Portsmouth Roman Catholic

 Yesterday we remembered the fate of the Holy Innocents.   These were the babies that Herod, in a state of terror himself, sent out his soldiers to murder, hoping that the Messiha would be among those killed.   I have watched films depicting this horror and I have always been moved by the plight of the helpless babies.    The mothers suffered too as they trued to protect their children.   For is that not what a true woman does, protect and even die to protect her young.   These babies were created as we are to know God, love God and serve God in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next. Yet even in the time of Jesus there were women trying to abort their children, or leaving them to die after birth.    Of course the woman were not all cold hearted, and I am sure there were many in very distressing circumstances, but there would be others who just wanted rid of the baby.   Their hearts for some reason had grown cold.   But the taking of a human life is against the Command

 Today at Mass we celebrated the Holy Family.   In this family we have the model of what God wants for every family, for Joseph was not just there to avoid prejudice against a single mother.    No, Joseph  played a leading role in the life of Jesus.    We know very little about how the dynamic of being man and being God interplayed in the person of Jesus, but we know to be truly human and live as others in those days of his birth, he would need a father who loved him, and lived and worked for his mother and himself.   But since Mary was also human, she would have loved St Joseph.    For had St Josep not given his life to her and her baby.  It is not something we give much thought to, since in our present society the word 'love' in a relationship always has vibes of sexual relationships.    But in the case of Joseph and Mary, this was a pure love.    They lived only to do the will of God.   So Jesus did not grow up missing the love of a father for his mother, or a mother for a f

 There is a beautiful prayer during the Mass which I quote from time to time on my blog.   It is when the priest pours water into the wine and says "Through the mingling of this water and wine may we partake in the divinity of  Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity"   Now this is what happened at that first Christmas the Father through the Spirit made the Second Person of the Trinity- Man But to make him truly human he had to be born of a woman.   And not just any woman.   For Jesus as a human would need the love of a mother like every other child.   But Jesus would also need someone who could, here on earth, accompany him on his mission, who understood why he was here, and was indeed the perfect mother for him.    Such a woman the Father had prepared for him in Mary of Nazareth.    When Gabriel came at the appointed hour to tell her of God's plan, he greeted her "Hail, FULL OF GRACE".    Now to be filled with grace other mortals need Baptism, whic

"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the Devil and his angels. These are the words of Jesus which today some people find shocking.   Indeed they get embarrassed and would rather not discuss the matter.   How could Jesus say such things?   No, a loving Jesus would not put anyone into Hell, and Bishops  and priests say "Ah, yes, there is a Hell but we can entertain the hope  that nobody actually goes there"   "But the Devil and his Angels are there, so why not humans"    "Now, now, there is no such thing as devils and angels"   "Well OK, I suppose Jesus was just pulling our legs to make us good"   Well that explanation makes sense to our new 'mature adults'.  Of course, if there are no commandments to obey this would become more reasonable and a very popular teaching.    Now we have learned the single people cannot commit adultery unless they choose to have a relationship with a married person, as w

I am old now and getting tired, I soon will be meeting Jesus Christ at my judgment and He will ask me to make an account of myself.   I will have very little to say on my behalf for I was a sinner for most of my life, but I hope that Mother Mary will speak up for me and tell Jesus how I defended His Church.    How I looked at what the Secular Society was doing to families, to children, and destroying hope in so many young people, and how I defended the victims of abortion both the child and the mother.    I fought against the secularists and when they entered the Church to destroy the teachings of Christ on such subjects as the family, the right of the child to a father and mother, his stand on divorce, and His Church where people were set aside to serve him, yet sought only their own version of him. They sought to destroy Him also through the removal of the Blessed Sacrament from out altars, so that they could be the centre of their own self worship.   Where Jesus had taught against a

 The Catechism of Christian Doctrine continues to confuse me.   Now here is something else I have discovered.   I have poor eyesight and small print I try to avoid,  but I decided to read one of the opening pages that introduced a Summary of the Catechism.    It contained the summary of the Catechism, yes, then a quote from St Paul, then I came across an Imprimatur from John Cardinal Heenan.   I looked at the date 1971.   Now why was there an Imprimatur dated 1971 on a Catechism published in 1985 when the Cardinal was no longer resident in Westminster?  But I had heard a a tape reel recording of the Cardinal in in 1966 when he had returned from the Vatican Council and of course like many other bishops he had not discussed the changes that were implemented by Vatican Committees after the Council.   He set up Corpus Christi College and was led on a merry dance by dishonest clergy who invited teachers and delegates from all over the country to listen to their lies.     He was of course co

