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22 OCTOBER 2020 – MEMORIAL of St JOHN PAUL II (1920-2005)

It has been a big week for Australia. 3 Flags Albo the Great and Ms Wong the Smug have been in Washington DC for a President Trump encounter. And all went well except for the Aussie Ambassador Dr Kevin Rudd. Trump put him in his place after Rudd’s derogatory comments made before assuming Ambassadorial office. But the Donald has a long memory and can seemingly be thin skinned, like most of us of course. Sticks and Stones May break my bones by names can always hurt me!!!! (To break with tradition).

I have never warmed to Dr Rudd, he always seemed the proverbial Aussie smartarse to me. “Hello my name’s Kevin, and I am here to help!!” A good Anglican family man and extremely hard worker has to bring with it some deficits in the public arena, I guess. Listening to Greg Sheridan yesterday push against the media tide with his defence of Kevin Rudd as the architect behind Australia’s current good standing with President Trump and his praise of his full blown work in the USA as Australian Ambassador, got me thinking. I remember being so impressed and proud 13 February 2003 when as Prime Minister Rudd apologised in Federal Parliament to the First Nations People.

And then there is his latest serious book:

On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World

Dr Rudd is not just another overpaid dopey MP who had opportunities. He is a most accomplished Australian maybe even distinguished:

After leaving the prime ministership of Australia, I spent eight years of my life as President of the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) in New York (2015–2023), and the last two of those years as President and CEO of the Asia Society as a whole. I would like to thank Asia Society colleagues for all their support and encouragement as I worked my way through the writing of The Avoidable War and then finalizing my Oxford dissertation. In completing both tasks, I was able to draw in part from my previous writings and research for ASPI and its Centre for China Analysis. It took me nearly five years to complete my DPhil, with the vast bulk of it done while running the Asia Society. I also used much of my spare time during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020–2021 writing The Avoidable War on the side. Part of my reasoning was that, early in the life of the Biden administration, I thought it more useful to have a book published on the immediate, real-world challenges of the US-China relationship than trying to incorporate it into a longer-term analysis of CCP ideology. Ideology could wait for a while. This made for many sleepless nights trying to juggle all three worlds at once. But it was well worth it.

Rudd, Kevin. On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World (p. xvii). (Function). Kindle Edition.

But across the decades, China’s rise has been a continuing focus of my personal and professional life—whether as a scholar, a professional diplomat (including at Australia’s embassy in what, back then, we still quaintly called ‘Peking’), a state government official, a businessman, a member of parliament, as foreign minister, as prime minister, as president of an American think tank, and more recently as Ambassador to the United States. China, for me, has been a lifelong vocation.

Rudd, Kevin. On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World (p. 1). (Function). Kindle Edition.

He graduated with Degrees from the ANU in the Chinese Language and Literature and successfully defended his DPhil Doctoral Dissertation at OXFORD UNIVERSITY when in his early 50’s. No mean feat. The guy is no mug! I must be careful and more circumspect in passing cheap judgements on the basis of media leanings and portraits. I suspect we owe a great deal to Dr Kevin Rudd truly the hard working Australian Labor man. I noted too that he signed the preface to his latest book on Xi Jinping:

Kevin Rudd Easter Day, 2024
Brisbane, Australia

Rudd, Kevin. On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World (p. xviii). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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16 OCTOBER 2025 – MEMORIAL OF St HEDWIG (c.1174 – 1243) 28th Week of Year C

Well how is your week going? I have found it pretty heavy! The Hostages coming home to traumatised families in Israel and Puffed up Governments of Australia; UK; Canada; France seemingly disconnected from Oct 7 disrepected Israel – Ms Wong the Smug and 3 Flags Albo the Great ” omnia omnibus” have never even bothered to visit Israel while handing out our tax payments to terrorists and the dreadful UNO is just sad really ! And determined to appease HAMAS. Mind blowing! Terrorists by nature are committed to TERROR nothing else… and they are good at it. My view anyway … the Canberra ACT dopes and dills on big salaries, luxury conditions, and pensions aside, and lots of areoplane rides are far worse than merely disappointing. There are some outstanding MPs however, I acknowledge this to be fair. Thank God there are Aussies out there working and paying their taxes, worrying about paying the bills, and managing well their teenagers, as the birthdrate in Australia plummets … Rather than living off welfare and living an Activism that most of us are sick to death with. Apart from that it has been a normal week in Australia! Oh and of course there is the daily crime in Melbourne and the persecution of the Victorian farmers and graziers….

I have been glued to the TV with the return of the hostages. And have to admit I wept a fair bit. Pope Leo has been steady as she goes ! But goodness how I admire his fidelity to Pope Francis and the “hermenutic of continuity” and the sidelining as minor issues like the affected Cardinal Burke et al… seemingly largely inconsequential. Our own new Bishop attended the Roman “formation” in Rome with 200 others. (It takes at least three years to form anyone in the Catholic Church, and so two weeks is pathetic.) He would have heard stuff that never crossed his mind in Provincialist Wagga Brennanist traditionalism. Must have been challenging. And hard to reject Cardinal Fernandez … let alone Pope Leo XIV’s talk on the BISHOP in a Diocese. Let alone the Pope’s meditation on Bishops and the Jubilee. Let along synodality and all the comes with this charism.

Anyone in touch with the life of the Catholic Church in the world can see clearly that Rome has asked Bishops in their dioceses to hold a Synod. Sydney Archdiocese was one of the first to get underway. Of course “Synod” is in Canon Law. But Synodal Church and Synodality are another matter. Using Canonical Synods to stamp out Syndodality is clearly a power move and strategy for control.

Our Bishop clearly has another unpublished unspoken agenda and it is not SYNODAL CHURCH nor SYNODALITY it is Canonical Synod he can control and which continues to infantilise clergy, and render neutral laity,as he leads us back into the 19th Century under the erstwhile Oratorians and their ilk.

*By Traditionalism we here refer to an ideology that includes rejection of 
or suspicion of the entirety or parts of the Magisterium from the Second Vatican Council up to the present day, 
as well as the reform of the Roman Rite. We believe that to be authentically Catholic is to be “traditional”; 
however “Traditionalism” takes that love for older usages a step further, fostering schismatic attitudes 
and behaviors that tear apart, rather than build up, the Body of Christ.

***

As I have written elsewhere:

I believe the real heroes in Australia are the Ambos; the Tradies; the Country GPs; the Police; the ADF; and delivery men and truck drivers. Nurses are in there too when they are working. After this the Framers and Graziers. My humble view. I am well aware of the export earnings of Mines but I think they look after themselves very well, whereas these others work for people and their lives.

I don’t know where the Catholics are in all this in the Middle East and Russia slaughtering young Russians and of course the hated Ukrainians week by week … Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican can’t take side sides and will naturally focus on what is happening in the scenario with their own flock let alone people ! …. Cardinals bemoaning death and suffering and calling or peace … as usual, nothing new here. All this is a parable of who we are as a human race. And no one is looking at Nigeria, the Sudan, the Congo, Haiti Oh and so many other places … We have ourselves been doped up by the the media in our public forum as we try to be Labor, Liberal, Country, Nation, or “Green” or whatever. What a mess. Nothing from our Bishop – surprising surprising – and nothing from Australian Bishops as usual.

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11 OCTOBER 2025 – VIGIL 28th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C 2025

I have just finished my first reading of the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Leo XIV DILEXI TE … “I have loved you” focused on the Love of the Poor. It is rich, wonderful, edifying, but also very challenging, and utterly Catholic and Christian. Dissident Traditionalists attacking and subverting the ordinary Catholic Life of particular Churches ought take note. I have no doubt whatsoever that we are faithful Catholics when we are faithfully sentire cum ecclesia – TRADITION SCRIPTURE MAGISTERUM.

Going to confession over the years I have no hesitation in saying that one of my main sins is that I have effectively done nothing for love of the poor ! And also I have not really cared enough for my family. Being a diocesan priest really means keeping the doors open, the trains running, and if the Holy Spirit wants to get involved that it is up to her! If one doesn’t do this one gets the sack … Religious are different they spend enormous amounts of time discerning ever greener pastures, and placements in orchards others have planted and tend…to pluck the fruit… then exhausted they need a sabbatical and no doubt a Chapter to follow after a leisurely Retreat. (One point of view anyway!!)

What have I done for the poor … I give money, not that the Catholic Church remunerates priest anymore than a pittance to maintain their controlling power over individuals the culture infantilises. But despite this I have done a bit I suppose. Then I myself am not the “whole” catholic Church. But the whole Church collectively does immense work with the poor. Even in a post Christian culture like divided and battling socially incohesive Australia!

If you haven’t reflectively read DILEXI TE you probably should …. in my own little rural ignored and unrecognised parish … the charism is definitely St Vincent de Paul. The parishioners and indeed the town is fabulous in its striving to care for the poor. And so is far more in touch with the great Catholic Tradition than the Dissent Traditionalists subversives infecting our particular Church these days.

Jesus’ disciples criticized the woman who poured costly perfumed oil on his head. They said: “Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” However, the Lord said to them in response: “You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me” (Mt 26:8-9,11). That woman saw in Jesus the lowly and su”ering Messiah on whom she could pour out all her love. What comfort that anointing must have brought to the very head that within a few days would be pierced by thorns! It was a small gesture, of course, but those who su”er know how great even a small gesture of a”ection can be, and how much relief it can bring. Jesus understood this and told the disciples that the memory of her gesture would endure:

“Wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her” (Mt 26:13). The simplicity of that woman’s gesture speaks volumes. No sign of affection, even the smallest, will ever be forgotten, especially if it is shown to those who are suffering, lonely or in need, as was the Lord at that time.

5. Love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor. The same Jesus who tells us, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11), also promises the disciples: “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). We likewise think of his saying: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us.

The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the Church’s mission, convinces me of the need to go back and re-read the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world. The poor cannot be neglected if we are to remain within the great current of the Church’s life that has its source in the Gospel and bears fruit in every time and place.

Finally, in a document that was not initially well received by everyone, we find a reflection that remains timely today: “The defenders of orthodoxy are sometimes accused of passivity, indulgence, or culpable complicity regarding the intolerable situations of injustice and the political regimes which prolong them. Spiritual conversion, the intensity of the love of God and neighbour, zeal for justice and peace, the Gospel meaning of the poor and of poverty, are required of everyone, and especially of pastors and those in positions of responsibility. The concern for the purity of the faith demands giving the answer of effective witness in the service of one’s neighbour, the poor and the oppressed in particular, in an integral theological fashion.” [106
Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Leo XIV DILEXI TE §§ 4 & 5 & 15 & 98.

If you haven’t read DILEXI TE than you probably should before your next Eucharistic Adoration, and/or contributing to a new monstrance, mitre, or episcopal ring or trip around the world for the Chief Pastor. And see if you can find your Bible again … dust it off … and engage with it like a real Catholic. The Gospel of Mark is a good way to find THE CHRIST.

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5 OCTOBER 2025 – 27th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C 2025

Migrant & Refugee Sunday

Yesterday was the Feast of St Francis of Assisi a mate of mine posted a simple reflection that caught my attention.

“Francis did not possess the Gospel—he let it possess him.”

Saint Francis did not treat the Gospel as a set of teachings to master or a doctrine to defend. He allowed it to master him. The Word became not just flesh in Christ, but fire in Francis—consuming his pride, illuminating his poverty, and animating his joy. He did not quote the Gospel to win arguments; he embodied it to win hearts.  

His life became a living exegesis:  
– When he stripped himself before the bishop, he was preaching the Beatitudes.  
– When he kissed the leper, he was proclaiming the mercy of the Prodigal Father.  
– When he sang to Sister Death, he was echoing the Resurrection.

To let the Gospel possess us is to surrender control—not just of our possessions, but of our self-image, our ambitions, our need to be right. It is to become clay in the hands of the Word, shaped not by fear but by love

Fr Francis M Afu

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A truly great Holy Man was St Francis and anyone who has spent time in Assisi comes away deeply moved. I have been blessed in having visited Assisi three times. Nowhere to go? Go to Assisi but spend a few days….

It was also the day that the new Swiss Guards took their Oath of Loyalty and Fidelity before the Holy Father. I always find this moving. Although I know progressives will find it sickening that it is about men. I still find it moving. There is one truly great thing about the Catholic Church and it is priceless. We have Narrative, Story, Memory, Foundations…. unlike post-modern Wokery in Australia soiling our story as a nation, and in its place offering us tattoos and nose rings and sponging off our parents, if we have them.

Migrant and Refugee Sunday today too. Sore point in the public forum these days. Not so much due to migrants and refugee but rather massive ineptitude by Governments (on big salaries) in responsibly managing the massive movement of peoples, in our time a world first. But also the abuse of migration and refugee status by fraudulent motivation and deceit in many newcomers. Any healthy nation MUST secure its borders and wisely manage migration. The Catholic Church is clear about the issue as it seems to involve MANY Catholics. I have always found it VERY STRANGE that the Church doesn’t seem to notice that many countries Catholics are fleeing are supposed to be Catholic Countries eg: Latin America. And if not Catholic then there is strong Catholic presence and influence in countries like Africa. The Church hammers the host country without addressing WHY PEOPLE ARE DRIVEN OUT OF THEIR HOMELAND. Of course the Middle East Christians have been persecuted since the time of the Crusades but climaxing in our own time. I don’t know about you but I can never remember living in a time of so much killing of human beings willy nilly ! Maybe Pope Francis the Great was right when he said:

Pope Francis has repeatedly stated that we are already living through a kind of World War III, often describing it as being fought “piecemeal” across various conflicts globally. One of the earliest significant instances was on September 13, 2014, during a visit to the Redipuglia military cemetery in Italy to mark the centenary of World War I, where he stated: “Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction”. See link to Perplexity AI Report

Did you notice the Prime Minister of Italy quoting unabashedly Pope Francis on this point in her address to that sick outfit the UNO recently?

I have never been more aware of the 5th Commandment in my life (6th if you are non Catholic !!!) …. especially when I see Putin’s image. The Middle East is an exception in the entire Universe. There will never be just peace there while there is hate. Although the world to its great shame has ignored the Sudan and the Congo …. Oh and so many others places eg: Haiti. I pray for these places daily. Normally when I wake up c.3am for some reason.

See also: THOMAS BANCHOFF – REENCOUNTERING ‘FRATELLI TUTTI’

Don’t forget that this is the month of the HOLY ROSARY and Pope Leo has asked us to pray the Rosary for PEACE. The Middle East in my view has to learn once and for all that you can never have PEACE grounded in HATE.

There are Australian Bishops out there somewhere ! Thank God for the Bishop of Rome !

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28 SEPTEMBER 2025 – 26th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C 2025

Pope Leo urges Catholics to pray daily Rosary for Peace in October

… Pope Leo XIV invites the faithful to join in praying the Rosary every day during October to invoke God’s gift of peace, and announces a Rosary in St. Peter’s Square on October 11 as part of the Jubilee of Marian Spirituality.

*

WE are into the Month of the Holy Rosary this coming week…1st October is this Wednesday. Hard to have been baptised, confirmed, and raised as a Catholic without having experienced the Rosary. Much loved not only by rear vision mirrors in cars and taxis but by ordinary old Catholic battlers. I don’t know why but I have always preferred the Joyful Mysteries and the Sorrowful Mysteries over the Glorious !!! Until the Mysteries of Light was added by Saint John Paul II. And of the Joyful Mysteries the ANNUNCIATION and the VISITATION have always been my favourites. Maybe I am still only in the early stages of being saved or something…. But the Annunciation is really the thing !!! Do you have a favourite Mystery of the Holy Rosary…. after the ANNUNCIATION my next favourite is the CARRYING OF THE CROSS… Have you come across Pope St Leo the Great’s reflection on the Incarnation ?

From a letter of Saint Leo the Great, pope (c. 391 – 10 November 461)

The mystery of man’s reconciliation with God

Lowliness is assumed by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.

  He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.

  For in the Saviour there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter. It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.

  He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.

  Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father’s glory. He is born in a new condition, by a new birth.

  He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.

  He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the pre-eminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.

  As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted. Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other. The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfils what is proper to the flesh.

  One nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries. As the Word does not lose equality with the Father’s glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.

  One and the same person – this must be said over and over again – is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Responsory

℟. Virgin Mary, receive the word of the Lord brought to you by the angel: You will conceive and bear a son, both God and man.* You will be called, Blessed among all women.

℣. You will indeed bear a son, yet suffer no loss of virginity; you will be with child, yet remain a mother ever undefiled.* You will be called, Blessed among all women.

I know the ANNUNCIATION is way back in March… 25th … 9 months to Christmas Day … But it is pretty foundational to our faith and Journey to Jerusalem in the Year of St Luke. BUT the Mysteries of the Rosary during October as we pray our meditative way through them are like a BIG RETREAT for us coming to the end of the Liturgical Year. We should make sure we pray the Holy Rosary frequently alone and/or with others during the Month of October. I think …

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21 SEPTEMBER 2025 – 25th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME YEAR C 2025

I can’t help it but I love that gem embedded in the 2nd Reading today at HOLY MASS in the TABLE OF THE WORD …..

My advice is that, first of all, there should be prayers offered for everyone – petitions, intercessions and thanksgiving – and especially for kings and others in authority, so that we may be able to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet. To do this is right, and will please God our saviour: he wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

And again:

For God so loved the world that he gave^* his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.^{k 17} For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn^* the world, but that the world might be saved through him.^l  (John 3:16-717. ESV)

¹⁶ For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. ¹⁷ For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world: but that the world may be saved by him. (John 3:16-17 Douay-Rheims).

Do you remember this from Catechetics from the early 1970’s ?

The GOD I don’t believe in –

No, I shall never believe in:
the God who catches man by surprise in a sin of weakness … 
the God who loves pain … 
the God who makes himself feared … 
the judge-God who can give a verdict only with a rule book in his hands, 
the God incapable of smiling at many of man’s awkward mistakes, 
the God who “plays at” condemning 
the God who “sends” people to hell, 
the God who always demands 100 percent in examinations… 
the God who says “You will pay for that!”… 
the God who prefers purity to love … ²

No, I shall never believe in: 
the God who loves us so little that our wrongdoing doesn’t matter to him
the God who is almost as comfortable with sin as I am
the God who smiles at human rebellion and says “Boys will be boys!” 
the God for whom ‘love’ is a liberated tolerance of all that we tolerate
the God who hits on the cross as a concession to the unpleasant side of his nature
the God who finds love and purity somehow incompatible
the God who inspires no reverent awe and fear
the God who thinks that needlessly crucifying his Son is an example of love.

See: Further

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19 SEPTEMBER 2025 – 24th Week of Ordinary Time Year C 2025

Talking with my sister this morning. We were reflecting on our time in life serving as best we could in the Catholic Church. We did so well. Heart and soul into building community and connecting with people incarnationally in their lives and struggles the way Gaudium et Spes spoke so eloquently. Now we notice that the Church, Prelates, Sub-Prelates, and Wannabe Prelates are oblivious to the years 1965 and c.2022 or so. Hard to date. But our generation of hardworking, all out Catholics for the Bishops and the Church over our lifetimes seem to have disappeared. There is no acknowledgment, no ongoing sense of narrative, no respect for people who have given their all, worked hard and long hours for parish/Church programmes, paid untold amounts of money to the Church, and providing episcopal comfort and splendour, put up with bullying clerics and episcopal stupidity etc etc etc … And are now treated as they never existed. I know for example of one catholic woman who was at a Dominican Secondary College SANTA SABINA STRATHFIELD; Teacher Trained at SIGNADOU CANBERRA ACT, spent 50 years in Catholic Education as a teacher, REC, AP, and then Principal. And is now treated as though she never existed by grandstanding Clerics and salaried Lay power persons.

There is no memory, no story, nor Narrative and THEREFORE NO AUTHENTIC SENSE OF TRADITION…. and as usual with many in the Catholic Church “words come cheap and Oh! So easily”. Something wrong here I think big time, and people can see through it with clarity. Lord knows how Religious really feel deep down given that they have prayed, worshipped, and given their ALL, and I mean their ALL, and are now nobodies, “moving on” as Prelates say in meetings. This is incredibly wrong, and simply bad News. These people gave THEIR ALL. And it is now clear it didn’t matter. Despite the words…. of Prelates, Sub-Prelates, and Wannabe Prelates. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO CARE FOR PEOPLE, in the sense that so much of its culture is about “it” rather than “us”.

Stories of Lay Catechists in parishes who amazingly have held to their ministry, prayed for their kids, believed in the CCD programmes of parishes for OVER 32 YEARS IN MANY CASES… and some new Priest Dope arrives unaware of ANYTHING AND WORSE NOT INTERESTED IN THE NARRATIVE …. Disconnects his parish from its Story…. And while the new Bishops born long after Vatican II, dress up in thousand dollar finery for circus Liturgy celebrating mainly themselves … the Church dies through disconnection, no longer incarnating the Word, risks straying towards idolatry, focusing away from the people of God. It is so wrong. For the wider Post-Christian world they simply see the Church as : cruel towards LBGT+; opposed to same sex marriage; and utterly uncaring of “the others”and not concerned with people who are dying in great pain. All this of course can be contested and rightly so. But the point is Nobody is seriously listening to the Church its Prelates, Sub-Prelates, and Wannabe Prelates. And of course the Trads believing in the 19the Century gather in numbers as pall bearers. Home schooling and ensuring there is an indoctrinated generation no longer able to think for themselves isolated in cult and in denial … rather than engaging with the World… whom God loved so much He sent his only Son….Not to condemn (John 3:16).

The Catholic Church needs to recover a sense, and deeply so, that the people do matter. More than Latin Masses, and beautiful vestments for Bishops and theatre for attending clerical sycophants, and giggling in the Presbytery let alone the sacristy. No wonder these NO Memory of Vatican II power persons, ordained or not, hardly ever refer to the Gospels. Jesus was about the People and not too much bothered about the Temple. And the Phylacteries etc.

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14 SEPTEMBER 2025 – THE EXALTATION OF THE CROSS for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Hymn

Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, he meets his Passion
For that this he freely willed:
On the Cross, the Lamb is lifted,
Where his life-blood shall be spilled.

He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar, and spear, and reed;
From that holy Body broken
Blood and water, both proceed:
Earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean
By that flood from stain are freed.

Faithful Cross! above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest Weight is hung on thee.

Bend thy boughs, O Tree of Glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For a while the ancient rigour
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!

Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world’s ransom to uphold;
For a shipwrecked race preparing
Harbour, like the Ark of old;
With the sacred Blood anointed
From the smitten Lamb that rolled.

To the Trinity be glory,
Everlasting, as is meet;
Equal to the Father, equal
To the Son and Paraclete:
Trinal Unity, whose praises
All created things repeat.

[Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis, – The hymn was written around 570 AD by Venantius Fortunatus, a celebrated poet and bishop, for a procession that brought a relic of the True Cross to Queen Radegund in Poitiers.]

It remains among the core hymns used in the Roman liturgy for Good Friday and Holy Week.
Perplexity AI

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13 SEPTEMBER 2025 – VIGIL of THE EXALTATION OF THE CROSS for the 24th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR C

Tomorrow is SAFEGUARDING SUNDAY and the Prayer for the Day The Australian Bishops have published is:

PRAYER FOR SAFEGUARDING SUNDAY
You guard us, Lord God, beneath the shelter of your wings
till the storms of destruction pass by (Psalm 57:1).
The storms of abuse have struck and have not yet passed by.
We see the damage done and we seek shelter in you.
Beneath your wings we gather the survivors and their loved ones,
all the victims, living and dead.
We gather those who work to bring healing and to make the Church a safe place for all.
We gather all the faithful, the Body of Christ, bearing the wounds of the Cross.
May the Church grow more like you, wings spread wide to provide shelter for all, till the storms of destruction pass by and peace without end has come.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

It has been a nightmare that has left us in the Church and priests especially I believe changed. Every priest is now a secondary victim of Abuse. And not only abuse of children, but vulnerable adults, and even as Pope Francis highlighted abuse of Power by Prelates and Superiors, Abuse of Conscience by Formators and Spiritual Guides, and Spiritual Abuse in its many forms of all and sundry. Clearly Pope Francis saw Clericalism as root cause. But it is bigger than that I think. And this cancer has shaped my priesthood over 40 years now. I was subpoenaed to the Royal Commission special investigation of Case 44 the Armidale and Parramatta Diocese. And then the Whitlam Enquiry commission by Bishops of Armidale and Parramatta. And four times as a Police Witness in Court. For me it was traumatising. And it changed my view on so much in the Catholic Church and its Princes and Potentates, clericalist culture and the exercise of power in Diocesan Church life.

