| Thank God for Northern Ireland Protestant politicians for defending marriage | ||
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Friday, 16 May 2014 Thank God for Northern Ireland Protestant politicians for defending marriage
Thank God for the leadership of members of the Protestant community in safeguarding families and safeguarding marriage as the permanent exclusive union of a man and a woman. I say that as chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), which passed aresolution opposing same-sex marriage legislation on the basis that real marriage between a man and woman has been proved to be protective of unborn children. And I say this too as a Catholic father who is deeply worried about the lack of anything approaching powerful Catholic witness, except on the part of exceptional bishops in Britain and elsewhere, in defence of marriage and the family. Northern Ireland has now rejected calls for the legalisation of same-sex marriage three times, thanks entirely to its Protestant politicians. The Social Democratic and Labour Party, the principal nationalist party in Northern Ireland, traditionally seen as representing the Catholic community, supports the redefinition of marriage, as does Sinn Féin. The stark Protestant-Catholic divide on this issue clearly reflects a deeper problem within the Catholic world. Anthony Ozimic, SPUC communications manager, has prepared this most helpful analysis of the Stormont debate last month: The day before the debate, the Catholic bishops of Northern Ireland published anopen letter to the Assembly. They said (inter alia) that the motion :As a footnote, I would just add this: At one point in the debate Michael Copeland, one of the two Ulster Unionists who supported the motion said:"misuses the principle of equality. It is a fact of nature that same-sex unions are fundamentally and objectively different from the complementary sexual union of a woman and a man which is of itself naturally open to life."Caitriona Ruane, the Sinn Féin MLA who moved the motion, attacked"wild nonsense peddled about incest and polygamy".However, polygamous unions have already occurred in Massachusetts and Brazil. And some advocates of same-sex marriage also advocate abolishing laws against incest. "I do not consider myself to be a worthy person to sit in judgement, moral or otherwise, on the emotions of other human beings."This is a mantra being increasingly echoed, in all kinds of inappropriate contexts, around the world. Judging is what legislators do for a living. They judge what is for the common good of humanity – beginning with the common good of the family. As article 16 (3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”Michael Copeland is judging. He is judging that same-sex marriage serves the good of society – despite overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary. Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk |
Sunday, 18 May 2014
From John Smeaton
Note from Kathy Sinnott
Three significant reports were voted in parliament this year....Estrela, Zuber and Lunacek. None of our sitting MEPs in the Republic consistently voted for life, marriage and religious liberty. Only Diane Dobbs of Northern Ireland never compromised.Of course Labour, former Labour and Socialist MEPs have a voting record worse than other.I know Theresa Heaney personally. She has campaigned to protect life and the family. I would urge you to support her with your number 1 vote. Also Ronan Mullen.God blessKathy
MYOB!
Watching one’s language is a clue to pursuing holiness. I
have found that people who dwell on negativity speak negatively most of the
time, complaining about everything. I have found that people who want to be
saints, speak of God, and His love for us all.
Pay attention to your own speech patterns. Are you falling
into habits of whinging? Are you trying to build up those around you by being
positive as to their good habits?
Are you thinking of Christ first, in all conversations? Are you concentrating on the goodness of
those around you and not merely their faults?
To create a community of faith, one must be practicing the
virtues of faith, hope and charity, not only towards God, but towards one’s
companions.
Think well of others. Anticipate that they mean well unless
it is obvious that someone is living in malice.
Encourage good behavior in yourself, your spouse, your
children.
When someone begins to speak negatively about another,
change the subject or, even better, think of some positive characteristic of
that person and share that. Better yet, do not talk at all about others and
their faults.
As we say in Iowa
James 3:1-12
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
3 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters,[a] for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. 4 Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.
How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature,[b] and is itself set on fire by hell.[c] 7 For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, 8 but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters,[d] this ought not to be so.11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters,[e] yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.When should one keep praying?
Recently, in the past several weeks, I wrote many posts on
when to persist in catechesis or evangelization, and when to walk away.
Now, someone has asked me when do we stop praying for
someone or something?
This is not an easy question to answer. Sometimes, rarely,
God does speak to one’s heart and one hears loudly and clearly, “Stop praying.”
This has happened to some holy prayer warriors I know concerning people for
whom they were praying who had died.
“Stop praying” for a certain dead person may either reveal
that the person is already in heaven, or worse, that they have chosen hell.
But, none of us know for sure who is in hell.
As long as people are living, or one has a strong sense that
a person is in purgatory, one should not stop praying.
However, this can happen-that one’s prayers change as one
prays for a person.
For example, a person may be praying for one thing, one
request, on intention for another, and find out that the prayer is really about
something else entirely.
I have prayed for years for some aspect or situation in a
friend’s life, only to discover over a period of time, that the prayer is
really aimed at a totally different aspect or situation.
For example, I was praying for months to get back to Europe , and gradually, I discovered in prayer that I
should be praying that all obstacles which are keeping me from living there be
removed.
That emphasis slightly changed my prayers, as the key to
getting back is not what I can see, but what I cannot see. These obstacles may
even be in me, as God might want me to return in a state of His living grace
higher than where I am now.
One may be praying for someone to be healed of cancer, and
in those long days of prayer, the prayer may change to one of asking God to
bring that person closer to Him.
Do not stop praying for those who have breath. Do not stop
praying for those in purgatory, unless you have a sense the person has been
freed.
