If you are not getting wnd in your email, you should

http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/major-u-s-city-poised-to-implement-islamic-law/

and this is beyond words...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11748943/UK-is-denying-refuge-to-Christians-fleeing-Isil-say-church-leaders.html

The Government has declined to show a preference for Christian refugees. It was reported in June that Britain granted entry to 187 Syrians since Theresa May introduced the Vulnerable Persons Relocation scheme in January 2014.

The Prime Minister said the UK would boost the number of places to resettle the most vulnerable, but Downing Street said the figure would not exceed 1,000.

By comparison, Germany has offered 30,000 places to resettle Syrians, Sweden has committed to resettling 2,700, Switzerland has offered 3,500 places and Austria 1,500.

Synchronicity Again and Again

I did not know Father Peter Dally.  I do not know his wife, Mary, but I have his wife's book, signed by her, and a paper cutting from his retirement. It is interesting that the book was published in the same year as the birth of a priest-to-be, STS.

It is by accident that I was given the book. The last quotation in the paper cutting, from the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, dated January 10, 1998, reads, "There is a special place in heaven for the wives of priests." I was supposed to read this book and paper cutting.

Someone asked me why I think I should start a forum for priest and deacons' wives--because I can, and I see the need, are the two answers. As the moderator, I shall jump-start discussions and let the ladies take over.

Father Dally was one of the first Episcopalians in America to be accepted for ordination into the Catholic priesthood through the Pastoral Provision. He died in 2007.

During his Catholic priestly life, he worked in the Tulsa Diocese, and lived in Skiatook. His ministry took him into the Byzantine Catholic Rite, where he worked. He is buried in Langlois, Oregon.

I just started reading the book, which will help me understand priests' wives even more. I first met several years ago, when I was working on a book on Ordinariate priests, and interviewing the wives as well. If I were back in England, I would be continuing the wife part of the book, but as I am not, I am setting up the forum.

These women form a formidable group of silent servants in the Church. Whether wives of Pastoral Provision priests, or Ordinariate priests from three different continents, they need our prayers and support.

Remember, the forum is called Shunamite Women, and when my technical adviser can finish setting up the new blog and forum, after two solid weeks of travelling, I shall place the links on this blog. In the meantime, wives of priests and deacons may think of signing up for the forum.

A bit more here...http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2015/07/new-blog-and-new-forum.html

Are you raising your children to be saints and martyrs?

If not, why not?

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/45590/isis-video-child-beheader-sends-shockwaves-across-world-terror-watch/#XpAFyEHpi0WKHZ8d.97

Lone Wolf Saints

Not bumping into the two women I need for a Pious Lay Association of the Faithful, I decided to reflect on the lone wolf saints, who did not live in a communal state. This was not, even for them, an ideal situation, as community protects and encourages, but those who fit into this category were called to be saints in the market place with, perhaps, only a spiritual director, and not a community.

I do not encourage the laity to be so individualistic as to refuse to live in communities, if they are able to move into even a small grouping of good Catholics.

One of my friends, who is married and very busy with six children, told me she thought that too many single women, even older ones, including widows and the divorced and annulled, were too stubborn and too independent-minded to want to give anything up to live in a community. These were her words, after approaching some people she knows to consider living in a disciplined house of prayer. She and I think this is sad, and one can only hope that this love of stuff, and false independence passes--for that is what is keeping them back from greater service to the Church and a deeper relationship with God.

Here is an incomplete list of Lone Wolf Saints. These were neither married nor in a community, although some were members of an order.

SS. John the Baptist (It is not provable that he lived with the Essenes)

Catherine of Siena

Rose of Lima

John the Evangelist

Julian of Norwich

Damian of Malachi, for most of his work, on his own

Nicholas Owen, for the most part, on his own

Kateri Tekakwitha

Desert Fathers not in abbeys

Most secular priests who are saints lived alone and were isolated, such as

John Vianney

Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

I do not include married saints, but do mention Margaret Clitherow, as her husband was not a Catholic. There seem to be many spouses in this time who are in her position of being excellent, faithful Catholics without support at home.

To be a lone wolf saint creates a different type of saint--one who must rely on God directly for everything, both spiritual and physical, and not an order or lay community. The times in which we live will become increasingly more difficult for lone wolf saints-in-the-making.

I sincerely hope I do not stay a lone wolf saint-in-the-making.

Repeat of A Phrase

Saint Anthony the Hermit "There is no perfect prayer if the religious perceives that he is praying?"


How do we lose ourselves in prayer? Love, love is the answer.


Do not reject graces which are being poured out upon us at this time.


Be open to God in and through the Dark Night and in and through suffering.

From Universalis...Two Great Martyrs for Today

Philip Evans was born in Monmouth, 1645, and was educated at St Omer where he joined the Society of Jesus. After ordination he was sent to South Wales to work. Despite the official anti-Catholic policy he was left alone for some years by the local officials. In 1678 in the wake of the so-called ‘Popish Plot’ he was taken prisoner, £200 (then a huge sum of money) having been offered as a reward for his arrest. He refused to take the Oath of Allegiance and was kept in Cardiff Castle. He was not put on trial for several months because, it is said, no one could be found to testify against him.

