Welcome to Advent, season of penitence and reflection before we begin the great and mystical feast of The Nativity of Our Lord. Advent runs a poor second to Lent and it's easy to see why. Office parties family reunions, social gatherings of every kind drag our attention away from the drama of a young mother, heavily with child and her husband, struggling on a journey that would be hard even at the best time of the year.
Not easy to remember what Advent is all about; fasting and acts penitential and repentance.
Providentially, this season is packed full of sacred music that pulls us back to reflecting on reality and the feast to come.
This video clip is well known but I do not know its provenance; if anyone knows whether a CD exists please let me know - I would love to own a copy.
The Advent chant is all that it should be; plaintive, pleading and sad.
The two young women who sing this piece show that a headscarf is just as viable as a mantilla and that it adds a certain air of reverence and dignity to proceedings.
At the end, watch their faces closely; I do believe that one of them, at least, is close to tears.
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.
Be not angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity : behold the city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert. Jerusalem is desolate, the house of our holiness and of thy glory, where our fathers praised thee.
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.
We have sinned, and we are become as one unclean, and we have all fallen as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us by the hand of our iniquity.
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.
See, O Lord, the affliction of thy people, and send him whom thou hast promised to send. Send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion, that he himself may take off the yoke of our captivity.
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.
Be comforted, be comforted, my people; thy salvation shall speedily come. Why wilt thou waste away in sadness? why hath sorrow seized thee? I will save thee; fear not: for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer.
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.
Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) is a truly strange movie. Maddeningly opaque by design, this adaptation of Joan Lindsey's novel frustrates all efforts at categorization. Weir employs sumptuous artistry at the service of an unsolvable riddle.
On Valentine's Day 1900, the girls of Appleyard College in Woodend, Australia lunch at Hanging Rock. Three girls vanish without trace, along with teacher Ms. McCraw (Vivean Gray). The mystery turns Woodend upside down: Police Sergeant Bumpher (Wyn Roberts) fends off frenzied reporters and irate townspeople. Visiting Englishman Michael (Dominic Hubert) and valet Bertie (John Jarratt) obsessively comb the Rock for evidence. Headmistress Ms. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) seems most concerned with Sara (Margaret Nelson), a foundling obsessed with missing Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert). One girl's reappearance only complicates things.
Australian films seem preoccupied with contrasting the country's Western culture and primeval landscape. Confronting white Australians with Aborigines is a common device, establishing clear racial and spiritual conflicts. Weir himself explored these themes in The Last Wave (1977), but provides a more abstract opposition in Hanging Rock. Civilization isn't opposed by fellow humans but Australia itself: a land of physical beauty and dark secrets.
Weir nails both aspects. Australia's never looked lovelier, with Russell Boyd's photography striking a pantheist tone. He mixes gorgeous scenery with copious fauna: hungry ants, curious koalas, croaking birds and frilled lizards crowd the frame, even a "moving" plant. The Rock itself seems alive, with face-like cliffs peering intently at the girls. Bruce Smeaton's score mixes Gheorghe Zamfir's dreamy panpipes with Mozart and Men of Harlech,musically highlighting the culture clash.
These aesthetics conceal an unsettling edge. Weir and writer Cliff Green sprinkle portents throughout early scenes: Miranda casually tells Sara she "won't be here much longer." Ms. McCraw muses over Hanging Rock's formation a million years ago, "quite young geologically speaking." Every character's watch stops upon arrival at the Rock. The girls utter profundities as they near the peak, seemingly entranced. Natural portents grow more sinister: Edith (Chrstine Schuler) reports an ominous "red cloud," flies engulf a police bloodhound, Michael repeatedly encounters a telltale swan.
This invests the show with supernatural qualities, its story existing on an abnormal temporal plane. Weir doesn't completely rule out conventional explanations (abduction? murder? accident?) but without hard evidence they seem unconvincing. The girls apparently stumble on some primal secret: perhaps a higher consciousness like Aborigine Dreamtime? Lindsey later published an explanatory epilogue, The Secret of Hanging Rock, which only makes things stranger.
The story's key event resembles A Passage to India, another colonial tale focusing on a cliff-side mystery. Like Adela Quested, the Appleyard girls explosively mix nature with repressed sexuality. Dressed in virginal white, they recite love sonnets and dance joyfully about the rock. Even Ms. McCraw removes her corset before disappearing. Loveless Sara worships Miranda, a mystical girl who similarly enraptures Michael. Mrs. Appleyard goes mad from her own repression (shades of Black Narcissus?). The only healthy sexuality comes from Appleyard's servants (Tony Llewelyn-Jones and Jacki Weaver).
Frankly, Hanging Rock's central mystery isn't so alienating as its structure. Weir touches on many themes (the media circus surrounding Bumpher's investigation, Appleyard's school falling into disrepute) but leaves them as brief sketches, details in a mosaic. The plot is elliptical at best, the characters enigmatic. Rock lacks a figure like Forster's Mrs. Moore, observing "passing figures in a Godless universe" with studied objectivity. Everyone grows absorbed in the mystery, their psyches warped by sheer incomprehension.
Rachel Roberts plays against type as a frighteningly repressed, tormented governess. At first she seems merely cruel, but later scenes reveal her insecurity and anguish. Anne-Louise Lambert makes a striking Miranda: with Boyd's angelic lighting she truly is a "Botticelli Angel." Margaret Nelson's Sara is mostly meaningful glances and tragic gestures. John Jarratt's earthy Bertie ("I say the crude things; you just think them") proves the most likeable character next to Helen Morse's French nanny.
Picnic at Hanging Rock proves uniquely absorbing. Through its sumptuous visuals and eerie conceit, it ultimately depicts human fear of the unknown. Given the evidence presented though, maybe it's better that we don't know what happened.
Well, the poll on my sidebar suggests that of my readership who took part in the poll, the vote is split pretty evenly between supporting Israelis, Palestinians and those praying for peace in the region.
Personally, call me partisan, but I have a particular loyalty towards the Christians who apparently are fleeing the whole region of the Middle East in droves under persecution from just about everyone else. Everyone seems to forget about them, as I clearly did by not mentioning them in my poll.
If anyone wants to buy me a Christmas present, you can put me down for Christianophobia, a new book charting the plight of the most oppressed and persecuted religion on the face of the Earth. Pray for peace in the Middle East.
