Same-sex 'marriage' - 'open letter' to David Cameron.

The following open letter appeared in the Daily Telegraph of Thursday, 8th March, in the form of a quarter page advertisement:-

                                      OPEN LETTER 

                      TO DAVID CAMERON

Dear David,

         Regardless of your personal views about homosexual marriage,I think you will agree that it is an extraordinarily controversial issue.You have infuriated both the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches,and split the Anglican Church.  You have contradicted the Bible,  which states in at least 10 places that homosexuality is "a major sin." and you have rubbished thousands of years of human experience, during which marriage could only be between a man and a woman.

         Yet, we are living in an era when the world seems to be falling on our shoulders.  We are now in the fourth year of the most severe economic contraction in 80 years;  the financial world has become a house of cards which can collapse at any time;  the Eurozone is unravelling;  we are the most highly indebted country in the world per capita;  Scotland wants to secede;  immigration is in a mess;  we are fighting wars abroad, and terrorists within our own country, and Iran is threatening nuclear war.  Yet, instead of trying to deal with any of these problems, you are focusing on trying to impose on the country the most controversial law of the last 100 years. Is that sensible?  Is that Conservative?  Do you not have anything better to do?

                       Yours ever,

                        Demetri

info@marchessini.co.uk

48 Wilton Crescent

London SW1X 8RX   

Thank you Demetri,  for your honourable and forthright letter spelling out the thoughts of millions of normal, caring, and hard-working UK citizens, of whom the vast majority are appalled by the idea of  same-sex marriage. Before the Reformation, England was known as the 'Dowry of Mary', with it's people respecting and honouring the laws of God, and having a special devotion to Mary, the most pure and sinless mother of Jesus Christ, God made man. We pray today to Our Lady, for her intercession that good will prevail in this time of evil moral aggression. Let us also pray to St George, St David, and St Andrew, our patron saints, for faith, courage, and perseverance, to fight the good fight in the battle against the forces of darkness.

                               Holy Family - flight into Egypt
            

Warning to potential 'Organ' donors - beware!

Very recently a large part of the editorial of the Daily Telegraph was devoted to the subject of  human ‘organ donations’ and the apparent need for many more donors, and the most effective way of satisfying this need. This is a controversial and emotive subject with talk of ‘assumed consent in law’ for all adults unless they have previously opted-out in writing. 


Coincidentally or not, on February 16th 2012, an article appeared on the ‘Renew America’ website, written by Dr Paul Byrne MD,  for the benefit of 'Pastoral Care Workers' dedicated to caring for patients in hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities, who have become primary targets for what he describes as the ‘insidious indoctrination’ of the organ donation industry.  


I have taken the liberty of quoting extracts from this important and informed article by Dr Byrne, a member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, and past-President of the Catholic Medical Association (USA), who writes:- 
                       
               “Pastoral Care Workers include not only priests and ministers at the bedside, but also Eucharistic ministers and other assistants and ultimately, the bishop, who is the shepherd of the Pastoral Care Workers. Today, Pastoral Care Workers are routinely asked to consult and actually encourage patients in hospitals to become organ donors. They are told to believe the lie that so-called "brain dead" patients are truly dead, when all their senses are telling them just the opposite.”


“There is no explicit requirement that prospective organ donors be given adequate information about the procedures involved in organ harvesting so that informed and rational decisions can be made. In almost all cases, the basic medical principles of "informed consent" are denied the patient/donor by transplant physicians, nurses, and industry representatives. This being the case, the role of the Pastoral Care Worker in advocating for the patient/donor becomes all the more important and urgent.”


“It seems only fair and equitable that a transplant surgeon ought to explain in detail the whole organ transplant process to the potential patient/donor and his family. But how many people will agree to be organ donors after they are informed (in addition to other equally distressing facts - see 'renewamerica' link below),  that organs can be transplanted only when healthy and must be removed while there is respiration, circulation and a beating heart?   Significantly,  the donor’s ‘time of death’ will be officially registered after the removal of all vital organs, not when some doctor arbitrarily declares him/her ‘brain dead’”


 “ Potential donors should understand before signing the donor application or donor card that once they have agreed to be a donor, their interests and welfare becomes secondary to that of the organ recipient. They will no longer be considered true "patients" but rather a source of spare human parts and vital organs to be used for "transplantation, therapy, research and education." The donor should know that death will be imposed on the operating table for another's benefit and for the financial good of the organ transplantation industry.”


