De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

If you're anything like me, you'll be feeling a bit starved of your faith about now. I think the explosion of clever ways our brave priests have engaged with technology to bring the liturgy to us has been really inspiring, if a little like watching someone eat a fabulous dinner through the window of a restaurant. A lot of our Catholic friends have taken the opportunity to really focus on the ecclesia domestica - the Church in our homes. It is possible that we will see a real resurgence of personal piety, devotions that have been often quite lacking in recent decades and certainly help children to grow up in a Catholic environment. My Parish priest has really been doing a brilliant job of bringing the liturgy to our homes with livestreaming. He has received a number of very touching messages from all over the world as well as the country, from grateful Catholics who have tuned in to pray with our Parish. He has also issued a number of short videos, the latest of whic...

If I'm honest, finding it really hard to love the Church at the moment. I feel like a large part of my life - the sacramental part of my life - has been taken away from me without any explanation, substitution or warning. It really feels like the bishops have closed down Catholicism, withdrawn from every day life and have made little or no effort to engage, encourage or provide any spiritual substance for the laity in the absence of a public Catholic life. The slack, thank God, has been taken up manfully by so many of our priests who have acted swiftly to provide online liturgies and I think that people could be exposed more than ever before in their lives to adoration, benediction, the divine office and Mass. Meanwhile, on social media, many of the Catholics I so admire and know have a real and devout faith seem much more interested in fighting each other than those betraying the Church.  Despite all this, I never find it hard to love Jesus. So I speak to Him & tell h...

I'm not blogging much as we all struggle to face the encroaching COVID19 pandemic. I am extremely busy at work and worried about the situation for all the same reasons I'm sure you are. You're all in my prayers. I don't believe this is a time of division, or pointing out frustrations or weakness, but a time of unity and solidarity. Brian Holdsworth puts it well in this video. Our decisions are based on trust. Social media only serves to exacerbate our political polarisation – people are so sure that their “side” is right and the other “side” are idiots. As this continues, we lose our shared humanity. COVID19 does not discriminate between right & left: we are all susceptible to the same suffering, we all share our humanity. Can we see people on all sides of the divide that we thought mattered so much as our brothers and sisters? Compassion means to suffer with someone else. Like it or not, we are all going to go through this together. Will we come out of this ...