Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Incorporated

Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 84 - April 2019

noreply@blogger.com (CNFRI Manager) — Sun, 05 May 2019 23:26:00 +0000

"I really believe that obedience is today’s crisis. People are saying, ‘I will not serve’." Mother Angelica

Message from the Manager

Welcome to our 2019 Easter edition of Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Newsletter. Easter Sunday is the greatest and most glorious feast of the church year. The ceremonies from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday bring us closer to Our Lord who died an agonising death on the Cross to save us. The beautiful ceremonies at the Easter Masses give us a sense of wonder and awe when we realise once again the incredible love God has for each one of us.
A priest once asked his congregation, “Your car won’t go if you don’t fill it with fuel, so how do you expect to get to heaven if you don’t fill your soul with graces?” There are two types of grace: sanctifying and actual. When we receive Sanctifying Grace from the sacraments, God comes to live in our soul. He leaves our soul when we commit mortal sin. Frequent venial sins cause us to fall into bad habits which may lead to mortal sin. The remedy is to receive Holy Communion on Sundays and as much as possible during the week whilst most priests recommend that we go to Confession at least once a month.
Actual graces come from spiritual input, sacramentals and prayer especially attending Mass, the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. God loves us and wants to hear from us as much as possible. Actual graces are like prompts that keep the sanctifying grace topped up. St Alphonsus Liguori once said: “He who prays will be saved; he who does not will be lost”. Spiritual reading and sacramentals including Rosaries, statues, crucifixes and scapulars are reminders: very important reminders that will keep us on the narrow path.
We have a very large range of Rosaries, Crucifixes, Statues, Medals and Scapulars to choose from so please feel free to visit us in St Marys or at Penrose Park after 11 am Mass every Sunday and on the 13th of the month. Our new on-line shop is up and running and the images are gradually returning. We have more than twenty different Prayer Books for children, teenagers and adults and in several sizes and bindings. There is an extensive range of Catholic Bibles and Liturgical Resources.
Below is a list of new titles and perennial favourites to help guide our minds and souls to our ultimate journey’s end: heaven. Some of these provide, not just an understanding of the Catholic Faith, but ourselves and the state of our souls. John Henry Newman, our patron will be canonised soon so we have featured some of his prolific writings in this edition and there are many more titles on our shelves. With daily plans and directions that will help us find time to pray, listen to good Catholic materials and read we can fill our tanks and get closer to our heavenly destination.
Our special thanks to all our readers for their generous prayers, good will and financial support. We could not survive without you so please keep up your prayers for priests, each other and for us. We would like to expand our network. Father’s Handouts are very important, well written and timely when we see the state of the Church and our secular society. If you have a relative or friend whom you know would benefit from our articles or in need of good Catholic materials please hand this Newsletter on and encourage them to put their names down to receive it; whether by mail or email. Thank you once again, May God shower you and your families with many graces this Easter.

Gai Smith
Manager

New Releases

Parenting with the Beatitudes: Eight Holy Habits for Daily Living by Jeannie & Ben Ewing (new) on special $28.95 Parenting with the Beatitudes offers deep spiritual insights for both mothers and fathers about how to strengthen their own virtue formation while also educating their children in moral development. It is much more than a self-help book. Parenting with the Beatitudes assists families in their spiritual walk toward holiness, strengthening and encouraging them along the way. Each chapter is based on one of the eight Beatitudes and offers reflections from both Ben and Jeannie Ewing (parents themselves who have experienced the joys and difficulties of raising Catholic children today) on how St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother lived out this Beatitude in their family, respectively. Each chapter also includes specific “sub-virtues” for each Beatitude. For example, in the chapter on meekness, they explain how to grow in humility (a virtue that most helpful in teaching meekness) and how to teach children the importance of obedience. But do not put it all on your shoulders! Each chapter includes s saint profile (for family discussion or further devotion) and a concluding prayer. Finally, Ben and Jeannie draw on their own experiences and offer practical tips for three developmental age groups: young children, middle school, and adolescence.

Esto Vir by Fr Paul Chandler (new) $19.95
Esto Vir, is Latin for ‘be a man’ and the author suggests this is the central task of a man’s life. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet the obvious is not always so clear. Nor is it easy. We live in a time when, at least in the western world, there is increasing suspicion and distrust of boys and men. Fr Chandler is convinced that for the mental and spiritual welfare of men, we must know what our calling as men is. Why has God created us as men? What can we offer to the world that women cannot? How can we serve and follow Christ as men?
Decisive Parenting: Forming Authentic Freedom in Your Children by Michael Moynihan (new) $19.95
If you seek to raise your children in Christian authenticity and virtue, Moynihan’s book will be a gift to your vocation as a parent. Moynihan “hits the nail on the head” by enveloping the Big Picture into the Everyday, and showing how the little details lead to the final goal. His advice and experience will guide you in your quest to teach your children to love beauty, truth, and goodness. Most importantly, you’ll be able to give your children the tools they need to live in virtue with equanimity, confidence, and self-mastery.
The Manly Art of Raising a Daughter by Alan Migliorato (new) $24.95.
Manual for Women by Danielle Bean (new) $49.95
Also:
Made This Way: How to Prepare Kids to Face Today’s Tough Moral Issues by Leila Miller and Trent Horn $19.95
Why We’re Catholic by Trent Horn $19.95

Teaching with Authority by Jimmy Akin (new) on special for $24.95
What does the Church teach about that? Sometimes this seems like a question with more than one answer. The Catholic Church claims to possess the fullness of Christian truth, but getting to the truth on some matters of doctrine or morals can be a challenge, with different popes, documents, and theologians treating them with different levels of authority and shades of meaning. This can lead not only to personal confusion but, increasingly in our day, conflict and disagreement among Catholics. In Teaching with Authority, Jimmy Akin shows you how to get it all straight. It is not another catechism or “Catholicism for beginners” book. Teaching with Authority is not about understanding specific teachings of the Faith (even the complicated and misunderstood ones) but rather about understanding Catholic teaching itself. Where does the Church’s teaching authority come from? How do we weigh dogmas versus practices, doctrines versus disciplines, conciliar declarations versus papal interviews? How do we sort through the many kinds of ecclesial documents and determine their relative authority and relevance? And, in an age when accusations of “heresy!” fly regularly across social media, with competing sides eager to paint the other as unfaithful to Catholic tradition or to the current pope, Jimmy also tackles the issues of incredulity, apostasy, and schism—showing you how to recognize different forms of dissent and respond to them fittingly. A unique, valuable, and long-overdue resource for all Catholics as well as those inquiring about the Faith, Teaching with Authority will help deepen your understanding of what the Church teaches by showing you (maybe for the first time) how and why and where it does.

For the Love of My people I will not Remain Silent by Joseph Cardinal Zen (new) on special $29.95
The relationship of China with the greatest secular world power, the United States of America, and the most universal global spiritual power, the Catholic Church, is in a state of flux. President Trump and Pope Francis are major protagonists in this dramatic period. Although what is happening in China has an impact worldwide, it is hard for the non-specialist to grasp what is underway and its significance for the future. There are two Catholic communities in China: the "underground", or unofficial, Church and the official, government-controlled Patriotic Church. Cardinal Joseph Zen is one of the most knowledgeable and credible witnesses to what is happening in China, especially on the relationship between these two communities. He is a courageous defender of the underground Church yet has intimate knowledge of the official Church, in part because he taught in several of its seminaries. It has been recognized, and Pope Francis himself has confirmed, that the historic 2007 letter of Pope Benedict XVI to Catholics in China remains the magna carta of the Church in that country. On the tenth anniversary of this letter, Cardinal Zen gave a series of eight lectures on its origin, drafting process, and final content, and these enlightening talks are presented in this book. In these lectures, Cardinal Zen explains in detail what he considers is now threatening the fundamental principles of the letter, and therefore 'his people'. As the title indicates, for the love of his people, he will not remain silent.

Into the Sea, Out of the Tomb: Jonah and Jesus by Maura Roan McKeegan (new) PB $19.95
In this delightfully illustrated children’s book, Maura Roan McKeegan tells the story of Jonah and Jesus. Both were given special missions by God. And both have something very important to teach about obedience to His plan. See biblical typology—the Old Testament people, symbols, and events that foreshadow the New Testament—come to life in Into the Sea, Out of the Tomb: Jonah and Jesus. Recommended for ages 7 and up.

Gus Finds God by Michael P Foley (new) $21.95
Gus Finds God is an illustrated children’s book based on St. Augustine of Hippo’s classic autobiography, the Confessions. In accessible language lifted almost verbatim from Augustine’s pen, Gus Finds God recounts the quest of a boy whose search for God in the world around him and in the caverns of his own memory leads him to a startling discovery about himself and his Creator. The book is an excellent way of helping children (and adults) come to terms with the spiritual nature of God and of the human mind, all through an exercise advocated by the greatest Christian thinker of the first millennium. Recommended for ages 5 and up.

Building the way to Heaven: The Tower of Babel and Pentecost by Maura Roan McKeegan (new) PB $19.95 HB $29.95
In this third book in the Old and New series, author Maura Roan McKeegan recounts how all the world spoke one language—until the people of Shinar became too proud, and the Lord came down from heaven and confused their words. What can undo the chaos? And how will Pentecost help God’s children understand one another again? Building the Way to Heaven helps young readers to see God’s plan of salvation unfold within the stories of the Tower of Babel and Pentecost.

The End of the Fiery Sword: Adam & Eve and Jesus & Mary by Maura McKeegan (new) PB $19.95
What do Adam and Jesus have in common? What do Eve and Mary have in common? More than you think! With full colour illustrations, Maura Roan McKeegan has brought to life biblical typology for children. Presenting the stories of Adam and Eve and Jesus and Mary and placing them side by side, children can see biblical typology jump off the page. In The End of the Fiery Sword, children will discover similarities between persons or events in the Old Testament that foreshadow persons or events in the New Testament without any difficulty and easily understand at an early age what St. Augustine meant when he said that the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New.

Defending Boyhood: How Building Forts, Reading Stories, Playing Ball and Praying to God Can Change the World by Anthony Esolen (new) $39.95
Western civilization has no more eloquent defender than Anthony Esolen. If we hope to regain today’s culture, we must remember the truths that have been relegated to yesterday. Following on his Defending Marriage, Esolen returns, this time in defence of boys and an experience of boyhood that is on the wane, if not extinguished in many quarters of the modern world. He masterfully illuminates the threats our precious sons face from all manner of purveyors and promoters of political correctness, too often hiding in plain sight. And he tackles head-on the misguided and ultimately doomed—though not before it has done much mischief—project of blurring the distinctions between boys and girls. Drawing on his own all-American boyhood, Esolen, at times wistfully, at times, playfully, and at times prophetically—in the literal sense of employing the thunder of an Old Testament prophet—details what a good boyhood once was and what it can be again.
Here, Esolen shows the parents of boys how raise sons who will:
•Enter the arena and fight for what is right
•Join with a band of brothers to defend the weak
•Sing songs that give glory to God and honour to honourable men
•Slay the enemies of God, Family, and Country
•Give—and protect—life, especially children and family.
In Defending Boyhood, Esolen prescribes a return to sanity in an insane world. Enter into the world of boyhood with him and he just might change you and the lives of the boys you love.

