Just before I go....

...........I must let you know of a  newly launched website for families,  www.faithfamilynet.com  It's the initiative of three mothers who want to provide a virtual meeting place for Christian families, particularly but not exclusively, parents, so that they can share ideas and experiences of raising children in the practice of their faith.
The mothers are Catholics, and so faithfamilynet has strongly 'Catholic flavour', but is designed to be of interest to all Christian families.

The site is still under construction, but already there is a wealth of helpful information and links about many areas of family life.
I particularly liked this comment from one of the mothers, Anne, who has homeschooled most of her eight children:

" Home education does not mean living in isolation. In fact the biggest objection to it seems to be the fear that one's child will not socialise. People often ask  "aren't you scared they won't fit in?",  to which the reply is,

" I'm terrified they will." !

Though we are not homeschoolers  I think we can understand what Anne means:
in a secular society there is something of a battle for the hearts and minds of our children, a battle which increasingly, is waged in the classrooms and playing fields of  schools all over the country. Parents have to be vigilant over the flame of faith which their children received at baptism, and do all in their power to prevent it being extinguished.

Off to Walsingham....and Ireland

We will be making our way to Our Lady's shrine at Walsingham this week for the Youth2000 prayer festival, which I mentioned the other day and which has become for our family, an unmissable, annual event.

The plan involved me  taking two of our children to Walsingham for some camping, before the prayer festival begins. With the sad news of my aunt's death, that plan is now altered to allow me to stop off near London and join my brother on a flight to  Ireland in order to attend her funeral on Wednesday.
Then, back to London to resume the journey to Walsingham.
At least, that's how it's looking at the moment....

I probably won't be able to post until after the bank holiday...so here's wishing you all a restful holiday weekend!

Prayer Request

Of your charity, please say a prayer for the repose of the soul of my aunt, Josie, who died today.

Eternal rest grant to her O Lord
And let perpetual light shine upon her.
May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed
Through the mercy of God
Rest in peace. Amen

Cardinal Ouellet: Bishops must fearlessly preach, and embrace, the teachings of the Church

Cardinal Marc Ouellet the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops gave a recent interview to Deborah Gyapong of Canadian Catholic News, and reported by Lifesite News from which the following is quoted:

"Bishops “need spiritual discernment and not just political calculation of the risk of the possibility of the message being received,” said Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the newly-appointed prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, in an interview this week.

Ouellet said that in addition to fearlessly preaching the teachings of the Church, bishops must embrace them deeply.  “Then you have the power of conviction,” he said.
  “If you state it only formally and in the end you do not really want to see it applied because you don’t believe that it is possible that people accept it, you are in trouble for the transmission of the message,” he added.


The cardinal, further, said the Church needs what Gyapong called a “new intellectual dynamism” to “recapture the spirit of Christianity” and “create a new Christian culture.”
 
“We need intellectuals for that, theologians, philosophers, Christians who really believe in the Gospel and share the doctrine of the Church on moral questions,” he said.  “We have suffered from this mentality of dissent” that is “still dominating the intelligentsia.”
 
“There is no real discipleship there, real discipleship,” he added. “The discipleship that is emerging is from those who believe and who really love the Church.”


Bishops who embrace the teaching of the Church and preach it fearlessly..

Recovery from the mentality of dissent..
Here in the UK, we could do with some of that, and,
It sounds as though the Cardinal means business....

' You gotta pray! '

Fr Stan Fortuna CFR will be a guest speaker at the Youth 2000 Prayer Festival, (26-30th August, Walsingham)
More details here
 

Bishop Mervyn Alexander RIP

Clifton is my home diocese.  I didn't know Bishop Alexander well, but I had met him a few times: enough to notice the easy, friendly graciousness which seemed to mark his encounters with his flock.
One such encounter was during a summer Catechetical Camp. ( Over a number of years, I   helped out at the Camps which were run for disadvantaged children).
On this occasion, Bishop Alexander came to visit. It was a fine day, and the school we were staying in had an outdoor swimming pool. The children were all very keen to get in the pool, but we weren't sure of the protocol thing-whether it was better to wait till the Bishop had left or continue with activities as usual....or what...
Bishop Alexander decided the question- a short while later he joined the children and staff in the pool, splashing away with the best of them!

May God reward him. 

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord
And let perpetual light shine upon him
May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed,
Through the mercy of  God
Rest in peace
Amen.

World Cup winners offer theTrophy to Our Lady

Honouring a promise made by the President of the Spanish Soccer Federation, Angel Maria Villar, Spain’s soccer team, along with members of the Spanish Soccer Federation, are in Mexico to offer the 2010 World Cup Trophy to Our Lady of Guadalupe.The British Football Association  may claim that it does not do God, but it seems His Mother does do football!

Thanks to Rome Reports and  The Splendour of the Church

The Amazing Treloars...

....came to tea !

We were delighted to meet the lovely Treloar family, who are presently holidaying near us.  You can just pick out the cyclists standing in the back row (4,5&6), in my rather grainy photo.

After tea, the young folk played a game called, I think, 'Murder'....which produced a lot of laughter and no corpses!

One of the lovely things about meeting other large Catholic families is the discovery of many things that you  have in common. Very often, one of these is a family prayer life. It seemed utterly natural to invite this wonderful family to join us in the Rosary, and so, the evening ended.

Back home

The camping tour is over and we're  home again. After a  week-and-a-half  in France, followed by a family wedding in Yorkshire, we covered just over 1850 miles, stayed at five different campsites, one hotel, and managed to not drive on three days!
It really was lovely to go away somewhere different, a chance to take a break from the usual day to day routine, and to recharge the batteries.
My niece's wedding was a delightful occasion, a meeting of many different branches of the family united in the celebration of the sacramental union of two wonderful young people who now begin the great adventure of marriage. May God bless them.
And it's lovely too, to come home.

Now, I just have to try to catch up with news, events and things which have to be done......for instance, washing....lots of......and some more..