I'm sure this has been said before many, many times, but it is worth again reflecting that Our Lord's words on the Last Judgment and the works of mercy are applicable to the spiritual works of mercy as they are to the corporal works of mercy.
'And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before him: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, you blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see you hungry and fed you: thirsty and gave you drink? Or when did we see you a stranger and took you in? Or naked and covered you? Or when did we see you sick or in prison and came to you? And the king answering shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.'
We know what Our Lord says will be the judgment of those who do not these things and how often we see ourselves on the wrong side of the sheepfold, but then the temptation for us as Catholics is to only apply these words of Our Blessed Lord to physical, corporal works of mercy. If we take one spiritual work of mercy, that of praying for the living and especially for the dead (as we leave November behind, let's not leave the Holy Souls behind with it) we see that Our Lord Jesus Christ's words are surely just as applicable to this spiritual work of mercy.
The souls in Purgatory hunger. They hunger for God in a way in that we will perhaps not even experience in this life. They thirst. They thirst for God like we have never known because the worst thing about Purgatory is not, apparently (according to Doctors of the Church), the experience of purifying fire, but the experience of being in an ante-chamber awaiting union with Him. Their hunger and thirst is the hunger and thirst for God, the loss of whom is worse than any punishment or fire. They hunger and thirst in a manner that even the NHS could not inflict upon its patients. Naked. They are naked. They await to be clothed in Glory and to see the Beatific Vision for which they long. They are naked and exposed - as we shall be if we receive a merciful judgment - in the purgatorial prison. They know nakedness and shame - spiritual nakedness, spiritual shame. God has granted to the Church on Earth keys that will unlock this prison for those in torment - the prayer of the Church, the Holy Mass, indulgences and the devout prayer of the Church Militant. Sick. They know of the full extent of the spiritual sickness that is sin and separation from God, albeit temporal and finally they are in prison. Who will visit these souls with their prayers but the Church and those members of Her who desire to see their release? Strangers indeed, but our brothers and sisters also. Who will assist them to 'take them in' to the Heavenly City? They ask the questions of us. Christ asks the questions of us!
Finally, we can say that, in our age, perhaps the souls in Purgatory are indeed, 'the least of these' Christ's brethren, since apparently even 75% of the Universal Church doesn't even believe this place of purification before their sublime union with the Blessed Trinity exists! This means that the 25% or less of the Church Militant who believe what the Church actually teaches have to pray more regularly, seriously and devoutly for these brethren of Christ than perhaps at any other time in the Church's history!
If we do not sincerely pray for the repose of the souls of our brothers and sisters who have died in the Lord and who have Hope of the Vision for which they and we long, then let us take up this practice today because when Our Lord said what He said...He meant it!
Obviously, if you're a liberal 'catholic' and don't believe in Purgatory then don't worry. Just keep campaigning for female ordination, encouraging religious indifferentism, dissenting over issues of life, human sexuality, clerical celibacy, divorce and (re-/gay- [delete as appropriate]) marriage, spreading disinformation aboutSummorum Pontificumor whatever it is that floats your boat nowadays, because, as all the Doctors of the Church said, "If you don't believe it, then by golly it ain't true!" Was that St Thomas Aquinas or St Augustine who said that? I always forget.
Liberals would have us believe that not only is Hell empty, but Purgatory too. Eternal optimists though they may be, one wonders whether their belief in Heaven is empty, because, after all, if Heaven's empty too then where do people go when they die? Starbucks? Well, that's 'cafeteria Catholics' for you!
Hmm...It's no wonder 'they' want to regulate the internet and blogs. After all, who had really heard of masonic conspiracy theories before the internet? Long term readers will know I'm only half-joking.
We need a regulatory body to maintain law and order in the Press.
We need a regulatory body to maintain law and order in Parliament.
We need a regulatory body to maintain law and order in the BBC.
We need a regulatory body to enforce law and order in the Courts.
We need a regulatory body to maintain law and order in the population.
We need a regulatory body to maintain law and order in the Police.
We need a regulatory body to maintain law and order in the NHS and the care homes.
We need a regulatory body to maintain law and order in the Prisons.
Shall we just hand this law and order thing to the Church?
Oh no, don't tell me...The Church needs law and order too? Don't tell that to Tina Beattie. She'll go ballistic. At some point we have to ask what's it going to be? Jesus? Or Stalin? I say this because it looks rather like the State has ambitions to regulate itself, its organs (including the 'death pathway' known as the NHS), the Press, the propaganda machine known as the BBC, marriage, smoking, drinking, reproduction, education, the internet and the Church. Perhaps I've left something out, but whatever it is, I'm sure the State wants to regulate that too. Anyway, I'm just going to post this post on Facebook, which I dare say the State would like to regulate also. Oh and don't forget that we need a regulatory body to regulate the regulatory bodies! Thank God for Polish immigration, I say. We're going to need all the Poles we can find to bring this accursed tyranny to book.
The long awaited Leveson Report has been released and those newspapers orientated towards the Left (The Guardian, The Independent, along with a host of celebrities) are scandalised by the outcome that, thus far, the Prime Minister hasn't endorsed official regulation of the newspaper industry by statute.
The newspapers traditionally orientated towards the right of British politics, (The Telegraph, The Times, The Daily Mail) have meanwhile praised David Cameron for resisting pressure and not endorsing a statutory body for press regulation.
My first reaction is thus: David Cameron, as we have seen, seems to move along the left to right spectrum like a table football figure depending on how politically expedient it is to do so. So...what has the British Press got on David Cameron?
However, while the British mainstream media chew over the results of the Leveson Report, a totally unexpected tangent has suddenly been taken, one supported, most probably by MPs and newspaper proprietors alike. Yes, from out of the blue, MPs have suggested that whatever happens with the mainstream Press in terms of regulation, the notorious group of scoundrels known for phone-tapping, police bribery and underhand journalistic mendacity - bloggers - have been omitted from the Leveson Report altogether.
Why? Well, the answer is because bloggers have not done anything other than express opinion on politics and the state of current affairs. The truth is that the relationship between the State and newspapers has always been a 'complex' affair and that the Press has the power to make or break politicians, their reputations and careers. They can, as we know, build you up or knock you down. Ordinary British people, however, have a less complex relationship with Government in as much as British people are there to be largely shafted by their Government, to vote out the criminals only to elect a new bunch of criminals in their place in order to largely represent the interests of an elite. Unlike the British newspaper barons, we don't really have a wining and dining relationship with our elected politicians and Prime Ministers.
