Great Article on the Premier Catholic Blogger

A Question and Answer session with Fr John Zuhlsdorf.

On The Reality of The Courtyard

Because of an excellent TLM sermon today, I can share an insight from the priest, whose name I do not know, as he was a substitute, on the Court of the Gentiles.

This priest may have visited the Holy Land, or at least studied in detail the surroundings of the Court of the Gentiles.

Apparently, even though, as those who read this blog know, the Court of the Gentiles was a place of prayer set aside for the Gentiles in the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem in Christ's time, it was a mixed blessing. The Gentiles were allowed to pray in the Temple, but the location of the Court of the Gentiles was insulting. It was placed next to the place where the animals sold for the sacrifices were kept. Those Jews, who Christ hit with the bullwhip, kept the animals in the sacred area. But, the Gentiles had to put up with the noise, the smell, the calls of selling, and all the usual noises of a Middle East market place.

Obviously, Christ, the Son of God, the Second Son of the Blessed Trinity was not pleased. First, the selling had no place in His Father's House, Second, the sales people purposefully set the prices of the animals higher than those sold outside the Temple, when the priests claimed the animals brought in were not "pure enough". This is like modern scamming.

Third, the money traders would force all the Jews of the Diaspora to change the coins with the head of Caesar into Temple coins, as those from the far-flung countries under the empire, were not accepted as Temple tax or money for sales, because of the head of Caesar being considered idolatrous.

And so on...the poor Gentiles were given the worst part of the Temple in which to pray.

What should we take from this, considering the name of this blog? Do not expect the best seat in the house, do not expect a comfortable place to pray, if you are in the Court of the Gentiles.

Be ready to go into the cell of you mind in order to pray.

Practice on that point makes perfect. And, remember, only the perfect see God.

August 9th Day of Prayer and Fasting

It Is Not The Role of The Layman...

to be a pacifist....why have the the post-WWII generations lost their nerve, their heart. If you do not want to fight physically, go to a monastery, or be a priest, and fight spiritually.

http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2014/08/anglican-vicar-of-baghdad-%E2%80%9Cchild-i-baptised-cut-in-half-by-isis%E2%80%9D.aspx

How can Western nations stand by and watch this? Where are the Men of the West?

God forgive the men of this generation, who are afraid, because they have turned against You, O Lord. Renew their hearts and minds and souls in you, O God.

From Justin Welby on the site above...

“The international community must document human rights abuses being committed in northern Iraq so that future prosecutions can take place. It is important and necessary for the international community to challenge the culture of impunity which has allowed these atrocities to take place.
“With the world’s attention on the plight of those in Iraq, we must not forget that this is part of an evil pattern around the world where Christians and other minorities are being killed and persecuted for their faith. Only this week I received an email from a friend in Northern Nigeria about an appalling attack on a village, where Christians were killed because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Such horrific stories have become depressingly familiar in countries around the world, including Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
“We must continue to cry to God for peace and justice and security throughout the world. Those suffering such appalling treatment in Iraq are especially in my prayers at this time.”
Other Christian leaders have also spoken up about the situation in Iraq including Roman Catholics, who, in England and Wales, have designated Sunday, 9 August, as a Day of Prayer for Christians in Iraq. The Syrian Orthodox Patriarch yesterday wrote to the UN, following an emergency meeting of Patriarchs, calling on the UN Security Council to “fulfil their responsibilities in stopping this genocide”.

---

 
Catholics, Ordinariates, join in this day of prayer. But, Laymen, do more than pray. There is not enough anger. Is there no man who cares?

Spiritual Homes

Some people do not understand why I want to return to Great Britain, where I lived for almost thirteen years. They are mystified that I would want to live on the small island instead of the United States, where I was born.

But, I believe in spiritual homes. A spiritual home is a place where one meets God more readily than in other places and where one feels, well, "at home". For some, spiritual homes are places of pilgrimage, such as Walsingham or Knock, Lourdes or Fatima.

For others, a spiritual home may be the same as the family home, where one was nurtured in the Faith and where one feels "at home" spiritually.

For others, like British ex-pats, a spiritual home may be an affinity with Spain, or Portugal, or Malta.

Most people do not understand ex-pats. Most people wonder about ex-pats and think they are running away from something.

But, for me, when I come to England, I am running towards something. This concept of a spiritual home happened in my adolescence, at about age 10. I began to be besotted with English things (not the Beatles-I was never a groupie).

I read copiously about British history, British heroes, British culture, and so on. I imagined falling in love with a Brit, (which I have three times now), and settling down in sunny Surrey, or Somerset, or Sussex.

