Our brothers and sisters in Egypt are being persecuted anew. They have long suffered under the yoke of Islamic intolerance. Under this new government whatever protection they had is now gone. Protesting an attack on a church they were themselves attacked by the Army. The Army claimed that they were fired on. Peaceful unarmed protesters encounter armed soldiers who, claiming they are fired on, open fire on the protesters and kill a number of them. The Government backs the soldiers. Now where have we heard that before? Oh yes! January 30 1972: Bloody Sunday, Derry, Northern Ireland. At least the Brits didn't tear up and down in armoured cars. While the North is slowly finding it's way to peace how is the Islamic world going to change, how are they going to show tolerance towards minorities? Are Christians, Jews and others always going to be second-class citizens living in fear?

My father died of cancer Friday week (16th September 2011) and so I have been rather distracted.  I celebrated his funeral Mass and have offered Mass each day for him in fulfillment of a promise.   I know it comes to us all that we lose the ones we love (at least in this world).  This is an undeniable fact.  Watching my father's painful decline was not easy.  He is pictured above with my niece on the day last August that she started Secondary school. Gone was the physical strength I remember from my youth.  He grew more and more helpless.  His mischievous sense of humour was more visible for a time but that too was smothered by his medication and his pain.  He came alive for the Mass on the Sunday before he died and later again he responded to the evening Angelus but the rest of the time he hung between sleep and quiet suffering.  His appetite was negligible.

He was alert on the Tuesday for his sister's visit but after that he declined.  The last time I exchanged any words with him was on the Thursday morning - I had spent the night at home - and even then they were few.  I looked at his poor emaciated body and thought of Christ on the Cross.  I  knew I would use that text from the Gospel for his funeral Mass.

My Mother has lost her friend of 66 years and husband of 48.  I don't  know how to describe how she is.  Watching her loneliness and quiet sorrow is another grief for us to carry.  

 My cousin, who has been a tower of strength and support as well as practical intervention, asked me how I could not doubt there was a God in heaven seeing my Dad suffer.  I could only reply that the suffering in the world is the fault of human choices.  People suffer because of their own or other people's wrong-doing.  The people who died on 9/11 died because of the warped minds of their attackers.  The many others from that day who now suffer ill-health do so because those buildings, in their collapse, released so much dangerous dust all because of the attack.  Those who mourn the dead suffer as well.  The consequences of the attack ripple out and may never be fully mapped.  So people suffer.  All we can do is unite our suffering with that of our Lord and trust that He will use it in some way to undo the evil that men do.

When our Lord told us to take up our cross and follow Him He meant He would lead us to Calvary.  The narrow way leads through the cross but we believe it leads to the Kingdom.  That does not mean it is any easier to watch helplessly as someone mounts the cross, as a loved one endures pain and the loss of much that they had come to accept as part and parcel of themselves and eventually embraces death.  All any of us can do is walk with them, support them (like Simon of Cyrene) and trust that somehow this fits with God's plan.


I could no more doubt the existence of God than I could that of the Sun.  My father was not a wealthy man but he bequeathed this precious gift to me: my faith.  Perhaps faith is like the opposite of bereavement.  When one loses someone there is an absence and great suffering.  The one who was so alive is gone.  When one begins to believe there is now a presence where once there had been a presence.  The absence of a loved one does not depend on oneself and neither does the presence of God.  But God remains invisible to the material eye.  He reveals Himself only to the spiritual 'eye' of faith.  Once  that eye is opened one cannot deny the light.



Still that does not change one's feelings.  Bereavement is like having one's heart dipped in acid - it changes everything.  I have wept in bursts, sometimes unexpectedly, often as the climax of buildup of sorrow.  At times it is a physically tangible pressure, a tightening of the throat, a filling up of the body with weariness.  This will not end soon.  I will with time grow adjusted to it and to my loss as generations of generations have done.  I have become one of the many who grieve today.  All I can do is greet each day as it comes, offer this suffering as a prayer of sorts, a sacrifice, embracing this cross for myself and others, especially my Dad and keep going.  How must those who have lost a spouse or a child feel?  It is incomprehensible.

A SHORT UPDATE

My father, Paddy Forde, is dying of cancer.  We discovered his condition during the Summer and the time of his passing away is close.  Please pray for him and for our family at this difficult time.

IRISH GOVERNMENT PROPOSES TO FORCE PRIESTS TO BREAK THE CONFESSIONAL SEAL

Government proposal to break the seal of confession is without precedent

The Taoiseach, the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Children are all indicating that a proposed new law will require priests to break the seal of confession if someone confesses to them the crime of paedophilia.
This would make us the one and only country in the Western world to have such a law. Even Revolutionary France in the days of its worst violence against the Church did not pass a law requiring the breaking of the seal of confession.
The justification for the law is that the crime of paedophilia is so heinous that no one who hears about it, under whatever circumstances, can be allowed to keep it to themselves.
But our Government is clearing missing something that every other Government can see, which is that at a minimum such a law is very unlikely to lead to a single conviction and at a maximum will be counter-productive and will make society less safe, rather than more safe.

Read the rest at the Irish Catholic.

I, for one, will not break the seal. I would encourage a victim or a perpetrator to tell the police or some other responsible person but I would not break the seal. Send me to prison, I don't care. I will not break the seal. Make Ireland a byword for intolerance and persecution.

