Let's join with the USA!

The historic and catastrophic Roe vs Wade case had its anniversary yesterday and, thanks to Fr Shelton I have learnt that it is now a national day of penance for American Catholics, dedicated to the preservation of life and against acts that violate the human body.

When the 22nd January falls on a Sunday, then the penitential day moves to the Monday. So today we mourn; and pray; and offer up our Masses if we are fortunate enough to be able to attend a weekday Mass.

It seems to me that the whole Catholic world needs to be mindful of today's anniversary and to join with America in offering up acts of mortification in reparation for the slaughter of the innocents.

I will not quote the numbers of infants murdered in their mother's womb - just one would be one too many.

But a prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe would not go amiss, along with whatever form of penance you are able to commit to.

        OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE - PROTECTRESS OF THE UNBORN

Holy Mother of God and of the Church, our Lady of Guadalupe, you were chosen by the Father for the Son through the Holy Spirit.

You are the Woman clothed with the sun who labours to give birth to Christ while Satan, the Red Dragon, waits to voraciously devour your child.

So too did Herod seek to destroy your Son, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and massacred many innocent children in the process.

So today does abortion, by killing many innocent unborn children and exploiting many mothers in its attack upon human life and upon the Church, the Body of Christ.

Mother of the Innocents, we praise God in you for His gifts to you of your Immaculate Conception, your freedom from actual sin; your fullness of grace, your Motherhood of God and the Church, your Perpetual Virginity and your Assumption in body and soul into heaven.

O Help of Christians, we beg you to protect all mothers of the unborn and the children within their wombs.

We plead with you for your help to end the holocaust of abortion. Melt hearts so that life may be revered!

Holy Mother, we pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all mothers and all unborn children that they may have life here on earth and by the most Precious Blood shed by your Son that they may have eternal life with Him in heaven. We also pray to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for all abortionists and all abortion supporters that they may be converted and accept your Son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Saviour.

Defend all of your children in the battle against Satan and all of the evil spirits in this present darkness.

We desire that the innocent unborn children who die without Baptism should be baptized and saved. We ask that you obtain this grace for them and repentance, reconciliation and pardon from God for their parents and their killers.

Let there be revealed, once more, in the history of the world the infinite power of merciful love.

May it put an end to evil. May it transform consciences. May your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope.

May Christ the King reign over us, our families, cities, states, nations and the whole of humanity.

O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, hear our pleas and accept this cry from our hearts!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protectress of the Unborn, Pray for us!

 

"Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything." (Words of Our Lady to Juan Diego)

Remember the Iraqi martyrs in your prayers today

Just one year ago and Catholic Iraqis were massacred in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation.

Adam, a four year old child pleaded for the shooting to stop, the terrorists put a gun to his head and shot him along with 49 other members of the congregation and, of course, the priest celebrant.

The following clip tells the story in a moving and measured fashion - remember 31st October 2010 - pray to Our Blessed Mother for peace and justice for all Christians being persecuted in the world today.

Monsignor Ronald Knox - would have been a great blogger

He died at the age of 69 years on 24th August 1957. In my family home the name 'Ronnie' Knox was in common use, mainly by the many priests and seminarians from Ware who frequently visited (and often stayed on for two or three weeks).

A wit and a classicist - there were

quite a few like him before 1970!

As with so many great Catholics, Mgr 'Ronnie' Knox was a convert who was received into the Church in 1917. A year later and he was ordained - he had enjoyed a spectacular period at Oxford where he excelled as a classicist.

This was a  man of great talent, he was witty, erudite and devout but he never lost the common touch.

He was the author of many books on the faith and, in particular, his 'Mass in slow motion' (written from his talks to schoolgirls on the subject) is to be treasured. In it the Monsignor likens the Mass to a dance (not the liturgical dance kind that we know and hate today), but a dance where the priest and the server first tentatively approach the Lord with the prayers at the foot of the altar. It climaxes at the Consecration and Holy Comunion before winding down to the 'Ite Missa est' and the last Gospel.

He also translated the St Jerome Vulgate from the latin into English painstakingly bringing the Old and New Testaments up to date in a language style that made the Bible accessible to all - I am particularly grateful for the manner in which he brought the letters of St Paul into the 20th century as some of them were impossible to construe with any meaning.

