At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is about Holy Saturday, about what Christ did through his Cross in the hiddeness of the tomb. After my mothers death I bought this 17/18th cent Russian icon of it Christ crashes through the world of the created order, tramples down the gates of Hell grasps hold of the hands of our first parents and leads them and the just in a great Conga into heaven which his crucifixion has accomplished. In the icon you can see Moses with the tablets of the law, above him John the Ba ..read more

"and there they stripped him of his clothes" At the Solemn Liturgy today I was struck by your absence, and yet of the mysterious presence of the whole Church.  Today. we who are not poor during this time of pandemic have suddenly discovered how poor we really are, and how fragile we and our world are. We have been stripped of so much which a month ago we felt could never be taken away; liberty, friends, community, some of us live with death or sickness a little too close for comfort  especially those in the healthcare services but also others who have to work at  ..read more

",,,,  the Antichrist presents himself as a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist. He ... seeks the consensus of all the Christian confessions, conceding something to each one." "The crowds follow him, except for tiny groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants. Chased by the Antichrist, they tell him, 'You have given us everything except for the one thing that interests us, Jesus Christ,'" "Today, in fact, we run the risk of having a Christianity that puts Jesus with his cross and resurrection into parentheses," "There also are relative values such as solidarity, love for peace and resp ..read more

  "It is not the healthy who need a physician but the sick" Jesus is supposed to be our Saviour but most of us think we are just fine and we don't need Salvation or a Saviour, in fact the idea of Salvation especially for modern Western Christians is incomprehensible nonsense. We think of ourselves as capable of saving ourselves, or friends, the Church, the World, it is the ultimate blasphemy. For Orthodox the foremost prayer is Kyrie Eleison, Lord have mercy, in the West it is the Church's addition to the Angelic Salutation, the Hail Mary, "Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our ..read more

Let's be realistic about fasting, it makes you tetchy, even murderous! Jesus was "driven" into desert to face hunger and temptation not for an intimate prayerful experience. if anything fasting makes the mental effort of prayer much more difficult. I asked a wise old monk why Recreation was reduced to just half an hour during Lent in his monastery, "There are nice pious reasons about giving more time for prayer but the reality is it stops us from losing our temper and tearing out one another's throats". He said history is littered with monks who murdered their abbots during Lent. Fasting ..read more

Almsgiving means giving to the poor, its easy nowadays, we do it by clicking on a screen. In the past it meant going out to the find the poor or letting them into our comfort zone, it meant being disturbed by them, seeing, smelling their poverty for ourselves and even risking our safety in our encounter with them. Giving alms to the sick could well risk catching their sickness or coming home with fleas or worse. Almsgiving is about solidarity with the poor but also education of the rich. There is an element of reminding us of the fleeting nature of our existence and the turn of the wheel of ..read more

A thought I might blog for Lent. Cardinal John Henry Newman said: "Conscience  is the first of the Vicars of Christ."  "This means that Catholics have a duty to tell the truth, to recognize it even when it hurts" Joseph Ratzinger Jesus Christ Crucified is the ultimate reality. We run away from this reality. It is lies that seem to be basis of the present scandals in the Church; lies that men like McCarrick live, lies that covered up for abusers or "defended" the Church but left her exposed to villification. Lies are the basis of politicking, and we have far too much of that it ..read more

Yesterday a kind Orthodox priest who used comment on this blog telephoned to check I was alright, in a very pastoral way I suppose to check I was still alive. This post is to prove to anyone else who might be interested that I am indeed alive. I hate priests who seek sympathy by discussing their health problems, ordinary people have to carry on regardless .... ...but since my heart problems I have been up and down, generally more down than up, my condition and drugs make me very sleepy and tiedd to my home, I have received the great grace of falling asleep during meetings. I am also more s ..read more

The Cross is about the vulnerability of God, it is about God placing himself into our hands. In the Crucifixion God is scourged, spat upon, crowned with thorns, nailed to the Cross and left to die. Upon the Cross the ultimate battle, is revealed the terrible truth of God, the all powerful becomes all weakness, Life himself submits to death, the sinlessness is overcome by sin. Fallen man who has fought with God from his beginning now enters the final battle. Before us is set the incredible power of man, he can and does crush God, remove from existence, expel him from the earth he had created ..read more

I am surprised that few people have reacted to the Secretariate for Communications fake news presentation of the Pope Emeritus' letter to Mons. Viganò in which left out  is significant sections. It adds to the sense of chaos and corruption in the Holy See. Ratzinger is Newman-like in his precision also happily leaves his readers to think more deeply about what he has written. Here are my first thoughts on translation on Sandro Magister's blog.   Rev.mo Signore Mons. Dario Edoardo Viganò Prefetto della Segreteria per la Comunicazione it is striking that a Secretariate should p ..read more