Last week I was an online attendee at a three-day conference, and in one of the sessions Psalm 90(91):11 was mentioned with some frequency.

Also in the past month I picked up a suggestion from Roma Waterman.

It goes like this:
With a verse or two from scripture, look up three different translations of that verse, and then look at the original meaning through a website that does Hebrew and Greek transliteration. Also notice any other scripture passages that come to mind as you do this. Then write a letter or email to yourself from God, based on what you found in that scripture.

This is what happened with Psalm 90(91):11

For the first translation I wanted to hear how we pray it liturgically. It turns out that the Church prays this Psalm every Sunday night, and every night of a Solemnity.

For you has He commanded His angels
to keep you in all your ways.

For the second translation I wanted to hear from the Jerusalem Bible.

He will put you in His angel’s charge
to guard you wherever you go.

For the third translation I went to the New American Study Bible.

For He commands His angels with regard to you
to guard you wherever you go.

My ‘go to’ website for Hebrew and Greek transliteration has been biblehub.com.

For
He will command/ lay charge upon/ order/ give charge to
His angels     messengers from God, an angel
concerning you    2nd person feminine singular
to guard you    2nd person masculine singular
                           to hedge about/ guard/ protect/ attend to
in all     the whole/ all/ any/ every
your ways      road/ course of life/ mode of action

At this point my reaction is, yes, I know this, but I’m not getting it. So I went back to the context within the conference, and that’s where the ‘aha’ moment happened.

The context of the talk was that wherever we thought God was absent, wasn’t in control, wasn’t powerful to help, HE WAS THERE, taking care of us HIS WAY.

Here is the message that I thought God was trying to get through to me:

Yes, My dedication to you is that detailed.
When My Word says ALL it means ALL.
All the times you felt afraid – you were protected.
All the times you felt alone – you were guarded.
All the times of pain and shame – you were not abandoned.
All those times of heartache and despair – you were still hedged with My love.
All the times of boredom and grinding duty – had a purpose in My good for you.
All those times of anxiety about the future, and every impasse you came to
- My grace solved them and you don’t even consider them anymore.
All those times of feeling alien and unwanted – were very, very far from My truth and My love.
You can safely place your trust in Me and be at peace.

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In the Roman rite of the Catholic Church, every priest when they come into the church to celebrate Mass AND when they exit after the final blessing, they go to the altar and kiss it.

Have you ever wondered why?

In the Sacramentary, the big book which contains all the prayers of the Mass (the bits in black), and all the actions during the Mass (the bits in red), it says quite unequivocally ‘the priest kisses the altar’ in both the entrance and the exit parts.
It is definitely a kiss, and not a veneration.
It is definitely a kiss, and not open to interpretation.

Why is this so?

To answer we have to learn from the Bible.

Firstly we need to find out what a throne looks like.

2 Chronicles 9:17-19 which describes how King Solomon constructed his throne:
The king also made a great ivory throne, and plated it with purest gold. The throne had six steps, and a footstool of gold was attached to it. There were armrests on both sides of the seat, with a lion standing beside each armrest. Twelve lions stood on the six steps, one at either end of each step. Nothing like this had ever been made for any kingdom.

The Jerusalem Bible translation most of us are used to, does not translate verse 18 well. But the Hebrew definitely says ‘a footstool of gold’.

Why would a throne have a footstool? We don’t see them in the kingdoms of Western Civilisation, but in the Middle East and in the Orient footstools made it easier for a subject to kiss the feet of the king while the king was sitting on his throne, and in particular easier to kiss the soles of the king’s feet.

Smith’s Bible Dictionary after it talks about kissing between friends, relatives, and in greeting, says this about other uses of kissing:
‘Among the Arabs the women and children kiss the beards of their husbands or fathers. The superior returns the salute by a kiss on the forehead. In Egypt, an inferior kisses the hand of a superior, generally on the back, but sometimes, as a special favor, on the palm also. To testify abject submission, and in asking favors, the feet are often kissed instead of the hand. The written decrees of a sovereign are kissed in token of respect; even the ground is sometimes kissed by Orientals in the fullness of their submission.’

Psalm 71(72):9
May the wild beasts of the desert bow before him,
and his enemies lick the dust.

Isaiah 49:23
Kings will be your foster fathers, their queens your nursing mothers.
They will fall prostrate before you, faces to the ground,
and lick the dust at your feet.
What does God say about His throne?

Isaiah 66:1
Thus says the Lord God: With heaven My throne and earth My footstool, what house could you build Me, what place could you make for My rest?

That is true in general.

But with the building of the Temple and the dedication prayers of King Solomon something more particular emerges.

