The advert that the cinemas didn't want you to see.

They didn't want you to see it in case you were "offended"

In the highly unlikely event that you are "offended" by my post, then my apologies.  Try watching it again.  You might find that it isn't so offensive after all.

For everyone else - feel free to share this post anywhere you can think of.  We'll risk the offence.  If even the ECHR says there is no human right not to be offended - http://www.lapidomedia.com/node/6209 - then I think the risk is relatively small.

If you have no idea what I'm going on about, then try Archbishop Cranmer's blog, there's a good post there about it.  http://archbishopcranmer.com/cinema-lords-prayer-ban-was-a-retroactive-policy-to-chuck-the-church-of-england/

I hope you dance

Another of those songs that could just as easily be a prayer.

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance
I hope you dance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances, but they're worth takin'
Lovin' might be a mistake, but it's worth makin'
Don't let some Hellbent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to sellin' out, reconsider
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance (Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along)
I hope you dance

I hope you dance (Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder)
I hope you dance (Where those years have gone?)

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

Dance

I hope you dance
I hope you dance (Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along)
I hope you dance (Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder?)

What does the Church itself say about the Eucharist

"The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness. Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems" (Evangelii Gaudium, 47).

Feast day of Pope St John XXIII - a post for those on both sides depressed about the Synod.

Credit to Fr James Martin SJ for finding this quote.

St. John's Feast is celebrated on the anniversary of the opening day of the Second Vatican Council, in 1962.


"In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, none the less, the teacher of life. They behave as though at the time of former councils everything was a full triumph for the Christian idea and life and for proper religious liberty.
"We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world was at hand.
"In the present order of things, Divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by men’s own efforts and even beyond their very expectations, are directed toward the fulfillment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs. And everything, even human differences, leads to the greater good of the Church."

--Mother Church Rejoices, Opening Address of Vatican II.

Pope Francis and Laudato Si

Enough said :)

Ten quotes from Pope Francis

Credit goes to Paul at peopleforothers.loyolapress.com for this lot.

10.  “Jesus did not come to teach a philosophy, an ideology, but rather ‘a way,’ a journey to be undertaken with him, and we learn the way as we go by walking.”

9.  “Throughout history, one baptizes another, another, and another… it is a chain, a chain of grace. I cannot baptize myself: I must ask another for baptism. It is an act of brotherhood, an act of filiation with the Church.”

8.  “And wisdom is precisely this: to see the world, to see situations, circumstances, problem, everything through God’s eyes.”

7.  “The Lord speaks to us not only in the intimacy of the heart – yes, he speaks to us, but not only there – but also through the voice and witness of our brothers and sisters.”

6.  “Faith is necessarily ecclesial; it is professed from within the Body of Christ as a concrete communion of believers.”

5.  “It is through an unbroken chain of witnesses that we come to see the face of Jesus.”

4. “…there is only one real kind of poverty: not living as children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ.”

3.  “We cannot live apart, closed in on ourselves. We need to love and be loved. We need tenderness.”

2.  “Take note: if the Church is alive, she must always surprise. It is incumbent upon the living Church to astound.”

1.  “Where was Jesus most often, where could he most easily be found? On the road.”

He is risen

Easter Sequence

Christians, to the Paschal Victim

  offer sacrifice and praise.

The sheep are ransomed by the Lamb;

and Christ, the undefiled,

hath sinners to his Father reconciled.

Death with life contended:

  combat strangely ended!

Life’s own Champion, slain,

  yet lives to reign.

Tell us, Mary:

  say what thou didst see

  upon the way.

The tomb the Living did enclose;

I saw Christ’s glory as he rose!

The angels there attesting;

shroud with grave-clothes resting.

Christ, my hope, has risen:

he goes before you into Galilee.

That Christ is truly risen

  from the dead we know.

Victorious king, thy mercy show!

Hunger

Just found this today from the site "Speaking My Truth" - the poems there are magnificent, but this one caught at the heart.

