Pastures New

I have been neglecting my blog over the past couple of weeks. I started a new job at the beginning of September and the first week was totally manic: confusion over subjects, timetables, rooms, resources, plus the added stress of trying to figure out a new building layout and new staff meant that I have had little time to think let alone blog. Things were only made worse when I saw what I would actually be teaching - Philosophy of Religion, General RE, Psychology and Biology, plus I'm a Personal Tutor (to about 20 students)...

The students finally started lessons on Monday morning, and I have begun to feel more settled as a result - put me in front of a class, and I can't help it: a captive audience brings out the exhibitionist in me! Even so, getting the hang of my timetable is going to be tricky.

So the increased workload as I get to grips with all the different exam board requirements will restrict the time I have available for blogging, and my posts will be fairly erratic for some time to come. Spare a prayer for me (and my unfortunate students) as we start the new academic year!

Bavarian Crop Circles

I've been rather preoccupied in the past week or two. I will be posting again shortly. In the meantime, I thought I'd share the following LINK for a bit of amusement!

Advice to Students (And All of Us)

I came across the following post giving advice to Catholic students about to leave for University from Paulinus at +In Hoc Signo Vinces+

He had found it in the Catholic Soldier's Prayerbook (1942) - I found it very moving, but I don't think it needs to be restricted to students and soldiers... I think all of us would do well to keep it in mind. Temptation is not a sin, but in the modern rush to prevent people from getting over-scrupulous, the duty to avoid occasions of sin (where we know we will be tempted) is no longer preached about as often as it should be...

...that's as "theological" as I get, being a laywoman who knows her place! So I guess that's a challenge to all you priests out there to get into the pulpit with some hard-hitting sermons ("homilies" sounds so wishy-washy!!)

"Remember that no amount of prayers will keep you from sin unless you do your part and keep out of temptation. St Paul warns us that Faith without good works is dead. He also tells us that provided temptation is not of our making God will surely give us the grace to master it. Don’t weaken yourself by thinking that you are certain to fall. That is fifth column work against yourself. On the other hand don’t presume; don’t put yourself in danger. He that loveth the danger shall surely perish in the danger."

And a line which hit home hard:

"At heart Pontius Pilate was not a bad man."

BTW, before anyone gets all upset about the idea of a woman knowing her place, there are one or two great women saints of the Church who knew their place too... St Teresa of Avila and St Catherine of Sienna spring immediately to mind (and they were not to be messed with!) I'm no saint, but I like their attitude ! So, Fr Tim, Fr Nicholas, Fr John and Fr Stephanos - consider yourselves "tagged"... I shall look forward to reading the sermons once they've been blogged!

New Disorder Diagnosed

Curt Jester has highlighted a real breakthrough in medical science. Apparently there is a disorder, hitherto undiagnosed, which is similar to colour-blindness and which impairs a person's ability to see rubrics in the Roman Missal, and thus affecting their ability to "say the black, do the red."

Luckily, help is at hand. Click HERE for details of treatment programmes being introduced at a centre near you.

Unfortunately, it would appear that the condition is irreversible in Liturgists. Psychological investigation reveals that,

"For some reason all liturgist given an ink blot test saw liturgical dancers in every pattern. They also had the tendency to move about the furniture in the psychologist's office for no discernable reason."

Variation on a Blonde Joke

I used to send these things out by email (if they made me laugh) but a friend pointed out that really, if I thought they were funny enough, I should put them on the blog and see who bothered to read them rather than adding to voluminous quantities of junk mail... especially since many of them seem to have the "send this to five people and see what happens, you'll have a nice surprise please don't break the chain" line added - which only gets up my nose, and I often delete those ones straight off...

I heard this one as a blonde joke, but was told it shortly after in another version, and it sounded even better, so here goes...

A well-dressed man drives up to a field, gets out and walks over to speak to the farmer. "Excuse me," he said, "but if I can tell you the size of your farm, the type of crops you have in the top field and their productivity, can I have one of your sheep?"