We do, however, have dangerous opinions. Recall, for instance, that it was bloggers who broke the Climategate scandal and it was bloggers who sent that scandal viral. The sad truth is that there is, as Belloc said, an "Official Press" and there is, now, an unofficial, alternative source of news, opinion and commentary gaining in profile and readership. Don't believe me? Well, just ask The Tablet. In the wake of the Leveson Report, we're seeing that while those in Government fear the power of the Press, they fear the power of the people far more. Of course our politicians fear Rupert Murdoch...but they fear youmore and there is no reason to believe that the establishment Press fear you any less than they do.
I came across the term 'Wobbly Room' on a Catholic Primary School website.
"Bless me Father for I have wobbled"
It refers to a room where the teacher sends the child that is bad or disruptive.
Having grandchildren, I do know that the current trend is to banish children who misbehave to the 'naughty spot' or to the 'naughty step' (at the bottom of the stairs). This appears to work quite well; it allows a cooling off period when feelings run high and it gives a chance for the child to reflect and to, hopefully, step up to the mark and say "sorry".
I guess that the 'Wobbly Room' works in much the same way but I would much rather that they called it the 'Naughty Room' because that is what it is.
Wobbly Room is just a shade too Children's TV-ish for me.
Catholic adults have access to a Wobbly Room in the form of a confessional box; a visit there also causes us to reflect, examine what we have done or failed to do and to say sorry and resolve not to be naughty again.
I do not like going to Confession which is daft because, afterwards, I feel as if I am floating on air.
But I have to screw my courage to the wall to go.
A close relative told me that she does not go as often as she should because her parish church has done away with the Wobbly Room Confessional and you now have to sit face to face with your Confessor and he, inevitably starts proceedings by saying something like:
"Have you seen the latest Bond film yet S......?"
This, frankly, gives her the heeby jeebies. She yearns for the dark of the Confessional box and for the small amount of false anonymity offered by the grille.
And also, when you have struggled to recall all of your sins and to mentally list them in descending order of seriousness, you do not want to have to give your view on Daniel Craig's performance or the result of X Factor. That is what Mike my builder calls "naff" and we already have enough "naff" issues to worry about in today's Church.
Yes, the new celebrity challenge show coming to the small screen will be screened next Spring.
The Bishops of England and Wales will compete in the jungle environment of Bulinga Fen aka Westminster Cathedral Piazza for a nine day period and, at the end of each day, a panel of the laity will vote off the one that has failed to please the audience most, here's the format for the show:-
Day One : All contestants to learn Summorum Pontificum by heart and to recite it standing on one leg on the Cathedral steps.
Day Two: Lots of fun today as their Lordships skydive from 30,000 feet with 200 remaindered copies of The Tablet strapped to their backs. Their parachutes will have been specially packed for them by a team of SSPX seminarians under the watchful eye of adjudicator, Damian Thompson. Those arriving on the landing zone of Westminster Cathedral bell tower will gain full marks but those landing on Westminster Abbey will have 10 points deducted; any Bishop landing on a Hindu Temple will lose 50 points.
Day Three: The pace hots up as each Bishop dons cassock and lacy cotta for 'Act as a slave to a curate' day. This will involve rising at 3am in the morning to make sick calls to the local hospital, back to the parish for a 7am Mass, then off to attend a spiritual session at Archbishop's House where delegates will have to meditate on the qualities of a pot of yoghurt before making a round of the care homes taking comfort to the elderly. The programme continues in the afternoon with parish visits, Mass in the local convent and a final evening parish Mass at 8am.
Day Four: Those who have survived the gruelling challenge so far will be asked to take part in the Sunday special - 'Hunt the Latin Mass'. The Bishops will have to carry out a search of the Diocese to find a Latin Mass. The contest hots up as they then have to take the quickest route by foot arriving at the church in time for the 10.45pm EF Mass.
Day Five: Chuckles galore in store today as the remaining contestants are blindfolded and then told to make their way to the National Shrine of Wales - any Bishop caught taking a shortcut along the M4 motorway will be disqualified.
Day Six: Today is the Worlock Trophy Day - our episcopal chums will have 24 hours to seek out Ed Stourton or Clifford Longley and 'custard pie' them (in the event of either of those two leading Catholic personalities being unavailable, any Old Amplefordian will do).
Day Seven: The pace hots up as their lordships are given the ultimate challenge of finding and eating a copy of Hans Kung's book 'What I believe' - raw! Ugh!
Day Eight: Those still standing will be asked to sing Durufle's Requiem - standing up to their necks in freezing water.
Day Nine: The final day culminates with the remaining Bishops doing the Eccleston Square Square Dance (think Egyptian dance and you get a rough idea of what is involved). The delegate judged to have made the most laps of the square (without going in a circle) will be declared the champion.
The production company is likely to make a follow up of this series with another small screen blockbuster - 'Made in Victoria'
And a female which is good because we need more women coming forward to redress any imbalance there may be and to represent their gender within a Catholic context.
She is also American which is fine for her and for Catholics in the USA but it would be good if there was an English Catholic Voice of similar calibre - of course, good also to have a French, Spanish, or Welsh speaker but let's not try to eat all of the elephant at one sitting.
I know of at least one young Catholic woman, not English admittedly, but English is her first language, who would be more than capable of speaking, Voris style, to camera or to an audience; I am sure there are many more and men also.
The woman on the video is Helen Alvare and, if you can spare just under one hour of your time, you will not be disappointed at the end.
H/T to Caritas in Veritate for highlighting Voice for Justice, an interesting blog that, if it lives up to its initial postings, will help provide a focus for many of the issues facing Catholics in Britain today.
I have to say that the tragedy is, that much of this should be done by the Bishops; it is a scandal that they are not even on the horizon on abortion, gay adoption, same sex "marriage", sex education in schools and the host of other moral issues facing us.
But, please visit this new blog and, make a date in your diary for a planned London march called 'March for Babies'. This is being organised for April 27th 2013.
The march will start from Westminster Abbey and proceed to Downing Street where a video (presumably on life in the womb) will be handed to David Cameron whoever is Prime Minister then.
This is from the Voice for Justice website:
March for Babies
27th April 2013
Join us in a March to remember the 7,000,000 lost lives since 1967, and to celebrate babies and the unborn today! Date: April 27th, 2013. Place: London. Gathering at Westminster Abbey, followed by March to Downing Street to present video to the Prime Minister.
