Portsmouth Roman Catholic

...He ascended into Heaven, and is seated at the Right Hand of the Father, and He will come again in glory to judge the Living and the Dead..... So we have moved on now to talk about the Last Judgement.   I must confess that the Last Judgement  is not one I look forward to in any way whatsoever.   Jesus will show us the real picture of our lives, how we treated others, how we used others to sin, how we judged and belittled others, how we lied to ourselves.   Well perhaps not everyone will be judged that way for there are good souls in the world, but I am not one of them.     I cannot comment on the judgment of anyone nor would I try for I am t be judged.   Now anyone, who when I die wants to put me forward for canonisation, will find a lot of obstacles in the way.   He will find what is called 'the sins of my youth' when I turned my back on God and was guilty not just of sin, but of very grevious ones.   I was not the person inside whom people judged from the outside.   Altho

....And he rose again on the Third Day according to the Scriptures... Now from a human point of view the death of Jesus should have been the end of the story.   Only John was there at the Cross, and he was looking after Mary.   Where were the other disciples?   They had all gone into hiding full of fear for their own lives.    Yes, even Peter who had said just the night before "Lord, I would be ready to go to prison with you, and to death", he who was chosen as the leader and head of the Apostles, was not to be found.    O yes, being faithful in good times is easy, but when we are tested, when we face ridicule, when we are silent as our enemies sneer at us and ridicule us, that is when we need True Faith.   And how many of us will pass the test.   "Leave it for God to sort out" we tell ourselves.  "Do not upset people, after all we are a community"..  The excuses go on as our young people leave schools convinced atheists and want nothing to do with the

.... was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried. .... Again we have a humble Jesus, the Son of God, humiliating Himself for us his creatures.   There are degrees of love, but this God is obsessed with us.   When we look at a crucifix we see a love which is beyond all reason, and that is why we should have a crucifix in our homes and on our altars.   But God does not want us to be ashamed of the crucifix or put it at the back of our minds.   How much does God love us - this much, as He stretches out his arms.    If we cannot look upon a crucifix and see how much God loves us, then we are unthankful and ungrateful. But again I ask, why does He bother with us?   His Church is full of lukewarm people who want Jesus to walk their way rather than listen to His Way.     Who want a Jesus who fits into their ways  rather than follow his ways.   Do they go to church on Sunday to listen to the Gospel and to celebrate Calvary being celebrated in our time?   Or is

Et Homo Factus Est When you sing this Creed in Latin at the above phrase the music slows as we kneel in adoration..  'And Was Made Man'.    Again the breathtaking love of God for us, his creatures, should move us to tears.   He so delights in us that to help us in our struggle he became one of us.   But why?   Again I turn for the answer to my childhood catechism.   To save us from sin and hell, and to show us the way to Heaven.     He did this by gathering disciples around him and telling them "Go 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 all days even to the consummation of the world".   Baptism in the first step.   "Unless you are born again of water and the Holy Spirit, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven".   So what happens at this baptism?.   The Holy Spirit enters our souls and fills them with grace, which helps

We have seen how Mary looked after Jesus in His childhood and Youth.   Let us now turn to Jesus the Man.   At about 30, Jesus began his mission and gathered some followers.    At the Marriage Feast of Cana we are told he was there with his Mother.    We have a story where Mary told Jesus there was no wine left.   Jesus replied "What has that to do with us, my hour has not yet come"   But Mary told the stewards to do whatever Jesus told them to do, and we had the miracle of the water changing into wine, so the first Miracle of Jesus was worked at the request of his Mother.   But let us try to sketch the bakground to this and get a more human story. Now the family of the bride were in trouble.    They had run out of wine.    It was a possible humiliation for them and they did not tell the guests but turned to Mary, for she was obviously a woman they could trust.    Mary had no ideas but she knew someone who could help in this situation and that was her Son Jesus.   She did no

... et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine et homo factus est.....                                                                                                                                                          The 'incarnatus' was achieved by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.    She was not a surrogate mother, she let the Holy Spirit use her flesh as the flesh of the baby Jesus.   She was a normal mother who loved her baby as most other women do.   She was the Mother of Jesus and over 100 year later in 431 AD The Fathers of the Church would acknowledge her to be just not the mother of the human Jesus but also of God Incarnate, she was given the title 'Mother of God'.   What a wonderful honour for any woman!   So she walked through life with her baby Son with no worries, no cares, and as some say 'keeping her mouth shut'.   What a travesty of the truth this is!   To give birth to Jesus, she had to travel to Bethlehem, and if God was o

"Who for us men, and our salvation, came down from Heaven" As I have said before this is incredible.   Most Gods in the pagan world look upon what they presumably created as just toys or play things.   There is no indication of compassion or love.   Yet our God has both.   It is of course  impossible to look into the mind of God, but we do see his actions. He had created a creature that was free to Obey Him or Disobey Him.    And as I learned from the Catechism 'made in his own image and likeness".    Now when I say he made 'man' I am using biblical language but the term 'man' means 'mankind', which includes women.    Females who want women priests usually claim that the phrase 'in His own image and likeness' means that God is a man, quite rightly deny this, then go on to defend their sex.     The answer is in the old Penny Catechism where so many answers are found.     IS THIS LIKENESS TO GOD IN YOUR BODY OR IN YOUR SOUL.   This lik