“Patients should realize that it costs hospitals and other transplantation facilities money to adequately treat patients to protect and preserve their life. On the other hand, these same hospitals make a great deal of money from "organ transplantation, therapy, research and education." 


 “A diagnosis of "brain death" by neurological criteria is theory, not scientific fact. Also, irreversibility of neurological function is a prognosis, not a medically observable fact.”  Over time many have stated that the conceptual and/or medical bases for these approaches to determine death are fundamentally flawed, and depart substantially from our biological and common-sense understandings of death.


 “It appears that Pastoral Care Workers are no better informed about the truth of vital organ transplantation than the average layman. Nor have they been unaffected by the organ industry's propaganda machine which spill out emotionally loaded expressions like "last wishes," "you can't take them with you," "gift of life," "donate life," etc.”


 “Death can be determined when there is no breathing, no heart beat, no response and the body becomes cold. Before 1968 physicians did not hurry the final declaration of death in order not to declare someone dead before true death. Then the desire to transplant hearts and other vital organs prompted the invention of "brain death." This "allowed" the transplant surgeon to dissect the living person.  This is the truth concerning unpaired vital organ transplantation. It is a truth that pastoral care workers must understand if they are to respond to the needs of patients and their families, rather than the needs and desires of the ‘Organ transplantation industry’ and its minions.


“The dubious nature of "brain death" as a criterion to select persons for organ donation, is demonstrated by the recovery of numerous "brain dead" patients”,   Dr Byrne’s full report, including details of several recovery cases, can be seen on  the ‘Renew America’ website:-
                                   
                                      http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/120216


 Ack. Dr Paul Byrne MD Director of Neonatology and Director of Pediatrics at St. Charles Mercy Hospital in Oregon, Ohio, and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics University of Toledo College of Medicine 

Meme - three books for a new Kindle!

Regarding the recent meme from ' Mulier Fortis',  I have been asked by Ches at 'Sensible Bond' to add my threepennyworth!
The subject of the meme is to suggest three books for Mac's newly acquired Kindle, after which we are asked  to tag five other bloggers for them to do the same.
The books I would choose are:-


'The Desert Fathers' translated from the Latin by Helen Waddell - the original of these translations is the Latin of the 'Vitrae Patrum', a vast collection of the lives and sayings of the Desert Fathers, first printed in Antwerp in 1615. An  inspiring source of spirituality, applicable as much  today as in the early centuries of the Church.
Simple, straightforward, and easy to read, even during the ten-minute tea-break! 


'A Hundred Years of Catholic Emancipation (1829-1929)' by Denis Gwynn. This is an account of the remarkable growth of the Catholic Church in England since the Catholic Emancipation Act. Includes a synopsis of the lives and personalities of such great Catholic prelates as Cardinals Wiseman, Newman, Manning, and others. Essential reading to understand and appreciate the courage, wisdom, and faith of our 19th and early 20th century Catholic leaders and forbears, to whom we owe so much.


'Martyrs to the Catholic Faith in England (1577-1684)' by Bishop Challoner.  Described as 'Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholics of both sexes, that have suffered death in England on Religious accounts from the year 1577 to 1684'. The memoirs, in two volumes, relate the details of the lives and deaths of  three hundred or so Catholic martyrs, based on reliable evidence from primary and other trustworthy sources, who display 'so much fortitude and courage, joined with so much meekness, modesty, and humility, ........ and who have died for no other crime but their conscience.' Humbling and powerful testimonies of Catholic men and women who made the supreme sacrifice for love of God and His Church.



Rules are as follows:-
Post rules on Blog.
Tag five bloggers,and tell them they have been tagged on their blog.
No Ref.books,or prayer books.
Link back to the person who tagged you. 