I have always argued that the Royal Commission should have been into Child Abuse in Australia. Not the Labor Party attacking the Catholic Church. Books have been written on this and articles around the Western World.

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Gerard Henderson – Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt Paperback – 30 November 2021

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[The new updated new edition of Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile-On & Collective Guilt contains an endorsement by the former High Court of Australia judge Michael Kirby AC CMG.]

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Frank Brennan SJ – Observations On The Pell Proceedings Paperback – 8 April 2021

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Keith Windshuttle – The Persecution of George Pell

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See: Gerard Henderson – Where’s spotlight on government school pedophiles?

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But child abusers are NOT formed by the Church they come from Australian families into the Church. The gross and unforgivable negligence of “power” in the Church is “not being able to look after people”. Caring for people rather than Institutional Self-Defence is a major problem with the Catholic Church its Prelates, Sub Prelates, and Wannabe Prelates. Still the Church has responded hard to getting its house in order given huge pressure and clearly left with no alternative – a telling thing in itself. But Abuse is culture wide and endemic. The Church is in many ways streets ahead, in both understanding and remediation, than The Australian nation about its Child Abuse etc problem.

For me the major issue with the Church is under education of its leaders, power persons, and formators let alone the disempowered cheap labour the priests. Not only undereducated, but persons were given jobs to do with NO TRAINING (skills acquisition) and no Church culture of accountability, supervision, mentoring, ongoing professional development of those appointed with immense power of the lives of other human beings. Appallingly out of touch formation for the work these men would be expected to do. Priests have been neglected hugely and rendered infantilised and cheap labour – rather than treated as respected adult human beings, qualified, and skilled, and having professional standing, in the community. Bishops have an enormous reality to face up to here themselves. I was horrified that Pope Francis when he wrote to the world about Child Abuse never mentioned Bishops but only priests. Then again he did seem to have a chip on his shoulder about priests. Maybe a Jesuit thing I don’t know. But the Catholic priesthood has been knocked around badly, dumbed down, and denigrated big time, and the problem is the Bishops and their being ignorant, untrained for what they end up having to do, and utterly unaccountable and unsupervised.

But the serious cultural problem of Abuse is not simply a Catholic one. See: Australian Child Maltreatment Study.

Catholic Safeguarding

ACU – Institute of Child Protection Studies

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study
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TRADITIONALISM & TRAD RECOVERY PROGRAM & CLERICALISM
MISOGYNY & XENOPOHOBIA

For me as soon as the detection of this Cancer was dragged out of the closet, then The Australian Bishops should have sent at least 10/20 Priests, Bishops, and Lay Leaders to Rome to qualify IN CARING FOR PEOPLE at Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care Gregorian University in Rome under Fr Hans Zollner SJ. Then when QUALIFIED, EDUCATED, AND TRAINED persons, could return to Australia and train, educate and qualify other people in each Diocese, to SAFEGUARD AND CARE FOR PEOPLE, and TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHURCH. Once again the issue is FORMATION. So so obvious to me. Bugger the cost. Just wearing a $1,000 mitre and sporting a priceless episcopal ring is a scandal. Education, Training, and Formation in how to be HUMAN and CARE FOR PEOPLE is the glaringly obvious issue.

Some thoughts on the HOPE FILLED but HEART BREAKING DAY.

Just listen to the reflections of a self initiated trained priest in the field, who loves his job !! ….who during COVID lockdown opted to do a Master’s in Pastoral Counselling through Notre Dame University Sydney instead of sitting in the Presbytery watching TV. I might add facing incredible opposition and just nastiness from the Chancery and even his Bishop at the time was part of the cost he had to privately bear. The stipend of priests is insulting to say the least. Prelates smirk at this of course. But that is another issue. The Catholic Church has to face the truth. Priests should be paid enough to at least pay for their Funerals as now that Chancery and Power people are telling them to do.- $12,000 to $15,000 is suggested. If priests have to pay for everything then they are entitled to a fair salary, and work conditions, and a legal employment agreement. Rather then Bishops randomly applying Canon Law when it suits them. TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ITSELF & CARING FOR PEOPLE are big issues that trump INSTITUTIONAL SELF-DEFENCE EVERY TIME. And returning to the 19th century is no answer it is merely hiding from reality and the times and the place. The real Catholic Church has never done that. It has engaged with its times and place carrying with it the pearl of great price – The Gospel … and while never perfectly, magnificently so.

Fr Joseph Beyelah Armah – PASTORAL REFLECTIONS

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7 SEPTEMBER 2025 – 23rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR C …
FATHER’S DAY IN AUSTRALIA

I guess a lot of us are thinking about our Dad’s … even those of us well into our seventies … I always imagined that as one ages parents would fade into past memories. My experience is contrary to this. I find I think/recall more and more of Mum and Dad the older I get. And I remember Mum was very much the same… talked more about her Mother in later years than before…

I think one’s Grandfathers are highly significant too, or used to be, in the olden days when we still had a basically Judaeo-Christian culture and family and therefore Marriage truly mattered. And marriage did matter back then, and adults made heroic sacrifices to keep the show going. Today it is “get a life” that normally seems to mean get a dog, go to the Gymnasium, drink Latté Coffees, divorce or reject marriage, and live networking on devices. Lord knows what AI will bring the Rich, the Green, and the Godless… and they don’t all live on the North Shore….more Pyschotherapy I guess …. and weirdo spiritualism.

But we “has beens” can recall a very different culture. I still love to pray, go to Mass, endure other person’s Homilies, and very much respect and admire young married couples and families with kids, not only dogs. Last night there was a family at Mass… older son, then truly beautiful daughter, then twins boys (totally unlike each other) a Catholic Mum and a Lutheran Dad. I have watched this family over 8 years now as a dated and mothballed Pastor. By the time he was 5 or 6 one of the twins knew all the parts of the Mass, and the words of local favourite hymns, not yet banned by a heartless Bishop, and would sing at the top of his voice… a great story I remember: once the family was having a coffee break in one of the local Cafés, the little bloke went to the Gentleman’s. He was gone awhile it seemed apparently. Then when there was a lull in the crowd chitter-chatter in the Café crystal clear his voice echoed through the gathering seeming from the Gentleman’s, and loudly so, as he intoned the Alleluia Verse: ALLELUIA HE IS COMING ALLELUIA HE IS NEAR, ALLELUIA HE IS COMING, ALLELUIA HE IS HERE…. all very much in tune…. I love it ! …. there would have no doubt been a moment of wonderment on that occasion, in the slurping of latté, cappuccino, mocha, and sundry other caffeine beverages. Father’s Day and Grandfather’s Day probably brings for many of us memories of “moments of wonderment” ! What a grace ….. !

Treasure the memories our generation has of our own times, our Dads and Grand Dads – love recall of those times, and refuse to deconstruct their truth … and when today’s post Christian culture, which doesn’t really have such recall, resist the pressure to be silenced. Our times, and our lives, and our memories are as legitimate – if not more so – then the mess of today’s world of narcissism, me-culture and of demands for rights without responsibilities. Our times was a truly good time. Not perfect, but Godly, principled, and truly aware of others, and full of sacrifice, for both the common good and the needs of others.

There is an article by Roger Scruton, a Conservative UK Philosopher, now gone to God, which keeps coming back to me again and again…. you may be interested…. I think the man has something to say in it …. Happy Father’s Day all your Dad’s at least we “has beens” are still strong in the Regions….

God, our Father
Bless these men,
that they may find strength as fathers.

Let the example of their faith and love shine forth.
Grant that we, their sons and daughters,
may honor them always
with a spirit of profound respect.
AMEN

Shouldn’t one marvel at the daily course of nature? Everything is full of miracles, they’re just cheapened by familiarity. Explain to me . . . why the seed of a tree so great as the fig tree should be so tiny that it’s practically invisible, while the lowly gourd [cucurbita] produces such a huge seed.11
A fig tree can grow from a cleft in a rock or a gap in a wall. Augustine’s congregation well knew its tenacity and the tiny seed from which it grew. He called on them to marvel that in the minute seed, “the root is hidden, and the trunk is there, and the future leaves are attached, and the fruit which will appear on the tree.”

Conybeare, Catherine. Augustine the African (p. 144). (Function). Kindle Edition. St Augustine – Sermon 247.2

Roger Scruton and the Love of Home

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31 AUGUST 2025 – 22nd SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C 2025

Well it has been awhile since I have annoyed you but it is catch up time. One of my favourite Gospels is coming up next Sunday …. The Carrying of the Cross. Somehow I really identify with this 4th Sorrowful Mystery of the Holy Rosary.

As I have written in my Reflections for the 23rd Sunday I love the Cyrenean as well as St Dismas in the NT Gospel accounts especially the Passion of St Luke 23:26-56.

²⁶ And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. ²⁷ And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. ²⁸ But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.²⁹ For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ ³⁰ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ ³¹ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

There is a lot metaphorically imaged in this Cyrenean – Simon by name (note the irony of nomenclature) …. and typically of St Luke when Simon helps with the cross, Jesus turns to the comfort the women of Jerusalem.

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Sarah Mac Donald reported a great meeting of theologians in the UK TABLET which is well worth reading and reflecting upon…. and Also to the QUOTATIONS link on QUAERENS it is worth staying in touch with the link ..

In his address to the same Congress on the theme, “Toward a Theology of Mission”, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline of Marseille warned, “A deficit in theology is often paid for by an excess of ideology.”

Speaking in French, Cardinal Aveline said, “Catholicity is not measured by the importance of numbers but by the savouring of salt.”

Drawing on his experience of working in the area of interreligious dialogue he said, “I perceived that among Christians there is often an opposition between those who support dialogue, and those who privilege mission. One group is suspicious of relativism, the other of proselytising. But a deepening theology allows one to surpass this sterile opposition.”

The TABLET UK. Article by Sarah Mac Donald.

Pope Leo Meek & Mild has only about 10% of the output on Homilies and statements etc than Pope Francis the Great. But maybe the Augustinians work at a far slower pace to the Society of Jesus ? But when he does get around to it … his Homilies etc are absolutely worthwhile taking in reflectively. His reflection on Priests and Bishops should be taken very seriously especially in Australia. When everyone is incredibly disappointed with Catholic Bishops and feel great let down.

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I thought this quote in Dr David Ranson VG PP Homily 22nd Sunday C – Broken Bay Diocese NSW was telling:

Let us search for him “by his voice” like Mary Magdalene; let us search for him in strangers on the road like the disciples on the road to Emmaus; let us search for him in the wounds of the world like the apostle Thomas; let us search for him wherever he passes through the closed doors of fear; let us search for him where he brings the gift of forgiveness and new beginnings.

Halík, Tomáš. The Afternoon of Christianity: The Courage to Change (pp. 253-254). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Some thoughts anyway….

PS: There is one thing I notice that I have never given a lot of thought to …. And that is the incredible suffering (scourging and crowning with thorns) that Jesus had to undergo – not mentioning the humiliation of the King of Kings – BEFORE He carries His Cross !!!

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15 AUGUST 2025 – THE SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION

In his (Thomas Aquinas) day two different doctrinal sources, one more ancient, one more recent, defined the parameters of Christian solutions to the problem of personal survival, and Thomas saw no reason why they should be thought mutually exclusive. The first, by a thousand years the more ancient, and by the same measure more authoritative, was the doctrine taught in the Creeds of the early Church, sourced in turn in that Pauline text of 1 Corinthians 15 among others, that spoke (as does the Apostle’s Creed) of the “resurrection of the body” just as Paul himself speaks of a “body of resurrection” (1 Corinthians 15:35–44). The second parameter was a belief that the human soul survives the death of the body and is immortal, that is, it cannot naturally die, a doctrine of much Greek philosophy universally defended in Thomas’s time and before, though its official proclamation as Catholic teaching still awaited a decree of the Fifth Lateran Council in 1515, centuries after Thomas’s death. There is no evidence at all that Thomas doubted either article of orthodox faith. What is a good deal less clear is what Thomas thought was the relation between them.

Turner, Denys. Thomas Aquinas (pp. 75-76). (Function). Kindle Edition.

There is no doubt, then, that Thomas believes in the soul’s survival of death, even if the soul’s survival is not the survival of the person whose soul it is. It is, for Thomas, like the survival of a life, a person’s life of course, but not the survival of the complete person whose life it is. How so? (Ibid: Pp 79ff)

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Recently a wonderful statement was made by Víctor Manuel Card. Fernández- Prefect DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH in a Letter to Monsignor Camillo Cibotti Bishop of Isernia-Venafro and Trivento … the Letter was about validity of reported apparitions, but towards the end a remarkable statement about ‘The earth is not separate from the sky’ … Communion between the pilgrim Church and the deceased  (See: Víctor Manuel Card. Fernández – Communion between the pilgrim Church and the deceased .

But what do we mean by “soul” when we speak of “souls of the dead”? First of all, we must bear in mind that the soul is not a “part” of the person, but is a way of indicating the person in everything that cannot be reduced to the biological sphere: consciousness, will, intelligence, feelings, and, above all, one’s relationship with God, a relationship that even death cannot touch (cf. Cant 8:6). 

When we are faced with this mystery, we must “hold together” two aspects: the concrete experience of the dissolution of the body and faith, founded on God’s promise, sealed in the Resurrection of Christ, that the same body will be, so to speak, restored to us “on the last day” (John 11:24). Here too, it must be emphasized that the resurrection refers to “the whole person,”[3] because, like the soul, the body is not a “part” of the person, but a dimension of his or her being. It is therefore legitimate to ask what happens to the person in the “time” between bodily death and resurrection. (Op.Cit).

Chapter 3 of Denys Turner’s AQUINAS and the Letter of Victor Manuel Card. Fernández are very worthwhile reading and reflecting on. Prelates and Priests who talk ONLY about saving souls, and one’s soul, and pointing out those whose souls are not saved are not fully faithful to the Catholic faith, teaching of the Church and right understanding not only of life and death, salvation, grace, but Christian anthropology let alone traditional Eschatology. St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 understood though from the very beginning. The Inspired Word of God the Catholic Church teaches in Dei Verbum:

§ 10: It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.

§: 21. The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body. She has always maintained them, and continues to do so, together with sacred tradition, as the supreme rule of faith, since, as inspired by God and committed once and for all to writing, they impart the word of God Himself without change, and make the voice of the Holy Spirit resound in the words of the prophets and Apostles. Therefore, like the Christian religion itself, all the preaching of the Church must be nourished and regulated by Sacred Scripture. For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the word of God is so great that it stands as the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her sons, the food of the soul, the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life. Consequently these words are perfectly applicable to Sacred Scripture: “For the word of God is living and active” (Heb. 4:12) and “it has power to build you up and give you your heritage among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32; see 1 Thess. 2:13).

And so the absolute and utter importance of the SOLEMNITY OF THE ASSUMPTION each year 15 August. Mother Church wisely reminds the baptised and the confirmed that Mary is the pattern and icon of the destiny of the Church and she has experienced as the first among us the full EASTER MYSTERY … NOT JUST THE LAST SUPPER AND THE CRUCIFIXION – BUT THE DEATH RESURRECTION ASCENSION AND BURSTING FORTH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

³ This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1Timothy 2:3-5.
God loves and seeks us to come to Him in the Father’s House through Christ Our Lord His ONLY Son.

From the Nicene Creed

He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

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and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
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From the Preface of holy Mass on the Solemnity of the Assumption – The ROMAN MISSAL

For today the Virgin Mother of God
was assumed into heaven
as the beginning and image
of your Church’s coming to perfection
and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people;
rightly you would not allow her
to see the corruption of the tomb
since from her own body she marvellously brought forth
your incarnate Son, the Author of all life.

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13 AUGUST 2025 – WEDNESDAY in the 19th WEEK ORDINARY TIME year C/I…

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already!
Luke 12:49

For me over my life as a follower of Jesus Christ and a Catholic priest the meaning of this text is to be gleaned from (Isaiah 48:10–11 & Sirach 2f), look it up if your are interested.

There are a huge number of things about Bishops, Priests, Religious, Lay People ie: The People of God In Toto that embarrass me, and shame me, and make me feel sick, at times. BUT there is so much else….. that I love, admire, respect, stand in awe before, and give thanks to Almighty God for the Risen One living with us in our midst in mystery. I have experienced Bishops forgetting momentarily of their mind-blowing awesomeness and magnificence, and incredible power and status, and actually give way to diakonia in grace and serve the humanity the Christ who became fully human with, especially close to the least of the brethren (See: Matt 11:11). I have seen priests work for the true, the good, the beautiful, the loving, and the just, and most importantly for the Gospel, with the poor, destitute, abandoned, despised, those who have never seen nor experienced a thurible of many chains, nor the magnificence of vestments modelled on a long gone age, as symbolic rejection of the Christ who lives with us now TODAY IN OUR TIME as the Word Made Flesh.

Priests who never indulged in the Catholic snuff of the 21st Century – “incense of high quality” – nor dined in modo superiore with Prelates, Sub-Prelates, and Wannabe Prelates. Some of these real priestly men, damaged by the clericalism of Churchmanship, and Institutional Self-Defence, were left by the roadside with few good Samaritans. Clergy told knowing stories, and reminiscences at long passed sumptuous dinners of clerical joviality and bon vivant, and clerical guffawing usually only found in the all male seminaries. For many of us, new to the Presbyteral “brotherhood” the stories were chilling not edifying. Have you ever watched THE BROKEN ? The BEST film on Catholic Priesthood I seen in many many years. It is not an image of the Power Priest; the Pedestal Priest; the Awesome man who keeps the women out with altar rails; The sniffer out of mortal sins to maintain his sacrament power relevance ! NO! It is an ordained human being living as best he can the VERY BEST OF CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD more aligned with the Good Shepherd than John Vianney… I have no doubt that Charles Borromeo would have seen in him a success story !!! See; John 10, and if you are game Ezekiel 34.

No! This film series powerfully expresses the very best of Catholic Priesthood after Christ, not Religionism and Churchmanship and camp priestcraft. The main figure has his PhD in the WORD MADE FLESH. Not in pseudo peripheral, provincial , in-house, contaminated, low down, tainted academe. You know the PhD’s not open to the Interpretative Academe Community, of real intellectuals and seekers of truth, and genuinely professional critique. Nor are the men open to professional rational critique by their peers. You can’t find the reviews of their work by colleagues and this ad extra.No! They hide behind their “letters”. And they have never followed up their “open free truth seeking” studies, research, and investigation… NO! They wanted ONLY the power of the letters …. We must call them out ! We must demand the critique of their so called PhDs amongst their peers. This is for Academics, who are genuine, the source of their credibility…. PEER REVIEW.… Where there is none…. the PhD should be dismissed as a furphy.

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I am also so proud of the SOCIAL JUSTICE STATEMENTS of the AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH CATHOLIC BISHOPS CONFERENCE…. although I have listened, per force, to powered Mitre men, who felt Social Justice Statements achieved nothing, and did nothing, and wrestled only lots of words that nobody reads like themselves and their ilk. I see it differently. From all the drivel we get from self sustaining clericalism in the Church …. the Social Justice Statements seem to me to be an “Ah…the Gospel has not been forgotten”… As Jesus announces his mission, vocation, purpose, and indeed destiny in the Synagogue of Capernaum: Luke 4:16-19

16. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19. to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

I mean you can’t get away from it !!!! No matter how many copes, soutanes, beautiful birettas etc you have…. IT IS THERE IN THE SACRA PAGINA…. and piling on the incense doesn’t seem to do anything except move the endorphins and comfort the inert religiose and otiose faithful of traditionalism and Neo-Catholic Puritanism.

And I am no social justice prophet! No! And not a prophetic priest, yet there are about 10 I could name who have impressed me far more than Dominic Savio and John Vianney in our Diocese alone …. but I was never a patch on them – the real prophetic priests who met their death either physically eg: car accidents, or as believing Catholic priests through abandonment of a priesthood they came to believe was “bad news”. No I tried to serve the show, well and faithfully, trusting in its goodness. Until the Royal Commission and the abandonment of the priests by the episcopacy in institutional self defence.The incessant attacks by the ABC on catholic priesthood, when child abuse was rampant in The Australian culture and still is, and YET NO SERIOUS SUSTAINED MENTION, AUSTRALIA MAINTAINS THE SILENCE AND THE COVER UP as does the ABC. Then, as it were, my eyes were opened …… and since then I have felt deeply for Catholic priests so abandoned once used up. Forget all the words they use and throw at people, the test is HOW DO THEY (the Church Big Shots) TREAT PEOPLE…. HOW DO THEY TREAT PRIESTS ?

We should feel a bit for Bishops I guess … and even pray for them … the words of Cardinal James Freeman come to me: When asked once on media who does a Catholic Bishop say he is ? +James Freeman answered “A prisoner for Christ” note no mention of ideology or typology just a Pauline re-iteration of a decent and good man a disciple of Jesus the Christ(Eph 3:1-2).

No I love the SOCIAL JUSTICE STATEMENTS …. and look forward to them each year…..

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7 AUGUST 2025 – Memorial of Pope St Sixtus II and his companions ( – 258 AD)

Well yesterday 6th AUGUST was the FEAST of the TRANSFIGURATION…. and also the 80th Anniversary of the dropping of the first Atomic Bomb. My mate Fr Barry Leech and I visited both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We spent a few days in both places… I liked Nagasaki for some reason… I could live there … the Shrine to St Paul Miki and Companions/ Japanese Martyrs is magnificent… and there are 34 Catholic parishes there apparently. It was the most densely Catholic population in Japan, and most were wiped out by the Bomb. But Strangely the Cathedral remained standing. The Peace Park was very moving on on our day many Japanese secondary students were there on excursions.
I spent time yesterday after parish Mass with Fr Thaddeus Adm reflecting. I don’t know really… what I thought or felt. And that apart from the A Bombs, the fire bombing of Tokyo was pretty horrific for all the hypocrisy these days about civilian casualties. I do know that as a boy having read Neville Shute’s ON THE BEACH, Nuclear War and THE END, literally. With the extinction of humankind, the last mammals to live were The Australian rabbits, since the N War was Northern Hemispheric. And the only species to survive was the cockroach !!! I was depressed for weeks afterwards. There was no TV or devices back then of course. One had books and one’s imagination. I saw the movie down the track a bit. But it was weak compared to the impact of the novel.

This morning when I awoke about 6am it was about 2ºC outside, I started to listen to ABC Classic Music, whilst still snuggled up ….but muted when the 7am News was about to play… I don’t like the News these days, and avoid it if I can. Easier to pick and choose stories on the net. What a mess it all seems out there… Pope Francis the Great said a few times that we were already in World War III it was just spread out all over the place. I must be sensing and feeling to some extent like the people during World War I & II. And when all is said and done ordinary people just want to live the one life they have as best they can. It all seems so obvious. Jesus said the peace He gives is not the peace of this world (Jn 14:27) …. clearly whatever peace humankind thinks it achieves is invariably moribund. I do know that whoever I know and talk with …. we are sick and tired of people killing other people. THOU SHALT NOT KILL has never been more important in my life time as far as I can recall….. it is supposed to be about the sanctity of human life. For a long time now when I celebrate Holy Mass I have been using Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation II …. I know the Bishop would probably throw cartwheels, have a spasm, need a brandy, a sniff of incense, and need a sabbatical in Domus Australia Rome Italy, sherry with Cardinal Burke and his nice young priests. But I will persist until boiled in oil.

