Quick Ten Words

I read or heard recently that the average person who claims to be Christian doesn't know the Ten Commandments. I think this is because they are quite difficult to remember if you are trying to remember the whole Scripture passage.
When I taught the children, we did a quick version.

1. ONE God-no others
2. His Name is Holy
3. Keep Sabbath Holy
4. Honour your father and mother
5. No murder
6. No adultery
7. No stealing
8. No false witness
9. Don't covet neighbours wife (spouse)
10. Don't covet neighbours goods.

I split them into the first three are about God and right worship; 4 is about family and Church and 5-10 are about family and community.

After they had learned them we could do some Catechism.

It's made it easier for me to remember them anyway.

Ignorance is Bleurgh!

I don't know what Father Melchizedek makes of what is going on with the Anglicans and some Catholic responses to it. There seems to be a sad lack of understanding and even respect for the renewal of the Priesthood of Melchizedek that Christ brought about as He gave authority (yes that word) to the Apostles.

When David sang of Solomon "Thou art a priest forever of the the order of Melchizedek" (Ps 110:4) he was prophesying the end of temporary Levitical priesthood and the re-newing of the priesthood of the father and first born son-the priesthood of the Bridegroom.

Jesus founded His Church-His Bride on the shoulders of Peter and the apostles and he gave then authority to follow His Will. This was not a licence to do as they pleased. All authority is limited and the authority of the Church is limited by what God asks for. Surely that is only right and just.

If a group of people is going to claim to be followers of Christ, one can expect I would think that they follow Christ and not their own wants and opinions. Sadly the CofE has shown itself as nothing more than a club in which the rules for membership can shift and change with the shifting demands of various members of the group.

WHERE IS CHRIST IN ANY OF THIS? He just doesn't seem to get a look in while all the political and personal agendas fly. Paul (OTSOTA) has pointed out on Holy Smoke just how narcissistic many commentators present themselves as being.

In the beginning, Scripture tells us, God made them "male and female". Did He make a mistake? Was he supposed to have made them not equal in His sight but the SAME? God has decided the roles men and women are to have in life and when they are treated with dignity and respect there is nothing wrong with different roles. The priesthood is inextricably tied in with how God revealed Himself as Bridegroom and Father-that is not a woman's role.

While this can be a difficult area of Biblical exegesis and Tradition for the average Joe to grasp. Well, I found it hard to begin with and I reckon I'm about average- I would have thought the intellectuals of the CofE and Catholics should get it. The reason they don't seems to be because they are not looking for Truth. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh-but we are called to seek first the Kingdom.

I hope that those seeking to enter the Church now are doing so because they are seeking and finding the Kingdom. That they are putting Christ at the centre of the their lives and trying to follow Him. If all they are doing is looking for something that serves their personal agendas a little more comfortably, then I don't see them either crossing the Tiber or staying here.

God bless them and guide them.

Send out the life boats and bring in the Anglicans.

Damian Thompson has covered the appalling and tragic mess the Anglicans are struggling with in some depth. While we are treated to rumours that up to 13,000 Anglicans are ready to cross the Tiber-a rumour that has even made it to EWTN's World Over Live coverage; there seems a great deal of confusion about just what the real problem is within the Anglican loosely held communion. Many people have pointed out that as women were 'ordained' to the ministry -what they call priesthood, it was hardly likely they would never be made bishops. There is already the rather odd-from a Christian point of view- American Episcopalian lady who is supposed to be a bishop.

There are those of us tempted to see the terrible and quite unChrist like situation facing this communion as rooted in their all too ready acceptance of Contraception back at the Lambeth Conference of 1930. Something that Pope Pius XI responded to very quickly with his encyclical Casti Connubii in response to this.

Once you decide to ditch God's law on the unitive aspects of marriage then all sorts of other sins are acceptable. In fact Rowan Williams has written on this when he cleverly approached the question of actively homosexual men being ordained to Anglican orders. Without reference let alone quotes from Scripture, he basically said that as Anglicans accept that their can be a deliberate block to procreation with the sexual act-then other sexual acts must be accepted.

So then once the understanding of the roles of male and female in marriage are undermined and corrupted-then the role of the priesthood as God created it is corrupted. There is no proper role of male and female. They are no longer complementary but the same and interchangeable. Marriage looses its holiness and so then does ordination.

