Laodicea-dead and gone

In the book of Revelation there are seven churches that Christ the Just Judge has messages for. It is one of those strange little facts of life that the one we all seem to remember is the church at Laodacea.
Their lukewarmness and apathy was a sin so vile that Christ said he would vomit them out.
And He did.
Neither the town nor a church exist in Laodacea any more.

What did the Laodacean Christians do that was to terrible?
I think they did nothing.

They saw the pagan culture around them and simply lived as part of the culture, going to Mass but comfortable with the increasing horrors of the society they lived in. No one spoke up, no one sacrificed themselves.
We know that killing the elderly, the disabled and abandoning babies to die were common. We know that there were abortions- the Didache (written around 80AD) condemns abortion and potions for contraception.
We know there were Roman cults that included sacrificing children to gain wealth and happiness.
We know that women were treated as a commodity and that they and children could be bought and sold as slaves.

All of this happens today. Just about all of it happens here in the UK.
And there is a church here in the UK- a church in England, in Wales, in Scotland. It seems a liitle cool.

Every single person from the moment of conception has an inate dignity and rights that go with that dignity. The right to life, the right not to be deliberately denied a mother and father, the right to freedoms with responsibility, the right to do what is right.

The Church will be until the end of the age-but Christ NEVER said churches in each city, town or even country would survive.

Where is the church of Laodacia, Corinth or many other places we read of in Scipture?

We live in a country that puts the wants of adults above the rights and needs of children and the Church seems oddly quiet. Why aren't we fighting? What are we afraid of?

I am afraid sometimes. I know a disabled woman threatened with prison for saying a rosary outside an abortion mill.

Whenever we speak up the rights of the unborn or children we are attacked and threatened.

St Michael the archangel, defend us in battle.

So much evil...

I would like to light a candle, rather than curse the darkness, but my little light seems so fragile against the thick, choking darkness that is loosed on Britain these days. Of course the HFE Bill was passed. Did anyone doubt otherwise? Was that lack of faith or hope on my part? Or was it simply facing the reality of the utter contemptuous corruption of those who have power in this country.
I do not doubt there are Catholics out there who have both the ability and the media savvy to stand up and lead the rest of us to oppose all this evil that is crashing in on us-but for some reason they wont.
While the poor self pitying cripple was wheeled out on the news to say he needed a lot of babies murdered to find him a cure (well, not those words but that's what he meant)-there was no self-assertive cripple to say adult stem cells are working and will do fine thank you.

I tried to fight when it came to the horror of children needing to be adopted by a mum and dad, being sacrificed to political expediency and handed over to unstable families particularly homosexual couples. But what could I write? After I had written to a couple of MPs it came to light that Catholic adoption agencies had been handing children over to unmarried couples and single gay people already. A gay couple would be better than a single actively gay person for crying out loud! What in heaven's name were/are these agencies thinking? Why did they pretend to be Catholic?

My husband worked with a situation in which a couple were allowed to adopt siblings despite the fact their marriage was already very fragile indeed. As soon as the papers were signed the couple split and took one child each so they split the children as well!!!! Social services seemed completely unable or unwilling to deal with the situation.
Another family I have known where they managed to have children with severe behavioural and moral problems but continued to adopt more children. How did they get them?

My fellow homeschooler Amanda works so hard for the Pro-Life cause. She isn't a big name, or a famous blogger-but she does more than any of those people with the tiny resources she has.
God bless her.

I feel powerless sometimes-well a lot of the time. And I am so angry when I look at those who have been given a position of authority in our Church and other Christian communities and DO NOTHING.

I will keep praying and fight when I can and blog about it even if no one reads it.
In the end the Immaculate Heart with Triumph.

I can drive!

Some of you may remember-though it was so so long ago you may not- that I had our car converted so I could drive it and then the DVLA has to know all about it and they took FOREVER and EVER to send the new licence. I had gotten to the point of thinking I would never drive and would have to rely on taxi's (Ye gods they are expensive) for the rest of my life. But at last I have the licence and I am driving! You have been warned.

Feed the world

God is very generous. Like a Jewish mother He tends to make a bit more than is strictly necessary so there is always plenty to o around enough to share with anyone who happens to pop by.

The world He made does have the capacity and some to produce enough food to feed everyone and have twelve baskets over-so why is food suddenly so scarce and so expensive? Why are reporters telling us that the days of cheap food are over?

I watched the shocking sight on the news the other night of mothers in Haiti making 'cakes' for their children out of the plaster from their houses because they had nothing to eat. Meanwhile up the road in the local town the market was packed with food no one could afford to buy! Even the wealthier people were living on absolute basics because that was all they could afford.

So what's going on?

Some reports say China has been wanting more food. Other commentators seem baffled by this because China's population is hardly growing, why would they suddenly need to be importing food?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the Chinese Govt-with British help and funding-have been forcibly aborting their workforce for so long they don't have farmers to grow the rice?

Just wondering.

Then there's the little business of getting greener by making biofuels-not by using chip oil you understand, that's illegal; ask the Welsh-no by using other people's food staples such as Maize apparently.

I have noticed that while bread costs a small fortune here in England the fields are yellow with rape rather than golden with wheat.

Just wondering...

