Portsmouth Roman Catholic

 Today is the feast of St Catherine of Sienna.    She was one of twenty five children and chose to enter a convent at an early age.   With such a large number of siblings it is not surprising that a quiet convent life was appealing.    But Catherine soon found herself in a position where her wisdom was called upon by many.   From individuals she found herself as a broker of peace between warring cities, and she even told a Pope Gregory who was happy in his life outside Rome to return there.   It has always surprised me that in a Church dominated by male clergy so many women have been such an influence.     But Catherine was devoted to Jesus and suffered much from an invisible stigmata, although once she prayed to Jesus to exchange his heart for hers and thereafter bore witness to the exchange by a large bruise on her side.   Catherine was an extraordinary women and because of her many reflections she was dec...

 Sex without love, single parenthood, drug abuse, rising suicides, children with no future, child abuse, more children leaving care to become prostitutes, more children sexually abused by 'uncles',  children being attacked and raped while in care, private or social services, although the latter is chiefly ignored by the media.    What a picture of how a secular society works.   Of course from within the Church comes the call that God made us all 'as we are'.   So no need to panic, there is nothing we can do.   People are just behaving in the way God made them.    We must not start talking about that old fashioned idea called sin.    There is to be a large Conference this November. organised by the Church.    So I wonder if it will be just another talk shop where Catholic meet and tell us how good Jesus is, and we must all be on the same page and no 'problems' arise from the 'far right'.    Which me...

"All authority is given to me in Heaven and on earth, Go you therefore and teach all nations baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to "OBSERVE ALL I HAVE COMMANDED YOU, and behold I am with you always, even to the end of the world"   Mathew 28 The above are the last words of Jesus to his disciples at his ascension into Heaven.   He did not ask them to teach people to observe what He had commanded.    He ordered them.     He did not tell them that his message would probably get lost, but that was OK, for an educated generation would come along, no, he told them that he would be with them in their teaching till the end of time.   People in the future would not have to follow their conscience, because when they listened to his followers they would know the truth which he had come to bear witness to.    He did not ask them to write a book which everyone could read, beca...

 Does Tradition, that is how the Church has interpreted scripture and developed its practices and doctrines accordingly from the time of the Apostles have any relevancy today..   Protestants claim that Scripture is supreme and confine the past to the middle ages when everything in the Catholic church was then invented, indeed not only Protestants but at the failed revolt after Vatican II, people who were described as 'experts' came into our Churches to tell us that all this adoration of the Eucharist was wrong and was invented indeed in the middle ages.  It was all so wrong.   Yet I found myself the only one who could contradict them and became Public Enemy No. 1 in the Diocese.   Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was well established in the Church long before the Middle Ages.    Indeed when the Eastern Orthodox Church separated from Rome in the 7th Century it retained a great love for the Blessed Sacrament and carried on with the Mass....

 We live in a world full of misery.   People who claim to know best, are destroying young people in our Educational Establishments by giving them ideologies of how things should be done, and that they as the new educated elite must go into the world and shout down ordinary people who disagree with their dogmas.    Alas it has all been done before, at the French Revolution, at the establishment of Communism in Russia, then in China, then Pol Pot in Cambodia, and Fidel Castro in Cuba.     These were called Left Wing Governments, and the slaughter of 60 million anti-revolutionaries in Russia, 200 million in China, is not mentioned today, although a so called 'right wing' government which murdered 6 million Jews and 3 million Poles, a much lower score, was not allowed to call itself 'socialist' but 'right wing' and we now have a situation where everyone who disagrees with the Left is automatically called the Far Right.    Were this just a po...

  From the 1400s, economics and politics trumped morality, for slavery once again became profitable, and on a large scale. During the Middle Ages, trade with China and the Indies had been conducted along the so-called Silk Road, overland through the Middle East and Central Asia. But this road was long, dangerous, and frequently closed by hostile forces. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese, Europe’s pioneer mariners, established a sea route around the coasts of Africa and thence to the East, and this became the main route of trade. It passed through many African ports where black slaves existed. The fact that black Africans held black slaves is currently considered politically incorrect to mention, but it is a fact, nor does it indicate any particular depravity on the part of the Africans, since   almost   every society—Chinese, Mayan, Aztec, Arab, Native American, Mongol, Greek, Roman—held slaves. Black Africans, like the Romans or Persians earlier, took captives fro...

