Portsmouth Roman Catholic

This is a Miracle of Love.   The God who humbled Himself to be born as one of us, the God who loved us so much that he died on the Cross to share in our sufferings, such love is beyond our understanding.  The third  Miracle of Love we see above, the Creator who is so obsessed with his creatures that he feeds them with the Body he took at the Incarnation.   We are not worthy of such love, we are sinners, we break his commands so many times without giving him the slightest thought then there are those who claim with utter stupidity that they are worthy of Him.   That is why kneeling was made difficult by the Reformers.   It is probably the greatest heresy that has entered the Church. Many of us still kneel, and many of us want to kneel.   It is time to give the people a choice by having a small kneeler brought out at Holy Communion so that those who want to kneel can kneel, and those who want to stand can stand.   Put to the people and not committees about 90% in any parish would ag

Christmas is over for another year.    Now we can take up our lives where we left off, there are the January sales, there are the household chores, there are the people next door to put up with, and there are holidays to plan and the need to have better phones, more luxuries in life, and flirt around with some boy or girl.   Christmas came and Christmas went. Still it is good to have a period of sentiment about babies in the manger and angels singing, messages of peace and goodwill, and forgiveness and being good friends.   But these things have nothing to do with the real world, do they?   We are back to wars, rape, knife stabbing and poverty.   So what is thIs Peace on Earth singing really mean?   We seem to have less Peace on Earth that there was at the time of Jesus. It would seem then that the coming of this baby was a failure.   He grew up and died on a Cross and for some time afterwards his followers tried to live his teachings.  In the early ages after his life Christians w

This is the Kearney Family at the Panto Snow White and the seven dwarfs. There are a few missing. Getting together for Christmas is so important. We are fortunate that we live in harmony with one another for the is not the case in so many families. Christmas is a time to put away feuds and fighting and come together. Being loved is so important for our children. There are so many separated families these days and at Christmas it is important even in these circumstances fir the children to enjoy the parents they love. Perhaps where circumstances permit ,and there are may difficult cases, the parents should get together. Perhaps just getting together for Christmas Dinner, or a couple of hours in the evening, or just going to a pantomime, would remind the parents that their children need them both

I was listening to Cliff Richard the Pop Star introducing his Carol 'A Miracle of Love' when I realised that what he said was profound.   The Carol is about Christmas being about the baby, not the tinsels nor the parties, nor the celebrations.  He went on to say that in the Carol he never mentions God - for we know who the baby is. I got his point.   When we think of the nativity we think of the baby somehow being God and yet we still think God is looking down on him from Heaven.   But the baby and God are one and the same.   The baby is God humbling himself to share in our humanity, and in doing so has become a weak, vulnerable human being.  Cliff called his song 'The Miracle of Love', for how can God the creator love those he created so much The Nativity scene is the first of two later Miracles of Love, when this God allowed himself to be crucified and suffered all the pains and anguish of his creatures, and the third Miracle of Love we find in our Tabernacles and

The above is Bishop Michael Bibi of the Cameroons.   He has been stopped twice by rebels in what is called the Anglophone district  where there are separatists trying to claim independence from the Government.   Thank God he was spared when other priests have not been so lucky.   The separatists are calling on a ban on the use of cars on the road and the closing of schools.   The Catholic Church will not close its schools and is therefore being attacked and much of its property destroyed.   The Government militia are also hostile to the Church in this conflict and have also attacked and killed innocent people.   The separatists seem to roam in gangs and just pick their targets.   We must pray for an end to this terrible situation and remember in our prayers the wonderful priests from the Cameroons who serve in our Diocese.

This is Lizzie a young enthusiastic American convert to the Catholic Faith.   She is excitable in her presentations because she is bipolar.    But the young lady really loves Jesus, the Church, and the Catholic Faith. I like her references to Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch, especially her quote from Ignatius that where Jesus is there is the Church.   So what she teaches can only mean that the early Church worshipped Jesus as much as He is worshipped today in the Blessed Sacrament, although we have the sad exceptions.

