A Voiceless People

The Secret People by G. K. Chesterton

SMILE at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.

For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.

There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,

There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.

There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.

There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;

You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:

Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames.

We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names.

The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down;

There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown.

And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way,

And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day.

They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind.

Till there was not bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find.

The inns of God where no main paid, that were the wall of the weak,

The King's Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.

And still they do not speak (my note). 

A Blessed and Happy Christmas to Everyone.

A Blessed and Happy Christmas to Everyone.

Penitence and Reparation

As we contemplate the certainty of death:

Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

---

The Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother by the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, united substantially with the word of God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, of infinite majesty, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, holy temple of God, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, tabernacle of the Most High, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, house of God and gate of heaven, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, glowing furnace of charity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, vessel of justice and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, full of goodness and love, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, abyss of all virtues, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, most worthy of all praise, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, king and center of all hearts, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Divinity, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, in whom the Father is well pleased, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, of whose fullness we have all received, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, desire of the everlasting hills, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, patient and rich in mercy, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, rich to all who invoke Thee, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, fount of life and holiness, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, propitiation for our sins, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, saturated with revilings, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, crushed for our iniquities, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, made obedient unto death, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, source of all consolation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, our life and resurrection, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, our peace and reconciliation, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, victim for our sins, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, salvation of those who hope in Thee, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, hope of those who die in Thee, have mercy on us.
Heart of Jesus, delight of all saints, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord,
Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
V. Jesus, meek and humble of Heart.
R. Make our hearts like unto Thine.

Let us pray

Almighty and everlasting God, look upon the Heart of Thy well-beloved Son and upon the acts of praise and satisfaction which He renders unto Thee in the name of sinners; and do Thou, in Thy great goodness, grant pardon to them who seek Thy mercy, in the name of the same Thy Son, Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, world without end.

---

Newman's Own Words - H/T The Tenth Crusade!

“Everyone in the Church, ignorant or learned, must absolutely submit his mind with an inward assent to the Church as the teacher of the whole Faith.”  Or again: “It is no trouble to believe, when the Church has spoken; the real trouble is when a number of little popes start up, laymen often, and preach against Bishops and priests, and make their own opinions the faith, and frighten simple-minded devout people and drive back inquirers.” 

From 

Newman and the Laity

PAUL CHAVASSE

St Nicholas, the First Muscular Christian

Shamelessly reblogged, because I still like it.



Saint Nicholas was my kind of Saint,
If sometimes short of temper.
Though pacifism was not his bent;
He was fidelis semper.

When Arius denied his Lord's
Divinity, Nick felt sore;
Decided acts speak more than words,
Felled Arius to the floor.

His kind of knock-down plagologue*
Is now not to our taste.
We value courteous dialogue
Above such wordless haste.

And yet there is a time, one feels
To strike and not to speak.
When Reason with Unreason deals,
It's reason which is weak.

For who can mould a brain of mud
With philosophic lore?
Better to thump the stupid crud.
His place is on the floor.


Note: Plagologue = arguing or reasoning with blows. This word does not appear in any dictionary. It is my own coinage, being derived from Latin 'plagus' = a blow, 'plagosus' = full of blows, violent, cognate with Greek 'plegein = to beat, and logos = reason

Waiting for a Face Transplant so I can Say, "Wdzydze Kiszewskie"

Wdzydze Kiszewskie is in Kashubia on the Baltic coast of Poland. There are lakes, windmills, and an open-air museum of Kashubian history. It is beautiful, and has its own language, which is neither Polish nor German.

A Polish friend remarked that he could not believe that a place with such an impossible name could exist. It is pronounced V-D-Z-I-D-Z-E   K-EE-SH-E-V-S-K-Y-EH.

I am in a queue for a face-transplant, so I so as to have the necessary facial muscles to say, "Wdzydze Kiszewskie" with confidence.

