Well... don't if you're not particularly satisfied with the decisions you've made with your life.
I went to a 'reunion' of my primary school yesterday - this year being its 50th Anniversary. And I have to say that it wasn't exactly the most fun experience I have attended. Interestingly the buildings are little changed, and even the scale seemed to be much the same as when I left, over a quarter of a century ago, despite my being about twice as big as I was then. But that was the limit of it. There were no people there that I remember, no teachers that ever taught me, and no elements within the vast range of exhibits that had been prepared that came from my 5 years there. In short, nothing but the buildings reminded me of my time there.
And talking of buildings, when I left, after a short time, I decided to visit the local parish church - it being the church where I had my First Communion, and attached to which the school was set up (by nuns, 50 years ago). Sadly I was unable to get in. It saddens me greatly that a Catholic church in the London suburbs isn't open on a Saturday afternoon - you'd think that the nearby shopping 'meccas' might contain a few people who would wish to spend a few quiet moments in contemplation. And, since its school was having an open day, it might have been a good idea to have the church open so that past pupils might come in as well, even if only as a one-off. But no, it was very clearly locked up.
So I left London, bound back to Norfolk, feeling somewhat morose. I was reflecting on the decisions I've taken in the last quarter century. Decisions, which, for good or ill, have seen me to the point I am at in my life now. And it's a point I'm not entirely satisfied with. I regret a lot of wasted opportunities and a lot of things I've done badly at (from the 'mea culpa' point of view).
Hopefully, if there is a silver lining to be had, I'll come out of this more determined to recognise opportunities as they arrive and to not give in to my own weaknesses. After all, there are some paths in my life I feel particularly drawn to. I must take the lesson of yesterday to heart and not let myself repeat the mistakes of the past. The alternative is simply not worth thinking about.
Uniting my small sufferings with Christ's...
by Tony | 3/27/2009 in penance, sorrow, suffering | comments (0)
Having now gone to Mass and returned, I am in a better mood.
This morning's reading was very appropriate for the state of annoyance I was in.
| First reading | Wisdom 2:1,12-22 © |
|---|---|
The godless say to themselves, with their misguided reasoning: ‘Our life is short and dreary, nor is there any relief when man’s end comes, nor is anyone known who can give release from Hades. Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law and accuses us of playing false to our upbringing. He claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a son of the Lord. Before us he stands, a reproof to our way of thinking, the very sight of him weighs our spirits down; his way of life is not like other men’s, the paths he treads are unfamiliar. In his opinion we are counterfeit; he holds aloof from our doings as though from filth; he proclaims the final end of the virtuous as happy and boasts of having God for his father. Let us see if what he says is true, let us observe what kind of end he himself will have. If the virtuous man is God’s son, God will take his part and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies. Let us test him with cruelty and with torture, and thus explore this gentleness of his and put his endurance to the proof. Let us condemn him to a shameful death since he will be looked after – we have his word for it.’ This is the way they reason, but they are misled, their malice makes them blind. They do not know the hidden things of God, they have no hope that holiness will be rewarded, they can see no reward for blameless souls. | |
I was reminded that those who are Godless refuse to recognise the goodness of God. They wilfully reject it and actively seek suffering for those who ARE of God. As it was for Christ so it continues to be. But I have a consolation those who attack do not have. I have the knowledge of who it was who came from God. I have the knowledge that I am a part of the Body of Christ by being a member of the Church. As part of that Body I suffer willingly the attacks and the taunts because I know they cannot take away my faith. And I am comforted by the fact that I can, in my own incredibly small way, unite my own sufferings with those of Christ.
I offer up my own sorrow at being attacked by those who hate my Church as part of my Lenten penance. May I be purified by this sorrow and seek to become better for it.
Another attack on Catholicism allowed by the BBC...
by Tony | 3/27/2009 in anti-catholic bias, BBC | comments (0)
Watching BBC Breakfast, just a few minutes ago, and in the context of a discussion about removing the anti-Catholic bias in the laws about Royal succession (and also the anti-female bias as well) I was very annoyed (but not especially surprised) that the 'expert' commentator, the well known historian David Starkey, was allowed to get away with a vicious attack on the Roman Catholic Church without any question or reigning in by the presenters. With the benefit of my Sky Plus box I was able to retrospectively record his comment and here it is transcribed, verbatim (my emphasis to match his spoken emphasis):
But there's one body in the world that is more profoundly discriminatory than any other and that is the Roman Catholic Church. It does not allow women to be priests, it is profoundly hostile to homosexuals, it has been abusive - the Pope has been abusive - to Islam. You know, isn't it very odd that we are falling over backwards to - ah - alter our customs to a body which is so profoundly discriminatory?