Let’s Look at a Masterpiece by Madeleine Stebbins (new) PB $19.95 HB $29.95 The enthralling beauty and effective simplicity of great art can teach us so much. Let's Look at a Masterpiece by author Madeleine Stebbins models for children how to approach art with the eyes of faith and an open heart. Let's Look at a Masterpiece will delight readers of all ages as the author draws attention to the spiritual depth that these artistic treasures illuminate, prompting children to reflect on the world around them. From Vermeer's Little Street to Caravaggio's Conversion of St. Paul, along with other timeless works from a variety of artistic periods, the masterpieces included in this volume will stir the soul of every child. Recommended for ages 6 and up.
Guadalupe: The Freedom of Loving by Cristina Abad Cadenas (new) $21.95
In Dialogue with the Lord: Meditations by St Josemaria Escriva (new) $29.95
Preparing for Confirmation: 50 Things Every Catholic Should Know $13.95
The Word The Flesh The Devil by Fr John Rizzo (new) DVD $10 CD $5
The Passion: What More Could He Do for You? by Fr Christopher Sharah FSF (new) DVD $10 CD $5
Brother Francis 16: The Ten Commandments DVD (new) $15.95
A Daily Defence: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist by Jimmy Akin $24.95
The Good Sense of Jesus: A Commentary on the Beatitudes by Fr Ivan Pertine (new) $34.95
My Battle Against Satan by Fr Gabriele Amorth on special $26.95
Saints and Sinners in the Cristero War : Stories of Martyrdom from Mexico by Father James Murphy on special $29.95
The Indomitable Mr Cotham: Missioner, Convict Chaplain and Monk by Joanna Vials (new) on special $49.95
How to Live a Good Life following New Testament Ethics by Vaclav Rajlich (new) on special $28.95

Creed or Chaos ?*

Who Christ is — it’s in the APOSTLES’ CREED — also what He did

Download as a PDF

CATECHETICS with content is revealed by God, so never chew cotton wool flavoured with fairy floss.
THE APOSTLES’ CREED
In Whom do you believe?

I believe in God, 1

the Father Almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth,

and in Jesus Christ, 2

His only Son, our Lord,

Who was conceived 3

by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,4

was crucified, died and was buried;

He descended into hell; 5

on the third day He rose again from the dead;

He ascended into Heaven, 6

and is seated at the right hand

of God the Father Almighty;

from there He will come 7

to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, 8

the Holy Catholic Church, 9

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins, 10

the resurrection of the body, 11

and life everlasting. Amen. 12

Superscripts 1 to 12 are the twelves articles in the Creed as in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In medieval churches, catechetical art conveniently attributed one article to each of the Twelve Apostles, who displayed its text on a banner or scroll. The text is from Parts of the Order of Mass, n. 19, mandated by Cardinal Arinze, Congregation for Divine Worship, 23-6-2008.

ACTION — NOW !

Can Catholic school graduates tell you what Jesus did, or why He did it. or what benefit it is to our lives now, and how we know all this?

Remedial teaching can begin at once. We do not have to wait for the Plenary Council. Teachers in our schools can reinstate the Creed and help students see its relevance to faith and to life, since the Apostles’ Creed summarizes the whole Bible:- * “Jesus”, that is, ‘Saviour from sin’ (Matthew i:2t) recalls the Old Testament history of preparations for Him. * “Suffered under Pontius Pilate” recalls His Public Life proclaiming God’s Kingdom and Himself Son of God, for which His accusers got Him executed.

• Gradually He taught the Trinity, Paschal Mystery, the Holy Spirit and the Church, as in the Creed.

• “Communion of Saints” for the Seven Sacraments etc.

NON-BELIEVERS at our Catholic Schools

For non-believing pupils, the Creed is an ancient historical document, important for understanding many ideas, behaviours and diversities of our day:- * dignity of man in image of God with personal rights; * duty to God and to honour the rights of others;

• destiny beyond death, with eternal consequences.

CHAOS WITHOUT THE CREED

“Progressive Anglicans” of the 1940s13 were sure it was the Creed’s “dull doctrines” that kept people from coming to church.

Since the late 1960s, “progressive Catholics” have felt the same, hence the endless catechetical novelties of sociology and psychology (see Handouts n. 89).

Their “experts” confused the Bishops, bamboozled the parish priests, and betrayed the ancient loyalties of the faithful, who had to pay for experts to destroy their children’s faith, morals and the Church’s future.

Hand in hand with trendy catechetics went trendy liturgy and trendy family morality (farmyard morals). Sunday Mass attendance fell from 60% to 10%, since neither youngsters nor Protestants wanted any scorning of the Sense of the Sacredness of God and worship.

Chaos has been the outcome from abandoning the Creed, the Sacraments, the Covenant Commandments and Prayer. So for a start, reinstate the Creed.

The Creed has the most intriguing ideas ever to enter the mind of man, and the most exciting events in all human history, to make life on earth worth living, for our hearts are restless till they rest in God.

HISTORY

There is no shortage of written records for

historians. Separate documents were written by eight writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James and Jude, treating Christ’s history, His teaching and its outcomes. Only later were they collected as part of a one-volume Christian Bible.

Their substantial agreement is corroboratory; the historians can check any conspiracy theories.

It is rather that rejection of the written records that suggests a conspiracy of suppression by today’s scholars. Have they surrendered to the thought police and become traitors to intellectual integrity out of a craven fear of unpopularity? Is this why modern academics scorn it as unworthy of study? Have they thrown away a key to decode present enigmas?

Jesus Christ is the man you can’t ignore! He’s the most vital contributor ever to world history. His life 2000 years ago still inspires us, with one Christian in eveiy nine persecuted, the most yet!

His religion is the hardest to practise yet the most ennobling.. Followers who failed Him have been little credit to themselves or anyone else. Those who choose to disregard Him have missed out on so much.

Was it errors of catechetical experts that lead so many into today’s atheism, amorality and immorality? REJECTION of INTELLECT and HISTORY

The Ramsey Foundation is offering billions for a university to set up a Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilization. Yet academics in Australia want to erase it from history — and not even money will move them. The reasons their spokesmen give lack any plausibility.

BETRAYAL

OUR VALUES are under attack, and have been intensely so since the 1960s. Our catechetics has served only to weaken them further. Catechetical fads have impoverished or perverted several generations of Catholics who were left weaponless and naked to the enemies of God and commandments and conscience.

This failure has also betrayed our beloved Australia. Our politicians, public service, academics and media have surrendered to atheism, amorality and immorality. We might have saved some of them if the faithful generally and the youth in particular had been properly evangelized and catechized.

POPULAR AGNOSTICISM which we oppose

• “One religion is as good as another.”

• “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’re sincere,” often with a corollary, “As long as you’re happy.”

These are also turned upside-down

* “One religion is as bad as another.”

• “What matters is never believe anything definite, defined, doctrinal, dogmatic, but get liberated and drift about in the dark like us and everyone else.”

The SEVEN Rs for a good upbringing

Religion + Respect

Reason + Responsibility

Reading + ’Riting + ’Rithmetic

THEOLOGY relates the mysteries one to another

When reason, enlightened by faith, seeks diligently, piously and modestly, it obtains, by God’s gift, some understanding of mysteries, and that very profitable one. It does so partly from the analogy of those things it knows naturally, partly from tlie interrelationship of mysteries with one another and with the last end of man. But never is reason rendered capable of penetrating mysteries as it penetrates truths that constitute its proper object. For by their nature, divine mysteries so far surpass the created intellect that, even when transmitted by revelation and received by faith, they remain covered with the veil of faith itself, and shrouded in a certain obscurity as long as, in this mortal life, “... we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:6-7)

From Vatican Council I in 1870, Dei Films chapter 4, Denzinger-Schonmetzer n. 3013 (old Denziger-Bannwait n. 1796)

Meaning of Dogmas cannot change

For the teaching of the faith, which God has revealed, lias not been proposed as a philosophical discovery to be perfected by human ingenuity, but as a divine deposit handed over to the Spouse of Clirist to be guarded faithfully and to be explained infallibly. Hence that meaning of sacred dogmas must perpetually be retained which Holy Mother Church has once declared; nor is that meaning ever to be abandoned under the pretext and name of a more profound comprehension. “Let, then, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom grow and advance mightily and strongly in individuals as well as in the community, in one man as well as in the Church as a whole, according to the degree proper to each age and each time; but only within their own domain, that is, with the same dogmas, die same meaning, the same sense.

Vatican Council I in 1870, Dei Filius chapter 4 DSn. 3020 (DB n. 1800)

NEWMAN’S ANSWER as an Anglican, 1833 — apostolic succession and continuity

There are some who rest their divine mission on their own unsupported assertion; others who rest it on their popularity; others on their success; and others again on their temporal distinctions. I fear we have neglected the real ground on which our authority is built — our apostolical descent.

then as Catholic priest made a cardinal, 1879

when described what we call Trendies, Modernists or Dissenters as Liberals (i.e. not political but religious liberals).:

.. .to one great mischief I have from the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years [i.e. back in his Anglican days] I have resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of Liberalism in religion. Never did Holy Church need champions against it more sorely than now, when alas, it is an error overspreading, as a snare, the whole earth... Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion but that one creed is as good as another... It is inconsistent with any recognition of any religion as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth but a sentiment and a taste and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy...

SCRIPTURE

These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these tilings. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high.

Luke 24:44-49

... preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.

2 Timothy 4:2-5

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Clirist and turning to a different gospel — not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Talk to priests and write to Bishops —

ask them to check the facts for themselves:

Do pupils in our schools know WHAT Our Lord did and WHY He did it?
Do they ADORE God at Sunday Mass and practise a daily routine of prayer and good works?
How might the rest of us co-operate with God to help the students and their peers, the teachers and their religion lessons, to be vibrant with faith, hope and charity — and never work against these virtues?

* Creed or Chaos? was the title of a talk by Dorothy Sayers in 1940, and the title of a later book which included it in 1947.