I lived in Bristol, West Kensington, Bayswater, Ealing, Hayward's Heath, Plymouth, Sherborne and Petersfield. I have vacationed in Kent, East Anglia, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire, especially the West Riding, which I love.

I have made several pilgrimages to Walsingham, and one to Holywell. I have hiked in the Brecon Beacons and prayed in Tyburn.

I have studied at Bristol and taught there, worked in Westminster Diocese, and brought my tiny baby home to Hayward's Heath.

But, the years of living there began in my soul and in my heart, years before I actually did live there.

England was always my spiritual home. In America, for my adolescent and adult life, I read Newman, Manning, Anselm, Aelred, Julian, Bede, Beowulf, Sir Orfeo', 'Sir Degaré', 'Sir Gowther', 'Emaré' and 'The Erle of Toulouse' all in the original. Of course, I read Chaucer, Shakespeare and the other dramas of the greats and some not-so-greats. My doctoral work in British poetry covered all from the beginnings to the present day as well as Irish poetry. I cannot list all the literature or theology or mysticism I have read from the British Isles. My work on David Jones spanned seven years of my life. I have read most of the British novelists, essayists and political theory. I have even read biographies and works on such as John Maynard Keynes, T. E. Lawrence, Oscar Wilde and J. R. R. Tolkien,  and as my first degree is in history, I know the history of the peoples from prehistory, through the various occupations, such as the Roman times, to the present. I devoured archeological and architectural books on England. I studied the flora and fauna of Great Britain and kept a bird diary for 10 years there. I know the saints of the holy isles. I named my son after two of the martyrs of England.

I wrote a book on Fountains Abbey and many poems and essays relating to England. I have written dramas about medieval England and Walsingham.

One's soul is formed by influences and for a scholar, the influences of reading and study become the stuff of working towards perfection.

Why a person is called to a certain field and to a certain land is a great mystery.

But, one thing seems particularly mysterious to me and that is the call of the land. When I am here in my new home in New York (upper state), I can objectively appreciate the beauty and richness of the land. But, the very ground I walk on seems strange to me.

I have no affinity with the trees which tower over me, or the myriad wild flowers which line the edges of this property. The lake is beautiful, but it is not "my lake".

The Pool of London is "my pool",  just as the River Skell is "my river". I know London like the back of my hand and love just to walk in the City.

I have walked in the Surrey Hills and in Dartmoor many times.

When I walk in England, I feel energy and strength from the very ground on which I walk. It is as if the very soil speaks to me of the centuries of love and warfare, religion and paganism, life and death.

When I first came to England for a visit in 1980, I was struck with the ground. It was soft, not like the hard dirt of Iowa or Indiana. Thousands of years of tilling and work on the land had made the ground a living record of history.

I miss that rich heritage. I miss my great friends who are British. They are of the land I love. They are, as well, part of the land.

For those of you who live in Great Britain, I beg you to pray for her. She is Mary's Dowry. Mary loves her and I think part of what I feel and sense is God's great love for Britain.


Pray I can come back and live out my life there. I want my body to mingle with the dust of England when I die.

I share in one small bit of England, the bond which God made with my English son. He will missionize England even if I cannot. But, I, too, would love to return to my spiritual home.

Will you join me in prayer for this miracle of grace? Will you love your spiritual home?

O blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England thy "Dowry" and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in thee. By thee it was that Jesus our Saviour and our hope was given unto the world; and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more. Plead for us thy children, whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother. Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the supreme Shepherd, the Vicar of thy Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we may all deserve to see and praise God, together with thee, in our heavenly home.
Amen.

---

The Glory of The Church-Sacramental Life

To be a Catholic is to live a sacramental life. The sacraments feed up spiritually, even daily. Without the sacraments, we all would be dead, in mortal sin, without grace and the growth of the virtues.

One of the great signs of a saint is devotion to the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I cannot think of any of the great saints who did not mention in their writings the importance of Holy Communion or Confession.

That the sacraments define our lives as Catholics is also a sign of predestination. Converts over and over say and write that the sacraments, especially Holy Communion, brought them into the Church.

We forget that the last several popes have been masters in teaching us about our faith. Take advantage of the encyclicals and apostolic letters online. These are the milestones on the way to perfection, to holiness, in our times.

It is clear that the grace of the sacraments leads one to perfection. The Eucharist, states Saint John Paul II, gives us both the power and the source of that complete gift of self. Christ gives Himself to each one of us and each one gives himself to Christ. 