I have actually only tagged two bloggers:-


'A Wandering Oblate'


'St Malachy'

'The Rosary' by Frances Caryll Houselander (1901-1954)

          

Frances Caryll Houselander
- mystic, poet, artist, writer
         (1901 - 1954)

                                                                     

The Rosary

In the doorway of a low grey house,
built of stones as old as the Crusades,
a woman of Bruges sits in the sunlight,
among the flowers, saying her Rosary.


She seems to be carved out of season walnut

and polished smooth
by the constant touch of the hand of God,
and the beads that twine her crippled fingers
are scarlet berries on the thorny twigs.


The running rhythm
and the repetition
of the Paters and the Aves
is like the rhythm that in nature
moves through the seasons
from seed to harvest
with the unity
and the pause and stress
of music;
like the bloodstream of Christ,
that flows through the seasons
from Advent to Easter
in the Liturgy of the Church,
the ebb and flow of the tide of love
in the Mystical Body of Christ.
             
II
God has given His children strings of beads,
as we give strings of beads to our children,
to teach them to count.


We do not say,
“Learn from these the doctrine of numbers,
the measure of human life,
the dream of Pythagorus,
counting the pulse of the world.”


We do not say
to a child with a string of beads,
“learn the perfection of reason in mathematics.”


We say,
“Learn to count on the beads,
small for your hands to hold,
bright for your eyes to see.”
And he begins,
slowly,
with one, two, three:
the spark is kindled
to light the flame of philosophy.


God has counted in fifteen Mysteries,
on the fingers of human creatures,
the singleness of the Undivided Love,
the simplicity
that we cannot comprehend
because our hearts are divided.
         
III
We are not all vessels of gold,
lifted up in virginal hands,
empty chalices to receive
from the perfect vine
love,
absolute
and complete.


But the old woman of Bruges
is a round bowl,
lifted up to be brimmed
with pure wine.
and the Mysteries of the Rosary
concern familiar things
known in her own life.


Her mind, like a velvet bee
droning over a rose,
gathers the honey of comfort
from the story of God,
familiar as the things in her kitchen –
the shining pots and pans,
the milk in the jar of earthenware,
and the flags of the scrubbed floor.


The story told by the Rosary
is the story of primitive beauty,
true as the burden of folk- songs.
It is a song piped on the hills,
by a shepherd calling his sheep.
       
IV
The cradle of wood, 
the wood of the cross;
from cradle to cross,
like a lullaby;
the wail of an infant,
lost on the wind –
the arms of a girl
in a circle of love,
rocking to rest;
a woman’s arms
in a circle of love,
the young Man dead
on His Mother’s breast.


The jewels that glow
low in the grass
on the feet of Christ,
risen from death,
touching the flowers
and touching the dust,
even in glory.


The dust of the earth 
on the feet of God,
walking the soft blue meadows of stars.
       
V
In the doorway of a low grey house,
built of stones as old as the Crusades,
a woman of Bruges
sits in the sunlight, among the flowers,
saying her Rosary.


The story of Mary is her own story,
and her son was her life’s joy
and her life’s sorrow;
and for ever
her son is her life’s glory.


In a field in Flanders,
among the red poppies, he is sleeping:
he will sleep soundly
until the day of resurrection.


She has still the patchwork quilt
made, when her hands were nimble,
for the wooden cot:
now he is sleeping, and each year
he has a new coverlet
of delicate young grass,
and at the end of his cot
a wooden cross.


The cradle of the wood,
the wood of the cross:
from cradle to cross,
like a lullaby.


The story of the woman of Bruges
is the world’s story.
it is the story
of human joy and sorrow,
woven and interlaced,
like the blue and crimson thread
in a woven cloth:
the story of birth and death,
of war and the rumours of war
and of peace past understanding,
peace in the souls that live
in the life of Christ.


In the doorway in Bruges,
sitting among the flowers, 
her mind like a velvet bee
droning over a rose,
taking the honey of comfort
out of the heart of Love,
the old woman is nodding 
over her Rosary.


She has lived her meditation,
like the Mother of God,
living the life of Christ:
let her sleep in Christ’s peace.
        
VI
Under the loud din
of the tramp of metallic feet
in the armed march of time,
like a river moving
under the dark hills,
the everlasting life
is flowing, eternally.