2 Chronicles 6:18-20
Yet will God really live with men on the earth? Why, the heavens and their heavens cannot contain You! How much less this house that I have built! Listen to the prayer and entreaty of Your servant, Lord my God; listen to the cry and to the prayer Your servant makes to You. Day and night let Your eyes watch over this house, over this place in which You have promised to make a home for Your name. Listen to the prayer that Your servant will offer in this place.

2 Chronicles 6:41-42
Rise Lord God, come to Your resting place,
You and the ark of Your power.
Your priests, Lord God, are vested in salvation,
Your faithful rejoice in prosperity.
Lord God, do not turn away from the face of Your anointed;
remember Your favours to David Your servant.

The Temple in Jerusalem begins to be seen as the place of God’s particular footstool, the place where the tribes go up to worship at the courts of the Lord, and to seek His favour and mercy – which doesn’t negate that the whole of the earth is God’s footstool, it is the place out of all the places on earth where earth is closest to heaven.

Psalm 131(132):7
Let us go to where He is waiting,
and worship at His footstool.

Psalm 98(99):5
Let us extol the Lord our God,
and worship at His footstool, ‘Holy is He!’

Lamentations 2:1
O, how the Lord God in His wrath
has brought darkness on the daughter of Zion!
He has flung the glory of Israel from heaven to the ground,
no more remembering His footstool on the day of His wrath.

What set the Temple apart from other places?
The ark of the covenant, and the altar of sacrifice.

In New Covenant terms, in each church we go to join in the heavenly worship through our participation at the altar of God. What goes on at the altar links us directly to what goes on in heaven, and in a real sense is an earthly footstool for God.

Each priest, as he processes to the altar is coming into the presence of Almighty God, the Great King of Kings, and it is appropriate to kiss His feet upon entering and upon leaving the Mass that connects heaven and earth through the Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.
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Concluding Rite of the Mass – the Priest’s blessing

In the liturgy of the Roman rite of the Catholic Church, only the priest can use the words, May the Lord bless you.

If a lay person is conducting a communion service, or the liturgy of the hours, they can only use May the Lord bless us.

Why is this so? The answer is in the Bible.

Numbers 6:22-26:
The Lord God spoke to Moses and said, ‘Say this to Aaron and his sons:
“This is how you are to bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them:
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord let His face shine on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord uncover His face to you and bring you peace.”
This is how they are to call down My name on the sons of Israel, and I will bless them.”

May the Lord bless you is directly taken from Numbers 6:24

When God gives a directive like this for a priest to use His words, then when that directive is obeyed by the priest, God’s power to bless is released over the people.

We are more used to thinking like this when the priest obeys the directive of Jesus and says,
This is My body; This is My blood.

May the Lord bless us, in contrast, is really only a prayer request.

God desires to bless His people:

Deuteronomy 28:1-2:
But if you obey the voice of the Lord your God faithfully, keeping and observing all those commandments of His that I enjoin on you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All the blessings that follow shall come up and overtake you if you only obey the voice of the Lord your God.
(Then there is a long list of the kinds of blessings to expect.)

When was this blessing expected to take place? At the conclusion of the liturgical rites.

Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 50:13-21:
When all the sons of Aaron in their glory, with the offerings of the Lord in their hands, stood before the whole assembly of Israel, while he (Simon, high priest, son of Onias) completed the rites at the altars, presenting in due order the offering for the Most High, the Almighty, reaching out his hand to the cup, and pouring a libation of the juice of the grape, pouring it at the foot of the altar, an appeasing fragrance to the Most High, the King of all, then the sons of Aaron would shout and blow their trumpets of beaten metal, making a mighty sound ring out as a reminder before the Most High; and immediately the people all together would fall on their faces to the ground, in adoration of their Lord, the Almighty, God Most High, and with the cantors chanting their hymns of praise sweet was the melody of all these voices, as the people pleaded with the Lord Most High, and prayed in the presence of the Merciful, until the service of the Lord was completed, and the ceremony at an end. Then he would come down and raise his hands over the whole concourse of the sons of Israel, to give them the Lord’s blessing from his lips, being privileged to pronounce His name; and once again the people would bow low to receive the blessing from the Most High.

When pronouncing these words of blessing, May the Lord bless you, the priest isn’t speaking in his own name, but in God’s name.

Sadly some priests are using May the Lord bless us instead of God’s words.

Perhaps that is because they wish to make things feel inclusive and team-like.

Perhaps that is because it feels like they are ‘missing out’.

They will never ever miss out when using God’s directive May the Lord bless you.

Acts 20:35 St Paul speaks to the elders of the church of Ephesus, it is a farewell speech:
‘I did this to show you that this is how we must exert ourselves to support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, who Himself said, “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving”.’

Luke 6:38 Jesus says:
‘Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back.’

We often think this passage only refers to temporal things. But it applies to blessings too.

