Pray For Lourdes...

The flooding is much worse than last year - and it is happening at the height of the pilgrimage season, which will affect many of the townspeople who rely on the pilgrims for their livelihoods.

The video was made early on in the flooding. Screenshots I took from the BBC News video show how much worse it has become...

The bridge over the Gave de Pau from the hospital side... (For comparison, have a look at the same bridge in a video from the floods of last year)

And this year the bridge itself has been partially submerged...

A view of the Grotto - you get a clear idea of how high the water has risen when you see where the statue of Our Lady is...

The water level of the Gave de Pau does seem to be going down, but it depends on whether or not there are further storms. Mark Lambert has a more detailed report of the damage identified so far. Please pray for everyone concerned.

UPDATE: The sight of the Domaine in front of the Rosary Basilica under water in a later video was a real shock. First, the Crowned Virgin can be seen in the top right hand corner of the photo...

Then, as the camera moves back, you can see where the water has reached (the van hasn't moved)...

And here is the latest video (twitch of the mantilla to Fr. George Byers - he must be terribly upset, as he was a chaplain in Lourdes for many years.) Flooding in the town is also shown in the video...

Innondation à Lourdes le 18 juin 2013 by Lourdesactufr

Lourdes Underwater Again...

I was heartbroken to hear that, once again, the Grotto at Lourdes is under about 3 feet of water. Fr. George Byers posted the photo on his blog. Lourdes is one of my favourite places. The webcams at the Grotto appear to be down, so no idea when things will improve.

The last major flood was just nine months ago...

Pray that all pilgrims, and all the local inhabitants of Lourdes may be kept safe.

News to Gladden The Heart...

The BPAS abortion centre in Bedford Square is due to close. The site will still run contraceptive services such as vasectomy, but the abortions will no longer happen there.

I have no doubt that the prayers, vigils and fasts held by many people over the years, as described by Clare in her latest post, have resulted in this victory. The abortion industry wouldn't close a clinic unless it was losing money, and so there must have been more and more women changing their minds about killing their unborn babies, some directly as a result of contact with the pavement counsellors, and some because of a change of heart inspired by the Holy Spirit after heartfelt prayers from faithful souls.

Deo gratias!

Speculation...

After this morning's TLM in Blackfen, I asked Fr. Logan (covering for His Hermeneuticalness while he is in Oz) if he minded me taking photos of him and uploading them to the blog.

"What, to go with the cats?" was the swift rejoinder.

I was delighted to discover that Fr. Logan reads my blog, and follows the adventures of Cardinal Furretti and Monsignor Miaowrini avidly. Later, he asked me if I knew who Eccles was?

He denied being Eccles himself, claiming that he only read the blogs. But I'm not entirely convinced...

(I didn't actually take any photos today, but I shall endeavour to do so next week!)

Wildlife Delivery...

Yesterday, I noticed that both cats were staring intently at the bottom of my bookcase. I guess that a mouse must have escaped their clutches. Both Miaowrini and Furretti have lost interest in it now, so either the mouse has died or it has escaped somewhere else.

This afternoon I was chatting on the phone to a friend of mine when an awful racket was heard in my kitchen. Both of us knew exactly what the cry was: Miaowrini was dragging a bird in through the catflap.

The bird succeeded in getting away, but the cat managed to catch it again. I approached, towel in hand, in order to effect a rescue, and Miaowrini, unwilling to relinquish her prize, promptly left through the catflap, the bird still firmly clamped between her jaws.

Two minutes later, she was back - the bird still in her mouth. It was raining outside, and Miaowrini doesn't like to get wet. The bird got away again, but got caught up in the net curtains in the kitchen, and I was able to use a towel to calm it down. I carried the bird to my bedroom window and let it fly out. It flew off quite strongly, and I saw it alight at the top of a tree across the street.

I didn't have time to take a picture, and the bird didn't have a yellow beak, but, having looked at a few pictures I suspect that this latest capture was a young blackbird.

My mother advised me to shout at the cats to discourage them from bringing wildlife home, but that would be mean - they're only doing what is natural... added to which, there is a part of me which is actually rather proud of their hunting skills...

Now, if only I could train them to bring me a steak...

The Careers Teacher Never Told Me This Was A Possibility...