The measured beat of love,
with pure perfection of music,
timing the life of Christ
in the human heart
goes on.
                   Frances Caryll Houselander

                              
                             *********************
    
 'Frances Caryll Houselander was born in Bath, England, on Sept 29, 1901, the second of two daughters.  She was not expected to survive for more than a day, and was immediately baptized,  given the name ‘Frances’ after her uncle, a gynaecologist who helped deliver her, and ‘Caryll’,  after the yacht on which her mother had spent the last months of her pregnancy!
     She went on to survive her first day, and indeed many more after that, though her health continued to be poor throughout her life. 
     When she was 6 years old, a family friend persuaded her mother to have the children baptised in the Catholic faith. Although little formal religious education followed her reception into the Church, her mother encouraged a deep sense of piety and devotion in the home, and Frances, a devout child,  made her first confession and Holy Communion when she was just seven years old.
     Two years later, her world was shattered when her parents  separated. Though they were never  divorced, the separation was to be a permanent one. For the next several years, she changed homes and schools, never fully settling in one place before she was moved to the next. 
     Her erratic health led her doctors to advise that she avoid all class work, and,  by the time she returned home in 1917, her formal education was virtually non-existent.  During her years in the convent schools, she experienced three religious visions, which led to a personal and absolute conviction that she had been called by Christ to give recognition to the reality of His loving Presence and Image in all people, particularly the suffering and poor of this world, and to convey the realisation and awareness of this to all those with whom she came into contact, personally and through her writings. Frances had a great affinity with young children, and during her life wrote and illustrated children's books, always revealing a simple delight in the love of God and His creation.
     When the war ended, she attended art school and it was during this period that she drifted from the Catholic Church. She explored the Orthodox Church among others, but found them all wanting, and craving for peace of soul and longing for the Sacraments, she returned to the Catholic Church; she was then twenty-four years old. 
     Advised to concentrate on her writing, she  began to write articles and illustrate for the ‘Children’s Messenger of the Sacred Heart’, often on an unpaid basis. Her work ultimately led to her making the acquaintance of the Catholic publishers, Sheed and Ward, who were subsequently to  become the major publishers of her many books. 
     Always willing to open her home and her heart to those in need, she was frequently physically and emotionally  overwhelmed by those who sought her advice, yet she remained reluctant to turn people away. 
     Msgr. Ronald Knox, a contemporary, and admirer of Houselander, recognized her tremendous gift of insight, and was later to say, "She seemed  to see everything for the first time, and the driest of doctrinal considerations shone out like a restored picture when she had finished with it." 
     Her popularity and success in healing the hurts and the hearts of many can be measured by the support of such eminent physicians as Dr. Strauss, later President of the British Psychological Society, who sent patients to her. His explanation was that "she loved them back to life". 
     Her impact, both literary and personal, was due above all, to the intensity of her vision of the suffering Christ, a vision she expressed with utter sincerity and immediacy and, on occasion, with breathtaking luminosity. Indeed, she can best be described not just as a writer, nor even just an artist, but as a mystic and a visionary, even in the tradition of Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, or Teresa of Avila, which would explain how she was able to communicate so directly and movingly to her large reading public, and accounts for her extraordinary success in counselling British and foreign children who had been traumatized by the war. 
     Not gregarious by nature, she nevertheless radiated gaiety and a  sense of fun; her wickedly funny tongue often provoking as much hilarity among her intimates as it caused her remorse. 
     She was unquestionably a genuine mystic whose frailties were transformed into real strength and whose neuroses became the means whereby she was able to join her sufferings with Christ on the cross.It was as though her burning love of God overflowed for the refreshment of all who came in contact with her.
    "She seemed to possess a well that never ran dry for anyone but herself. She gave of her food to feed the hungry, her time to counsel those in need, her energy to write countless letters, articles and books, and ultimately her health for the health and well-being of others. She spent years attending to the rigorous demands of her ailing parents, and, having been plagued by ill health her entire life, had become accustomed to pain and slow to address her own physical ailments. Her lack of self-concern, however, which extended to everything from her looks, to her diet, her sleep, her health, her living quarters, etc., took its toll."  
      During her last years, she worked tirelessly to complete books, write letters, strengthen the works of charity she had begun, and minister to the many mentally ill children who were sent her way'              
      She died on October 12, 1954, from breast cancer. 
"The wonder of Frances Caryll Houselander is found in her humble willingness to suffer with Christ, to let Him transform her flawed and sinful nature into a divine work of art."