Litany of Loreto

Litany of Loreto

V. Lord, have mercy.
R. Christ have mercy.
V. Lord have mercy. Christ hear us.
R. Christ graciously hear us.
God the Father of heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us. 
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, pray for us. 
Holy Mother of God, pray for us. 
Holy Virgin of Virgins, [etc.]
Mother of Christ,
Mother of divine grace,
Mother most pure,
Mother most chaste,
Mother inviolate,
Mother undefiled,
Mother most amiable,
Mother most admirable,
Mother of good Counsel,
Mother of our Creator,
Mother of our Savior,
Virgin most prudent,
Virgin most venerable,
Virgin most renowned,
Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful,
Virgin most faithful,
Mirror of justice,
Seat of wisdom,
Cause of our joy,
Spiritual vessel,
Vessel of honor,
Singular vessel of devotion,
Mystical rose,
Tower of David,
Tower of ivory,
House of gold,
Ark of the covenant,
Gate of heaven,
Morning star,
Health of the sick,
Refuge of sinners,
Comforter of the afflicted,
Help of Christians,
Queen of Angels,
Queen of Patriarchs,
Queen of Prophets,
Queen of Apostles,
Queen of Martyrs,
Queen of Confessors,
Queen of Virgins,
Queen of all Saints,
Queen conceived without original sin,
Queen assumed into heaven,
Queen of the most holy Rosary,
Queen of families,
Queen of peace,
V. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
R. Spare us, O Lord. 
V. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
R. Graciously hear us, O Lord. 
V. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray. Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord God, that we thy servants may enjoy perpetual health of mind and body, and by the glorious intercession of blessed Mary, ever Virgin, may we be freed from present sorrow, and rejoice in eternal happiness. Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.
The versicle and prayer after the litany may be varied by season. Thus, during Advent (from the fourth Sunday before Christmas to Christmas Eve):
V. The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.
R. And she conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Let us pray. O God, who hast willed that by the message of an Angel, thy Word should receive flesh from the womb of the Virgin Mary: grant unto thy suppliants, that we who believe that she is truly the Mother of God, may be assisted by her intercession before Thee. Through the same Christ our Lord. R. Amen.
From Christmas to Candlemass (the Feast of the Presentation), that is through February 1:
V. Thou gavest birth without loss of thy virginity.
R. Intercede for us, O holy Mother of God.
Let us pray. O God, Who by the fruitful virginity of blessed Mary hast offered unto the human race the rewards of eternal salvation, grant, we beseech thee, that we may know the effects of her intercession, through whom we have deserved to receive the author of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son. R. Amen.
From Candlemass to Easter (through Holy Week), AND from the day after Pentecost (or from Trinity Sunday, if Pentecost is celebrated with octave) to the beginning of Advent:
V. "Pray for us" and prayer "Grant unto thy servants," as above:
During Eastertide (from Easter day through Pentecost, and throughout the octave of Pentecost if it is celebrated):
V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
R. For the Lord is truely risen, alleluia.
Let us pray. O God, Who by the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, hast vouchsafed to make glad the whole world, grant, we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His mother, we may attain the joys of eternal life, through the same Christ our Lord. R. Amen.

Absurdity Rules - Satire Officially Declared Redundant

Poor bogus Smirk has given up, more or less. Whenever he dreams up something new pour épater la bourgeoisie, he finds that the idiots who are running the show have beaten him to it. It's a hard life for someone trying to be outrageous.

I have just heard that my local Catholic Church in England has a No Smoking notice in the narthex. Apparently all public buildings have them. Good thing too. The Priest used to drive us mad, coughing his way through the Eucharistic Prayer with a gasper hanging from his lower lip. He claimed it was incense, not tobacco, but we could tell the difference.

Are there, I wonder, exceptions for those for whom smoking during a religious service is an essential element. I am thinking here of Rastafarians who, according to one I knew, smoked ganja seven or eight years ago as part of their services at a Church in Balham.

Perhaps someone will soon 'discover' that incense smoke causes lung cancer, or more likely bigotry and intolerance. Does the use of Latin inflame the Catholic masses with a longing for autos da fé? Does singing "Gather Us In" provoke the Faithful into leaping into combine harvesters so as to be harvested?

It is all very worrying.

Richard Collins, on his always excellent blog "Linen on the Hedgerow" has raised the question of syncretism, and this is an extension of the comment I made there. 

My understanding is that syncretism involves commingling Catholic beliefs or dogmas with inconsistent beliefs or dogmas from other religions. For example, it is syncretic for a Catholic to believe in reincarnation, or a non-Triune God, or pantheism or, indeed, Gaia.

