Miraculous Medal Dissemination in Brighton

'Yea, our soul is greatly filled: we are an offence unto the wealthy, and a contempt unto the proud.' ~ Psalm 122

Brighton is preparing for a Catholic procession to take place on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception next Saturday with a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. As part of the preparation, Fr Ray Blake blessed a load of Miraculous Medals which he has asked us to give out to friends, family and strangers.

So yesterday I and a friend set up a small busking operation on London Road. I think we gave out about 5 or 6 Miraculous Medals. I saw on the street a friend of mine who works at the Council and gave one to him and his love interest. With obligatory Poundland Santa hats, we were largely ignored, which is always a healthy situation for anyone with a guitar in his hand to be in. We did find one Catholic, possibly lapsed, who was happy to receive the Miraculous Medal. We both enjoyed slagging off together the reign of Caroline Lucas's Green Party in Brighton.

Later on we were told that there would be an evangelical Christian concert at a nearby community centre so we nipped in to see what was going on. People were rapping and singing about their love for Jesus, but it didn't take the small contingent who had come to Brighton from Lewisham too long to encourage Jason to leave the premises and, upon asking whether he could use the toilet, was told to go outside near a tree.

I got into a small argument about the perpetual virginity of Our Lady and her title as the Mother of God with one of the group of evangelicals outside and addressed such issues as the primacy of St Peter on whom the Church was built, the role of the Successor of St Peter, the Holy Mass as the source and summit of Christian  life, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Confession and the omission of the letter of St James from Protestant Bibles.

In my heart I really wanted to give this man a Miraculous Medal but bottled it because I thought I knew he would reject it. I regret deeply not offering him one or asking Jason to pin him to the ground in order to lodge a Miraculous Medal down his sock. He offered the familiar Protestant lie that she was a 'sinner like you and me'. I tried to tell him that Our Lady's Magnificat made it quite clear that henceforth 'all generations shall call me blessed', but he wasn't having any of it and claimed not to know whether that passage even appeared in his Bible. Obviously, I told him the New Testament was written by Catholics only to be ripped to shreds by Protestants. Despite their professed love for Jesus who had 'saved' them, Jason described the group as 'demonic'.

Pray for all those who blaspheme the name of the Ever Virgin Mary Mother of God, for all who do not honour her and those who profess faith in Christ but remain antagonistic and suspicious of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and who deride Her poor and who treat them with contempt.