Give blessings, and there will be blessings for you, a full measure…. etc.

God cannot be outdone in generosity.

Whenever a priest uses God’s formula for a blessing, May the Lord bless you, God’s grace and blessing flow out to the people, and the more he blesses people using God’s words, the more grace and blessing he will himself receive. God’s word guarantees it.
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​On Tuesday 5 Sep 2023 a very unusual event happened. It was Week 2 in Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, and the scripture reading was 1 Thess 5:4-5. In the lectionary for Mass that day it was Week 22 of Year 1 and the first reading was 1 Thess 5:1-6,9-11.

Given that this event can only happen once every 2 years at maximum, and that it can only happen if there isn’t a major feast day on the day between late August and mid-September that this particular Tuesday of Week 22 Year 1 could fall upon – it could easily have been 4 years or much longer since the last time both readings matched. There are at least 4 major feast days between late August and mid-September.

On Saturday 2 Sep 2023 a seminarian friend was discussing 1 Thess 5:4-5 because he was seeking ideas for preaching on those verses.

I think you could call that a Divine Set-up for looking more closely at 1 Thess 5:1-11. After looking at the cross references provided by a study bible, and reviewing the transliterated Greek via the BibleHub website, deeper understanding of this passage of Scripture occurred.

At the end I had a new question, ‘How do we build each other up in faith, hope, and agape love?’

Bear with me and I will show you how I reached that new question. It will be a long journey. It starts with reading the text of 1 Thess 5:1-11 in full, then looking at the cross references, and then looking at those places where our English translation doesn’t capture the original Greek well enough.

According to the Jerusalem Bible translation, 1 Thess 5:1-11 goes like this:

1. You will not be expecting us to write anything to you, brothers, about ‘times and seasons’,
2. since you know very well that the Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night.
3. It is when people are saying, ‘How quiet and peaceful it is’ that the worst suddenly happens, as suddenly as labour pains come on a pregnant woman; and there will be no way for anybody to evade it.
4. But it is not as if you live in the dark, my brothers, for that Day to overtake you like a thief.
5. No, you are all sons of light and sons of the day: we do not belong to the night or to the darkness,
6. so we should not go on sleeping, as everyone else does, but stay wide awake and sober.
7. Night is the time for sleepers to sleep and drunkards to be drunk,
8. but we belong to the day and we should be sober; let us put on faith and love for a breastplate, and the hope of salvation for a helmet.
9. God never meant us to experience the Retribution, but to win salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
10. who died for us so that, alive or dead, we should still live united to Him.
11. So give encouragement to each other, and keep strengthening one another, as you do already.

Remember that St Paul was a learned Pharisee, he knew the Old Testament very well, and he also had access to the source material that would in time be recognised by us as the four Gospels. This means that St Paul used terms deliberately to allude to various scripture references, and that we cannot truly understand St Paul’s meaning unless we understand the cross references.

Times and seasons
Daniel 2:21 May the name of God be blessed for ever and ever, since wisdom and power are His alone. His, to control the procession of times and seasons, to make and unmake kings, to confer wisdom on the wise, and knowledge to those with wit to discern,

Acts 1:7-8 Jesus replied, ‘It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father has decided by His own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be My witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.

Matthew 24:36 But as for that day and hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father only.

The literal Greek for 1 Thess 5:1 ‘times and seasons’ is:

Times (chronōn) A space of time or interval; by extension, an individual opportunity; by implication, delay.

Seasons, (kairōn) Fitting season, season, opportunity, occasion, time. Of uncertain affinity; an occasion, i.e. Set or proper time.
As an example, consider Galatians 4:4 When the appointed time came (or the fullness of time) came, God sent His Son, born of a woman. ‘Time’ here is Chronou, and the sense is that a period of Chonou had to elapse before a Kairos time, the incarnation of Jesus, could begin.

Like a thief
Matthew 24:44 Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

2 Peter 3:10 The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then with a roar the sky will vanish, the elements will catch fire and fall apart, the earth and all it contains will be burnt up.

Revelation 3:3 and yet do you remember how eager you were when you first heard the message? Hold on to that. Repent. If you do not wake up, I shall come to you like a thief, without telling you at what hour to expect Me.

Labour pains
Jeremiah 6:14-15 They dress My people’s wound without concern: ‘Peace! Peace!’ they say, but there is no peace. They should be ashamed of their abominable deeds. But not they! They feel no shame, they have forgotten how to blush. And so as others fall, they too shall fall; and they shall be thrown down when I come to deal with them – says the Lord God.

Jeremiah 4:31-5:1 Yes, I hear screams like those of a woman in labour, anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first child; they are the screams of the daughter of Zion, gasping, hands outstretched, ‘Ah, I despair! I am fainting away with murderers surrounding me.’ ‘Rove to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look, now, and learn, search her squares; if you can find a man, one man who does what is right and seeks the truth, then I will pardon her, says the Lord God.’