The recent poll operated by The Daily Telegraph invited readers to cast a vote on the Homosexual "Marriage" issue - for or against.
5 days ago, the swing was to the pro gay "marriage" lobby but now, following publicity on several Catholic blogs, the advantage has swung in favour of those against.
Hoorah you might chortle as you sip your Wincarnis tonight - but so what?
We should not have to respond in this manner but, the direction taken by the world means that, in future, we are going to be called upon to cast a vote for Christ with increasing frequency.
We will be most fortunate if that is all that we have to do. Some of us will be going to prison for standing up for the Faith and some will pay the ultimate penalty of sacrificing their lives, many have already done so.
But this whole petition business does prove one very important point; it shows clearly the power of the blogger.
The power of responding to a situation and producing an effect within hours.
This is new and heady territory and, of course, it can be a force for evil as well as good.
I hope that some enterprising person or organisation is notching up these successes on their longbow; we have the Tesco Gay Pride sponsorship that hit the buffers after bloggers flagged up the potential of shopping at Sainsbury's......there was the Bishop who did not make the next step up the rung due to bloggers revealing some of his rather odd writings....there are many more but my memory needs a bit of a kick start these days.
Perhaps we could start a list - please leave a comment with any further victories that you can recall.
......and a fair wind behind it.......last Saturday's Consistory Mass in Rome........
.....Could have been a Traditional Latin Mass! It was reverent, in Latin, holy and beautifully sung......but it was an Ordinary Form Mass and a concelebrated one at that.
The distinctions between EF and OF were really quite blurred on the surface; I would even go so far as to say that, if my local parish church offered an Ordinary Form Mass in the same manner, I would be there like a greased something or other.
So, is it too much to ask that the Holy Father celebrates Mass in the Extraordinary Form?
Will the Archbishop of Paris really swoon at the prospect?
And all those German and Austrian prelates, will they start smashing up the crockery?
I think that the only person who would really start chewing at the carpet if such a Mass took place would be The Tablet's Rome correspondent.
There are more Eskimos than Latin Masses in Westminster Photo: Liberapedia
But it's still a bleak midwinter outlook for the Traditional Latin Mass in the mother Diocese of England and Wales, the Archdiocese of Westminster.
Here's the comment from the Latin Mass Society:
Thank you for bringing this issue up.
We at the LMS office are currently in the process of creating a Mass Listing for both the Immaculate Conception and Christmas.
They should be available to the public by the end of the week.
As to the situation at Westminster Cathedral, we have to concede that the situation is bleak.
The Provision of Masses in Westminster Diocese according to the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and the clarification Universae Eccesiae, is one of the poorest in the country.
We pray that Westminster Diocese will decide, in charity, to provide the Traditional Latin Mass at more venues (such as anywhere outside of Central London, for instance in it's North London Parishes) at more charitable times.
With regards to our format, we appreciate the feedback, and while it has been the practice of the LMS to use PDF documents to publish our listings, we do hope to change that in the not too distant future to make them more accessible and searchable.
That's what it looks like, I hope that I am wrong and, oh yes, I do mean Tridentine Latin Masses.
"Latin Mass on Christmas Day? Bah! Humbug!"
I have checked with our good friends at the LMS online and nothing is listed for Christmas Day.
It would be helpful (if, indeed, there are some occult (no, wrong context) hidden Masses available) for the Society to feature a special Christmas section because, as you can see from the badly transcribed listing, it is not overly user friendly (but the format is much better on the LMS website).
Westminster The Oratory, Brompton Road, LONDON SW7 2RP Sundays Mon to Sat (St Joseph’s Altar) Saturdays (usually in St Wilfred’s Chapel)[1] 9.00am 8.00am 12.15pm Low Mass Low Mass Low Mass St. James's, Spanish Place, LONDON W1U 3QY Sundays Holy Days of Obligation Tue 1 Jan (Circumcision)[2] 9.30am 11.00am 12.30pm Low Mass Low Mass Sung Mass Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, COVENT GARDEN, London WC2E 7NA Mondays 2nd Fridays Sat 2 Feb (Purification)[2] 6.30pm 6.30pm 11.00am Sung Mass Low Mass Sung Mass & Procession Westminster Cathedral, Victoria Street, VICTORIA, London SW1P 1QW 2nd Saturdays (Lady Chapel) Sat 17 Nov (Annual Requiem) Sat 2 Mar 4.30pm 2.30pm 2.00pm Low Mass Pontifical High Requiem High Mass St Etheldreda, Ely Place, LONDON EC1N 6RY 1st Fridays 6.00pm Low Mass St. John the Baptist, 3 King Edward's Road, HACKNEY, London E9 7SF 1st Fridays 6.00pm Low Mass St Mary Moorfields, Eldon Street, LONDON EC2M 7LS Fridays 7.45am Low Mass Holy Trinity and St Augustine, London Road, BALDOCK, Herts SG7 6LQ 1st Sundays 3.00pm Low Mass St. Edmund of Canterbury & English Martyrs, Farm Lane, Old Hall Green, Nr. WARE, Hertfordshire SG11 1DT 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Sundays 3.00pm Low/Sung Our Lady of Lourdes & St Michael, Osborn Rd, UXBRIDGE, UB8 1UE 1st Fridays[3] 7.00pm Sung Mass Church of Our Lady and St Catherine of Siena, 177 Bow Road, Bow, LONDON E3 2SG Thursdays[4] Fri 2 Nov (All Souls) TBA 7.00pm Low Mass Sung Mass All other Diocesan listings have the Mass at Christmas listed as such.
Gregory Peck reteams with To Kill a Mockingbird director Robert Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula on The Stalking Moon (1968). A unique Western, it falls outside the late '60s revisionist trend, presenting instead a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game.
Aged scout Sam Varner (Gregory Peck) fulfills his last duty to the US Army by rounding up escaped Apaches. Among them is Sarah (Eva Marie Saint), a white captive who's lived among the Apaches for years, raising a half-breed son (Noland Clay). Sam reluctantly agrees to escort them to safety, only to find Apache warrior Salvaje (Nathaniel Narcisco) pursuing, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Sam joins Indian tracker Nick (Robert Forster) and stationmaster Ned (Russell Thorson) to defend Sarah and her son from Salvaje's wrath.
