WHO OR WHAT IS "SERIOUSLY UNDERPOWERED"? (letter to DomPost, Dec 29)

If David Seymour thinks his fellow MPs are "seriously underpowered" - presumably compared with him - and if he’s so “into polls” (People of Parliament, according to Seymour, December 29), how come he can’t figure the stats on submissions to the Parliamentary Select Committee on euthanasia?

78 per cent were opposed to the law being changed to let doctors kill their patients or help them commit suicide. 

Seymour should be able to deduce that it’s his own noxious End of Life Choice Bill, rather than his fellow MPs, which is “seriously underpowered”, and withdraw it from the ballot.

ARE WE ALL CAPABLE OF LOVING GOD, OR NOT?

Someone sent me this query today:

Does God not make all people with the ability to deep intimacy with Him? Is it actually impossible for some as they are not wired to 'get' detachment or abandonment and they have no interest? Is it just not in their data-base to 'get it'?

So I looked up Divine Intimacy (which has a very handy index) and sent her Fr Gabriel's answer:

What is of the greatest importance is to know that union with God is not reserved for a small number of privileged souls; God calls every soul of good will to union with Himself, regardless of the way by which He chooses to lead it. Hence the ordinary way, “the little way”, as St Therese of the Child Jesus called it, or the “carriage road”, according to St Maria Bertilla, leads just as surely to divine union. ... Whether God chooses to lead us by one way or by the other, we shall never lack the necessary divine help to attain to union with Him.

BEST STRATEGY FOR MANAGING STRESS (Letter to Dom Post, Dec 27)

I hate stating the obvious, but I suppose to non-Christians it’s not obvious that the best strategy for managing stress (How cortisol may affect your health, December 27) is prayer.

 

Dr Libby suggests meditation as a “breath-focused practice”, but the God-focused practice of contemplative prayer is incomparably superior. Look at one of its best-known modern practitioners, Mother Teresa of Kalkuta, and what she achieved.

 

Cortisol? I bet she didn’t know the meaning of the word.

WE KNOW BY EXPERIENCE

There are things too good to keep to oneself. Such as the thoughts I pass on to my kids every night by email, which are not mine anyway, but very often belong to Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD, and published in his classic work, Divine Intimacy. Tonight's quote (below) is one such.

From the silent, loving contemplation of the Infant Jesus there is easily aroused in us a more profound and penetrating sense of his infinite love; we no longer merely believe, but in a certain way we know by experience God’s love for us.

A CONTEMPLATIVE, REGIFTED CHRISTMAS PREZZIE FOR YOU

Here, as a re-gifted Christmas prezzie for you, is an extract from Divine Intimacy by Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen which goes straight to the crux of the mystical life.

'The infallible word of Jesus resounds continually in the heart of every Christian: “If a man loves me . . . we will come to him and make our home with him”(Jn 14:23).

Just the same there still remains a great question: if God abides in every person who lives in the state of grace, why does such a person have such difficulty in finding him and in recognizing his presence?

John of the Cross answers: “It should be known that the Word, the Son of God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit is hidden by his essence and his presence in the innermost being of the soul. A person who wants to find him must leave all things through affection and will, enter into himself in deepest recollection and regard things as though they were nonexistent”(Sp C 1:6).

The answer is clear: God is within us, but he is hidden. In order to find him we must go forth from everything as regards affection and will That means to detach ourselves, to renounce ourselves, annihilate ourselves, to die spiritually to ourselves and to all things, not so much, or only, by a physical withdrawal, but especially by detachment of the affections and the will. It is the path of the “nothing,”or complete detachment; it is the death of the old man, the indispensable condition for putting on Christ, for life in God.

St. Paul, too, has said: “You have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God”(Col. 3:3). The loving search for God present in our heart goes hand in hand with this dying to the world and to ourselves. In this sense, the more we die to ourselves, the more we find God.

The soul. . . “in order to speak to its eternal Father and to find its delight in him has no need to go to heaven . . . neither is there any need for wings to go to find him. All one need do is to go into solitude and look at him within us”(St. Teresa, The Way of Perfection 28:2).

But in actual fact, Christians, even those consecrated to God, are very often satisfied with a superficial life, pretty much an exterior one, which makes them incapable of recollecting themselves interiorly in order to come into contact with God. We have in us a host of inclinations, ideas, and strong passions which make us turn toward creatures and induce us to give them our heart, to build our hopes on them and find consolation in their presence and remembrance.

All this can make us go so far as to forget, or at least neglect the great treasure that we carry within us: God, living and present, who urges us on to a life that is deeper and truer, a life of intimate communion with him. The Lord awaits us there, in the depths of our soul, where he has set up his abode; but we find it very difficult to recollect ourselves at such a depth, and continue to let ourselves be taken up with a thousand external matters to which we give all our interest.