Well, Mr Starkey (or Dr Starkey, although Wikipedia makes no mention of your Doctorate, oddly)... Isn't it odd that you would seek to misrepresent the Church? You're well known for your views - you're well known for your homosexuality, for example, which is a telling point - 'political homosexuals' (or homosexual by opinion) in my observation are typically far more biased, arrogant and opinionated than any who are simply homosexual by orientation. You clearly have an axe to grind: you're clearly the sort of person who believes that 'anything goes' and anyone who doesn't believe the same as you should be anathema, to you, personally, or towards any concept of equal treatment.
But let's not get into an argument about sexual orientation. This is yet another example of the BBC's editors and producers allowing people to comment without any instruction to the presenters to reign them in when making terribly inflammatory comments about Catholics.
We don't believe in women priests because we don't believe women can be priests any more than we believe that women can be men or men can be women. The Church believes that there is an essential character to the priesthood that is indissoluble. It's not a matter of culpable discrimination. It's a matter of intrinsic belief. But Starkey, et al, are not interested in that. So the BBC let them go on the attack on the basis of an incorrect assumption. And the assumption it never questioned and the attack is never forestalled even when it's not relevant to the discussion upon which the invited commentator has been asked to pronounce upon.
Previously I would be fairly uninterested in reports of the BBC's anti-Catholic bias, but it's happened in front of my own eyes this time. And I am annoyed.
My Parish Priest spoke eloquently in his homily this evening on the two enemies of Hope - those being presumption and despair, where presumption is the deformation of hope into blind arrogance and despair is the complete loss of hope altogether.
With respect to my previous posting, this supplies a measure of an answer as well as a challenge to us all.
We must fight hard against the presumption of those who would seek to destroy our hope in things of goodness by means of arrogant belief that they know better than God. We must fight equally hard against the despair that is a result of these people's apparent victory in their presumption over our knowledge of what is good, right and proper, for without hope we are lost.
Hope is sandwiched between presumption and despair - and it is the only answer to both, for there is nowhere else to go. We must hope that the Holy Spirit will move those who believe in good to act for it. We must hope that Our Lord well have pity on those who suffer due to the presumption of others. We MUST hope that we will not succumb to despair as we trust in the Word of God. We must turn our hope into action and our actions must reflect our faith. And when we do we will have joy in the knowledge that we are acting as Christ taught us to do: to love one another as we would ourselves be loved, to teach that love to others and to win the battle against the despair and presumption.
That is the message we need to sing out... Our hope - our faith - that good will overcome evil fulfills and sustains and saves us.
It's time for a new politics...
by Tony | 3/21/2009 in abortion, euthanasia, life, politics, right to life | comments (0)
What with the parliamentary motion to 'ease' the restrictions on suicide/euthanasia and today's reported decision by the High Court allowing doctors to over-ride parental objections to turn off the life support of a disabled and critically ill baby, I'm wondering how it is that we (society) managed to get into such a position that the right to life of the living and the long-since born - let alone the unborn - is so irrelevant to those who make the laws and those who uphold them.
I can't work it out in my mind. When did 'we' suddenly decide that we could take into our hands that right which previously we had believed belonged only to God? At what point did we decide we were better than God at deciding what life is valid and worthy of existing and what wasn't? How did we suddenly discover that people who took this position were in the majority - at least amongst our lawmakers and law adjudicators?
And how can this be reversed?
It seems to me that those who believe - as I do - passionately in the sanctity and inviolability of life from the very moment of conception need to step up and not just to be counted but to take action to become part of the rulers of the country.
People of good faith and who believe in the right to life need to decide to join their personally preferred political organisation and put themselves forward for selection for candidature to elected office. It's the only way to change things. We can sit on our backsides wringing our hands and crying about the lost and wasted lives, but those tears will, ultimately, be empty if we're not prepared to back them up with positive action (by which I mean actually doing something).