From Veritatis Splendor:

21. Following Christ is not an outward imitation, since it touches man at the very depths of his being. Being a follower of Christ means becoming conformed to him who became a servant even to giving himself on the Cross (cf. Phil 2:5-8). Christ dwells by faith in the heart of the believer (cf. Eph3:17), and thus the disciple is conformed to the Lord. This is the effect of grace, of the active presence of the Holy Spirit in us.

Having become one with Christ, the Christian becomes a member of his Body, which is the Church (cf. Cor 12:13, 27). By the work of the Spirit, Baptism radically configures the faithful to Christ in the Paschal Mystery of death and resurrection; it "clothes him" in Christ (cf. Gal 3:27): "Let us rejoice and give thanks", exclaims Saint Augustine speaking to the baptized, "for we have become not only Christians, but Christ (...). Marvel and rejoice: we have become Christ! ".²⁸ Having died to sin, those who are baptized receive new life (cf. Rom 6:3-11): alive for God in Christ Jesus, they are called to walk by the Spirit and to manifest the Spirit's fruits in their lives (cf. Gal 5:16-25). Sharing in the Eucharist, the sacrament of the New Covenant (cf. 1 Cor 11:23-29), is the culmination of our assimilation to Christ, the source of "eternal life" (cf. Jn 6:51-58), the source and power of that complete gift of self, which Jesus — according to the testimony handed on by Paul — commands us to commemorate in liturgy and in life: "As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor 11:26).

And, of course, as seen in the sections from St. John of the Cross and others, the seeking of perfection is rooted in love. Love demands perfection and perfection demands love. Such is the relationship between Christ and His Church, Christ and each one of us.

24. And so we find revealed the authentic and original aspect of the commandment of love and of the perfection to which it is ordered: we are speaking of a possibility opened up to man exclusively by grace, by the gift of God, by his love. On the other hand, precisely the awareness of having received the gift, of possessing in Jesus Christ the love of God, generates and sustains the free response of a full love for God and the brethren, as the Apostle John insistently reminds us in his first Letter: "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love... Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another... We love, because he first loved us" (1 Jn 4:7-8, 11, 19).

Grace leads us to love and perfection. We become like Christ through this process. 

By the way, if someone is still confused as to natural law philosophy, the evil of "teleological", "consequentialist" and "proportionalist" ethical theories, and how a Catholic approaches moral issues, this encyclical provides excellent definitions and guidelines. There is much confusion among younger Catholics who have not had the advantage of good catechesis on these matters.

Take advantage of the fact that this encyclical in on line here.

"Nothing else is worth our living for...." Obedience and The Will of God

I am writing this as the American Anglophile in the Guild. With all the bad news in Europe and in the Middle East, I am not sure those in Great Britain have become aware of the huge sea-change in America.

Not only are laws being presented in Congress to curb online news, such as silencing Drudge Report, but a draconian executive order has been responded to by the USCCB regarding serious risks to religious freedoms.

One may read about that here--http://www.usccb.org/news/2014/14-126.cfm

Many Catholics are feeling that "time is speeding up" and that some great wave of evil has struck the West in a way unprecedented since WWII. Those who have discernment and reflect can see clearly, as we all should, the increasing bombardment against the Catholic Church in America, as well as the increasing pressures on freedom of speech and freedom of religion for all persons.

The Catholic Church is the only international organization which is counter-cultural. The Catholic Church is the only institution created by Christ while He was on earth, which stands against the evils of all nations full of men and women who hate or ignore the Living, Trinitarian God.

We have to stand up to these growing threats to the independence and freedom of the one, true, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.

This is not a time for petty squabbling, but a time for all Catholics to examine their consciences to see whether they are orthodox. Only those in obedience to the Church can grow in holiness.

I rarely share the same thing on this blog as I do on mine, but here is a post I feel this audience would understand, from England's own Cardinal Manning.

Here it is:

I have been looking at the actual sermons of young Cardinal Manning in his handwriting. His handwriting and mine are so similar, I was taken aback by the comparison.

I am reading "Obedience The Only Reality". It is superb, especially coming from a very young curate.

One of his points is that the great intellectual and reasoning powers we have been given by God to often become separated from the soul, the spiritual part of man. When this happens, Manning clearly states that anxiety, pain, sorrow and "the season of death" face men and women with the abolishing of these gifts they have refused to use.

The only "thing" we actually have in this world is our own spiritual life, which we take into the next world, he writes.

Everything we have done or spoken, states Manning, will either harm or help our spiritual life. He writes, "Of all the encumbrances, goings on of this busy life, of all its deeds and achievements, and possessions, how small a remainder shall be found after that fiery trial has done its work." He is referring to the final judgment, the keen accounting of God of our lives.