The Stalking Moon is marvelously pared-down. Superficially resembling the previous year's Hombre, it jettisons that movie's oversized cast and racial posturing. Alvin Sargent's straightforward script proves sparse on dialogue and elliptical in motivation. Characterization rests on small moments, like Sam and Sarah's awkward supper or Nick teaching the boy poker. Stalking Moon knows where it's going and doesn't dawdle unnecessarily.
Mulligan handles the plot efficiently, more taut thriller than traditional Western. Charles Lang's beautiful photography only enhances the story's dread: Salvaje appears as an elemental, remorseless Fate, his motivation chillingly indistinct. The ultimate siege proves familiar, with characters whittled down through stupid mistakes. (Would you feed your dog with a murderous Apache outside?) But the climax pays off when Sam and Salvaje go mano a mano in decidedly brutal fashion.
Gregory Peck plays Sam like a more grizzled Hondo Lane, tough, weather-beaten but good-hearted. Eva Marie Saint (North by Northwest) adroitly handles a role requiring little dialogue or overt emotion. Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) makes a likeable sidekick, charm overcoming a poor makeup job. The supporting cast gets less chance to shine, with James Olsen, Frank Silvera, Lonnie Chapman and Russell Thorson reduced to bit parts.
The Stalking Moon is an underrated Western. Made when most Westerns went for graphic violence or liberal preaching, Robert Mulligan's economical storytelling stands out.
I challenge readers to watch this for longer than five minutes without reaching for a sick bag or smashing up their computer monitor. This is the guy who wept when Benedict XVI was made Successor of St Peter. Presumably, that's because despite his hatred of the 'institutional Church', he sees the Papacy as the Office which could turn the Catholic Church into a loyal sister of the Anglican Communion.
The Vatican is imploding, right? Funny that because I was under the impression that Tablet sales are down year upon year and that it is The Tablet which is heading into oblivion. Incredibly, this man is so blinded by the half century of fifth columnist liberals who have laid waste to parishes and dioceses around the World, in all sectors of the Church's mission, that he has the audacity to point to the Successor of St Peter and the Vatican in terms of blame, because, obviously, the Church isn't liberal enough to maintain its 'relevancy' to the people.
I expect that publications like The Tablet have played no small part in the process of creating an astonishingly uncatechised laity over the past half century and that Mickens can claim at least some credit for the apostasy we have witnessed. It is to liberals and the indifferentism preached by liberals that we can attribute the decline in numbers coming forward for the Priesthood. He talks of the Church and the Vatican 'imploding' as if he isn't a figure on the 'inside' working towards this end! Bobby. Put the sledgehammer down and if you don't like the fact that 'your Church' isn't heading in the direction you want, there is an exit door in every parish. Nobody is forcing you at gun point back to the porch, but then, I suppose that your ample wages come from being a 'Catholic' so you wouldn't consider it!
Don't you just love the way that, like a bible-bashing Protestant, Mickens goes to Scripture to discredit the hierarchical structure of the Church! Show me the bit, Bobby, where Our Lord says, 'Thou art Bobby, and upon this columnist I shall build my Church!'
Yes, I know, another petition but this will only take a second and, as it stands at present, the powers of darkness have the vote swinging in their favour.
And...OK, it's a Daily Telegraph poll so it's not going to feature in Parliament...or is it?
As I say, a second to click and you will have made a stand for the Faith - here's the link:
"Speakest thou not to me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee?"
What power today is in the hands of those who like Pontius Pilate either ask, 'What is truth?' or who have no interest in asking the question! What power indeed and how unwisely is it used and with what dreadful consequences!
The unborn who were and are told, 'I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee' by doctors and nurses, by politicians and the supporters of the destruction of innocent life! Then after they have dismembered the unborn body, wash their hands as if they are innocent of their blood!
To the elderly who are told by doctors and nurses, by politicians, 'I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee'! Such people know the power that they have and like Pilate use it with devastating effect upon human lives and families, starving the defenceless to death!
To mothers and families under the constant reproach and condemnation of social services and of politicians, 'I have power to crucify thee, and I have power to release thee'! Knowing the power they have and of the consequences for human relationships and bonds, they have no hesitation in ripping new born children from their mothers' arms and sending the children away to new prospective parents deemed more worthy of parenting than their natural parents! To the women of China and other nations who have broken the unjust laws on family planning, too, they are told the same thing, only to be sterilized or to undergo forced abortion!
Yet on the Last Day we shall awake to the dreadful day of judgment when on mercy and love we shall be judged, when the true King shall return to make an everlasting judgment that is just. The rulers of this age and those who follow the spirit of the age, in showing no mercy to the defenceless and weak then shall see that on each occasion they spared not the lives and hearts of the poor, vulnerable and weak of this World, that they crucified Christ again and their might stands as naught against the Just Judgment of the King of the Universe!
The defenceless stand in the palm of the rulers of this age and the rulers of this age choose death and destruction, not appreciating that if they do not repent they seal their own eternal death!
May the Lord spare us and have mercy on us. May we too have pity on and show mercy to all our brothers and sisters from conception to natural death.
Expectations are running high and those charged with the sale are expecting a sum in excess of £2 million to be made by this beautiful item.
Some, however, are not so happy.
Many parishioners, according to the Daily Mail, are bitterly opposed to the sale feeling that part of the village's heritage is about to disappear into a Charles Saatchi cellar (the actual likelihood is the The British Museum will bid successfully for it).
Trouble is, when this chalice was first used, it was at a Catholic Latin Mass; it would have been commissioned by the local Catholic priest or bishop, it would have certainly been consecrated by a Catholic bishop.
Some two hundred plus years after it was first used and, after it was used at many, many Latin Masses (if only used on High Days and Holidays it would probably have carried the True Presence on over 10,000 occasions) - the debauched and degenerate King Henry VIII came along and claimed all Catholic Church properties and materials as his own.
What was once Rome's fell into the hands of the Protestant church and the state. This chalice obviously survived the fate of most chalices and ciboria which was to be melted down for the scrap value.
So now, this great vessel, with all its sanctity and Catholic history, is to be auctioned off like a set of cutlery.
I seem to recall, fairly recently, the British Government returning Aboriginal skulls, held in a museum, to their rightful Aboriginal heirs who claimed a spiritual link to the bones. . There is no such sensitivity here.
What was once Catholic and sacred is now an object of curiosity in the market place - and no one gives a damn! Apart from worrying over the intrinsic value.