To read the rest, go to http://apoetman.blogspot.co.uk/

Hunger

Somehow I have to make sure that each day

I am Hungry,

that there's room inside of me for another presence.

When I am filled with

my own opinions, ideas, righteousness, superiority, or sufficiency,

I am a world unto myself and there is no room for "another."

When I can empty myself,

create a vacuum within me,

God fills it,

for God, as nature, abhors a vacuum.

Despite Church attempts to define who is and who is not worthy

to receive communion,

the only ticket or true prerequisite for coming to Eucharist is

Hunger.

And most often, sinners like me

are hungrier than the "saints" who would exclude us.

Rest in peace, Terry Pratchett

RIP Terry Pratchett.

“ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?” 

 

From "Reaper Man" - Terry Pratchett

 

 

Recycling

Credit to America magazine.  Cartoon by Jake Martin and illustrated by Bob Eckstein.

The Stations of the Cross

Any Catholic is familiar with the Stations of the Cross.  Every church we've ever been to has had them, the art work as varied as the churches themselves.

But this set I keep coming back to over and over - Mary Button's "Stations of the Cross - The struggle for LGBT equality"  I find the art work remarkable, and they can reduce me to tears over and over.

Before you judge them - look at them.  Read the commentary.

The artist herself says it best when she says:

"I believe that we can only begin to understand the meaning of the crucifixion when we take away our polished and shiny crosses and look for the cross in our own time, in our own landscape.

When we look for the crucified body of Christ in the stories of people on the margins of our societies, then we are able to live the Gospel and not simply read it."

You will find the whole series here at :

https://www.flickr.com/photos/believeoutloud/sets/72157632873157887/with/8513333475/

Archbishop Oscar Romero formally recognised as a martyr. Long, long overdue.

Vatican News reported today:

After decades of debate within the church, Pope Francis formally recognized that Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was killed "in hatred of the faith" and not for purely political reasons.
Pope Francis signed the decree Feb. 3, recognizing as martyrdom the March 24, 1980, assassination of Archbishop Romero in a San Salvador hospital chapel as he celebrated Mass. The decree clears the way for the beatification of Archbishop Romero. 
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1500492.htm

For those who want to know more about this amazing man, this is a good starting point

http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/social-justice/2009/02/oscar-romero-bishop-poor

And this a good link to the man in his own words, speaking truth to power

http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/romero.html

And many Catholics, including myself, think it a great source of scandal that it has taken thirty-five years for him to be recognised - his cause was ignored by Rome many times for political reasons.

Fr James Martin speaks for many of us when he says:

Now that Archbishop Oscar Romero has been declared a martyr, and his beatification ceremony will soon be announced, we can rejoice. We can that the church is finally recognizing someone who died "in odium fidei," that is, out of hatred for the faith.

At the same time, the church needs to do an examination of conscience, and admit that the delay in declaring him a martyr is close to scandalous, held up apparently, as CNS reported, because some groups tried to "co-opt" him. Such a defense seems weak: There have always been, and there always will be people who try to co-opt the saints for their own purposes: this is not new, and this was hardly the case just for Archbishop Romero. (There are currently worries, for example, that Dorothy Day will be "co-opted" by some groups.) Mainly the cause was delayed because Archbishop Romero was seen as too closely aligned with liberation theology, which had fallen out of favor in Rome.

Yet Monsenor Romero's martyrdom should have trumped those concerns. When a person makes the ultimate sacrifice, shows the "greater love," as Jesus called it, and gives their life for God, for the People of God, for the church, other considerations should be put in their proper place, and seen for what they are: distractions. The delay in his case is close to a scandal.

So we have to admit that in this case the church was misled. Archbishop Romero could have been declared a martyr much earlier: the day after he was murdered while celebrating Mass.

Blessed Oscar Romero, pray for us

Because tyrants are never defeated by appeasement

Petition to news outlets to publish the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons

#JeSuisCharlie

Mourning with France, praying with the world

#jesuischarlie

Happy New Year

First post of the year - I don't know who wrote this but I love it.