  John Lloyd was a Welshman, born in Brecon about the year 1630. He studied for the priesthood in Valladolid, Spain and then returned to Wales where he ministered as a diocesan priest for over twenty years without any recorded problems. Following the ‘Popish Plot’ of Titus Oates, Lloyd was arrested in Glamorgan and charged with having said Mass at Llantilio, Penrhos, and Trievor. He was imprisoned at Cardiff Castle with Philip Evans. They were tried together and were both condemned for their priesthood. They were hanged, drawn, and quartered together on 22 July, 1679 on Gallows Field in Cardiff. Philip Evans spoke at some length to the crowd in both English and Welsh. In the course of his speech he said: “I die for God and religion’s sake; and I think myself so happy that if I had many lives I would willingly give them all for so great a cause.” His companion John Lloyd said very little: “I never was a good speaker in my life”, but that he died in “the true Catholic and Apostolic faith”

More Musings....

Well, my tech adviser, STS, has decided that my readers will be able, being so trained in arcane words, to follow a new blog called Recueillement. 

As he is traveling hither and yon for two weeks, this will not be in place until August 15th, along with the new forum. So, watch this space....

The reason, of course, I want Recueillement for a title is that the new blog will be based on reflections, meditations and contemplation. It also means a moment of reverence... or quiet absorption --perfect, for writings about God.

Musing, again, on this word, I discussed with STS the fact that the French, who invented the word, seem so much better at this act of recollection than the sons and daughters of the Anglo-Saxons, the Americans and British peoples.

STS claims it is part of the French character to be so inclined to reflection. I wonder...

Not having any bone, blood, or tissue of Anglo-Saxon in me, I can identify with recueillement and those of you who followed the various Maritain series will recognize the word. If you could remember Etheldredasplace, you can easily handle this label.

So, why is it that certain people's have a character for action and some for contemplation? Why is France the home of so many contemplative orders, even today, when these types of orders are becoming extinct in other parts of the West?

I suspect the French penchant for philosophy and art have something to do with recueillement. The last time I was in France, this past January, of course, my confreres and I ended up in a tavern drinking various things and talking about philosophy, liturgy, Pope Francis, and not the weather.

This type of discussion would be common in my experience of a certain type of Frenchman, as well as the British expats. Recueillement would be second-nature to such people. Needless to say, I am usually the only woman in these discussions, being interested in these topics rather than in food, fashion, or kids....Oh, well. But, therefore, I blog....

Musing on recueillement reminds me of a comment from Raissa:

All the sources are in You ...
Every great vocation gives one called the ability of a certain union with God, in particular relative to whose essence is transcendent to the multiplicity of his attributes; and very marked vocations are distinguished from each other by their relatedness to a particular the divine attributes...

Btw, would you have guessed that Garrigou-Lagrange was the spiritual director of the Maritain's Thomist Circle?

Musings on The Holy Land

In my life, I have been many places, but never have I been to the Holy Land. I am not a tour-taker, but tend to go to a foreign land and stake out a place, then make my own way through the places I have wanted to see.

My peripatetic lifestyle continues, as God has not put me down somewhere yet, so today, I have been musing on the wildflowers of the Holy Land. Sometimes I feel like a wildflower.

I wonder whether these flowers, prominent in a book I have from the early 1960s, which was a reprint of a much older book, exist after all the wars and turmoil of building?

The Cornflower, for example, resembles the North American, and even the British Cornflower. In my home state, unless farmers kill them for more land, these grow on the edge of fields, adding a nice blue hem to large tracts of corn and soybeans.

The so-called "lily of the field" is not a lily, but a deep red Scarlet Anemone. Resembling a poppy, this would be an "exotica" for me to see.

The Jerusalem Crowfoot reminds me of my beloved buttercup, which grows along streams in Surrey and Sussex, as well as other places, literally hanging over the cool water like votives of the pool.

Of course, the Narcissus grow almost everywhere both in England and in North America. Some think this lovely flower is the "Rose of Sharon" mentioned in the Bible. If so, I would love to see it in its Holy Land setting.

I have seen Pomegranate plants, and had one is a garden in England, which was not an edible one, but purely an ornamental one. The flower is bright red. Of course, this is mentioned in the Old Testament several times.

Lupins, especially the blue variety, are also common in England. Apparently these grow in Galilee.

Morning Glories are considered weeds by many in the Midwest of America, where this flower grows almost everywhere there is a space. But, in the Holy Land, it reminds one of the the grain fields and Christ's parables on the wheat and tares, if you remember my post on tares.....

Tulips grow in the Holy Land, as I learned from this little book. Bright red, these command attention, as do the poppies and anemones found there.

Vetchling grows in Iowa and in England. And, it grows in the Holy Land, but not blue, as it is here.

Purple vetch grows right outside my window, but I would love to see the bright orangish variety of the Holy Land. Imagine the purple and orange growing side-by-side.

But, of course, my favorite would be the Thicket Rose, a wild rose very similar to the wild rose of Iowa, the official flower of that state, as well as Alberta, Canada. The Thicket Rose in the Holy Land is a trailing rose, like another one of my favorites in England, the City of York, only second to the climber Iceberg. I like the old roses best, but for climbers, would have those two.

I wonder today, as I think of the Holy Land, whether I shall ever get a chance to see the flowers where Christ walked?

When I was in Tyburn in Cobh, I walked and prayed daily in the Bible Garden the nuns planted. That was a real treat, as all the flowers, shrubs and trees therein were mentioned in the Bible.

Happy days....I remember these walks as if I had been there yesterday.