Portsmouth Roman Catholic

As we remember today how Herod slaughtered all the male children of two years and under perhaps we may be unwilling to contemplate the Holy Innocents of today slaughtered by the million in their mothers' wombs.      Although there may be a slight nod of how terrible this is, that human beings are being denied their humanity and dignity ini the sight of God how many prayers are offered to God to relieve their sufferings.   Does your parish hold the day for Life every year which was originally meant to remind us of their deaths but was then changed to include a different threat each year and then quietly dropped to meet the requirement of ecumenism and diversity so that we could mumble that there is more that unites us with Protestants than divides us.   It is very much what a Labour MP told the young girls of Rotherham who had been raped.    "Shut up for the sake of Diversity" There is a new era of persecution arising in Britain towards those who would dare speak up for

T he hermits of the first centuries, who could not read the psalter, used to recite one Our Father and one Hail Mary in the place of every psalm; and in order to note the number they said, they made use of small stones, or of seeds strung on a cord. St. Dominic was the first who made the custom general of substituting one hundred and fifty Hail Marys for the one hundred and fifty psalms; hence the rosary used to be called the Psalter of Mary.  When, about the year 1200, the heresies of the Albigenseans wrought great mischief in the south of France and the north of Italy, St. Dominic was commissioned by the Pope to preach in refutation of their erroneous tenets. His efforts availed little, and he besought the aid of the Mother of God. She appeared to him, and bade him make use of the rosary as a weapon against her enemies. He accordingly introduced it everywhere, and before long it had effected the conversion of more than a hundred thousand heretics. The use of the Rosary soon spr

Last year I was visiting my son and we went to Mass in the local Church.   A visiting priest from another parish had been called in since the Parish Priest was on Holiday.   The visiting priest told the congregation that if they did not have more vocations then as the old priests died off there would be nobody to say Mass for them.   I spoke to him afterwards and he told me there were only 3 young men training for the Priesthood.   Now this was a larger diocese than Portsmouth and that shocked me.  I told him that in Portsmouth at that time we had 11 young men being trained as priests.  And today another  young man from my parish has put himself forward and that brings the position of applicants to 15.  So what is the secret? The first bouquet of praise must go to Bishop Egan.   He took over the diocese at a very difficult time and there wire many obstacles to overcome.   He had to juggle with those who opposed his views and yet say nothing the would cause them  anger.    Now that

A year before the children of Fatima were visited by Our Lady they had a two visits by an angel who taught them in the first vision to constantly say the prayer "O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy" In the second vision he appeared with the host and the chalice to give the children Holy Communion. This was an extraordinary visit.   He left the host and the chalice suspended in mid air and knelt with the children teaching them this prayer "Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son,and Holy Spirit I adore you profoundly and I offer you the most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference by which He is offended.  And through the Infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of you the conversion of poor sinners". Notice

Through Advent we are often occupied with our own particular need for salvation.   We are concerned with how far we are from God and Advent becomes a time of increasing our Faith.  But the Prophet Isaiah in Sundays reading looks beyond his own self and looks at the world around him and is conscious of how sinful mankind has become.   He asks God why he has let the world sink into  such a sinful place.   Surely He must care?   And yet it seems he has abandoned us. But Isaiah looks forward to the time when God will come to the help of the just and oppressed. Today in our world we can cry out like Isaiah.  "Why,Lord, leave us  to stray from your ways, and harden our hearts against fearing you?"   In our families our children are leaving their religious practices, in the world our children know little about chastity living and drifting into sexual relationships and in doing so they learn to despise marriage.    And of those who marry many ignore your law and often ignoring the

The Bishop of Portsmouth is to be congratulated  in speaking up for the Pro-Lifers who picket Abortion Clinics.   He should not be surprised however that he is not listened to by the Abortionist Industry and their supporters.   When Abortion was first introduced in Britain theca was to end Back Street Abortion although there had been a revolution in back street practice and only one deaths registered in the ten previous years.    But the Sex Revolution had begun and there was a need to use abortion when unprotected sex had taken place or whether contraception had failed.    It is hardt to understand that in Births Law Abortion is actually forbidden except in 5 circumstance, the last being in cases where 'the mental health of the woman would suffer'.    This of course opened the door to the idea that every woman's health suffered as a result of pregnancy and abortion on demand became the practice despite the law.  MILLIONS of babies have paid with their lives for the sexual

'Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array'. The above quote will be familiar to only a few Catholics today,   It was once on the lips of members of the Legion of Mary which was present in many parishes.    Fair as the moon and bright as the sun certainly describes Our Lady of Fatima but who exactly is meant by 'terrible as an army set in battle array?'   Certainly Our Lady appeared to ask us to pray for the conversion of sinners many of who were going to Hell for their sins as forewarned by her Son Jesus when he preachedHis Gospel.  Often we are trying and feel we are succeeding in living good lives when suddenly everything goes wrong  Like St Paul we often do the things we do not want to do rather than those that we want to do.   It is because we are involved in a war between Good and Evil and we are the children of Mary that the red Dragon wishes to devour in Revelations 12    We

The Second Fatima Evening will take place at St Josephs, St Michaels Rd, Basingstoke, on Wednesday, 15th November at 7.30pm.   The idea behind this monthly event is to spread devotion to Mary and say the Rosary as she requested at Fatima.   Fatima is either a genuine apparition or a fake. If it was genuine then surely we should show our love by listening to her.    We want to start again the Family Rosary and find ways of involving children by saying the Rosary in a way that children will enjoy.   Hope to see you there.

Does Mary have a good relationship with the Catholic Church?   Or put another way do bishops, priests, and people give her the attention she deserves, especially when she appears on earth pleading for her Son? Let us examine the evidence.   The first of her apparitions of the 19th and 20th Century was at La Salette.  Two children Melanie, 14, and Maximin, 11, came across her weeping.   She revealed to them that her Son disapproved of so many people using his name in blasphemy in conversations and how the people no longer kept the Sabbath as special day for God.   She also gave them a secret.  My understanding now is that a secret is something the visionaries have to write down at a later stage so that the message as given will not be misrepresented.   After much interrogation by senior members of the Church and even St John Vianney, the children were found to be speaking truthfully.   When the secret was written how caused great consternation.   Melanie had set up a convent to spread

Above is a picture of the people of Poland demonstrating against the power of the EU who want them to accept 160,000 migrants.  Poland is also in a fight against Gay Marriage, Abortion, and all the evils that the West has decided is good for a country.    Poland is part of the Fatima message for she too struggled under Communist errors for so many years and her history is one of struggle against being conquered by other nations and especially the Moslem armies.   It was one of her sons's Pope John Paul II who brought Fatima alive again when in 1982 he miraculously survived an attempt on his life on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.    He handout doubt that Our Lady of Fatima had rescued him and went to Fatima where he perfomed with other bishops of the world the Consecration of Russia.   He then dared to visit his native Poland and in a remarkably short time the Iron Curtain was torn to shreds and Poland and the rest of Russian occupied Eastern Europe found itself free.   He t

I do not put myself forward as an expert on Fatima.   As just a lay Catholic I look at what Jesus taught, what he said in Matthew 28 about those who went forth to bring salvation to the world as having his Authority to teach people to 'observe whatever I have commanded you"   Not being an expert I therefore accept the teaching authority of the Church rather than my own conscience and when I am in doubt about anything in my Faith I go to the official teachings of the  Church and check in Scripture what Jesus said on the matter.   I do not use the modern idea of scripture and say "Well we must interpret this according to the times, and especially in the light of ecumenism".   That is a rejection of Jesus Christ - a total rejection of Jesus Christ, and accusing others of having a childish or immature faith does not excuse the insult to Christ in any way.   So as a faithful Catholic I have no difficulty nor do I have to question the Miracle of Fatima.   I am totally in l