I feel somewhat cheated. I didn't know that "cat scientist" was actually a career option.

I've just watched yesterday's BBC Horizon programme on the Secret Life of the Cat. Enjoyable, though I think that I'd have preferred to see more footage from the cat-cams and surveillance cameras and less of the humans. Finding out about the way the data was being recorded and analysed was interesting, for about five minutes. Listening to people talking about their cats was interesting for another five minutes. Watching people looking at data about their cats was definitely not interesting...

The programme was entertaining, but didn't really throw up any major surprises. I was interested to hear that the cat "solicitation purr" (the purr designed to attract human attention) hits the same frequency as a human baby's cry.

Unfortunately the programme itself is only available on iPlayer for a short time, though there are a few clips available on the BBC web page... There is also a review (far more favourable than mine) on the Daily Telegraph's website.

Watching Paint Dry...

Actually, watching the progress of the chapel of the Vocations Centre at Whitstble is fascinating. Fr. Stephen Langridge has done great things since he has been Vocations Director, and the Southwark Vocations Blog is well worth reading.

It is encouraging to see that there are many young men who wish to give their lives to God in the priesthood. It is important that we support them with our prayers - financial support wouldn't go amiss either.

If you haven't been following the progress of the chapel (there has been other work in the Vocations Centre as well) then here is a quick shot of the chapel near the start of it all...

And now (well, the stencils for the inscription are up)...

More Blessings...

Having made their First Holy Communions in May, three new recruits have joined the team of servers at Blackfen. The Senior MC believes in getting them to do different jobs as soon as possible - which means that there is no lengthy period of being junior torchbearer for six years or so before progressing to senior torchbearer... (yes, I'm exaggerating, but only a little!)

This does make for a steep learning-curve, especially if we are short of more experienced servers, as happened today... The two new torchbearers would be "on their own" without anyone to copy, so Jonathan took them through their paces before the Mass started...

The new acolyte was able to copy the other acolyte, but I suspect that he was finding the candle just a little heavy... well, it was almost as big as him!

It is a tremendous blessing for the parish that we have so many young boys keen to serve the Mass, and it will be interesting to see how they progress over the next few months...

There are a few more photos on my Flickr page.

A Blessing For The Parish...

At Blackfen we have just concluded our celebration of the Forty Hours, or Quarant' Ore. This is where Our Lord is exposed in the Blessed Sacrament continuously over three days (it may not add up to exactly 40 hours.)

Zephyrinus has an excellent summary of the running order. We are really blessed to have the Forty Hours as an annual event (we started it in the parish in 2009.) We used to have it in October, just before half term, which meant that I had the holiday to recover and get my sleeping pattern back on track. Unfortunately October is rather a hectic time at Blackfen, and Fr. Finigan decided that he would move things to the summer months... which is why it is only seven months since our last Quarant'Ore.

Because we end the whole thing on the Saturday (and I don't work on Saturdays), I try to stay to pray overnight on the Friday. It is difficult to explain how wonderful an experience it is to pray before the Blessed Sacrament in the early hours of the morning - even though I wasn't the only one present, it felt as if it was just me and Him... and the time really flew by (except for that bit between 6:30am and 8am which lasted forever.)

Being in possession of a particularly fallen nature, despite being in the presence of the Almighty I get distracted rather easily. I couldn't help making comparisons between the experiences of night-time adoration in October and in June. October, unsurprisingly, came off rather unfavourably. It's colder, for a start. This means that sitting still for any length of time is rather arduous. The heaters being switched on full causes the candles to burn down and gutter in rather odd ways, necessitating several changes during the night (hassle) and much wax removal from stuff afterwards (more hassle.)

Dawn arrives much earlier in June, as does the dawn chorus. Those birds make one heck of a racket at 4am. I'm surprised that His Hermeneuticalness manages to sleep through it, and it occurred to me that he might appreciate the loan of my two kitties...

My attention was caught by a knothole in the wood by the Communion rail. As the daylight levels increased, it gradually dawned on me (*ahem* sorry - couldn't resist!) that the knothole was actually a spider. A very large spider.

I watched it for a bit, and then had visions of it crawling up my leg when I went to Communion. I wasn't too keen on that idea, and so decided to take action. The judicious application of a hymn book soon sorted the problem (I deliberately used a hymn book as it has a plastic easy-wipe cover, not because I thought the spider would die of fright when confronted with Colours of day or If I were a butterfly!)