THIS APOSTOLATE NEEDS YOUR HELP

All donations large or small are gratefully received from benefactors to assist in our valuable apostolate. Please be assured that you are remembered in our prayers. To help you, we have purchase an extensive new range of stock and are upgrading our on-line services. You can assist by:

Being a Volunteer on a roster for a few hours a week; a regular 2 hours or more would be great
Making a donation, either by direct deposit or by using the form below
Buying books and religious goods from us

Direct Deposit - ANZ Bank: BSB 012408 Account: 227329572 Please cite your name as our reference. For notification of the direct deposit remittance: fr@cardinalnewman.com.au or fax: (02) 9623 3181
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Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 83 - February-March 2019

noreply@blogger.com (CNFRI Manager) — Sun, 21 Apr 2019 18:54:00 +0000

[The 71 year old bishop] would sometimes enter a church at 8pm and leave at 7am, having heard confessions, confirmed and married people all night. I asked if he ever gave general absolution, and he answered simply: “No, there is no need.” He was a true minister of Jesus Christ, willing to sacrifice his own comfort so that each soul could have a personal encounter with the Divine Master.
Fr John Flader in "Why Go to Confession" (published by Catholic Truth Society)

Message from the Manager

Welcome to the latest email newsletter of Cardinal Newman Faith Resources. The last of Father’s Handouts from his 2020 Plenary Council Submission is included in this edition so we ask that you take the time to read them. We are now half way through Lent; a time of extra prayer, sacrifices and almsgiving. Each and every one of our penances are a pointer to the Church’s greatest feast, the glorious Resurrection of Christ which we celebrate on Easter Sunday.
Our Church, Christ’s bride, and the beautiful wise truths of Catholicism are being pummelled on all sides. For some time now the media and the secular society in which we live sought to destroy the Catholic Faith, which Christ founded, the Church upon which our culture has been built. Sadly, these enemies of Christ want to do away with God, not realising how much God loves them and how much they need Him. When He died on the Cross, Christ died for all of our sins, even the sins of His adversaries, and He rose from the dead to open the gates of Heaven for each and every one of us. In other words He loves us all. Let us make this a special Lent and intensify our prayers, increase our works, offer all our sufferings and our almsgiving to help Christ’s bride recover. We have greater weapons than all the armies in the world: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments and the Holy Rosary. Along with our prayers, taking the time for an extra Mass each week, more frequent Confession and an extra rosary each day can move mountains but more importantly convert our enemies.
We are very excited to announce that our online store is now up and running once again. Many people are finding it easier to use but if you have any problems or suggestions we are happy to help and try new avenues. The store is accessible via the website http://www.cardinalnewman.com.au/ or directly at https://cardinal-newman-aus.myshopify.com/. Unfortunately, the new system will not accept our old images so we are working hard to re-scan and re-take photos. This is time consuming but is progressing. If you need to see a product that has no image please ring and we will send one by text or email. There are many affordable CDs, DVDs, statues, booklets and books available this year for Lent and Easter that will deepen our faith and bring us closer to Christ, uniting us with his sufferings. Some are new and others have been republished. All are highly recommended.
Many of our customers have expressed interest in the game published by Sophia Institute Press called Road to Bethlehem. As a result we have consulted with our supplier and will bring this in as a special order. Normally $120 we will be offering it at a super special price of $99 to anyone who pre-orders it before 4^th April. We will only bring in the number ordered. If you have not yet ordered please ring us on 0296732235 or email us at fr@cardinalnewman.com.au. Please leave your name, address, telephone number and email. You may prepay. Postage will be extra as the price will be close to cost but we can send several games together and they can be picked up. Sydney customers can pick it up (postage around Sydney is $11 otherwise). If you do not prepay, payment will be expected when it arrives which we expect to be in the middle of May. This is an amazing Catholic fun-filled game at an excellent price. It would make a great gift for a birthday or Christmas.
Thank you for your patience and your help. May God bless you all readers, volunteers and beneficiaries and may he grant you a Blessed Lent.
Gai Smith
Manager

New Releases

What Does God Want? A Practical Guide to Making Decisions by Fr Michael Scanlan $24.95
What Does God Want? gives you the tools you need to overcome your doubts and make wise choices . . . all in accordance with God’s will. Here Fr Michael Scanlan, former president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, lays out for you the five critical questions you must answer as you wrestle with important – but naggingly difficult – decisions that keep you up at night.
Should you have that risky operation? Move mum into a nursing home? Report your son’s marijuana to the police?
Over the decades, Fr Scanlan’s five simple questions have helped generations of his colleagues, students, and friends penetrate to the very heart of countless hard problems like these, leading them to wise solutions, and welcome peace.
Defending Boyhood: How Building Forts, Reading Stories, Playing Ball and Praying to God Can Change the World (HB) by Anthony Esolen on special $39.95
Manual for Women by Danielle Bean on special for $49.95
The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity by Carrie Gress on special for $44.95

Symbol or Substance? A Dialogue on the Eucharist with CS Lewis, Billy Graham and JRR Tolkien by Peter Kreeft $29.95
In this engaging fictional conversation, Peter Kreeft gives credible voices to C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Billy Graham as they discuss one of the most contentious questions in the history of Christianity: Is Jesus symbolically or substantially present in the Eucharist? These widely respected modern Christian witnesses represent three important Western theological traditions. Graham, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who traversed the world and the airwaves to spread the good news of salvation, represents evangelical Protestantism. Lewis, an Oxford professor, a prolific Christian apologist, and the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, was a member of the Church of England. Also an Oxford don, Tolkien was a friend of Lewis, the author of The Lord of the Rings, and a Roman Catholic. While Lewis and Tolkien likely discussed the Eucharist during their long friendship, the conversation in this book never took place—but it could have, says Kreeft, who faithfully presents the views of these three impressive men.
Sermons in Times of Crisis: Twelve Homilies to Stir Your Soul (HB) by Reverend Paul D Scalia on special for $44.95

Father Ben Gets Ready for Mass by Kate Warner $28.95
Fr. Ben needs your help getting ready for Mass!
Open this book, and you and your child will begin a creative, interactive, and fun journey with a holy priest as he prepares to celebrate the Mass. Glide your fingers across the pages of the book, tilt it around, count, and sing; we dare you not to smile. Father Ben Gets Ready for Mass is the perfect way to introduce your Catholic child to the joy of the liturgy and the gift of the priesthood!
Brother Francis 16: The Ten Commandments DVD by Herald Entertainment $15.95
Brother Francis 14: The Stations of the Cross DVD by Herald Entertainment $15.95 (Activity Book available for $4.25)
Brother Francis 6: The Mass DVD by Herald Entertainment $15.95 (Activity Book available for $4.25)

Father Leopold Celebrates Mass by Holy Heroes (at cost) $139.95
Introducing Father Leopold: The World’s Smallest Priest who is on a mission to share the good news of Jesus Christ with mini-figures everywhere. Sporting his brand new clerics and a friendly face, he is ready to preach the gospel and bring the sacraments to his people. Featuring 174 genuine LEGO® bricks, three modified bricks (his Roman collar, the Roman Missal and the lectionary were printed after they left the factory) and a set of four vestments (a green chasuble for Ordinary Time, red and white for feast days, and violet for Advent and Lent) this set will provide hours of imaginative play. The included 28-page full-colour instruction guide makes building the altar, ambo, credence table, presider’s chair and tabernacle a snap. Put the lectionary, Roman Missal, chalice, paten, hosts, cruets and lavabo dish in place, get Fr. Leopold vested, and he’s ready to celebrate Mass. Congregation not included. This model isn’t sponsored, authorized or endorsed by the Lego Group. Because of the limited availability of certain Lego bricks in this set, quantities are limited. Highly recommended for boys 4-40 years, Catechists and Parishes and anyone making their First Holy Communion.

Lent

Paschal Candle Kit by Holy Heroes $39.95
This gorgeous new Paschal Candle Kit is exceptionally lovely. Each kit contains everything you need to make one solid 8” 200mm pillar candle out of 100% pure beeswax sheets. This kit also includes: Wicking, rhinestones, nails, pre-printed water decal labels and an interesting explanation of the liturgical importance and symbolism of beeswax candles. Please Note: The five drops of craft glue needed to affix the rhinestones to the nail heads are NOT included in this kit! This is an excellent Easter activity for the family and everyone will learn the significance of the Pascal Candle.
Lenten Adventure Set by Holy Heroes includes 2 books and Lenten Calendar Calendar and Activities on special for $35.95 (Highly recommended)
Colouring Book about Lent from St Joseph’s Colouring Books $3.00
Celebrating Lent from St Joseph’s Picture Books by Rev. Jude Winkler OFM Conv $3.00
Stations of The Cross Colouring Book from St Joseph’s Colouring Books $3.00
Brother Francis: What is Lent? - Colouring Book from Herald Entertainment $4.25

Why go to Confession? by Fr John Flader $5.00
The purpose of this booklet is to help those who make use of the sacrament to appreciate it more, and to encourage those who do not, to reconsider its many benefits. Describing the sacrament as 'one of the greatest treasures of the Catholic Church', this booklet considers both the human and spiritual perspectives of Confession. It includes notes on examination of conscience and a helpful Rite to Confession itself.
Frequent Confession by Benedict Baur $23.95
Confession – A Little Book for the Reluctant by Msgr Louis Gaston de Segur $7.00
Bringing Lent Home with Mother Teresa by Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle on special for $7.50
Bringing Lent Home with St Therese of Lisieux by Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle on special for $7.50

Holy Thursday: The Night That Changed The World by Francois Mauriac $19.95
These pages are for all those weary ones who go to Mass faithfully but still find no relief for their parched and careworn spirits. The famed novelist Francois Mauriac walks through the great events of Holy Thursday, showing how each, the foot washing, the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist, and more -- flows from the abiding love of the Saviour. His reflections on each are vivid, spirit-filled, and able to move the stoniest heart to fervour.
Making a Holy Lent by Fr William Casey $21.95
Meditations for Lent by Jacques-Benigne Bossuet 21.95
Lent with St Augustine by Waldemar Turek $29.95
The Sermons of St Francis de Sales $27.95
What Jesus Saw from the Cross by A G Sertillanges $26.95
The Last Hours of Jesus: From Gethsemane to Golgotha by Fr Ralph Gorman $28.95

Confession (CD) by Fr Larry Richards $5.00
In this CD
Note: Fr deals with the Sixth Commandment in a very forthright manner and parents will need to exercise their judgement in regards to the age at which their children should listen to this section of the CD
The Healing Peace of Christ by Archbishop Anthony Fisher $8.00
Real Men Go to Confession by Fr Donald Calloway $5.00
In this presentation, Fr Donald Calloway explains to a group of men the irreplaceable role of Confession. Let Fr Calloway clear up any misconceptions you may have about the sacrament and help you understand how Confession heals you, sets you free and strengthens you.
The Crisis of Happiness: Hurting, Addicting and Healing CD by Jim Owens MA, LPC $5.00
40 Days and 40 Ways (Year C) by Dom Henry Wansbrough, OSB 9.95
Calvary through the Eyes of Mary by Helen Pepper $8.00
The True Meaning of Easter CD by Fulton Sheen $5.00
Cries of Jesus from the Cross: An Anthology by Fulton J Sheen $26.95

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 3^rd September, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 174

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Part 4.

Conception

Download as a PDF

Matrimony is for the CONCEPTION of SAINTS in the COMMUNION of Saints

Two other sacraments, Holy Orders and Matrimony, are directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so.

They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God. (ccc n. 1534) Catholic Marriage is the Sacrament of Matrimony, meaning “making mothers”. Only a woman can be a mother. Only a man can make her so. Its purpose is to populate the earth with images of God and to populate Heaven with saints. The word “marriage” is from Latin maritus, a married man, i.e. a husband, from hus, a house, and band, bound, in other words, “bound to a house”, not meaning “hen-pecked”, but bound by solemn pledge to a home, to wife and their children.

THE CONCEPTION OF CHILDREN

God’s master plan was revealed to Adam and Eve:

And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue
it; and have dominion... over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

And after their Fall came the difficulties:

To Adam He said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of
which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground... in toil you shall eat of it...
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth... In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return
to the ground, for... you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)

To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth
children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)

Truth, Beauty, Goodness and God in matrimony can defeat the sexual deviations of
contraception, divorce, perversion, pornography, abortion, euthanasia

CONTRACEPTION — negating the conception of a child

From the early 1960s, before Humana Vitae on 25 July, 1968, many Catholics began practising contraception by pills, condoms, inter-uterine devices, interrupted intercourse and other deviations.

Contraception is closely linked to many other evils against marriages — fornication, adultery and divorce; and, due to a perverted idea of man's sovereignty over his life, to the perversions of the sexual powers ranging from masturbation to sodomy, and others.