For though the human race
is divided by dissension and discord,
yet we know that by testing us
you change our hearts
to prepare them for reconciliation.

Even more, by your Spirit you move human hearts
that enemies may speak to each other again,
adversaries may join hands,
and peoples seek to meet together.

By the working of your power
it comes about, O Lord,
that hatred is overcome by love,
revenge gives way to forgiveness,
and discord is changed to mutual respect.

And then further on

You, therefore, almighty Father,
we bless through Jesus Christ your Son,
who comes in your name.

He himself is the Word that brings salvation,
the hand you extend to sinners,
the way by which your peace is offered to us.

When we ourselves had turned away from you
on account of our sins,
you brought us back to be reconciled, O Lord,
so that, converted at last to you,
we might love one another
through your Son,
whom for our sake you handed over to death.

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And then there is that Prayer supposedly St. Ephraim the Syrian c.306 AD ..

Almighty God and Creator, You are the Father of all
people on earth. We beseech You to guide all the nations and their
leaders in the ways of justice and peace.

Protect us from the evils of injustice, prejudice,
exploitation, conflict and war. 
Help us to put away mistrust, bitterness and hatred. 
Teach us to cease the storing and using of implements
of war. Lead us to find peace, respect and freedom.

Unite us in the making and sharing of tools of peace
against ignorance, poverty, disease and oppression.
Grant that we may grow in harmony and friendship as
brothers and sisters created in Your image, to Your
honour and praise. Amen 

The Spirit of the Lord …. John Michael Talbot.

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4 AUGUST 2025 Monday – The Memorial of St John Vianney

Sister Vianney RSM was probably the best teacher I ever had 1961 @ Narrabri NSW. At St Francis Xavier’s Catholic Primary School at Narrabri NSW in 1961 she was remarkable. We had been with Sr Mary Alphonsus RSM for four years and had learned EVERYTHING there was to know about the Catholic Church and its teaching that was available to “little ordinary” people. Not alot about what was on the Syllabus. But with Sr Vianney RSM it was time to get serious about “learning -up” and getting ready for High School. We stared School in Grade 6 at 8.30am. Which barely gave time for Joseph my cousin and I to serve Mass in Latin after waking up the priest…and back to school. Getting home on our bikes and back to Sr Vianney RSM for early start. We only had half and an hour for lunch and then back to study Mensuration and Stuff. Then we went to 4 pm, and back on Saturday’s for extra tuition. We really had to catch up ready for the Diocesan Examinations & the Primary Final. Way back in 1961.

Sr Vianney RSM was wonderful…. her formation in the faith was excellent….. and she means more to me by miles than her name’s sake St John Vianney … But on this memorial this year 2025 … I have to be honest: I agree with Dr Singarayar SVD …

The Catholic Church in India faces a crisis it barely acknowledges. Behind the familiar rituals and parish duties, priests are taking their own lives at an alarming rate. These are not isolated tragedies — they serve as a warning about a system that demands perfection while offering little support.Every Aug 4, the Church marks the feast of Saint John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. Known as the Curé d’Ars, this 19th-century French priest became renowned for his holiness and unwavering devotion. He spent countless hours in the confessional, slept little, ate less, and viewed himself as unworthy of his calling. His portrait hangs in sacristies across India, serving as the ultimate role model for priestly life.But this veneration carries a dangerous shadow. Vianney’s extreme asceticism and psychological struggles have become a spiritual blueprint that too many Indian priests feel pressured to follow. The message is clear: true holiness means silent suffering, endless sacrifice, and the denial of personal needs.

The consequences are heartbreaking … (the article continues)

Dr John Singarayar, a member of the Society of the Divine Word India Mumbai Province, holds a doctorate in Anthropology. He has authored seven books and regularly contributes to academic conferences and publications focusing on sociology, anthropology, tribal studies, spirituality, and mission.

Access the full article online

For me … The Good Shepherd (John 10) is really the model of priesthood, not St John Vianney in my opinion.

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3 AUGUST 2025 – 18th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C

LEXIO for this Holy Dies Domini flowing out of the 2nd Reading for today’s Holy Mass

Colossians 3:12-17 (NJB)

Col. 3:12   As the chosen of God, then, the holy people whom he loves, you are to be clothed in heartfelt compassion, in generosity and humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with one another; forgive each other if one of you has a complaint against another. The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same. ¹⁴ Over all these clothes, put on love, the perfect bond. ¹⁵ And may the peace of Christ reign in your hearts, because it is for this that you were called together in one body. Always be thankful.

Col. 3:16   Let the Word of Christ, in all its richness, find a home with you. Teach each other, and advise each other, in all wisdom. With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms and hymns and inspired songs to God; ¹⁷ and whatever you say or do, let it be in the name of the Lord Jesus, in thanksgiving to God the Father through him.

Because You Are Chosen

Song by

John Michael Talbot

Because you are chosen
Called to be holy
Because you are the Lord’s beloved
You must clothe yourself with kindness
With heartfelt mercy
In the meekness of humility

So bearing now with one another
And forgive as the Lord’s forgiven you

Over all these virtues
Bind them all together
In the Love of our Lord Jesus

Over all these virtues
Bind them all together
In the Love of our Lord Jesus

Over all these virtues
Bind them all together
In the Love of our Lord Jesus

Songwriters: John Michael Talbot. For non-commercial use only.

The Colossians Canticle (AD 60-62)

John Michael Talbot

PS:

I love Willie Nelson ! Do you ? Have a listen …..

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2 AUGUST 2025 – VIGIL of the 18th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C 2025

Well lots going on this past week…. sleet up here in Glen this morning on the New England Tablelands NSW Australia… but we are in the last month of winter now with August….it’s about minus 3ºC outside at the moment – not too bad really for us – but will reach a high of 13ºC tomorrow and 16ºC on Monday so there you go! It’s not too bad and God is Good as Fr Thaddeus Ike Adm keeps saying!

An interesting and lovely article, on the munus regendi of Bishops, appeared this week in Church Life Journal by Bishop Earl Boyea Diocese of Lansing USA. Well written on “The Spirit of Governance” of the Diocesan Bishop embodied in the Episcopal Ordination Liturgy. And there was an eminent repose by John C Cavadini. Clearly there is no way Cavadini will get fired like the three professors at Sacred Heart Seminary by Archbishop Edward Weisenburger of Detroit USA, the issue was really False Orthodoxy. I wish there was more of that in Australia. Anyhow my comment on the articles by +Boyea and Cavadini was as follows”

Yes! the Catholic teaching of the Bishops on themselves is mind blowlingly beautiful and as they might say in Rome che meraviglioso!
The teaching is not the problem. The problem is when the Bishop is hopeless at his job! Fundamentalist, myopic, zero pastoral sense, two faced in his allegiance to the Holy Father, and clearly gets high on power! Practising what we preach is the big problem for the Church, and especially shoddy Bishops no matter how many times they were episcopally ordained.

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Oh it is sleeting again !!! No doubt about the weather it has a mind and purpose of its own !!! The other issues this week that grabbed my attention big time was the report on UCA of the priest suicides in India. 2 this year already, 13 over the past five years. Please take time to read the post on this on QUAERENS – John Singarayar writes intelligently, with insight, and compassion. Priests are human beings not just “things’ used by the Church (ie: Power structure and élites eg: Prelates, Sub Prelates, Wannabe Prelates). I notice that none of the suicides were Bishops !

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There was today too an excellent article hammering the Church Admin/Power to tell the truth, and care for damaged people rather than constantly strive for “institutional self protection” (and the money !!) …. this is the leader to the article published today on WPI:

Drawing on Roman Catholic and ecumenical expertise, this article takes an honest look at the experiences and hopes of those abused. Many in the churches assume that victims seek financial compensation or legal redress. However, research indicates that many victims primarily seek truth and justice as a means of closure and that their struggles with church leadership arise when truth and justice are repeatedly withheld. This makes forgiveness near-impossible and often results in the victim being re-traumatized by the systemic re-abuse they experience. Ultimately, there is no substitute for full and genuine meeting with victims, which requires the church to lay aside its power and authority and engage with humility and proper deference to the victims abused at the hands of the church. Without such openness, the victims cannot move on, and neither can the churches. 

This is enormously important for the Catholic Church especially for the Hierarchy who have lost so so much credibility in the last twenty years or so. The big problems are: 1. We can’t tell the truth about ourselves and 2. We don’t know how to care for our damaged people. Abused or just Used by the Church. This a good article by professionals who know what they are talking about.

The article is: Glimpses of Hope: Reflections on Journeying with Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse – Mark J. Williams and Hans Zollner

And follow up with : A Synodal Church Is The Solution To The Sexual Abuse Crisis –   Mark Joseph Williams And Cardinal Joseph Tobin · November 16, 2022

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31 JULY 2025 – St IGNATIUS LOYOLA – in the 17th Week of Ordinary Time Year C/1

I have been reading a bit about Simone Weil …. she had mystical experiences with the Christ and one of them was in Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi … in the The Portiuncula (Italian: Porziuncola) is a historic chapel in the town of Santa Maria degli Angeli, near Assisi, Italy. It is closely associated with Francis of Assisi and the Order of Friars Minor, who used the chapel as their headquarters. Following Francis’s death in 1226, it became an important pilgrimage site. In the 16th century, a vast basilica, the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels, was built around the Portiuncula. If you have been to Assisi and visited the Portiuncula then it is you know it is not hard to believe the mystical experiences of Simone Weil … the two most moving and holy places I sensed in Italy were both at Assisi. The Tomb of St Francis and the Portiuncula.

I have been blessed in my life to visit Assisi three times…. each time got better and I understood more. If you are thinking of going somewhere make sure a few days in Assisi is on your list. I can remember Fr Kieran O’Connell OFM our Chaplain at Waverley College, Our Lady’s Mount Waverley NSW in the mid 1960’s telling us about it at Holy Mass in the Chapel. I had no idea then as a teenager what on earth he was talking about. Little did I know what the years would unfold.

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Isn’t this gathering of the Young in Rome in the Year of Jubilee just wonderful…. I know it is in Italian. I knew Rino Fisichella when I was in Rome long before he became an Archbishop etc etc. His lectures were so popular the Gregorian University to stage them in the Aula Magna the Great Hall… and all young seminarians from all over the world, I am talking of hundreds. This was in 1992-94.

Just great to know we are part of the LIVING BODY OF CHRIST in the world….. when many of us feel we are Dioceses that are old, sick, and tired and travelling side tracks rather than full of the energy of the Holy Spirit sent by the Christ to HIS Church …. sentire cum ecclesia. We are captured but he ideologues and divisionists, and the problem of traditionalism.

Pope to catechumens and neophytes: You are the salt of the world and the light of the earth

Pope Leo XIV reminds young catechumens and neophytes that we are not born Christians but become so through baptism, at which point we are clothed with Chrtist.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-07/pope-leo-xiv-discourse-french-catechumens-29-july-2025.html

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27 JULY 2025 – 17th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C – GRANDPARENTS & THE ELDERLY 5th Anniversary of their World Day thanks to Pope Francis the Great.

I am into Mental Health today for some reason. No doubt it has to do with one of my favourite Catholic American commentators of things Catholic, Nathan Turowsky, and his latest piece on WPI. So I began by asking Perplexity AI for a summary of the mental health picture in Australia today: A glimpse at the Summary:

Australia faces significant mental health challenges in 2025, affecting people of all ages and backgrounds. Here’s a summary of key issues:

• Prevalence: Around 1 in 5 Australians aged 16–85 (22%, or 4.3 million people) experienced a mental disorder in the past year. The most common are anxiety disorders (17%), affective disorders like depression and bipolar disorder (8%), and substance use disorders (3%).
• Lifetime impact: Almost 43% of Australians aged 16–85 have experienced a mental disorder at some point. Mental illness is also the most reported long-term health condition in the country.

I have often wondered why we have thousands of Clinicians of all sorts, always saying they need more funding, and billions already going that way anyway… why are mental health issues on the rise!! And big time!!! Then one sees these News items about Professor somebody or other saying this is the issue we need to face according to research … and the Prof looks like a young adult in their early twenties at best, and seems to talk psycho-lingo void of life experience or what President Trump calls “common sense”. But more funding and more mental health issues !!!!! I mean really… And that’s why I think “they” need to get their patients in touch with their grandparents and the elderly.

My own view is simple and possibly naïve … it is, for me, the fruit, of a Post Christian, Post Religion, Post God, Post almost everything world. When we abandon our meta-narrative Judaeo-Christianity which took us 4,000 years to acquire the wisdom, holiness and experience of God critically reflected upon and discerned in prayer, all therein, THEN there are going to be big problems. Not new ones! But the same old problems BEFORE the meta-narrative had life and place (Read Tom Holland). People are battling because we have lost our story. Indigenous peoples the world over seem hell bent of hanging onto their “story” as the West and the vacuous universities rid us of ours!!! Despite Albo et al and his Tax-paid media support with whom he chatters.

Australia’s mental health workforce is composed of a range of clinicians, reflecting diverse fields and responsibilities. As of the latest available data (2022–2025):

• There are about 33,000 psychologists registered and working in Australia.
• Approximately 25,000 mental health nurses are active.
• Around 4,300 psychiatrists are practicing (2023 data).
• There are about 2,800 mental health occupational therapists.
• Approximately 2,900 accredited mental health social workers are employed in the field.

This means Australia currently has well over 68,000 specialist mental health clinicians. These figures do not include general practitioners (GPs), who also play a significant role in mental health care, nor do they include lived experience/peer workers, carer workers, or generalist health professionals engaging in mental health support.

So I think Nathan Turowsky’s piece, and the full Pastoral Letter of Bishop James D Conley of Lincoln Diocese USA should be read carefully and reflectively by all of us. But start with Nathan I would suggest …

And what about your own mental health ? I know we easily recognise problems in others, so obvious to us … but what about ourselves ? For us who are baptised and confirmed disciples of Jesus, battling for the Catholic Faith and Church we love against the typologies, clubs of preference, and dress-up cults striving to reclaim it as their own … but it is really all about Christ the Divine Physician and Healer. I know Jordan Petersen is not everyone’s cup of tea, but WHY does he have literally millions of followers, mainly lost young men??? After their billion dollar state of the art educations paid for by taxpayers and hard working parents and single working folk ?

Nathan writes:

My favorite passage in “A Future with Hope” comes towards the end and reads as follows:

What we can be always sure of—no matter what is happening in our lives—is that we are not alone. You are not alone! God knows your suffering intimately and wants to walk with you through it. As St. John Paul II wrote, “Christ took upon Himself all human suffering, even mental distress. Yes, even this suffering, which appears perhaps to be the most absurd and incomprehensible, configures the sick person to Christ and makes him share in his redemptive passion.” In this moment, as in every moment, God is whispering to you, “I know the plans I have for you…plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). The hope God gives us and the joy that accompanies this hope, is a precious treasure we must protect. When hope wanes, let us remember the countless ways God has blessed us, the particular instances in our lives where He has “come through,” and the dark times when He felt absent but, in hindsight, we could discern His presence.

Where is healthy Catholic Church and the Lord and the Gospel and the Holy Spirit in all this ? Man does not live on HOLY HOURS and Birettas alone …

PS: Want a break from all this heavy stuff??? Then have a listen to the HILLIARD ENSEMBLE again

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26 JULY 2025 – Saints Ann and Joachim – Parents of Mary the Mother of Jesus – Grandparents & Elders Day

Great Memorial ! And incredible that the Gospel tomorrow, Sunday, is Lord Teach Us to Pray! A truly human familial weekend in spite of HAMAS causing starvation and brutal and brutalising conditions in the GAZA. Meanwhile the doyens of hate – HAMAS leadership – luxuriate in DOHA. Even the word “sick” seems inadequate. So the Liturgy puts before us an old couple whom God uses to give the world the gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary the mother of the only Prince of Peace and the only Saviour of the World. And He never had a gun nor a bomb! Hard to believe !! Two beautiful old people whom the greedy pig kids would never euthanise to get the house. Joachim & Ann appear in Church memory not as stars but as important and necessary agents of God saving work through His Covenant people. Covenant People whom the West has always blamed for everything it seems. No wonder Jews can fight !

The Gospel for the Memorial is Matthew 13:15-17 – Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Happy are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear! I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.’ Joachim and Ann remind me so much of John the Baptist (Jn 3:30) … they get the job done for the Lord, not for the glory or the power, status, and wealth so very much the work of sin in humankind (wait for the Gospel 18th Sunday !!!) …. These old folks are so easy to love. And after the Liturgy reflects on them today, and calls to mind their memory in Holy Spirit (Tradition) …. Mother Church proclaims on the Dies Domini for the 17th Sunday Year C …. one of his disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ Luke 11:1. Jesus says to first thing to do is remember “the Father”. For how many of us when thinking about who taught us to pray, conjure up images of our grandparents, if we were blessed enough to live when families and marriages were the thing? For Pope Leo “HOPE” comes to mind.

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Do you carry around haunting reflections and memories and imaginings for days sometimes? It is my test of a good movie…. if I am still seeing it and reflecting on it for a few days afterwards … Well! two things have stuck with me this past week… and they are still there today …

Years ago driving quietly from Tamworth to Armidale as I passed by the Armidale Airport where sometimes planes actually land and take off again, it was sunset and the crimson golden foil-like evening light was brushing over the New England landscape, out towards the East near Kelly’s plains, this sunset evening light only lasts a short while … I was listening to Classic FM radio and they played a stunning piece of music that totally took me over … I pulled to the side of the road and just let the Art in music do its thing …. it still does … OFFICIUM by the HILLIARD ENSEMBLE – MORALES – PARCĒ MIHI DOMINĒ … and it keeps coming back to visit. Visitation is an essential component of genuine spirituality I believe. Recurring living memories like the Holy Mass. The second joyful mystery !!! But even the Visitation can’t beat the first joyful mystery – the ANNUNCIATION – talk about Kerygma and Evangelium! We Catholics are so richly blessed …

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The other visitation for me this week is that quotation from Richard Rohr … The TEARS of THINGS…. these statements of his (Rohr) have made a big impact on my reflection and prayer and remembering.

I have become convinced that most anger comes, first of all, from a place of deep sadness. … Life disappoints and hurts all of us,
Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (pp. 4-5). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I recently turned eighty. The older I get, the more it feels like I must forgive almost everything for not being perfect, or as I first wanted or needed it to be.
Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (p. 6). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Forgiveness of reality—including tragic reality—is the heart of the matter. All things cry for forgiveness in their imperfection, their incompleteness, their woundedness, their constant movement toward death. Mere rage or resentment will not change any of these realities. Tears often will, though: first by changing the one who weeps, and then by moving any who draw near to the weeping. Somehow, the prophets knew, the soul must weep to be a soul at all.
Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (pp. 6-7). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Don’t forget to remember “the Father” …

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20 JULY 2025 – 16th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C

I have been reading Richard Rohr’s THE TEARS OF THINGS for Spiritual Reading ….. he can be annoying, seemingly the omniscient one after the deity… the one who knows, has done, has experienced, has read everything and everyone. But he knows how to strike home !!! With me anyway. Even more annoying !! And his clutching at humility every now and then is so American…. so there … my prejudice is in the open !!

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Prophets, as we have seen, occupy an entirely different role from priests and ministers. (I take up this distinction at length in “A Good Summary,” page 161.) And we surely need all of them! There is little evidence that most priests are change agents—or even desire to be, except in an in-house, churchy sense. Instead of truth-telling, they are more concerned with maintaining order and orthodoxy within the group. Yet they are offered a ready bully pulpit, a free audience, and a decorated stage every week. I think we now need a new kind of seminary that includes training for prophets who educate for holy disorder—a breaking down of the expected, the tried and true, the false, the ways in which we are not faithful to the gospel—even if doing so upsets and disrupts. Up until now, we have been too interested in lots of “unholy order.” There is really no reason we can’t have priestly prophets and prophetic priests. (It is no wonder the Old Testament word priest was seldom used in the first three centuries of Christianity, and minister, disciple, and overseer were preferred.)
Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (pp. 47-48). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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Thus, we need both priests and prophets. We need order and then critique of that order, and then further resolution, which I call reorder.
Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (p. 60). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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When criticism is not tolerated or encouraged, the proud, deceitful, and power hungry will invariably win out. Every institution needs designated, positive, and affirmed whistleblowers, or the shadow always takes over and the problem is never included in the resolution.
Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (p. 61). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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How do we begin to form radical traditionalists and reformers for the church? How do we create schools for prophets? How do we train people to be so loving that they can be effective insider critics of religious institutions, or what we call the loyal opposition, without becoming negative or cynical themselves? Licensed and beloved critics are what we need! There must be a way to make room for this second most important of the charisms for the building up of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:28). Only then can we hope to move beyond competing denominationalism and, frankly, pride.

Every group, every movement has its shadow side, and always will. There must be those who make the rest of us lovingly aware of what we cannot see. I think of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Nicaragua in the 1970s, when Mercy Sister Theresa Kane and Nicaraguan priest Ernesto Cardenal courteously but clearly chided the pope to his face. They both pointed out, in effect, his inconsistency in presenting himself as a liberationist while appointing far-right bishops and cardinals throughout the world. The pope was not amused. It also surprised the media world—although pleasantly, and for very different reasons. John Paul II was not used to being corrected, and the media just loved bringing down a powerful person.
Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (p. 61). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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17 JULY 2025 – THURSDAY IN ORDINARY TIME 15th WEEK YEAR C

I suppose I understand why Bishop Barron’s last YouTube Sermon for the 15th SUNDAY made no mention of the Good Samaritan Gospel Reading and opted for the first Reading from Deuteronomy which he then wove into a sermon on Natural Law. The “Walk-on-by” clergy of Luke 10 a bit too much for the Good Bishop. Then again maybe Natural Law and its revival is a bit of a thing in the USA at the moment! From who is my neighbour last Sunday, next Sunday (16th) we explore “love” and is our imagining of “love” too small…. and connecting that with God and Neighbour and on and on we go in Luke as we make our way to Jerusalem with Jesus, and as our formation by Him continues…..

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How is your Spiritual Reading going ? I have been dabbling this week broad spectrum – but Richard Rohr’s latest work The Tears of Things has impacted to say the least. Some choice bits:

I have become convinced that most anger comes, first of all, from a place of deep sadness. …..  Life disappoints and hurts all of us,

Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (pp. 4-5). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I recently turned eighty. The older I get, the more it feels like I must forgive almost everything for not being perfect, or as I first wanted or needed it to be.

Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (p. 6). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Forgiveness of reality—including tragic reality—is the heart of the matter. All things cry for forgiveness in their imperfection, their incompleteness, their woundedness, their constant movement toward death. Mere rage or resentment will not change any of these realities. Tears often will, though: first by changing the one who weeps, and then by moving any who draw near to the weeping. Somehow, the prophets knew, the soul must weep to be a soul at all.

Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (pp. 6-7). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Having been on the job for almost 50 years it got me talking with the Lord about the damage in the lives of priests I have witnessed. Not only the large number who have come to the Diocese and left for somewhere else, but those who stayed and remained broken down…. I can name 10 and our numbers never rose much above 40. Including two Bishops who had tragic, sad, lonely, and depressing retirements… We all know our Diocese struggles with “care for people” it is sort of Darwinian…..“survival of the fittest”. The Prelates, Sub-Prelates, and Wannabe-Prelates the ‘darlings’ of power, authority, status and standing, and awesome dignity see these broken men as “weak blokes, didn’t have what it takes…. look at my career progress by comparison” sort of thing. But at a time when we are seriously looking at abuse (power, conscience, sexual, spiritual etc of the young and vulnerable adults – and there is nothing more vulnerable than a priest on the carpet before his Ordinary) I wonder about it all, rather than suppress and deny. For me, today, I believe the Catholic Church culture and the clerical culture in particular have been bad news for so many who set out inspired and totally dedicated to service in the Name of Christ and His Church.