Inculturation, on the other hand, can be a useful missionary tool, as it involves retaining, but also adapting, non-Catholic customs or practices so that they are not at odds with Catholic teaching. Pius XII, for example, permitted Chinese ancestor-worship, explaining that it involved not idolatry, but proper respect.

I read a moving account years ago of a Mass somewhere in Africa, at which, when the Host was elevated, there was loud drumming and an Honour Guard of men dressed in leopard skins and bearing spears surrounded the Altar. Drumming and the Guard were a tribal tradition whenever the human king was in public, and are all the more appropriate when the King of Kings appears in the Flesh.

If I am mistaken in my understanding, I apologise. As to interfaith dialogue, unless it has missionary intent, it seems a waste of time. If I was an astrophysicist, I would not waste my time debating with flat-earthers unless I had some hope of changing their minds.

Happiness

Happiness

John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof 
Hat;
John had a 
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh –
And that
(Said John)
Is
That.

A. A. Milne

And for us?  Saint Patrick's Breastplate, perhaps?

Viva Torquemada?

Once again, this time in response to my comment on another blog, someone has brought up the question of the "homosexual community's" (he used the g-- word) usage of the expression "leftfooter". 

As a member of the following "communities":

The Catholic Church,
Pseudo-Poles
Elbląski Morsy
Vodka-lovers
Beer Lovers,
Vintage Port lovers
Vin Rouge lovers,
Inquisition lovers
Pio Nono lovers,
Latin Poetry lovers
Classical Greek Poetry lovers
Neophobes
Murillo lovers
Liturgical Guitar despisers
Black Blues up to about 1965 lovers,

I resent this, and am thinking of changing the name of this blog to one of the following:

¡Viva Torquemada!

A Pox On't

Les "réformateurs" à la lanterne!

Dirty Harry and Bloody Bess, Have With You to Saffron Walden!

The Spanish Armada Appreciation Society,

Don Quixote Rides Again,

Bismarck - Schmismarck,

Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Any thoughts? Only serious, half serious, and utterly frivolous suggestions considered. The goodthinkful can go and find a good taxidermist.

And now, back to work.

Idle and Uncharitable Speculation

I have in mind the fifth book of Milton's Paradise Lost, where Adam naively questions Raphael, the Affable Archangel on the more physical aspects of life in Heaven, such as sex and sewage. The second stanza refers to line 438, where Milton is just lovably silly.


If we believe what John Milton
Wrote in Paradise Lost,
Adam, in Eden, entertained
One of the Heavenly Host.

Raphael, the Affable Archangel,
Milton writes, was embarassed a bit
When Adam, curious about Angels,
Asked if they eat, drink, and sh-t.

And Raphael, the Sociable Spirit
Replied that the Heavenly Choirs,
Certainly eat and drink. Consequently
"What redounds, transpires."

Now we know from the Book of Tobit
That Raphael angelically lied,
(My justification for holding
That enemies must be denied

The truth). To return to the question
Of disposing of Heavenly Cess
What do They do with Their Excrement?
Why, dump It in Hell, I guess.

I suppose that the eager Blessed Spirits
Would happily volunteer
For a day trip to Hell, to sling all
The Sewage in Beelzebub's ear.

I know that, if I get to Heaven
I'll be the first in the queue
To make an unwelcome delivery
To Hell, of Celestial Poo.

The recipient - not Hitler or Stalin.
(From weak me they have nothing to fear.)
But I'd seek out the liberal Catholics
And bury with dung ???? ?????
 * * *

* * * Readers are invited to guess who this might be. Beware of U.K. libel law.

De Profundis: Poland and Death

The Poles and Death

In their tragic, heroic history the Poles have become accustomed to walking hand-in-hand with death. For them, there is no avoiding the issue, no looking away, no concealment. For weeks before All Saints Day, celebrated as a public holiday (and, of course, a Holy Day of Obligation, and always on the 1st of November), they thoroughly clean and tidy their family graves. In the last days of October, the graves are decorated with flowers, and beautifully coloured plastic lamps are placed on them, as can be seen in the first three pictures below.

The main visit to the cemetery is on 1st November, but family members of all ages gather in graveyards in November: in the evening on weekdays, and during the day as well on Saturdays and Sundays,  to pray for their dead relatives and friends. They are not remotely mournful about it. This evening as I took the first three pictures, a mother and her two children, who were in their twenties, asked me pleasantly (knowing full well the answer) why I was taking photographs. We talked for a bit in the dark, and the son then asked, "Have you bought a grave for yourself yet?" Utterly practical.