It's a question I have to ask myself. It's a question everyone needs to ask themselves. Our political class seems to be lead by those who are more than a bit amoral at times. Does our morality somehow dissuade us from joining in with them? Are we scared of being tarred by their brush? Perhaps instead Politics needs a good old-fashioned clean-out.
It's time for a new politics. It's time for people - worthy, intelligent, just people - to stand up and take the reigns. People who, previously, had never thought themselves the right sort of people to make laws and run the country. Because, let's face it, it looks like there's a lot of very wrong sorts of people doing it right now. We need a wholesale change. Not just of political party, but of the calibre of political people.
I do it to myself!
by Tony | 3/19/2009 in lent, lenten observance, penance, tiredness | comments (1)
I really do.
I feel awful!
My Lenten observance this year (which I'm being hideously bad at) is to try to reorder my life and my body-clock. As I've mentioned before, my body likes to stay up late and wake up late. I am, according to a BBC Horizon programme a couple of weeks back, an 'owl' person. Which is all very well, except that the rest of the world doesn't run on owl time. And last night I was very much on owl time as, for most of the small hours, I stared in turns at my ceiling, the alarm clock, the pillow, my watch, the insides of my eyelids, the ceiling again, etc... I even resorted to my laptop (which is bad, I know, because it stimulates the brain, but I was bored!) I know it was gone 3.30am before I fell asleep.
And today I had to get up early and I'm expected to join friends for an afternoon out later.
My eyes feel like they're on elastic and what serves as my brain feels more like soggy Shreaded Wheat. Urgh.
This is what penance feels like!
The daftness and the sadness of 'de-baptism'
by Tony | 3/18/2009 in atheism, debaptism, pastoral care | comments (1)
Much has been written in the blogosphere about the desire of some people to become 'de-baptised' and a thought has just occurred to me...
De-baptism on the basis of a loss of belief (or never having properly had it) is daft in one sense (inasmuch as in one can't undo something that's part of history), but also rather tragic in another.
It seems to me that to be 'de-baptised' one has to have a certain amount of belief in the effect that being baptised in the first place has on a person... Which sort of defeats the argument of atheism. Surely most true atheists simply wouldn't care? Which, to my eyes, leaves the picture of a person railing against God for another reason entirely, one that is yet to be elucidated in each case. And THAT poses a particular and sensitive pastoral care challenge. How does one draw out the reason for the rage against God in that person without further hurting them? How does that person heal their relationship with God, Church and religion and how can one assist without risking a black eye?
Answers on a postcard please!
I have just chanced upon a glorious video of Holy Mass being celebrated according to the 'Sarum Use' - that is to say, the rite of Mass as it was celebrated in England at and before Henry VIII's time - i.e pre-Tridentine, given its ancient usage still apparently validly (although very rarely) celebrated in this form today.
The clip below, in particular, brought tears to my eyes. If only all Masses could be so beautifully sung.
I intend to do some more research on this Use as I'm fascinated by the development of the Mass - I want to know how traditions and rubrics have changed over the ages and to see how, say, the Mass of 1500 years ago compares to that of 700 or 300 years ago and then to today's.
Shock news! Pope rejects condoms!
by Tony | 3/17/2009 in condoms, controversy, Pope, Vatican | comments (0)
Well, it's not really a shock is it?
The Pope is on a visit to Africa (his first) (see here) and has declared that condoms aren't as solution to the AIDS crisis and they are, instead, part of the problem. This, apparently, is courting controversy.
The Pope is, of course, entirely correct and any controversy has its roots in people who would want to defend indefensible behaviour out of their own selfish and hedonistic instincts.
There are a number of fallacies laid at the Pope's door in this regard. Some people seem to think that the Church, in declaring condom use wrong, is somehow culpable in the spread of HIV/AIDs.
This is a fallacious and illogical position.