NB: Actually, if this chalice was to be returned to the Catholic Church, the authorities would probably be subject to some embarrassment as insurance premiums would render its possession within a church or cathedral environment impossible. Likelihood is that it would be locked in a vault somewhere. Perhaps a museum is the best and most sensible place for it.
But it does seem somewhat sacrilegious all the same.
I went to a pub in a nearby town and saw a man reading a newspaper article about 'same-sex marriage'.
So, having never met the guy before and not living in the area I just decided to ask him what he thought of 'gay marriage'.
He replied that he had nothing in particular against civil partnerships and all that. He said, "It's just the word...marriage! Why can't they call it something else? Anything else but marriage!"
Christopher Brooker is one of the few people in the public forum who stands up for the rights of families against what is becoming an ever greater threat to human dignity and the right to a family life. The awful reality is that social services, backed up by family courts across the United Kingdom have, for years, even decades, been removing children unjustly from families to be put up for what has been described as 'forced adoption. The policy has been explicitly eugenic and is directed at poor families who are left powerless and with no voice to speak out.
A minority of extreme cases of child abuse and terrible neglect of children in the media have been used as an excuse for this trend in social engineering in a racket that spans decades. Victims, as well as mothers and fathers and grandparents, in this racket, include children who are severed from their roots and placed often into a care system that dehumanizes them and in cases abuses them.
The Conservative/Liberal Coalition Government has made no commitment to reverse this criminal infringement of the right to family life, but instead are planning to expand the role of the State in family life and the role of social workers in society, which result in more family break-up and destruction of mostly poor families.
The recent case of a family in Rotherham who had fostered children only to have them removed by Rotherham City Council for the brazen crime of voting UKIP not only gives us ample reason to vote UKIP, but also sheds light on the insidious and often brutal incursion into family life that runs through the heart of social services' and its 'child protection' agenda. The interests of children are served first in their family and parents are the primary educators of their children.
The interests of children, unless a child's life or health is in grave danger, are not served by the State's invasion of the family home, far less by a child being treated then as a commodity or his or her placement into a care system that dehumanizes and institutionalizes them regularly. The immediate bonds of father, son, mother, daughter should not be broken lightly because the State is no fit parent for any child.
If children must be adopted or fostered out to other parents, the real motive for any adoption and foster agency should be seeking the best foster or adoptive parents, preferably a foster father and a mother who are able to provide a child with love, shelter, understanding and care. Voting patterns, surely, should play no role in deciding who can or who cannot foster or adopt children.
Today, the Holy Father will complete his succession planning strategy with the appointment of six new Cardinals.
And, significantly, all six are non Europeans drawn from the USA, South America, Nigeria, the Middle East and the Indian sub continent.
The new Cardinals are:
USA, Archbishop James Harvey, Abuja, Nigeria Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan; Bogota, Colombia Archbishop Ruben Salazar Gomez; Manila, Philippines Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle; Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites in Lebanon, His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Rai; and the major Archbishop of the Trivandrum of the Siro-Malankaresi in India, His Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal.
This will bring the number of Cardinals to 120, 67 of whom having been elected by Pope Benedict giving, hopefully, a more orthodox slant to the College.
After the success of Jesse James (1939), 20th Century Fox tapped German emigre Fritz Lang to direct a sequel. The Return of Frank James (1940) is miles better than the original, replacing Henry King's mythic hokum with solid storytelling.
Frank James (Henry Fonda) is living incognito when he learns of Jesse's assassination. After hearing that the killers, Bob (John Carradine) and Charlie Ford (Charles Tannen), are pardoned for the crime, Frank and sidekick Clem (Jackie Coogan) track the crooks to Denver, robbing a mail station. But Frank's railroad nemesis (Donald Meek) still wants Frank dead, laying a trap by arresting servant Pinky (Ernest Whitman) and framing Frank for murder. Now Frank's on trial for his life, and it's up to reporter Eleanor (Gene Tierney) to save him. The Return of Frank James appears a standard revenge plot. But Lang and writer Sam Hellman's clever film making keeps the familiar story fresh. It's a remarkably brisk movie, with lots of action and changes of scenery, slowing only for Frank's trial in the third act. Lang engineers several clever set-pieces, most with a strange edge: a horse chase culminating in a cliff-side shootout, a railroad detective bound in a closet. The trial scenes are amusing, with Lang highlighting Major Cobb's (Henry Hull) Confederate past that provides much courtroom tension. This clever craftsmanship makes Frank James more than just a programmer.
Lang spotlights Western mythmaking. Eleanor represents this most overtly, but her character proves inconsistent. She starts off as an Old West Hildy Johnson, but her flightiness in the second half almost justifies her father's chauvinism. More effective are the characters' self-conscious role playing: first Clem reenacting Frank's alleged death, then Bob Ford replaying his slaying of Jesse onstage. Thanks to the press Frank can't escape his outlaw image, either; it's all too easy for the jury to believe he killed an innocent man.
Henry Fonda mixes his usual charm with a nice undercurrent of menace. Jackie Coogan makes a good sidekick but Gene Tierney (in her screen debut) seems rather flaky. John Carradine, Donald Meek, Henry Hull, J. Edward Bromberg and Ernest Whitman all reprise their roles from Jesse James; Hull gets the meatiest role, his hammy courtroom antics expunging his embarrassing turn in the original.
The Return of Frank James is a Class A Western. At heart it's a generic oater, but Lang's skillful presentation wins out.
If the established Church is a spent force in British society then why does the Government want to control it?
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe the Anglican Church has much relevance in British society since its orders are surely 'null and void'. The refashioning of the hierarchy according to equalities discourse does it no favours, wins it no more converts and serves not to make it more relevant, but more irrelevant to the modern age.
The kowtowing to modern trends in sociological theory and the 'equal' workplace dogma only serves to make it appear less and less like a Church and more and more like any other institution. Though this Church was founded not on Christ and St Peter, but an earthly king with some earthly motives who sought power over the true Church, even perhaps liberal Anglicans would have to admit, if questioned, that the Church was not established to be 'just like any other British institution'. To say that would be to suggest that Our Lord was 'just like any other man' when in fact, He makes it plain that His Kingdom 'is not of this World'. If you're expecting Heaven to be a democracy then you may get a shock when you meet St Peter at the pearly gates.