Will this proposed law also oblige lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors? Should we not also report incest, rape, murder, and other serious crimes. If priests and others are obliged to report who will tell them anything? To tell them would be to tell the police.

What a stupid proposal.

I have alternative proposals.

BAN PORNOGRAPHY! Pornography has been linked repeatedly to prostitution and to violence against women and children. It degrades people. It leads people on a road that only ends in ever more depraved behaviour. Protect our children by banning it.

Strengthen families: real families, as in one man married to one woman with their children. recognize them as the building block of society and protect them with tax breaks and benefits.

I'm so annoyed at this that I emailed the Taoiseach.
Pleas do the same: webmaster@taoiseach.gov.ie.

WHY STUDY ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY?

This is interesting. Very worth while watching. Dr. Tom O'Loughlin (who is or was a priest of an English Diocese though he's Irish) taught me logic in Milltown Institute many years ago. He was very good teacher but he had us terrified. A very intelligent and learned man.

FIRST JOYFUL MYSTERY: THE ANNUNCIATION TO MARY

The ANNUNCIATION of the INCARNATION of our SAVIOUR to the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

When I went looking for an image of the Annunciation (25 March)   I saw this and thought ‘how apt’.  Sr. Lucia of Fatima to whom the Blessed Mother of God appeared in 1917 wanted the Holy Father to declare the Rosary a liturgical prayer.  This image of the Annunciation is from the Royal Doors of an Orthodox Church (I don’t know where) and with this image I want you to see the Rosary as a liturgical prayer, a prayer that not only links us to Mary Dei Genetrix, the Theotokos, the Mother of God but through, and with her with her Son and the work He has done for us.  The Rosary is partly a meditation on the life our Saviour in the company of His greatest disciple, His mother.  Yet because it is this it is also a meditation on what is done to us and for us in the Church’s worship, her Liturgy.

As the feast of the Annunciation is March 25^th it is right in the middle of Lent that we are given a moment to celebrate and rejoice! The sombre joy of Lent gives way to the glorious joy of the moment of Mary's 'fiat' and the Incarnation of the Word. Gabriel tells her she is 'full of grace'. Literally he says Chaire kecharitomene 'Grace to you who are full of grace' or 'blessed are you who are full of blessings'. 'Rejoice' the Church cries out at Easter and here in the midst of Lent the Church causes Gabriel's voice to speak to us from the Gospel, 'Rejoice!' Rejoice? Rejoice because Mary is to be the New Eve who brings forth from her pure flesh the New Adam, the Revelation of the Father and the Salvation of Man. Rejoice because the Spirit hovers over her as over a New Creation and descends on her so that the Word and Image of the Father can take flesh, so that the Eternal Pentecost of Man's union with God can come. Rejoice that the King of Heaven and Earth, of the whole Universe, is taking flesh in the womb of a country girl from lowly Nazareth.

Does God gamble I wonder? What if Mary had said 'no'? Such a Luciferian response would have doomed and damned mankind. She did not, of course, but her humble 'yes' was a 'yes' not just to the Word and Image of the Father but to all that would be through Him. Her 'yes' was a 'yes' to the Passion and the Cross, the 'sword that would pierce her heart', to the Resurrection, and to us. The Annunciation is a celebration our conception too, our conception in Christ. We celebrate the moment when a country girl was asked by the Father, through the agency of the Archangel Gabriel, to be the Mother of God, to be a key part of His astounding plan.

No wonder Gabriel seems to hold slightly back in the icon above by a Constantinopolitan master. His right hand is extended but the fingers which form the monogram of the name Jesus Christ are hidden – for although He has told Mary the NAME of the Saviour the world does not yet know. His staff shows his authority; this comes from the Father. Mary looks out at us. In her hands she holds the wool from which, tradition says, she wove the seamless garment of Christ. It symbolizes her weaving a body for the Word from her own flesh. She looks at us. 'Well?' she seems to ask 'What should I say?' Say 'yes' O Mother! Say 'yes' and save us. Say 'Yes' and set us free. Say 'YES' to us so that we who are dead in sin might live forever in the Light. "Behold! I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word". "And the WORD was made flesh".

Our Father...

God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. Hail Mary

The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you." Hail Mary

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. Hail Mary

But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. Hail Mary

You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. Hail Mary

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." Hail Mary

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" Hail Mary

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Hail Mary

So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." Hail Mary

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. Hail Mary

Glory be to the Father

Text of Gospel is from the New International Version

THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

On this feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus I offer you this photo of a picture in our house. It's a print framed behind glass and dedicated to the memory of Edward J. Balfe of Hartford, Conn(Connecticut?).

The Heart of our Lord is not actually shining like that in the pciture but is painted a pale pink. The flash just happened to catch the image there and it seemed so apt that I used this shot.  It's a powerful image and better than most of the Sacred Heart images one sees around.  Most of them are insipid or effeminate.  This, like the best Greek icons of the Pantocrator, speaks not just of love and mercy but of power and conscious intent.  He is not going to give up on His plan for our salvation.  He will not turn back or be cheated of His beloved.  This is the face of God Incarnate not by accident but for the salvation of Man.

It reminds me of the story my mother tells of her father Barney Clarke who would pray to no one but the Sacred Heart.  "If I want anything," he would say, "I ask the man Himself."  He died on a Friday while a votive Mass to the Sacred Heart was being offered for him.  A sign, I take it, that our Lord answered him.