First of all, it assumes that everyone who busily avails themselves of any and all sexual opportunities are somehow listening to the Church by not using a condom because the Church says condoms are wrong. This is utter rubbish. These people who are randomly engaging in intercourse with each other aren't listening to the Church at all! If they were, they'd be avoiding the situation completely because the Church teaches, most wisely, that adultery and fornication are wrong. W-R-O-N-G. Had these libidinous people been following Church teaching in the first place, they would not be in the position of contracting whatever sexually transmitted disease happened to be going around.
The Church teaches abstinence, chastity and, of course, fidelity within marriage. This is an absolutely foolproof method of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases, simply on the basis that if people don't (excuse the vulgar language) 'shag around' they simply don't come into contact with the diseases in the first place.
The Church cannot approve the use of condoms for another reason. They do not remove risk. Granted, they reduce it, but not by 100%. They are used incorrectly. They fail. They are forgotten. They don't, in any event and if used 100% of the time, prevent all sexually transmitted diseases anyway! How can the Church approve the use of something in order that people can proceed to carry out actions that are sinful regardless? The Church's role is to guide people into not committing the sin in the first place! Anything else smacks of relativism and supposes an approval of an action the Church cannot and will not approve of.
The Church asks, quite reasonably, that people say no to the big sin rather than fail to remember (in the heat of unarguably illicit passions) to use a condom. Surely it's easier to say no before the event?
The Vatican 'bans the use of condoms' apparently. Well, the Vatican also bans extramarital sexual activity, but nobody seems to think that's worthy of comment and clearly people who are engaging in such risky behaviour regardless of what the Vatican says are clearly not going to listen whether the Vatican approves or disapproves of condoms.
We won't save the world by concentrating on the little sins. We'll save the world by getting rid of the BIG sins.
There's a very catchy new tune out at the moment. It's called 'Love etc.' and it's by the Pet Shop Boys. I can't say I'm a particular PSB fan, but in this case I can't stop tapping my toes to it, and the lyrics... well, they're almost spot on perfect for these difficult times we're all living in.
After years during which we were taught (by those who thought that they mattered) that happiness was dependent on one's wealth and possessions, we (society) have fallen headlong into a secular version of the Slough of Despond. Now we find that we can't afford what we want by further indebting ourselves because nobody will lend us the money, and we dare not spend the money we do have for fear of not being able to replace it.
As the song says, "it's tough getting on in the world when the sun doesn't shine" and it goes on to draw a good conclusion: you don't need to have all the 'big bucks' (the limousines, luxury houses, super cars, etc)... what you need is something more but also something 'other' - you need Love.
The song is, however, a little bittersweet. It draws the conclusion that one doesn't have to be beautiful - but it helps, which is a bit of a shame really, even if it's very true that most people will judge by appearances. I think I'm going to take that element of the song more metaphorically: I think that beauty needs to be more than just skin deep but instead becomes all that being human encompasses: your personality, commitment to your friends and those around them, your own love for the world - these are the things that make you beautiful. And these things certainly help distract from material gloom.
So... this foot tapping little song has exactly the right optimistic message for the times we're in now (and repeats what others have said and sung many times in the past). We need optimism and the best optimism comes from the realisation that we can be happy regardless of our possessions and material status. It comes from the love that we can show one another. It comes from our relationships with our friends and families. It comes from the joy we can get from all the things around us that are totally free.
I don't have much money. But I have friends and people that I love. And I am the richest man in the world because of it. And no privation, no material poverty, no recession or depression can ever take that away from me. Thank God for Love!
700 years ago, a young girl died either by her own hand or by execution, according to a BBC news story today (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7943831.stm) and was subsequently buried in an unmarked grave on non-consecrated land. In an act of charity - albeit several centuries late - she was today finally given the Christian burial she deserved at Hoo St Werberg Parish Church.
Well done Revd Harding (vicar at Hoo) for recognising that every individual is precious before God and for allowing this poor child to be buried within the boundaries of sacred ground. And well done too to the 200 or more people who attended the committal. It's heartening to know that there are good people out there who care even for the soul of someone who died seven centuries ago. May God bless them all.
Eternal rest grant unto 'Holly' oh Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her. May her sins be forgiven and may she rest in peace.
