Portsmouth Roman Catholic

I was complaining about St Bede's and the 'Tabernacle' there  but I have also came across other Churches where I have seen less than honour to Jesus.   In one  was a prayer meeting and at one stage there was Adoration.   So the priest went to some kind of box in the corner of the room, took out a host, and then wet back to the altar put it in some kind of monstrance and then we all adored    Well adoration is usually on bended knee but this Church followed the practice of having no kneelers so that we could not kneel.  We then had half an hour of 'Adoration'  and when it was over the priest took the host host from the 'tabernacle' and put it back in the box and the presence of Jesus was quickly forgotten.    Now the obvious question to any non-catholic is this, "If Catholics say they believe in the  Real Presence of Jesus why do they treat Him with such contempt?   Now let me say at once that I do not believe that the Cath...

I was involved in the Church prior to the publication of 'Humanae Vitae'.   There were many 'educated' people around then who were of the opinion that the Pope was going to change his mind and contraception would be approved.   Well, as they kept it wrapped by talking about married couples, and ignored every other consideration it did seem sensible from a worldly point of view.   Yes married couples were using contraception and in many cases forced to do so since the secular state was already breaking up marriage by forcing women to go out to work to pay for a mortgage.    And yes, there was no real safe natural family planning around, though we did hear that a Doctor Billings in Australia had found a safer method.   But this was a real dilemma for if the woman fell pregnant then how would the mortgage be paid, who would look after the children, all these honest difficulties were there. But of one thing I was sure, the Catholic Church COULD NOT  chan...

I am, as some may know, very devoted to Mary Queen of Scots. I have read almost every book written and came to the conclusion that she is the most lied about historical figure in history. Of course for four hundred years after her death what you believed about Mary was dictated by whether you were Protestant or Catholic,although not many Catholic books were published in her defence  There is now a film to be released this November amid much controversy. Unfortunately the  controversy is whether Elizabeth and Mary did meet as shown in the film or not. And great voices are raised that this is a distortion of history. We are told that the film is based on the book on Mary by a John Guy. This 'historian' claimed that he had produced the real truth on Mary, so let us examine what he says in the book. ON the murder of Darnley, yes, he goes into much description of the night Darnley was murdered, how Mary was with him, and how he didn not want her to leave but having describ...

I FOUND IT INTERESTING THAT THE LITURGICAL ARTS JOURNAL GOT IT WRONG AT FIRST GLANCE - IT IS NOT A TREE IT IS MEANT OT BE A BUSH AND REPRESENTING THE BURNING BUSGH ON MUNT HOREB WHERE GOD SPOKE TO MOSES. THE SECOND POINT IS THAT IT IS NOT A TABERNA CLE. A TABERNACLE HAS ITS OWN HISTORY AND SHAPE. THE ARK OF THE COVENANT WAS KEPT IN A TENT WHEN THE JEWS WERE IN THE DESERT BUT WHEN THEY BUILT THE TEMPLE THE ARK OF THE COVENANT, WHICH CONTAINED THE WORD OF THE LAW WAS ALSO KEPT IN A TENT. THE SPACE OUTSIDE THE TENT WAS KNOWN AS THE MEETING PLACE AND THAT IS WHY IN THE MAJORITY OF CATHLIC CHURCHES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD THE TABERNACLE IS SHAPE LIKE A TENT FOR IT NOT ONLY CONTAINS THE WORD OF GOD AS IN JEWISH HISTORY BUT THE WORD OF GOD MADE FLESH IN THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST.  OUR LOCAL CHURCHES ARE THEREFORE THE MEETING PLACES OUSDIE THE TENT AND HOLY PLACES AS MOUNT HOREB WAS A HOLY PLACE.    DID THE CHURCH THEN CHANGE ITS MIND AND SAY A TABERNACLE COULD BE ANY SHAPE? TH...