And for me SYNODALITY is truly God sent in our time especially through Pope Francis the Great. So many Big Shots have been unqualified, uneducated, dangerous and unaccountable. The documents and teaching describing them is that they are without question Good Shepherds…. when clearly they were not. Incompetent, myopic, and off the track, less like the Good Samaritan, and more the “walk on by priests and levites” (Luke 10). Not all of course I have met fabulously human, warm, caring, prayerful, saintly Bishops and priests over 50 years maybe 5 come readily to mind. And none of them were like St John Vianney, poor abused man, at all.

For me there is far far far too much road kill on our Diocesan journey to Jerusalem with the Lord who said He would make us fishers of people and Popes who insist we MUST be full of JOY. For me it is not only telling re: the Church structure and culture, and the clerical culture, the exercise of power, and the treatment of other human beings …. it is an indictment. The damaged, broken, men, I mean accuse us.

I have become convinced that most anger comes, first of all, from a place of deep sadness. …..  Life disappoints and hurts all of us,

Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (pp. 4-5). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I recently turned eighty. The older I get, the more it feels like I must forgive almost everything for not being perfect, or as I first wanted or needed it to be.

Rohr, Richard. The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (p. 6). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I have written tons on this over the years to power and awesome dignity Church ‘darlings’, but experienced a sort of rebuff normally offered to the quaint, the odd balls, the outliers of the self serving culture, the eccentric. Synodality is truly the work of the Holy Spirit in my humble discernment.

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12 JULY 2025 – SATURDAY OF ORDINARY TIME WEEK 14

I find this passage from the Foreword of Part ONE of David Bentley Hart’s Book THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD really transfixing. What do you think?

A man who is asleep and deeply dreaming still usually has some awareness of the real world around him, and often this awareness shapes his dream. This means in turn that, while he sleeps, his dream is the only form in which he can know and interpret the world that he inhabits. He hears a wind chime ringing somewhere outside his open window, but in his dream it is transformed into the tolling of a bell in a high tower on a distant hill. A breeze enters at the window and passes over him, but to him it is the wind blowing through the valley in which he stands as he gazes upward toward that tower. The wind also causes the leaves of a tree below his window to rustle softly, but to him it is the sound of reeds stirring along the banks of a stream nearby, as a golden snake slips silently into the flowing water. The first pale light of morning reaches him from the window, but to him it is the last pale light of evening, before the night entirely descends over the valley. He hears the voice of someone who loves him trying to rouse him gently from his sleep, because it is time for him to awake, but he hears it as the mysterious and vaguely menacing voice of a stranger, coming from far away, and from some place he cannot see.

Hart, David Bentley. The Experience of God (pp. 11-12). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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9 JULY 2025 – WEDNESDAY OF ORDINARY TIME WEEK 14

Well how are things going with you ! Out there in Holy Land ? I am having a feast with my favourite music…. what is yours ? Could it be the Humming Chorus from Madame Butterfly ? Or as one man bashed my ear at St Nicholas Tamworth after Mass one Sunday years ago about the greatest of all Operatic arias the The Pearl Fishers he would hear of no other to match ! …. you know it ? … if not be prepared to be transported…. Well what is your favourite aria when things run low…. and the Bishop is disappointing…. for me I have a duet that is for me stunning…. I think the lady and the gentleman are standing naked in a bath tub about to suicide – the version below is for General Exhibition however … .(but you know how Operas weave their narrative web !!!) For me it is stunning music …..

Get your yourself a decent brandy and listen and be carried away…….Die tote Stadt – Mariette’s Lied – Cheryl Barker and Stefan Vinke and those who would like to listen to the Lady alone !!! And of course there is Dvorak’s Song to the Moon ….

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8 JULY 2025 – TUESDAY of ORDINARY TIME WEEK 14

Well it is a cold morning in Glen… big frost this morning. Clearly nothing for it but to warm the house and listen to Messe Solennelle de Sainte Cecile – Gounod and of course Bizet’s TE DEUM.… what else ?

In the 1960’s when back home in Narrabri on holidays I was invited to dinner by the South African Astronomer at the local Scientific Heliograph etc with his family. I think I was judged as fit to befriend their son who was clearly brilliant and I guess I came across as Geek simpatico….. It was out in the scrub… but it was a wonderful evening… beautiful home cooked meal, home grown veggies some South African, still, silent, starlight with majesty as Narrabri skies were/are … hence the observatories Heliograph and Stellar Intensity Interferometer.

A wonderful evening, I think the family were agnostics or atheists, but they knew I was religious, and respected that greatly. I was incredibly immature, unaware, unsophisticated, unperceptive, doltish looking back… but the highlight for me was the washing up after dinner…. which we all participated in… and the family announced they often did the washing up to Gounod’s Mass of St Cecilia…. and so for the first time I was introduced to this musical masterpiece… and it has remained a great love every since…..as has the memory of this scientific family. Memories like this are as gems, aren’t they ?

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6 JULY 2025 – SUNDAY – DIES DOMINI – 14th ORDINARY TIME YEAR C

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4 JULY 2025 – FRIDAY – Week 13 Ordinary Time

It’s a beautiful winter’s day out there today ! Sunny, cold, still, cloudless …. calm. But it is amazing how many people one encounters these days who are very angry with the Church. Angry with the damage the Church does with seeming impunity to vulnerable people.

*

Listening to a priest express his hurt, and his negative view of the ecclesiastical facade, I suddenly remembered coming across something of Carlo Carretto back in Seminary in the heady days of happy Church in the 1970’s…

How baffling you are, Oh Church,
and yet how I love you!
How you have made me suffer,
and yet how much I owe you!
I would like to see you destroyed,
and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal
and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is.
I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity,
more compromised, more false,
and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful.
How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face,
and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.
No, I cannot free myself from you,
because I am you, though not completely.
And besides, where would I go?
Would I establish another?
I would not be able to establish it without the same faults,
for they are the same faults I carry in me.
And if I did establish another,
it would be my Church,
not the Church of Christ.

Carlo Carretto

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3 JULY 2025 – Thursday – Feast of St Thomas Apostle – 13th Week

Entering the Church last Wednesday morning here at St Patrick’s it was minus 7ºC and the front heaters were on thank God. But goodness it was a bit cold…. The Gospel was about the Gadarenes and their healing and warming by Jesus as he makes present the in-breaking Kingdom of God. ..Matthew has two demoniacs unlike Mark. But Matthew doubles up on the Blind Men too later on in his Gospel. In the Gospel it says Jesus crossed to the “other side of the lake” and on Sunday next he sends out 72 “others” …. I am fascinated by the “otherness” that is part and parcel of the ministry of Jesus. The good old faithful of weekday Mass attendance were there… but of course Wednesday is the busy day of Vinnies dealing with the poor too …. hard to believe that was only yesterday !

The text I love in this coming Sunday’s Gospel is verse 1 of Luke 10 : The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him, in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself was to visit. … a wonderful image of active Church life…. going ahead in pairs, to the places Jesus Himself was to visit…… we are always talking about following the Lord, but here is a nuanced understanding of the in-breaking Kingdom…. the Jesus who is following the Church and its life in the places He himself is to visit.

The Latin Mass mob and cult seem determined to knock Pope Leo around as they attacked Pope Francis with ferocity and unbelievable hostility as the Vicar of Peter. They seem to me, an ordinary old man of Catholic faith faithful to the Scripture, the Tradition and Magisterium(DV §8) , to be disobedient, grossly disrespectful to the Petrine Office and Magisterium, utterly non-receptive to the teaching authority of the Church of Jesus Christ.

They seem self-authorising, since they are highly selective in their acceptance of facets of legitimate apostolic authority. They seem doctrinaire of old, not of the Church of today in the world, they come across as unfaithful, and headstrong in their determination to declare and define their own brand of orthodoxy, they are judgemental, rigidist, and hugely divisive, and greatly lacking in warmth, acceptance of “other” and “otherness”; the Scriptures and the Gospel; and even Jesus Christ Himself never seem to cross their lips; it is all about “them” and what “what they think, and want” and what they “believe” and what they insist they are entitled too.

They sideline the working clergy of dioceses who disagree with their gross Catholic selectivity and negligence in fidelity, their clergy and Bishops are a long way from the Church’s preaching of the Pastoral Role of Bishops and Clergy, they don’t even pay into local parishes to cover the bills from their use of parish plant and resource. The are a movement of meanness and exclusion… so much for the Great Commission to the Church in Matthew 28.

A strange and bizarre concoction of ecclesial treason, and a sort of ecclesio-narcissism, a cult of cult, and all wrapped up in a closed mind, heart, and soul in a regressive fundamentalism. And yet they alone sense they are the sanctified. Pope Francis spoke of Neo-Gnosticism and Neo-Pelagianism. I would add Neo-Jansenism and Neo-Marcionism too. But I may be wrong ! Just what it looks like to me. And I am not alone in these thoughts!

See: Mike Lewis’ excellent analysis and article on the current attack on the Catholic Church by the breaking-away Trads …..

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1 JULY 2025 – Memorial of St Oliver Plunkett – 13th Week

What would the Australians of 1925 think of our country today?

BERNARD SALT

Bernard Salt wrote his usual ‘restful reading’ piece in the Last Weekend Australian Magazine which got me reflecting on things….. He opens with this paragraph:

It’s a question that no one reading this column will live to answer: what will Australia look like 100 years hence? What new cities will emerge? What will work look like? Is prosperity assured? 

Imagine going back to 1925 and advising the locals about what the future holds. Some might see it as exciting and confronting. Others might be critical of the century ahead: after all, it’s an era that kicked off with a Great Depression and was followed by a world war. But after those calamities, Australia prospered socially and economically. Women would return to the workforce after marriage. A city called the Gold Coast would emerge. We would grow rich by selling resources to China. Church-going would lose favour and divorce would be made easier. And Indigenous Australians would be better recognised.

My Dad was born in Narrabri NSW 1923 and Mum born in Boggabri NSW 1926. Neither lived to read this article. And I was born in Narrabri 1950. So the inter war years were not mine to recall, but my parents lived the first 25% of this period, and in turn I certainly remember with clarity the 1950’s on… and the evidence of WWII still very much around… remember the ARMY DISPOSAL Stores in town, we kids back then loved going to look at the old Army gear … And a few old Blitz Wagons still drove awkwardly, I thought, through town and outskirts.

It was a time without devices, computers, AI, Albo, social media, even without TV in the bush. Very different. Very into marriage for keeps; family matters; visiting friends and relatives (we were in our street alone – Gibbons Street, 36 cousins, aunts, uncles, kids of the neighbourhood, even great uncles/aunts and great grandmothers); Sunday Mass; 9 First Fridays; Fish on Fridays; and for five star Catholics, 5 First Saturdays and a myriad of scapulars of colours various. Bernard Salt goes on to say:

Demographic bubbles like the Baby Boomers and Millennials will have long since departed by 2125. By that time families will likely be smaller and life expectancy longer (perhaps into the nineties). Work will be less muscular. Output per worker or productivity will be greater. Spending on those in need will be regarded as an investment in civic justice.

and then something very true I think:

But what is missing from this future vision of Australia is the personal, the intimate, the everyday way of life. Smaller families over generations diminish the idea of cousins, uncles, aunties. And longer-living grandparents will likely play a greater role in child care, in passing on knowledge, in transferring wealth. 

This future Australia will be a place of opportunity for many, but for others there is something missing: the support of an engaged extended family – the wider tribe from which family members emerge. It provides a sense of place, a kinship of shared stories, a pool of traits and of personalities that coalesce to form who you are. I’m not quite sure what a world disconnected from extended family, from tribe, ultimately looks like. 

Does it matter? I think ultimately it does matter. Family shapes and anchors people and behaviour. Without that base there is, at scale, a greater sense of disconnection, of aloneness.

My little sister had medical issues as she started out in life and her Paediatrician eventually became a Professor at the UNSW Medical Faculty. He used to visit our family up in the bush… Driving him to the airport to catch the Fokker back to Sydney on one occasion he asked if he could talk with me about my Seminary Formation. He was very interested in how one forms people for work with people etc. I wasn’t able to say much. In those days halfway through Seminary I had no idea of what Formation was all about. It would be Fr Francis Afu who got me interested in Formation and introduced me to the Ratio Fundamentalis and so much else in the period 2014-16. He had clearly absorbed a lot of this, of which I was oblivious. I could go on for hours now of course when no one wants to listen !!!! But I remember saying to the Professor … priesthood seems to be on the wane in some ways and when I went to Seminary my thoroughly Catholic Uncle, a sort of 2nd father, laughed and said go for it Richo, but you will be looking for a job by the time you are 35 !!!! I told the Professor that the priest was unique both in the Church and in the worldwide community. It could never be reduced to a set of functions broken up across any number of caring professions. The Fallacy of Composition, as we Economists would call it…. the whole is much more than the sum of its parts !!! Once gone … priests could not be replaced with some improved, modified, atomised social contrivances. I still believe that….. (and this applies to a huge number of ‘traditional’ social roles eg: parents; cousins; grandparents; extended family; local GP; local Pharmacist; Nurses & Ambos etc etc) I will be very interested in what the Study Group of the Synod on Synodality has to say formation of priests. I firmly believe formation of Bishops is the burning issue on top of the list however. They are the issue of our day.

As to what about 1925-2025 Australia? Well allow me some density of reply:

I think Elsie Harvey was right (lady in Glen Innes in her late 80’s) when she said “we knew how to make do Father, and be happy about it”; my old Grandma used to smile and say things like: “love many, trust few and always paddle your own canoe; and in the bad times count your blessings” ” Do your best your very best, and do it every day” (she must have heard this from her parents of course !); My Grandfather would say things like: “stone the crows; starve the lizards; bloody useless town kids !!” But because he called my ‘Wagstaff” and never Richard, I always thought of that as love… he was a wonderful grandfather to me .. “Look at the wheat plant I have just pulled up… see these roots and shoots… isn’t God wonderful how is organises nature?” My own dad never said much, but he did worry about us becoming people of “self-pride” and “self-centredness”; doing the right thing was central for Dad. Both Mum and Dad exemplified hard work for the sake of others; being law abiding; caring for others in need; don’t swear and NEVER take the Holy Name in vain; “hate” was a word banned from our household; looking out for neighbours and sharing home produce was a given (eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, jams, cream, radishes, carrots, stewed fruits, pickles, relish, chutney, garden veggies etc)… no exceptions. Never getting too big for your boots ! Mum said “Good girls have their babies Richard”, “Never judge other peoples kids when you have your own”….

When Mum was on her home run to God I asked her what she thought was her greatest achievement ? Without hesitation she said working to educate you kids ! And she meant that. For me she exemplified something I think is a bit thin on the ground these days “self-sacrifice so that others can advance and live well” …. sticking to her marriage vows when Dad was prone to alcoholic episodes… as so many were after the Depression and War, males that is, were damaged men, and somewhat violent just below the surface. Though Dad was never physically violent… and honoured and respected Mum totally in his own way, just didn’t return the favour to himself. I still think the world of them – my parents. It was fashionable in the 70’s and 80’s to dump on your parents and families. I always felt ill at ease with the saying a writer/artist/novelist/biographer etc never makes the mark until the ugly truth of his life, upbringing, and parents were finally bravely told.

But looking back I realise that this ugly stuff was never really the truth about our parents generation at all. It was the ugly toxin of self-interested deconstructionism of post modernists in their nihilism. I honour my forebears, their familial upbringing and experience was never perfect either…Bring on Roger Scutton … but I am totally certain they strove with all their might to make it better for their kids. Do we still have this cultural sense of self sacrifice? Do we persevere with marriage because it will be good for others ? (marriage ALWAYS involves 2 never can just 1 make a marriage) ? Do we really value neighbour, visiting people just to visit them; sharing with them; and accepting them as they are… I have sisters living in Sydney, one in high rise city central and one in a excellent retirement set up … but BOTH know their neighbours, look out for them, and are in touch with the people around them… and I know from which generation this comes.

My Anglican grandparents just accepted everyone as good till proven otherwise and even then humanely; I recall visits back in the early 1950’s by a gay local farmer and his current “boyfriend” and German Shepherds… they were received as though they were kings, judgement-free, just called “a little different” if pushed for info…. we kids were never allowed to visit them however. But the table cloth was out; the freshly baked hard-timers with raisons & sultanas; the cup of tea from water boiled on the ever-fired wood stove; and a ‘jovial’ time was had …sharing buttered scones; home make jam and cream, cinnamon sponge without icing (Grandma never used icing but Mum always used passionfruit icing on her sponges…they loved baking and food !!) …. and “civil” conversation and engagement. Gay rights were never raised. Nor was the ABC and their ideologies at tax payers expense..

The ABC has spent billions of taxpayer dollars to talk up the darkside of 1925-2025, but I think the ABC theirs/not ours are just the “new damaged” …. pawns of the consumerism of post-war Australia; vacuous education costing billions; easy learning-free degrees, and enjoying status and salary far above what they have ever truly earned or had to fight for, endure pain and live self-sacrifice, in order to acquire. No! Just the Age of Complaint; and the Age of Entitlement, the Age of Rights and very few Duties; the Age of Cultural Cancellation, the age of the Self-Privileging Self-Righteous Chattering Classes of inner-city living.

You are probably sick to death of this by now ! Bored out your brains if in fact you have persisted ? But one last rumination… in the 75% of those 100 years… I am sure I am right in saying: Prayer & Worship was vital, and highly valued; we did believe; and we worked at charity/love; and for the Catholics sacrament was encounter with God’s saving grace. A visit to the Blessed Sacrament was often mesmerising. We had a metaphysic.

In my life anyway, the simple, humble country folkish Anglicanism of my Mum’s family was a great gift from God. A foil against the obnoxious Catholicism that is currently making a come back. A sort of catholic doppelgänger for extremist Calvinism.

I am sure I am right in saying: Prayer was vital, and highly valued; we did believe; and we worked at charity/love; and for the Catholics sacrament was encounter with God’s saving grace. A visit to the Blessed Sacrament was often mesmerising. I loved those earlier years…. and those years were halfway through the 1925-2025 era.

See Further and in Depth:

KARL SCHMUDE HONOURED AT ST EDMUND CAMPION DINNER

ROGER SCRUTON AND THE LOVE OF HOME

ROGER SCRUTON READINGS

DR RICHARD CLEMENTS – BAD INFINITY, GOOD INFINITY, AND THE TRUTH

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29 JUNE 2025 – SUNDAY – SOLEMNITY OF SAINTS PETER & PAUL – 2025 – and the Golden Anniversary of Priesthood of Fr Barry James Leech of the Diocese of Armidale…

Well Fr Barry Leech’s Anniversary Celebrations at Tenterfield NSW at St Mary’s Parish with Holy Mass in Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Church went very well. Thanks to the love, and incredible country generosity of the parishioners of St Mary’s, and Fr James Poovathinkal Adm…. it was lovely. Warm, rural, homely, friendly, appreciative and the high standard Tenterfield always manages to achieve at suck gatherings. Barry was there 13 years as Pastor, and loved the place and of course the people … the next two to three generations of Catholics were not present in big numbers, BUT that is the story of what Archbishop Costelloe of Perth, President the ACBC says, is a sign of the broken Church of Australia.

The Catholics of Tenterfield were wonderful …. hardworking and giving … the abundant lunch was “home cooked” familial style, in a slightly old fashion Catholic way Thank God.

Driving home to Glen Innes (93 kms South), which Catholic community was served from Tenterfield … the Parish of St Patrick’s Glen Innes was erected in 1871 … I wondered how on earth did a priest from Tenterfield serve at the Catholics at Glen Innes each week from Tenterfield ? …. it is today over an hour’s drive on the highway at 100 kph. As the train service only began in 1886 to the best of my knowledge. Goodness the Catholics of this Northern Region of the New England Tablelands must have been filled with what to ancient philosophers and theologians of today, who know their stuff, refer to as THYMOS.

Anyhow driving home listening to my Audible Book in the car, I actually finished the DAIRY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST by Georges Bernanos.. Very well known in Catholic circles and quoted many times at Seminary, and which I had in fact never read. (As with a million other books they said we should read !!). A Strange book for me as a priest in 2025 dealing with our times. But I got through it…. the usual telling quote is that at the end … the Diary says, the dying country priest simply whispers ALL IS GRACE ALL IS GRACE. But this translation I listened to ends differently in English ….. Modern translations seems to suggest

Conclusion

The contemporary English translation of the ending to The Diary of a Country Priest is best captured as:

“All is grace.”
or
“Grace is everywhere.”

I found listening to the book on Audible has I have been driving to and fro Armidale and Tenterfield in the past weeks, fascinating but disturbing. I think as spiritual reading it would prove hard work. Nevertheless the ending of the book is famous…. And I firmly believe in my experience that both translations are true … I have no hesitation whatsoever in resonating with ALL IS GRACE & GRACE IS EVERYWHERE.

I hope to expand on this reflection in due course…..

See also:

Cyril O’Regan – Georges Bernanos: The Saints Our Only Hope

Joseph Pearce – Country Priest versus Whisky Priest

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27 JUNE 2025 – Friday – SOLEMNITY OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

The words of Jesus, “I have called you friends” (Jn 15:15), are not just an affectionate declaration to the disciples, but a true key to understanding the priestly ministry. The priest, in fact, is a friend of the Lord, called to live with Him a personal and trusting relationship, nourished by the Word, the celebration of the Sacraments, and daily prayer. This friendship with Christ is the spiritual foundation of ordained ministry, the meaning of our celibacy, and the energy for the ecclesial service to which we dedicate our lives. It sustains us in times of trial and allows us to renew each day the “yes” spoken at the beginning of our vocation.
Leo XIV to Participants in the International Meeting Happy Priests. – ROME 26 June 2025

Pope Leo taught and spoke well to the young priests mentioning at the end every world region except Oceania. I suppose we are Asia now… He was talking to priests, formators, and some seminarians I think. And in focusing on Formation he made three points he said which he said are central implications for priestly formation:

• First of all, formation is a journey of relationship. Becoming friends of Christ means being formed in relationship, not just in skills. 
• Secondly, fraternity is an essential style of presbyteral life. Becoming friends of Christ means living as brothers among priests and bishops, not as competitors or individualists
• Moreover, forming priests who are friends of Christ means forming men capable of loving, listening, praying, and serving together. For this reason, every care must be taken in the preparation of formators, because the effectiveness of their work depends above all on the example of their lives and the communion among them. 

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I think he is bringing a “lived experience of priesthood, and formation both initial and ongoing to bear in his meditations on Bishops, Priests & Formators, and Seminarians these past days.

The “journey of relationships” of course demands a developed mature and maturing human being, psycho-sexually and psycho-socially, and truly this cannot be replaced by knowledge and mere skills acquisition eg: knowing Canon Law backwards. And FORMATION as Pope Francis stressed over and over especially in the FINAL DOCUMENT of the SYNOD ON SYNODALITY is the KEY thing of our moment….. and this means the PRIORITY is the FORMATION OF FORMATORS. Especially Bishops. Most disasters in the Church in my 48 years of experience of priesthood and diocesan servanthood are directly traceable to underdeveloped human beings in power and under no accountability. Human Formation is utterly essential, and this of course as Pope Leo stresses is grounded in friendship with Christ. But HUMAN FORMATION ENABLES ONE TO BE AND BECOME AND ENTER INTO A RELATIONSHIP AS A FRIEND. Without human formation one is unable to be a friend. Diocesan priesthood cannot be modelled on St Antony of the Desert, and even poor old St John Vianney was horribly abused by the Church, and the thousands who turned up for confession and healing never gave him enough money to live a healthy life as a human being. This sort of thing really bothers me in the hagiography of the Church. I think he is a dreadful model of the Diocesan priesthood. I think St Charles Borromeo is a much healthier model. At least he built Church and didn’t just suffocate his people with piety. Saint John Paul II in Pastores Dabo Vobis (See: §43) first drew serious attention to human formation and this of course means the priority is human formation of formators and Bishops. And then most credibly Leo XIV calls attention to Dilext Nos and the SACRED HEART OF JESUS … And yet again, a priest, a man, has to be mature to be able to love well and authentically. To have a priestly heart, means first and foremost to have a heart !!!