Sometimes I wish I had been a Catholic at some other time rather than today, a time when the Church was united in the teachings of Jesus Christ and we all were on fire to spread the truths of Jesus and change the world to the Kingdom of Christ.   I did have that zeal when I was young, I wanted people so much to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ    I wanted to protect them from sin and hell.   I wanted them to love God with all their hearts and souls, and I wanted them to experience the love of Our Mother Mary. But where is that fire now.   Yes, I try to kindle it again but I find myself being seen as controversial if I try to do anything of that kind.   If I kneel for Communion I am judged.   If I receive on the tongue I am old fashioned.  If I confess my belief for all that the Church teaches I am stuck in the past while others have 'moved on'   I watched the exodus of so many children from the Church and I cried out but was silenced.   If I dared to contradict fals

"JERUSALEM, JERUSALEM, YOU THAT KILL THE PROPHETS AND STONE THOSE WHO ARE SENT TO YOU. HOW OFTEN HAVE I LONGED TO GATHER YOUR CHILDREN TOGETHER, AS A HEN GATHERS HER CHICKS UNDER HER WINGS AND YOU REFUSED.  LOOK1  YOUR HOUSE WILL BE DESERTED, FOR I PROMISE YOU SHALL NOT SEE ME ANY MORE UNTIL YOU SAY 'BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD" These words are spoken by Jesus as he looks down on the city of Jerusalem before he enters it to be mocked and crucified.   His lament spoke of the many times when the Jewish people were deciding that the laws of God and His righteousness were too difficult for the choices they had made in their lives.  When their evil spread God would send a prophet to try and lead them back to His laws and His  Commandments.    Yet they were, as Jesus said, killed and stoned for proclaiming His words.   Their leaders saw themselves as the wise ones and perhaps they ' did not want to turn the clock back' When Jesus established His

I'll Sing a Hymn to Mary is a beautiful hymn which I sang in my young days when devotion to Mary was part of our Catholic Church as it had been for centuries.   She is still of course part of OurCatholic Church but when the 'educated classes' came into our Churches and Schools in the seventies and eighties they decided that devotion to Mary was a hindrance to Ecumenism.   In this they followed a Vatican II priest Karl Rahner who rejected a discussion document on Our Lady which he said "would put Ecumenism back ten years"   This presented a picture of hard line Protestants refusing to talk to Catholics while such devotion was part of the Catholic Faith.    If Devotion to Mary really did do this then what kind of ecumenism could this have been.   No Karl Rahner was using this as an excuse and a pretty poor one.   There was growing attack on Our Lady because her position was an inspiration to prayer and faithfulness to Jesus and that was the one thing that had to be

I was just listening to a report on the media that there is a growing rate of sexual assaults on young girls by young boys.   I thought it was quite remarkable that they had even noticed given the wisdom the schools have used in protecting young girls from, pregnancy by giving them contraceptives. In many schools teenage boys look at teenage girls and want to be the first.   Then we have the hypocrisy of political entities in our secular society shouting out about poverty and blaming everyone but themselves.   They are the ones who destroyed the concept of faithfulness of one man to one woman in marriage and destroyed its stability.  They are the ones who shout about different forms of marriage other than heterosexual, they are the ones who created a climate of sexual freedom in which marriages broke down through unfaithfulness and lack of commitment and  when they shout about poverty they ignore what is obvious that poverty is greatest among single abandoned mothers who either with on

Does God have a human side?     The reason I ask is that when they pray to God most people see Him as someone who just sits on a throne enjoying songs of praise and granting requests as He sees fit.   We love Him, well that is what we are expected to do. and  look upon Him as the great benefactor in our lives. We then learn that God became Man in Jesus Christ.   Now that perhaps answers the question, for in Jesus the Divine became Human.   Now that helps us to understand something for as men we are loving, feeling, compassionate and moved to help others.   But did God not have these virtues until He became man?    And for that matter can God like man experience sorrow and hurt?   When we read the Old Testament we see a God of anger although we often read of the God of Love.   The God of Anger we try to explain away for we want a God who in a modern phrase 'accepts us as we are'. and does not care if we sin, after all we are in another modern phrase "only human.   Let u