The greatest damage of contraception is a deeply spiritual crisis in faith, hope and charity, plus psychological and physical damage. It ignores the spirituality of ascesis and mortification (ccc n. 2015). It is disastrous for union of husband and wife. It rejects acceptance of one's sexuality (ccc n.. 2333).

Dissenting seminary lecturers and visiting “experts” bullied bishops and priests into silence. This was detrimental to their own chastity, ministry, and encouraging vocations. It engendered in clergy and laity a revolt against the magisterium in many other matters. It is spiritually fatal.

Yet Blessed Paul VI accurately prophesied four outcomes of defying God, His plan and His law:-

(1) infidelity in marriage and general lack of morality;

(2) men, especially youth, with little respect for women, treating them as things for selfish enjoyment;

(3) governments promoting or enforcing immorality;

(4) man making up his own morality and losing his self-discipline and capacity to bring up the youth of the nation as morally responsible to God. (Humanae Vitae n. 17)

Today, we can add another five to his list:-

(5) Divorcing motherhood and fatherhood from true femininity and masculinity, from home and family. Wives opt for paid work over being full-time home-makers, husbands cease to be head of family and primary bread winners.

(6) Feminist unisex doctrine declares the sexes are inter-changeable; hence much psycho-sexual confusion in adolescents, and a flood of immoral attitudes and sinful practices.

(7) Sodomy, by social engineering, is now “political correct”, equated with marriage and reducing it to nothing: it can’t procreate children or unite man and woman, and spreads diseases of body and soul to practitioners and society.

(8) Abortion is brazenly claimed as “a woman’s right”, whereas it is a human wrong; and “terminating a pregnancy” is in fact terminating a baby which is wilful murder. (Handouts n. 102, February, 2014)

(9) Sinful communions, few children; most Catholics lapsed, few for lay apostolate, marriage, priesthood, religious life.

PERSUASIVE REASONS — rationes convenientiae

Spouses who do not contracept need to tell bishops that Christians in earnest find it quite practical.
Contraception is divorcing what God has joined, namely the procreative primary essential purpose, and the secondary essential purpose of uniting husband and wife in a permanent and self-sacrificing complementarity. In George Bernard Shaw’s blunt language, contraception is mutual masturbation, a disordered sexuality. Indeed, this was the view of all Christians before 1930 and even many till the 1950s.

Sinners need encouragement to recognize contraception as an addictive erroneous attitude, and to confess sins of contraception. It is like giving up smoking, and requires a big struggle.

PUBLIC WITNESS — lest vice triumph due to the silence of the otherwise virtuous

Professor Jordan Peterson from Canada says he is agnostic and not a Christian. His 12 Rules for Sanity and avoiding chaos are a good start. Christians are even better off with God’s Ten Commandments. We must emulate the professor in his courage and courtesy in confronting the aggressive bullies on the TV panels. He practises assertive confrontation without any lack of courtesy. He openly rejects the errors of feministic unisex and femspeak. We can take to heart the challenge set for St Paul, in Acts 9:15-16.

COMPLEMENTARITY of the sexes — say “NO” to unisex interchangeability!

Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out. (ccc a 2333; also n. 2393)

DIVORCE and attempted re-marriage

• divorce flows from false ideas of individualism, unisex, and emotional affection without justice;
• it ignores the keeping of promises even with intolerable consequences ("for better, for worse"), and observing prohibitions, "Thou shalt not commit adultery" - these truths are in Sacred Scripture and found even in fairy stories.

PERVERSION is nourished by PORNOGRAPHY and sexual miseducation in school

In 1965, VCII referred briefly to sex-education (Gravissimum Educations §I):

As they grow older they should receive a positive and prudent education in matters relating to sex.

The context was an upbringing at home. Sydney's Catholic Education Office usurped the home and applied it to schools. Since then.. "Sex-education" (even in some "Catholic" schools) began by reducing human sexual love to mere plumbing, plus "safe-sex" to avoid diseases - such as pregnancy(!).

Soon sex-education elevated fornication to a national sport in a fully fornicating· society. Currently, sex education defends sodomy and same-sex "marriages". But worse is coming ... with gender-bending.

MATRIMONY better word than MARRIAGE - and a radical suggestion

In the CCC, "sacrament of marriage" and "sacrament of matrimony" occur about 15 times each without obvious distinction. However, the Australian Government has now effectively abolished marriage by reducing it to a loving relationship. The Church might avoid Anti-Discrimination Commissions by decommissioning priests as civil celebrants. Catholics could receive the Sacrament of Matrimony in church and not bother with civil marriage, yet enjoy the legal and financial rights of the de facto.

PREPARATION for the SACRAMENT of MATRIMONY, Holy Orders and Religious Life

1. Living virtuously - a minimum standard is the Ten·Commandments, then add the Sermon on the Mount.

2. Growing in virtue - minimum is trying to grow each day, along with the mortification·of saying "no" to oneself.

3. Devout, enlightened and frequent reception of Holy· Communion and making· regular Confession;

4. Seeking to discern one's vocation from God's Will revealed in one's talents and the needs of others.

(CCC nn. 2226 parental help; 784 baptismal priesthood; 1603 marriage, 2369 parenthood& 1656 family; consecrated life of Religious 915).

Matrimony & Family

O MERCIFUL GOD, pour out Your graces
on husbands and wives united in the holy covenant
of sacramental matrimony,

so that in all life’s difficulties, by giving and forgiving,
they may grow in patient kindness
as they co-operate with You, eternal Father,
in forming saints for this world and the next
by sanctifying each other and their children,
and to bring Your light and love
into many blind and loveless lives,
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blessed Mary, Mother of God,

and Blessed foster father, Joseph, pray for us.

St Joachim and St Anne, pray for us; St Monica, pray for us.

St Stephen of Hungary, pray for us; St Edward the Confessor, pray for us.
St Margaret of Scotland, pray for us; St Louis of France pray for us.

St Elizabeth of Portugal, pray for us; St Thomas More, pray for us.

St Louis and St Ze1ie Martin, pray for us..

Integrity

Father, keep me mindful

that all my powers of body and soul

belong to Thee Who created them,

and at the price of Christ’s Cross I was bought back

to make me by my Baptism

a living temple of the Holy Spirit:

grant me mastery

of my passions, appetites and mental life,
respect for the opposite sex
and esteem for my own;

grant me integrity in the virtues
for my Christian state of life,
to consecrate my body and soul to Thy service
in all purity,

and may Mother Mary ever-Virgin watch over me,
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am not my own, but bought at a price
and must glorify God in my body, (cf. l Cor 6:20; & 3:16)

Father James Tierney

© The Rev. B.J.H. Tierney. Handouts are free and may be copied for any non-profit teaching purpose. However, donations to defray costs are welcome and should be made to the publisher and distributor, the Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc. PO Box 359, St Marys NSW 1790; phone 02 9673 2235; fax 02 9623 3181 email <fr@eardinalnewman.com.au>

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 8^th September, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 175

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Priesthood is for the CONCEPTION of SAINTS in the COMMUNION of Saints

Download as a PDF

IDEAS and IDEALS for vitality in the priesthood

• A bishop fulfills his ministry through his priests, his co-workers in Christ's ministry of Prophet,

Priest and King (CCL cc. 375§1 & 519), to activate the lay faithful Contrast sentences 2 and 3:

In the Church there is diversity of. ministry but unity of mission.

To the Apostles and their successors Christ bas entrusted the office of

teaching, sanctifying and governing in His name and by His power.

But the laity are made to share in the priestly, prophetical and kingly office of Christ;

they have therefore in the Church and in the world their own assignment in the mission of the whole “People of God.” (VCII AA §2, on Apostolate of the Laity)

See pp. 27-28 for Bishops and Priests, Teachers of the Faith, Teachers of Teachers.

• Bishops and priests as pastors guarding Christ's flock, preaching all that God has decreed, must not

be "dumb dogs that cannot bark" (Isaiah 56:10) or silent spectators, nor "hirelings that flee when the wolf comes" (cf. St Boniface, Liturgy of the Hours vol III p. 41*; also. John 10:12,13).

• Priests must not "contracept the Gospel", deluding sinners with silence or falsehoods on contraception, and never become Satan's "a lying spirit in the mouth of all Baal's prophets (1 Kings 22:22).

• Utilize the parish hall for one-off lectures or courses in Parental Catechetics and Adult Education.

We need to equip selected laity, priests and bishops to confront in all courtesy the TV panels where ex-priests or cafeteria Catholics are usually called upon for their opinions, but not for the Church's or God's "opinion" - the agnostic Professor Jordan Peterson shows us how, as long ago did the Catholic Evidence Guild on Sunday afternoons in the parks, in soap-box oratory.

• Unisex interchangeability of male and female was first a feminist falsehood now taken over (to their chagrin) by the Gender-Benders and their absurd lack of observation, biology and psychology. Just as in 1939 "the old, old truth dawned on Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England, that ultimately force must be met by force," and he declared war, so we too must stop appeasing Freudian-Marxists and other atheists, amoral and/or immoral aggressors, and proclaim the riches of Christ's Good News.

• A diocese should not burden busy priests with live-ins and conferences, meetings often held for the sake of meetings, with topics chosen as an afterthought, and sometimes to the detriment of faith and ministry. The priest's ministry is disrupted often enough by parish exigencies. When there is a real need, priests of the diocese with successful pastoral experiences or scholarship might be preferred. to imports: it's good for bonding the· priests together and ensuring orthodoxy of faith and morals.

• Permanent appointments: "The parish priest... is to be appointed for an indeterminate period of time ... " (CCL c. 522). The next sentence has a concession for a limited appointment which cannot justify six year appointments as normative. Imagine six year appointments for bishops - or the Pope! Even fiction mocks it:-

Power goes with permanence. Impermaneace is impotence. Rotation is castration.

THE COMPLETE YES MINISTER p. 280

Responsibility Without Power - the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

YES PRIME MINISTER vol. Ill, p 218

• Each state's Profession Standards Resource Group conducts Towards Healing to deal with priests accused of child sexual abuse. Presumption of guilt is automatic, evidence favourable to the accused is withheld, and Ordinaries of dioceses impose suspension at once, ignoring canonical procedures:

If the Ordinary believes that the matter should proceed by way of an extra-judicial decree:

1 ° he is to notify the accused of the allegation and the proofs, and give an opportunity for defence

2° together with two assessors, he is accurately to weigh all the proofs and arguments ... (c. 1720).

At any stage of the process, to prevent scandal, protect· the freedom of witnesses and safeguard the

·course of justice, the Ordinary can suspend the priest (Canon 1722). -

However, premature suspension could be a scandal. Untested accusations ignore the possibility of false witness. Episcopal approval of Towards Healing is itself ultra vires, a violation of canon 87§1 in dispensing from procedural law, besides the detailed requirements of canon 1720. Canon Jaw is meant to safeguard justice for all.

Celibacy is not the problem, rather celibacy is the solution. See "Married to the Church", pp 37-38.

Sacrificial or consecrated priestly celibacy encourages married people to persevere, to banish all thought of adultery and divorce: it's a sort of "demo" against sexual sins. Also wives divorce husbands "married to their work" (cf. Matthew 6:24). And sacrificial celibacy it is of itself even more noble than marriage:-

recognize the greater excellence of virginity consecrated to Christ. (VCII OT “Training of Priests” n. l0b).