Pope Francis’s encyclical Dilexit Nos, if it is a precious gift for the whole Church, is especially so for us priests. It strongly challenges us: it asks us to safeguard together mysticism and social commitment, contemplation and action, silence and proclamation.

Then Pope Leo is ending :

Dear friends, we celebrate this meeting on the eve of the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: it is from this “burning bush” that our vocation originates; it is from this source of grace that we wish to be transformed.

This man, this Pope is a gift in our times….. we pray that the Bishops will renew, embrace their own personal ongoing formation, and build communion, unity, and love through their ministry in the name of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church…. and not use power to advance their hobby horses ….

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AND FURTHER…..

Pope Leo – Homily – Holy Mass with Priestly Ordinations on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 27.06.2025

Pope Leo – Message of the Holy Father to Priests on the occasion of the Day for the Sanctification of Priests (27 June 2025), 27.06.2025

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26 June 2025 – THURSDAY – Ordinary Time year II Week 12 – The Eve of the Solemnity of the SACRED HEART OF JESUS

Being a Catholic Bishop is not about personal “hobby horse” issues and personal whims and fancies …. it is about the Great Tradition of the Catholic Faith.…. and it is important for the rest of us priests and people, because it basically allows us to be Baptised and Confirmed or not !!! The makings of a Catholic Bishop has nothing to do with the quality of their mitres, their rings, their clobber and accoutrements, the incense, it is about whether or not they really care for their people or not…. John 10 …. TANGIBLE EVIDENCE AND WITNESS… otherwise the thing is an only show, a facade …. I am of firm belief that until the Catholic Church can tell the truth about itself. and truly care for people, especially those she has damaged.. She is not fully the Church of Christ…

Leo XIV … In his meditation for the Jubilee of Bishops puts it well… and we should take the time to read and reflect on this since WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES BISHOPS ARE MEANT TO BE AND TO BECOME…. We need to take them back to Galilee (Matt 28:7) and serve their growing into Apostolicity, help them serve the Church in their place, and of course the Great Commission… not their myopic ideas, and preferred visions, and preferences – you know the usual pick-a-pope, pick-a-council and the Catholic Church as it was in the 1950’s and especially 19th century. …. As Pope Leo teaches with the authority of the Petrine Office … no Bishop is alone… he is ALWAYS a man of communion with the Church …. and SENTIRE CUM ECCLESIA...

The Great danger in our Diocese is Traditionalism – an ideology, a typology, not authentic Catholic Ecclesiology:

*By Traditionalism we here refer to an ideology that includes rejection of 
or suspicion of the entirety or parts of the Magisterium from the Second Vatican Council up to the present day, 
as well as the reform of the Roman Rite. We believe that to be authentically Catholic is to be “traditional”; 
however “Traditionalism” takes that love for older usages a step further, fostering schismatic attitudes 
and behaviors that tear apart, rather than build up, the Body of Christ.

JUBILEE OF BISHOPS – MEDITATION OF POPE LEO XIV  ****

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24 June – TUESDAY – 2025 – Solemnity of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

FROM A SERMON BY St AUGUSTINE (354-430 AD)

The Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially. We celebrate John’s, as we celebrate Christ’s. This point cannot be passed over in silence, and if I may not perhaps be able to explain it in the way that such an important matter deserves, it is still worth thinking about it a little more deeply and fruitfully than usual.

  John is born of an old woman who is barren; Christ is born of a young woman who is a virgin. That John will be born is not believed, and his father is struck dumb; that Christ will be born is believed, and he is conceived by faith.

  I have proposed some matters for inquiry, and listed in advance some things that need to be discussed. I have introduced these points even if we are not up to examining all the twists and turns of such a great mystery, either for lack of capacity or for lack of time. You will be taught much better by the one who speaks in you even when I am not here; the one about whom you think loving thoughts, the one whom you have taken into your hearts and whose temple you have become.

  John, it seems, has been inserted as a kind of boundary between the two Testaments, the Old and the New. That he is somehow or other a boundary is something that the Lord himself indicates when he says, The Law and the prophets were until John. So he represents the old and heralds the new. Because he represents the old, he is born of an elderly couple; because he represents the new, he is revealed as a prophet in his mother’s womb. You will remember that, before he was born, at Mary’s arrival he leapt in his mother’s womb. Already he had been marked out there, designated before he was born; it was already shown whose forerunner he would be, even before he saw him. These are divine matters, and exceed the measure of human frailty. Finally, he is born, he receives a name, and his father’s tongue is loosed.

  Zachary is struck dumb and loses his voice, until John, the Lord’s forerunner, is born and releases his voice for him. What does Zachary’s silence mean, but that prophecy was obscure and, before the proclamation of Christ, somehow concealed and shut up? It is released and opened up by his arrival, it becomes clear when the one who was being prophesied is about to come. The releasing of Zachary’s voice at the birth of John has the same significance as the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the crucifixion of Christ. If John were meant to proclaim himself, he would not be opening Zachary’s mouth. The tongue is released because a voice is being born – for when John was already heralding the Lord, he was asked, Who are you and he replied I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

  John is the voice, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word. John is a voice for a time, but Christ is the eternal Word from the beginning.

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18 June – WEDNESDAY – ORDINARY TIME WEEK 11

I am not sure if you read the Fr Martin article on the Quaerens blog or not…. but there was something he said that I think is profoundly true…. he is advertising his new podcast site etc…..

Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., is the perfect person to lead off our new podcast, “The Spiritual Life ” Initially, I had come to know him mainly by reputation and through his always beautifully written, always insightful and always provocative essays on the spiritual life. But it wasn’t until my time at the Synod of Bishops that I came to know him as a friend.

Amazingly, it was during the synod’s second session, in October of last year, that we all learned that Pope Francis would, a few months hence, make him a cardinal. I told him that I could definitely see that coming (after all, he was one of two retreat directors for the synod), but he sincerely said he was shocked. Now he has, as they say in the Vatican, a “red hat,” which made him eligible to vote for Pope Leo XIV in the recent conclave. It was a joy to see a friend become a cardinal and to know that he had a hand in the election of Leo.

Friendship, in fact, is one of the themes of our conversation in the podcast, just as friendship was one of the themes of his retreat talks to the synod delegates in 2023 and 2024. As Cardinal Radcliffe points out, it’s an under appreciated aspect of the spiritual life. It was became a theme for the delegates during the synod, thanks to Cardinal Radcliffe’s meditations: “Affective collegiality,” he said, quoting St. John Paul II, “precedes effective collegiality.” In other words, if you’re going to talk to anyone about difficult matters—about any matters really—it’s important to do so first as friends.

There are so many facets to our conversation in the podcast that I want to highlight. Cardinal Radcliffe speaks about vulnerability and honest questioning as a way to seek commonality among our differences (surely something we all need today); he reflects on how the “particularity” of other people reveals the love of God in a “concrete” way; and he discusses how he initially struggled with silence in prayer but later came to see it as a blessing. “The silence at the beginning of creation,” he says in a powerful image, “is full of potential.”

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15 June – SUNDAY – THE SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY -2025

An exquisite pectoral cross seized by Vikings from Church in Scotland c.900AD and discovered September 2014. Click on image for more information… Source.

*

I have had a couple of wonderful visitors for over a week and so have neglected Quid Cogitat. So this is a bit of a catch up… so much has happened but mainly we are just killing people all the time around the world… it is depressing.

Our Diocesan clergy had the Winter School 2025 in Torreggiani Room Armidale Diocesan Chancery Complex last Tuesday 10 June. A prestigious Prof Leo Lefebure – Matteo Ricci, S.J., Chair of Theology at Georgetown University Washington DC., and is President of the American Theological Society. He came to Australia after attending a Buddhist Conference in Cambodia. His discipline is Religious Pluralism and Inter Religious Relations and Dialogue. It was an impressive day in Ongoing Clergy Formation. Fr Leo loved his time in Glen Innes, and is now taking in St Mary’s Cathedral and Sydney Town. It blows my mind that some supposed competent and educated clergy cannot see the relevance of a day like that of our recent Winter School !!! Talk about denial of the world we are part of, and the realisation as Schillebeeckx once said that “outside this world there is for us no salvation”. Really great to see the energetic and engaging interaction with Prof Lefebure from our Indian, Filipino, and African priests who clearly understand from lived experience what the Church and the Magisterium especially from Pope Benedict XV have so well understood. The tired old Anglo-Celtic clergy looked and listened with pleasure.

For the last 10 days here at WANDI @ Glen on Oxford…. there has been a lot of talking, reading, praying, travelling, as three very different Catholic priests attempted well being and “community” together. An American Academic of Belgium heritage; An Afro Aussie – Fr Francis Afu of Nigerian origins… and Fr Richard G a local Convict of Irish-Welsh Celtic extraction. All three emerged alive and still in “dialogue”.

Terrible stuff in the Middle East, and the usual Russian Wars of Aggression and etc etc etc…. I am offering one Holy Mass each week for Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation for our poor old world. We are a long way from Justice for all peoples, let alone the Saving Justice of the Kingdom.

O God, merciful and strong,
who crush wars and cast down the proud,
be pleased to banish violence swiftly from our midst
and to wipe away all tears,
so that we may deserve to be called your children.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
AMEN

****

---

PS: Have you been following this mess ?

Charlotte-area Abbot: “Shun the works of darkness and anonymity”

*By Traditionalism we here refer to an ideology that includes rejection of 
or suspicion of the entirety or parts of the Magisterium from the Second Vatican Council up to the present day, 
as well as the reform of the Roman Rite. We believe that to be authentically Catholic is to be “traditional”; 
however “Traditionalism” takes that love for older usages a step further, fostering schismatic attitudes 
and behaviors that tear apart, rather than build up, the Body of Christ.

See also: – TRAD RECOVERY PROGRAM & CLERICALISM & MISOGYNY

Traditionis Custodes Was Never Merely About the Liturgy*****

See writings of Shaun Blanchard

***

30 May 2025 – FRIDAY – Memorial of St Joan of Arc – 6th WEEK OF EASTERTIDE

Yesterday I saw the Gifted for the Mission is published by the Bishops Commission for Evangelisation, Laity and Ministry, a commission of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. Very unusual to get anything from Australian Bishops… even when they get tough is only like a gentle breeze rustling the leaves of whatever tree they are targeting….. amazing they are saying something though. Everyone thinks they are in hiding !!! Arch Fisher seems to be the hard worker…. I emailed a copy of the document to a respected Colleague. Below is his reply:

Thanks for the note re ‘Gifted for Ministry’.
Yes, I’ve read it.
Must say it well articulates the theory, but does not dare to come down to the practical.
Every bishop and PP could agree wholeheartedly with everything in the statement,
but continue to run things in the way they feel the Spirit is telling them.
We need more practical challenges and examples.

Anyway see what you think….. The FINAL DOCUMENT on SYNODALITY is probably the stronger statement on Synodal Church. And it is part of Church Teaching since Pope Francis accepted it as Petrine Magisterium.

***

25 May 2025 – SUNDAY – “DIES DOMINI” – 6th WEEK OF EASTERTIDE

Did you notice in the First Reading from ACTS this weekend the ground of the Authentic Catholic Ecclesiology with the repetitive use of the phrase “Apostles and Elders” (Acts 15:1; 15:22-29) ie: Episcopoi AND Presbyteroi …. nothing there about Apostle by himself according to his whims and fancies…. nothing there about Apostle + Chancery Favourite…. nothing there about Apostle + Chancery Favourite + VG …. No! Nothing here about Cardboard cutouts of consultors and priests’ Councils & clergy assemblies……and utterly ignoring the People of God as in the Baptised and Confirmed Believers in Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour…. It is clearly Hierarchical as in Apostles and Elders and now in our time Pope Francis has massively involved the WHOLE WORLD WIDE CHURCH not just her cabals of Prelates, Sub-Prelates, and Wannabe Prelates …. No! The whole world wide Church from grass roots called by Peter to discern the Will of God for us in our time….with deep, professional, and immensely learned groundwork by the International Theology Commission on Sensus Fidei and Synodality … any way the whole outcome was THE FINAL DOCUMENT received into and authorised as Petrine Magisterium which is the later Catholic Teaching on Authentic Catholic Ecclesiology …. further growing and developing the Conciliar Magisterium of LUMEN GENTIUM.….This is really the SCRIPTURE-TRADITION-MAGISTERIUM authoritatively in DEI VERBUM the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. Especially in §8. No wonder the Trads avoid the authentic Catholic Ecclesiology …. so obsessed are they on pre-Chestertonian church typology. The Latinate London Oratory is not AUTHENTIC CATHOLIC ECCLESIOLOGY…. we all understand how so many priests long for their specialness, their pedestals and their separateness … but we all know now what priests and Bishops and even Vicars General are like out here in real Church land and life ….. we know they are struggling for psychosexual and psychosocial maturation … and building facades around themselves is no long convincing. The disease of Clericalism is the one positive outcome of the Sexual Abuse Scandal …. And Pope Francis taught too on the REAL CATHOLIC UNDERSTANDING OF HOLINESS… The future health and well being of Bishops and Priests is closeness to the People of God – Baptised and Confirmed and so so faithful to the life of the Church … as the Pastoral Letters of the New Testament attest… for those Bishops and Priests who still read and pray the Scriptures… Lectio Divina... no wonder the last Popes have to come NOT from the Secular Clergy. But Religious …. Jesuits & Augustinians …. Everyone can see why……Pretend celibacy is no longer convincing cover.

I made a note on my Reflections towards a Homily for 6th Sunday… out of respect respect for our VG although it has not been announced that the VG is the VG or that there is a VG or anything for that matter ……..

NB: Our Vicar General has asked for authentic Catholic Ecclesiology be brought before the people to coincide with Pope Leo XIV taking possession of St John Lateran the Cathedral Church of the Bishop of Rome. Accordingly I urge all of us to read carefully, reflectively, and prayerfully the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church LUMEN GENTIUM.

So many these days just want their favourite doctrinal bits to pass as Authentic Catholic Ecclesiology. But there is so much more to Authentic Catholic Ecclesiology than a potpourri of hobby horse issues …..

The Final Document has been the latest Authentic Teaching on Catholic Ecclesiology …. and the Catechism of the Catholic Church given us by Saint John Paul II is a gem, it is a miracle of work and production…. and so so enriches us in our understanding of the Conciliar magisterium of Vatican II and LUMEN GENTIUM…

We are so tired of those who are two faced with regard to Vatican II and the living magisterium, and who seek to restore the 19th Century as they clearly believe Christ abandoned the Church after Chesterton and left us drifting… but REALLY !!! This flies in the face of Matt 28:20…

²⁰ and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.’

And the look at me look at me look at me church from the Australian Bush and provinces demanding that they are the real quid….. just lacks credibility in what quality of manhood into which the Word was incarnated, when played against the universal church … the Body of Christ in the New Jerusalem where there no Temple ….  I saw that there was no temple in the city since the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were themselves the temple, and the city did not need the sun or the moon for light, since it was lit by the radiant glory of God and the Lamb was a lighted torch for it. Rev 21:22-23.

Jesus spent very little time in the Temple He was most definitely out and about the people he came to SAVE ….

Nothing in the New Testament about look at me look at meeee look at meeee at Holy Communion and I give no money … Nor how splendid am I in my lovely new clothes, nor perfect paper work, nor Canon Law… it has always amazed me how the Trads never align with the Scripture clearly it scares them to death. If they follow the Word of God in the words of human beings they will have to get dirty in the Field Hospital…. but they prefer marble Temples and they don’t even pay for them apparently … others pay the bills. You know Ezekiel 34. we need real Catholic Bishops of the 21st Century… and I suppose that means VGs of similar ilk too.

***

21 May 2025 – WEDNESDAY IN EASTERTIDE – 5th WEEK
Tomb of St Paul outside the walls of ROME

Poor Leo XIV – VISIT TO THE TOMB OF SAINT PAUL – Tuesday, 20 May 2025

The passage of Scripture that we have just heard is the opening of a beautiful letter written by Saint Paul to the Christians of Rome. Its message revolves around three great themes: grace, faith and justification. As we entrust the beginning of this new Pontificate to the intercession of the Apostle of the Gentiles, let us reflect together on that message.

Saint Paul starts by saying that he received from God the grace of his vocation (cf. Rom 1:5). He acknowledges, in other words, that his encounter with Christ and his own ministry were the fruit of God’s prior love, which called him to a new life while he was still far from the Gospel and persecuting the Church. Saint Augustine, who was also a convert, spoke of the same experience in these words: “How can we choose, unless we have first been chosen? We cannot love, unless someone has loved us first” (Serm. 34, 2). At the root of every vocation, God is present, in his mercy and his goodness, as generous as that of a mother (cf. Is 66:11-13) who nourishes her child with her own body for as long as the child is unable to feed itself (cf. SAINT AUGUSTINE, Enn. in Ps. 130, 9).

In the same passage, Paul also speaks of “the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5), and here too he shares his own experience. When the Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus (cf. Acts 9:1-30), he did not take away his freedom, but gave him the opportunity to make a decision, to choose an obedience that would prove costly and entail interior and exterior struggles, which Paul proved willing to face. Salvation does not come about by magic, but by a mysterious interplay of grace and faith, of God’s prevenient love and of our trusting and free acceptance (cf. 2 Tim 1:12).

The rest of the Homily is worth reading….

***

19 May 2025 – MONDAY IN EASTERTIDE – 5th WEEK – Memorial of St Dunstan
(909-988)

Well very many of us have been waiting for Pope Leo XIV to preach his first homily which he did yesterday at Rome in St Peter’s Square Mass of his Inauguration as the 267th Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Peter. It was, in my view, warm, careful, gentle, but solid as rock and clearly programmatic. For me the following pickings sum up his inaugural homily to the Church and world, having already addressed the Cardinals Saturday 10 May 2025 …..

*

In these days, we have experienced intense emotions. The death of Pope Francis filled our hearts with sadness. In those difficult hours, we felt like the crowds that the Gospel says were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mt 9:36). Yet on Easter Sunday, we received his final blessing and, in the light of the resurrection, we experienced the days that followed in the certainty that the Lord never abandons his people, but gathers them when they are scattered and guards them “as a shepherd guards his flock” (Jer 31:10).

I was chosen, without any merit of my own, and now, with fear and trembling, I come to you as a brother, who desires to be the servant of your faith and your joy, walking with you on the path of God’s love, for he wants us all to be united in one family.

Love and unity: these are the two dimensions of the mission entrusted to Peter by Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for reconciled world.

In this our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalises the poorest. For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! 

With the light and the strength of the Holy Spirit, let us build a Church founded on God’s love, a sign of unity, a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word, allows itself to be made “restless” by history, and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity.

Together, as one people, as brothers and sisters, let us walk towards God and love one another.

***

15 May 2025 – THURSDAY IN EASTERTIDE – 4th WEEK.

How is your spiritual reading going ? If you are feel it’s hard to find spiritual nourishment in a Church wanting lots of money for Insurance, then the HOMILIES+ on the QUAERENS blog are rich …. just grab anyone of them, open, and read slowly prayerfully and reflectively until the WORD is broken open for you…… then talk with the Lord about what is happening…. the posts are of all sorts ! There will be something for you ’cause they are rooted in the Liturgical Life of the whole Church at the Table of the WORD.

*

Well today I ventured a squiz at Bishop Erik Varden’s Lenten Reflections Healing Wounds. I looked at the Chapter on the Heart. And gave me big pause for reflection, see the quotation below:

Scripture does not wait until the announcement of the incarnation to speak of God’s heart. In fact, the image first occurs early in Genesis, in a passage telling of the earthly consequence of man’s fall from grace:

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.7 (Gen 6:5-7)

There is pathos in this utterance. It indicates for the first time divine vulnerability. God is eternal, yes, and beyond the vicissitudes of earthly fortune and misfortune; yet such is the bond between him and the human being fashioned in his image that this creature of dust is able to wound him, producing an anguish that makes it seem as if God has a heart like man’s.

This terminology makes no sense strictly speaking. God has no physiognomy. To speak of God’s ‘heart’ is mere approximation through an excess of language; but it is a telling approximation. Even as God has left his mark upon man, it is as though man had left his mark upon God. We get an idea of the intensity of this relationship when, later, through Isaiah, the Lord exclaims: ‘Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?’8 Compassion is the apposite word, to be construed in its most radical sense as a suffering-with.

Varden, Erik. Healing Wounds: The 2025 Lent Book (pp. 127-128). (Function). Kindle Edition.

***

14 May 2025 – WEDNESDAY IN EASTERTIDE 4th WEEK

Well no doubt all of us have been studying the Leo XIV’s Coat or Arms !!! And we would thus all have a favourite aspect of it. Mine is the pieced heart bit….

It is from Augustine… and Leo XIV in his inaugural address said he was a son of Augustine, and reportedly with some emotion. Augustine writes in Confessiones X.VI: percussisti cor meum verbo tuo, et amavi te (“with your word you pierced me and I loved you”)¹…

I have always felt my Diocese was cold towards the WORD. The formation of the dominant clergy cohort typology was clearly Dogmatics and Canonicity. There was never much love and warmth evident in the Meetings, Gatherings, Retreats even towards the Sacra Pagina …. just run of the mill Catholic prayers; homilies that “had to be given” no great love for ‘breaking open the Word’; preference for the mechanical religiosity and liturgical robotics of the “whatever” period of the Church. The Fathers were shot through with Sacred Scripture. In my diocese they throw the BOOK away after the Gospel and put their awful homily notes on the Ambo…. I mean the ALTAR -BOOK – CHAIR …. are the primary symbols of the Liturgical Ecclesia – the Assembly ? But there is no Sacra Pagina orthopathos in the preaching in my Diocese. The Archbishop and Metropolitan Anthony Fisher ALWAYS connects. He is truly remarkable. But then he is highly education and of the Order of Preachers. I used to wonder if the Bishops I had served under as loyally and as obediently as humanly possible even with grace, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and now from a tiny provincial Seminary noted for divisionism, Bishop the 11th…….had ANY OF THEM EVERY REALLY STUDIED AND BEEN FORMED IN THE SACRED SCRIPTURES…. Christianity is not founded on Canon Law and Systematics…. they came later. See: Dei Verbum.

*

And now we have …. percussisti cor meum verbo tuo, et amavi te (“with your word you pierced me and I loved you”)¹… I really really love this … it is of the Lord and Holy Church. The attempt to reinstate the 19th century Church typology for the Great Undivided TRADITION of the Church, Seeking to supplant the Fathers with the showmanship of +Sheen a real narcissistic pain for many of us (shush!!!!); and the apologetics of the journalist Chesterton …. leaves me cold. And when “keeping-the-trains-running” becomes the missiology of the Diocese with an utter intolerance of consultation and open adult discussion …. where is percussisti cor meum verbo tuo, et amavi te ?

Pope Leo XIV no doubt will not be universally loved. Soon the ecclesiological knives will start being sharpened and damage with be their intention …. and it is really what SIN is all about! They reckon we have lost our sense of SIN ! Well I don’t know….. for me I have never been more aware of SIN and EVIL in Russian & Ukraine; in the Middle East; the troubled places in Africa and Asia; the Sudan in particular; Haiti; in the Catholic Church & the vicious attacks on Pope Francis the Great ( amazingly prelates are saying we have never been divided…. for goodness sakes), and in so many other places…. Canberra ACT Australia & NSW and its highly advanced CULTURE OF DEATH a good example …. and then the pathos of the supposed successors of the Apostles who are deeply deeply concerned about Altar Girls ( heavens above !!) ….. How much further into ecclesiological bathos can we get ?