There was only one other person present at the time, and she appeared to think my action was eminently sensible.

The cats were not amused by my overnight absence, and made their displeasure known in no uncertain terms. When I finally arrived home (after a very good lunch) I discovered that a dead pigeon had been deposited on my sitting room floor...

An Unforeseen Benefit...

Because the Bishops of England & Wales have transferred the Corpus Christi Holyday of Obligation to the Sunday, Fr. Finigan likes to take the opportunity to celebrate Mass according to the Usus Antiquior on the day which should technically be the Feast of Corpus Christi... and, since Masses celebrated according to the Usus Antiquior have to stick to the traditional calendar, we got to have a Corpus Christi procession after Mass...

I didn't take many photos, but they are up on Flickr if you want to have a quick look.

A Problem With Nomenclature...

Unlike Mothering Sunday, which is a real Church feast (Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent), Fathers' Day is an invention of the greetings card industry which wanted to cash in. Times change, and no-one sends greetings cards these days, so the field has been left wide open for restaurants to jump in on the act.

Strangely, Parent 1 Day and Parent 2 Day don't seem to have the same appeal...

Dame Joanna's Investiture...

Yesterday I was privileged to be able to attend the Investiture of Joanna Bogle as a Dame of St. Gregory. Monsignor Keith Newton, of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, was celebrant for the Mass, and Fr. Stephen Langridge preached the homily. Archbishop Peter Smith had been delayed getting back from a UCM event at Aylesford, but he made it back by the skin of his teeth before Mass ended and so was able to confer the award.

Joanna was typically modest in her thank-you speech and said that she considered the award to be a recognition of all the work of many faithful Catholics, but the long list of her activities and achievements in the service of the Church, first by Fr. Langridge during his homily and then by Archbishop Smith at the end of Mass, just underlined what a richly-deserved honour this really was. Joanna has been an indefatigable defender of the Faith for many years, and the Order of St. Gregory is one of the highest honours which can be conferred on a layman.

There are a few more photos over at my Flickr page. It was a lovely evening to honour a truly remarkable woman. Many heartfelt congratulations to Dame Joanna, DSG!

Auntie Being Economical With The Truth...?

Nothing like a bit of British Broadcasting Company understatement...

After all, if the police have estimated 150,000 protestors and the organisers have suggested a figure closer to 1 million, then it is obvious that one has to plump for a figure somewhere between the two, no?

It would seem that the BBC consider the answer to that one to be a resounding "non" ! Instead they decided to report a far more objective figure of, um, "tens of thousands."

In a similar objective vein, the BBC also reported that "thousands of people" gathered in Gloucestershire for the traditional cheese-rolling races on Cooper's Hill. This time the number of spectators was around 3000.

I do hope the reporting by the BBC on the British economy doesn't employ the same level of estimation.

I suppose we ought to be thankful that the Beeb actually reported the Manif Pour Tous march at all. And, to be fair, they did say that it was "huge."

The photos are from the Manif Pour Tous Facebook page. Twitch of the mantilla to His Hermeneuticalness for the link.

The Church Suffering...

The phrase "the Church Suffering" most properly applies to the Holy Souls in Purgatory. The Church on Earth is referred to as the Church Militant (with the Church Triumphant being all those in Heaven.) Unfortunately, "the Church Suffering" was the phrase which came to my mind most often when reading the book by Fr. Matthew Despard: Priesthood in Crisis: One Priest's Experience.

It's awful to contemplate. If even half of what Fr. Despard recounts is true (and Fr. John Abberton is of the opinion that his account does indeed ring true) then the Church in Scotland is in a shocking mess. The scandal of Cardinal O'Brien is merely the slightest tip of an iceberg which would sink a whole fleet of Titanics.

Just as Michael Rose's book, Goodbye Good Men exposed the homosexual culture existing in US seminaries from the 1970s until as late as the 1990s, Fr. Despard's book makes it clear that the Church in Scotland resembles the Augean Stables.

I couldn't bring myself to finish Goodbye Good Men, and I'm having problems reading Priesthood in Crisis. It is horrible.

Apparently the further appointment of Bishops in Scotland has been put on hold until the whole sorry mess has been fully investigated by the Nuncio, Archbishop Mennini.