It is widely accepted that at the Presentation in the Temple the Prophet Simeon was inspired by the Holy Spirit to hear in the cry of a child the presence of the Messiah.     But there may well be a more down to earth explanation.    We know that Mary lived as a girl in the Temple for at least ten years and she and Simeon would probably have known one another. Simeon and Mary had something in common.  They both through their reading of scripture knew that the time for the birth of the Messiah had arrived.   Mary wanted to help the chosen Jewish girl in the birth and the raising of the Saviour and Simeon had just wanted  to see him before he died.     So when Mary left the Temple as all young girls did when they reached womanhood she would have said goodby to Simeon and discussed their hope in their wishes being fulfilled. Imagine the astonishment of Simeon then when he saw Mary in the Temple and she had related her story to him of the Angel Gabriel and the birth of Jesus.   What a

One hundred years ago today there was the great miracle of the sun in Fatima.   Three children had been claiming they were seeing Our Lady and she had given them secrets and asking them to pray for the conversion of sinners and to make sacrifices and recite prayers given to them by an Angel and OurLady.     The secrets had not been revealed and the people knew very little about how the children had responded to Our Lady for this was revealed later by Lucia whom our Lady had told would not go to heaven at the time of deaths of Jacinta and Francisco but was required to live on so that she could tell the whole story of the Apparitions and reveal the secrets when the time was appropriate.   You can find the revelation of the secrets in the book 'Fatima in Lucy's Own Words' The main point though is the 70,000 crowd who witnessed the miracle did not know about the warning that sinners were going to Hell, and the vision of Hell given to the children.   They did not know of the p

In Luke we come across the story of how Mary and Joseph having went with Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem for the Passover with friends and relations started the journey home and thought Jesus was with them.   After a day's journey they found he had been left behind and went back to Jerusalem to search for him and it took three days before they found him in the Temple sitting with the adults and discussing scripture and all were amazed at his knowledge for he was only 12 years old.    "Why did you do this to us"  Mary rebuked him "we have been searching for three days"   "Why did you search for me" he replied "Did you not know I would be in my Father's House" Something very special had happened.   Since she had given birth to Jesus, Mary was dealing with just another child like every other child.   He would play with them, laugh with them, help Joseph in the workshop, just another good little boy being loved and loving his parents.    A

Meeting starts with Rosary and Devotions at 7pm including readings DV|D called Finding Fatima will be played at 7.45pm Any Questions on the DVD or Our Lady before leaving. St Joseph's Church, St Michael's Road, Basingstoke.

Since there are those who would deny others the story of Fatima because it mentions Hell which they no longer believe in, I will put forward the teaching of Jesus on the subject and then go to what was the first secret that the children were told not to reveal at that  time in Fatima. The story of Jesus tells us quite clearly that however discomforting it is, however we would 'rationally' challenge his words, Jesus told us in no uncertain terms that there was a Hell and that people would go there.    We have for example the story of the Last Judgement in Matthew 25.  "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the Devil and His Angels".   There is also the story of the rich young man who asked Jesus what to do to earn 'eternal life'.   Jesus told him to obey the Commandments.     But let us turn to Fatima. Having assured the children that they were all going to Heaven Our Lady gave them a vision of Hell. The vision Lucy told us

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.    It had its origins in the Battle of Lepanto when a Moslem fleet sailed to conquer Europe in the 16th century.    The fleet was opposed by another fleet organised by the Holy League, a group of countries fighting against the Islamic attempt to conquer Europe.   The Pope organised a Rosary Crusade throughout the Church and as the Christian fleet sailed towards the enemy every sailor and soldier went down on their knees to pray.    The result was a great victory and the continent was yet again saved.    Great thanks and praise was given by the people to Our Lady of the Rosary.     In the 18th century the Islamists were at the gates of Vienna  and the city was about to fall.  Again their was the rosary and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.   The city was saved by the arrival of a Polish army who destroyed the enemy and freed Vienna. But where does Fatima come into this?   I find it strange that Our Lady told the children that she would

"At the Cross her station keeping, stood the lonely mother weeping, close to Jesus to the last" In the Stations of the Cross we come upon Mary at the Fourth Station.   Jesus has been condemned to death, he receives his Cross, and weak from the pain and sufferings he has endured during the night, he falls to the ground under the weight put upon him.   Then he looks up and she is there, her eyes upon him, offering him her heart and giving him back the will to continue.   His mother knows what he must do, why he must continue, and she will be there with him every step of the way Perhaps like other mothers in this situation she should have hid herself somewhere so that she did not see the agony inflicted on her son.   But Mary and Jesus had been preparing fort this moment all their lives.   It was foretold in scripture, it was foretold to her by the Angel Gabriel, and the voice of Simeon in the temple had warned her of this hour.   She was ready, her son needed her at this mo

