LOVE URGES US TO LIVE MORE INTENSELY

Charity sanctifies every action, even the most trivial and indifferent, and confers upon it a value for eternal life. 'Love urges us to live more intensely for him who died for us and rose again'.

By living in this manner we carry out the divine plan for our soul, and reach that level of love that God expects of us and with which we shall love and glorify him for all eternity. (Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, as previously.)

WE SHALL BE ESTABLISHED FOREVER IN THE DEGREE OF LOVE WE REACH IN TIME

Last night, New Year’s Eve, I wrote my email with its ‘holy thought’ as usual, but not from the usual site (my desk). From my son’s kitchen table, where I sat party-sitting, it refused to budge and on my return home, at midnight, it had gone AWOL.  So belatedly, here it is:

 In eternity… time will be no more; we shall be established forever in the degree of love which we have reached now, in time.

If we have attained a high degree of love, we shall be fixed forever in that degree of love and glory; if we possess only a slight degree, that is all we shall have throughout eternity (Fr Gabriel, as previously).

WRESTLING OVER FREE SPEECH IN REGARD TO ABORTION (Letter to Dom Post, Dec 31)

‘Censorship slowly rots society’, argues Matthew Parris (Wrestle over free speech goes on, Dec 30). I absolutely agree. But censorship not of the media, but by the media, which he fails to mention, is a factor more putrefying than any other.

 

Parris wisely observes that ‘protecting people from harm has an emotive appeal that the defenders of free speech will always struggle to counter’. Even journalists apparently succumb to this emotive appeal.

 

Presumably it’s a natural inclination to protect women from painful reminders of their personal tragedies, the trauma of abortion, which explains the media’s persistent failure to allow pro-lifers freedom of speech - and as probably one in three women in New Zealand have suffered an abortion, to do so would certainly qualify as shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre. 

But the media’s raison d’etre is to inform, and in this instance, to inform women of the health risks of abortion. 

In the wrestle over free speech in regard to abortion, in which corner are New Zealand’s media, in particular The Dominion Post ?

GOD MADE MAN INTELLIGENT AND FREE (from my nightly family email)

God has made man intelligent and free; he offers him all the treasures of salvation and holiness contained in the infinite merits of Jesus Christ; man is free to accept or refuse.


From Divine Intimacy, by Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD

FLOWERS NOT WASTING THEIR SWEETNESS ON THE DESERT AIR

For years now I've been sending my long-suffering children (all adult) a nightly collective email.

Events and encounters amusing and embarrassing, brilliant ideas and appeals to their better nature, several short paragraphs usually, all leading to the particular brilliant idea which inspired the venture.

That in turn was inspired by a few verses in the Divine Office which cut me to the quick:


Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which  I command you this day shall be upon your heart;and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise (Deuteronomy 6: 4-7).


I realised how far I’d fallen short of this ideal I'd fallen and thought, I know, I'll send them a line or two every night from whatever it is I'm currently reading – which apart from the daily rag (The Dominion Post) is exclusively what’s called 'spiritual reading' (such a rebarbative description for such utterly absorbing material. Once upon a time I devoured literary fiction, but no more. A friend who's HOD Speech and Drama at leading 'gels' ’ school says I don't know what I'm missing but I do, and that's exactly why I'm not missing it).

I suspect my kids skip the bit in italics at the end of my nightly message, and read only the come-on.

So not wanting to have my flowers wasting their sweetness on the desert air I thought, I know! I can post my nightly ‘holy thought’ on my blog.

So now you’re in for it.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL BELIEVES UNBORN CHILDREN AREN'T HUMAN (Letter published in Dom Post, Jan 4)

Grant Bayldon of Amnesty International says ‘human rights define the basic requirements we as humans have to be able to live our lives in a fair society’ (Never take human rights for granted, Dec 29). 

But hang on. Amnesty promotes abortion, which denies unborn children the basic requirement they ‘have to be able to live’, full stop.

 

Evidently Amnesty believes unborn children are not human. Can Bayldon please explain what they are, then?

THE FLAG DEBACLE SEEMS PRETTY EXPENSIVE (Letter published in Dom Post, Dec 23)

We’ve been told the $26m we coughed up to fund the flag debacle  - not to mention many millions more if we persist - is neither here nor there. A bagatelle. And I can see that to a Prime Minister and Cabinet who’ve just pocketed thousands more pay, it would seem like small beer. 

But a year’s supply of 33 types of fruit and veg for 110,000 school pupils (More kids to get free fruit in schools, Dec 21) will cost just $7.8m. To those kids and their parents the flag debate must seem pretty expensive.