  CAFOD From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search The  Catholic Agency for Overseas Development  ( CAFOD ) [1]  is an international development charity and the official  aid agency  of the  Catholic Church in England and Wales . It stands beside people living in poverty – whatever their religion or culture. Through local Catholic Church and secular partners, it helps people directly in their own communities and campaigns for global justice, so that everyone can reach their full potential. It is funded by the  Catholic community in England and Wales , the  British government , private and institutional donors, and the general public. CAFOD is part of  Caritas Internationalis , the worldwide federation of Catholic aid orgnisations with a presence in 165 countries and is a member of the  Disasters Emergency Committee  (DEC) and the British Overseas Aid Group. CAFOD’s Director Christine Allen was appoi...

Of course to believe in the Christian Faith you have to believe in God.    Well if  you believe in God you cannot be intelligent, for scientists are the most intelligent people in the world and they work with all the discoveries of nature, explain all they have discovered, and they have not found God anywhere, which means God is very bad mannered, or is just afraid to show Himself to such super minds.    The attitude of many scientists is "We do not have to explain where anything comes from, we just have to describe how it works in relation to the whole Universe"     Now that is exactly what science should be, there is no need to enter the religious debate, so why do they? It seems to be a push to put themselves above ordinary mortals.   They are the ones who know everything and therefore cannot descend to the fallibility of ordinary peasants.    Now they had it their own way for many years, but have recently got themselves int...

 Easter Sunday.   This is the day when we remember that Jesus rose from the dead.   He is risen, Alleluia!.     I woke up this morning and jumped joyfully out of bed.   Now that in itself is almost a miracle.   But somehow I was in a happy mood.    I went to Church in a happy mood and I learned something new about myself.   God always gives his followers new  insights into themselves.   I decided that during Mass I would keep my happy mood, rather than try so hard to be humble, serious, in deep meditation, and trying to prove I was pious and holy.    I suddenly realised that Jesus did not mind.   In fact I did not let my thoughts drift off somewhere and miss the Consecration or some other part.   Some of you may understand.   You are listening to the Gospel and your mind wanders, then suddenly you are being pushed by  your family to go up and receiv...

 Holy Saturday and everything has gone wrong.   Jesus followers are in hiding and a knock on the door causes panic.   They had believed in Jesus, they had worked miracles in his name, they had believed they were at the start of something that would change Israel and the world, but it had all ended yesterday, as the supposed Messiah died on a Cross, mocked and hated by his persecutors.   Now they were after them, but they did not want to die, so they hid like rats in a sewer. I suppose we could call this Saturday the Day of Despair, and as we remember the many wonderful things in our own lives which disappeared or perhaps we did not appreciate at the time.  Perhaps we met a wonderful person who was going to change us, a partner for life, then he or she just laughed at us and walked away.  Perhaps we never knew the love of a Father, but maybe just hoped that one would come along.    Perhaps through someone else, we suddenly lost our j...

 dThis  This is Good Friday.   Today two thousand years ago a man was scourged on the back until the blood hid his skin, thorns were hammered into his head, he was given a heavy piece of timber to carry though weak and exhausted, and finally nailed on a Cross where he hung for three hours until he eventually died.   There was nothing really good about that.   Yet for two thousand years the man has been praised and honoured as a King, and even called the Son of God.   Little wonder some people laugh at Christians.    But the story is true.  Jesus lived and Jesus died.    It can be very hard at times to understand why this happened.   OK, we are born into this world and some of us grow up happy and contented while others live their lives in great troubles and misery.    We look at the world and call for justice, we believe that everyone has a right to happiness, and we make up our own minds as t...

 Today starts the most wonderful four days in the history of the world.   I say wonderful although they contained a great deal of pain and suffering and yet their story is far beyond our human imagination.    It is a story of love, but not a story of how humanity loves itself, but how the very Creator of humanity is so deeply in love with his creatures, you and I, that He came on earth to teach us and to suffer like us, and to give us hope in our own sufferings.    God became human, lived the life of a human, and then died in a way that he hoped would bring us the reality of his love.    He died tortured and bleeding and nailed to a Cross, and as St Paul said "To the Greeks, mere folly" and to us, if we are honest incomprehensible. Today is Holy Thursday.   You might say the day on which he wrote his last will and testament.   so what did he leave his family and followers?   He had spoken of it in John 6, "Unless...