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.   As I said my rosary this morning, I began to weep at the fourth Mystery the Carrying of the Cross.   I could see the scene before me as Jesus came out of the residence of Pontius Pilate.   He was beaten, scourged, with those thorns on his head, and a garment of mockery around him which soldiers had used to call him King.   His suffering was on his face, and he was a pitiful sight.    But what could his Mother do but show her own pain and anguish, and suffer with him as they both made their way to Calvary.   Never in history has there been so much love between a mother and son.   Mary too had begun her own passion, her own sacrifice of redemption.   Two hearts united in love of each other and for every man, woman, and child his cross would save.     When he fell, like an anxious mother of his childhood, she reached out to help him.  Then the journey over, she stood beneath the Cross, willing her son to die, and not face any more sufferi

 Sorry, I have to move forward to the 6the and 9th Commandments in the Revised 'A Catechism of Christian Doctrine' put out by the English Bishops in 1985.   I am asking for your help in this for I cannot work out whether the Bishops then were just plain 'stupid' or were they indeed heretics?   Now this Catechism is not one the people normally buy, and maybe I am the first one to have read it, but maybe others did read it and just binned it away in disgust, or just laughed at the stupidity. What is the sixth Commandment?     The sixth commandment is 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' then it goes on to the question What does the sixth commandment forbid?   The answer is "All sins of impurity WITH ANOTHER'S WIFE OR HUSBAND.   Now I am pretty sure that this is not what the answer was in the 1889 version.   However the bishops waste no time explaining and make the whole thing unintelligible by going back in th next question to the 1889 version.   Does the six

T................................ This post has been added to my blog since my right to free speech on my Facebook has been denied.  That is what thousands of people have been experiencing if they dare defy Facebook and support Trump and pursue their right to speak out.   Remember this is not about racism, gays, r trans people, this is just about my right to know what is in on in the world.    It did start with a post on Facebook about my early days of growing up in the Glasgow Slums which I linked with the notion that I was not privileged white.   This drew a warning and a suggestion to those who read m pst that I was only sharing this with a few friends.    I did not heed the warning but went on to post from You Tube, some videos criticising the what had happened In the American election.   I found myself barred from Facebook.   I managed to get back in through an alternative e-mail address, and deciding that I had every right to pursue truth I started posting more videos of the Amer

  What is Faith?   Faith is a supernatural gift of God which enables us to believe without doubting whatever God has revealed. Well this seems simple and straightforward or is it?   As I said before, this catechism is based on the teachings of the Council of Trent, and I am sure that on Faith a great deal more would have been said there.  Now the Council of Trent met to counter the rise of Protestantism which using the Bible brought up many disagreements with the Catholic Church.   Indeed the Calvinists claimed that Faith alone will save us, so how can so many people 'of Faith' disagree with one another.   The answer lies in our doubts, in our struggles to justify what we believe against the evidence of scripture and tradition.    When I was a young boy at school, everyone around me was catholic and the evidence was that every Catholic followed Jesus and the Church.  I had no doubts about my Faith.  When I was older, I saw that society was changing, and weighing the changes aga

Of which must I take most care of, my body or my soul?     I must take most care of my soul for Christ has said "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and SUFFER THE LOSS OF HIS SOUL". What must you do to save your soul?     To save my soul I must worship God by Faith, Hope, and Charity, that is, I must believe in Him, I must Hope in Him, and I must love Him with my whole heart.  St Paul spoke of being in a race, a race towards salvation, he has not yet reached the finishing line but he is striving forward.   He also admits that the things he should do, he does not do, and the things that the things he does not want to do, he does.    What St Paul was saying is that there was a battle inside him between Good and Evil and he must strive to allow the good inside himself to win.   For a large part of my eighty odd years, I never thought much about this.   I just went to Church on Sunday with everyone else.   I did not murder, I was not a criminal, and I worked and

  is this likeness to God in  your body or in your soul?   This likeness to God is chiefly in my soul. How is your soul like to God?   My soul is like to God because it is a spirit and can never die. I have a 4 year old grandson.  He plays a game on the computer where he guides a running figure to a destination, he has a button to press on a handset to make it run, and another to make the figure jump onto ledges.    Now unless these buttons are pressed then nothing will happen, for the computer although it has within it all the parts necessary to do the job, it needs some intervention from the outside to make it act - my grandson.    The human body is like that.   When I raise my arm it is because some part of the brain has sent a message through the body instructing the arm to rise.    But that will never happen unless there is something like my grandson pressing that part of the brain to make it act.   My Grandson just takes it for granted he can do it.   So there is something else i