Confessiones X.VI: percussisti cor meum verbo tuo, et amavi te (“with your word you pierced me and I loved you”)

*

Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. 
Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure. 
These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth,  here believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. 
Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. 
A lack of faith is often accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, 
ppalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family, and so many other wounds that afflict our society.
Homily of Leo XIV to Cardinals – Rome

***

9 May 2025 – FRIDAY IN EASTERTIDE 3rd WEEK – HABEMUS PAPAM

Well we have a new Pope -Leo XIV and in our little Diocese we have a new Bishop Dr Peter Mel Murphy…. both events took place on 8 May, and both men, Leo XIV and Bishop Mel, made reference to the Memorial of Our lady of Pompei that day…. at Armidale there is a Mosaic over the Cathedral entrance of this memorial’s event. I thought it strange too that when Pope Leo XIV was elected pretty well all of The Australian Bishops were asleep in Armidale city NSW. After their Episcopal Conference this week at North Sydney they came to Armidale for the episcopal ordination of Peter Mel Murphy of Wagga. He was a Wagga priest of the Bishop Bill Brennan typology and a lecturer at a very small provincial Seminary in a Diocese famous for divisionism from the 1950’s and the DLP days. Three prelates of the Brennan ilk have now been sent into The Australian Church: Bishop Michael Kennedy now Bishop of Newcastle; Bishop Columba Macbeth-Green OSPPE of Wilcannia-Forbes; and now Bishop Mel. He has the usual Roman degrees and the usual Roman doctorate. This latter in Moral Theology very common apart from Canon Law.

The great thing about the Episcopal Ordination of Bishop Mel was not so much the 20 odd saintly and postures of sanctimony of the good looking Wagga priests (20 odd), but the Welcome to Country by local Anawim man Steve Widders. It was excellent! Best I have ever heard, and at a time when Welcome to Country is under critique. The Homily by Archbishop and Metropolitan Anthony Fisher OP was just brilliant. And I can’t wait to get a copy of it. Talk about raise the tone and standard of the gathering. It was outstanding. Even the other Bishops gave it serious attention I noted. Bishops of Lismore and Parramatta not present. Both these Diocese have real parts in the story of the Armidale Diocese. Bit strange that one ,many of us thought!

Armidale is problematic at the moment. It would have to be the most divided parish in Australia if not Oceania, or even beyond. I mean every dog and cat show has a Chapel !!!! St Albert’s Univ College has a Chapel; St Vincent de Paul has a Chapel at Freeman House; O’Connor Catholic College has a Chapel; the unofficial and still not approved Blue Nuns from Tasmania have, it is, rumoured at least two Chapels maybe more; The Trads have a 24/7 special Exposition Chapel under the Cathedral sacristy- a converted storeroom from when people used to pray in the Cathedral; Fr Chandler’s personal Latin Mass ye-olden-style Club has a Chapel – the Chapel of the Holy Angels, left over from the original Australian Ursuline Sisters foundation. And of course the Bishop has a Chapel/Oratory, where as Shepherd he can dialogue with the Lord without being annoyed by the flock. The Cathedral seems to be the only place looking for people ! …. and they are talking of taxing the battling parishes to help pay for the Cathedral in a parish where every club has its own Chapel. It’s an amazing business. But no doubt we won’t be talking about it. Shussssh !!!

*

Pope Leo XIV seems to be the right sort of man for surely the most demanding job in the world. Unlike most powerful world leaders he just can’t liquidate the opposition. Although Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI certainly could rid themselves of unattractive opposition. Ruthessly. One of the former Bishops of Toowoomba Qld would be an example. Pope Francis the Great was too kind for this sort of convenience termination.

Some pickings from the growing number of articles and commentaries on Pope Leo XIV that attracted my attention are below:

The new pope was serving as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, when Pope Francis called him to the Vatican in January 2023.

During a talk at St. Jude Parish in Chicago in August, the then-cardinal said Pope Francis nominated him “specifically because he did not want someone from the Roman Curia to take on this role. He wanted a missionary; he wanted someone from outside; he wanted someone who would come in with a different perspective.”

In a March 2024 interview with Catholic News Service, he said Pope Francis’ decision in 2022 to name three women as full members of the dicastery, giving them input on the selection of bishops “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the church in episcopal ministry.”

To deter attitudes of clericalism among bishops, he said, “it’s important to find men who are truly interested in serving, in preaching the Gospel, not just with eloquent words, but rather with the example and witness they give.”

In fact, the cardinal said, Pope Francis’ “most effective and important” bulwark against clericalism was his being “a pastor who preaches by gesture.”

Source: Gerard O’Connell AMERICA.

May Almighty God who has begun good work in this man Leo XIV bring it to a healthy and grace filled conclusion.

***

8 May 2025 – THURSDAY IN EASTERTIDE 3rd WEEK – CONCLAVE IN PROCESS

Well this evening the 11th Bishop of the Diocese of Armidale will be episcopally ordained. Principal Consecrator will be Archbishop and Metropolitan Anthony Fisher OP; assisted by Bishop Mark Edwards and Bishop Michael Kennedy who left Armidale to got to the bigger Diocese of Newcastle. There will be people there too. 20 or so Wagga priests booked into Armidale within 48 hours of the announcement ,26th February 2025. Local Armidale Diocese priests will also attend. Bishop elect Most Rev Dr Peter Mel Murphy chose as his motto: In Omnibus Caritas….. A great Episcopal motto I reckon. Some other Bishops of course chose the same in the past.

At the Funeral Mass of Fr Tom Shanahan PP Emeritus of St Nicholas Tamworth (title granted by Bishop Luc Matthys upon the request of the incumbent PP) I preached the Homily. I mentioned old Fr Kevin McGovern, the vocations director in the Archdiocese of Sydney for years. He handled me in my early days while I was at Waverley College Our Lady’s Mount Waverley. Dandruff on the shoulders, upon a very very aged soutane, badly in need of a dry clean or better still replacement, he once spoke eyeball to eyeball to me in my early twenties. He said Richard, ALWAYS remember three things: If you don’t pray you won’t stay; Bishops come and go, you are working for God (Bishop M Kennedy in attendance didn’t warm to this at all, nor did his personal Assistant); and stay very close to your family you will need them like never before. All of which after nearly 50 years on the job I can verify. Fr Tom Shanahan was hugely underestimated as a priest. As are ALL PRIESTS even by the saintly Pope Francis the Great ^RIP he was awful to diocesan priests, far too long in the Episcopal club in his lifetime I put it down to, too used over many years to the cheap labour of priests … most of the largesse and fulsome praise is accorded to the awesome dignity of the Episcopate especially in little Dioceses where priests do most of the actual work of the Church.

Probably the big thing that has been seriously missing in our Armidale Diocese of the last 30 years or so, and it is a serious issue is Canon 212 §2-3. Australian Bishops just can’t get it into their heads that “How the Church treats people MATTERS”. And huge damage is done by the Catholic Church that seems to pass unnoticed. It is MIND BLOWING… and it is horrible experience from seminarians to people who have been employed for years and who have given their hearts and souls…. foolishly perhaps… to the “Church”. But this has been screamed at the episcopate for years and years now and they seem to be still twiddling their episcopal thumbs, or just hiding.

***

Way back in 20212 or 2013 the Bishop Elect Michael Kennedy (10th Bishop of Armidale), another Wagga export visited Armidale to say hello. He was very young and immature and we all knew that he would only be with us 10 years or so. But he was kindly, a gentleman at all times, and waited until he was back in the Office Block before the various axes fell. A good man and strove to maintain the awesome dignity of the Bishopric. With potential for sure under grace and formation that only comes from real experience of Church. I whispered in his ear on that occasion… Be prayerful and faithful and you will be OK.... Once when I was on my rounds in the ICU Unit at the then Tamworth Base Hospital I bumped into an old highly respect Anglican Bishop. He was filling in for the local Anglican Chaplain on leave. We got talking. I said the Old Church is coping a bashing in our time, isn’t it ? He said “The Church only has to remember and live three things: Fidelity, Fidelity, Fidelity“. We then went our ways. I never forget it though.

This afternoon I sent the following message to our Chancery to pass onto Dr Murphy when he is ready for the little peoples’ Greetings…..

Message for Bishop Elect Peter Mel Murphy

Congratulations Most Rev Dr Murphy the 11th Bishop of Armidale.   Here at St Patrick’s Glen Innes Parish we have just finished offering Holy Mass for you on the day of your Episcopal Ordination.

We assure you of our prayerful support.  And trust that your time in the Diocese of Armidale will be memorable and enjoyable for you.

Seeking God’s Blessing and Grace on your episcopal ministry.

In speaking of you to the Stage III students from St Joseph’s at Holy Mass to day, I mentioned that in the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church Saint John Paul II stressed Salus animarum suprema lex.  But he said, even so, In Omnibus Caritas.   

And on behalf of Fr Thaddeus Ike Adm of St Patrick’s Glen Innes ….(currently on annual leave in Nigeria).

All will go very well tonight without a doubt. The Liturgy is Organised and huge numbers from Wagga Diocese are here…. I just hope the Diocese of Armidale gets a bit of a look in. God Bless and Keep the 11th Bishop of Armidale. Fascinating that Bishop Murphy’s First Sunday as Bishop will be GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY.

***

28 April – MONDAY IN EASTERTIDE – 2025 – Sedē Vacantē

On Pope Francis the GREAT….

He took Vatican II seriously and responsibly. As any Catholic should and must.

*

I wrote to one of my favourite, and in my view outstanding Catholic websites …. WHERE PETER IS the following:

Pope Francis:
So easy to love. So hard to emulate.  He had me as his own when in that interview in America I think, the journo asked him Who is Pope Francis? And he answered “a sinner”. My eyes watered a touch.  And then he was asked what should the Church be about in today’s world and without thinking he immediately replied:  A Field Hospital …. Healing wounds and Warming Hearts…. vulnera sanare et corda fovere … this has become one of my favourite insights/ motto of sorts.  When he told that gay Musician from the UK that he believed we should treat others as nouns and not adjectives…. I thought my goodness.  Was this how people found the Nazarene when he was on the job  back then ?  I loved the serious, faith filled devotion at Holy Mass and at the narrative of institution.  His brilliant Homilies so grounded and incarnational. I felt pained by the way so many abused Pope Francis, defamed him, and twisted virtually everything he did and said …. Baptised, Confirmed, even Ordained they should have passed under grace from ultra religiosity to missionary disciples in communion.  And those toxic Bishops simply disgusted me, and still do, and many others feel the same way. This Pharisaic opposition has convinced me all the more that this man Francis was as we say in Australia ….. true blue ….. fair dinkum.  REAL.    I pray for the Happy Repose of the Soul of Pope Francis the GREAT.

Of all the articles and there are many on my blog QUAERENS there are TWO that I consider right on the mark, both are from THE TABLET UK. Rowan Williams the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury & Austen Ivereigh friend and biographer of Pope Francis the GREAT. If you haven’t read THE WOUNDED SHEPHERD you should. Honestly, it changed my understanding of the Traditionalist agenda, and ideology, and idolatry of religion of EWTN, and the Trad American noise so damaging to the Body of Christ. (It also gave me perspective on the back stabbing bully George Pell and his cult in the Australian Church).

***

23 April – EASTER WEDNESDAY – OCTAVE OF EASTER 2025 – Sedē Vacantē

Did you read the Gospel John 20:11-18 for Easter Tuesday (yesterday) ? It is printed below:

Mary stayed outside near the tomb, weeping. Then, still weeping, she stooped to look inside, and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, the other at the feet. They said, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ ‘They have taken my Lord away’ she replied ‘and I don’t know where they have put him.’ As she said this she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not recognise him. Jesus said, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and remove him.’ Jesus said, ‘Mary!’ She knew him then and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbuni!’ – which means Master. Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and find the brothers, and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ So Mary of Magdala went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her.

I was really taken by the brief commentary of Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB in the Universalis Commentary for Readings at Mass. Dom HW writes:

Again a scene of hesitation and partial recognition. Is this item stressed so fully in order to underline how far beyond all human possibility was the Resurrection of Jesus, and how firm the disciples were in their conviction that Jesus was dead, dead, dead? This incredulity makes their subsequent faith in the Resurrection all the more convincing. In this scene there is also the strong hint that the act of faith in the Resurrection, the impetus toward the apostolate from which they had shied away, involves also love, the heart as well as the intellect. 

Whether Mary of Magdala (a village on the shore of the Lake of Galilee) is the sinful woman who wept at Jesus’ feet in Luke 7.36-50, or whether this is only a Christian interpretation, remains unclear. But the delicacy of the meeting shows that she is surely a figure of love, not merely of intellectual submission. She was one of the few who not only followed Jesus as supporters, but also stuck it out to the end at the crucifixion.

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17 April – MAUNDY THURSDAY – PASCHAL TRIDUUM BEGINS AT SUNDOWN – 2025

Did you notice this Report in THE TABLET UK today ?

 FRANCE Dramatic increase in Easter baptisms for second year runningAdults and young people flock to the Catholic Church

A RECORD 17,800 adults and adolescents were to be baptised in the French Church at Easter. Adult baptisms due to take place rose by 45 per cent to 10,384, with 42 per cent of that figure among the 18-25 age group. Baptisms of adolescents, aged 11- 17, increased by about 33 per cent to more than 7,400. The number of Easter baptisms in 2024 was itself a 30 per cent increase on the previous year. Adult confirmations at more than 9,000 were double the 2023 figure.

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16 April – Holy Wednesday – 2025 – HOLY WEEK YEAR C

After listening prayerfully to the Liturgy of the WORD at Holy Mass this Holy Week and the Suffering Servant Songs of Deutero-Isaiah in particular…..

I asked my favourite AI App – Perplexity the following question this morning: Has Catholic Social Teaching from Pope Leo XIII and successors had any impact on the culture and economics of the Western World ? And you might be interested in the reply…. AI Perplexity Report 250416. At any rate the summary of the Report was:

In summary, Catholic Social Teaching from Pope Leo XIII and his successors has profoundly shaped Western culture and economics by promoting human dignity, social justice, and ethical considerations in public life and economic policy. Its legacy is evident in the values, laws, and institutions that define much of the modern Western world.

I know there are Prelates and Wannabe Prelates, and even sub-Prelates, who spend time thumbing through Mitre, Pectoral Cross, Episcopal Ring catalogues after completing perfect paper work in the adoring Chancery. But how can any Catholic Bishop worth his salt, as a disciple of Christ, let alone an occupant of the ordained Catholic episcopal office and not admire, respect, love, and faithfully preach and teach Catholic Social Teaching ? … the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. We are not saved by lovely vestments alone; nor hundreds of Benedictions; nor esoteric Novenas; nor perfect paper work. The Bigger the Monstrance and the more jewels, and loads and loads of the correct incense from multi-chain classic thuribles, doesn’t mean the bigger the grace; Being Christlike is what it is all about…….

I also sought a Report from DEEPSEEK the Atheistic Chinese AI App….. you may be interested it leaves the Rad-Trads for dead, well and truly, on Catholic Doctrine its nature and effect… ie: the Magisterium of the Teaching Catholic Church…. an incredible gift of JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. The Summary was:

While not the sole driver of Western economic and cultural development, Catholic Social Teaching has been a major intellectual and moral force—shaping labor laws, welfare systems, and political movements that balance market economics with social justice. Its legacy remains visible in policies advocating human dignity, workers’ rights, and the common good.

Conclusion

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13 April – Passion/Palm Sunday – Year C HOLY WEEK BEGINS

The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke … 2025

The crucifixion of the innocent one

As he begins the story of Jesus’ passion and death, Luke has his
own way of narrating the plot to kill Jesus (22:1-6). He associates
Judas with the plot from the very start, linking him with the chief
priests and scribes to betray Jesus in the absence of the multitude,
the crowds of ordinary people who loved Jesus so much. Luke never
condemns the crowds. They maintain their sympathy for Jesus, but
can be led into evil by their leadership. As they plot, Jesus has his
disciples prepare the passover meal (vv. 7-13).

Dr Francis Moloney SDB..

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Bishop Erik Varden OCSO (Norway) writes in his NOTEBOOK these past days

Nugax

At Lauds today, the Church gives us this prayer among the intercessions: ‘Libera nos a malo nosque a fascinatione nugacitatis, quae bona obscurat, defende’. The English breviary translates, ‘Set us free from all evil; show us in the confusion of our lives the things that really matter’. That is woefully inadequate. The phrase ‘fascinatio nugacitatis’ occurs in the Vulgate translation of Wisdom 4.12 and has deeply marked Christian consciousness. In Latin, ‘nugax’ refers to something (or someone) that is trifling or frivolous. Lewis and Short render ‘nugacitas’ as ‘drollery’. The nugacious tendency draws us away from earnestness, from engagement. It distracts us, persuades us that nothing really matters much. It seduces us with entertainment and prospects of immediate satisfaction. It seems innocent but in reality, as the prayer says, it ‘obscures the good’. It subverts the very categories of good and evil. It is ultimately joyless. ‘Nugacitas’ sums up contemporary pop culture in a nutshell. It is beneficially countercultural to pray to be ‘defended’ from it. We are called to be mindful of essential boundaries. A fragment by Pascal reads: ‘Fascinatio nugacitatis. That passion may not harm us, let us act as if we had only eight days to live.

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11 April – Friday – 5th of Lent

John 10:31-42 – Gospel Reading Today at Holy Mass

They wanted to stone Jesus, but he eluded them

The Jews fetched stones to stone him, so Jesus said to them, ‘I have done many good works for you to see, works from my Father; for which of these are you stoning me?’ The Jews answered him, ‘We are not stoning you for doing a good work but for blasphemy: you are only a man and you claim to be God.’

Commentary

This scene of confrontation between Jesus and his opponents takes place at the Festival of the Dedication. This is consonant with John’s theme that Jesus takes over, or centres in himself, all the festivals of Judaism: he has already taken over the Sabbath by working on the Sabbath, for only God works on the Sabbath. He has taken over the festival of Tabernacles by claiming that he is the source of the living water which was a part of the ritual of the festival. He will take over the Passover by making it his own festival of the new covenant. So now he takes over the festival of the Dedication, saying that he is the one who was truly consecrated by the Father, not the Temple whose re-dedication was being celebrated.

There is a significant parallel between these scenes of final controversy in John and the synoptic account of the hearing before the Jewish authorities. In Matthew and Mark the crunch-point is the question put by the High Priest whether Jesus is ‘son of the Blessed One’ (Mark 14.62). This is also the final question in the slightly different Lukan version (Luke 22.70-71). In both versions Jesus is accused of blasphemy for accepting the title of ‘Son of God’. Similarly in the Johannine account of the final controversies Jesus is accused of calling himself ‘Son of God’ and claiming the divine title, and is charged with blasphemy for so doing. It may be that the synoptic account condenses into the one scene of the hearing elements which occur more diffused in the Johannine controversies. In either case the evangelists are telling us that the crunch-point of the accusations against Jesus, the real reason for his condemnation, is his claim to be divine. It is not a matter of disputes over observance of the Law, not yet of the disturbance in the Temple, but it is his divine claim. This is what must be believed by every Christian.

Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB

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6 April – Sunday – 5th of Lent C

What is your worst fear ?

Quid Cogitat Unus January 22 to October 16 – 2025

‘Fear hates confrontation. If you face your fear, it backs off. It knows it doesn’t always have the credentials to defend itself.’ What are you afraid of? What is your worst fear?

These questions are fundamental to one’s freedom. Although fear alerts us to danger, it can also raise false alarm and enslave us. Fear could be seen as ‘false evidence appearing real’. Our worst fear can be false. It may not be as bad as we first perceived. Often, we justify our fear by doing all we can to make it real. But when we name our worst fear, we can begin the journey of overcoming it. Someone put it this way: ‘Fear hates confrontation. If you face your fear, it backs off. It knows it doesn’t always have the credentials to defend itself.’

The wisdom is to face our fear, to call it for what it is. If it is true, we will know, and if it is false, we will know. Running away from our fear isn’t wise. We may live to face it again. It is only wise that we face our fear once and for all. We have nothing to lose in the long run. Life is too precious to spend it living in fear, wasting away, not being able to actualise ourselves because of what we fear. Don’t be afraid. Stand up. Face your fear. And experience God’s gift of freedom.

Afu, Francis M.. Capsule for the Day (pp. 76-77). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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4 April 2025 – First Friday – 4th Week of Lent

There are three French Catholic Women I have come across since 2023 when I started my blog QUAERENS.

These French women … all deeply Catholic are simply stunning. Incredibly deep, loving, highly sensitive and intelligent, profound, and close to the Lord, and an incredible gift to Holy Church.

My impressive French Catholic women are:

Click in each image to access the Women of Catholic Faith and Witness

I have posted them variously on my blog QUAERENS and Yes! You should take time to visit each one and become enamoured and grateful for these women of great faith, wisdom, intelligence, and insight. These are the people who inspire credible Catholics and render that which is Catholic credible.

Marie Noël

Yet, little by little, she experiences that it is precisely in this smallness, which she mourns and accuses herself of, that God enters most easily. Poverty, fragility, imperfections—for her, these are the inner doors to what she calls grace. “A saint is not someone perfect, not someone of worth, but someone who is worth nothing (…). But through this nothing, God passes, like the water of a spring through the wide-open emptiness of a pipe, to give souls his grace to drink.”

Prof Chantal Delsol

Once Christianity faced off with modernity, says Chantal Delsol, the handwriting was on the wall. And even though a handful of elites deluded themselves into believing in the future of atheism, most people need gods—and soon the old gods began to creep back in.

Madeleine Delbrêl

There are places where the Spirit breathes; but there is one Spirit who breathes in all places. There are some people whom God takes and sets apart.
There are others whom he leaves in the masses and whom he does not “withdraw from the world.” These are people who do ordinary jobs, who have an ordinary household, or are ordinary celibates. People who have ordinary illnesses, ordinary deaths. People who have an ordinary house, ordinary clothes, these are the people of ordinary life. The people we meet on any street.

You are in for a treat !!!

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31 March 2025 – Monday – 4th Week of Lent

Jesus, the Woman and the Pharisees — John 8:1-11 (written in the Year of Mercy 2016)

Kathleen Rushton — Mar 1, 2016

Although the story of Jesus, the woman and her accusers is thought to go back to the life of Jesus, it was not until the third century that it was included in the canonical tradition. Even then, this incident took a long time to settle into John’s gospel where we find it today, in John 8:1-11. Some ancient manuscripts place it in two other places, others in Luke’s gospel, and some omit it altogether. 

The story was opposed and suppressed because Jesus’ forgiving words were at odds with the ancient Church’s penitential discipline. Augustine, for example, wrote that men feared this story would “make their women immune to punishment for their sins.” 

Scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, described the essence of the story as a “succinct expression of the mercy of Jesus.” Augustine had also commented on the woman and Jesus — “only two remain, the wretched one and the incarnation of mercy.” The delicate balance between Jesus’ justice in not condoning the sin and his mercy towards the woman, invites us to ponder our practice in this Year of Mercy.

Scene one: “To stone such women” 

It is early morning. “All the people” come to Jesus, who begins teaching in the Temple (Jn 8:1–2). Three scenes follow about both the Scribes and Pharisees, and the woman (Jn 8:3–6a; Jn 8:6b–7; Jn 8:8–11). In the first scene, the Scribes and Pharisees led to Jesus a woman caught in adultery, to ask him to join in condemning her because the Torah said: “Moses commanded us to stone such women.” 

In her recent novel about the morally complex King David, The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks describes stoning in the voice of Batsheva, David’s eighth wife. Batsheva was Uriah’s wife when David watched her bathing during her ritual purification and desired her. David sent for her and raped her in the palace. Batsheva asks: “Have you ever seen a woman stoned to death, Natan? I have. My father made me watch when I was a girl so I would know what became of faithless wives. And when my monthly signs did not come, I thought of that woman, the sounds of her moans, her mashed flesh, her shattered bone . . . At the end she had no face . . .” 