Also in fantasy fiction:

When things are in danger, some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them. The Lord of the Rings last chapter, J.R.R. Tolkien

Conclusions

Part 1: CHRIST - restore the Sense of the Sacred and the adoration of God to the liturgy

and rescue lax and lazy Catholics, disbelievers and unbelievers from the Devil, for Christ.

Part 2: CATECHETICS - teach the Apostles' Creed: Trinity, Incarnation, Holy Spirit, the Church,

on which depend the Sacraments and the Covenant Commandments and the Prayers.

Part 3: CONFESSION - restore regular repentance for the daily outbreaks of Original Sin

and confess/profess the truths of reason, faith and morals of Christ's Good News.

Part 4: CONCEPTION of saints - Matrimony and Priesthood.

Catholic Marriage would be better spoken of as the Sacrament of Matrimony;

its greatest problem is contraception and a related surrender to unisex doctrine & attitudes.

Priesthood is part of the servant hierarchy, for God's glory and helping sinners to become saints.

Epilogue

Before we can help reform other Catholics, we must reform ourselves. (See Matthew 7:3-5)

We must take strident measures against the Devil and his insidious snares. (See 1 Peter 5:8-9)

The Devil works incessantly to alienate us from the Gospel and whittle away our virtue.

Spirituality is the key to all reform. The soul of the apostolate is the interior life of the soul.

The interior life with God depends on oral prayer, meditative prayer, contemplative prayer.

No reformer of self or of others can neglect prayer. See Catena Aurea on p. 8. And:

MEDITATE the relationship of mysteries with one another and with the last end of man

An example from the Glorious Mysteries: the Ascension is. Christ taking His Resurrection into Heaven; Pentecost is sharing His Resurrection; the Assumption is Our Lady's share in His Resurrection; her Crowning the Resurrection triumph of the Incarnation manifested to all the angels and saints.

WHEN REASON, enlightened by faith, seeks diligently, piously and modestly, it obtains, by God's gift, some understanding of mysteries, and that very profitable one. It does so partly from the analogy of those things it knows naturally, partly from the interrelationship of mysteries with one another and with the last end of man. But never is reason rendered capable of penetrating mysteries as it penetrates truths that constitute its proper object. For by their nature, divine mysteries so far surpass the created intellect that, even when transmittecl by revelation and received by faith, they remain covered with the veil of faith itself, and shrouded in a certain obscurity as long as, in this mortal life, "... we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:6-7)

From Vatican Council I in 1870, Dei Filius chapter 4, Denzinger-Schonmetzer n. 3013 ( old Denziger-Bannwart n. 1796)

BETRAYAL

Our values are under attack, and have been intensely so since the 1960s, and our catechetics has served only to weaken them further. Catechetical fads have impoverished or perverted several generations of Catholics who were left weaponless and naked to the enemies of God and commandments and conscience. Indeed, the catechetical experts bamboozled the bishops, conned the parish priests and betrayed the ancient loyalties of the faithful, who were then expected to finance their own destruction.

POPE ST JOHN XXIII

Pope St John XXIII is chiefly remembered for inaugurating VCII. Cardinal Lecaro said of him,

"We have the men of the monographs who are helpful on a particular subject;

we have men of the manuals who help with the systematic treatment of theology of the recent past.

but John XXIII was a man of the sources" (i.e. a true radical; getting to the root foundation of things).

We too can be "men of the sources", of Scripture, the Fathers, the Magisterium and the saints.

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 14^th September, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 176

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Appendix

Download as a PDF

For the relevant Handouts numbers making up pages 23-40, see Handouts n. 167 page 3

TOPICS	Handouts
Development of Doctrine: St Vincent de Lerins; Dogma cannot change	176
A Liturgy "Awesome & Wondrous": changes by VCII, later changes, illegal changes	71
Marian Girls: A new "Children of Mary", a Marian "Girl Guides"	131
Bishops & Priests: Teachers, and Teachers· of Teachers	10
Catholic Family Catechism Disciples' Edition - excerpt of 50 Q&As in two A4 pages	164-1
A Catechism About Catechisms in 50 Q&As in two A4 pages	1
The ABC of Camping in 50 Q&AS in two A4 pages - illustrates the Q&A techniques	164-2
Good Motives and with Good Means: Humana Vitae	95
Married to the Church - Priestly Sacrificial Celibacy	52
The Apostles' Creed	56

All handouts are down-loadable from the Handouts series published by the Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc. on www.cardinalnewman.com au: street address: 15-21 Collins Street, St Marys NSW 2760, easily accessed by Western Distributor M4 from Sydney, then turn right (north) into Mamre Road, and right (east) into Saddington Street, hence left (north) into Collins Street.

All Handouts are copyright to the author, The Rev. B.J.H. Tierney, and he gives permission for anyone to reprint them in their integrity for any non-profit teaching purpose. The same applies to the rest of this submission, i.e. pp. 1-4 and the four parts pp. 5-20, as long as authorship is acknowledged.

email: fr@cardinalnewman.com.au, Postal address: PO Box 359 ST MARYS NSW 1790

Phone 02 9673 2235 Fax 02 9623 3181

FURTHER WRITINGS

Currently, Father Tierney, while in his old age studying for his "Finals", is working on:

• A Millennium Edition of the Prayer Book Heart Speaks to Heart, for which the new prayers in this submission are destined.

• The Catholic Family CatechIST (sic) being a teacher's manual for the Catholic Family Catechism to help mothers, fathers, older siblings, other catechists or Catholic school teachers to acts as heralds of the revelation of the Lord Jesus to His modern disciples and also to help those slow to believe.

• A Scripture Rosary of 200 scripture texts, one for each Hail Mary, to "see" through the eyes of Christ's greatest disciple. It is primarily for private meditation, and not to be "inflicted" by surprise on those unwilling for a lengthened Rosary - as has sometimes happened with such things.

• Further Handouts on www.cardinalnewman.com.au appear more or less monthly, as well as posted out about three monthly on request to the Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc. as above.

• A further adventure story, New Boys' Bush Rescue. The Bush Boys stories, written primarily to entertain and instruct, illustrate the bushy "doctrine" of the Australian Bush Catechism of Camping (pp. 33-34) within a "life-and-death situational catechesis" of an exciting story. This is in stark contrast to so-called Religious Education that deals in "life-situations" without Christian doctrine to guide the young disciple.

• An index to the themes and theology of· the Patristic readings in The Liturgy of the Hours.

• This submission to the bishops for the Plenary Council will appear later as ten Handouts on www.cardinalnewman.com.au. They will emphasize the New Evangelization of VCII and with the same purpose "that the Sacred Deposit of Christian Doctrine be guarded and aught more efficaciously" (see p. 5), in the Church and the world of today - a New Evangelization and definitely not the negations of the New Paradigm. ·

Development of Doctrine

A reading from the first notebook of St Vincent of Lerins

IS THERE to be no development of doctrine in Christ's Church? Certainly there should be great development.

Who could be so grudging towards his fellow-men and so hostile to God as to try to prevent it? But care should be taken to ensure that it really is development of the faith and not alteration. Development implies that each point of doctrine is expanded within itself, while alteration suggests that a thing has been changed from what it was into something different.

It is desirable then that development should take place, and that there should be a great and vigorous growth in the understanding knowledge and wisdom of every individual as well as of all the people, on the part of each member as well as of the whole Church, gradually over the generations and ages. But it must be growth within the limits of its own nature, that is to say within the framework of the same dogma and of the same meaning.

Let religion, which is of the spirit, imitate the processes of the body. For, although bodies develop over the years and their individual parts evolve, they do not change into something different. It is true that there is a great gap between the prime of youth and the maturity of later years, but the people who reach these later years are the same people who once were adolescents. So, although the size and outward appearance of any individual may change, it is still the same person, and the nature remains the same.

The limbs of infants are tiny, while those of young men are large, but they are the same limbs. The man has no more parts to his body than the little child: and if there are parts that appear with age and greater maturity they are already present earlier in embryo. As a result, it can be said that nothing new is produced in old men that was not already present in an undeveloped form when they were boys.

There is no doubt; then, that this is the correct and legitimate rule for development and the best and most striking order of growth, if the passage of years sees those parts evolve in the adult, which the Creator in his wisdom had prepared in him beforehand when he was a child.

But if the human form is changed into some shape that is not of its own kind, or at least if something is added or taken away·from the full complement of· its members, then the whole body must perish or become a monster or at least be weakened in some way. It is fitting, then, that Christian doctrine should follow these laws of development, so that with the passage of years it may be strengthened, with time it may make progress and with age may achieve greater profundity.

Long ago our ancestors sowed the seeds of the faith in the field of the Church. It would be quite incongruous and wrong if their descendants were·to reap the weeds of error in place of the harvest of truth.

Rather is it right and fitting that there should be no discrepancy between the final result and the beginning. From the seed that was planted, that is the teaching of the gospel, we should reap a harvest of wheat, that is the doctrine that has developed. So then, · when something evolves from those. first beginnings, as from seeds, it should now be received with joy and cultivated with care.

From The Liturgy of the Hours, 1974, Vol. III pp. 626-628 in Friday of Week 27.

Meaning of Sacred Dogmas cannot change

FOR THE TEACHING of the faith, which God bas revealed, has not been proposed as a philosophical discovery to be perfected by human ingenuity, but as a divine deposit handed over to the Spouse of Christ to be guarded faithfully and to be explained infallibly. Hence that meaning of sacred dogmas must perpetually be retained which Holy Mother Church has once declared; ·nor is that meaning ever to be abandoned under the pretext and name of a more profound comprehension. "Let, then, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom grow and advance mightily and strongly in individuals as well as in the community, in one man as well as in the Church as a whole, according to the degree proper to each age· .and each time; but only within their own domain, that is, with the same dogmas, the same meaning, the same sense.''*

Footnote: * Vincent of Lerins (as above).

From Vatican Council I in 1870, Dei Filius chapter 4, DS n. 3020 (DB n. 1800)

The unchangeable fundamentals of our Faith are. already in a brief formula, namely the Apostles' Creed. It summarizes the whole Bible, and· is the foundation of morals. Make sure its meaning is kept intact with Tradition. It holds the place of honour at the·end of these Appendices, pp. 39-40.