How anyone who puts Christ at the centre of the their lives and claims a 'Catholic' heritage can remain part of such a -well lets be blunt here; this is pagan-organisation is something I don't really understand. I understand the horrible practicalities for those with livelihoods and families dependant on said organisation and I see the coldness from our own hierarchy here in England-but we are called to be God's Servant's first, even when we might lose our heads.

St John Bosco's dream of the great ship ploughing the storm tossed seas comes to mind here. She is attacked on all sides, but She has a flotilla of smaller boats that accompany her to battle against those ships which through weapons of all kinds, including books and tracts at her. Some boats though remain cowardly and in the lee of the great ship until they are sure She has won.

Meanwhile other ships are crushed and sinking.

In this battle and storm the Anglicans face, souls are being lost. Let's not forget that. Some will sink in sheer apathy, but others through being misled and their fear of Truth. There may be a few little life rafts for those who can truly claim invincible ignorance-but I doubt that many can be saved this way.

Seek the Truth and be prepared to face the storm. I don't altogether blame those afraid to jump ship. I found my return to the Church a very difficult journey at times. But I assure you it has been worth it. It's so much better to be free of all that confusion and dishonesty.

So I pray many Anglicans will come home-not because they are 'anti-gay' or 'anti-women' as the media might portray them, but because they are Pro- Truth and Pro-Christ.

Friendship

When I was young-and that was some time ago-I remember hearing stories about Victorian women who would write to their friends or even to the man they would eventually marry. They would write long letters, often with little illustrations all about their every day life and these letters would pass back and forth for years without the writers ever actually meeting one another.

I write regularly to a friend I have only ever met once. We have kept our friendship without meeting since and bizarrely, in this day an age, we never phone nor email one another. We write snail mail.

I also keep in touch with an aunt this way. We get up to Scotland to see her once a year if possible and I see her then. But for the rest of the time we write-snail mail- as the Victorians would.

I have other friends I love dearly but who live a long way from us now. We phone now and then and email very occasionally. On those occasions when we phone I have to admit we can TALK! It is wonderful to have the chance to visit them and let the children play while we talk and talk and the men o off to look at wooden things or whatever.

Then there are the friends I have actually never met physically. I have only talked to them across a computer screen via blogs or forums and MSN. Last night I chatted for ages with such a friend on MSN. One day I really hope she can come to England. She has been so kind to us and at this very moment my oldest son The Bearded Wonder is staying with her and her family.

It has been a great blessing for me to find friends across the strange world of the Internet. People who are Catholic and actually share with me the same belief in Christ and His Church and love and loyalty for Her pope. It means we don't have to skip around the subject or hide what we believe. Some of you out there that I think of as friends I will probably never meet. In fact it seems a bit odd that my son is meeting my friend and I am not! Even if we never meet I think that does not make the friendship less real.

Friendship must surely be built on communication. What we say to one another, how we pray for one another is just as important, surely as being in the same room.

Okay I know there are times when we need to actually BE there for a friend. There are those special events, those terrible times, and the occasional crisis when we simply have to get there even if it means getting of a train for a few hours to get to the other side of the country. We've all had to do that now and again.

And of course there is the every day kind of friendship over coffee. Those days in the park while the kids play and the grown ups chill and those times when someone turns up on the door step out of the blue with a bunch of flowers.

But what I am saying is there is nothing less in the kindness and sharing of online friends, and this has surprised me somewhat. But it seems to be true.

So God bless all my friends.

SS Peter and Paul

The Year of St Paul begins.
Today the Holy Father prayed for Christian Unity.
Peter and Paul were the dynamite of Christ that really got the Church founded.

I am in an awkward position for typing - sleeping baby moment-so here are links and stuff to start the year:

Inside Scoop

VIDEO from Catholic online

Catholic Culture does us proud on this subject.

The CTS offers stuff.

That should get the year under way.

God bless you and may you be showered with graces this year and may many I am praying for be knocked off their horses!

Okay-no more pity party

I am so grateful for the kind words from Karen, Kit and Philip after my last post. I was feeling quite worn out and just a little self pitying at the time. In a really odd coincidence on the same day I made that post I discovered a book that has helped me a great deal.



