Lead Kindly Light

(Newman, centre right, 3rd cleric from the right with cotta)

Jackie Parkes, I see, has a new blog: Lead Kindly Light, which you can link to here. Delighted to see she has a copy of the unfinished portrait of the meeting of the hierarchy at Oscott College in 1852 (if memory serves me correctly). It is a delight to see the painting again, which I passed many a time on my way up to see the Rector, over the years!

Busy about the Lord's vineyard

Apologies for the lack of posting - but it has been busy of late. This said, I'm also away next week on a well earned rest, but apologies for both now and the future. None the less, you're all in my daily prayers.

It is good to be back, is it not?

Welcome back, Jackie.
More here.

Viral Blogging

I'm not one for viral action (or chain letters for those amongst us of a certain age) but...

The results of a computerized survey indicate the perfect priest preaches exactly fifteen minutes. He condemns sins but never upsets anyone. He works from 8:00 AM until midnight and is also a janitor. He makes $50 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a good car, and gives about $50 weekly to the poor. He is 28 years old and has preached 30 years. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all of his time with senior citizens.

The perfect priest smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humour that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls daily on parish families, shut-ins and the hospitalized, and is always in his office when needed.

If your priest does not measure up, simply send this letter to six other churches that are tired of their priest, too. Then bundle up your priest and send him to the church on the top of the list. In one week, you will receive 1,643 priests and one of them will be perfect. Have faith in this procedure.

One parish broke the chain and got its old priest back in less than three weeks.

___

Thanks to E F pastor emeritus for this laugh!

Vatican encourages priests to use the Internet

H2O news is an online news service bringing the Good News to the world. It began as a response to the Pope's call for the use of modern mediums of communication for the use of evangelisation, as detailed in his message for the World Communications Day in 2005. If you're not familiar with their service, I would encourage you to go online, investigate further and consider signing up. The service is available in nine languages.

Today they are carrying a report on this year's World Communications Day where the Pope will call for priests to consider the use of new media in their ministry of the Word. Many Catholic priest-bloggers will take some comfort from this, not least given some of the more negative comments about blogs in recent months. For my part, as a Catholic Priest, I'm pleased that between us we're heading in the correct direction. Helping to bring the Word to the World.

The Pope’s message for the 44th World Communications Day will be published on the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists. This message, which falls within the Year for Priests, has as its theme: “The priest and pastoral ministry in a digital world: new media at the service of the Word.”

Not forgotten, even if not frequent...

Blogging has been a bit slow of late owing to a multitude of excuses/reasons depending on how you look at it. What is the difference between an excuse and a reason? Principle causes of inactivity have been: an aborted attempt to go to Rome and ending up in London, really poor Internet connectivity but now on the mend, spending inordinate amounts of time socialising and entertaining which has been great fun, busying myself with parish activities including getting a choir going (!) and now, to come, ongoing formation with the 'under 5s'. Ah, life was ever thus.

Does it help if you know that I pray for my readers every day? Thought so.

P

Joe Versus the Volcano

When you are in need of inspiration a great place to begin is the lives of the saints. After all, one of my great heroes, Ignatius of Loyola, began in just this way. The result - The Jesuits. Fantastic.

Today, I stumbled across this great blog from Mark called Joe Versus the Volcano. I'm not sure the reasoning for the title, but finding the blog is like finding a volcano. It looks just like any other blog, with bite size chunks to go at but when you look for longer you discover hidden depths to it and it is chocker full of really, really useful stuff. Well done, Mark, on a great blog. God be with you, and the cats.

The site is full of really interesting saints who are largely forgotten in some parts and yet offer great inspiration to our modern world. Enjoy!

Blogging

Spent an interesting morning blogging around the sphere - is that even making sense? The best of the lot, for me, was eastangliaseminarians with an interesting post on What IS the Priest? Also worth a look was lovingit found via catholicmomof10journey. Lovingit is described as: Ella and James Preece are a Catholic couple living in Kingston Upon Hull in Yorkshire in the UK. This is our blog. Particularly good to read was The Death of The Catholic Church. Cannot say that I agree with James' conclusions, at all, but a good read nonetheless. I rather wish I had more time to spend blogging as finding sites as interesting as theirs is something of a joy. Still, we enjoy the gifts we have, yeah?

Rome says No!

This is the post of my neighbour and fellow blogger, David, who write as the Fullness of Faith. He says:

Yesterday I heard that Rome (the CDF I believe) have not granted my dispensation. I shan't go into the reasons here, but in case other people read this who are awaiting for dispensations I would counsel them not to be too worried, as my case is somewhat unusual!

David was awaiting dispensation to get ordained to the Catholic priesthood - having been ordained an Anglican Priest and converting to Catholicism. He moved into the adjoining room, here at Oscott, over the past 18 months or so, we've come to get to know one another well. The news came as a total shock to me. I'd not experienced the powers that be saying 'no' before. It only goes to show how we simply do not know the future.

I would encourage you to read David's post. He speaks well on the role of the magisterium in our lives and the need to be ever reminded that they offer, for us, a sound and lasting stability.

I daresay they get it wrong from time to time. Certainly the Pope's letter to the bishops of the world, due, I think, for publication tomorrow, speaks with candour for the need of the magisterium to be mindful of the Internet in order that mistakes are not made. He is, no doubt, talking of the widely known antisemitic views of the SSPX bishop, Williamson, recently Re-communicated (is that a word?).

Please, pray for David, his wife and their children. These are, no doubt, difficult times. It is hard, sometimes, to see the action of the Lord in our lives. He is always at work and always seeking to draw us ever closer to Himself. If we can but trust. Trust that He has only our best interest at heart. Even when the proverbial has hit the fan and flying all about us, when we can no longer see into tomorrow, much less next week, next month or even next year, then can our faith drive us on. Only through faith can we leap into the dark in the sure and certain hope that we will find the light.

Pax vobiscum, David, pax.