I took the picture below today at the Franciscan Cemetery in Brodnica. The black tablets record the names of some of those murdered by the occupying germans, either for some infringement of their vile laws, or in retaliation for the death of an occupying soldier. Normally between fifty and a hundred, men, women, and children as young as fourteen, were driven to the forest by bus to be shot, having first dug their own graves.

The detail below is particularly poignant for me, because I know the family of Paweł Nass. Before the war he had been a rising amateur boxing star, but was denounced to the occupiers by a neighbour for having a radio, just an ordinary domestic one. This was enough to have him shot at the age of 19.

I do not know whether the De Profundis is ever said in Britain now, in Latin or in English. I can think of no better prayer for the dead.

Euthanasia in the U.K. as no doubt you had guessed

A Brief Encounter has a frightening post today about the "Liverpool Care Pathway". It is well worth reading, and then following the link to the Daily Telegraph report.

It seems that medical practitioners, nurses, whoever, are deciding who should die, when, and how.

How long before the Lifetime Options Directorate becomes a reality?

Official Notice

Lifetime Options Directorate Order LOD 2345987/33/Bigotry/000kaput

Under the provisions of the Lifetime Options Directorate Act 2017, a Termination Notice has been issued on this blog to take effect at 5.00 a.m. on 29th October 2012.

Those wishing to say farewell to the impending deceased should do so before that time.

Signed,

Petronella Gaskammer (Ms)

ALLA

The Maltese are a Semitic people, like the Arabs and the Jews. Their language is largely Semitic.

They are very, very Catholic.

I was born there.

The Maltese word for God is Alla. And why not, pray?

I just thought I would mention it.

Offending the Usual Suspects

Please do head over to Richard's blog, Linen on the Hedgerow, and read his latest post which has offended the usual suspects.His tongue-in-cheek suggestions to Catholic school pupils compelled to visit a non-Christian place of worship have drawn charges that he is a bigot and a racist from some sensititve souls.

I don't know whether Richard is a litigious man (I would be if I could afford it), but I would guess that being accused of being a racist is a libel, actionable, and could be pursued in Court.

I should not be necessary to state that objecting to a false (non-Catholic) religion is 'racist' only to the perceptions of the intellectually challenged, and that it is no more 'racist' than disliking Quakerism, or curry, or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, or Wagner. I dislike them all.

As for 'bigotry', in the sense of total unswerving commitment to what one regards as the truth, I am all for it.

A British Muslim friend of mine, born in Pakistan, remarked to me many years ago that Allah created life at various levels: vegetable, animal, and human. He added (and immediately lost my respect) that Allah created a lower form of human life, the hubshi (black men and women) who exist to serve the non-hubshi.

Now that was racism, and he ceased with immediate effect to be a friend.

Christmas Profanation

Mundabor has an interesting post, Christmas Madness . It is well worth reading, and reminds me of something similar, as long ago as 1988.

On Christmas Eve, at the brokerage where I worked we all decided to go out for lunch at a restaurant somewhere in Knightsbridge. There were about ten of us.

We were eating when suddenly a uniformed policewoman came to our table, and demanded to know who owned car number ******, which she said was illegally parked outside. A friend said it was his, but was at home in Winchester.

She then stripped, singing some secular ditty as she did so: not a real policewoman, but a "stripogram", poor woman, and clearly a mother, because she had stretch-marks. 

The friend, an Anglican, and, incidentally, a former S.A.S colonel, and I immediately left, our lunch half-eaten.

The experience overshadowed Christmas. In any half-decent, half civilized country, such work as this poor woman did would be unnecessary and illegal.

A Humble Enquiry (reposted because I like it)

Sapphic lines (in the poetic sense, as in Sappho of Lesbos, not Sappho the lesbian) addressed to wiser people than me. It scans perfectly if read correctly.


A Humble Enquiry

“Let’s break bread together on our knees”, but the crumbs get
Into my turn-ups, and the sunrise blinds me,
And where does it say in the Gospels that Jesus
Was Lord of the Dance?* Eh?

And if it’s only bread, then what of the Real Presence?
Transubstantiation, the Eucharistic Fast, and
Holy Hours and Exposition? Have we chucked the Sacrifice
And opted for a picnic?