I am sure that I cannot be the only person to wonder whether, given the total lack of appointments to the ever-increasing number of vacant Sees in England & Wales, the state of the Church south of the Border is coming under the same scrutiny as that in Scotland. After all, Pope Francis has appointed Bishops in other countries which have not had such long-standing vacancies (the Bishop of Buenos Aires being a case in point!)

By the way - it is interesting to note that the e-book is apparently no longer available for sale through either the Amazon UK or Amazon US sites...

Blogging Block...

I've been having problems with blogging material.

I don't seem to have had any.

After staring at my computer for the best part of an hour in the hopes that inspiration would strike, I have decided to give up and go into the church and pray.

I need prayers right now...

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a rather nice video from the Solemn High Mass in honour of St. Margaret Clitherow, celebrated at St. Wilfred's Church, York, on 4 May 2013. The Rudgate Singers sang Gregorian chant and polyphony by Victoria, Bardos, Croce and Webbe. The video isn't very "visual" but they've got a few nice tunes you can listen to.*

*That remark was meant to be funny...

A Walk For Life (As Opposed To A March...)

It's actually a sponsored walk, in aid of the Good Counsel Network. They do absolutely amazing stuff, giving real support to women in crisis pregnancies, many of whom would consider abortion to be their only option. Unfortunately, this support is not cheap, and there is no government help - there is, of course, plenty of money in the NHS to support abortion, but not to support mothers who want to keep their babies.

I received a message asking if I could advertise this...

Please come on Good Counsel’s Annual Wandsworth to Wapping Sponsored Walk... Good Counsel urgently need your help raising funds. Yet again this year we have broken all previous records for the number of pregnant women, planning to have an abortion, that we have counselled. This number has been rapidly increasing every year for a few years now. This means that we have been graced with the opportunity to counsel more Mothers than ever before and with the help of God save a greatly increased number of innocent unborn lives. This is very happy news, but means that our finances are stretched further than ever before.

When we are counselling women in order to help them to choose life for their child we offer them all the emotional, practical and moral support which is necessary for them to have the confidence to continue with their pregnancy. The emotional and moral support can take up hours of our time but in general does not cost very much. The practical support is much harder, and can include accommodation/help with rent, direct financial help to provide essentials such as food and clothes, legal advice, travel assistance to get to doctors/midwives appointment etc. etc. This is a huge burden upon us but it is vital that we are able to continue to offer this to all of the pregnant Mothers we see...

It is vital that we can raise the funds necessary to continue to offer this “safety net”. Our next big fundraising effort is our Annual Wandsworth to Wapping Sponsored Walk which is approx. 13 miles long and is on Saturday July 20th (starting with Mass at 10am and finishing at approximately 4pm with drinks and refreshments) and we want to get as many people as possible to join us and raise sponsorship for our lifesaving work. For more details please see our website.

If you're not able to manage the walk, perhaps you can donate some money to the cause, either through the direct PayPal link, or through the Just Giving charity page. There is even a postal address given on the Good Counsel page for old-fashioned cheques, as well as details on how to arrange standing orders and legacies.

Finally, cases like the one of Dr. Gosnell highlight just how evil abortion is. Don't forget that the Good Counsel Network relies on prayer and fasting to support its work in combating it.

I Like A Challenge...

I was collecting His Hermeneuticalness and Fr. Briggs from Chislehurst Golf Club, when Fr. Tim challenged me to do a post combining cats and golf... and then chortled out loud in a manner which suggested he thought I'd never succeed.

The gauntlet was down and I was up for a challenge - and, incidentally, short on ideas for more worthy blogposts. So I got thinking...

I'm certain that the Empress Eugenie, who lived in exile at Camden Place (now Chislehurst Golf Club) would have had a cat or two, if only to prevent mice nibbling at the gorgeous furniture. Unfortunately I have only been able to find a picture of her with what looks like a dog...

Nevertheless, the Empress was a devout Cat-holic (sorry!) who was responsible for getting the grotto at Lourdes reopened after the authorities had tried to close it down.

This spurious connection was unlikely to pass muster with His Hermeneuticalness. Undaunted, I scoured Google Images for pictures of the Empress. No cats. Determined not to be beaten, I changed my Google search terms, and struck gold...