But the news coverage just had to mention that old canard 'population increasing' to explain the starvation faced in the Philipines. Somehow the corrupt government the inability of political regemes to distribute food, the lack of free trade and even the business of biofuel production is nothing compared to those damned brown people having babies.

Housing has become a problem there because the are building on land that they ought to grow food on. Surely that is more about corruption and pure incompetence than because poor people have children.

PYE

My son works with a Burmese girl who has family out there. Her parents are okay, but have lost the roof of their house and her other family members have no house at all any longer. Please say a prayer-they are not as badly off as some people out there; but they are suffering.

But it's not so much the weather that's the hideous problem for the people of Burma (and yes, the people still call it Burma) but their incredibly evil government who will not allow aid to the people are already in the process of stealing the small amount they have allowed into the country.

And where are the UN? Ah yes, watch the action.

Pentecost, the Beginning of the End.

There was a great spate of End Time books as the Third Millennium approached and dawned. Novels and those rather odd pseudo-factional documentary type books so beloved of Da Vinci code believers filled bookshop shelves taunting us all with an almost gleeful doomilism. Y2K was coming when all computers would crash and we would all be plunged into chaos and death. Volcanoes everywhere were about to blow, followed by earthquakes. Those who might survive that faced the heat of global warming and deep chill of global freezing-caused by something happening to the Atlantic current. Don't ask.



People of all persuasions were muttering and even getting a bit panicky about the idea that we seemed to be entering the...dum, dum, der...End Times.

All of this excitement however was squished by terribly sensible Chestonian types who pointed out that we have been living in the End Times since Pentecost.

So here we are celebrating Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on the Church; Mary the mother of the Church and the 11 remaining apostles. The message of Salvation was about to burst forth from the upper room in down town Jerusalem and set the world on fire.



we have been baptised in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and in His Name we are made whole. We can then face the end of the end times unafraid (well, a little nervous maybe). The end of the end times must come, and each day obviously brings us a little closer to that end, not just for the world but for each of us. We must as individuals face death and judgement and the choice between heaven and hell, but we should also be ready in case the Second Coming happens to us. It has to happen to someone doesn't it?



I do believe that Pope John Paul the Great was indeed the 'Spark' to come out of Poland to prepare the world for His Second Coming, as Jesus told St Faustina. It was our beloved John Paul who gave to us the Feast of Divine Mercy as Jesus asked St Faustina. The Pope called us to throw ourselves on God's mercy as most of us surely need to.

In celebrating Pentecost we must remember that this 8th day is a time of grace and as we hurtle towards Judgement (as we must) we can feel Christ is our Hope as we bathe in His Mercy.
So Pentecost isn't just about something that happened so long ago it hardly seems to matter any more-Pentecost is now, the end times are now. We shouldn't get all hung up about it, but neither should we be ignoring it.
We need to be alert and reading the signs of the times- and God knows there are lots of them!

20 years of marriage!

Yesterday DH and I celebrated our China Wedding Anniversary. Twenty years of marriage six kids of eight pregnancies and a lifetime of memories and things to laugh about.

At work one of his colleagues said, "Twenty years! Gosh! That's quite an achievement!"

It's been hard work at times...for both of us LOL! But I think despite some difficulties and sometimes because of them, we have had a great twenty years and hopefully will have another great twenty years.

Our marriage has been very much a 'public' affair. I am not sure how else to word it. DH says we have been given the charism of hospitality, and I guess by the number of people I seem to feed every week he might have a point.

We had a weeks honeymoon in Applecross at the north west end of Scotland. We had applied for two weeks but the hospital wouldn't give me two weeks leave. Shame eh? Anyway as it turned out it was a good job because as soon as we got back my friend called. She was in dire straights and moved in with us that week. She was going to stay a couple of weeks, but stayed a couple of years. We had fun!

Over the years there has been a lot of extras around the dinner table needing hot food and TLC.

Sometimes I just didn't want to do it, but dh was always supportive and helped me remain 'Christian' when I really wanted to be Me oriented.

We worked together for some time at a CAMHS clinic. At the beginning there were some concerns and doubts about a married couple working together on the unit, especially as he was to be my boss. But it worked very well. Hardly any of the children admitted to the unit had anything like a good stable family life and they were often openly fascinated in seeing a couple who could be together all day without screaming and shouting at each other or being violent with each other. One child begged us to adopt him. I went home that night and cried.

We've struggled together through some pretty difficult pregnancies and then me becoming disabled. We've had some pretty scary money problems sometimes-especially when I had to give up work. But we've seen it through for richer for poorer, sickness and health and with God's grace ('cuz that's what makes a marriage work) we'll keep on.

Silent No More

'SILENT NO MORE' EVENT

Saturday, 10th May12pm - 2pm,

Cornmarket, Oxford. (Right at the top, near Barclays Bank )

This is an event where women who have experienced the pain of abortion speak out publicly. It is a chance for them to share their testimony of how deeply abortion has affected their lives. Just hearing their witnesses is a powerful, pro-life opportunity.

We need supporters to come and stand silently whilst the women speak. There are placards people can hold or just stand there in support.We also need STEWARDS - if anyone can help, please let me know and I'll pass it on to Amanda

If you're unable to attend, please say a prayer for the women to touch many people's hearts and minds.God Bless and many thanks!

You can visit the SILENT NO MORE website.