PRAYING FOR HEALING by Dom Benedict Heron OSB

Meanwhile as my last hosptial appoitment was so bad I nearly left the room in tears I have decided to be pro-active. This is the internet world and patients have access to all sorts of information that we didn't have before. Instead of trying to avoid information in case Iupset my already rude and incaltricent doctors I have decided to get myself fully informed and even look for answers elsewhere.

So today I had my first visit to a Chiropractor.

First visit was free. The Chiropractor took my history and the first thing I noticed was he LISTENED to what I said! He asked questions and listened to the answers. If I asked questions he answered them clearly and did not once try to dodge the question.

He poked and prodded me much the same as the neuros do but with a few extra things I've never had done before. Then hewas a bit bemused.

You see it seems that it could all be .... a trapped nerve!!!!

Now then; I have been in pain DAILY for over five years. I have been using crutches and a $*&$"* wheelchair because I can't walk properly or far. If it turns out this is all due to a trapped nerve that should have been straightforward to diagnose I'll...I don't know.

Even though I would be really, really angry I would also be exstatically pleased because the chiropractor can sort it out. If it IS a trapped nerve I am looking at being able to walk again and be pain free!

PRAY people PLEASE.

He wants to see the MRI done in 2003 so I have phoned my GP and asked for it. I'll let you know how that goes.

One of the things that has struck me is the attitude of the staff at the Chiropractor clinic. The receptionist was kind and polite. The chiropractor himself was polite and greeted me with a handshake. He did not once treat me like an idiot.

What has happened to the culture within the NHS, that patients are treated so rudely; discarded; ignored and generally seen as gettin in the way? And how many die or are killed because treatment is too much like hard work?

I saw it back when I was a nurse and I thought it was awful then, but now it is all over the place. My friend has cancer. Her treatment has been nick named the "Economy Package" because of how she is being treated.

All I can say to anyone going through something like this-try and find the energy to fight back.

The Ones He Didn't Heal

I was teaching dd her RE lesson yesterday and we happened to be looking at the story of the Centurion who came to Jesus and asked that his servant be healed. He then came out with those timeless words said at every Mass "Lord I am not worthy to receive you under my roof, but only say the Word and my servant will be healed."

He has made it clear in his previous statement that he recognises the authority of Jesus.

Then, because of the faith of this gentile Jesus does as He has been asked.

We see in other parts of Scripture that lack of faith means lack of miracles.

These days whenever I read a story like this I am left a little saddened and wonder about all those people who did not get healed.

Was it simply lack of faith on their behalf?

In my nursing days I did come across people who actually wanted to stay ill. The secondary gains from their illness were so great they resisted all attempts to help them overcome their problems. In His ever polite way, I assume Jesus would leave people like this alone.

But I can't believe it was simply this and lack of faith that prevented-and still prevents- healing.

There has always been some form of medicine of course. God has provided plants and chemicals that over the years have become ever better forms of medication and these alongside increasing knowledge of how the body works and can be chopped up, sewn up, replaced and patched. So God offers healing through the skill of others.

But there are still plenty of us who are ill and are seeing doctors and getting nowhere.

I did not ask for healing to begin with because I had the belief I was meant to be this way and that's that. But then it became less obvious, I suppose, that being like this was any use at all.

So I have prayed for healing.

I do believe God can heal me if He wants to.

And here I am left with a sense that He doesn't want to.

Do I doubt that He loves me? Yes, honestly, sometimes I do. He heals others. I have seen it and heard about it-but so far He has not healed me.

Blessed Margaret of Costello was never healed either. In fact it seems her disabilities were used by God to help Him reach others who were wounded by life and sin.

She granted healing to a woman against her better judgement, as she believed the woman's disability was saving her from various sins she would otherwise be prone to.

Perhaps I am not to be healed because of sins I would otherwise commit.

During a really bad patch recently I was getting very frustrated and told my daughter I wished we could somehow find the money to let me go to Lourdes.

Fat chance!

However, the next morning I received a letter from a friend sending me a little bookmark that said "I prayed for you at Lourdes."

Perhaps I will have to carry this cross for the rest of my life. Perhaps I will not get worse-but chances are I will. Sometimes I am afraid I will not be much of a mother and will not be able to continue homeschooling. I worry that I wont be there for the children when they are adults-and I know all too well the pain of no parental support.

Or perhaps in the end a day will come when God will heal me.

I do know I am grossly unworthy to have Him under my roof-but if He would only say the Word I would be healed.