Happy Feast Of The Ascension...

Well, yes, I do realise that technically it isn't celebrated until Sunday in England & Wales, but as the Extraordinary Form calendar celebrates the feast today, I'm sitting in the Small Hall in Blackfen waiting for our Missa Cantata.

Much as I would prefer their Lordships to restore the Holydays, part of me recognises that such a restoration might put a bit of a crimp on the celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form on those days - it would become much harder to find clerics able to celebrate a Solemn High Mass, for example.

In the meantime, I must confess to a certain mischievous glee associated with today's feast. The Anglican Shrine in Walsingham has chapels for each of the decades of the Rosary. I was puzzled by the apparent emptiness of the Chapel of the Second Glorious Mystery, until I remembered that it was the Ascension of Our Lord, and happened to look up...

Twitch of the mantilla to His Hermeneuticalness for the photo...

Another Little Plug...

On Monday I explained that I'd been trawling through some stats and gave a bit of a plug to some new blogs I'd stumbled across, as well as a few others which send traffic in my direction.

Fr. Redman put up a brief comment suggesting that I might care to add his "little" blog to the roll - he writes The Latin Mass in Clifton Diocese along with fellow-contributors Caroline Shaw and Fr. Bede Rowe (who also writes his own blog, A Chaplain Abroad.) I published the comment, but decided, on reflection, that a little further advertising might be in order...

Fr. Redman's blog is excellent, and he has posted some beautiful pictures of behind-the-scenes stuff in sacristies and so on. Caroline appears to do the nuts-and-bolts advertising of Mass times... (I think Fr. Rowe saves his stuff for his own blog!)

The Media Still Spinning...

One of the reasons given by the mainstream media for failing to cover the horrifying story of Kermit Gosnell was that this was only of local interest, and it was being amply covered in Philadelphia itself.

Somehow or other the story of three women freed after being held in captivity for ten years in Cleveland, Ohio is not just of local interest. Maybe Ohio is just more of an international hub than Philadelphia.

Mark Lambert has written a very perceptive post on the media's choice of what counts as newsworthy.

Going back to Gosnell's trial - the jury is still deliberating. It will be interesting to see whether the case gets any more coverage once a verdict is reached. So far, other than the Telegraph blogs (Damian Thompson and Tim Stanley) and one article in the Telegraph USA news section, the only other UK piece I've found via Google has been in the Guardian... the latter, interestingly, actually blames pro-life activists for forcing women to have late abortions. If better sex education, contraception and abortion were more widely available, Jill Filipovic argues, then Gosnell and his ilk would never be necessary...

I mean, it is obvious, isn't it? After all, look at what has happened here in the UK. The sex education available since before I was a teenager (becoming more and more explicit at earlier and earlier stages as far as I can see) with free contraceptives available in school and abortion advice given by school nurses has led to a massive decrease in the number of abortions. If demand decreases any more, Marie Stopes will go out of business..!

A Few Additions...

Checking through my blog stats is something I do very rarely these days - my posting has become so erratic that my readership has plummeted, and  it's depressing. However, every now and then I trawl through to see the blogs from which people are visiting.

If I ignore visits via Google and shameless self-promotion on Twitter and Facebook,  most of my traffic comes through blogs by priests - His Hermeneuticalness, the inimitable Fr. Z, Fr. Ray Blake, Fr. Michael Brown, Fr. Simon Henry, Fr. Seán Finnegan and Fr. Bede Rowe make up the lion's share, mostly through their use of the movable blogrolls (except for Fr. Z) which promotes blogs according to how recently updated they've been. The most frequently referring non-clerical blogs are by Kate Edwards, Charlie J, Bruvver Eccles, and Ttony, again via their blogrolls rather than direct mentions.

These regular blogs are already on my own blogroll. When I trawl through my stats, what I'm really looking for are blogs or sites that I don't recognise - and then I click through to see if anything interesting pops up...

So, in no particular order, I'd like to highlight the latest additions to my blogroll...

Mary's Little Garden by Amy Johnson. She is a recent convert to Catholicism, and also writes a blog on religious vocations - for women as far as I can see - called Sursum Corda.

Nesciens is a blog dedicated to chant and other church music by Ben Whitworth. One of Ben's other blogs, Catholic Orkney, is already on my roll, but this new one has very different material on it.