Manning asks how shall our works, our thoughts, our imaginations, self-persuasions and other deceits stand up to the sight of God's scrutiny.

The clergyman then goes on to say that the disobedient are condemned already. And, those who take part in the eternal obedience of Christ, the following of the will of God, use the gifts of grace given to them.

Here is another direct quotation: "Nothing else is worth our living for....Obedient or disobedient, we must be real or unreal, unperishable or perishing."

Manning states that the first step in holiness is to see what it is what God's will is for each one of us; then, to abandon everything else.

"What we are is a revelation of His will towards us. Our lot is a reality, the works of our calling are real, as long as they are done as a service to obedience. Within these bounds there is nothing which does not bear upon Eternity....Obedience to the will of God is work of direct and simple consciousness. It is to be wrought in us by its own self-confirming power. It is by doing the will of God, by recognizing it in all the changes of life; by reading it in the course of this troubled world; the Expression of the Divine Mind; by bowing ourselves down before it, it whatsoever guise it might reveal itself; by yielding ourselves in gladness of mind both to do and to suffer it, counting it a holy discipline, and a loving correction of our own willfulness, and by praying Him ever to stay His hand, till the mind of self be abolished from our regenerate being;--by this means it is that we are changed from a shadow of a fleeting life to the abiding realities of the Eternal world, being made partakers of the will of God."

Would that we heard sermons like this today! If you want to read more of this thrilling sermon, go here.
http://www.pitts.emory.edu/collections/mss002/ManningCatholicSermons/ObedienceTheOnlyReality.pdf

Some On ISIS Marking Christians for Extermination and Expropriation in Iraq

As jihadist Sunni Islamist terrorists from ISIS/ISIL strive to create a sharia inspired Caliphate as they take over territory in Iraq and Syria, they are slaughtering innocent Christians.  

However, even sharia law allows for dhimmitude, second class citizen status for "people of the book" (i.e. Jews and Christians) so long as they pay the jizya tax.  But that is not good enough for ISIS jihadists.  They have taken to mark the buildings of Christian institutions with spray-painted red marks indicating holdouts to exterminate and expropriate.

Spraypainted ISIS Extermination Graffiti on Christian buildings in Mosel, Iraq

"Nun" 14th letter in Arabic alphabet

 The symbol is "Nun", the 14th letter in the Arabic alphabet.  It is the first letter in the name "Nazara" (or Nazarenes) the way in which Muslims have referred to Christians since the 7th Century. This is intended as a badge of shame for what is perceived as a contemptible and disobedient sect. 

SEE MORE at DC-LausDeo.US 

Cardinal Burke to Ordain Priests in the Traditional Roman Rite in St. Louis, 5 August 2014

Priestly Ordinations for the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest

Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Feast of Our Lady of the Snows

St. Francis de Sales Oratory
2653 Ohio Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri

The Sacrament of Holy Orders will be conferred by His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, during a solemn Pontifical Mass.

See here for details.






Knights of Columbus Latin Mass

We cannot escape ourselves...…without each other and God

The difference between some bloggers and others is that some of us are born and bred journalists. We know that blogging days are numbered and we want to get in as much of the Truth on line before we are stopped by powers that be.

Singapore now demands that bloggers get and pay for a license. Nancy Pelosi stated months ago that bloggers were not real journalists and, therefore, most likely, did not received the respect or the rights of "real journalists."

But, we are real and we do have freedom and rights as of now.

But, there is another killer of blogs and that is ennui. Ennui can be caused by discouragement, or cynicism, or just plain being physically exhausted. Some bloggers have "turned in the towel" in order to pray more, be more silent in their days, or just concentrate on other things.

Some of us pray and meditate better, as Newman said of his pen, with a laptop on our laps.

To meditate or even pray better when writing is a sign of a vocation. One can be called to write and one can love the tools of writing.

When I was a child, in pre-computer days, I literally loved my crayons, markers, pencils, pens, pencil and pen cases, paper of all kinds and so on. A sign of a vocation is the love of certain tools.

The builder loves and respects his tools, so does the teacher, or the surgeon. Priests love their altar ware and vestments, if they are good priests.

Remember the Star Trek Bones bragging about his tools and degrading 20th century methods in the hilarious Star Trek IV?

But, when ennui sets in, one gets writer's block, a real deal, not a myth. Writer's block comes when one, like Psyche facing her chores in order to win back Cupid's love, sees a mountain of work, or data, and one feels overwhelmed with life, the universe, and everything.

I had writer's block for about two months in the middle of my doctoral thesis at Bristol. It was a terrible experience. I was just getting out of it when my advisor fell so ill, he could not continue working with me.