“Anyone who is to find a hidden treasure,”warns St. John of the Cross, “must enter the hiding place secretly, and once he has discovered it, he will also be hidden just as the treasure is hidden. Since, then, your beloved Bridegroom is the treasure hidden in a field, for which the wise merchant sold all his possessions (Mt 13:44). . . in order to find him you should forget all your possessions and all creatures and hide in the interior, secret chamber of your spirit”.

Without a certain avoidance of the outer world, of the superficial life, it is impossible to reach God who is present, but hidden, in us; it is impossible to live in communion with him who never abandons us unless we first abandon him.'

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TRUE TESTIMONY TO THE BABY OF BETHLEHEM

The lives of Cyril Naylor, the Lower Hutt ‘legend’ and Suzanne Aubert, Our first likely saint (December 23) offer touching and true testimony to Jesus Christ, God made man and born in a cave at Bethlehem to teach us to how to love.

If only we could follow their example.

MOST WANTED CHILDREN NOT TO BE HAD (Letter published in Dom Post Dec 20)

At Christmas time, when the whole world celebrates the marvel of birth, the plight of women unable to conceive is particularly poignant. So why are Fertility funds falling short (December 19)?

Back in the day, infertility was rare. Now, because of abortion and delayed childbearing, it’s common. Back then women could decide to adopt, and that decision alone not infrequently resulted in pregnancy. Now, because of abortion, there are no babies to adopt.

‘Every child a wanted child’. That was one of the ALRANZ catch-cries, and unwanted children were done away with. Isn’t it ironic that as a result of that policy the most wanted children are not to be had. 

A STRANGE BILL ENGLISH (Letter to Dom Post, December 13)

This is a new Bill English (December 13), certainly, given his startling volte-face on “gay marriage”.

This issue was never an attack on traditional marriage; it’s an attack on the right of children to a mother and a father and the proven but unreported benefits of that right.

 

This is a strange Bill English. And this is a funny sort of Christmas present our new Prime Minister is giving to the children of New Zealand.

FRANCE MAY OUTLAW 'PRO-LIFE PROPAGANDA'

If I were writing these pro-life posts in France, I'd be risking two years in prison and a $30,000 fine. That's the fate proposed for all pro-life websites in a new bill which forbids 'pro-life propaganda' in that country.

France was the first nation as such to convert to the Catholic faith. By the baptism of King Clovis in 496AD, by the inspiration and example of the Saint Clotilda, Queen of the Franks, France received a mission and vocation as 'The Eldest Daughter of the Church'.

We await the response of the bishops of France, 'Eldest Daughter of the Church', to this outrageous offence to Christianity and to God.

INCONVENIENT TRUTHS (Letter to Dom Post, Dec 7)

“Some truths,” says Doug Bailey (The decline of fact and reason, December 7), “really are inconvenient and have far-reaching implications for how we live and breed”. He cites climate change and the environmental costs of growth.

 

I can think of a couple or three other truths which are more inconvenient, so much so that the media’s need for advertising revenue means they’re almost entirely suppressed. One is the harm done by early childhood care. Two, the high incidence of child abuse in single-parent families. Three, the harm done to women by abortion – including the proven link between abortion and breast cancer.

 

The facts are out there, but so are very powerful influencers preventing any commentary in the media. Bailey says we must demand more of the fourth estate and of ourselves; what we should demand is honesty, courage and disinterest.

 

Otherwise we will continue, like the bedevilled Gadarene swine, to rush to Noam Chomsky’s precipice.

CALL ME OLD-FASHIONED (Letter published in Dom Post, Dec 3)

In Free GP visits for under-18s get nod, December 1, “deprivation reinforced by ethnicity” is cited as a driver for poor health and its consequences.

We know that abused children are far more likely to be Maori and Pasifika than Pakeha or Asian, and that child abuse is closely associated with poor health. It’s high time we acknowledged that the incidence of child abuse and poor health is closely associated with single-parent families.

Call me old-fashioned, but the fact remains that the healthiest children are those protected by a mother and father who have committed themselves to each other and their children in marriage.

HOMOPHOBIA OR HOMOSEXUALITY? (Letter to Dom Post, Dec 6)

MP Paul Foster-Bell is worked up over gay students failing and puts it down to homophobic bullying and harassment in schools.

Is it only bullies who are the cause of such unhappiness, and not also the condition of homosexuality itself - or the awful choice now visited on vulnerable teenagers by sex ed of whether to be straight or gay, instead of the general acceptance of our given sexuality which we enjoyed before we became ‘sexually educated’? Or even worse, now teens are enlightened by the LGBT hegemony, the agonizing over whether they should be male or female?

As for Bishop Brian, what Foster-Bell calls his “outburst” has been roundly condemned also by the establishment churches. But they take it for granted that once upon a time, “God sent a flood”.

So why can’t he send an earthquake?