As Fr Alexander Lucie Smith eloquently says in his article for The Catholic Herald, there is another country in which the Church is an extension of the State, subject to its guidelines, beliefs and doctrines and that country is China. As Catholics we should keep an eye on what the Government wishes to impose upon the Church of England, because we'd be naive to think that once the Established Church has been fully taken over by the diktats of the State, the State wouldn't make moves upon the Bride of Christ Herself. All this and some pretty stringent press regulation no doubt in the offing as well...oh, and those plans for secret courts and an extension of the role of social services. Pray for freedom and pray also for Her Majesty the Queen who must be looking upon recent events and government minister's statements with a concerned eye.
The State and the Church always live in a certain tension, perhaps because those in power in the State view the Church with a certain envy over the power of belief and the ability of the Church to inform opinion and influence belief. What the Church does, or is meant to do, by virtue of Her mission, the State tries to ape by propaganda and the power of the mass media. While it might be true that neither the CoE or the Catholic Church has been particularly effective in evangelizing the United Kingdom over the last 40 years, the fact remains that in an era in which religion is deemed to be something that takes place in the private sphere only, the State is bound to seize the opportunity to take advantage of perceived weakness in the Church.
If disestablishment were to be the end game or end result of these kind of government shenanigans then that is an issue in itself with profound constitutional ramifications. Something tells me, however, that the real target is the only spiritual power capable of taking on the rise of an arrogant and power-thirsty State seeking to impose a new religion of secularism like a blanket of permafrost over the United Kingdom. That power, is, of course, the Catholic Church.
As we move into a more secularised society in which the Church's message is less welcome it is worth reflecting on what the Church is saying to people who have sexual identity issues. Besides the obvious compassion the Church has on those who struggle with homosexuality (and sexuality in general), the Church presents to every age the same vision of redemption, of man placed into a wondrous relationship with God by virtue of his Baptism and the other Sacraments.
The message is not heard as loud or as often as it should be, perhaps, but the message for nearly 2,000 years remains the same. Our happiness is linked intrinsically to our relationship with God and our neighbour. The happiness we seek is blessedness - not mere contentment and security, nor the pursuit of pleasure. The Beatitudes laid out by Christ in His proclamation of the Kingdom of God upon the Mount are those teachings that will make us truly happy. They just so happen to overturn what the World says of how we can achieve happiness.
Happiness, or rather Blessedness, is Cruciform. It does not appear to us to be particularly appealing, yet it is, ultimately and in this life too what will make us truly happy. We try with God's grace to attain to this pattern of life. We fail, but we seek this happiness, the happiness of true lovers who, in forgetting our own needs and desires, forgetting self, find life in all its fullness in Christ.
As in every age, it doesn't appear to be a recipe for happiness - so much so that the World rejects it, but it is a positive, expansive, infinite vision of man, rather than a restrictive vision of man defined by his sexuality and orientation and his desires. Neither is this vision of holiness restricted by gender or class, ethnicity or disability. It is about man moving beyond his limited capabilities and personal desires and wants into the vast, unlimited ocean of God's love.
We see this Blessedness in the lives of the Saints, in Our Lady most especially who, as the Immaculate, was totally given over to God's will in her earthly life from the moment of the conception of her being and now reigns in Heaven with her Divine Son in the flesh. Consistently, down the ages the Church presents to Her members Her poor and tells us that if we desire happiness, if we desire Christ and Heaven, to lay down our lives, our desires, our worldly pursuits, things we find that don't make us happy but leave us unsatisfied, and to serve the poor in whom Christ Himself is served.
The Lord says much about His Cross. He tells us that it is this means of torture He will 'draw all men' to Himself. It is by means of the Cross that man will see the love his Creator has for him. It is by means of the Cross that man will see the true depth and meaning of love. It is by means of the Cross that man will lay down his life as his Brother and Saviour, Jesus, has laid down His Life for him. In every age, the Church calls us, as Her members, to lay our own needs and wants aside and to serve the poor with generous hearts. We are moving, in a more secular age, into an age in which human beings are disposable and discarded, unwanted and made scapegoats for society's and our pride, lust, vanity and greed. This age tells us to love self above all things and to always put ourselves first. This is not, as philosophers down the ages have told us, what will make us happy. Happiness is to be emptied of ourselves only to be filled with the love of Christ for men.
In every age Christ and His Church tell us that if we want to be happy and blessed, then we would do well to put aside our own desires, needs and wants and serve our neighbour's needs - especially the poor. Every age has shown us men and women, Saints, who have shown us the way in following Jesus faithfully. It may be that we do not follow the Lord as generously as His Blessed Saint Francis or Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, nor that we are showered with as much grace, but we would be foolish to fail to heed their pattern of life and see in it something of our truly desired happiness, our desired blessedness, that form of happiness that we truly desire, in this age and in all the ages, for evermore.
Finally, let us not be naive. Despite our own neuroses with our own sexuality, it must be said that the Government, the State and commercial interests, too, are far more interested in our sexual orientation and preferences even than we are. So much so, in fact, that the Government is offering same-sex marriage to a small community of people who so far show little interest in marriage as an institution.
We are being divided into neat sub-sections of society and are told regularly to form allegiances, political and social, along these lines. Catholic identity and, in particular, the Catholic truth that man finds happiness and satisfaction in God alone - the Catholic truth that only a relationship with Jesus Christ can grant us the happiness that we truly seek - this is certainly a threat to the Establishment and the established political, social, moral, cultural order of our day. Don't let any Government tell you what you are, for the State has no right to define you. You are made, crafted wonderfully by and for God. In God's eyes, you're not gay, straight, bi, trans or anything else. He has called you by your name. You are a child of God, not a child of the State, nor of the left or the right, nor of any socio-cultural category, for if Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father, is for us, who can be against us and who could possibly prevail?
St Catherine of Siena told us that, "If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!" If we are what we are meant to be then we will set the World on fire with the love of God. Every government - every Government in history, without exception - fears that above all other things, for the making of Martyrs is always a work showing forth the power of God.
Any day now, the Bishops will rise up and in concert proclaim the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ fearlessly and when they do, the very walls of Parliament will shake. I guess the Te Deum is unsuitable for the month of November, but I thought it got across the message of the Church's true vision of man rather well.
Like the traditional vestments, boys. What a game of chess you could have on that floor!
Meanwhile, look at this disgusting example of patriarchy in action. Go on, sister, smash the patriarchy! How typical of a man in authority to think he has the duty, as a man, to comfort a downtrodden sister...
I was recently contacted by the BBC in Brighton who are looking to make a documentary on the homeless and the cuts. So, I accompanied a reporter from the BBC to the St Mary Magdalen Soup Run.