And why, when we pray the Litany of Saints, do we
Include Saint Martin Luther King, Saint Dalai Lama
And Saint Nelson Mandela? None of them is Catholic,
And two not even dead yet.**

And what of the Bishops of England and Wales? Who
Are they working for? Where are they sailing
In the bark of Peter? To the port of Heaven?
Or the shoal of confusion?

And can you explain please, who the Easter People
Are? Is it all OK now, no repentance?
Life is so cute, if you’ve the good fortune
To be liberal and Catholic,

And nuance the absolute, syncretise and sample,
Admire Tony Blair for sorting out that bigoted
Homophobe Benedict the Sixteenth's obsession
With objectively moral

Disorder. Come on you guys, I mean Bishops, own up!
You don’t believe all this stuff about Papal
Infallibilty. That’s just Pio No! No!
So long ago, too.

And what about those Martyrs, who never took advantage
Of the power of inclusive language to avoid such
Misunderstandings, or, maybe, understandings
As shortened their lives so?

Ha! Now I’ve got it! If Catholic means the same as
Universal, everyone, atheist, agnostic,
Practising and lapsed, burbling and rational
Is Catholic. No problem!



*Why not:
Bounce, then, wherever you may be,
For I like to bounce up and down - tee! hee!
I bounce up and down like a hyperactive flea,
For I am the lord of the bounce - tee! hee!

**
I heard this very "relevant" updating of the Litany
Of the Saints at Mass in a Catholic church in London,
A few years ago, but cannot for the life of me
Imagine who OK'd it.

Lepanto

Remember.

Be thankful.

Pray the Rosary.

Must try harder.

This blog is becoming more and more of a commonplace book, a place where I can record my far from original thoughts, and find them again.

The 'real world' has become so insane that it is difficult to grapple with it.

I really must try harder.

Burns's Prayer in the Prospect of Death

Hardly good Catholic theology to blame God for one's sins and weaknesses, but a touching 

poem.

O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause
      Of all my hope and fear,
    In whose dread presence, ere an hour
      Perhaps I must appear!

    If I have wander'd in those paths
      Of life I ought to shun;
    As something, loudly, in my breast,
      Remonstrates I have done;

    Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me,
      With passions wild and strong;
    And list'ning to their witching voice
      Has often led me wrong.

    Where human weakness has come short,
      Or frailty stept aside,
    Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art,
      In shades of darkness hide.

    Where with intention I have err'd,
      No other plea I have,
    But, Thou art good; and goodness still
      Delighteth to forgive.

Dalai Lama so way-out, he is leaving religion behind

Mundabor has an excellent post -  False Prophets the Dalai Lama .

Well worth reading.

Bigotry! Bigotry! Quackety Quack!

You won’t like this – not at all!

How often, if you speak out against homosexualism (no, not homosexuality) or any other pressure-group, do you hear the duckspeak: Some of my best friends are……….

No! No! No!

I have no friends whom I know to be actively homosexual;.

whom I know to be rich. I am poorish, and do not like the rich;

whom I know to be deep ecologists. They are mad;

whom I know to be in favour of abortion – need I explain why?

I have no friends whom I know to be religious Jews, only because religious Jews choose their friends from among their co-religionists. Does that make them bigots, speaking duckspeakfully? I think not.

I had a friend, who was a Jew and I think privately a Chasidic Jew, though he dressed like an Englishman. We were in business together and every week he would invite me and a couple of other Catholics to a debating society which met weekly in the Bloomsbury Hotel. It sounded very boring, and too much like school, so I always pleaded the need to go home to my family. Later it emerged that the society was Jewish and seeking converts. Had I known I would certainly have gone for the chance to learn, question, and argue. I approve totally of missionary activity.

I guess he was a bigot, too, because he was devoutly religious, a family man, and would never have accepted that the Messiah has already come. His reasons were, for him, rational.

I had a number of Muslim Arab friends when I worked in the End of London. One, the chef at my favourite restaurant, was called Ossama. They were witty (in English, too. I know no Arabic), clever, well educated, and knew far more about European history that the average English person. They also were out, sometimes very subtly, sometimes openly, to bring in converts. Good for them! I did my best to present Catholicism to them, but without success.