(Ed. Jeremiah was a prophet sent to invite the people of Israel to repent, and to warn them that if they did not repent, then God’s judgement would come. It resulted in the deportations to Babylon for 70 years.)

Matthew 24:8-14 All this is only the beginning of the birthpangs. Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put to death; and you will be hated by all the nations on account of My name. And then many will fall away; men will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise; and they will deceive many, and with the increase of lawlessness, love in most men will grow cold; but the man who stands firm to the end will be saved. This Good News of the Kingdom will be proclaimed to the whole world as a witness to all the nations. And then the end will come.

No way to evade it
Luke 21:34-36 Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life, and that day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap. For it will come down on every living man on the face of the earth. Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.

Light and darkness
Ephesians 5:6-9 Do not let anyone deceive you with empty arguments: it is for loose living that God’s anger comes down on those who rebel against Him. Make sure that you are not included with them. You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; be like children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness and right living and truth.

Stay awake
Matthew 24:42-43 So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house.

Romans 13:11-14 Besides, you know ‘the time’ has come: you must wake up now: our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ; forget about satisfying your bodies with all their cravings.

(Ed. The word used for ‘time’ here is kairos, an appointed time by God.)

…..and sober
1 Peter 1:13-14 Free your minds, then, of encumbrances; control them, and put your trust in nothing but the grace that will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Do not behave in the way that you liked to before you learnt the truth; make a habit of obedience.

1 Peter 4:7 Everything will soon come to an end, so, to pray better, keep a calm and sober mind.

1 Peter 5:8-9 Be calm but vigilant, because your enemy the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion, looking for someone to eat. Stand up to him, strong in faith and in the knowledge that your brothers all over the world are suffering the same things.

Put on armour
Ephesians 6:11 Put God’s armour on so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics.

Isaiah 59:15-18 Sincerity is missing and he who avoids evil is robbed. The Lord God has seen this, and is indignant that there is no justice to be seen. He saw that there was no one and wondered there was no one to intervene. So He made His own arm His mainstay, His own integrity His support. He put integrity on like a breastplate, and on His head the helmet of salvation. He put vengeance on like a cloak. To each He will pay His due, wrath to His enemies, reprisals on His foes.

Faith, hope and love
1 Thessalonians 1:3 We constantly remember before God our Father how you have shown your faith in action, worked for love and persevered through hope, in our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:13 In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.

Retribution
1 Thessalonians 1:10 You are now waiting for Jesus, His Son, whom He raised from the dead, to come from heaven to save us from the retribution (or wrath) which is coming.

Strengthen each other
1 Thessalonians 4:14-15 Be at peace among yourselves. And this is what we ask you to do, brothers: warn the idlers, give courage to those who are apprehensive, care for the weak and be patient with everyone.

Ephesians 2:20-21 You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus Himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on Him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord.

If you now go back and re-read 1 Thess 5:1-11, your understanding of it should have changed significantly.

It is time now to look more carefully at the Greek transliteration.
What we have as ‘How calm and peaceful it is’, uses peace with a connotation of prosperity and security with connotations of safety, reliability, firmness – what we might call stability.

What we have as ‘live in the dark’ uses not in darkness with connotations of both physical and moral darkness, as well as obscurity, and may refer to being under the sway of the rulers of darkness mentioned in Ephesians 6:12.

What we have as ‘the worst suddenly happens’ uses destruction with connotations of ruin, doom, death and punishment.

What we have as ‘Retribution’ uses wrath with connotations of punishment and violent justifiable passion and abhorrence.

What we have as ‘alive or dead’ uses awake with connotations of being watchful and alert and uses asleep with connotations of sleeping or falling asleep.

To give encouragement to each other uses the same verb that we get paraclete from.

What we have as ‘strengthen each other’ uses build one another up with connotations of a house-builder and constructing and confirming.

What does this mean for us today?
Maybe when reading Matthew 24:8-14 and Romans 13:11-14 you had a Josiah moment.

When King Josiah had the rediscovered book of the law read to him, he was deeply perturbed, because he saw throughout his kingdom God’s law being flouted to an alarming degree and he knew that because God’s words are true, that retribution was coming. Even though King Josiah did his best to turn his kingdom back to God, the impact of several unworthy kings before him was not possible to wipe out. However, God in His kindness promised Josiah that he would not see the retribution in his lifetime, and so it was, and the warfare that led to the Babylonian exile started shortly after his death.

These times of wrath and retribution have happened throughout bible history and Christian history. Consider the destruction of Tyre in bible history; and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD considered to be God’s response to rejecting salvation through Jesus; and the wipeout of the Mayan civilisation with its human sacrifices. Truly bad leaders like Ahaz and Jeroboam had their entire families wiped out by God’s decree.