The BBC are looking for a particular strand of homeless person who has been affected directly by the Government's cuts.
In other words, the BBC are looking for 'deserving poor', rather than 'undeserving' poor. The deserving poor are those who have been hit by the cuts. The undeserving are those who are homeless because of some other event or feature in their lives. Interestingly, nobody from the Soup Run really came forward to be interviewed. One who did think about coming forward was reticent about being interviewed because he has family in another part of the country and he doesn't want them to see him in his situation as it is now.
I don't know why the BBC man, who is very affable and likeable, requires someone from the Church to put him in touch with homeless men and women. After all, at about 8.30/9pm, they're everywhere in Brighton, in shop doorways and the doorways of disused, empty office blocks.
A car park in Brighton now using electronic access
All you have to do is walk around and approach them and ask them how they ended up homeless and whether they would like to talk. Anyway, I did manage to find one man on Western Road after the Soup Run who wanted to talk. He was made homeless when the hostel he was staying at in Rochdale was closed due to funding cuts.
From there he made his way down to Brighton. Another man not too far away from the Church did not qualify for the higher rate of housing benefit in another town up North and was made homeless when he couldn't pay his landlord rent. He had a job at Marks and Spencer in his hometown but had to quit since he was without a house and smelt too much. From there, he drifted down to Brighton where the streets are paved with gold.
However, being used as an voluntary BBC researcher did give me a chance to talk to homeless men and women in Brighton. The issue that kept coming up was the local connection policy - something that comes from central Government but which central Government allows local authorities to apply completely at their own discretion - so basically, if the Council like you, they'll let the local connection policy slide. If they don't like you, they won't. It is totally at their discretion.
Another car park with electronic access
A rather disturbing trend I was told by a young homeless man near Brighton Station is that of car parks in the central Brighton area being gated up with electronic passes so that only people who have cars parked there can access the car park. This seems sensible enough, but the fact of the matter is that hitherto these car parks have been used by the homeless as a place to sleep because in the basement floors the temperature is just that one or two degrees higher than on ground floor. You wouldn't think that car parks save lives, but I guess they do, especially in winter. So, knowing there is an issue with homeless people sleeping in car parks, the owners of the car parks have done the noble thing and gated these car parks up in such a way that only car drivers with electronic passes can access the car parks. In the true spirit of Dickensian Britain, the homeless are thus forced upstairs on ground level where its nice and cold. The man who told me this told me he'd lost some friends to overdoses and others to hypothermia. This he told me shivering under a duvet huddled outside a pub near the station.
St Patrick's
Of course, the car parks issue would be mitigated slightly were there a nightshelter in Brighton, but the St Patrick's Nightshelter was closed, leaving St Patrick's only with the hostel section, now run by a housing association, and Brighton's homeless with nowhere to keep warm. I suppose the UN would call this social cleansing by the back door. There is a Church based scheme over winter to house a small portion of Brighton's homeless but these have been handpicked and, I think, basically referred by the Council working with a group called Antifreeze.
Having done some volunteering with that scheme last year, the fact is that only 10 or 12 people make it onto that scheme and the Salvation Army takes up the majority of the homeless. Still, it is also true to say that the homeless population in Brighton is growing - a trend likely to continue under Government cuts in housing benefit and with the forthcoming Universal Credit benefit reform in April.
The fact is that landlords up and down the country are charging exhorbitant rates of rent in the midst of a housing shortage. The housing benefit cap means that those who are under the tenancy regime of landlords charging local authorities high rents will likely be made homeless and those who don't set the rates of rent - the poor - will just be thrown out onto the street in order to find that the local hostels have been closed due to the cuts.
Is this an issue that keeps David Cameron and George Osborne up at night? No, patently it is not, but I dare say it isn't an issue that keeps David Miliband or Nick Clegg or Caroline Lucas up at night either. Obviously, when I meet a homeless person I reassure them that everything will be better once the country has 'gay marriage'. For some reason, they don't appear to be convinced that this is a policy that will benefit them in any way. Are they bigots or something? When rights to housing, shelter, heat and water are removed, I suppose the right to marry another person of the same-sex is perhaps a bit of an elitist right after all. You could be forgiven for thinking that the Government doesn't really have much time for human rights, or human beings for that matter.
In spite of the narrow remit for the BBC's documentary on homelessness and the cuts, I think we could make an argument that all of Brighton's homeless are economically homeless, since none of them can afford to get out of the hostels merry-go round trap, or lift themselves out of poverty and the street and put down a deposit on a flat and not be homeless and utterly dependent on the mercy of a State that couldn't give a flying one what happens to them.
Keep the poor and homeless of your town, locality or city in your prayers, because come 2013, it is expected that the edifice of the 'safety net' of the welfare state will develop significantly bigger holes. Documentaries raising awareness of the fact are good - it is important to educate people about it and God bless the BBC for thinking of doing so. Quite how it helps those at the mercy of the State is another matter.
I did tell the BBC man about Baron Homes and their exploitation of the poor in order to increase their property portfolio in Brighton and beyond, but I doubt the BBC will be interested. I can't help thinking they are only interested in scoring political points.
Perhaps David Cameron, George Osborne and Ian-Duncan Smith want the Church to take in the homeless and are relying on a huge growth in the monastic vocation in taking in the destitute. That'll be the Church that will most likely lose its charitable status when it refuses to 'marry' persons of the same sex and refuses to ordain women to be priests and Bishops under 'equality law'. It can't be easy for a Government that has inherited a crippled economy and empty coffers in the Treasury, so perhaps it will just be cheaper for them to let the poor and homeless freeze in winter and, hey presto, you've reduced the benefit payments and reduced your population in one fell swoop.
We at the LMS office are currently in the process of creating a Mass Listing for both the Immaculate Conception and Christmas.
They should be available to the public by the end of the week.
As to the situation at Westminster Cathedral, we have to concede that the situation is bleak.
The Provision of Masses in Westminster Diocese according to the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum and the clarification Universae Eccesiae, is one of the poorest in the country.
We pray that Westminster Diocese will decide, in charity, to provide the Traditional Latin Mass at more venues (such as anywhere outside of Central London, for instance in it's North London Parishes) at more charitable times.
With regards to our format, we appreciate the feedback, and while it has been the practice of the LMS to use PDF documents to publish our listings, we do hope to change that in the not too distant future to make them more accessible and searchable.
God bless.