Father James Tierney

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Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 82 - January 2019

noreply@blogger.com (CNFRI Manager) — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 02:51:00 +0000

"My friend, the devil is not greatly afraid of the discipline and other instruments of penance. That which beats him is the curtailment of one’s food, drink and sleep. There is nothing the devil fears more, consequently, nothing is more pleasing to God." St John Vianney

Message from the Manager

The Christmas Season has passed and we sincerely hope and pray that the Christ Child showered all Cardinal Newman Faith Resources supporters and readers, their families and friends with rich blessings, as rich and peaceful as that first ‘Silent Night’.
The next three of Father’s Handouts concerning the submission to the Plenary Council are with this first edition for 2019, so we invite you to relax and take time to read his wise words.
The Daily Mass Readings over the past week give us food for thought as we welcome in the New Year. From loving our neighbour in thought, word and deed to being vigilant concerning the deceit of the devil, we have to keep our hearts and minds on Christ and lead holy lives, being ever mindful of the fact that though we live in the world we must not be of the world. Each of us is given daily sufferings and trials. If we choose to accept them wisely they will bring us closer to Our Lord and His Holy Mother, but we must also take care that our own words and actions do not make others suffer.
This month’s edition will be brief as we are busy stocktaking. We would like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that our once-in-a-decade 10-70% off RRP Sale takes place between 16th and 25th January. Only our Vision Books and Holy Heroes products which are heavily discounted all year are exempt. The heavily discounted items including Nativity Sets and Christmas stock have been tagged. 2019 Calendars and Diaries are 20-40% off. Books, CDs and most Piety goods that have no sticker or tag are 20% RRP off. DVDs and imported piety goods will be 10-15% off. It is highly recommended that you visit us in St Marys to take full advantage of the bargains we are offering. If you are unable to come due to illness or distance we invite you to ring between 7:45am-8:45am and 5:15-6:00pm so we can give you our full attention. If we do not answer please leave a message with your name and phone number and we will return your call as soon as possible.
In addition our extensive range of secondhand books and educational resources will be available for you to peruse. There are resources available for general education, especially homeschooling, religious education as well as books on many aspects of the Catholic Faith. Come prepared to spend some time checking out what is available.
Thank you for your prayers, generosity and patience in 2018 and we wish everyone a peaceful and safe New Year, as we ask God through Our Blessed Mother and the intercession of the saints, to protect and bless all of us with abundant graces during 2019.

Gai Smith
Manager

Featured items

2019 Columban Art Calendar (RRP $9.00) has been reduced to $7.00
Divine Mercy Wall Calendar (RRP $10.00) now $7.50
There is a limited supply of Tan Calendars (RRP $24.95) for $15.00 and the beautiful
Saints Calendar and 16-Month Planner (RRP $29.95) is $18.00.
Also 365 Days with the Lord 2019 (RRP $23.95) has been reduced to $16.75

The One-Minute Aquinas: The Doctor’s Quick Answers to Fundamental Questions by Kevin Vost PsyD
If you don't have a year to study the more than 3,000 pages which St Thomas Aquinas wrote then this is the book for you. Originally $39.95 it is on special at $24.95

There is a wide range of Christmas ornaments and Nativity sets reduced by 20-70%. Our little clear resin “Church” hanging light-up ornament was $15.95. It was on special for $9.95 before Christmas and there are still a couple left. We would like to clear these so we have taken a further 25% off making them $7.50 (Some Hartwood Creek Jim Shore Hanging ornaments will be reduced by 20-30%)
We still have some Nativity sets left. They range in price from $49.95 - $465.00 and will be reduced 20-40% from 16-25th January.

During The Year of Mercy we had some very informative books published by the Pontifical Council for Promotion of the New Evangelisation. The information in the books is as relevant today as it was in 2015 and comes highly recommended. We have several books left including:
Mercy and the Fathers of the Church
Mercy and the Teachings of the Popes
The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy

Celebrating Mercy
Confession: The Sacrament of Mercy
The Parables of Mercy
The Psalms of Mercy
The Saints in Mercy
The books were $19.90 RRP each and have been reduced by over 70% to $5.00 each.
There is a full set of the 8 books available for $29.95

In the Question Time series of books Fr John Flader BA, DCL draws on more than 40 years of experience in handing on the Faith to answer questions on doctrine, the sacraments, moral life , prayer and devotions. They were originally published in Sydney's The Catholic Weekly.
Question Time 1, 2, 3 and 4 as well as The Creed by Father John Flader each normally $29.95 RRP are only $19.95 each during the Sale.

Also Fr Flader’s DVD and Book Set Journey into Truth which includes the full set of DVDs and the book (RRP $129.90) will be available for $95.00 from 16th-25th January 2019.

Communion Photo Box or Baby Photo Box normally $19.95 are now $14.95
These boxes are silver plated and are ideal for storing rosaries, necklaces, medals and scapulars in addition to photos and can be placed on a dressing table or chest of drawers.

A Life of Our Lord for Children, The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children, St Patrick's Summer: A Children's Adventure Catechism and A Book of Angels by Marigold Hunt (RRP $23.95) will be $16.00 each, a saving of $7.95 a book. These books are wonderfully written and packed with pertinent information that gives children (6-15) a truly Catholic understanding of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Angels and the fundamentals of our wonderful Faith. They are highly recommended.

My Ideal Jesus Son of Mary (RRP $13.95). We have some slightly older copies which we have reduced to $9.75

Sister Germana’s Cucina: When Angels Cook: Traditional Italian Cooking for Body and Soul. We reduced this from $34.95 to $24.95 for Christmas and we still have a few copies left. We have reduced these to $19.95 for the duration of the sale.

Rosinella’s Journey by Rosa Melino (RRP $19.95) reduced to $6.00. This is the story of a young Italian girl who immigrated to Australia in 1954. The story of leaving their country of birth to make a better life in Australia is a common one but the author’s simple style gives readers an understanding of what life was like for those who came here, kept their faith and came to love Australia. It can be used as a reader for 6-10 year olds. Highly recommended.
Many Catechists love to teach their classes from the St Joseph’s picture book range, 25% off during the sale.

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 22^nd August, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 171

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

What’s to be done? The answer is Family Catechetics to make practising Catholics!

Download as a PDF

Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child’s earliest years. This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel. Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith. Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God. The parish is the Eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of Christian families; it is a privileged place for the catechesis of children and parents. CCC n. 2226

Long ago, on 11^th August, 1939, just two years after our last Plenary Council in 1937, Sydney’s Archbishop Michael Kelly mandated the Old Green Catechism, saying:-

...the supreme obligation of each Pastor, and of every parent, to have the catechism lessons taught to their respective children in the FAMILY, in the CHURCH and in the SCHOOL.

That family catechetics comes first, before parish instruction and Catholic Schools, is now in Canon Law:-

Before all others, parents are bound to form their children, by word and example, in faith and in Christian living. The same obligation binds godparents and those who take the place of parents (CCL c. 774 §2).

Family Catechetics is not optional. It’s essential. Also note the priest’s role:-

By virtue of his office, the parish priest is bound to ensure the catechetical formation of adults, young people and children.... The parish priest is also to promote and to foster the role of parents in the family catechesis mentioned in can. 774 §2. (CCL c. 776)

Conduct pilot projects: Invite parents, priests and others teachers to volunteer to try out the Catholic Family Catechism in homes, parishes and schools — a mission for volunteers, not conscripts. CATECHISMS of Q&A fulfill St John Paul II’s prescription: “a suitable catechism for families”, “clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”. The Christian Family in the Modern World (Familiaris Consortio) §39.

Family Prayers are essential, plus parental guidance for bedside private prayers as well. SYSTEMATIC and/or INFORMAL teaching all suit Family Catechetics, but keep in mind:-

Opt for “both systematic and informal” rather than “either/or”.
Planned home-lessons are sometimes needed, though casual instruction is much better than none at all.
Tutor one-to-one or in groups, as seems best; older siblings can share in this catechetical work.
Sacred ceremonies/objects used in church or home suit explanation/discussion.
Sermons are often a foundation for discussion with older children.
Sing doctrinal hymns in lounge, kitchen, car etc; learn a hymn each week, or at least, one verse.
Learn/recite/chant an OT/NT Bible text weekly; check Creeds/Sacraments/Commandments/Prayers.
Write — hand and eye reinforce the ear; use dictation, copying, creative composing, etc.
Pictures, specially for youngsters, at home, in church; also draw your own pictures, also diagrams.
Church history, beginning with Bible History; lives of saints and biographies of the faithful.
Home library (and suggest to the priest a parish have a library of DVDs, CDs, books, articles).
Gather monthly with other families to get ideas, inspiration, encouragement, what to avoid.
Invite a priest to talk to parents while others give a catechetics class to children in age groups.

Invite homeschoolers, catechists and Catholic school teachers to get children memorizing Questions & Answers. Try it out! And back it up by urging parents to have family prayers, at least before meals, and to come to Mass, for which children can be apostles to their parents.

Persuade the lapsed to pray so God can prompt them to long to come closer to Him at Mass.

We can declare the Apostles’ Creed (pp. 39-40) our Vision Statement. It summarizes the whole Bible, it presents the principal mysteries of the Unity and Trinity of God, the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sending of the Holy Spirit, the mission of the Church, and it relates these to the ultimate end of man for all eternity. Our Mission Statement is Christ’s clarion call to “Repent and Believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15), issued to each of us and to all mankind.

We need to cultivate those Seven Senses (p. 2) for spiritual sensitivity to hear and heed God, and to empathize with His people:-

A sense of faith

and a sense of the sacred,

a sense of compassion

and a sense of humour,

a sense of history

and a sense of wonder,

a sense of the urgency of the apostolate.

Catholic Homeschooling — an alternative to “Schooling in Schools”

Catholic HOMESCHOOLING is often adopted after Family Catechetics has proved a success. Even call it Home TUTORING, to emphasize the one-to-one teaching of tutor to pupil, parent to child. In Victoria, HOME-EDUCATING is a preferred name for homeschooling, to indicate its totality.

By any name, it really produces Catholic lay apostles for our pagan society.

It is a complete education for a good and Godly upbringing in Christian discipling and lay apostolate, and to be more genuinely human, in that it cultivates the 7 ’Rs, not just the 3 ’Rs:-

1. Religion brings us to God and God to us, and so fulfils our created dignity, duty & destiny;

2. Respect for self & others, i.e. manners and self-control, helps us live with ourselves and to be easy to live with;

3. Reason, memory and understanding, are from the image of God in us;

4. Responsibility for our thoughts, words and deeds: discernment to choose the good and reject evil;

5. Reading, especially “living books”, helps us share in the knowledge and goodwill of suitable authors;

6. ’Riting, by which thought is expressed most succinctly, and preserved, shared and disseminated;

7. ’Rithmetic, with fluency in figuring, add, subtract, multiply, divide; also mentally for small numbers.

N.B. nn. 5,6,7 are life-skills of mind and body. Yet the absence of nn. 1,2,3,4 reduces the efficacy of classroom teaching of the 3 ‘R’s to an endless, painful and wasteful struggle in “crowd control”.

IS IT LEGAL? YES. ARE PARENTS QUALIFIED? YES, mostly:-

· Their own schooling/post-schooling.

· Completion of three or four years of High School plus life experience is enough to teach Primary.

· Ongoing reading/study of curriculum/content/method, and later on, taking courses/degrees:

· cumulative experiences builds up specialized skills in tutoring ages 2-20 years;

· successfully married & bringing up children for years;

· unique interest in welfare of their own children in body & soul;

· God’s grace of state in the Sacrament of Matrimony;

· proven success: pupils get employment and university entry at age 16 or 17 through “open university”.

· Professionals teachers for classes of 25-30 try to cope with disparate ability, effort, interest. However, diverse ability, interest, effort can be tutored more creatively one-to-one. Moreover, home-techniques can induce pupils to work on their own with texts, “living books” and internet, a better preparation for tertiary study.

HOME-TUTORING ensures (1) the practice of the Faith and (2) better socialization.

Centering on the family, that under-valued yet most vital resource of our civilization, home-tutoring is a richer and a different life-style of schooling. It’s benefits are:-

Socialization (across ages 0 to 90+) is better without the peer dependence from age-grading in schools.
Peer friendships of home-tutored children need not weaken parental and sibling relationships.
It forms children for inner security in an increasingly insecure world.
No money is wasted on school fees or transport; and no time is wasted in travelling.
Employability is proven in the outcomes: they pay taxes and don’t go on the dole.
Family manners and discipline predispose children for home-tutoring; their absence is a nightmare
Each learns at his own pace — not achieved by a school’s higher pupil-teacher ratio and more distractions.
The home-tutored are free to work ahead of schedule and their academic success is proven.
School-style Homework is unnecessary: afternoons and evenings are freer for jobs, hobbies and reading.