Ack.  Karen Lynn Krugh / Catholic Culture.org
Ack.  Margot H. King - currently working on biography for Peregrina Publishers.
Ack.   Robin Maas - Caryll Houselander, an appreciation.
www.ewtn.com/library

                      *******************************

Books by Caryll Houselander

SPIRITUALITY
"Guilt"
"The Reed of God"
"This War is the Passion"
"The Stations of the Cross"
"The Passion of the Infant Christ"

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
"A Rockinghorse Catholic"

ANTHOLOGIES
"The Mother of God"
"A Rockinghorse Catholic"

BIOGRAPHY
"Caryll Houselander: That Divine Eccentric" by Masie Ward

St Teresa of Avila - 'a wandering, disobedient and quarrelsome woman'

I never tire of reading the Letters of Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani), published as ‘Illustrissimi’ by Collins in 1978.
The letters were written when the author was Patriarch of Venice, and were published as ‘open letters’ in the Italian Christian paper ‘Il Messaggero di Sant’ Antonio’, and addressed to various individuals, some fictional, some historical. He writes to legendary figures, to important scientific, historical and literary people, to characters from their books, plays, operas and poems, to saints, and even to Christ Himself.


                                         *************

                       St Teresa of Avila - the mystic  


St Teresa of Avila, a Spanish Carmelite nun, born 1515 died 1582, came from a rich, noble family, becoming a Carmelite nun at the age of 21 years, and eventually succeeding in  reforming her Order, restoring it to its original austerity. In his letter to St Teresa, Pope John Paul I has this to say:-


Dear St Teresa,
Anyone who looks at Bernini’s famous marble group, in which he depicts you pierced by the seraph’s arrow, will think of your visions and ecstasies.  And rightly so: the mystical Teresa, rapt away in God, is a true Teresa.
But there is another Teresa, one I like better. A Teresa of everyday life, who experiences the same difficulties as we do and who skilfully surmounts them; who can smile and laugh and make others laugh; who moved about the world with great self-possession and lived through the most varied events, helped by her many natural gifts but even more by her constant union with God.


When the Protestant Reformation broke out, the situation of the Church in France and Germany became critical. It saddened you Teresa, ‘If I could have saved a single soul among the many lost there, I would have sacrificed my life a thousand times’ you said, ‘but I am a woman’.


A woman!  But one worth twenty men, who left no method untried, and managed to carry out splendid internal reforms and influence the whole Church with her work and writings.


You were a woman who spoke out frankly, dear Teresa, and wrote in a polished, cutting style.  Although you had a very elevated idea of the mission of nuns, you wrote to Father Graziano: ‘For the love of God, be careful what you do! Never believe nuns, because if they want something they’ll try every possible means to get it.’ And to Father Ambrose, refusing a postulant, you said:  ‘You make me laugh when you say you know her soul just by seeing her.  It’s not so easy to know women!’


Yours was the perfect definition of the devil: ‘That poor wretch, who cannot love.’


To  Don Sancho Davila you wrote: ‘I have distractions too, in reciting the divine office. I confessed it to Father Dominic, who told me to take no notice. I say the same to you, because it’s an incurable disease.’  This was spiritual advice, but you were very free with advice of all kinds.  You even advised Father Graziano to make his journeys on a better-tempered donkey, one without the bad habit of tossing friars to the ground; or else to have himself tied to the donkey to avoid tumbling off.


But when the time came to do battle, you seemed unconquerable.  The papal nuncio, no less, had you shut up in the convent at Toledo, declaring you to be ‘an unquiet, wandering, disobedient, and quarrelsome woman.’ But from your convent the messages you sent to Phillip II, and to princes and prelates, sorted everything out.
Your conclusion was this: ‘Teresa on her own is worth nothing; Teresa and a penny are worth less than nothing; Teresa, a penny and God can do everything.’

