Portsmouth Roman Catholic

John 2:1-12...   English Standard Version (ESV)...... The Wedding at Cana.......   On  the third day there was a wedding at  Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.,   2  Jesus also was invited to the wedding with  his disciples. 3  When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4..  And Jesus said to her,  “Woman,  what does this have to do with me?  My hour has not yet come.”   5..  His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6..  Now there were six stone water jars there  for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty  gallons. [ a ]   7..  Jesus said to the servants,  “Fill the jars with water.”  And they filled them up to the brim.   8..  And he said to them,  “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.”  So they took it.   9..  When the master of the feast tasted  the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), th

I often take the opportunity to view my blog as the ordinary person sees it when looking in.   Now in this blog page I expect to see my most recent blog at the top, but recently there was what was called a 'highlighted blog' which remained at the top and put the most recent blogs into second place.   It was easy to remove, but I wondered who had managed  to do this.   I had such a highlighted blog before, which I left there while I thought about why someone wanted such a  blog to be highlighted.      The key was that they were controversial blogs.   I eventually came to conclusions about both of them.   The first blog, was on the subject of a college being removed.    It was more a report than my ideas, but I concluded that I had nothing to be ashamed of in writing this blog, so eventually I removed it.   The second and very recent was on Cafod and on reflection I felt ashamed that I had written it.   It was dated 2016, and I mention talking to a priest and then attacking Cafod

Talking of Mary as the Co-Redeemer has no difficulty for me, nor should it have for any other Catholic.       We have seen in my last blog how Mary was specially chosen by God, indeed at the moment of her birth she was given all the gifts  of the Holy Spirit for the role of being the Mother of Jesus.   Now perhaps God the Father could have chosen another way to save mankind from sin, but he did not, he created a human being, a woman, and gave her a very special role, to nurture and care for the spiritual and human well being of His Son.   She was someone who was specifically created to look after him as a child and an adult, and to be with him until his task was done.   Did God the Father depend on her.  He most certainly did.   She could have freely turned down the deal she was given by Gabriel, for she was born with free will like others, but no,  "Let it be done unto me according to thy word"    Now suppose she had said "No Thanks"    All those plans He had made,

It is not often I switch in this blog to politics, although in my facebook I often comment on religion.   But the case of Dominc Cummings has now caught the eye of certain bishops in the Church of England who may well wish they had left the things of Caesar's to Caesar, and the things of God to God. The story is a family one.    Dominic and his wife contracted Covid-19, but they had a four year old son.  Realising that they may soon be unable to look after him, they got in touch with their family members who offered to look after him since they knew the child and the child knew them.    So they took the child to Durham which was over 200 miles away, handed him over at the door of their parents, and continued to self isolate in their sisters house till the next day when they returned to London.    In other words they were protecting a venerable person, their child, which meant they broke no rules.   Indeed they acted utterly responsibly.    They demonstrated that they were in fact

Ever since the lockdown I have shopped with my wife in the local Co-operative.  I have never had to queue at the door for it is not a supermarket.   People do try to keep to the social distancing rules although in a few cases keeping two meters apart is broken.   Suddenly other stores are opening, such as Homebase.   We had to queue for perhaps ten minutes to get into the store but once inside there was little difficulty in the art of social distancing, as staff supervised our movements.   One place I go however, where I would, even in normal circumstances, be the only visitor is my parish Church.    I used to go there weekly on a regular basis so I know.   However I cannot enter, since it is forbidden for the Church to open their doors, so I just pray outside to the Blessed Sacrament within.   So I can go to the Co-operative and keep apart from about 20 people in a small space, and in Homebase perhaps with around 50 people in a large space, but why is it that Churches cannot just op

A sister from my parish brought me, my wife, and son, a parcel of food last Thursday given by the parish, and enquired as to how I was.   It was a lovely gesture and really appreciated.   But when I say 'sister' was I referring to a nun?   No, she is my sister because she is a daughter of Christ the New Adam, as St Paul told us, but more she is the daughter of Mary the New Eve, as the Early Church Fathers taught.   When I go to Church on Sunday, I am part of that great family you will find mentioned in the last verse of Revelations 12.   And my family is not reserved to my nation, I have Indian brothers and sisters, Philipinno, African , Asian, every human being on earth, whatever race or colour, is a daughter or son of Jesus and Mary. Maybe this is just a sentimental thought which helps us in our prayers and devotions, but there is no way in the physics sense that we can be related either to one another or to Jesus.     And that is where the receiving of Holy Communion is im

Now that families are locked down together we have news that many are growing closer together and family life is being encouraged and indeed promoted by the media.   This is all to the good.   Unfortunately there is the other side where the story is that parents are being imprisoned together and probably hatred rather than love is leading to violence both on a partner and the children   This is not so good. So many young people are in what they call relationships.   They meet someone to whom they are strongly attracted and they believe this attraction is love.   They go on to confuse sex with love and this keeps them together for a time.   They may even get married.   But the attraction is an illusion of love and not love itself, and when trials come that test how much one partner is devoted to the good of the other, the relationship collapses.    If they conceive children, then the children grow up without experiencing the love of a father for a mother or a mother for a father, two

During this self isolation period, I visit my own parish for streaming of the Sunday Mass.  This is the Church to which I belong and where my heart is.   During the week however I visit the National Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham for Mass at 9.30 then when it is finished my wife and I carry on with our morning Rosary so that our mornings follow the same pattern except we do not have to walk to Church and back.    We then have our breakfast and get on with the chores, my son Kevin and I have our exercise walk, and we often travel quite a distance, and we do some shopping.     We usually return to the Shrine at  3pm for the Divine Mercy Chaplet followed by Benediction and the Rosary.   Recently I have added 4pm to my schedule for the Shrine is showing a wonderful programme called Sycamore.   Like Alpha it is a TV series to promote discussion, but it has far more depth and raises a lot more questions than Alph did.    It discusses the existence of God, and goes on to take about why peop

After my own parish Mass I went on Sunday to the National Shrine at Walsingham for the 12 o'clock stream.  It was the first Sunday in May, so Mgr Armitage before Mass crowned the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham.   He led us in the hymn 'Bring Flowers of the Rarest' while doing so.   I was given again the 'gift of tears' and believe me it is a gift.   For those of us whose concentration is mostly around self, or we still do not believe deeply enough, to be caught up in what others would call sentiment is not a bad thing.  We do not want to cry, and we are not doing so from stimulus outside ourselves which are meant to take over  our emotions.   No we just catch a glimpse of our own unworthiness before what is beauty and truth.   That is why I love Mary.   She does not demand anything of me.  Her only wish is to draw my attention to the beauty and truth of her son, Jesus, by telling me what He has done for her.  For she is a creature just like me.   But she was exalt

This is the month of May a month dedicated to Our Lady.   There is something I must unburden myself with, however, no matter how boring others may find it.  I do not believe that, let us say, 'modern scholars' are being truthful when treating Mary in the Gospel of Luke.   When it comes to scripture the Catholic teaching is that we do not rely on 'scripture' as the authority of who catholics believe and do not believe.  We are not a 'sola scriptura' Church, but if we were I would be even more outraged ,for the idea that you could in such a situation just change the words of the Gospel to help people understand better is an insult to our intelligence.   If you change the words you so easily  change the meaning, and that is before we boldly proclaim what the Holy Spirit has told us in our own interpretations.  So let us return to Luke 1:28.   Did Luke write that the angel said  "Hail, full of grace....' or did he right "Hail highly favoured one