Please pray for Pastor Emeritus

Our dear blogging comrade, Fr Eamonn Whelan, has announced via a final post on his EFPastoremeritus2 blog that he does not have long to live.

Please join me in offering prayers for him in this sad but beautiful phase of his earthly life.

An Invitation to Sign a Beautiful Declaration of Fidelity

I have just finished reading, and signing, the text of the Declaration of Fidelity to the Church’s Unchangeable Teaching on Marriage and to Her Uninterrupted Discipline.

It was a long read, but worth every minute of the time spent. It gathers into one document a wealth of extracts from Scripture and from the teaching documents of the Church. It reads like an Encyclical from a good, holy, Catholic Pope.

It is astonishing in its power. I am conscious of having been nourished with God’s truth.

May I urge you to read the Declaration, and to sign it. Rorate Caeli has the full Declaration, and the link to enable you to sign.

Young Catholic Adults at Douai Abbey this October

I have received the following and am very happy to pass it on.

Young Catholic Adult Weekend @ Douai Abbey
28th -30th Oct 2016

Are you 18-40, do you want to deepen your knowledge of the Catholic faith, learn its devotions and meet like minded people? Young Catholic Adults are organizing a weekend at Douai Abbey in Berkshire) led by Fr. Thomas Crean O.P. You’ll be able to hear catechetical talks, learn how to sing Gregorian Chant, say the Rosary, socialize and have fun. Book soon as places are limited!
This weekend has been going for over 10 years, it is a unique experience, which brings the Catholic faith to a new generation!

Prices start from £12.

For some reason I can't attach the links that were included, The best I can do is to refer you to the news item on the YCA website. It says there that prices start at £18.50. No idea why that is.

If you go, I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time.

The Grief of the Mother of God

Yesterday, at home, I prayed the Way of the Cross. I was reading this, from the Thirteenth Station:

Consider that, Our Lord having expired, two of His disciples, Joseph and Nicodemus, took Him down from the Cross, and placed Him in the arms of His afflicted Mother, who received Him with unutterable tenderness, and pressed Him to her bosom.

… when I was drawn into a vivid contemplation of the scene. I thought of Our Lady cradling His dear Body, the intensity of her emotion really unimaginable. But the thing that struck me particularly was that she would have been covered with His blood, on her face and hands and garments. Some of it would have been the congealed blood from His scourging, some from His crown of thorns; and, in addition, she of the pierced heart foretold by Simeon so many years before, would have received onto her clothing the water and blood that had flowed from the pierced Heart of her Son.

And then, I could picture stress and haste overtaking that little party of mourners. They must be back at their lodgings before the start of the Sabbath. I could see them hurrying away. Every one of them would have the marks of Christ’s blood, including the women because of their physical closeness to Mary, if not from touching the Body themselves. John, Nicodemus and Joseph must have been very much marked with it. It occurred to me, almost as an aside, and yet not: What happened to Our Lady’s bloodstained clothes?

Because of their contact with a dead body, they would have been ritually unclean for seven days, and therefore unable to observe the Passover. If they were bound by the ruling in Numbers, Chapter 19, they would have been obliged to observe it a month later. And, my goodness, their uncleanness, both ritual and literal, would have been evident to everyone who saw them on their way.

Well, after all that, I had shed many tears; as I have now, in writing it down, and as I did last night when recording the experience in my diary. I don’t write much on my blog in these strange days ( I think you know what I mean), but I thought I would share these thoughts.

God bless you, my kind readers, and I wish you a very happy Easter. Because it all comes right in the end.



Picture from www.pinterest.com, via Google Images.

Cardinal Burke's Rosary today

Today, the first day of the month, is the day to join in with Catholic Action's Operation Storm Heaven. Or, as I like to think of it, the day for praying Cardinal Burke's chaplet.