Catholic Coffee appears to be a very new blog - there are only two posts on it so far, both pictures. There also doesn't appear to be an RSS feed enabled, which is frustrating. I wondered if it was a new version of Coffee Catholic - a blog I used to follow but which appears to have been taken over by a most unsuitable site showing tattoos... and THAT, my friends, is why I always plead with people not to delete blogs when they're finished - just disable comments and leave it to lie dormant.

Fr. Brendan McGrath writes on all things Catholic from the Great and Glorious Diocese of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It looks as though he's been blogging for a while, but I hadn't spotted him until now.

And finally, Sally Thomas writes Castle in the Sea - though, as a wife, mother, home-educator, poet, free-lance essayist, laundress, dog-walker, glasses-wearer, dinner-burner, porch-sitter and confession-goer, I'm not quite sure how she manages to fit it all in and keep her blog going too. Having said that, I'm not quite sure how she's managed to get from her blog to mine, because I can't find any direct link. There is a mystery to ponder!

Statues Of Our Lady...

There has been some discussion (and controversy) about a new statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in America. It got me thinking about images of Mary, particularly those based on apparitions.

It struck me that Our Lady always seems to appear in a manner which is not "strange" to the person watching. So, Our Lady was described as a young girl by St. Bernadette - a description better reflected in the mosaic in the Rosary Basilica than by the traditional statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. Our Lady of Guadalupe looks more Mexican. Our Lady of China appears to be... well... Chinese.












I think that we can develop an attachment to a particular image of Our Lady (or group of images) based on what is most familiar to us, and anything which does not fit in with this can appear to be distasteful or even repugnant. I used to hate the mosaic of Our Lady of Lourdes in the Rosary Basilica because the proportions seemed all "wrong" somehow, giving her a creepy expression. One day I was struck by the realisation that the face was indeed all wrong - for a grown woman, that is - but actually spot on for a 12 year-old girl. Now I have become rather attached to the mosaic image.

The statue which has caused the upset is Our Lady of Good Help in Wisconsin...

Not my favourite statue... but I can see where it is coming from - the apparition of Our Lady of Good Help to Adele Brise in Wisconsin in 1859...

Having said that, I think that there is a much worse example - the statue of Our Lady currently in Ely Cathedral...

I Just Couldn't Resist...

I haven't quite reached this stage... but I suspect that it's due to lack of funds rather than any signs of sanity...

 

Not Quite The Worst Example Of Parallel Parking, But...

This has gone viral on YouTube...

I felt a real pang for the driver - I am not brilliant at parallel parking if I have an audience. I can get flustered if I think I'm being watched, and have occasionally had to be talked through the manoeuvre. Having said that, even I could have managed to get into the space shown in the video in much less time. Alternatively, having driven in and out a couple of times, I probably would have gone to look for an easier space...

More Cat Stuff...

Salmon slivers worked in the past...

As I mentioned yesterday, Monsignor Miaowrini has been acting strangely and is sporting a new "shaved patch" look. She hasn't been scratching, but Cardinal Furretti has, and bald patches can be cause by flea irritation, so I decided that I would apply some flea stuff to the back of their necks.

As with the worming medicine, they really don't like this stuff. I am at a loss to understand why - they don't object to being scratched there... but one touch with the liquid and they're out of the catflap faster than you can say "Vet."

This time I decided to be sneaky. When both cats were inside waiting for dinner this evening, I closed the catflap. Then I cracked open the smoked salmon. Both cats were very keen on the smoked salmon...

I then pounced on one cat (I had them in two different rooms) in mid chomp and administered the drops. She ran away, mortally offended, leaving the remaining morsels of salmon. Meanwhile, I pounced on the other cat and repeated the exercise. Same reaction.

I wasn't too worried... I figured that the smell of salmon would overcome all sulks in due course.

It hasn't.

Both cats tried to escape through the closed catflap. One growled at the other - I'm not sure who. Furretti gave ground first, and because I tried to administer a sliver of salmon to Miaowrini, she jumped onto the highest bookcase, mortally offended. I retrieved her and made a fuss of her, and she has now condescended to sleep at the foot of my bed... but now Miaowrini is sulking and resisting all blandishments, running behind the sofa if I try to approach her.