Blocks can be emotional, physical, even spiritual. The physical blocks can be overcome with more sleep and good food. The emotional can be overcome with reason, and the spiritual with prayer and sometimes, fasting.

Accidie was the common sin of the monastics, a sort of sloth brought on by the monotony of life in a monastery.  Accidie is defined as  "a state of restlessness and inability either to work or to pray" in the OED.

Aquinas and others call it "sorrow of the world". It is a serious condition, which like the ennui described by the Existentialists as a listlessness, a tiredness of everything, a world-weariness, can lead to the deadly sin of sloth.

There is only on cure for this and that is the remembrance of the duty given to us in baptism as well as the call to be part of the Church Militant given to us at confirmation.

We do not have the luxury for ennui or accidie. We do not have the time for slack.

I pray for all bloggers who have worked so hard for years and may be discouraged.

Here is a thought for you and for me: we are all in this together and we need to pray for each other.

Ephesians 6:18Douay-Rheims 

¹⁸ By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints:

False Sacrifice vs. Real Sacrifice

I was speaking with a person today who is one of my muses. Now, writers sometimes have one muse, like Petrarca with his Laura, or Dante with his Beatrice. But, I have many muses, people who inspire me to think,  act and even write in a certain way through inspiration.

This muse lives about 3,500 miles from me, and so we do not talk very often. But, whenever I do have a conversation, this person inspires me to write.

Today, I am inspired to write about false and real sacrifices. Sometimes, people sacrifice their entire lives for a cause, or even for a person who is not worthy of that sacrifice. I think of the novel, The Remains of the Day, (and if someone would like to send it to me, I would love to read it). I only know this story from someone telling me about it, but my muse conversation today reminded me of the butler who spent his entire life wasting loyalties on someone who simply was not worth the trouble. But, the main character, Stevens, also passed up his one chance for a loving relationship.

The point is that his sacrifice was not worth the source of his decision--an unworthy employer.

My muse was pointing out to me that the British many times do not make a huge false sacrifice, like Stevens, the butler, but small, gratuitous and even symbolic gestures which may or may not redeem the person. For example, a CEO of a company, totally unhappy with his role, and wanting to avoid the evils of immoral business practices into which he has fallen, may choose to give to charity to assuage his conscience, as he is not capable of leaving his job. This is a sad compromise which lacks redemption.

Another person may "leave the manse", such as William Faulkner's character who decides that the evil in his family's past means that he must do reparation for the family.

Some people leave the family and choose a sacrificial lifestyle in order to make reparation for past sins.

Others may do token things, which they feel will bring merit upon them and their families. This could take the form of living an ascetical life in the world, or extra prayers, or others forms of sacrifice.

Some people never find themselves in an effort to break away from evil in the family tree, afraid to be what they are and redeem the time, redeem the family through the gifts and opportunities given.

The lost generation of teens and young people after the chaos of liturgical destruction following Vatican II has seen many people who were, and perhaps still are, confused about where they fit in the Church.

There is only one Real Sacrifice and that is Christ, the God-Man's sacrifice on the Cross. If He allows us to pick up a cross and follow Him, it has to be one He ordains and not one we choose.

Too often, people tell God how they are to become saints, and ignore the urgings of Divine Providence in their daily decisions or actions.

Only the sacrifices asked by God are the ones which bring merit. One can waste an entire life missing out on love and spiritual growth by insisting that God acts in one way, when He is calling a person to be open to His plan.

For all eternity, Divine Providence has determined a perfect way for each of us to live and to love.

Are we open to that way?

Do we predetermine our own way to holiness, or worse, ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit?

Let us not meet God on the day of our particular judgment and see that we wasted opportunities for love and holiness because of our own preconceived ideas of sacrifice and redemption.

There is only one true Sacrifice to which we can join ourselves daily in the Eucharist, and that is the Sacrifice of Our Lord.

CNA/EWTN News reported yesterday: “During a recent event discussing the origin and implementation of European hate-speech laws, lawyers argued that the “ill-conceived” laws pose a danger to free speech and often stifle constructive dialogue.”

I have been giving this self-same topic some considerable thought of late, thoughts I thought I might share.

Hate Speech Proponents Hate Free Speech

                                  

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, 1906, in Friends of Voltaire.)

“Over my dead body!” (David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Alex Salmond jointly, severally and together with leaders of all developed countries as they held hands with “Gay Rights”.)

“But when all people are allowed to express their views and ideas, the principles of democracy and liberty are enhanced. This extends even to that speech which is most hateful and offensive.” (Oliver Wendall Holmes, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.)