Pray in the Will of God, but ask for specifics. St. Teresa
of Avila
If something is on your heart and mind, pray, pray, pray.
Trust that God has put the desire for good in your soul.
To be continued….
One of My Loves
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| http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Giovanni_Paolo_Panini_-_Interior_of_St._Peter |
Some people fall in love with individuals. Hopefully, this
love bears fruit and the two people involved get married.
But, sometimes, people fall in love with a family. I have
witnessed this type of love several times, especially in the young. But, even
those who are older can fall into a love for an entire clan. Many moons ago,
Americans had a love affair with the Kennedys. Some Catholic loved the von
Trapp family.
Charles Ryder in Brideshead
Revisted fell in love with a family.
I know another young person who fell in love with a family, as he had
practically no family at all. If the good families recognize this love, they
invite the person to become part of the family.
One can fall in love with God’s family, the one, true, holy,
Catholic, and apostolic Church. One of the gifts that God has given me for
almost my entire life, as long as I can remember, is a great love for the
Church.
I am passionate about the Church.
I love the Mystical Body, the Body of Christ in all the
glory of God, and even in the darkness of certain times.If one loves the
Church, one does not merely love the ideal, but the reality of the Church.
To love the Church is to suffer pain. To love the Church is
to love the Bride of Christ which is not always as perfect as she could be. But,
Christ sees the Church pure, spotless, in all eternity as the great Love He
bestowed on the is earth for our benefit.
No matter if there are blemishes, Love sees with the eyes of
faith and hope. From love flows faith in the Church as Christ’s creation for
our salvation on earth. From love comes hope for her renewal.
I cannot tell you, I cannot put into words the love I feel
for the Church. It is almost a
“priestly” love, a love of the celibate, a love which has no bounds. Perhaps
this is one reason I pray for seminarians and why I have many priest friends.
A long time ago, my mother asked me why so many of my
friends were priests and nuns. I thought about this and realized that it was
the Church I loved, and these chosen ones were clear representatives of my
Love. Another person in my family got sick of my pre-occupation with the
Church. Do we not become “full” of the person we love?
Do we not want to talk about our beloved all the time? Do we
not think of our loved one constantly and want to be with him and serve him?
Christ founded the Church for me, for you, for all humans.
Can you not love the Church passionately as well? Love
covers a multitude of sins.
Beautiful Rosaries
I must praise the work of the rosary creator, Tigga Wild.
Her work is incredibly beautiful. I highly recommend her rosaries.
Here is her website. https://www.etsy.com/shop/tiggawild
Thank God for Coffee Shops-And, The Creche of The Church
Someone said to me that people are born saints. I remind
them through this post that only two people were born without Original Sin. The
Blessed Virgin Mary, who is the Immaculate Conception, and St.
John Baptist, who was cleansed of sin and filled with the Holy Spirit will in
the womb, at the Visitation.
All the rest of mankind has had to deal with concupiscence,
the tendency to sin, as well as the results of Original Sin, such as a weakened
will, a clouded intellect and the rule of the passions.
That some people are given tremendous graces early in life
cannot be doubted. St. Padre Pio and St. Gemma
Galgani were blessed with graces as youth.
Some saints experienced great life in God only later, such
as St. Benedicta of the Cross, a convert or St. Mary Magdalen, a reformed
sinner.
Firstly, one should never compare states of holiness. Not
only is this a waste of time, but severely damages one’s perspective and
interferes with one’s natural growth in grace.
The Holy Spirit, given to us in baptism and further stirred
into our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies in confirmation, comes to us a
“substantial manner” which Henry Edward Cardinal Manning reminds us in his
wonderful book, The Temporal Mission of
the Holy Spirit, is found in the Church.
To be a saint, secondly means, that one is in the Church,
where one has access to grace, from babyhood on to the end of one’s life.
Manning writes this, “Wherefore they who do not partake of
Him (the Spirit) and are not nurtured into life a the breast of the mother (the
Church), do not receive of that most pure fountain which proceeds from the body
of Christ, but dig out for themselves broken pools from the trenches of the
earth, and drink water stained with mire, because they turn aside from the
faith of the Church, let they should be convicted, and reject the Spirit let
they should be taught.”
What a condemnation of those who have been given grace, but
have deliberately walked away from the sacraments, the life of grace in the
Church.
Thirdly, becoming a saint requires work and attention. Again, Manning is helpful here, when he
quotes Tertullian on our creedal statement at baptism:
“But forasmuch as the attestation of (our) faith and the
promise of our salvation are pledged by three witnesses, the mention of the Church
is necessarily added, since where these are—that is, the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost—there is the Church, which is the Body of the Three.”
To begin to be a saint, therefore, begins with the Creed,
the assent to the primary teachings of the Catholic Church. The Indwelling of the Trinity reveals these
to each baptized person, and guides each person who seeks, to find the Truth.
How does one become a saint?
By cooperating with natural law, which is “permanent and immutable”, as
Manning writes, and by moving into the life of grace given to the Church by
Christ Himself for our salvation.
Salvation is not merely the first rung on the ladder of
perfection. It is the beginning of the life of adventure which marks the saint.
All things then come together for the good of the person, in Christ, through
Divine Providence, and with the oversight of Mother Church
Few are born saints. Most are bred in the nursery of the
Catholic Church. Those who want to love God first, seeking the Bridegroom, will
not be turned away. The Church is like the Pole Star, a fixed mark which guides
us home to heaven.
to be continued…