He lived, of course, in the time of Chesterton and the two were great friends, Mgr Knox actually gave the sermon at GKC's Requiem in Westminster Cathedral, and, like Chesterton, he enjoyed writing detective novels and wrote a series of ten; this is a man who packed his life full of value.

He was not altogether approved of, especially by his fellow clergy who found his style of writing and his views somewhat out of sync with the ultra conservatism of the times. His views on indulgences verged (so his accusers believed) on disrespect as he stated on several occasions that he thought the Church should make them available: "when we get up to make room for an old lady on a bus". He was also not one for Marian devotions (which does, admittedly, make him hard to admire). 

 It is reported that he claimed: "......most of the literature about her (Our Lady) and the popular devotions connected with her leave me cold.”

The following passage is a good indication of his somewhat unorthodox views and is taken from his obituary in The Point, July 1958:-

"....As the above comments are phrased, one might get the impression that Monsignor Knox thinks that Saint John (despite all the doting senility he ascribed to the Saint) actually wrote the Holy Gospel according to Saint John. Not so. “Saint John,” writes Knox, “never really sat down and wrote a Gospel; what we’ve got is the result of a series of Press Conferences, at which his disciples were plying him with questions all the time.” The series of reminiscences that were thus “elicited from him piecemeal” were later shuffled together, the Monsignor says, and made into the Fourth Gospel. And so it happens that Monsignor Knox in the Gospel of Saint John, readily and without scruple blames those unknown disciples: “It looks as if their notes got muddled.”

A few weeks before his death, Monsignor Knox completed work on a new English translation of the autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus. The book has just been published in this country and has been hailed as witness to the “abiding influence” of the late Monsignor.

Source: Catholicism.org

It is impossible to look at Knox's life in the faith and not see strong similarities between him and some of our priest bloggers today, in particular,

 Fr Tim Finigan and Fr Z.

Humour has always been an integral part of Catholic life, from the gallows humour of St Thomas More and the Martyrs to the likes of Chesterton, Belloc,  Tolkien (anyone who created a Hobbit must have had a great sense of the absurd) and, of course, Evelyn Waugh who was a personal friend of the Monsignor.

Perhaps Knox's most extravagant jest was his radio hoax which he pulled off in 1926 which is believed to have been the inspiration for The War of the Worlds hoax orchestrated by Orson Welles in 1938.

Knox's broadcast came out of the blue on an unsuspecting audience; London was being invaded, rioters were storming Broadcasting House. It was a very obvious spoof but it succeeded in panicking many people who were, as then, unused to serious subjects such as a news broadcast being parodied and the BBC had to issue the following reassurance the next day......

“Some listeners, who apparently only heard part of Father Knox's talk at 7:40 this evening did not realise the humorous innuendoes underlying the imaginary news items and have felt uneasy as to the fate of London, Big Ben and other places mentioned in the talk. The preliminary announcement stated that the talk was a skit on broadcasting and the whole talk was, of course, a burlesque. We hope that any listeners who did not realise it will accept our sincere apologies for any uneasiness caused. London is safe. Big Ben is still chiming, and all is well.”

Remember him in your prayers today - he would have made a great blogger!

Please do not forget Madeleine

Next month will be the fourth anniversary of her abduction but still her parents continue the search....please be vigilant on her behalf and also pray for her and her family.....

Remember her distinctive left eye...

Full details on what to do if you see her are on http://www.findmadeleine.com/

The Ballad of Walsingham

Bitter, bitter oh to behoulde

The grass to growe

Where the walles of Walsingham

So stately did shewe.

Such were the worth of Walsingham

While she did stand,

Such are the wrackes as now do shewe

Of that (so) holy lande.

Levell, levell with the ground

The Towres do lye

Which with their golden, glitt'ring tops

Pearsed oute to the skye.

Where the weare gates noe gates are nowe,

The waies unknown,

Where the presse of freares did passe

While her fame was far blowen.

Oules do scrike where the sweetest himnes

Lately were songe,

Toads and serpents hold thie dennes

Where the palmers did throng.

Weep, weep, O Walsingham,

Whose days are nightes,

Blessings turned to blasphemies,

Holy deedes to dispites.

Sinne is where Our Lady sate,

Heaven turned is to helle;

Sathan sitte where Our Lord did swaye,

Walsingham, oh, farewell!