When debating or discussing Free Speech, invariably the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is cited. There being no obvious reason to depart from this rhetorical tradition, it reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

(For those unfamiliar with American politics and government, the Congress is the Senate and the House of Representatives together forming the Legislature; and this is akin to the House of Commons and the House of Lords acting together as our Legislature.)

One of the great defenders of Free Speech in the USA in the 20th century was HL Mencken, the “Bad Boy of Baltimore”. One of the guiding principles I like to think I live by is Mencken’s dictum: “To every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong!” So I was pleasantly surprised when I recently came across an example of a slightly altered form of this sage advice employed in a High Holy Day Message of the distinguished Jewish Theological Seminary of America which appeared as an advert in the September 23, 1982, issue of The New York Times. It read:

FOR EVERY PROBLEM THERE IS A SIMPLE SOLUTION… WHICH IS USUALLY WRONG

Two men are crossing a desert. They are three days from the nearest water hole. One of the men is carrying a canteen. The canteen holds three days’ supply of water — for one man. Should they divide it? Then both will die. Then what is the obligation of the owner of the canteen? One opinion says: a man must not stand by and watch his fellow man die. He should share the water with his companion. Another says: preservation of one’s own life takes precedence. The owner of the water must drink it and live.

Not so simple, is it? If you don’t see a simple, obvious solution, you’re in good company, because the discussion is nearly 1900 years old. It is recorded in the Talmud, and here is the interesting thing: both opinions are presented in the Talmud, the prevailing and the dissent.

Why both? Because Judaism recognizes life’s dilemmas and the difficulty of knowing how to handle them. The truth is, for most significant issues there is NO simple solution. Euthanasia? Abortion? Freedom of expression? Pornography? Skokie? In most cases, it just isn’t clear what God wants us to do.

When I read this, my first reaction was that I disagreed with these learned Jewish scholars: I think that more often than not it IS perfectly clear what God wants us to do. However, more or less simultaneously a question also sprung to mind: who, what or where is Skokie? And, why should it matter to these good men? The answer to the former, I found out, is that Skokie is a small suburb of Chicago, Illinois, which came to both national and international notice because, and this is the answer to the latter, of a highly unusual and seriously controversial case brought before the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the late 1970s.

I had recourse, of course, to the internet where I first read a review of a book, “When the Nazis Came to Skokie: Freedom for Speech We Hate”, by Philippa Strum (Landmark Law Cases and American Society: Series Editors Peter Charles Hoffer and N. E. H. Hull; University Press of Kansas). The review outlined the background:

In the Chicago suburb of Skokie, one out of every six Jewish citizens in the late 1970s was a survivor — or was directly related to a survivor — of the Holocaust. These victims of terror had resettled in America expecting to lead peaceful lives free from persecution. But their safe haven was shattered when a neo-Nazi group announced its intention to parade there in 1977. Philippa Strum’s dramatic retelling of the events in Skokie (and in the courts) shows why the case ignited such enormous controversy and challenged our understanding of and commitment to First Amendment values.

It should be noted that the neo-Nazi group in question had intended to hold their parade on April 20, Hitler’s birthday.

Clearly, differing legal rights were engaged here. On the one hand, the desire of the National Socialist Party of America, under its then leader Frank Collin, to parade through the streets of any community, anywhere in the United States, was supported by their First Amendment rights. On the other hand, the people of the town had every right to live in peace, free from any assault on their sensibilities — there was a village ordinance prohibiting the display of Nazi uniforms and the distribution of material deemed offensive — and free from violence, or the threat of violence, on their streets, and to their persons. (A couple of years later, it transpired that Frank Collin had been born Francis Joseph Cohen, the son of Max Simon Cohen, a survivor of Dachau Concentration Camp. Arrested for serious sexual offences against several children, a psychiatric report concluded that he was “consumed with hatred for his father”. This, it seems, was supposed to explain his name change, political activity and his sexual abuse of the children.)

Nobody could doubt that the good people of Skokie had every reason to apprehend that, in what would inevitably be a volatile climate, either the neo-Nazi marchers, or the counter-demonstrators — Sol Goldstein, a Holocaust survivor and local community leader, on hearing of the proposed parade had immediately announced his plans for a counter-demonstration — or both, would resort to violence. And so Albert Smith, Mayor of Skokie, a devout Catholic and graduate of Notre Dame University, sought and obtained an injunction prohibiting the parade.