It is important not to pit Jesus against Judaism, by seeing the stoning of women as unique to the Jewish Torah. According to the New Testament scholar Luise Schottroff, “every legal system of antiquity threatens women, whose sexuality is the possession of a man (father or husband), with severe punishment or death in the case of adultery or pre-marital intercourse.”

Stoning is an execution performed by a group, or community, that is threatened by a particular deed. Men throw stones at the victim in a specific order related to the rank of those who were injured, or claim to be so. 

An account of the stoning of an allegedly adulterous Iranian woman in 1990, records that her father threw the first stone, followed by her husband, the Imam and then her sons. Each man was plaintiff, judge, and executioner. A crowd participated in the collective rage. The woman was buried in a hole up to her shoulders. The mayor drew a chalk circle around her. She was in the middle. 

“In the middle”

Jesus faces a real event not a theoretical debate. The stoning is imminent. The woman is placed literally “in the middle” (Jn 8:3) – other translations have “in full view of everyone” or “before them all”. She is facing death. The Scribes and Pharisees expected Jesus, a Jewish male, to be responsible and to condemn and to participate.

However, not all Scribes and Pharisees (or Imams and their communities) behave in this way. The ones in the Johannine text are zealots, indignantly enforcing the Torah. They are intent on finding fault with Jesus by opposing him to the Torah. They have no interest in the woman, her allegedly wronged husband, or the other man. If they had, both the man and woman caught in adultery should die (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22). 

Scene two: Jesus and the Scribes and Pharisees

The collective nature of the way the woman was seized and condemned calls on Jesus to take his place in the male hierarchy. They expect him to collude with the male collective as judge and executioner. But he does not answer.

Jesus bends and writes on the ground with his finger. His action disrupts their expectations. They continue to press for an answer so Jesus stands and addresses them directly: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (Jn 8:7).

Scene Three: Jesus and the Woman

Then Jesus again bends, writing on the ground. The crowd of accusers leave one-by-one, according to rank. Then Jesus speaks to the woman for the first time: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 

He addresses the woman as “you” (Jn 8:10). She is no longer an object. Through unconditional forgiveness, she is able to enter into a relationship with Jesus. On the basis of this relationship, Jesus can challenge her to sin no more. “From this moment on” (literally “from this now on”), the moment of her encounter with Jesus, she is offered the possibility of new life: physical life and a life of right relationship with God. 

Civic Moral Courage

Jesus, as an independent interpreter of the Torah, places the offence of adultery, which in patriarchal society made women vulnerable to unjust allegations and treatment, on a level with offences such as theft and defamation. He disputes the status of adultery (shared with idolatry) as a crime requiring death. Scripture scholar, Luise Schottroff, calls his action, civic moral courage. 

This story shows gender social constructions. The paper, Women as Actors in Addressing Climate Change, from the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, 2015, defines it as: “the array of ‘socially constructed’ roles, behaviours, attributes, aptitudes, and relative powers linked with being a woman or a man in a society at any given time. The term ‘socially constructed’ means that they are not ‘innate’ or ‘natural’ characteristics but constructions and products of a society and, as such, can be modified and transformed.” 

Jesus acted with courage. Benedictine Sister, Maria Boulding noted: “The Pharisees are tense, but [Jesus] is calm and relaxed throughout; he accepts the woman openly and lovingly, as an adult and as a person. He has a sureness of touch; he can handle the situation with her because he has nothing to be afraid of in himself . . . He must have completely accepted and integrated his own sexuality. Only a man who has, or at least begun to do so, can relate properly to women.”

This year of Mercy is our opportunity to practise courage too. (Recall: 2016)

Published in Tui Motu InterIslands Issue 202 March 2016. 

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29 March 2025 – Saturday – 3rd Week of Lent

Well the readings and reflections these past weeks have been so rich and powerful. And I have heard a few stories that have me seriously wondering about Church and Formation. Formation really interests me at the moment. Formation is the focus of the last chapter of the FINAL DOCUMENT of the Synod on Synodality.
(Part V – “So I Send You” Forming a People for Missionary Discipleship) ……………………………………………. 49.)

One story was of a religious sister in another country and culture who was an excellent highly trained Nurse in her Order’s hospital, and who had become a drug addict. Injecting herself regularly, until she hit rock bottom. It was incredible to hear how the Order in desperation was seeking to help her … maybe a bit late … but nevertheless they are trying. Rehabilitation in that part of the world, is available, but incredibly costly. So the Congregation was going to have to sacrifice much for their sister. But should that suffering religious woman recover and live clean and straight…she will have powerful charism for engaging and healing others in their desperation. The strongest grace comes through the wounds we bear, and we are healed by His Wounds (1Peter 2:24).

I have witnessed too a priest , who now in senior years, and who became the elected Administrator of his Sedē Vacantē Diocese. This priest was never meant for Hollywood. Yet quietly, persistently, genuinely, he used his power and authority in a hidden way to: bind up bleeding wounds occasioned by the abuse of power, in the Presbyterate, to pour on them the balm of Gilead (Jer 8:22) – that of restorative justice – which is the justice of the Kingdom. Three men have been brought back to priestly life – graced well being – again, that I know of. All done invisibly, without fuss or noise, yet so genuinely – the warm genuineness alone has done much of the healing. This priest who has served so faithfully and well over the years, as he trod the track the Lord laid out before him, has been a minister of the saving justice of the Kingdom. Christlike as the Divine Physician, and so Psalm 16 comes to mind and prayer.

Then there was another story of man a Religious Order priest, in yet another country, highly qualified in mysticism, who in utter loneliness and desperation for love, sought the affections a woman friend and so became involved. The toxicity of his community before, during, and after, meant he had little choice but to take leave of absence and exist in a state of “lostness” ! Why is the Church like this ? My big beefs against our Holy old Catholic Church in our time, in the West anyway, is that (1.) She cannot care for people, she can only encourage people to care for her; and (2.) She struggles to tell the truth about herself, constantly she opts to maintain the facade of righteousness in the public forum. Too many stories like this, too many hurt and damaged people, and yes clericalism is diseased, alike in clergy and laity and religious, and far far too much cowardice, dishonesty and cover up. So far away from the Gospel, and so fake …. and if hurt people hurt people, then hurtful Church must hurt people big time. Jesus teaches us that only loved people can love people.

Two weeks ago a simple viticulturist cared for the fig tree, not what the fig tree should be doing, or producing, or giving for others… he rather sought to offer the tree “special care, work on improving its environment, and nourishment, and all done with patience”.

Then last week we had the mad father loving madly the wastrel rat of a kid, and his perfect, orthodox, hard working, righteous elder son …. but he wanted only one thing to bring his boys into His house as brothers for the feast. He didn’t focus on the estate and the collective wealth. No! He knew that his boys would only come to live in graced well being once they entered the Father’s house as brothers, for the feast of life, love, and saving justice the Father has to offer those who are brothers in His house.

Next week we will have the woman caught in adultery. A remarkable feat being able to commit adultery alone !!! And the coming to terms with Law and Sin. And both are meant to bring us to service of a fallen battling human being who needs help and hope to live their life in graced well being. The religious leadership, power people, the orthodox and righteous ones see the sin not the woman, they abuse the Law. Jesus sees the woman, He lifts her up WITHOUT CONDEMNATION. He wants her to be able to sin no more, so that she can live her life in graced well being.

Why does the Church struggle to be Christlike in loving her priests, religious, and fallen disciples battling … so quick with dehumanising, cold hearted, processes of right standards, with her focus on maintenance of a facade of righteousness. Good appearances. But “… the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1Sam 16:7b). Why does the Church struggle so to care for people rather than set about image maintenance? Why does the Church struggle to tell the truth about herself, and about her people of power, and about her failure to love her own, let alone confess and recognise and render restoratively just the damage she does to people who love her ? We are all involved in this.
Can you remember Ephesians 4:15; 25 ?

15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you  speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

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21 March 2025 – Friday – 2nd Week of Lent

For some reason or another I have been thinking a lot of the Good Shepherd these past days. Maybe because there are a couple of Episcopal ordinations in the wind …. The Good shepherd in my meditations clearly is someone who spends his life with his sheep. Nowhere in the Gospels, Gospel of John, do we see the Good Shepherd hanging out with the other shepherds all the time, being back home in the office. Surely the Bishop-Administrator, homebody, and perfect paper worker is in big trouble biblically? This is without going into detail with Ezekiel 34ff. Yes…the office, ministry, and vocation of Bishop is more than having a better car than the priests and personal comfort.

In John 10 the teaching of Jesus is palpable …⁵ They will never follow a stranger, but will run away from him because they do not recognise the voice of strangers.’ And then again: ¹¹ I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. ¹² The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not belong to him, abandons the sheep as soon as he sees a wolf coming, and runs away, and then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep; ¹³ he runs away because he is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep.

And importantly: … the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Jn 10:3.

Bishop is a serious business and has nothing to do with awesome dignity; and wonderfulness; and chosen above others; it is a calling to be Christlike, and certainly not doctrinaire, rigidist, and Pharasaic. We should pray for these men, as they have been called not for dress-ups and frippery, giggling peculiar to seminaries, but to the Cross of Jesus Christ that: I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full. ¹¹ I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep (Jn 10:10b-11.

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13 March 205 – Thursday – 1st Week of LENT

USA President Trump has as HUGE, and I mean HUGE, budget deficit he has to get rid of, to do what needs to be done in the interests of country: death by Fentanyl et al; border security; iron dome over America to protect against China-Russia-Iran- and even silly North Korea... America has to be strong enough to defend herself, and that means massive rebuilding of social capital and social-cultural health; industry; economic wealth and power; and COMMON SENSE. Australia coming to USA’s defence is beyond the joke. But the USA should be able to count on Australia after massive advantage from the USA has flowed Australia’s way over many years.  $350 US billion to Ukraine paying for a loss of thousands and thousands of lives proves – madness – American can not afford to protect Europe against Russian aggression and imperialism.  The US, any way, pays 70% of NATO why ? For goodness sakes ? America can’t afford it. Europe has to defend herself.  Trump has to wipe out the US deficit to enable US private sector led economic growth and rebuilding America.  Waste in Public Spending is gargantuan. So there is Musk! The rest of the world has no right too live off US taxpayers and US Govt Debt. If people are starving in Kenya and Nigeria because of cuts in USAID ! Then WHAT ARE THE KENYANS and NIGERIANS DOING ABOUT IT ? Govt leaders in those countries with mansions overseas; Huge Swiss Bank Accounts; and so called Christian Evangelists flying around in private jets… it is sickening.  Same with Australia ! We need to face up to the real world and PAY OUR WAY.  Productivity and domestic economic growth/development and management are what it is really all about, not the dictatorship of the minorities.  From my point of view POLAND is the only country with brains doing the right thing… Australia, too, needs to start facing the truth and the real . This country is too too used to international welfare and US largesse..  Trump is doing the right thing for America.  It mightn’t feel good. But he is the President of the United States not the world.

If you really want to get insight, especially the Middle East before the ceasefire, then perhaps you should listen to Dr Dan Scheuftan – I found it really insightful….

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6 March 2025 -Thursday – After Ash-Wednesday

One of the many things Pope Francis has said that has stuck in my mind and won’t go away…. keeps popping up…. like again today is what he said about how we all need “inner freedom”. And he warns Bishops and Priests and the Church to beware of the Abuse of a Person’s Inner Freedom.

And of course I promise myself time and time again I will look this up and explore further…. but time passes…

Pope Francis defines “inner freedom” as: as a spiritual state that goes beyond mere personal autonomy or psychological tranquility.

He connects it with Spiritual Growth…

So I asked Perplexity AI when did Pope Francis talk about “Inner Freedom” and the report is below:

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3 March 2025 – Monday – Memorial of St Katharine Drexel (1858 – 1955)

Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, dated April 17, 2003. He stated:

“Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation”234.

This quote captures the essence of his belief that even in the simplest settings, the Eucharist represents a profound connection between the divine and human realms, symbolizing the union of heaven and earth³.

Every now and then a quotation that impressed us deeply comes back into conscious memory… this quotation of St JOHN PAUL II is such for me…. even today… driving around town it has come back again and it was 22 years ago that I first read it in his then just published Encyclical Letter.

John Michael Talbot – “I am the Bread of Life”

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23 February 2023 – 7th SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME YEAR C

Loving and merciful God, we implore You 
to look kindly upon Your servant, Pope Francis,

Touch him with your compassion and consolation.

Restore his health and renew his strength
in mind, body, and spirit.

Surround him with your peace
and the support of the prayers of your holy people.

We place Pope Francis in your healing love 
through the doctors, nurses,
and medical professionals who take care of him.

We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Mary, Health of the Sick, pray for us.

Archdiocese of Manila

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Addendum to 22nd February 2025

It is very hard to think of what to say when life’s reality hits you.

I have often found myself in such situations, and I thought it wise to share with you prayers that have helped me many times to pull through it all. ‘Lord, I don’t know what lies ahead. I don’t know the details of my journey, but I know you. Lead me, for in the end, it is all about you, Lord.

‘Lord, may I rise above my failures so that I can see your success. Lord, may I rise above my troubles so that I can see your solutions. Lord, may I rise above what others have done to me so that I can see what you are doing. Lord, may I rise above what I am going through so that I can see where you are leading me. Lord, may I just worship you.’

Warning, these prayers may not automatically change your situation, so don’t get your hopes up high. But I am very sure of one thing: you will be changed by praying them. And when you change, your situation will subsequently change. This is the power of prayer. So go on your knees, pray these or something similar, and see the difference God will make through prayer.

Afu, Francis M.. Capsule for the Day (pp. 41-42). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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22 February 2025 – Saturday – Feast The CHAIR of St PETER

Magisterium AI

22/2/2025,

St. Peter’s Chair: An Overview

St. Peter’s Chair, also known as the Cathedra Petri, holds profound significance within the Catholic Church as a symbol of the authority and mission entrusted to the Apostle Peter by Christ. This chair represents not only the physical seat of the Bishop of Rome but also the spiritual and doctrinal authority that has been passed down through the papacy since the time of Peter.

Historical Context

The tradition of venerating St. Peter’s Chair dates back to the early centuries of Christianity. The chair itself is believed to be a relic that symbolises the teaching authority of the Pope, who is considered the successor of St. Peter.

The earliest references to the chair can be traced to the writings of early Church Fathers, such as Tertullian and Eusebius, who emphasised the importance of the apostolic chairs in the early Christian communities, particularly in Rome, where the Cathedra Petri is located

Theological Significance

The theological implications of St. Peter’s Chair are deeply rooted in the understanding of the papacy. According to Catholic teaching, Christ appointed Peter as the “rock” upon which He would build His Church (Matthew 16:18). This foundational role is reflected in the authority of the Pope, who, when seated on the chair, exercises the potestas docendi, or the power to teach, which is essential for guiding the faithful in matters of faith and morals. The chair symbolizes the unity of the Church under the leadership of the Pope, who is tasked with safeguarding the integrity of the deposit of faith and ensuring the communion of all members of the Church. The celebration of the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, observed on February 22, serves as a reminder of this mission and the importance of the papal office in maintaining the Church’s unity and fidelity to Christ’s teachings 5 4

The Chair as a Relic

The physical chair, known as the Cathedra Petri, is housed in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. It is an ornate structure, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and is situated in a prominent position within the basilica. The chair is often viewed as a relic, embodying the historical continuity of the Church’s leadership from Peter to the present Pope. The veneration of this chair reflects the belief in the apostolic succession, where each Pope inherits the mission and authority of St. Peter.

Conclusion

St. Peter’s Chair serves as a powerful symbol of the Catholic Church’s foundation and its ongoing mission to teach and guide the faithful. It encapsulates the Church’s understanding of authority, unity, and the continuity of the apostolic tradition. The chair not only represents the physical seat of the Pope but also the spiritual leadership that has been entrusted to him as the successor of St. Peter, ensuring that the teachings of Christ are faithfully transmitted through the ages.

Refer to Magisterium AI Report

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21 February 2025 – Friday – St Peter Damian (1007 – 1072)

‘Plan of action’ to defeat antisemitism

Co-Chief Executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Alex Ryvchin has concluded the summit by outlining a plan of action to defeat antisemitism.

Delivering his closing address, Mr Ryvchin listed 15 steps he believes should be taken to tackle the crisis.

The prominent Jewish leader has called for both major parties to support the plan, and work with the community to implement the steps.

Mr Ryvchin’s steps were divided into seven categories: national security, education, universities, preachers and charities which spread hate, the Migration Act and citizenship, social media and cultural institutions:

1. Declaration of a National Emergency on antisemitism and establishment of a Joint Counter-Terrorism Taskforce 
2. Uniform policing guidelines, including training for law enforcement officials on understanding antisemitism and how hate crimes should be prosecuted
3. Antisemitism education to be included in the national curriculum
4. More public awareness and advertising campaigns, particularly for younger Australians, aimed at debunking the ideology of antisemitism
5. National ban on encampments on Australian university campuses, as well as prohibiting the disruption of lectures by protesters
6. Creation of a judicial inquiry into antisemitism at universities, which should investigate possible foreign funding of student protests
7. Universities to disclose all sources of funding from foreign governments and foundations
8. Tougher legislation to overcome restrictions on disciplinary action against academics
9. Repeal of charity status and funding from religious and charitable institutions if they promote racism or display terrorist symbols
10. Greater scrutiny of the use of funds administered by charities to ensure, for example, that funds are not used to support terrorism 
11. Immigration officers must be trained to recognise antisemitism, with applicants to be assessed under the character test on whether they have promoted antisemitism
12. The Migration Act should be enforced or amended to ensure antisemitic conduct is grounds to reject a new visa, or cancel an existing one
13. New social media legislation such as Algorithms Regulation laws should be introduced to counter foreign interference
14. For cultural institutions, a condition should be placed on government grants issued to festivals and individuals that recipients do not spread racism, or they risk grant cancellation
15. Balance of representation on literary and cultural festival boards, as well as among senior staff tasked with programming decisions

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20 February 2025 – Thursday

The Explanations of the Psalms by Saint Ambrose: Psalm 36

Open your lips, and let God’s word be heard

We must always meditate on God’s wisdom, keeping it in our hearts and on our lips. Your tongue must speak justice, the law of God must be in your heart. Hence Scripture tells you: You shall speak of these commandments when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you get up. Let us then speak of the Lord Jesus, for he is wisdom, he is the word, the Word indeed of God.

  It is also written: Open your lips, and let God’s word be heard. God’s word is uttered by those who repeat Christ’s teaching and meditate on his sayings. Let us always speak this word. When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking of Christ.

Open your lips, says Scripture, and let God’s word be heard. It is for you to open, it is for him to be heard. So David said: I shall hear what the Lord says in me. The very Son of God says: Open your lips, and I will fill them. Not all can attain to the perfection of wisdom as Solomon or Daniel did, but the spirit of wisdom is poured out on all according to their capacity, that is, on all the faithful. If you believe, you have the spirit of wisdom. 

  Meditate, then, at all times on the things of God, and speak the things of God, when you sit in your house. By house we can understand the Church, or the secret place within us, so that we are to speak within ourselves. Speak with prudence, so as to avoid falling into sin, as by excess of talking. When you sit in your house, speak to yourself as if you were a judge. When you walk along the way, speak, so as never to be idle. You speak along the way if you speak in Christ, for Christ is the way. When you walk along the way, speak to yourself, speak to Christ. Hear him say to you: I desire that in every place men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling. When you lie down, speak so that the sleep of death may not steal upon you. Listen and learn how you are to speak as you lie down: I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

  When you get up or rise again, speak of Christ, so as to fulfil what you are commanded. Listen and learn how Christ is to awaken you from sleep. Your soul says: I hear my brother knocking at the door. Then Christ says to you: Open the door to me, my sister, my spouse. Listen and learn how you are to awaken Christ. Your soul says: I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, awaken or reawaken the love of my heart. Christ is that love.

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19 February 2050 – Wednesday

in the 1980’s I was in my 30’s and posted as an assistant at MOREE NSW ….. a country town on the plains of the North West of the State of New South Wales. I grew up as a Catholic priest, a Christian, and a human being in my seven years there. It was 40 years ago, and we didn’t have computers, mobile phones, or air con in the car. Sunday afternoons would see me driving 90 mins straight North toward the border for Mass at Boggabilla a small town at the end of the Northern road for our Diocese.

Some times people would turn up !!! Maybe 8 on a good Sunday night… and then of course drive 90 mins back after a light tea at the Service Station that looked after the truckies …. often on the road home I would pass over 100 semi trailers loaded up and travelling well over the limit – close to 120 ks huge headlight blazing. These were the days before seat belts and breathalizers too…. I grew up as a priest at Moree amongst the Catholics there and First Nations Community of the Kamilaroi people. I often prayed with candle lit and my faithful old Jerusalem Bible open – sitting on the wooded floor of the old Presbytery in Gwydir Street. But my breath of grace, my spiritual fresh air, my balm of Gilead was John Michael Talbot and this music and songs …. they kept my soul alive, and my spiritual heart beating. That was over 40 years ago and JMT is still my faithful companion at prayer time. But there were two songs that are still 100% alive and fresh for me at prayer over 40 years now past…. tonight at Vespers I listened again…. and let them move me with the grace of the God who sings !!! Then I thought I should offer them to you too. Savour them with prayer, sweetly, and breathe them in ……

1. THE TROUBADOUR (St Francis of Assisi) and
2. THE CANTICLE OF THE BRIDE (Song of Songs – Mystical).

The TROUBADOUR OF THE GREAT KING

Troubadour

Song by 

John Michael Talbot

In raiment coarse and rough endued
A cord his only ceinture rude
With scanty measure for his food
His feet withal unshod

For the poverty of Christ he yearns
From earthly splendor he dost turn
This noble troubadour has spurned
Despising all for God

Within a mountain cave alone
He hides to weep and lying prone
He prays aloud with sigh and groan
For peace to fill his heart

New signs of highest sanctity
Singing praise exceedingly
Beautiful and wondrous to see
The troubadour to sing
The troubadour of the Great King

Then seraph-like in heaven’s height
The King of Kings appears in sight
His soul in passion’s awesome night
Beholds the vision dread

For it bears the wounds of Christ and lo
While gazing on a speechless woe
The hidden marks upon his soul
Now wound his flesh blood red

His body now like the Crucified
Signed on hands and feet and side
Transformed in life to love and die
With Jesus Christ our Lord

New signs of highest sanctity
Singing praise exceedingly
Beautiful and wondrous to see
The troubadour to sing
The troubadour of the Great King

Within his soul songs secret sound
To silent melodies abound
Caught up to God this singer found
His song and he understood

Songwriters: Monty Holmes, Leslie Satcher. For non-commercial use only.

THE CANTICLE OF THE BRIDE (Song of Songs – Mystical Bride and Groom)

Let us kiss with the touch of our lives Call me Lord to you chamber
For your kiss is an excellent wine flowing smoothly poured out for a lover.

For a bride belongs to her lover
And a Bridegroom yearns for His Bride
So come to the night there to empty our lives
To be fulfilled with the flowers of dawn.

Let us go to the Vineyard my love to see if the vines are in bloom
If the vines have opened to blossom new life, so I will open to you.
As the flowers send forth their fragrant perfume
So the doors of my love shall be open
For I have stored up my treasure for you and now I give you my love.

For a bride belongs to her lover
And a Bridegroom yearns for His Bride
So come to the night there to empty our lives
To be fulfilled with the flowers of dawn.

So come to the night there to empty our lives
To be fulfilled with the flowers of dawn.

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18 February 2025 – Tuesday

Speaking with a Colleague this morning …. he mentioned a Midrash on Psalm 85:11 ….

