The Grave of a Young Patriot

We do not know his date of birth, though the anniversary is probably about now, because someone (probably a relation) has, in accordance with Polish custom, put flowers at the foot of his grave.

We know that he was a Boy Scout, a soldier of the "Grey Ranks" in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and that he died on the eleventh of December 1945 aged 15, but whether from wounds sustained in the street battles, or from illness is not recorded on his tombstone.

Had he lived he would now be 84, and a devoted father, and grandfather.

Thousands of young Warsavians died at the hands of the German Army. Bach who destroyed Warsaw and so many lives, received a shortish gaol sentence.

The Heart Bleeds

In neighbouring Netherlands, doctors are paid 330 Euros for a second euthanasia opinion. "That's fair," says Dr Distelmans. "But in Belgium, there is nothing."  

Courtesy: Bio-Edge

Friends of God - reblogged

Trying hard to find something positive to say, I have been thinking back to what was probably the happiest time in my life, as a project worker in homelessness charities in London from 2000 to 2005.

Someone said I would learn more from my clients than they would ever learn from me. He was right.

 They were aged from 18 to about 50, criminals, many ex-prisoners, thieves, liars, alcoholics, drug addicts; the feckless, the unloved, the lovely.

Friends of God, all of them, religious, many Catholic, lapsed, but prayerful, with a sometimes skewed morality all of their own, best illustrated by example. All names have been changed.

 Wain: “My room-mate was a thieving bastard. He stole my coat, so I couldn’t go out. And it was mine – my girl-friend nicked it for me.” 

Wain had been raped at the age of 12 and infected with HIV and potentially fatal hepatitis, as had his 9 year old sister (it was on his records). The rapist was his mother's new boyfriend, who, when her pregnancy deprived him of sex, despoiled her children.Wain had ambitions to give up heroin, get a job, get married, have children, and be a good husband and father. He had perhaps 10 years to live. He prayed, injected, stole. So would I probably have in his position.

Augustus, seeing me getting on my bike to go home coatless in the pouring rain: “Chris, have my coat til tomorrow. I’m not going out, so I don’t need it." (St Francis and the cloak). I gracefully refused, of course, saying it was against the rules.

Abdul, a Somali, who had seen a project-worker hit his head on the corner of a cupboard, came to see him an hour or so later to make quite sure he was ok.

The Muslims (I love Muslims, though not Islam) fasting from dawn to darkness through Ramadan only to find the kitchen and dining room closed by order of the manager, when it was dark and they could eat and drink. We got round that and quietly cooked halal chicken for them.

Clients helped each other continually, and fought like tigers when honour had been transgressed. Two were fighting, facing automatic eviction, when I caught them. The cassus belli was a nearly empty plastic lighter whose ownership they disputed.

Being 60 years old, I could stop any fight by getting in between them. No heroism. They were gentlemen and would not hit an old man.

I always carried extra lighters and cigarettes, so confiscated the nearly empty one, gave them a new one each, and asked them what kind of people they were to force me to lie that they had not been fighting. All fights had to be reported, and eviction was inevitable. They were perfect Christian gentlemen and apologised.

If you did them a kindness, however small, they remembered.

They were full of beautiful surprises. One of our duties, in pairs, was to search clients’ rooms for drugs, under the pretence of health and safety checks. I remember the floor of one room covered in potting compost with cannabis growing under bright lights, strictly business, of course. The tenant wouldn’t touch the weed. He was a crack addict.

On the wall, besides the usual ikons, the client had a portrait reproduction of a black man in 18th century dress, with a powdered wig. I asked who it was of.

"Dr Johnson’s black servant (Francis Barber),” came the reply. "Samuel Johnson was a good man, a real Christian and left him his money when he died." How many English people know of this?

 A scholar, a Christian gentleman, and a crack-addict.

How I miss them – God-fearing, pious, lovable – villains, rascals, disreputable, as God knows we all are, if we examine our consciences honestly.

Sorry! No, not you of course.

Sacrifice Betrayed

My step-father, who died in 1998, wondered what he and his fellow soldiers had fought for in the last war. Not, he thought, for what Britain had become.

Reading the verse from Maccabees at the bottom of the memorial tablet (in East Knoyle Church, Wiltshire) above, the calamities of their people and sanctuary, brought about by their descendants, have made a mockery of their sacrifice.

The betrayal fills me with shame.

The Prayer of a Man Too Easily Distracted (After Sir Edward Dyer, but only the first line!)

From two years ago, but I still rather like it.

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."

Kermit Gosnell

The Fruity Fruits of Vatican Two

Into the fields to harvest
The fruits of Vatican II!

We are the Easter People
Who will the Church renew.
"What are these fruits," you ponder,
That you so keenly reap?"
We've Joy and Love and Wonder -
Let Faith and Reason sleep!


There were no fruits from doctrine
Or from obedience blind,
But we are now so fruity,
It sometimes blows our mind.
We speak in tongues and prophesy
"Yah! Bliffer Blaffer Bloo!"
The Spirit so baptises us,
That all we say is true.


We don't need popes and bishops
We've each got Direct Lines
To our heavenly Big Daddy,
So we are all divines.
When Roma loquitur, we know
Causa is not at end
We may accept Rome's opinion
If it matches the latest trend.


The Fathers of the Council
Said, "From the experts, seek
The wisdom of the worldly
The freedom of the freak!"
We've done it:  See how worldly
And freaky are we all!
At every Mass there's schmalz and slop -
Don't we just have a ball!


That lovely lady Brosselmans
Said Mass is like Diwali
Or Eid ul Fatr festival - 
That's really up our alley.
Now ours is really a shebang
With loud and joyful praise.
Who needs old-fashioned reverence
When we our voices raise


In Gibberish and rigmarole,
"Oh wazza wazza whizz!"
And pogo up and down the aisle
While the celebrant does his biz.
Oh sweet to the Ears of Abba dear
Is our loud hullabaloo,
A glorious Harvest Home for us,
We fruits of Vatican II!



(Tune: We Plough the Fields and Scatter")

Must-Read from The Bones

The Black Madonna of Jasna Góra. The scars on the face were inflicted by sacrilegious Swedish protestant invaders during the XVII century.

Lawrence England in his blog That the Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill has a beautiful post on England's need for Our Lady, The Lady the Country Needed is Still the Lady the Country Needs, and points out that she is already Queen of Poland.

You can hear the beautiful Polish Hymn Maryjo Królowa Polski (O Mary Queen of Poland) here or here.

Killing Off the Customers - Smart Idea!

Well worth reading. 

Why teachers should oppose abortion, here, cogently presents the purely economic effects of abortion in Chicago. 

Islamic Justice or the Wisdom of Solomon

Wisdom is beautiful no matter where it is found.

I heard this story in the 1960s from someone in the oil industry. 

In one of the Arab states, a rich man, watching his gardener pruning a tree, was killed when the man fell on him. The widow went to court and demanded the execution of the gardener (a life for a life).

The sheikh, or imam, or judge, after a moment pondering , gave judgement.

"Of course his life is forfeit if you so wish. The gardener will stand under the tree where your husband was killed. You will climb the tree and fall on him."

The woman withdrew her suit.