 

St Teresa of Avila   - a spiritual and practical leader

To me, you are a remarkable example of something that keeps turning up regularly in the Catholic Church.
Women don’t rule in the Church – that’s a function of the hierarchy, but very often they inspire, promote and sometimes direct. On the one hand the spirit ‘blows where it will’; on the other, women are more sensitive to religion than men and more capable of giving themselves generously to great causes.  This means that a great many women saints, mystics and foundresses have been recognised in the Catholic Church. There are also women who led religious movements, and influenced a very wide range of people.


Marcella, a noblewoman who directed a kind of convent of rich and cultivated patricians on the Aventine, collaborated with St Jerome in translating the Bible.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century Madame Acarie influenced distinguished people such as the Jesuit Coton, Friar Canflet, St Francis de Sales and many others, and thus had an effect upon the whole of French spirituality at the time.
Princess Amalia Gallitzin, who was appreciated even by Goethe, spread a current of intensely spiritual life through the whole of northern Germany.
Sophia Swetchine, a Russian convert in the early nineteenth century, turned up in France and became the ‘spiritual directress’ of all kinds of people, lay and clerical.
I could cite other examples, but I will come back to you, Teresa, who were not so much the daughter as the spiritual mother of St John of the Cross and the first reformed Carmelites.


Today there are no problems in the Carmelite Order, but in your day there was the row I mentioned earlier.
You were on one side, full of charismatic gifts, and of ardent luminous strength given to you for the benefit of the Church; on the other stood the papal nuncio, or rather the hierarchy which had to judge the authenticity of your gifts. At first, on the basis of distorted information, the nuncio decided against you.  Once he had things explained to him and had examined them better, everything was cleared up, the hierarchy approved, and your gifts were able to expand in the service of the Church.


Today we hear much about charismatic gifts and the hierarchy, but allow me to take the following principles from your works.  First; the Holy Spirit is above everything,  ultimately ensuring the unity of the Church.  Second;  Charismatics and the hierarchy are both necessary to the Church, but in different ways. The former act as accelerators, favouring progress and renewal, with the latter using the brake, in favour of stability and prudence. Third; the role of each sometimes overlap and even conflict, but since the hierarchy has to regulate all the main stages of ecclesiastical life, charismatics cannot, with the excuse that they have visions, remove themselves from its guidance.And fourth and last; Charismatic experiences are not anyone’s private reserve; but it is one thing to be able to have visions, and quite another to actually have them.


Dear St Teresa, if only you could come back today, the word ‘charisma’ is squandered.  All kinds of people are known as ‘prophets’, even the students who confront the police in the streets, or the guerrillas of Latin America. People try to set up the charismatics in opposition to the pastors. What would you say– you who obeyed your confessors, even when their advice turned out to be the opposite of that given to you by God in prayer?

Pope John Paul I - author of 'Illustrissimi'


Don’t think I'm a pessimist. I hope this business of seeing visions everywhere is just a bad habit that will pass. On the other hand I know that the authentic gifts of the Spirit are always accompanied by abuses and false gifts.  And the Church has gone on just the same.

In the young Church of Corinth, for instance, visionaries flourished. St Paul was rather worried about it because he’d found some abuses. Later these abuses became more noticeably aberrant.
Two women, Priscilla and Massimilia, who supported and financed Montanism in Asia, began by preaching a moral awakening ‘charismatically’; this involved great austerity, the total renunciation of marriage, and absolute readiness for martyrdom. They ended by setting up new prophets against the bishops.  These men and women, ‘filled with the spirit’, preached, administered the sacraments, and waited for Christ, who was to come and inaugurate the new kingdom of heaven at any moment.


In the time of St Augustine we find Lucilla of Carthege, a rich lady whom Bishop Ceciliano had scolded because she used to press a small bone of some martyr to her breast before Communion.  Hurt and angry, Lucilla induced a group of bishops to oppose Ceciliano.  They failed to establish their point in Africa, but protested successfully to the Pope, then to the Council at Arles, finally to the Emperor himself.  A new Church began.  In nearly all the cities of Africa there were thus two bishops, and two cathedrals frequented by two opposing categories of the faithful, who, when they met, came to blows. Catholics on the one hand; the followers of Donato and Lucilla on the other.