Heavenly Father, your Son Jesus built his Church on a Community of believers who would share One Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism.  Help us gather round that Son who cannot part from us and as Head of the Church draws us to Himself in the most beautiful Sacrament of the Eucharist giving us the strength to carry you message of hope and love to the whole world. But you are more than just our leader. for our parish Church is a Holy Place as Mount Horeb was once a Holy Place when you told Moses to take off his shoes before the burning bush.    The presence in our parish churches is your Son Jesus, a very human Son, who remains in the Tabernacle, the tent and meeting place with the Lord, waiting there for us as individuals to call on him.   He wants to be our friend, to talk to us about our lives and hopes, to listen to our stories, but most of all to help and advise us in times of trouble.   "Come you who are wearied  and have heavy burdens and I will give yo...

I have many reservations about the Eucharistic Congress in Liverpool in September.   A Eucharistic Congress is meant to further not just Community Devotion, and there is little enough of that, but also to foster an individual relationship with the Living Jesus we receive in Holy Communion into our souls, and that is each individual soul.     But let me quote from the introduction in the magazine ADOREMUS.    "In any living body the Head is an integral part of the whole   In the same way we cannot cherish the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, in isolation from the parish community in which most of us live........".     That could be acceptable in some circumstances but it is not what the majority of Catholics who do indeed cherish the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, have found.    Indeed when it came to Adoration the very people who knelt in adoration found that they were opposed by those 'who ran the parishes' with the tacit support of the...

In my last post I talked about the Tabernacle - now let us turn to the Crucifix. In the Jewish Faith there were offerings of animals to God in reparation for sin.   The family would bring an animal to be sacrificed in the Temple by the Rabbi.    When in the liturgy the Rabbi killed and offered the animal to God the sacrificed animal was then consumed by the family and friends of those who had offered it.   Somehow in being joined to the dead animal they believed that they somehow in this connection they were part of the Sacrifice. When Jesus was sacrificed on the Cross he could not be cut up and shared with humans in his mortal form.    Yet he had told his followers that they must eat the flesh of the so of Man and drink His Blood.   This surely was an impossible.    If his followers were to participate in the Sacrifice following the Jewish custom they would have to have eaten him after his crucifixion.    How could this be ...

This is  my Parish Church.    It has everything in order as approved by the teaching of the Church and the Documents of the Church.   Vatican Ii did mention a practice which existed already about adoring Jesus in the Tabernacle in a side chapel in Cathedrals and places where there were many visitors who would disturb people at prayer.    They did not introduce anything new in this, for this was the practice already in existence, but they re-emphasised it.   Westminster has their Blessed Sacrament Chapel long before Vatican II So why when there was no authority for it were tabernacles moved ut of the way.    So the people were then a community without their head Jesus Christ.    I am reminded of the words of Pope Joh Paul II when a Cardinal asked him why he did not restore his authority in the Church and his answer was "Unfortunately, my authority stops at that door"    The anti-Christ was already running the Vatican ...

O my last Watch before the Tabernacle my reading from Fr Racine moved from how much God loved me to the question of how much I loved God.   He quoted the First Commandment "Thou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart ad all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength"   Now if Jesus was to appear on the altar at next Sunday's Mass, face the community and ask the question "Those of  you who really love me will you put up your hands"    Knowing that He knows our hearts, just how many people would indeed put up their hands?   Would it be the majority, would it be half, would it be a minority, or perhaps just one or two people?   Some might ask "What do you mean?    How will I know if I really love you?    Jesus will answer as he did in the Gospels,  "If you love me you will keep my Commandments"   At this perhaps some who enthusiastically put their hands up will quickly take the down again. "I am the Way...

It was St Bernadette who first protested against the images of Mary.  On being shown the statue at Lourdes she cried.  "But Mary is nothing like that, she is alive she moves"    I knew what she meant when I visited Lourdes and saw a grim faced Mary being carried in procession.  As she was carried in the torn light  procession she swayed from side to side and she looked like a person scared stiff of being dropped to the ground.    There seems to be a fear of making Mary look like an ordinary woman with a smile on her face.  Is it some kind of sin I wonder to make her look like a young girl happy with a baby like any other young girl.     Are we afraid to make her look 'ordinary'.    Are we afraid she might have laughed and giggled with the other girls in Nazareth instead of remaining in her room in prayer?   Now let us settle one point, Mary did not know she was going to be the Mother of Jesus.    She the...