Devotion to Mary is not scriptural.   Mary is a creature just like you and I.   We have Jesus as our mediator with God, so Mary is not needed in any way whatsoever. This was very much the position of the Protestant Faith until the Reformers within the Catholic Church decided that in order to bring about an Ecumenical church certain Catholic beliefs had to go and among them was the position of Mary. The first thing to say is that Mary was never a creature just like you and I.   Yes, she was made like you and I, but the role she was to undertake as Mother of Jesus, the Son of God, meant that she had to be someone with the fullness of Grace and Holiness that was needed by someone who was to give birth to the Holiest of Holies.    Her sinless son would need a sinless mother whom he could love with all his heart and be united to her as a loving son.   So Mary, as the angel Gabriel said, was born "full of grace", indeed this grace filled her soul at the moment of conception

OUR LADY OF FATIMA EVENING AT ST JOSEPH'S BASINGSTOKE. TUESDAY OCTOBER 10TH AT ABOUT 7.45PM AFTER OCTOBER DEVOTIONS AT 7PM............There will be a documentary DVD shown at St Josephs on the above date concerning the appearance of Our Lady and the subsequent Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917. Our Lady through three little shepherd children warned us about the future wars and destruction the would happen unless we followed her simple plan of saying the Rosary, do ing penance, and consoling God for the offences against him who already was suffering so much. We have had many apparitions before but this one was so special that God Himself showed his approval of Our Lady's Message by allowing 70,000 people to witness His power by causing the Sun to dance in the sky and then appear to fall to earth. The Miracle was foretold and many of the crowd were there to laugh and scoff, but stood there speechless. There is something in us that makes us feel disturbed when Faith is challeng

The mother of our new Priest came to spend a week in the Parish.   I went to the Parish Office for a few minutes and on my return I saw about a dozen women surrounding her and asking her questions and sometimes interrupting one another.     She was the mother and she could answer so many questions about her son. This was probably the life of Mary when Jesus began his ministry.   When she appeared on the scene people would have approached her and asked the questions about his background his infancy and so many other things they wanted to know and only a mother could provide the answers.   After the crucifixion Mary became even more of a resource for the disciples when they tried to see the mind of Jesus in whatever they did.   She was there with the disciples in the Upper Room as they waited for the Holy Spirit, probably surrounded by the disciples just like the mother of our Parish Priest.    Her wisdom and insight into the future was invaluable.    And questions about what Jesus tau

The rosary is a most precious gift to the Catholic Church.   That Mary herself appeared at Lourdes and Fatima to accompany the visionaries in its recitation gives credit to the claim by St Dominic that it was Mary herself who revealed it to him.   There has been many occasions on which the last defence  of the Church was the saying of the Rosary by faithful Christians. In 1571 for example the Moslem Ottoman Empire assembled a large fleet containing thousands of soldiers to invade Europe.   Europe was in peril and the Pope Pius V instructed the people to turn to Mary and say the Rosary.   Indeed when a smaller number  of Christians went out to face the enemy on every ship the crew and soldiers joined together to say the Rosary.   The Moslems initially had the wind behind them and were threatening to crush the Holy League as the opponents of the Moslem Empire were called.   Suddenly the wind changed direction and the advantage now was with the Christians who now had the wind behind the

I have spoken so much about the relationship between Mary and her Son Jesus.   That bond of love which united them was certainly the love of a mother for her son, but on the part of Jesus it was not just a son for his mother, for he and God the Father could never have succeeded in their plan of salvation without such a wonderful, devoted, and holy woman.    She was the bridge between the Father and the Son, for to be born truly human God the Son humbled Himself to taker  the flesh of Mary.  As she cared for Him throughout his life Jesus experienced the best of being human.   When things went wrong she was there to put it right again.   When he doubted  his calling she was there to strengthen his Faith.  When he fell, she was there to raise him up again and tend to his wounds.    She was always there for him.   On Calvary she wept and suffered for him.   No, Mary was no ordinary woman she was an extraordinary one chosen by the Father as a special daughter  and gift to His Son. Bu