One of them told me that Allah would forgive me if I killed my father, mother, brother, or sister, but not if I continued to say that He had a Son. Very bigoted, but for him, rational.

I am choosy about my friends – and enemies, for I, too, am duckspeakingly a bigot.

A bigot is someone who knows or thinks he has the truth. He then acts in accordance with it.

To be Catholic is to believe that only Christ saves, and that he does so through His Church, whether the person to be saved is Catholic or not. That is what I understand to be the truth of “no Salvation outside the Church”.

Unacceptable bigotry!

Quack! Quack!

Justifiable Abortion?

Proposition, of which I am unconvinced: God sees all time, past, present, and future, as now. The future, therefore, already exists. The child in the womb is already guilty of whatever sins and crimes he or she will later commit.

If this were true, and if a method of travelling in time existed, would it be morally justifiable to visit the past in order, with or without risk to one's own safety, to kill or abort in the womb a future evil-doer, tyrant, or murderer, and so save millions of innocent lives, or even one innocent life?

And thus save the soul of the person killed?

And would you do it?

Rambo-footer is contrite

In my last piece, Rambo-footer regrettably neglected to take out the Ottoman empire in 1450. Performing this agreeable duty would have prevented the fall of Constantinople, the consequent advance of that empire into south-eastern Europe, and the Balkan atrocities.

Rambo-footer also forgot to nuke Sweden in the 1640s, in order to prevent that country from invading and ruining Poland and desecrating the Black Madonna.

He also omitted to take out Berlin, Moscow, and Vienna in 1770. Their destruction would have prevented the 123 year long partition of Poland.

I have confiscated his knives, guns, headband, scowl, and false chest. He is very contrite. He says also that he is a bit tired.

I have promised to return his toys, and give him use of my time-machine. He has in turn promised to visit the sick Byron in Missolonghi and give him medication to save his life and ensure further poetry;  to liquidate all British 19th century anti Irish Emancipation and Independence M.P.s; to zap Disraeli and all his governments, (enabling Gladstone to do something about a rapprochement with Holy Russia; to prevent the worst excesses of the French Revolution); and to bump off H.G.Wells, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, D.H.Lawrence, W.H. Ordure, and a few others.

Bless him!

Rambo-footer on the rampage

Time has always fascinated me, history only more recently. Some time ago I wrote a piece about time, and whether God can know the future which as yet is not. The question for me is like the piece of foolishness about whether He can create a stone so big that He cannot lift it.

Fascinating also is the idea of a time-machine: what uses it could be put to, and what the effects would be on the individual travelling back in time. If I you went back to 1600, for example, would you still be you, or would you on arrival be a bit of every one of your n thousand ancestors and the animals and plants they had eaten?

Interesting.

As to the uses time travel could be put to, I am in no doubt as to what I would do (stepping into fantasy land here, but why not?).

Armed Rambo-like with fearsome knives and firearms, and carrying a large supply of nuclear weapons on my Good Timeship Rectifier, I would head first for 5th century B.C. Persia and nuke it. Periclean Athens would have been saved. 

Babylon before the Jewish captivity - flat, black, and glowing in the dark, ditto Egypt of the Pharaohs, Rome in the days of its empire, the Anglo-Saxon homeland (keeping Britain Celtic) and the Vikings, who were a European plague and, as Normans, invaded Britain in 1066.

The Arabs would never have got to Spain, nor the Saracens to the Middle East. 18th Century Barbary pirates? Kaboom!

"Reformation"? Armed to the teeth, Rambo-footer would take care of Wycliffe, Luther, Huss, Henry VIII and succeeding Tudors.

Cromwell probably would have remained a nobody, but if not, Zapp - he's gone.

London and Liverpool nuked, probably several times to put and end to the slave trade, and Germany in 1800, so Napoleon could win and liberate Ireland, Scotland, and Poland.

Prussia nuked in 1869 (no Franco-Prussian war) and again in 1880 to get rid of the whole vile racist apparatus of Bismark and Falk.

Depending on the results of the previous actions, I might need to take out Marx, Engels, and a bunch of dingy fin-de-siecle anarchists.

Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, the Frankfurt School, Beria, and a few others whose names escape me, impaled on the Kremlin spires. No 1917 revolution. Hitler, or Germany, or both, rubbed out before they started killing anybody.