Merciful love, and faithfulness have me
righteousness and peace have kissed
Faithfulness shall spring from the earth
and righteousness look down from heaven
RNJB

The collecting of variants reconstructs a narrative pattern that becomes clearer as stories are added to it, like “the assembling of a jigsaw puzzle when no box cover exists to reveal what the completed picture should look like…. Puzzle pieces are constructed so that a single one of them links more than one other.”60

here is a Midrash on Psalm 85:11 (“Love and truth fought together”) about an argument between Love and Truth in which, to break the tie, God hurled Truth to the ground (Daniel 8:12), smashing it to smithereens.61 Later tradition continues the story: “From then on truth was splintered all over in fragments, like a jigsaw puzzle, and while a person might find a piece, it had little meaning until he could find others who had different pieces of the puzzle, and thus slowly they could try to fit their pieces of Truth together to make some sense of things.”62

But when we choose to juxtapose one piece of the puzzle, one variant of a myth, with another piece, another myth, we assume that there is a puzzle, even though there never has been a box with the picture; moreover, we are assuming that the two pieces are parts of “the same” puzzle rather than two different puzzles, that they are variants on “the same” theme—and we must say what we mean by “the same.” This is not so easy as might at first appear.

From page 44 of Implied Spider by Wendy Doniger.

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17 February 2025 – Monday – Memorial The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order

Have you ever had flashbacks, or recurring memories which even though 60 years ago or more still cause one to blush, feel ridiculous, embarrassed, ashamed and in short a real goose? I have many !! One is as a child standing in our home kitchen I asked my Mum for another chocolate biscuit, and she said No! You will spoil your tea… so I demanded another chocolate biscuit and she returned with a firmer No! than before. So I yelled to her that “I need another chocolate biscuit” and she said No!! This time a bit threateningly …. when she spoke quietly with firm gaze and intensity of focus …. So I fired my last bullet “Well I hate you!” – O Dear I am blushing again now … I knew it was wrong at the time. Being a little believing Catholic, and a pain in the neck if not further down anatomically, to boot – I have always had an overactive conscience. Well what followed was life changing…. Mum, sat me down and decreed and legislated that in OUR HOUSE AND HOME the word “hate” is never used….. EVER !!! Did I get that ? Yes, I said immediately. And to be honest even today I am extremely careful, some 70 years later of that word “hate”.

But, you know…. I don’t think we ever sat down and talked about “love” !! What it means and so on. It was always assumed. It was demanded. Expected, ubiquitous, essential, something to be practised, experienced, a force, an energy, a presence, and taken for granted I think. “Love” could apply to grandma, uncle Jack and aunty Audrey, to a canary, the new lawn mower, and yes ! to chocolate biscuits. Whereas in Italian one does not “love” ice cream, rather ice cream pleases me – mi piace il gelato. …. in English “love” is all over the shop, isn’t it. It’s one of the many problematics in the English language I think … But I came across a quotation yesterday, originally from Vattimo … which I can’t get out of my mind. It is so profoundly true, moving, and just plain right …..

to be a Christian is to know that “the only truth revealed to us by Scripture, the one that can never be demythologized in the course of time—since it is not an experimental, logical, or metaphysical statement but a call to practice—is the truth of love, of charity” (Vattimo again).¹

Wiman, Christian. Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair (p. 94). (Function). Kindle Edition.

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14th February 2025 Friday – St Cyril (827? – 869) and St Methodius (826? – 885)

Do you live in a Diocese that knows this is the JUBILEE YEAR 2025 OF “HOPE” ?
If so you are blessed !

The Jubilee Year 2025 is a significant event in the Catholic Church, designated as a year of prayer, pilgrimage, and conversion, inviting Catholics to experience God’s mercy through repentance and spiritual renewal345. Pope Francis announced the Jubilee, selecting “Pilgrims of Hope” as its theme, with the aim of fostering a climate of hope and trust amidst global challenges like war, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the climate crisis3.
See further for the Perplexity AI Report.
And for the really keen brained Catholics See: Readings Jubilee Year of Hope – 2025.

Dr David Ranson VG PP has been Catechising his Parish School and it is well worth spending time with him on the Jubilee Year.

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This article drew a lot of positive comment and viewings on QUAERENS from all over the place…. it is most definitely worth you reading.

Hal G P Colebatch – Multiculturalism: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone *****

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12th February 2025 – Wednesday

And this YouTube interview from America allows a little peek into the “there side of the issues” that we don’t get in Australia’s limited media.

And then of course there is the Pope’s Letter to American Bishops ….

LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS – TO THE BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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11th February 2025 – Tuesday – Our Lady of Lourdes – Week 5 Ordinary Time.

The integral formation of priests is difficult today. It has always been hard and will never be easy. Priestly formation, at its essence, is the process of breaking the pot and reshaping it, according to the template given to us by the Church.

And these “pots” that present themselves for ordination today were hardened so much earlier than was the case in previous generations. They come from an age of confused masculinity, with no father figures for many of them, with notions of sexuality warped by pornography, by privilege, by never being told no, and of having either helicoptering or absent mothers.

Formators in seminaries in such a context have their work cut out for them. And, seminary formators themselves have to realize that they are not immune to these negative influences from the wider culture. They have to deal with all that is going on in their own lives, dissipating the cognitive distortions, the unnatural desires that can so affect their lives. (John P Cush)

So writes Rev. John P. Cush, STD, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is professor of dogmatic and fundamental theology and director of seminarian admissions and recruitment at Saint Joseph’s Seminary and College (Dunwoodie), New York. In an article 12 months ago.

FORMATION is the keystone of Synodality and the building of Synodal Church. It is mentioned 52 times. Part V ‘So I Send You’ focuses on Formation of Missionary Disciples. But there is also a call to remould the Ratio Fundamentalis for a Synodal Church to come this year. Much has happened in the last twelve months with the Synod on Synodality in Rome 2024. And there is to be further focus on Priestly Formation this year. The FINAL DOCUMENT stresses FORMATION in the Church and calls for FORMATORS who have received adequate training and formation themselves.

I know the Seminarians of today are very different from say 50 years ago. But my question is about the Seminary Formators. “Breaking the pot and reshaping it” I found a touch jarring ! Who forms the Formators ? Are they qualified ? How? And are they regularly professionally developed, supervised, and accountable. Of all people working in the Church Formators should must definitely undergo a serious Appraisal annually. We are now so much more aware of abuse of conscience, spiritual abuse, abuse of power, and the Synodal essential of communal discernment. Fr Cush came across to me as very “knowing” in formation. I think formation is serious business these days…. so it becomes a matter of who supervises and forms the formators ?

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10th February 2025 – St Scholastica Memorial -Monday of Week 5 Ordinary Time.

St Scholastica (480 – 547)

  She was born in Nursia in about 480, the twin sister of St Benedict. She was dedicated to God from an early age and followed her brother to Cassino, where she died in about 547.

I never realised she was St Benedict’s twin sister. I knew they were siblings. From the books of Dialogues by Saint Gregory the Great, pope

Scholastica, the sister of Saint Benedict, had been consecrated to God from her earliest years. She was accustomed to visiting her brother once a year. He would come down to meet her at a place on the monastery property, not far outside the gate.

  One day she came as usual and her saintly brother went with some of his disciples; they spent the whole day praising God and talking of sacred things. As night fell they had supper together. 

  Their spiritual conversation went on and the hour grew late. The holy nun said to her brother: “Please do not leave me tonight; let us go on until morning talking about the delights of the spiritual life.” “Sister,” he replied, “what are you saying? I simply cannot stay outside my cell.”

  When she heard her brother refuse her request, the holy woman joined her hands on the table, laid her head on them and began to pray. As she raised her head from the table, there were such brilliant flashes of lightning, such great peals of thunder and such a heavy downpour of rain that neither Benedict nor his brethren could stir across the threshold of the place where they had been seated. Sadly he began to complain: “May God forgive you, sister. What have you done?” “Well,” she answered, “I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked my God and he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me and return to your monastery.”

  Reluctant as he was to stay of his own will, he remained against his will. So it came about that they stayed awake the whole night, engrossed in their conversation about the spiritual life. 

  It is not surprising that she was more effective than he, since as John says, God is love, it was absolutely right that she could do more, as she loved more.

  Three days later, Benedict was in his cell. Looking up to the sky, he saw his sister’s soul leave her body in the form of a dove, and fly up to the secret places of heaven. Rejoicing in her great glory, he thanked almighty God with hymns and words of praise. He then sent his brethren to bring her body to the monastery and lay it in the tomb he had prepared for himself. 

  Their minds had always been united in God; their bodies were to share a common grave.

SURRENDER TO JESUS – John Michael Talbot

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8th February 2025 – Vigil of 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Greater than the Roar of Mighty Waters
More glorious than the surgings of the seas
The Lord is glorious on high

Psalm 93:4

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6th February 2025 – St Paul Miki and Companions

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me,
for he has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to captives
and to the blind new sight,
to set the downtrodden free,
to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.

Luke 4:18-19

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5th February 2025 Wednesday

Pope Francis announces he will write Apostolic Exhortation dedicated to children

Closing the first-ever International Summit on Children’s Rights, the Pope stresses that children around the world “are watching us to see how we move forward in life.”

I think this is a wonderful initiative. Over the past few years the Theology of the Child has been developing and becoming more widely know. But most Dioceses have done nothing as usual about this exciting and positive outcome of the abuse cancer still effecting the Church. The child is a human person not an adult-in-waiting. And the Child’s experience of life, God, and grace truly matters and is real. And they too are Missionary Disciples in Communion. I can’t wait to read this Apostolic Exhortation and it will be part of the Petrine Magisterium and therefore Catholic Teaching/Doctrine.

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4th February 2025 Tuesday

I celebrated Holy Mass this morning at St Patrick’s as the Adm Fr Thaddeus was overnight at Walgett en route to the “big bash” Mass for Religious at St Francis Xavier’s Narrabri. It was a very long Gospel from Mark for a weekday. All about the Synagogue office Jairus and his seriously ill daughter, and the women suffering from an ever worsening haemorrhage. Spent all her money on doctors/experts etc. But desperate now. Then Mark says something I found very insightful, as always with Mark…. Donald Trump in many ways is a bit like Mark:

She had heard about Jesus, and she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his cloak [Mark 5:27]

She had heard about him! She must have been mixing with people who talk about Jesus. She comes from “behind” [See: Ex 33:18-23] and “through the crowd” to touch his garments not to touch Him. [See: John 20:17. and Mark writes a long time before John 25-40 years.].

Further: MAGISTERIUM AI REPORT

There is a sort of Liturgy of the Word going on here, listening to people talk about Jesus & to come from behind you have to follow & you only have to touch that which is “of Jesus” not necessarily Jesus Himself. Again there is something ecclesiological here… and something sacramental.

No time now to talk of Jairus and his daughter. But for me it is all about right judgement of Jesus and wrong judgement about what He says …..The child is not dead, but asleep.’ But they laughed at him. [Mk 5a:39b-40a]

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3rd February 2025 Monday

From LAUDS this morning:

O Lord, you have been our refuge
from one generation to the next.
Before the mountains were born
or the earth or the world brought forth,
you are God, without beginning or end.
Ps 89/90.

And I will lead the blind
 in a way that they know not;
in paths that they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
Canticle Isaiah 42.

Scripture Reading
Judith 8:25-26,​27

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God who, as he tested our ancestors, is now testing us. Remember how he treated Abraham, all the ordeals of Isaac and all that happened to Jacob. For as these ordeals were intended by him to search their hearts, so now this is not vengeance that God exacts against us, but a warning inflicted by the Lord on those who are near his heart.

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Lord God,
 give us grace this day to work faithfully for your glory
and for our neighbours’ good.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

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The Lord bless us, and keep us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.

Amen.

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2nd February 2025 – PRESENTATION SUNDAY – 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C

In Memoriam – Marianne Faithfull

You probably heard Martin Buzacott WEEKEND BRUNCH on ABC CLASSIC this morning his very touching tribute paid to Marianne Faithfull (+’d 30 Jan 2025 78yrs). had classical training in young years. And she said on a 7.30pm interview years ago, that people think her greatest regret was marrying Mick Jagger or becoming a Pop Singer. But she said if she has her time over again her one big dream, and thus regret, was that she never got to sing: Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder, TrV 296: 4. Im Abendrot. Then we heard Jessye Norman sing it … here from YouTube.

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What was your favourite text in today’s Gospel at Holy Mass ? Mine was v.33 …  As the child’s father and mother stood there wondering at the things that were being said about him…

Our faith is so FAMILIAL.  Our Church is supposed to be FAMILIAL. And there SYNODAL …….years ago sitting next to my Bishop at a Clergy Ongoing Formation session … the speaker kept emphasising the need of the Church to “support” the priests on the job. A bit frustrated the Bishop turned and said “What do they mean by support !!!” So I said well if you crashed in a heap tomorrow and needed a lot of personal help, what would you family do (he came from an intensely catholic family with loads of siblings) … he said Oh! They would rush to help me…. Yes! Familial support ought be the model for Church leadership, Admin, and Power, and Chancery personnel … Formation is very much like good parenting I maintain. Jesus did not hesitate to leave the 99 holy joes… he was focused on the lost one, at that time and place. The mad Father threw a humongous party for the lost son upon his return to the Father’s house. As did the woman when she found her lost drachma. Familial care and restoration of sheep No. 100 should be the primary and most important and utterly obligatory Professional Standard in the Catholic Church. It should never never be: “Oh so-and-so clearly doesn’t have what it takes, what a pain he is, being a problem to his incredible Bishop …call his family to pick him up, and tell him to get his act together…and we will see if there is a job for him if he wants to come back !!! Let the family pay for him, nothing from the Church, there is probably social welfare for people in a mess anyway. Tell him I am praying for him No! I don’t want to talk to his family” This of course happens all the time to our immense shame … No! Until the Church learns familial support it is not fully Church/the Body of Christ and far from being fully formed as a community of Disciples. Next Sunday’s Gospel has this embedded in it all the way through…. 

Do you remember the story when Jesus was a lost sheep? He was sheep No. 100 for Mary and Joseph when they went up to Jerusalem… Jesus stayed behind with the Jewish Academy, and it was his first work really in his mission…time with the learned, the scholars, the qualified, the educated, the Doctors… his first port of call wasn’t the Vinnies at all … this image below I just love…. it speaks volumes to me…. what do you think? (Lk 2:46-50). Can you see Mary out there carrying something on her head !!! 

Of course when he grew up he would be back to the Temple …. with a whip and with rage …. the Church needs to keep this in mind … when praying for itself. But I think the cleansing of the Temple is already happening with Pope Francis…. and of course madly backpedaling into the 19th Century and the world of Bishop Fulton Sheen … only delays the inevitable reckoning. 

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31 January 2025 – Friday

The Washington DC aviation disaster is very bad news … many US families in pained distress today … no time for life jackets or evacuation procedures. And those 300 rescue workers there instantly in the freezing cold desperately looking for the crash victims… but the ones I really admire in operations like this, and they are hardly every mentioned are the “divers” …in the dark, freezing Potomac, search for bits and pieces, and bodies, …… they are truly remarkable. And no one sees them at work. They are for all intents and purposes invisible. But they are vital and they are diakonal.

We pray for those who lost their lives, and the huge number around the world who also lost their lives in unnoticed unreported events of evil, and for their grieving loved ones…. the graces of eternal rest; of consolation and healing, and eventual acceptance. Lord Hear Us. 

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I don’t know if you have had the time yet to read Jean-Pierre Torrell OP; A Brief Life of THOMAS AQUINAS The Theologian in His Context. I only started the other day …. but I came across something yesterday that was new to me. Torrell writes on P.8 of the 2024 edition:

As Marie-Dominique Chenu excellently stated: ‘the refusal of Monte Casino is, for Thomas, the exact replica of St Francis’ stripping himself of his rich clothing in the public square of Assisi….. Thomas reveals a genuine mysticism concerning poverty:

Of all things that Christ accomplished or suffered during his earthly life, it is especially the venerable cross that Christians are called to imitate … Now among the distinctive marks of the cross is absolute poverty: we can see it in exterior things by the fact that he was reduced to complete nakedness … It is this nakedness of the cross that those who are voluntarily poor follow … It is clear then that the enemies of poverty are also enemies of the cross(Philippians 3:18).

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A colleague this morning reminded me of a passage from §3 of Dignitas Humanae:

Moreover, as the truth is discovered, it is by a personal assent that men are to adhere to it.

On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation of conscience. In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience, especially in matters religious. The reason is that the exercise of religion, of its very nature, consists before all else in those internal, voluntary and free acts whereby man sets the course of his life directly toward God. No merely human power can either command or prohibit acts of this kind.(3) The social nature of man, however, itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community. Injury therefore is done to the human person and to the very order established by God for human life, if the free exercise of religion is denied in society, provided just public order is observed.

What is the Catholic Church’s teaching on conscience ?
(Perplexity AI Report)

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29th January 2025 – Wednesday

The White House on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) justified a sweeping freeze in US overseas assistance by citing a $US50m ($80m) condom distribution program in the Gaza Strip, without offering evidence to back up the claim.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the expenditure was discovered in President Trump’s first week including by the new Department of Government Efficiency led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Mr Musk’s initiative and the budget office “found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza,” Ms Leavitt told her debut press conference.

The Australian.

I think every taxpayer knows that there is huge unaccountable waste in what Govt and their bureaucracies do with the money workers earn. I personally totally support every scrutiny available on this issue: Go !! Trump; Musk; and Ms Leavitt. Who knows we might even have money then for the homeless and families dealing with mental health issues.Let alone regional health services. And the HUGE number of children maltreated in Australia.

I strongly agree too with President Trump’s EO restricting gender transition procedures for people under the age of 19 … “Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children,” said the order. (Quaerens.)
And Congress is going to pass laws enabling parents to sue doctors who carry out these procedures. 

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At Mass today the priest in his homily said something I had never thought of before. The Gospel was from Mark 4:1-20. And is the Pastoral Theology of Jesus really. Not the bully boy approach of some Catholic Church approaches and experience. +George Pell^RIP could never be called saccharine or silky in his dealings with people. But the parable of the Sower, a truly beautiful theology and teaching is one well known by Catholics on the job! But the Priest said the “sower sows the seeds in the hope that they will spring up and yield fruit and more seeds”!!!  I had never thought of the seed bringing forth more seeds! Which is true… what a stunning image of how evangelisation and mission is in the Church’s DNA. I had aways imagined that the seed sprung and grew and yielded a rich harvest… But more seeds too…. is new for me. I will carry that into my reflections….

Even the worst homilies can offer a gem or two…. it is “how” we listen… and at this late stage in life I am getting better at the old “audiens religiosē” – Holy Listening. (The opening words of Dei Verbum – the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation of Vatican II).

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Quid Cogitat literally in the Latin means …. What is he thinking…

I read SEVEN STORY MOUNTAIN by Thomas Merton in 1963-64…. my dorm Master gave it to me… Bro Shoebridge CFC … I was 14 yrs, I think… it made a profound impact on me… I read James Joyce A PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN too (later studied it at Sydney Univ in English ONE… I thought the lecturer didn’t have a clue !!!). …. and together with Henry Morton Robinson’s THE CARDINAL which  I read about 1960-61 when I was 10 or 11 … these 3 books shaped my story I think…. I have always had a fascination with the Cistercians/Trappists – the Benedictine Spirituality…. and that informs my retirement…. I never wanted to be a social butterfly… and town darling…. just Richard and a bit monkish.  Diocesans had to work hard 24/7 back in my day … and Mum and Dad only worked, nothing else, no Old Time Balls and Gala Gatherings !!!  So now is my monkish time …. had there been a receptive Benedictine Monastery in Australia…. I would have gone there ten years ago… probably … or earlier… In my dreams anyway. I guess it was not meant to be …

See Bishop Erik Varden OCSO – THE NOTEBOOK 

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28 January 2025 – Tuesday – St Thomas Aquinas Day

I was very interested to read that President Obama’s Administration deported more illegal immigrants than any other Administration in USA history …

During Obama’s presidency, deportations reached record highs:

• In fiscal year 2013, the Obama administration deported a record 438,421 unauthorized immigrants3.
• From fiscal 2009 to 2014, a total of 2.4 million people were deported under the Obama administration6.
• The Obama administration deported about 3 million illegal immigrants over his entire tenure, compared to 2 million under the Bush administration5.

Perplexity

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“Less peacock, more man of the church” – as they are saying these days …

So grateful to Pope Francis for once again speaking out about formation of priests. And again he stresses the human right of “inner freedom” which is the ground for potential damage and Spiritual Abuse through CONTROL of human beings, and the infantilisation of Seminarians. His call for intelligent, humane, human, Gospel suffused formation requires two things urgently though apart from willingness to listen to the Holy Father. 

1. Formators who are qualified; experienced; abreast of ‘best knowledge best practice’; holy women and men who have been called through communal discernment to serve formation since they clearly have authentic spiritual gifts and the charism of the original formator Jesus who said he would make his disciples fishers of people… 

2. Bishops need to be qualified and need to understand they have not authority to CONTROL other people; only to serve. And using fear through financial manipulation, bullying, expulsion, denying visa support, just making life hard, ostracising underlings from the Episcopal coterie of “in-siders” needs to cease and these men need to resign and undertake a serious 30 day Retreat. Bishops need formation; qualifications; and to be abreast of best knowledge best pastoral leadership practice. Regularly, at a high level they need professional development and they need to be accountable, appraised, and supervised. Awesome dignity and display of power have nothing to do with becoming the Good Shepherd who is totally focused on that sheep that is lost…. he willingly leaves the 99 darlings in the Chancery … “insiders” and “winners in the clerical stakes” to seek out the one who is in the company of the Lord… the lost sheep… No.100.

Old Bishop Henry J Kennedy, the 7th Bishop of Armidale in his Ordination Homily 50 years ago in Moree Town Hall NSW stressed to the ordinand that “to be a good priest one must first become a good disciple”.And I would add that both of these require the aspirant to be a well formed human being; psycho-sexually maturing; and psychosocial developing person.

This has nothing to do with spending a fortune on the professional clinical weirdos from the local Psych-shops with all their issues and prejudices. No! It requires immersion formation in the people of God who are by no means perfect but they are real. They pray, and they worship, they serve, and they seek the Lord in their lives, their families, their parishes. They are not on salaries nor with contracts. Aspirants need too to be highly educated as time goes by, and skilled to a ministry that flows from their communally discerned gifts and charism. I loved the comment of the retiring Viennese Cardinal :

The farewell Mass for Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, after almost 30 years as Archbishop of Vienna, turned into a national event with 4,000 guests where Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen – a Lutheran – praised him as a “pontifex austriacus”.

But the Cardinal merely said:

“The task has always delighted me,” said Cardinal Schönborn of his time in office. “I simply enjoyed doing it.”

Synodal Church and synodality is the only way I fully believe that we can stop cloning clericalists, and can rid ourselves of the neuroses and dysfunctionalities so prevalent throughout the Catholic Church. Oh there are millions of gifted, wonderful disciples of Jesus in the Church. But they have not yet been called forth !! Vocation. No the Holy Father is right, formation is not about cloning clerics.

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22nd January 2025 – Wednesday

Ps 76/77
You withhéld sléep from my éyes. *
I was tróubled, I cóuld not spéak.
I thóught of the dáys of long agó *
and remémbered the yéars long pást.
At níght I músed within my héart. *
I póndered and my spírit quéstioned.

You know one thing about growing old, becoming elderly and joining the elder hood that I have experienced and which I have not come across in the giants and giantesses⁶ of the spiritual tradition is this. As I get old I find that I am praying a great deal in bed at night in the dark! I love sleep and I am good at it⁷ … but every now and then I wake up and I find myself praying, talking with the Lord. Sometimes reaching for my beads I pray the Rosary, and seek the powerful intercession of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. In fact I look forward to my nocturnal prayer time and often fairly long conversations with the Lord. Praying LAUDS this morning before Holy Mass at St Patrick’s Glen… Psalm 76/77 brought this to mind:

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1. Probably mistranslated by Vatican News. ↩︎
2. Probably mistranslated by Vatican News. ↩︎
3. perplexity report. ↩︎