MORE ON SOCIALIZATION

Socialization means getting on well with parents, siblings, cousins, neighbours and strangers both young and old. Big families hold out welcoming hands to smaller. Indeed, some parents have given socialization as their first reason for home-schooling. USA sociological studies show home-tutored pupils are mostly better socialized, more courteous, secure and ‘open’ than pupils at ordinary schools. Others again have been moved to homeschool to impart the faith and life of the Catholic Church when the official Catholic Schools failed to do so, or even worked against it with false teaching.

Champion of Christian homeschooling in the USA, psychologist Raymond Moore, found that schools do not socialize children, rather they make them ‘peer dependent’, i.e. subservient, enslaved. Peers at school can reduce, usurp, even negate parental influence: victims relate less well to their older and younger siblings at home.

Yes, children do need peer friendships outside their family: cousins, neighbours, i.e. peers without schools.

At a school, pupils easily lapse into ‘human respect’, i.e. thinking or speaking (even acting out) false or ignoble ideas lest they lose esteem in the eyes of peers — like a crowd lowering one’s moral sensitivities. Peer pressure easily becomes psychological bullying.

Also some parent groups set up Charter-style really Catholic Schools — make enquiries, dialogue and visit.

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 24^th August, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 172

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”
Download as a PDF

Part 3. Confession

SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION is for the healing we can’t give ourselves

This sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation for those who have fallen after Baptism, just as Baptism is necessary for salvation for those who have not yet been reborn. (ccc n. 980)

Priests have received from God a power that he has given neither to angels nor to archangels...

God above confirms what priests do here below. (ccc n. 983)

NAMES OF THE SACRAMENT: Is it Penance, Reconciliation or Confession?

Penance is penitence (Mark 1-.15) i.e. conversion (ccc nn. 1423, 1424). Many think of “penance” as “doing their penance”, the Act of Satisfaction, because their penance is sacramentalized in this Sacrament of Forgiveness.

Pope St John Paul II popularized the name “Sacrament of Reconciliation”, and the CCC uses it extensively, though by no means exclusively. However, he also insisted that:

All seven sacraments are reconciliation...

The old name, Sacrament of Confession, still stands. (Reconciliatio et Penitentia §27 of 1984).

Canon Law, too, uses the expression “hearing confessions” 22 times (in CCL nn. 961 §1 *1 to 986 *2; also in 566 *1, 630 *4), so better to say, “This is my First Confession”, because First Reconciliation was Baptism.

CALL TO HOLINESS — continuous conversion: “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15)

All the faithful are called to holiness (Lumen Gentium chapter 5; “Be holy for I am holy (1 Peter 1:16; cf. Matthew 5:48)) and therefore go to Confession regularly. The Introduction to the Rite of Penance says:

The members of the Church are exposed to temptation and unfortunately often fall into sin (Rite of Penance n. 3).

Frequent confession of venial sins is like washing hands before meals, a mid-course correction:

In the sacrament of penance the faithful obtain from the mercy of God pardon for their sins against Him; at the same time they are reconciled with the Church ... which works for their conversion by charity, example and prayer (ibid n. 4).

The healing which penance provides is varied. Those in grave sin ... are called back ... to the life they have lost. Those with venial sins ... gain the full freedom of the children of God (ibid n. 7).

The faithful must confess to a priest each and every grave sin which they remember upon examination of their conscience. Moreover, frequent and careful celebration of this sacrament is also very useful as a remedy for venial sins. This is not a mere ritual repetition or psychological exercise, but a serious striving to perfect the grace of baptism ... to conform more closely to Christ and to follow the voice of the Spirit more attentively (ibid n. 7).

Mortal sin is a ticket to Hell. The Sacrament of Penance is “a second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace” (CCC n. 1446) and CCC n. 1447 gives its historical development. It implies God (1) is merciful; (2) justice has moral absolutes, “Maker’s instructions”, Ten Commandments.

If morality is taught in black and white, our conduct will rise at least to various shades of grey. However, if morality is taught as shades of grey, the conduct will be very black indeed.

GENERAL ABSOLUTION

The Third Rite of the Sacrament of Penance is for emergencies, never normative, and not for a large group of penitents who have left it too late for normal confession (the First Rite) before a big feast day. (ccc nn. 1483-1484; ccl nn. 961-963). The lure of an easy option kills any zeal for holiness.

We need a challenge, not a soft option: the easy is cheap and not valued. Think of the Syrian leper, Namaan, angry at the casualness of Elisha the Prophet, who wouldn’t even come to the door, but sent a servant to tell him to wash seven times in the Jordan. Namaan was insulted and turned away in a towering rage. He was being taught humility, and repented after his own servants chided him:

If the prophet had commanded you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? (2 Kings 5:8-14)

Bringing out the best in a man requires him to do something especially difficult:

Tom had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that, in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make it difficult.

Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, on whitewashing the fence.

Significantly, this is quoted in The Book of Virtues, as also is Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), who was flooded with applicants after his advertisement for volunteers for an antarctic expedition:-

MEN WANTED FOR HAZARDOUS JOURNEY. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.

Making-it-more-noble is even more important than “making-it-difficult”: a motto for the Christian life must be “Excelsior”, “Friend, go up higher” (Luke 14:10), “Be perfect”, “be holy” (Matthew 5:48; 1 Peter 1:15,16).

WHAT’S TO BE DONE? and urgently, since the Church exists to turn sinners into saints

Reminders are needed: sacramental Confession is required (except for newly baptized) for:

those in mortal sin (CCL n. 916; “Let a man examine himself,” 1 Corinthians 11:28);
receiving first Holy Communion ( "Let the children come to Me, Matthew 19:14; and CCL c. 914);
receiving Confirmation when separated from Baptism (ccc n. 1310; cf. n. 1319).

The sequence of these sacraments need not be exactly the same for children baptized in infancy as for adult catechumens and converts (see Handouts n. 11, The 3 C’s, Confession, Communion, Confirmation: What order?):-

In a special way, the parish priest is to ensure... children are properly prepared

for First confession and first communion, and for the sacrament of confirmation, [note the

order!] by means of catechetical formation over an appropriate period of time... (ccl c. ill 2°).

Counselling is a secondary aspect of the Sacrament of Penance. Yet when The Rite of Penance was renewed in 1976, other changes were slipped in as if they were parts of the new rite.

These involved extensive and expensive reconstruction of confessionals as “confessional rooms”, with a chair for the penitent to sit face to face with the priest and without the grill between them.

With a penitent no longer kneeling, but simply sitting, it seemed more like a therapy session and, in some places, the penitent was persuaded to forgive himself, psycho-style... Further, some priests insisted on ‘face to face’ — that or nothing. It was very insensitive towards those confessing embarrassing sins. And CCL of 1983 in c. 964 was somewhat imprecise in a more-or-less insistence on a fixed grill between priest and penitent. But sitting is the wrong body language. The previous supernatural symbolism of kneeling was gone. Besides, in the Bible, kneeling is for humility and adoration and an appeal for forgiveness (Matthew 18:29; Luke 5:8). Make it the default option.

Restoration of a three hour fast for Holy Communion would reduce embarrassment for those in need of Confession to avoid unworthy reception out of human respect. The present canon law is:

Whoever is to receive the Blessed Eucharist is to abstain for at least one hour before Holy Communion from all food and drink with the sole exception of water and medicine. (CCL c. 919 §1)

After suitable intense preaching, it could be changed from “At least one hour” to “three hours”, and dispensable by confessors in the internal forums of Confession or confidential counselling.

Indiscriminate Holy Communion at school Masses, weddings and funerals must cease, and the ignorance of non-Catholics and even practising Catholics, can be cured by kindly instruction.

School Masses for lapsed Catholics and non-believers might better be replaced by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The Real Presence and the Sense of Sacredness needs to be preached (see p. 6). It would help lax ‘pray-ers’ to adore God, and also children preparing for First Communion.

“Confession” of the Faith, the faith which is the truth about God

This is the usage in a majority of Bible texts on “confession”; confession of sins is in fewer texts.

Our chief pastoral need, as always, is to Proclaim the Good News. The Good News is:-

...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,

and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death... (Philippians 3:10)

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son,

that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;

repent and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:15)

Thus the Good News is to rejoice in Christ’s Resurrection and to take up His Cross.

WHAT’S TO BE DONE to love and serve the Lord?

Face the facts: some falsehoods abound:-

Christianity without the Cross; capitulation to worldliness; “politically correct” alien paradigms.
Morals without reality or revelation or any sound reasoning, left only with self-contradictory relativism.
Miracles in Scripture demythologized by an absurd hermeneutics of their ‘scientific’ impossibility.
Doctrine without Scripture, Tradition or Magisterium to suit “cafeteria pick-&-choose Christians”.
Catechetics without content and Catholic schools without Catholicism in many cases.
Three generations without prayer, faith, piety, Sunday Mass, Friday Penance, or any Confession.
Liturgy without The Sense of the Sacred and over-emphasis on intelligibility often reduced to banality.
Holy Communion without sacramental Confession of grave sins (or any sin) — abolition of a sacrament!
Ignorant insensitive priests making public their generalizations about confessions they have heard.
Ignorant judges, lawyers and politicians who think the seal of Confession is dispensable.
Character without the courage to renounce the Devil’s modern temptations: it’s a devolution into vice.
The addiction of churchmen to ‘experts’, gurus, fashions and “to hear something new” (Acts 17:21).

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 24^th August, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 173

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Natural Morality (Natural Moral Law)

Download as a PDF

PERSONAL MORALITY: The Ten COMMANDMENTS

Australian laws and our Federal Constitution still contain a deal of the Bible — Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, as revealed by God to Moses, 13^th century B.C. (or 14^th or 12^th ?) — thus:-

1. God Almighty: pre-amble to Constitution and use of the Lord’s Prayer in Parliament.

2. His Name not taken in vain: hence swearing into office and oaths in court in God’s Name.

3. Keep holy the Lord’s (Sabbath) day: workers’ right to a weekly day-off for rest and worship.

4. Honour father and mother: upholding of marriage and family life — until recently!

5. Duty to defend human life from murder — now weakened by abortion and euthanasia.

6. Duty to defend marriage from adultery — now abandoned, or even approved as “P.C.”!

7. Duty to defend property from theft — more or less upheld.

8. Prohibition on false witness — more or less upheld.

9. Duty to avoid lustful thoughts — now little protection from pornography.

10. Duty to avoid covetous thoughts — never could be law, but socially desirable.

The Code of Hammurabi from Babylon, 18^th century B.C., has six of the Ten Commandments. It is a pagan testimony to natural morality (natural moral law), though in a motley mix with civil edicts and laced with penalties so draconian as to make Leviticus read like a toddler’s tale at a Sunday School picnic.

SOCIAL MORALITY: SUBSIDIARITY and SOLIDARITY

Each these principles as simple truths of good philosophy rather than as “Catholic Social Teaching”

1. How is social philosophy based on natural morality?

Social philosophy is based on natural morality:

1. Man is created by God, in His image;

2. with the dignity of being a person;

3. that is, with an intellect and freedom;

4. called to an eternal destiny with God;

5. with God-given rights and duties;

6. blessed by God to live in society;

7. which has authority to uphold rights.