The farmer agrees, so the man continues: "Well, your farm is 150 hectares, the top field contains winter wheat and you're currently at a yield of 75%."

The farmer reluctantly concedes that the information is correct, and invites him to help himself to a sheep. The man picks one up, and starts to walk off.

The farmer stops him, and suggests another wager. "I bet you're one of those hot-shot consultants," he says. "Why yes," replies the man, "But how did you know?"

"Well," replies the farmer, "You turn up uninvited, demand payment for giving me information which I already know, and you don't know the first thing about the subject you're spouting on about...."

"...so can I now please have my sheepdog back!"

Blogging Blues

I was obviously getting too confident, and so it was time for another spanner in the works. I had switched to Beta Blogger, and tried to update my template. Oh dear... big mistake. For some reason the oh-so-easy-to-manage-and rearrange layouts wouldn't allow themselves to be managed and rearranged. I couldn't click and drag and kept getting weird and indecipherable error messages whenever I tried to edit anything...

...even more worryingly, the page elements on the layout then appeared to disappear when I tried to edit them...

...luckily I decided to have a look at the html code (even though this is probably more inaccessible to me than Ancient Greek - or modern Greek for that matter!) and, after I recovered from the first message (ie. html editing is not available, yet) I spotted a button which seemed to promise to revert to the old layout. Phew.

...mind you, I'm such an erratic blogger that most of you probably didn't even notice...

The Little Book of Calm for Cats

A good friend of mine sent me The Little Book of Calm for Cats by Stuart & Linda MacFarlane which she'd spotted in a hospice book sale. It's fun, and everyone who has ever owned a cat will be able to recognise their moggy, so I thought I'd share a few quotes:

"From time to time engage in the seemingly trivial pursuit of frantically
chasing a ball of wool. This frivolous activity will absorb all your
negative energy and fill you with a wonderful sense of inner peace."

Hmmn. Sounds a bit too close to 'liturgical' dance for my liking!

"Practise the art of Feng Shui - rearrange your human's possessions to enhance your mood. Knock car keys and jewellery onto the floor, preferably into a dark corner out of sight, then stretch out and let your mind relax in a clutter-free environment."

Yup. Sylvester's read that bit and taken it to heart. And finally:

"Climb into a box - any box. Inside you will discover a mystical
place where you can escape from all the stresses and strains of the
world."

Thanks for Prayers

A while back I mentioned that my sister was having a few problems with her pregnancy, and I asked for prayers for her and her unborn baby.

Deo gratias - it seems to have paid off ! The bleeding she was experiencing has stopped, and the baby appears to be doing well. Martina has to take things easy, but, God willing, I shall be an Aunt in early January (or thereabouts... )

Family Prayers

Friends of mine invited me round for dinner this evening. I was in for a real treat: the meal was excellent (as always) and the conversation flowed, but the highlight of the evening was being invited to join the family for their night prayers.

Five children (there would have been six, but the eldest is married and doesn't live at home) and their parents knelt down in the living room together to pray a decade of the Rosary, a litany of favourite family saints, an act of contrition and a few other prayers before the younger children scooted off to bed. I couldn't help thinking that if more families prayed together there would be far fewer problems in the world.

I felt so privileged to be with them.

Our Lady, Star of the Sea

One advantage of Fr Tim's temporary absence from the blogging scene is that I get a chance to put up a post on what's been happening in the parish before he does... (his blog is so much better-written than mine, and he says what I'm thinking anyway, so I sort of feel that there's not much point just repeating it all!)

Anyway, on Monday morning the Stella Maris icon from the Apostleship of the Sea arrived in our parish. It's a beautiful icon, and the image I have doesn't really do it justice. It's massive, and comes complete with its own stand, plus another two stands for the explanatory notes - being an icon, all of the component parts have a symbolic meaning.