Incredibly, the American Civil Liberties Union then took up the case in behalf of the Nazis and for their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Their case was fought by attorney David Goldberger: a Jew defended before the Supreme Court the rights of neo-Nazis against the rights of fellow Jews. And won! No wonder this mattered to the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

One can hardly say ironically, but the ACLU both won AND lost — 30,000 of its members left the organization as a direct consequence of their taking up the neo-Nazis’ case. Doubtless, the ACLU decision-makers later rued the fact that subsequently the march never did in fact take place, but that is another story. The main story here is that in her book the point that Philippa Strum makes, and forcefully makes, is that freedom of speech MUST be defended — even when the beneficiaries of that defence are far from admirable individuals!

So what if those who some would silence are not far from admirable individuals, but are, on the contrary, perfectly ordinary, sane and sensible people? People just like you and me, for instance, the normally silent majority? Surely, no-one would ever dream of denying us our rights to Free Speech?

After all did not Oliver Wendall Holmes, a great Justice of the American Supreme Court (if we set aside Buck-v-Bell), not once say: “The First Amendment protects free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate. If the past two centuries of struggle to preserve freedom of expression have taught us anything, it is that the first target of government suppression is never the last. Whenever government gains the power to decide who can speak and what they can say, the First Amendment rights of all of us are in danger of violation. But when all people are allowed to express their views and ideas, the principles of democracy and liberty are enhanced. This extends even to that speech which is most hateful and offensive.”

But, of course, this is not the USA and their Supreme Court’s writ does not run here. However, the legal and moral issues are just the same and the legal frameworks in which they must be dealt with are strictly analogous. In Rome, on November 4, 1950, the High Contracting Parties, the Governments of those countries who were then full members of the European Council, signed the European Convention on Human Rights. Section 1, Article 10 states:

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

(2) The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

But both in the USA and in the UK, Free Speech is no longer respected as a Civil Right IF you happen to disagree with a tiny fraction of one of the smallest minorities in either land: the professional proselytes, many, if not most, at least in the UK, paid through the public purse in one way or another, within the less than 1½% of the population who are homosexuals of one sort or another (which statistic seemingly holds good more or less else- and every-where in the developed world).

This miniscule minority has decided that mainstream Christians and their beliefs about marriage, the family and society, and, their Bible and patristic writings, and, their, ethics, morals, philosophy, theology, tradition and history (which history in Europe is consubstantial with the history of Europe), all are “most hateful and offensive” to them and, therefore, to each and every other homosexual, of whatever sort, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding for the good and simple reason that evidence to the contrary is neither admitted nor allowed. Indeed, evidence, any evidence, in the matter from within the homosexual community has never been sought by them. So in that respect at least the overwhelming majority of the homosexual community are most definitely just like the overwhelming majority that is the rest of us.

And for this miniscule minority, there can be no question of respecting the civil right to Freedom of Speech for we Christians, we perfectly ordinary, sane and sensible people. Nor for those, including many homosexuals, who though not sharing our religious perspective and background nevertheless concur with our views on marriage, the family and society. And they are getting their way. And, just like Oliver, they want more. But unlike Oliver, they are likely to get it. But how can this be so?

These homosexual proselytes, thinly disguised as “equal rights activists”, and their fellow travellers, mainly of the political left but naturally including both trendy liberals and libertine Tories, have assiduously applied the principle enunciated by Friedrich Nietzsche: “I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.” They have totally subverted the honest use of language, aided and abetted by those three greatest users, and abusers, of language: the print and broadcast media (aka MSM); the politicians, and; the judiciary.

In his letter to Pinocchio, the then Cardinal Patriarch of Venice Albino Luciani, later Pope John Paul I, quoted an anecdote from “Pitigrilli” (Dino Segre, 1893-1975) the noted Italian aphorist (whose novel Cocaine was placed on the Index) in which he recounted that a preacher was addressing the crowd gathered at Hyde Park Corner in London when he was heckled by a dirty and dishevelled individual who shouted out: “The Church has existed for two thousand years and the world is still full of thieves, adulterers and murderers.”

“You are right,” replied the preacher “but for two million centuries water has existed in the world and your neck has still not been washed.”

Among Pitigrilli’s well-known sayings is this: “Grammar: a complicated structure that teaches language but impedes speaking.”

Time for us all to speak out. Unimpeded.

Thoughts on A Thursday from A Guild Member

Years ago, the woman who stood up in my wedding as matron of honor told me to “transcend difficulties”. I had to do this, as circumstances forced me to do so.  This great lady was almost my mother’s age, but a good friend of mine. She had been raised in India, in the Raj. Her father died early. Then, she and her mother came back to London to live. She had to leave her mom and live on a farm, as she was young enough to be sent out of harm’s way during the Blitz of London. Later, she married a wonderful man, but only had two children.