We need to take this truth seriously. God’s wrath is real. Look how far the world around us has moved away from living according to God’s ten commandments - and realise that when the time of mercy ends that the time of justice and wrath will begin. After God’s dramatic reset, the cycle will begin again: a wholesale return to God under holy leaders and when sins pile up enough over time and hopefully after a very long time, justice and wrath again. Chastisements of such a nature are needed whenever we stray too far from God’s path, and they are proof that He loves us like a father.

St Paul in 1 Thess 5:1-11 tells us what to do to prepare and to survive times of retribution.
Firstly we must live Godly lives and have absolutely no compromise with darkness.
Secondly we need to grow in faith, in hope and in the agape quality of love.
Then we need to encourage each other to do likewise.
Finally we need, with the help of the Holy Spirit’s charisms, in unity, to build up the earthly part of the temple of God in alignment with Jesus Christ our foundation stone.

So how do we build ourselves and each other up in faith, hope, and agape love? That’s the pressing question that we need to be answering.
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This year the official days of World Youth Day were from 1 August to 6 August 2023. But many dioceses chose to do either a pre-pilgrimage, a post-pilgrimage, or both.

The purpose of this blog-post is to bring together a selection of World Youth Day experiences, because without seeing the event through the viewpoint of many pilgrims you can’t get a true overall impression.

As I’ve done in past World Youth Days, I attempted to find pilgrims who were recording their journey as they went, and I’ve also been looking at the post-WYD reflections.

Instagram
These were the best of the best:

www_23_ploddyredbus_ccc
Starting from 21 July 2023 until 12 August 2023. ‘Ploddy’ is a yellow stuffed-toy dinosaur with a set of badges running down his spine, with each badge representing a secondary college in the diocese of Broken Bay.

mel._.var
Starting from 21 July 2023 until 12 August 2023

gerard_sadaya83
Starting from 20 July 2023 until 19 Aug 2023

Facebook
The Australian bishops did a good job of regular postings while they were on pilgrimage. Look for posts between 20 July 2023 and 30 Aug 2023. The following names are how you can search for them on Facebook:

Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP
Bishop Columba Macbeth-Green OSPPE DD
   They both went to the Holy Land prior to Lisbon and Fatima

Bishop Anthony Randazzo
   He went through Northern Italy before Lisbon and Fatima

Archbishop Peter A Comensoli
   He went to Rome and Assisi prior to Lisbon; and managed to get his pilgrims a private audience with Pope Francis.

Blog
Start here https://www.cavanaghart.com/blog/pilgrim-blog-1-leaving-sydney and keep going until 18 August 2023; or start here to see the whole pilgrim blog archive https://www.cavanaghart.com/wyd-2023-lisbon.html

YouTube
Parramatta Diocese did an excellent video log of each day of their pilgrimage, with a different group of pilgrims talking to camera each day. They visited both Lourdes and Fatima and were honoured by special roles in the candlelight processions. Here is the starting point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX2oKQiweUE then keep going until you have reached Day 20.

The Diocese of Corpus Christi from Texas did a very good video log as well. Persevere through this first one, because it is a little long, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mdQoNtEujc and keep going until Day 11, although some days have a part 1 and a part 2.

Fr Jonathan Meyer from All Saints Parish, Guilford, Indiana gave both a homily recap and a later recap about his WYD pilgrimage experiences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyuUN1E9fko
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpCHHQAwtfo

I am grateful that a pilgrim managed to record this catechesis from Bishop Barron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q4aG7FGLqY

I know there has been a lot of controversy about the DJ music on the morning of 6 August, so here is a video clip for you to judge for yourself. Given the evident joy and skill of the priestly DJ and the joyful tone of the music, you might be pleasantly surprised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Iruq7b34xI&t=731s

​Major Talks by Pope Francis at WYD Lisbon
Each of these fit onto 2 x A4 pages

Reflections upon World Youth Day Lisbon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxT2vpfnA0k with two pilgrims from Canada.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB0nwFNclUg&t=26s with two Australian seminarians.

Fruits of World Youth Day
Most of us long to see immediate positive results from World Youth Day experiences. How deep the seeds of grace go depend on the preparation prior to World Youth Day. But those seeds also need to be watered by prayer; so if you were praying for the pilgrims during World Youth Day please consider continuing to cover them with prayer in the weeks and months ahead. As per the parable of ‘the sower of the seed’, the best results take the longest time to emerge. To keep you hopeful these two gems are provided:

https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/monica-doumit-world-youth-day-brings-the-churchs-future-leaders-together/
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PYudcIi9Vw

​Welcome to the start of a series of blog-posts related to Morning Prayer of the Church. It is for 4 weeks only, but may take a lot longer to write up! I’m already 2 weeks behind – so that doesn’t augur well. This week we are looking at the background to the hymns.

