A Distracted Man's Lenten Prayer (After Sir Edward Dyer, but only the first line!)

My mind to me a kingdom is
Where I, a sadly feeble king.
Try hard to rule my unruly thoughts;
While they rebel like anything.

Such plans I have for this and that
To learn, to teach, to write, to pray,
Thoughts say, "Why, what a brilliant plan!
But first we need a holiday."

And off they scoot in search of this
And that, but not the things I planned.
I lack the grit to drag them back,
A havering Hamlet, half unmanned.

So sitting downcast, weakly angry
At my own impotence, I pray,
"Lord, give me strength before procrast
-ination steals my life away."

A WARNING FOR EUROPE

Watch this and worry - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zuBFns6qNk

Lenten Message

Large Notice in Church this evening:

POMYSŁ - PO CO ZYJESZ?

in English: a thought - what are you living for?

Great Post by Marco

Great post HERE http://prime1-marco.blogspot.com/2011/03/for-lentlets-give-up-social-justice.html

Catholic and Loving it - puts his finger on the problem

Please read this, from Catholic and Loving it. Do we no longer believe in the spiritual?http://www.lovingit.co.uk/2011/03/do-we-no-longer-believe-in-the-spiritual.html?

THE LIE OF AN ATHEIST (NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK)

A long time ago I read a short story (written, I think, by Graham Greene towards the end of his life) concerning a fictitious famous French Catholic novelist.

In his old age the novelist is still a regular Mass attender, but admits to a journalist that he has lost his Faith. When asked why he still goes to Mass, he explains that many of his readers have returned to the Church, influenced by his books. He keeps up the pretence of belief, so they will not lose their Faith through him.

When I was at University, a (privately) atheist philosophy Fellow of my college was a regular church-goer (Anglican) with his wife and chidren from whom he kept his disbelief secret. He explained that loss of religious faith was the greatest tragedy that could befall anyone.

Did these two men, the first fictional, the second very real, sin by lying?

Would Jesus condemn the novelist for his charitable lie?

Will He condemn the philosopher for his untruth, ignoring the matter of his being an atheist, or will He accept him for his kindness?

Can we believe that God is less charitable than we are?

3 MORE GOOD BLOGS I MISSED

Button's Blog - http://patrick-button.blogspot.com/

Catholicism Pure and Simple -http://catholicismpure.wordpress.com/

Lux Occulta - http://lxoa.wordpress.com/

Sappho: A Fragment

έσπερε, πάντα φέρων, ὄσα φαίνολισ ἐσκέδασ᾽ αiωσ,
φέρεισ οἴν, φέρεισ αἶγα, φέρεισ ἄπυ ματέρι παῖδα
 
Literal translation:

Evening star, bringing back all that the bright dawn scattered.
You bring back the goat; you bring back the sheep; you bring back the child to its mother.

But perhaps better as hexameter, reducing Sappho's repetition, marred by English 'the':

Evening star, returning all that the bright dawn scattered.
You bring back the goat and the sheep; you bring back the child to its mother.

Busting a Wimple - The Depths of Depravity

My mother, God rest her soul, who died in 1997, used to tell stories of her schoolgirlhood at the Marist Convent in Paignton, Devon. She left in 1925.

The nuns, most of whom were Irish, were kind, tried to be strict, and displayed an innocence now long-lost.

One, a cousin of Michael Collins, sold 'pretty little green shamrock badges' to the girls as Christmas presents for their friends and families. My mother sent one to a protestant aunt, who contacted the police. Apparently they were IRA badges.

The Mother Superior, also the headmistress, enraged by my mother's giggling in chapel, broke off praying to deliver the following prophesy (as my mother said, sadly unfulfilled):

"Hermine! You're a bold, bold girl. Hah! I can see you in ten years time, lying on a couch, surrounded by admirers, and eating chocolates!"

Blogs to Follow: Posititvity, Sweetness & Light

These are all, in my view excellent, and randomly listed.
I shall try to update this every week.
Happy reading! 


The Muniment Room - http://ttonys-blog.blogspot.com/2011/02/magic-circle-some-names.html

The Heresey Hunter - http://heresy-hunter.blogspot.com/2011/03/evening-of-panes-and-pate-with-partying.html?

Redneck Reflections - http://sadcatholic.blogspot.com/2011/03/be-prepared-semper-paratus-toujours.html

Mulier Fortis - http://mulier-fortis.blogspot.com/2011/02/40-days-for-life.html

A Catholic Citizen in America - http://catholiccitizenamerica.blogspot.com/2011/03/vatican-museums-tours-for-deaf-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ACatholicCitizenInAmerica+%28A+Catholic+Citizen+in+America%29

Confessions of a Thirty-Something Cybertronian - http://prime1-marco.blogspot.com/2011/02/wacky-world-of-sedevacantethe-sequel.html?

Ecumenical Diablog - http://ecumenicaldiablog.blogspot.com/2011/03/aids-condoms-blessed-mother-teresa-of.html

Edward Feser - http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/03/liberal-neutrality-update.html

Laodicea - berenike http://ttonys-blog.blogspot.com/2011/02/magic-circle-some-names.html

Linen on the Hedgerow - http://linenonthehedgerow.blogspot.com/2011/03/should-your-bishop-tell-you-how-to-vote.html

John Smeaton - http://spuc-director.blogspot.com/2011/03/eugenics-is-enduring-

Little Catholic Bubble - http://littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com/2011/03/that-makes-sense-but.html

Love in the Ruins - http://mrmemitchell-badcatholic.blogspot.com/2011/03/college-life-in-post-christian-world.html

This Burning Fire - http://thisburningfire.blogspot.com/

NO, I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO FOLLOW BACK.

WE ARE THE OTHER PEOPLE

(I had in mind Chesterton's poem, 'The Secret People'  "We are the people of England, that never have spoken yet".)

We're the unheard Other People, the Underclass. You see
Us at the railway station, outside the library.
We ask you for your small change, or if you smoke, a fag.
Our home’s our skin and all we have is in a carrier bag.


We are no one’s constituency, no MP fears our vote.
Our spending power is zero; you cannot fail to note
Our nasty dirty habits, clothes, tattoos and pavement pitch.
You look away. Perhaps you say the prayer of the rich:


“Thank You, dear Lord, for house and family, diesel in our tank,
For hedge funds, Gilts and equities, for money at the bank.”
We do not know your story, your happy fairy-tale,
But ours is here for all to read: so read it – we’re for sale.


Our mothers did not love us. Our fathers soon grew bored.
And quit. New men came, loveless, lusting. At thirteen raped and whored,
Discarded, kicked-out, soon street-wise. And our remuneration
The cash and drugs our clients paid us for our degradation.

And yet we dream – if we could get a room, a job, and health,
Someone to love, be faithful to! We don’t need fame or wealth,
Just what we’ve always seen, not had: Safety, light, warmth and such
Belief and Hope, a little time. Do you think we ask too much?

General Fieldorf Nil: Ryszard Bugajski's Film

With some friends, I watched the film of  the betrayal, interrogation, torture, and execution of the Polish hero of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, General Fieldorf last weekend.

Having fought the Germans on the streets of Warsaw while the Red Army waited east of the Vistula as the Germans destroyed the city, he was hunted down and arrested by the agents of the Soviet puppet government of Bolesław Bierut, on the grounds that he was a fascist.

He was judicially murdered in 1953.

The story can be read in Norman Davies's "Rising '44",  and I thoroughly recommend the Film, and of course the book.

More than half of us, men and women, were in tears by the end.