Mary had left the Temple and was now betrothed to a man called Joseph, although the final stage of the marriage had not yet happened.   Mary was probably still asking God to let her see the Messiah who was according to the writings of King David expected to arrive at this particular time..   Perhaps she also still wanted to serve the chosen Mother of the Messiah which was what she had prayed for in the temple.    Whatever her thoughts were they were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a young man.    He bent or knelt before her.  "Hail, full of grace".    He did not say "Rejoice, highly favoured one" a recent modern corruption of Luke, he said as scriptures faithfully translated for just less than two thousand years "Hail,full of grace, the Lords is with you?"   He could have said "Hail Saintly One" because the reason he was there was not because God had chosen Mary from a short list suitable candidates, but because she had been fashioned and

As we discovered when Mary was born she was totally pleasing to God.  As she became a young child she seemed to have wonderful gift of reasoning beyond her years.   Her parents Joachim and Anne had wanted children but until Mary came they were barren .   They promised God that if they did have a child then the child would be dedicated to His service.    Mary at the age of three was so close to God that she asked  them to allow her to be a Temple Virgin.   They both agreed and took her to the Temple in Jerusalem where girls would work and be schooled in scripture until they were fourteen.   Mary undertook her tasks there with love and dedication and growing closer to the God she loved. Mary would begin her day in prayer and since there was an expectation growing that the time for the Messiah had arrived, she asked God to let her see the Messiah before she died and would often slip into the Temple at midnight from her cell to ask this request over and over again.  She vowed she would b

Whenever we are given a mission by God we are always given the graces needed to carry out the task.   The Trinity had a plan to for the salvation of man from sin and death so did they look at all the young Jewish girls and decide which one was the best to be the mother of Jesus.?   And did they decide that a young girl in Nazareth would do, and sent Gabriel to announce she was the candidate chosen?    Unfortunately Mary is given so little attention these days that one could quite believe that this was the case.   Yes, thank you Mary for being the mother of Jesus, remember to pray for us. When we read what Gabriel said to Mary "Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee"  we may prefer the modernist translation "Hail, highly favoured one.." since grace is not a word used much nowadays, and we might  even believe that it means the same thing.  Grace is a gift given by God to the soul and the meaning is totally different.   Grace in the soul is the measure of holines

St John Paul II’s consecration was accepted in heaven, as Sr Lucia subsequently testified on several occasions, because the Pope was “in union with all the bishops of the world”, exactly as Our Lady had requested. On that occasion, all the bishops of the world had received the text of the Pope’s act of consecration in advance, together with his invitation for them to join with him in making the act.        Following this consecration, Sr. Lucia was visited by the Apostolic Nuncio, and she confirmed that the consecration of Russia had indeed been accomplished, and that God had accepted it.  Within one years of the pope’s consecration, changes began peacefully within the Soviet Union. In Russia, on the death of Chernenko, on 11 March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party. In 1986, Gorbachev initiated the programmes of perestroika (restructuring), and glasnost (openness), which led to the process of democratisation and the thaw in attitudes towards religi

Well it is quite a shock for generations born after Vatican II to hear about sin and hell, the possibility that maybe God feels hurt, and even worse that in some way God would punish the world.   It really is not very nice   And in some cases it is even worse when Father has told his parishioners that nobody goes to Hell.  Surely Mary would not contradict Father?   OK, Jesus said the same thing in the Bible that Mary says,  but the Bible was of its generation and poor fishermen may have believed such things but in our educated modern times the Bible is only the starting point of Christianity and as such we talk about it with esteem, we parade it to the altar, but we cannot take seriously so much of it, and we conform for the sake of our Community, and in the end we all have our own ideas which  are easy to conform to and make Church going so easy on a Sunday.   Father will not talk with the authority that Jesus spoke with, and was so admired for, but in this day and age he knows he mus