Militant secularism is on the attack...
by Tony | 3/14/2009 in democracy, disenfranchisement, Free Speech, National Secular Society, politics, religion, secularism | comments (0)
I have long been irritated by the 'National Secular Society' (which will, no doubt, delight them). This week they have popped up in the news again in respect of trying to seek some sort of method of 'debaptism' (like anyone can turn the clock back and undo history - it's laughable!). Others have criticised this stance and I don't need to repeat their words, but I do think that the NSS needs to be examined a little closer for what they really are.
I have always found the NSS position to be demonstrably anti-free-speech and profoundly anti-democratic (something they would no doubt argue). They argue principally for the removal of religious influence in the public sphere: that is to say that one's religious belief should be left in a cupboard at home and all politicians should specifically ignore religion altogether when making policy.
Notwithstanding the fact that much, if not all, policy-making has its roots in moral decision-making and is thus permanently tied into belief structures of one form or another, it seems obvious to me that if large proportions of the population find their social and political opinions informed by their religious beliefs then it is natural for religion to be in the public sphere. Someone has to represent the people holding those beliefs at the despatch box and in public life. To leave religion inside the home is to deny the right to express opinions founded or influenced by a religious belief and to disenfranchise expressly anyone holding those opinions.
Of course the tactic used by the NSS (in a very 'Nazi-like' way) is to progressively 'demonise' public religious practices and so, in the end, to suppress religion altogether by fragmenting it to the point of non-existence. The steady drip-drip-drip of reducing the right of any religious opinion to be taken account of in public policy-making (no matter how many people adhere to it) will, if unchecked and if the NSS have their way, lead to the destruction of Christianity in particular and religion in general wherever the NSS's tactics hold sway. And it must be fought. Hard. We cannot go meekly into that abyss because once our descendants know nothing of our religious beliefs there will not be a way back.
I had hoped the NSS would remain a minor irritant, but it seems their drip-drip approach is paying dividends as religious opinion is frequently ignored in debates and decisions about our statutes, what with anti-discrimination legislation that actually and actively discriminates in and of itself, right-to-life being ignored and the abhorrent legislation allowing the production of animal-human hybrid embryos.
It's time to fight back and it's time to review the way we fight back. We need men and women of steel who understand the media, understand opinion-forming, and understand how to motivate those millions of people who instinctively rebel against such things but feel impotent in the face of their apparent powerlessness.
Many people will be shocked and appalled by the senseless killings of innocents by the teenager Tim Kretschmer in Germany. Their thoughts will rightly be with the friends and families of those so senselessly murdered. But spare a thought also for the Kretschmer family too. They will have to live with the knowledge that their son/brother acted in such an awful way and their name will be forever attached to this dreadful crime. They too will be suffering a life sentence and it won't be easy for them to ask for sympathy because they will very likely feel guilt by association and may often have that guilt thrust upon them. They may be left very much alone by most or blamed by others - even to the point of violence. I feel for them as they try to understand what drove this young man to such an act - questions which, I suspect, will never be answered adequately.
May they and the families of the bereaved and injured all be granted peace and serenity.
I have slightly sore hands: from gripping screwdrivers too hard. I've been building furniture... the shelves mentioned in an earlier post are now complete. Of course I was a bit silly - I'd forgotten I have power tools to help me with this sort of thing. Still, the bruised palms will heal soon enough. They always do.
Next job: to heft all the books and stuff that are stacked up in my bedroom downstairs so I can actually have access to them. At some point in the next few months I also intend to remodel the main bedroom / en-suite to make better use of the space, but that requires more money than I have available right now so I'm going to have to come up with some cunning plans!
Anyone need a handy man? I'm good with drills and paint brushes!
Apropos of nothing, I just thought I'd recount an incident that occurred to me over 10 years ago...
For many years I used to commute to and from London by train - first 70 miles and then, after moving, close to 100 miles each way. At the end of each day I would board the train tired, stressed and invariably grumpy.
One summer's Friday evening I'd missed my fast train home and had to take the stopping train instead that went slower than a snail on valium. This didn't help my mood. And onto this train, at the last minute, stepped a very disheveled looking gentleman - I say disheveled... I actually mean my first impression was that he looked rather like a tramp. He was filthy from head to toe and I mean Filthy. Oil, dirt, dust, mud, rust, etc... You name it, it was on his person somewhere.
And, of course, he sat next to me. Oh joy. Even more joy, he cracked open a can of lager, swigged it down rather fast, and then opened another one. Could this get any worse?