Donato’s followers called themselves ‘the Pure’. They never sat down in a place previously occupied by a Catholic without first cleaning it with their sleeve. They avoided the Catholic bishops like the plague, appealed to the Gospel against the Church, which they said was supported by the authority of the Emperor, and set up assault squads.


In the seventeenth century, there were the nuns of Port Royal. One of their abbesses, Mother Angelica, had started well: she had ‘charismatically’ reformed herself and the monastery, keeping even parents out of the cloister.  She had great gifts and was born to rule, but she became the soul of Jansenist resistance, intransigent to the last in the face of the ecclesiastical authorities. Of her and of her nuns it was said that they were ‘as pure as angels and as proud as devils’.


How far all this is from your spirit, Teresa!  What a gulf between these women and you!  ‘Daughter of the Church’ was the name you loved best.  You murmured it on your death-bed; while in life you worked hard for the Church and with the Church, even accepting a certain amount of suffering from the Church.  Couldn’t you teach some of today’s ‘prophetesses’ a little of your method?

    St Teresa of Avila -  daughter of the Church


"Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world."
                                                      (St Teresa of Avila)

'A Common Catholic Looks Back' by David Read

This post is a  reminder of the shock and dismay bordering on despair, experienced world-wide in the years immediately following Vatican II, by thousands of devout and loyal Catholics, at the  debasement of so much of the liturgy of the Church; the brutal alteration some would say desecration, of so many beautiful churches; the unjust treatment by certain bishops of  priests who dared criticise; the disastrous relaxation in the rules and dress of Religious;  the adoption of a false ecumenism seriously weakening the primacy and Divine authority of the Church,  particularly applicable to schools, with great loss of young souls to the Faith; the abandonment of Catholic musical tradition; the list goes on.


This personal anguish and holy anger is manifest in the writings of David Read, notably in his poems, ‘A Common Catholic Looks Back’, printed privately between 1976 and 1981. 
In his writings David Read laments the rupture in the tradition and liturgical practices of the Catholic Church  following  Vatican II.  


Since 2007, with the 'Summorum Pontificum', of Pope Benedict XVI, the traditional Latin Mass has enjoyed a gradual, but perceptable re-emergence in many countries, although still experiencing hostile opposition in many powerful ecclesiastical quarters. This will undoubtedly dissipate as intolerant modernist Bishops retire or die, and  more obedient Bishops, loyal to the Magisterium, take their place.  Although progress is slow, it is happening and I believe it will accelerate over time. David Read will be encouraged, as are many Catholics, by the words and actions of Pope Benedict XVI re-asserting the importance of tradition in the Church and the unequivocable right of all priests to say the traditional Latin Mass at any time.

       
          The Transfiguration of Christ (Andre Ivanov)


The following is just a small selection of David Read's poems, all  protected by copyright.


PREFACE


Sweet Catholic lady, honoured Catholic man,
I crave your pardon, writing as I can.
If some poor words of mine offend,
Forgive me pray, for I do not intend to shock.


Upon my rude interior is laid
A thin veneer of culture, and is made
A poetaster in some humble wise,
Of rough-hewn lump,(although in gentle guise), of rock.


Please be assured, before the work’s begun,
My cruder words are never used in fun;
They break from me when silly men annoy;
When shepherds, by their foolishness, destroy their flock.


So read my lines, and do not me condemn:
They may be hard, but hurt love lives in them.
A little warmth, when they have read their fill,
Perhaps from some cold hearts may still unlock.

                                                                    (c)David Read


BLAME THE TEACHERS


Not far from where you live my friend, exists a Catholic school,
And four times out of five my friend, so-called progressives rule
The school is much the same my friend, as others round about;
No stress put on R.E., my friend, morality left out.


The modern teaching ways, my friend, are different you’ll see,
From those in your young days, my  friend, no simple A.B.C.
The Faith is changed as well, my friend, the old books in the bin.
Humanities they sell, my friend, and let’s not talk of sin.


“O” levels head the list, my friend, and mammon must be paid,
So something must be missed, my friend, when timetables are made.
D’you  search your daughter’s mind, my friend, to find out what she’s heard?
Her faith’s a different thing, my friend, from yours, in thought and word.


