger let them eat. All who are needy, let them come and celebrate the Passover with us”

But Jesus holds up the unleavened bread and changes the words:

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And he said. “Take this, it is my body.”” Mark 14:22

Jesus is instituting the new liturgy, calling himself the bread of affliction. Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life in John 6. He is identifying the bread of affliction with the bread of life. The actualisation of the passover event also confirms that “This is my body” is not just a symbolic thing but a statement of fact.

Then more excitingly we move onto the Cups of Wine again very significant for Catholics

“Then he took a cup and after he had given thanks, passed it to them and they all drank from it. And he said, “This is my blood, the blood of the Covenant, which is to be poured out for many.”” Mark 14:23-24

At the passover they drink from four cups. The cup of sanctification, the cup of deliverance, the cup of blessing (or redemption) and the fourth cup is the cup of completion.

In this passage it is very significant which cup Mark is talking about. We have a couple of clues as to which it is:

“ The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion with the blood of Christ?” 1 Cor 10:15-16

“After singing psalms of Praise, they went out to the mount of Olives.” Matt 26:30

The singing of psalms does come directly after the third cup therefore they have just drank the third cup, the Cup of Blessing. So what? I hear you cry well now it gets exciting...

After this there would normall be some more prayers and the drinking of the fourth cup, the cup of consummation, the Cup of Completion and then the service ends. But Jesus does not do this, after the third cup he says:

“Yes, I say to you: I will not taste the fruit of the vine from now until the day I drink new wine with you in my father’s Kingdom”.” Matt 26:29, (and again in Mark 14:25 and Luke22:18)

And then they go to Gethsemane as we see in Matt 26:30 above. There He begs that he does not have to drink of the cup Matt 26:39, Mark 14:36, that it be taken from him. The he refers to is the cup of Completion of the Passover sacrifice. This is because the sacrifice has not been completed. Jesus is then arrested, and crucified the next day. John’s Gospel especially describes Jesus’ death in Passover terms. Jesus' legs were not broken, just as the Passover Lamb's were not Ex12:46

And here comes an important bit...

“A jar full of bitter wine stood there; so putting a sponge soaked in the wine on a twig of hyssop, they raised it to his lips.” John19:29

That's right Jesus drinks the cup of completion on the cross. Completion of the new covenant. He even clarifies it by saying “It is finished” or “It is complete”

Jesus drinks the new wine in the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Love that was displayed most perfectly with his sacrifice on the Cross

But there is more still, the hyssop stick, so what? It was used to spread the blood on the door posts, on that first passover night, now at the last supper Christ has already declared during the meal that the wine is his blood, therefore when they raise the wine on the hyssop stick to Jesus it is like this spreading of the wine on the door post's. Jesus is the gate to heaven, we can only go to the Father through Christ!

It is also important to notice that at the first passover God did not just demand a sacrificed lamb from the Hebrews but a first born son from the Egyptians, through Christ's sacrificed on the cross as both the sacrificial lamb and the first born of son God he redeeming both Jews and Gentiles with His new covenant, and just as the sacrifice of the passover lamb was not enough for the Hebrews, they had to eat it, so too do we become part of the sacrifice of Christ, as we consume Him as the Blessed Sacrament.

I find it so exciting to see how Christ completed his revelation to his apostles by really understanding what those last moments would have meant to the apostles who would have understood all of the passover symbolism.

Well we have just got back from the family day.

It was good, James said it was better than last time. We began with a Lectio Devina on Matthew 7:13-15, we broke into small groups and then shared as big groups. Then after mass and lunch we had activities of making a crown of thorns, which was good. We had bendy bows which we wove together and then stuck halved cocktail sticks in. We were encouraged to to remove a stick every time we did something good with the aim of having all the thorns removed by Easter. Though this was aimed at the kids I think it is good for them to see the parents doing it to... we have to be role models after all!

Then a talk about the passover and it's links with our Mass, it was good but Fr Dominic tried to fit a lot in. To be honest it is quite a difficult talk to structure what with the links with the original passover why that was important, our mass, why the symbols are important and how they link but we did have a handy diagram :o)

The next meeting is around Pentacost and Michelle has been asked to do the talk, which is handy timing as we will have just finished our Maryvale course work by that point and the next piece won't be needed for a few weeks after :o)

Leona seemed to have fun but her diet seemed to be biscuits which were place on a table at "little mitts" hight! and then a cracker with a rather large piece of cheese on!

I took my charoset but though my explanation did not lack zeal it did lack information and structure! Never mind.