"All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth Go therefore to all nations baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL I have commanded  you and I am with you always until the consummation of the world" Matthew 28. The above passage is about Authority, baptising, and teaching.  And since Jesus says he will be with us all days then that Authority will be with us all days. We are talking here about the Church Jesus founded and has survived until today in the Catholic Church.  Again in the seventies and eighties the Reformers [not Vatican II where it was taught in Lumen Gentium] trashed this.  We were told that no Church had the full truth and that Protestants and Catholics shared the truth together.   And the paid bureaucracy toured the Diocese telling us that Papal Authority was in 'Love and not Doctrine'.  I heard this remark in a Catholic Church before the Blessed Sacrament and there was

Having written about and spoke about the position of Tabernacles and Crucifixes on our Catholic altars and received no replies verbal or otherwise because the position is indefensible I now have to ask why with the recovery growing inside our Churches of our Catholic Faith there seems to be a refusal to put them back on the altar.   It is now recognised more that the Church is a House of Prayer and that Jesus Christ, True God and True Man, awaits us there in his humanity.   What a treasure beyond belief!   What an awesome God who humbled himself to share in our humanity. The answer lies in a structure which was formed in parishes to ensure minority rule - Parish Councils.       Now I know there are good Parish Councils which have developed and who see their role as was intended by the Universal Catholic Church to assist the priest in the running of the parish but in the seventies and eighties too many were formed to tell the priests how they run the parish and he must fall in line

Today was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. We had a wonderful Mass and even more wonderful sermon from out priest. But no special hymn to Our Lady was sung. I therefore lit two candles and started singing one after Mass. Devotion to Mary is an essential part of the Catholic Faith and do not let anyone tell you otherwise. She was chose by God the Father to be the Mother of his Son, Jesus. She was responsible for preparing Jesus for his mission, and indeed suf fered with him on Calvary. But to be the mother of Jesus she was preserved from that weakness to sin we are all born with which we call Original Sin. Mary was preserved from this. It did not mean she could not sin but by the privilege of being born without this weakness she could better resist temptation and help Jesus. What a scandal if she had turned out to be a sinner when she was the Mother of Jesus. Our Catholic Family is just that a family. It is not a 'community' as the world sees it for Mary the new Eve is

  I recently attended let us say a 'large Church'.  On entering the church I was confronted with an altar, yes to be expected, but behind the altar there was only a large white wall which contained neither a Tabernacle or a Crucifix.   I did find them eventually on a wall which I passed on the way to the toilets.   I show the crucifix above. The defence for this action if I asked would be "Well they did not have such things in the early Church so we are not doing it now whatever the guidance of the Church is today"   But we are not in the early Church and the only question we should be asking in relation to this is whether by not displaying the crucifix has the Church gained or lost?   The matter as always is settled by the words of Jesus "By their fruits you will know them".   So is the diocese flourishing, are thousands of people returning to Mass, are there innumerable vocations to the priesthood.   When I ask this question I am always reminded of C

I was talking to a young friend recently and he remarked on the position of the Tabernacle.   I asked him "Who gave permission for the Tabernacles to be removed from the centre of the Altar"    He replied "The Church"   I told him "Wrong" I was in a position to do so because I had lived through what was called the "Spirit of Vatican II".   I witnessed the deceit and dishonesty practiced on the people with regard to the Blessed Sacrament.   It all began when the Bishops of England allowed scholars or 'experts' from universities to teach us Church History and they appeared in many Diocese with the permission of these bishops to tell us that actually Adoration and Worship of that Sacrament had begun in the 11th century and somehow went beyond the beliefs of the Early Church.   Well they were experts.   The next move was for many priests to call into question the Real Presence.    I remember in a parish magazine I wrote in defence of the su

For two thousand years now Christians have celebrated Christmas and announced Peace on Earth and goodwill to those of 'good will'.    We have proclaimed that Christ will reign and better things are ahead.  During that period however all that has happened is that mankind has found more efficient ways of killing and fighting one another.    The bow and arrow and the sword made way for guns, machine guns, and eventually the Atom Bomb.   Institutions set up to forward the cause of peace are taken over by those who believe that peace is established if everyone does what they are told which means of course that they are right and objectors should be silenced.  As objective morality is replaced by subjective ideology, the rights of people to speak out is more and more denied by the establishment.   This builds up resentment among ordinary people who are neither left nor right but have to be labelled as such for the sake of the advancement of that ideology.    So we have people being d