Last of my faith based posts for a while. I promise.
I went to Mass. For the first time in a long long time. Donned a nice dress stuck some make up on and put my ridonculously long hair up. My son told me he liked his “riz” in his little tweed jacket. Straightened his tie and off we went.
I chose a parish where I knew the priest and that he would provide Joseph and myself with a solid one two history and theological lesson combined as he always does. The church was buried in a poor district. It was a modernish building. It was packed. I knew no one and felt like an imposter. I ignored that feeling ignored the terrible English hymn singing and pretended not to notice people receiving holy communion in their hands 😩
Father talked about John and gave us a lesson in who he was and how on Easter morning he ran ahead but then ceded to Peter at the entrance to the tomb. And then rather deftly went on to explain in a few sentences how we can essentially not need to appreciate the inevitable faults of the man (meaning the Pope) but remain committed to upholding our faith. Just as Christ had to contend with Peter’s failings and all the disciples failings. I’ve never thought of it that way and it was as though a few things fell into place at once. All I would add is that it was the women Mary in particular who had to really rally the men out of their despair and interestingly I’ve noticed that a lot online lately. A whole host of women writers out there who’ve provided a great deal of comfort in my despair.
I am not a fan at all of this mass form but he manages to gently wind in some traditions which help. We had a lot of Greek today for example as well as of course some Latin. Then rather randomly but as if go make a point about the languages of the church he asked us all to recite the Our Father in our native tongue. This is deepest rural Gloucestershire and I fully expected the English to ring out. What I heard was a complete mess of languages with English very mute. It’s odd to think that Richard the Lionheart or the Neocon as he’d be known today, more concerned as he was in battles overseas and fighting Islam overseas than seeing it flutter in and take root over here, barely spoke English himself. That the walls of our churches which transcended the ages were covered in pictures because most people did not speak the language of the mass Latin. And yet they did not reject it and still all belonged to one unifying idea which we commemorate today. All of them recognised the value and strength in that one essential humbling levelling message. And we lose it all at our significant expense and ultimate ruin. It’s fine for some people to either believe or not believe but the minute the not believing is the most significant unifying force all manner of deities come rushing in to fill this very human void and make the most of our weakened state. Hence why we now have a mess of violent throat cutting jihadi Islamic men and sex obsessed Baal worshippers with their multi coloured flags and fake vaginas rushing into the field of battle. The split of Christianity into several strands has only served to make it weaker over the last few centuries. The Magna Carta brought a king to heel at the feet of the Church which bore and upheld the liberty of men. It upheld the freedom of that Church. Now we have rights for the sake of rights alone upheld by man made democracy. With nothing but mankind’s unchecked narcissism and professional politicians at its centre.
The last few months have been terrifying. We have absolute clowns on the right aswell as the left attacking Judaism.
We need to uphold our Judao Christian values.
I hear this a lot from some numpties on Twitter: hold the line. What bloody line are you all holding? You’re holding NOTHING. Because there is nothing to hold. If you’re going to hold any line then hold the one which ran from Moses Elijah David a host of prophets through to Peter - or choose Paul if you’re so hung up on that.
We should be standing alongside the Jews and standing up for Christianity. There is no other line.
We also need leadership whether we as humans like that or not. For want of kings if the leaders of our silly unnecessary myriad of broken Christian churches could simply find it in themselves in their unique position to demand the return of the hostages in Gaza the latest war of Islamic incursion and crusade would end. They are all Peter denying and deflecting the truth.
Salisbury:
We chose the Jewish prisoners of Gaza, unfairly imprisoned for who they are.
*****
Happy Easter
This is absolutely beautiful and similarly when I caught sight of it on this substack below I was absolutely overwhelmed.
At a recent Divine Liturgy we had the Lord’s Prayer in nine languages: English, Greek, Romanian, Georgian, Slovakian, Yoruba, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Russian, recently we have also had African -French, Albanian & Hindi. When everyone has had their turn our new Priest says “And the language of. Christ is…” and we all say “Love”.
It is difficult to speak the truth, and yet you seem to speak it easily. Thank you.