Have I missed anyone?

****************************

And on my return to Now, what would I find? Everyone speaking Gaelic, Greek, or Slavonic? No Latinate languages? No English? No Gothic architecture?

As I said, interesting.

And what would you do with your time-machine?

Imagine

+

I want you to imagine.

You live in the town where you were born, where you have family and friends, where everything is familiar. One of your friends or family is getting married, and you put on your best clothes, pick up the flowers you have bought, and catch a bus to the Church.

Or you are on your way to or from work, looking forward to a coffee  and a day or an evening with people you know and like - or perhaps love.

Or you are on your way to fetch children from school.

And then comes łapanka - the round-up. You are living somewhere in Central or Eastern Europe at some time between 1939 and 1945 and the German army is arresting hostages - anyone who is available. The hostages, normally between 50 to 100 of them for each German allegedly killed, will be driven to the forest and shot. Suddenly your life is over. There will be no Priest to confess to.

The wedding party will wonder where you are. They will find out, because the Germans will post on walls and telegraph poles a list of names of those they have murdered.

You will never work or see your loved-ones again.

Your children will wait and wait at the school. They will have to grow up without you.

And you stand in a queue, waiting to get on the bus or lorry which will take you the forest to be shot, like the two ladies to the left and right foreground, in your best clothes.

Thinking about it brings me to tears.

And prayers.

MAY WHOEVER READS THIS SPARE A PRAYER FOR THEIR SOULS AND FOR THEIR FAMILIES STILL LIVING.

Two wrongs don't make a right?

As every would-be wiseacre and cracker-barrel philosopher knows, two wrongs don't make a right.

Phooey! The second one is justice and retribution, and therefore not a 'wrong'.

Injuries done to me I must forgive, not because the state says so and not because some psychologist says that resentment is bad for my psyche, but because it is my Christian duty.

But unpunished, unavenged wrongs inflicted on the innocent I cannot forgive, particularly when the perpetrator tries to justify them, or claims that he has "paid his debt to 'society'", whatever 'society' may be.

To forgive such without adequate retribution is to insult the wronged.

The Soldiers of Westerplatte by Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński

The first battle of the Second World War took place at Westerplatte, near Gdańsk, September the first, 1939, and this poem commemorates the Polish soldiers who died (some were murdered by the Germans after capture) defending their country from barbarism.

They are in my prayers.

My translation, inadequate as always:


A Song About the Soldiers at Westerplatte

When their days had been fulfilled
And it was time to die with the summer
Straight to heaven, four by four,
Went the soldiers of Westerplatte 

And the summer was beautiful that year.

And so they sang – Ah it’s nothing
That the wounds hurt so 
For how sweet now to walk
In heavenly glades.

And on the ground that year, there was so much heather for bouquets.

At Gdańsk we stood just like a wall
Whistled at the Swabian cannon
Now we rise amongst the clouds
The soldiers of Westerplatte

And those who have good eyesight
And hearing are said to hear
How in Heaven, rumbles the steady tread
Of the coastal battalion.

But when the cold wind blows
And sorrow wraps the world
In the centre of Warsaw we will pour down,
The soldiers of Westerplatte.

Ruins of Westerplatte Barracks. Photo: Wikipedia



Is it OK to say this?

Is it 'racist', or a ‘hate crime’ to say that

·  .       Racial or national characteristics exist?

·    .     The Jews are the Chosen People of God?

·    .     Arabs, Jews, Slavs, Chinese, and Japanese are clever?

·     .    Slavs can hold their liquor better than most other people?

·     .    Scots are more articulate than the English?

·  .       Scots are mean?

·  .      Polish Highlanders are mean?

·  .      The Welsh sing better (or used to) than the English?

·  .       Celtic music is mostly much better than English?

·  .       French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Lithuanian food are all better than English?

·  .       The English cannot cook?

·  .       Mohawk or Iroquois Native Americans have a better head for heights than Anglo Saxon   Americans, as witness their building of skyscrapers?

·  .       Black American Jazz and Blues players and singers in the 20^th century had genius far beyond their white counterparts?

·  .        Devonians tend to be fat (Devonshire dumplings)?

·  .        Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes?

·  .        Red haired people, of whom I was one, have short tempers?

·  .        And so on, ad nauseum..

I just asked.