The hymn for the Common of Pastors, Morning Prayer begins with the lines “The Saints who toiled from place to place, spreading the Gospel of God’s grace” and has three stanzas.

As with the other hymns, this one too takes us back into a time of graced history. To explain this, we need to go back to 1829 and the Catholic Emancipation Act in England. It was the end of a process that took some 150 years to remove persecution from English law. But it had an unintended consequence, because over the next few decades clergy and scholars began to feel free to start researching the medieval period prior to Henry VIII, and at the same time there was a resurgence in the study of Latin and Greek. In this era John Henry Newman, the Inklings, and what became known as the Oxford Movement emerged. The Anglo-Catholic part of the Anglican church experienced a resurgence.

In 1863, Walter Howard Frere was born, and in due time he studied at Cambridge and was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1889. He soon came into contact with others who were attracted by what they were learning about the history of various monastic and religious orders. After extensive preparation and study Walter Frere became one of the six founding members of a new Anglican religious community called the Community of the Resurrection.

They began this adventure in God on 25 July 1892 in Oxford, but soon moved south to Radley. A charism of pastoral involvement emerged, and they experienced a strong desire to minister among the working classes. So in 1898 the Community of the Resurrection moved to Mirfield in West Yorkshire. Here they founded a theological training college for those who felt called to pastoral ministry but who could never afford the tuition fees. Since it opened in 1902 it is still fulfilling this purpose. They also have a retreat ministry and a publishing house.

It was in this environment of rediscovery that Walter Frere was led to write the hymn, ‘The Saints who toiled from place to place.’

When the original leader of the community was selected as a bishop, it fell to Walter Frere to do the work of establishing the community on a sound footing. But he too was getting noticed, especially his writings on liturgical matters, and was selected as the bishop of Truro in 1923. As he approached his 72nd birthday, he resigned as bishop of Truro and returned to the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield. He died on 2 Apr 1938, on a Saturday, a few weeks prior to Resurrection Sunday that year, which was on 17 Apr 1938. He was buried at Mirfield.
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It is amazing that the grace of God the six founders responded to in 1892, is still going strong and bearing good fruit 131 years later. For that we give thanks and praise to God.

Welcome to the start of a series of blog-posts related to Morning Prayer of the Church.

It is for 4 weeks only. This week we are looking at the background to the hymns.

The hymn for Tuesday Week 4 Morning Prayer : also Tuesday Week 2 Morning Prayer : begins with the lines “Father, we praise You, now the night is over” and has three stanzas.

Originally written in Latin, this hymn is attributed to St Gregory the Great, 540-604, although there is controversy about this, with some thinking that Alcuin of York or someone associated with St Gregory the Great was the author.

What do we know about Gregory? He came from a wealthy and influential family, and was a very generous man. There is evidence that he was also an intelligent and learned man, because we still read his writings. He has extant works about Ezekiel and the Gospels. After a distinguished public career he became a Benedictine monk in 575, but only had about 2 years of peace in the monastery before the then pope made him one of the seven Cardinal Deacons of Rome. In that capacity he was sent as a diplomat to Constantinople for six years. In 590 he reluctantly became pope after every escape option was cut off. We also know that he took an intense interest in liturgy and in sacred music, and Gregorian chant is named for him. But he was never a well man, and had stomach complaints.

As someone who had frequented papal courts and kingly courts, the line “Monarch of all things, fit us for your mansions” fits. As someone who struggled with ill health, the line “Banish our weakness, health and wholeness sending” fits.

From my weeks of delving into the origins of various hymns for the liturgy of the hours there is a constant to be noticed: both the original writer and the translator are exceptionally learned and gifted, with deep knowledge of the bible. Therefore for St Gregory the Great to be the author fits with that pattern, and if not, he certainly had a hand in the collaboration or inspiration of this hymn.

The hymn itself certainly evokes a group of monks gathering in the very early hours of the morning in some building made of thick stones, belting out these hymn lyrics to a military-like cadence in a burst of praise to God.

I did try to find out the origins of this 11.11.11.5 hymn meter, and failed. That tends to indicate the antiquity of this particular pattern.

Now we turn to the translator into English. That’s Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936, who studied at Oxford and became an Anglican cleric. He was part of the Anglo-Catholic movement that had begun to take shape under John Henry Newman and friends. In Percy’s time there was a flourishing of interest in things liturgical and in studying what could be gleaned from the medieval and pre-medieval eras. Percy himself helped edit hymn books and contributed translations of Latin hymns. His final years were spent as a canon at Westminster Abbey.