The icon was carried into the church by some of our parishioners just after the morning Mass, and Braz, one of our deacons, led us in saying three Hail Marys and a prayer to Our Lady, Star of the Sea by Pope John Paul II. We then sang "Hail Queen of heaven" which was particularly appropriate as it repeats the phrase "Star of the sea" and afterwards went in to the parish hall for tea and coffee and the chance for a chat.

There weren't that many people around for the Monday morning Mass, but on both Tuesday and today we had 50-60 parishioners. I was delighted that this happened during my summer holiday, so I was able to attend. Unfortunately, the icon has now moved on, I think to Our Lady of the Angels, Erith.

O Mary, Star of the Sea, light of every ocean, guide seafarers across all dark and stormy seas that they may reach the haven of peace and light prepared in Him who calmed the sea. As we set forth upon the oceans of the world and cross deserts of our time, show us, O Mary, the fruit of your womb, for without your Son we are lost.

Pray that we will never fail on life's journey, that in heart and mind, word and deed, in days of turmoil and in days of calm, we will always look to Christ and say, "Who is this that even wind and sea obey him?" Our Lady of Peace, pray for us! Bright Star of the Sea, guide us!

UPDATE: It would seem that Fr. Tim beat me to it again - he put up a post on the parish blog on Sunday. You can read about the different symbols in the icon HERE.

Servers and Serviettes

I obviously have a little too much free time on my hands this holiday (ie. I'm not spending as much time as I should on preparing for the new term) but I came across Indolent Server's blog. He's been posting some cute cartoons of an altar server called Speck... I was also highly amused by his referring to female altar servers as "serviettes" !

Results Day

Tomorrow is the day that the AS and A Level results are published in England. Students (and teachers) have a pretty awful time of it: if the percentage of pass grades is higher than previous years, then the media have a field day slamming the exams for being too easy; if, on the other hand, the percentage is lower, then teachers, schools and colleges are hammered for failing to provide a decent education...

...there is no doubt that exams have changed drastically - and I do think that the old GCE 'O' and 'A' levels were of a higher standard: there were far fewer structured questions, for example, and the increased number of essay-type questions meant that students had to organise their answers more carefully. However, the breadth of knowledge for each subject has increased drastically (sacrificing depth in many cases), there is far more emphasis on evaluating information rather than recall, and the sheer number of papers taken for each subject is such that today's students have to work incredibly hard, and probably harder than previously.

So spare a thought (and a prayer) for any students who are awaiting their results tomorrow (and the GCSEs next week.)

Warning Signs

To accompany my little rant-ette on hymns modern (I have few problems with hymns ancient, apart from agreeing totally with Dilexit Prior about keeping the traditional Latin hymns in Latin), I thought I'd draw your attention to the following new signs which might, in these days of litigation, be of use in some of our parishes...





More can be found courtesy of the Dumb Ox.

Hat-tip (or should that be mantilla-tip?) to the Moral Highground for this one.

Wearing the Mantilla

Recently I've been asked by a few people why I wear a mantilla. It occurred to me that it might be worth posting a few thoughts on the matter.

I have a problem with one of my knees which prevents me from kneeling. It is difficult to explain why this should cause me any distress, because it's hardly my fault, but I felt very strongly that I wanted (and even needed) to make some outward sign of respect for Our Lord, present in the Blessed Sacrament. As well as kneeling, the traditional sign of respect given by men has always been the removal of their hats, and in the same way, women covered their hair, either wearing a mantilla, another type of headscarf, or a hat.

Once I began to look into the wearing of the mantilla in more detail, I discovered that the reason why women covered their heads (or more accurately, their hair) was because the hair was seen as a woman's "crowning glory" and a sign of her beauty, and therefore to cover her hair is a gesture of humility before God.

I also find that stopping in the church porch to put on my mantilla helps to remind me that I am about to enter God's house, and that I am entering into the presence of God. Because of this, it is a real aid to prayer - we are both body and soul, so outward signs are important (though obviously they can't be the only things we focus on.)

I read in one article the suggestion that wearing a mantilla could be considered a sacramental - I'm not sure whether this is so, and would be interested to hear from any priests out there who have views on the subject.