The salmon slivers remain uneaten...

Miaowrini In Trouble...

This evening Monsignor Miaowrini came in and curled up behind my knees while I was lying down reading. She normally only does this when it is extremely cold, so I was a little surprised, but didn't think too much about it, and, after petting her a bit, I left her alone.

When I decided to get up again, I started petting her so that she would move over and not get squished. Suddenly I noticed that there was a large bald spot on her side. It was completely smooth and hairless - not stubbly, and the fur around the bald patch was sleek and thick. The skin didn't appear to be inflamed, and I couldn't see a wound. It was almost like when she had her fur shaved for her operation.

Then Cardinal Furretti came in. The two cats appeared to be having some sort of a spat, and I wonder if Furretti had grabbed a mouthful of fur from Miaowrini. Miaowrini just came up towards a very watchful Furretti, and rolled over in a submissive way, but then stretched out her paws as if to attempt to catch the other. The two of them chased each other around the chair, and then separated...

Then the two cats crouched, staring at each other with hostility from underneath separate pieces of furniture...

Furretti appears to have regained her poise - she is now on my duvet, grooming contentedly. Miaowrini is definitely upset - though she has now retired to her cat bed. She isn't licking the bald patch, and isn't scratching. Her bed is in the middle of the hallway - she won't sleep in it if I place it in a corner - so I can keep half an eye on her. But if she doesn't calm down, I will have to take her to the vet...

I think I prefer it when the cats stick to attacking the local wildlife rather than each other...

A Sign Of Things To Come...

Teachers in England are no longer allowed to state what they believe to be true. Robert Haye was sacked because he told his pupils that homosexual activity is a sin. This was confirmed by the High Court.

Not only was Mr. Haye sacked, but he was banned from teaching anywhere in the country. That decision was upheld by Michael Gove.

Now, where does that leave Catholic schools? In theory, because all teachers in Catholic schools sign a contract to uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church, all Catholic schools in England & Wales should expect to find themselves with a shortage of teachers, no?

...No?

On a more serious note, this case has serious implications for all teachers who subscribe to a religious belief - if that belief is contrary to the government's agenda. All that is needed is for a group of students to ask an "awkward" question (and students love to push boundaries) and that teacher can be sacked on the basis of their answer.

Watch this space.

Congratulations Are In Order...

Joanna Bogle (Auntie Joanna Writes) has been made a Dame of St. Gregory in one of the last acts of Pope Benedict XVI. Many, many congratulations are in order - it is a well-deserved honour, as Joanna has been an indefatigable defender of the Faith for many years.

The Rehabilitation Of St. George...

I may have mentioned before that, being of a scientific inclination, I used to tend towards a purely rationalistic approach to the Faith. I say rationalistic rather than rational because I now know that such an approach is anything but rational. Instead it is the attempt to reduce everything to purely human levels, and explain away anything which even remotely smacks of the supernatural.

After all, it was fashionable to be sceptical about the claim that St. Peter was buried beneath the High Altar at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and to explain it away as a sort of legend, a story to encourage us, concocted in those oh-so-credulous medieval times. Now, however, science has confirmed that there are bones under St. Peter's dating from the first century, and since they are wrapped in gold cloth with the inscription "Here lies Peter" (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea) it's pretty probable that these are the bones of the fisherman himself.

A similar scenario has played itself out in the same way at the Basilica of St. Paul-outside-the-Walls... the bones are almost certainly those of, ummm... St. Paul.

What a shocker. The information carefully passed down over 2000 years or so (not that long, really) turns out to be true. Who would have guessed it?

St. George appears to be one of the casualties of the rationalistic approach to the Faith. He couldn't possibly have existed, because of the story about him slaying a dragon... and we all know that dragons don't exist...

But, as Fr. Blake so rightly points out, the dragon can be seen as an image of the spiritual life, of the struggle that goes on within all of us until the beast is tamed and brought into the presence of God. Considered in this light, the dragon is a very real one.

I'm delighted that St. George appears to be making something of a comeback, rescued from the list of saints who were declared only legendary or mythical and downgraded in the Calendar. I shall be hearing a Missa Cantata in honour of St. George in about half an hour (the schola is running through the propers as I type) and promise to say a prayer for all my blog readers.