I’m sure he never considered that some of his translations would still be being used over a hundred years later, and in Roman Catholic circles.

But how like God for Him to make sure that works of excellence are preserved for future generations to be blessed by. He raises up gifted scholars at various times in history to make inspired contributions under the influence of His grace.
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St Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Over the past year or so, the Albanese government in Australia has been promoting a referendum to change the Australian constitution. The purpose is to set up a new constitutional entity made up of indigenous peoples as an advisory body to the Australian parliament. About this proposal I have many concerns.

The first concern is that it is a top-down decision and hasn’t arisen from the grass roots of the nation, unlike the 1967 referendum vote to include indigenous Australians in population counts which was a grass roots movement with wide support, easy to understand, and easy to ascertain if it has been done properly.

The second concern is that a lot of money is being spent by government to push for the Yes vote. We’ve seen government buses with slogans. We are seeing Australian business corporations also displaying alliance with the Yes vote, as they did for the same sex marriage plebiscite. Previously business corporations had zero interest in the outcome of national decisions. But in this age of so-called virtue signaling, it has become de rigueur. This bothers me because it has a coercive impact.

The third concern is the appeal to emotion rather than to reason. It goes something like this, as a nation we are more aware than ever of the injustices meted out to indigenous Australians throughout our history, and we are grieved about this, and think something should be done. This referendum is a something, therefore we should do it to assuage the guilt levels we feel. No one seems to be asking whether this voice to parliament is the best solution or not.

The fourth concern is that we have a history of well-meaning legislation supposedly put forward to better the lot of our indigenous peoples and actually making their lives worse.

The fifth concern is that the actual legislation to enact the referendum change, should it be voted in, will not be written until after the vote. In effect each of us is signing a blank cheque with unknown consequences. We know that the promises of our politicians aren’t worth much, since we are still waiting for them to enact legislation to protect free speech and religious liberty – which was promised as part of the same sex marriage legislation.

The sixth concern is that the letter of this unknown actual legislation could be significantly different to what the various politicians have been promising that it will be. I’ve seen footage of a politician speaking to one group of people saying that the change will be minimal and then speaking to another group of people and saying that the change will be far more than minimal.

The seventh concern is the wedge this proposed referendum is driving between indigenous Australians and non-indigenous Australians. It seems the antithesis of ‘Australians All Let Us Rejoice’ as we sing in the national anthem. If one was truly cynical you could consider it a diabolical invention to inflame racial hatred in this country. We are already facing derogatory terminology if we dare to question this referendum proposal, and being accused of hurting our indigenous folk because we are yet to be convinced that it is a good thing for them, and for all of us.

The eighth concern is that you don’t normally get politicians, corporate business and media singing from the same hymn sheet unless there is a much bigger agenda afoot; and yes, I am deeply worried that it is a W.E.F. agenda or similar.

Let’s step back and look at the objective situation.
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In Australia there are many hundreds of indigenous nations, tribes and cultural groups.

It isn’t a wonderful photo, because it was taken through glass at the State Library of NSW, but it does give you an idea about the diversity of indigenous nations within Australia.

Now some of them are freshwater people, some of them are river people, some of them are salt-water people, some of them are desert people, some of them are river people, some of them are grass plains people, some of them are mountain people, some of them are rain forest people – and I’m sure to have missed some out.

Each of these indigenous nations has a very strong connection to the geographical area of their nation, and deep understanding about how all the landscape, the plants and animals all coexist. What I need you to see is that it is a local relationship and local custodianship. There are all kinds of multi-layered stories to explain geographic formations and animal traits.

Can you begin to see the troubles that could arise if a river person starts making decisions that affect desert people? Or if a rain forest person starts making decisions that affect grass plains people?

Consider that each of these peoples all have different laws, customs, stories and culture, and that some of these things change according to whoever carries leadership or eldership at the time. For example, one elder may have a prohibition about speaking about deceased people for 3 years, and the next elder may have a prohibition about speaking about deceased people for 10 years.

Now consider that many indigenous peoples are not living on their ancestral lands. This is truer in urban areas than in outback areas. I attempted last year to find out if there were any indigenous people with ancestral connection to the area I live in and still living here. I failed to find any. What I did find were indigenous people with connections to the mid north coast of NSW, to the Riverina region of NSW, and to river people of VIC. I discovered that a former local indigenous leader wasn’t from around here either.

What happens to your region if there are no elders with ancestral connections to represent your region in the voice to parliament?

Next consider the problematic definition of who is indigenous and who isn’t. Are you indigenous if you have at least one great-grandparent indigenous (1/8)? Are you indigenous if you can trace any indigenous ancestor back to 1788? When do you stop being indigenous and start being hodge-podge Australian? It certainly matters from a government funding point of view. Does someone who has 1/16 indigenous ancestry have the right to tell someone with two indigenous parents what to do - and how to live their lives?