Born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, Consubstantial with the Father, and through Him all things were made It is remarkable just how far the above goes to describe the relationship between Jesus and the Father.   What the Fathers at the Council of Nicaea were doing in composing the Creed was to demonstrate that God and the Son are One.    "Lord, show us the Father"    "Have I been with you so long and you do not know me" Jesus replied "When you see me, you see the Father"    Now as the Early Church worked out just who Jesus was, there were many people with ideas that the Church examined and found wanting.   One of these was a heresy called Arianism.   They claimed that Jesus was in fact a Divine person created by the Father and separate from the the Father.   At the Council of Nicaea this was condemned.  God and the Son were One.   The Council of Nicaea met in 325 Just to examine thi

Born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, Consubstantial with the Father, and through Him all things were made It is remarkable just how far the above goes to describe the relationship between Jesus and the Father.   What the Fathers at the Council of Nicaea were doing in composing the Creed was to demonstrate that God and the Son are One.    "Lord, show us the Father"    "Have I been with you so long and you do not know me" Jesus replied "When you see me, you see the Father"    Now as the Early Church worked out just who Jesus was, there were many people with ideas that the Church examined and found wanting.   One of these was a heresy called Arianism.   They claimed that Jesus was in fact a Divine person created by the Father and separate from the the Father.   At the Council of Nicaea this was condemned.  God and the Son were One.   The Council of Nicaea met in 325 Just to examine thi

Born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, Consubstantial with the Father, and through Him all things were made It is remarkable just how far the above goes to describe the relationship between Jesus and the Father.   What the Fathers at the Council of Nicaea were doing in composing the Creed was to demonstrate that God and the Son are One.    "Lord, show us the Father"    "Have I been with you so long and you do not know me" Jesus replied "When you see me, you see the Father"    Now as the Early Church worked out just who Jesus was, there were many people with ideas that the Church examined and found wanting.   One of these was a heresy called Arianism.   They claimed that Jesus was in fact a Divine person created by the Father and separate from the the Father.   At the Council of Nicaea this was condemned.  God and the Son were One.   The Council of Nicaea met in 325 Just to examine th

I believe in One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son....." In  the Catechism I read at school there was this question:- Where is Jesus Christ? Answer;     As God, Jesus Christ is everywhere, but as GOD MADE MAN  He is in Heaven and in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. What this answer is saying is that in Spirit Jesus is always with us, He guides us He listens to us, he is  always present, but in the Blessed Sacrament we have the physical presence, He whom we will fall down and adore at our judgement, really present with us.   "Behold I am with you al days, even to the end of the world"   "But surely" some will say, supporting ecumenism and the Protestant position, "This is all medieval stuff"   But the writings of the early Fathers show this to be totally untrue.  Let us quote from JND Kelly, a Protestant Historian of the early Church, who wrote "Eucharistic teaching it should be understood from the outset was unquesitionably real

In my last post, I was talking about the existence of God, but I have since realised there is something even more wonderful in our Creed - FATHER ALMIGHTY.   This word Father gives us a relationship with God - He is our Father.   I remember the great convert Scott Hahn relating how he had had words with a Moslem on this.   To the Moslem this claim was ridiculous.  To God we are just  things he has created, we are like dogs at his table waiting to snatch whatever food he sends us.    And there is much in what the Moslem said, for if there is a God who created us, on what basis can we claim this relationship? The answer lies in the Incarnation, when God selected a woman, Mary of Nazareth,  to become the mother of His son, and in the mystery of the Trinity, that means that the Godhead itself became Man.    O what is man that you should raise him to such heights!   That you should grant him so much love.   Little wonder that in scripture Jesus is compared to a bridegroom coming to his br

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven an earth and of all things visible and invisible". These are the words of the Creed which Catholics proclaim at every Mass on Sunday.   It is our personal declaration of why we are there.   We believe in God.   Not so long ago believing in God was the norm.   Certainly evangelisation in the early Church was much easier than today as far as belief in God was concerned.   It was a matter of persuading people that the Christian God was the true God.   Evangelisation  today is among people who have been persuaded that to believe in God, is rather old fashioned and out of date, we have a scientific society and not a superstitious one, "If there is a God", they say "Show him to us".   We are not going to waste our time talking to an imaginary friend". Sadly the scientific mind has persuaded the majority of young people to stay away from our Churches.   Confirmation classes are notorious for young p

Another document has been drawn up by 'experts' appointed by the Vatican.    Now whenever I hear the word 'expert' it makes me freeze.   "O not again" I say to myself.    I remember too well in the 60's and 70's all the 'experts' who were sent around the parishes to give them the benefit of their expertise and therefore unquestionable teaching on matters Catholic.    There was  the gentleman who went around the parishes with his book which unleashed the gullibility of lay catholics who apparently believed the priest changed the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  We were so stupid. I even heard someone insulting the parishioners by telling them "It is Hocus Pocus"   I must say that was an insult too far and I was furious.    "Hocus Pocus' was used as an insult to Catholics by Cranmer at the Reformation for daring to believe in Transubstantiation.    Then there were the two ladies who gave us this information at