She and her husband took care of her mother until that old woman died. Her mother never learned to cook, or sew, or clean, as when she grew up, she had seventeen servants and lived in the luxury of the English in India. My friend had to pay for all her mother’s many needs.  As a person with many hardships to bear, my friend knew how to “transcend” trials. She was “self-possessed”; that is, she had control over her emotions, mind, soul. She was a peaceful woman. Another friend of mine is the same way. She is in her nineties and had an extremely hard life, living with a husband who was ill all their married life. She, too, was and is, “self-possessed”, able to transcend all types of difficulties.

This type of transcendence and self-control only comes with humility and prayer. There is a reality about people who live transcendently. Garrigou-Lagrange writes that we must become closer to God daily in simplicity of heart, “…without which there can be no contemplation of God and no true love.”

What does he mean by this? The death of the ego is the beginning of this emptying of the heart. Egotism must go, must, as I have written many times on this blog.

If we are “too full of ourselves”, there is no room for God. We must not desire attention, or fame, or status, or riches. We must find contentment in what is given to us. We must transcend the trials put on our paths. We need to meditate, and then, to contemplate.

Contemplation is not meditation, again, as I have noted on this blog. Contemplation, whether active, or passive, demands focusing on God Himself, and not on ourselves.

Do we think of ourselves and our problem before Christ in Adoration, or do we immerse ourselves in Him? Do we come with the proverbial laundry list of prayers, or do we just, like Mary of Bethany, sit in His Presence?

Purity of heart, mind, and soul comes with a combination of prayer and sheer gift. Some great saints have these gifts early. Most of us must walk the road of travail and suffering to get to such purity.  We must choose mortification, however, as the given trials may not be enough.

We may not become great saints, few of us will be Padre Pios or Mother Teresas. However, all of us are called to be saints and that means we are all called to purification and perfection.

It is rather ironic that I always  think and sometimes write that “this is my last post on perfection” but I can now see that as I learn and grow, taking the long road through suffering and dying to self.  May God be patient with me. Let me return to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

My favorite photo of Mother Teresa is not one of her with her beloved dying, or with St. John Paul II, but one of her alone in prayer. Like all saints, like Christ, she needed to be alone with God. Sister Agnes, her helper, said once,“Every day we have Mass, half an hour of meditation, morning prayer, afternoon prayer, and in the evening we have a full hour of Adoration. It would not be possible to work otherwise. There must be a spiritual motive. You can work only for God. You can never work for any man.”

Mother Teresa said, “That is why we begin and end the day with prayer, because, when we pray, we are touching the body of Christ.  You people in the world might not have the time or leisure to pray. It is a beautiful gift of God for us to have that amount of time.”

We must make time. We must.

Mother Teresa also said, “I am not afraid to say I am in love with Jesus because He is everything to me.”

For all Catholics, our work should be for Jesus, and He can be All in All.

Here is the voice of a simple heart. Mother Teresa states that chastity is “undivided love”, that poverty is “freedom”, that total surrender is “obedience”.

“If I belong to God, if I belong to Christ, then He must be able to use me. That is obedience. ….If you really belong to the work that has been entrusted to you, then you must do it with your whole heart.  And you can bring salvation only by being honest and by really working with God. It is not how much we are doing, but how much love, how much honesty, how much faith, is put into doing it. It makes no difference what we are doing. What you are doing, I cannot do, and what I am doing, you cannot do. But all of us are doing what God have given us to do. ….”

And, I love Mother Teresa for saying this-as I have experienced the disrespect which comes to the poor, even from priests, sadly.

“The poor are not respected. People do not think that the poor can be treated as people who are lovable, as people like you and I. You know, the young are beginning to understand. They want to serve with their hands. And to love with their hearts. To the full, not superficially.”

I believe this as I believe that in the remnant will be many young people who have sought and found love.

And, Mother Teresa’s comment about doing the work God has called us to do is also a call to humility. Sometimes people want desperately to do something big for God. But, sometimes, we are called to do something small for God.

I blog. I pray. I do dishes, clean, do laundry, make coffee, take walks. Nothing grand in all of this… but more than that, I love. I am learning daily to live in love, to choose love, to walk, clean, make coffee in love. I blog in love, as that is what God wants me to do right now.

There is nothing to do but to love.

Some of us learn this by loving and being loved by another. Some of us learn this directly from Jesus, the Bridegroom. Either way, love hurts.

“True love hurts. It always has to hurt. It must be painful to love someone, painful to leave them, you might have to die for them. ….A young American couple told me once, ‘You know a lot about love; you must be married.’ And I said, Yes, but sometimes I find it difficult to smile at Him.”