If there are any women out there who are thinking about wearing the mantilla, but are a little self-conscious, I would really recommend it. It soon becomes second nature, and before you know it, you'll feel positively undressed without one!

Heretical Hymns

While surfing the net this evening (well, ok, it was late when I got in, so it's been more of a brief paddle) I came across the following interesting little snippet from George Weigel (I presume it is the same George Weigel as wrote the biography of John Paul II) on the importance of the hymns we sing... if we are actually going to sing hymns at all.

I know one or two people who would prefer to get rid of all hymns and just stick to Gregorian chant and I have to confess that I am not one of them... but I do like my hymns to be rooted in solid theology, and to have a reasonable melody... and the language has to be poetic (if it's in the vernacular.)

I didn't recognise all the hymns George mentioned (I presume they're American "favourites") but I rather liked his idea about a 50-year ban on the hymns that, while not bad in themselves, have been played and sung to death... I would add "especially in schools" to that, because there only seem to be a handful which are trotted out with painful regularity.

I especially loathe "Here I am, Lord" (if it's played at the wrong speed it can be teeth-achingly bad) "I am the Bread of Life" (especially the PC version, which just clunks) and "Walk in the Light" (ouch !)

So, any other hymns we should expunge from our parish hymn books?

Palliative Care

Following on from my post on the case of Tony Bland and where that has landed us today, Paulinus has written an excellent article on how hydration and feeding should be provided and the role of palliative care.

He put the URL in the comments box, but I think it's much too good to get hidden away there: so click HERE for it !

Sleeping Beauty

Fr Nicholas of Roman Miscellany has put up a post showing the death mask of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Not that I'm obsessed with the way I look, but I couldn't help reflecting that, judging from the death mask, she looked a lot better dead than I do first thing in the morning...

Tempus Fugit

Ever get the impression that life is whizzing by faster and faster as the years pile up? Well the sensation wasn't helped this morning when I heard on the radio that Harrods, the famous store in Knightsbridge, London, UK has just opened its Christmas department... yes, in August !

...Hurry, hurry, hurry !! Only 117 shopping days till Christmas (I refuse to include Sundays in that!)

Book Meme Update

I found that both Fr. Stephanos and Thomas took up my book meme challenge (though Fr. Stephanos saw someone else's tag first.)

I particularly liked Thomas's choice of book for a desert island (Thompson's Practical Guide to Shipbuilding.) However, a comment on his post really impressed me. Dim Bulb declared that the book he'd really wished had been written was The Decline and Fall of the Culture of Death by John Paul II...

Wow. I wish I'd thought of that one!

Death by Dehydration

Reading Fr. Tim's post on NHS patients being denied food and fluids because this was classed as "medical treatment" reminded me about the Bland ruling. It's referred to a lot in Pro-Life circles, but it occurred to me that it happened quite a few years ago, and some readers may not be aware of how awful the case was.

Having worked as an auxiliary nurse to help pay my way through my degree, I had lots of nursing friends. They were able to tell me some of the inside information that didn't seem to make it to the papers.

Tony Bland had been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state after having sustained crush injuries in the Hillsborough Disaster. However, he was not in any pain or distress. It was decided to withdraw food and fluids, and the justification for this was that artificial feeding and hydration constituted medical treatment.

Quite apart from the realisation that this was the thin end of the wedge in allowing euthanasia by neglect, my nursing friends pointed out that dehydration was such a painful way to die that Tony Bland actually needed to be given strong painkillers to alleviate the agony caused (which was clearly visible to the staff nursing him)...

It is a very short step from giving drugs to alleviate the "discomfort" associated with the withdrawal of food and fluids to giving a lethal injection to hasten the death of a patient who isn't being given such basic nursing care. Some people will say that this is scare-mongering, that it's too far-fetched, and that there will be plenty of controls and checks to prevent this... but before Tony Bland, it was unthinkable to deliberately starve a person to death.