Believe it or not matters can be even more complicated. We watched a Who Do You Think You Are episode recently about a retired director of an indigenous dance company. Going through his family tree found Australian indigenous, Cook Island ancestry, and Philippine ancestry and more. How many others have such hybrid ancestral connections – and don’t realise it?

What happens if people start identifying with indigenous Australians, even though their ancestry is thoroughly Anglo-Celtic? Do they get government funding as indigenous? Since we are living in the craziness of men identifying as women and vice versa, this is no longer in the region of “la la land”, but a real issue.

It makes far more sense to me that an indigenous elder should have an ex-officio seat at the local government table. That’s where the custodianship is, that’s where the knowledge and commitment is. But it needs to be an indigenous elder with a true ancestral connection to the local government area.

Because of the local focus of indigenous nations within Australia, it makes no sense to me to set up a national body of indigenous to speak to national issues. The concern is that the people interested on serving on such a voice to parliament would be political activists and politicians – unless there is a way to make them hereditary positions. But who is going to say which indigenous bloodlines are more important than other indigenous bloodlines?

What is going to stop political activists from making constitutional challenges to be heard in the high court which could enshrine interpretations at complete odds with the understanding of the people who voted yes to the voice to parliament? How do you protect against people acting in their own interests at odds with the needs of the rest of Australians? How do you protect against people acting for foreign interests at odds with the true needs of Australians?

It all feels like a recipe for chaos, disorder and disunity, with the possibility of pitting one indigenous culture against another one. Chaos, disorder and disunity are at enmity with peace, unity and truth. Shouldn’t we want national decisions that establish peace, unity and truth in our land?
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That’s why, unless the structure of the referendum proposal drastically changes for the better, I will be voting No.

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Below is a printer friendly edited version, 4 x A4 pages,
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Welcome to the start of a series of blog-posts related to Morning Prayer of the Church.

It is for 4 weeks only. This week we are looking at the background to the hymns.

The hymn for Monday Week 4 Morning Prayer : also Monday Week 2 Morning Prayer : begins with the lines “Come, O Creator Spirit, come, and make within our hearts Your home” and has four stanzas.

Originally this hymn was in Latin, and very famous, as the Veni Creator Spiritus. Of venerable origin this Latin hymn is attributed to St Rabanus Maurus, 776-856, a 9th century Benedictine abbot who became Archbishop of Mainz in Germany and who studied under an extraordinary teacher named Alcuin of York. To the young Rabanus was given the nickname Maurus by Alcuin: Maurus being the name of the first disciple of St Benedict of Nursia – founder of the Benedictine order.

The Veni Creator Spiritus is sung at very special occasions to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit. Versions of it are sung at Pentecost. It is particularly sung in Latin at the beginning of a papal conclave, at the beginning of Vatican II and other Councils and Synods, at the consecration of bishops and the ordination of priests, at the dedication of churches, whenever a religious profession is made, and at the coronation of monarchs. Recently it was sung in Latin at Westminster Abbey for the coronation of King Charles III. It is also highly recommended as the hymn to start each new year with. It was sung at the beginning of the retreat by Duquesne University students in Feb 1967 that God used to begin the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

But we pray a truncated version of this Veni Creator Spiritus in English on these Mondays of Morning Prayer. The person who translated it was Robert Seymour Bridges, 1844-1930, an Englishman who was England’s poet laureate in 1913. He studied medicine at Oxford, became a physician for a while, but then moved into writing poetry and translating hymns as a full time occupation.

Whenever we pray this hymn as part of Morning Prayer it becomes a gentle reminder to start each new week with seeking the help of the Holy Spirit.

But it is also a reminder to work to the best of our ability with the gifts and talents that God has given us. When we do that, like Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus and Robert did, then God crowns that inspired work with His favour and causes it to be used in ways far beyond what they could ever have imagined.
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St Rabanus Maurus, pray for us.

I acknowledge that sharing a dream has not been the usual fare of this blog.
If the contents of this dream help you, well and good.
If not, brush it away.

I also acknowledge that the raw material for this dream came from a book about God speaking through dreams, that I have been reading.

I found myself in the midst of some kind of young adult group, and the women members were complaining about the lack of men in the group.

It seemed that I decided to go and consult a venerable and holy man about the matter.

It took some kind of distance between 1 and 3 hours to get there.

I was welcomed, and then asked him this question.

As he lowered his arm facing my left hand side, I could see a number of young men kneeling in silence before Jesus present in the tabernacle.
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He told me, ‘You see these men, they are in hidden preparation. They will make very good husbands and leaders. But it is not possible for them to be released until the young women turn away from wearing bikinis and anything else that would keep these young men from following the higher path.’