Does your son know the Creed, my friend? And what the phrases mean?
They may not feel the need, my friend, on the progressive scene.
You’ll blame the teaching staff, my friend, for failing to supply
A steadfast Catholic life, my friend, and ask the reason why.


They’ll all be wrong but you, my friend, when your kids go astray.
There’s nothing you could do, my friend, to teach them how to pray.
But when you go up there my friend, your soul is opened wide,
St Peter strips you bare, my friend, there’s nowhere left to hide.


Responsibility, my friend, for generations more
God gave to you and me, my friend, to even up the score.
He will not say, “Hard luck, my friend, the teachers have to pay.”
No passing of the buck, my friend, for us on Judgement Day.


So take a long hard look, my friend, at what is on the slate;
For wrong must be forsook, my friend, before it is too late.

                                                                (c)David Read

                     St George slaying the dragon  (Raphael)


NEW CHURCH


This the new church, Father? Just wait a while,
In a few moments I’ll get back my smile.
Yes, it’s impressive; mod-art? Is that true?
(Looks like a concrete and brick public loo).


Let’s go inside, tell me, which is the door?
Nice purple carpet you’ve got on the floor.
But first of all, I must just say a prayer.
Oh yes, the Sacrament’s right over there.


Where? Oh I see, in this hole in the wall.
(Wouldn’t have known You were here, Lord, at all).
Cross made of chipboard and nails, very nice;
Three thousand  pounds?  Very cheap at the price.


Got to be with it, and artists come dear,
Look at the Stations, they’re all over here.
This is the confessional? Oh sorry, no,
That’s where the new amplifiers will go.


Must you be off, Father? See you again.
Phew! Now he’s gone, this a church? What a pain!
Look round the walls, not a statue in sight,
Stained glass that looks like two dogs in a fight.


Altar just like a juke-box on a stand,
Everything spiritual must have been banned.
Who paid the money for this monstrous fraud?
Were we so bad,You allowed it, O Lord?

                                                              (c)David Read



BELSHAZZAR


M  odernism, well, what’s in a name?
E  verybody likes to feel they’re in the game.
N  o-one wants to be the odd man out.
E  ven popes and prelates join the silly rout.


M  eaningful is what it all must be.
E  xpert planning worship now for you and me.
N  evermore the truth shall be the guide.
E  nd the dogmas, let’s all join the winning side.


T  heologians change the basic facts.
E  levations soon will be symbolic acts.
K  eep the answers from the people’s eyes.
E  nd their questioning with sweet and crafty lies.


L  ove your neighbour first is what you do,
U  nder modern thinking, God is number two.
F  irst, though, come to think, is always me:
A  fter me, the neighbour, God is number three.


R  ise and shine, and sing and dance and shout!
S  peak up loud, That’s what the Mass is all about.
E  nd the fasting, feast in solemn state.
N  ow, the Medes and Persians live within the gate!
                               
                                                         (c)David Read




POST SCRIPTUM


Almighty God and Father of mankind
Before you here, I humbly bend my head.
Forgive the pain that honest men may find
In these poor rhymes, and words that I have said.


Be merciful, O Giver of all gifts;
Such talent as you gave I wish to use
To help to heal the ever-spreading rifts
Caused by the power that your priests abuse.


Emotion’s voice, Lord, I try not to heed
With small success, for souls are cast away.
My conscience, which the priests told me would lead,
Speaks in a muddled tone, and err I may.


His hands are black, who dares the pitch to touch;
But who loves greatly is forgiven much.
                        
                                                             (c)David Read
                       

                         Resurrection of Christ   (Coypel)

NITTY GRITTY

Responsibility belongs to each of us alone,
Salvation still demands, you personally shall atone.
No standing up together shouting “We believe” will do,
The final nitty-gritty for your soul depends on YOU.

                                                                c) David Read

                                           ******************************

Finally a thought from St Alphonsus:-      
        
        "If beggars do not receive the alms they ask they do not cease asking;  they return to ask again.
         If the master of the house does not show himself any more, they set to work to knock at the door.
         This is what God wishes us to do:  to pray,  and to pray again,  and never to leave off praying"