Throughout the journey he fidgetted and shuffled about as I shrank as much as could away from him. If I could have melted through the side of the train I probably would have done. But instead I hunched myself up against the window and roasted myself in the summer sun and got more and more grumpy.
I wished him anywhere but there. Dirty, smelly, fidgety, horrid, worthless man.
And then he started making a roll-up cigarette. Great. Not only is this stinky man making me physically uncomfortable, but he's about to light up as well and really make life fun. I reached the end of my tether.
Now then... my first instinct (grumpy, remember?), having suffered half the journey with this 'tramp' sitting next to me would have been to have a go at him and let him know just where he could put his cigarette. But something that evening made me choose a different track.
As this man continued to fiddle with his cigarette, instead of warning him imperiously (as often only we British can do) about this being a non-smoking carriage, I said "looks like your desperate for a cig, mate!" and grinned at him. (I have no idea where that impulse came from, or perhaps, just perhaps, I do...).
And from there, quite without my having any expectation, we struck up a conversation. It turned out that he had been working in a scrap yard breaking up bits of car and he'd been doing overtime. By the time he'd finished, the locker room (or office or somesuch) had been locked up and he had been unable to get cleaned up. He apologised (without being asked) for the state of his appearance, and explained that he was working in London during the week to support his family. He'd almost given up smoking - in fact his wife wouldn't let him smoke in the house for the sake of the children - and was going to squeeze one or two in somewhere in between the station and his home. He turned out to be a nice, polite, conscientious chap. Someone you'd hold up as an example of someone who - despite difficulties - lived up to his responsibilities in life. The sort of someone who deserves honouring.
He alighted from the train and I continued on my journey. Changed. I never saw him again, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten him.
In the space of one hot and sticky - and slighty whiffy - journey I learned that I'd been judging people based on their appearance. By just looking at the outward appearances of this man, I'd concocted evidence against him, tried him, judged and convicted him. But, by talking to him, I learned his real story. I'd learned that every man has a story that I cannot know until I get to know him. I learned that appearances are not everything. In fact, appearances are pretty much useless in most cases. What matters is what runs deeper.
Everyone has a story. Never presume to know a person unless you give them the chance to tell it to you.
I still catch myself starting to judge from time to time. But I stop myself now. Ten years ago I learned a valuable lesson.
---
Everyone has a story... but once upon a time I'd play a game of building that story myself...
I used to go to school on the London Underground. For a while, I would look at people around me on the train and try to build a story about them. A pretty lady would be a model and she'd be on her way to her first job. Another middle-aged lady would be the manager of a secretarial firm. A young man with a mohican would live in a squat with lots of other weirdly dressed young people and smoke drugs. Another man in a suit would be a stressed manager with a nagging wife and he'd be dreaming of escaping to a desert island (Reggie Perrin anyone?!)... Etc, etc.
Anyway, one day, a man, dressed in a parka, wearing scruffy shoes and looking - to my eyes - altogether shifty sat down opposite me. Immediately I decided that he was a bank robber and that he was on his way to meet his accomplices and then go off to steal diamonds or somesuch from a safety deposit box. I'd concocted this whole fantastical array of deviousness and criminality in my head...
And then he stood up to get off the train and his jacket moved a little... to reveal a clerical 'dog collar' shirt.
I never played that game again!
"If you descend into somebody else's private hell and stand there with them, it ceases to be hell."
It is a quotation of Father Mychal Judge, 'Victim 0001' of the 11th September attacks, held by many to be a saint, albeit not yet officially canonised.
I think this particular quote emphasises just how important it is to show compassion with those who suffer by being with them in spirit and in sympathy. To suffer and to know that you aren't alone is critically important. Loneliness breeds despair, and despair can sometimes cut oneself off from the good that it all around us and from hope. I know from my own experience that simply 'being there' is often good enough to lift one out of the terror of a crisis. To have a friend in your time of need put a hand on your shoulder and say simply "I am here" and to simply sit with you can be worth more than all the gold in the world.
Father Mychal, you sat with so many who were in the depths of hopelessness. Please pray for all those who are alone in their suffering and who desperately need the light of the Love that consoles and heals.
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