2. Why is social philosophy complicated?

Social philosophy is complicated because the exercise of personal rights may have to be limited by society to ensure the rights of others in that the purpose of society is to uphold the common good.*

* A “good” is a perfection or purpose, e.g. “A struggle to make good.”

The Common Good

3. What is the common good?

The common good is the social benefit in which every person shares and which society has a duty to uphold to ensure the natural human rights of everyone. It is not the greatest good of the greatest number, nor is it decided by majority vote. The common good is not the same as the public good; the public good is the means by which the political society supports the common good.

Subsidiarity, a social Right: “All for one”

4. What is the principle of subsidiarity?

The principle of subsidiarity* is that society exists for the sake of persons and not persons for the sake of society, so society must help persons and smaller societies to function, and not usurp them, so that they enjoy freedom and rights and share in the common good.

* Subsidiarity is being supportive; subsidiary means subordinate.

SOLIDARITY, a social Duty - “One for all”

5. What is the principle of solidarity?

The principle of solidarity* is that every person and smaller society has a duty to make society workable by accepting its authority and so to contribute to the common good.

* Solidarity implies that some subordination is necessary.

“All for one, One for all”*

6. What ensures both personal freedom and social order within society?

Personal freedom and social order are ensured by a proper balance between subsidiarity and solidarity so that the common good is upheld. The common good is supportive of the person and the person is subordinate to the common good.

* More or less, “all for one” is subsidiarity, and “one for all” is solidarity.

Social Evils

7. What happens if subsidiarity or solidarity is ignored?

If subsidiarity is ignored, an excessive emphasis on solidarity leads to socialism and totalitarianism, whether fascism or communism; if solidarity is ignored, an excessive emphasis on subsidiarity leads to capitalism and individualism.*

*To disregard these dangers is to rush headlong into the quick-sands of Modernism in the moral, juridical and social order, said Pius XI, 1931, in Quadragesimo Anno §46.

Society, Family and Person

8. When is socialization justifiable?

Socialization is justifiable only as a last resort.

“The function of the State’s authority is twofold: to protect and foster families and individuals, but neither to absorb them nor substitute itself for them.”*

* Pope Pius XI, 1929, Divini illius magistri §19 Catholic Family Catechism Apostles’ Edition nn. 458-471

“Confession of the Christian Faith” also means upholding Natural Morality

Morality for Politicians

Christians politicians need to uphold natural law morality in union with all men of goodwill:-

Political structuring and organization of social life... task of the lay faithful... on their own initiative... with the common good in view... conforming with the Gospel and the teaching of the Church... (CCC n. 2442)

NO ONE CAN NEGATE IN-BUILT MORALS — not even politicians and professors

Thus declared Cicero, a pagan Roman lawyer, 106-43 B.C.

If it were not grounded in nature there would be no justice, and all virtues would cease to exist.

How otherwise can magnanimity, love of one’s country, pietas, meriting the good opinion of others and honouring obligations, exist? For these arise from the fact that we are by nature inclined to love our fellow men. This is the foundation of justice. Were this not so, then respect for our fellow men, and for the ceremonies and religions of the gods would cease — things that must be preserved, not out of fear but because of the link that exists between man and god [in coniunctione quae est homini cum deo]. If what is just is decided by the will of the people, or by decrees of princes or sentences of judges, then thievery could be lawful as could adultery and perjury — if such were determined by the votes or opinions of the mob. Were such power to arise from the opinions and commands of unwise people, then by their will the very nature of things would be turned on its head. What is to stop such people declaring evil and pernicious things to be good and sound? If such ‘law’ [based on opinion] can make unjust things just, what’s to stop it making evil things, good? Nature is the norm that enables us to distinguish a good law from a bad one. And it’s not only justice and injustice that are judged by their nature, but also, of course, what is honourable and what is dishonourable. For, as common sense makes clear to us, and instills in our minds from our very beginnings, honour is derived from virtue, and dishonour from vice. It would be madness to think that their reality is determined by people’s opinion rather than by their very essence.

Cicero, De Legibus, Liber Primus §§ 43-45 ; transl. by Father Paul Stenhouse MSC, Annals Australasia 2/2017

Cicero speaks of it again in another passage:-

There is in fact a true law, namely right reason, which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and eternal. By its commands this law summons men to the performance of their duties; by its prohibitions it restrains them from doing wrong. Its commands and prohibitions always influence good men, but are without effect upon the bad.

To invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor is it permissible ever to restrict its operation and to annul it wholly is impossible. Neither the Senate [of ancient republican Rome] nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to obey this law, and it requires no Sextus Aelius [a famous politician] to expound and interpret it. It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another tomorrow. But there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times and upon all peoples; and there will be, as it were, one common master and ruler of men, namely God, who is the author of this law, its interpreter and its sponsor.

Cicero, Republic III, 22 (trans. by Brother Christian Moe FSC)

St Paul also proclaimed objective moral goodness as a law “written in our hearts” (Romans 2:15).

CIVIL LAW

Parliaments make civil law about justice; civil law is not about love or feelings.

God makes Divine Law about justice and love and feelings.

Laws are an alternative to dictatorial government by decree and not by law.

Civil laws harmonize relationships in society and so must deal with new situations, imposing obligations for behaviour, but always in accord with natural morality. They can change the details but not the underlying morality. They can confer various civil rights, but not abolish natural human rights.

Parliaments need to debate the limits of their authority, that they can’t do anything they like. .“We get the politicians we deserve,” and many now reject God, Conscience and Commandments, so they are quickly exhausting their inherited dwindling little stocks of moral capital into a moral bankruptcy.

ECONOMIC DETERMINISM

“Political Correctness” from today’s social engineers reverses true priorities. A State-organized economy exists for the people, a means to end, not people sacrificed to the economy.

Forcing mothers into paid work is bad for children. See Dr Peter Cook’s Mothering Matters.

Indeed, great economies would be achieved if society upheld God, His Laws, human Conscience. Conscience is “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12KJV). Taxation could be reduced if the Ten Commandments were government policy and taught in state schools as standards for our society. It is in family life that we learn “no murder, adultery, theft or lies”. But first we must honour God and not insult Him.

Father James Tierney

THIS APOSTOLATE NEEDS YOUR HELP

Being a Volunteer on a roster for a few hours a week; a regular 2 hours or more would be great
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Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 81 - December 2018

noreply@blogger.com (CNFRI Manager) — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 02:11:00 +0000

For a Child is born to us, and a Son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder: and His name will be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

Message from the Manager

A warm welcome to the second part of our 2018 Christmas email Newsletter. The next three Handouts - 168, 169, 170 - which concern Father Tierney’s well-researched submission to the 2020 Plenary Council come with this edition so we urge you to read them.
We wish to thank all our readers for their generosity this year. Your prayers, physical help and monetary sacrifices have been invaluable in sustaining the apostolate and Father will be offering Masses for everyone during the forthcoming beautiful Christmas season. As Catholics we know that Advent and Christmas are about preparing for and celebrating the birth of Christ, a time of hope, peace and joy. It has been a great delight to see an increase in the number of people spending extra time in front of the Blessed Sacrament in this parish (Our Lady of the Rosary St Marys). We are further delighted and surprised by the number of people who are already buying presents that give true meaning to the season . Though we have sold a large number of Nativity sets this year we still have a number of good quality ones available as well as activities, puzzles, books, DVDs and music for Advent and Christmas.
Padre Pio and Mother Teresa talk about the necessity of spiritual reading for our growth in grace so we know a gift from our extensive range will be of great benefit. We have reintroduced special prices for our calendars, liturgical materials and diaries for 2019 until Christmas. Our stocks are steadily selling so please do not hesitate to come in or ring us if you require anything.
Our premises in St Marys is being steadily reorganised and the new “look” makes it easier to browse and shop. During December we have been open Monday to Saturday and we will be trading 2:30 pm to 8:30pm on Sunday 23rd December. Our last day of trading for 2018 will Monday 24th December 9:30 - 5:00pm. As part of our revamp there will be a thorough stocktake in early January.
We will reopen on 16th January 2019 at 9:30am with a 10-70% Off RRP Sale (until sold out) which will end at 5:00pm on Friday 25th January. Unfortunately, once an item is sold out we are unable to offer the sale price on most of these products. Items bought on sale cannot be returned so please choose carefully. Also note that we already sell Holy Heroes products and Vision Books at 33-40% off RRP all year round as we believe these are an integral part of Evangelisation for children so there will be no further discounts on these. There is also a huge range of second hand religious books, home schooling books and science materials at bargain prices. Most of these materials are in excellent condition, and those that are not are still usable. It is highly recommended that you view and sift through these goods in our rooms.
We are excited to announce that the new on-line shop is almost ready to go “live”. If you are interested in our sale, we recommend that all Sydney customers visit us in St Marys so you can see what you are buying first hand. Due to stock levels the sale prices will not be available on the website but our country and aged customers can ring us outside of trading hours between 7:45am - 8:45am of a morning and 5:15 – 6:00pm in the evening from 16th-25th January. This will give us time to check stock levels and process your order with the allocated discount and send it out. Sometimes two calls come in at the same time so if we do not answer please leave a message with your name and phone number and we will contact you as soon as possible. Please try not to ring during opening hours as we may be too busy to help you.
Please take the time to view the products below and think seriously about making some of these your gifts to give at Christmas time. Thank you again for making our year so fruitful. May God bless you and keep you safe during this joyful season.
God bless,
Gai Smith
Manager

Featured items

Confession CD by Fr Larry Richards $5.00
Fr Richards teaches on the Sacrament of Confession in a very forthright manner, challenging his audience to a closer relationship with Christ through an honest and thorough look at our attitude to the Sacrament of Confession. It is great preparation for Advent.
The Mystery of Christmas by Fr Larry Richards $5.00
A wonderful talk by Fr Richards on the mystery and the wonder of Christmas.
The Healing Power of Confession CD by Scott Hahn $5.00
Scott Hahn not only describes the historical and biblical origins of Penance but he also challenges us to deepen our relationship with Christ through regular use of this sacrament.

Paul Apostle of Christ DVD starring Jim Caviezel $24.95

PAUL, APOSTLE OF CHRIST is the story of two men. Luke, as a friend and physician, risks his life when he ventures into the city of Rome to visit Paul, who is held captive in Nero’s darkest, bleakest prison cell. But Nero is determined to rid Rome of Christians, and does not flinch from executing them in the grisliest ways possible. Before Paul’s death sentence can be enacted, Luke resolves to write another book, one that details the beginnings of “The Way” and the birth of what will come to be known as the church.

What’s New:
Evolution Impossible by Dr John F Ashton super special price of $19.95
Highly recommended by Fr Tierney.
Why Bad Things Happen to Good Catholics by Father Henri Morice 21.95
Treasure in Heaven: A Study on the Sermon on the Mount by Barry R Pearlman $23.95
The Last Hours of Jesus: From Gethsemane to Golgotha by Fr Ralph Gorman CP $31.95
Peter the Apostle by William Thomas Walsh $25.95
Paul of Tarsus by Joseph Holzner $33.95
The Great Discovery: Our Journey to the Catholic Church by Ulf and Birgitta Ekman $29.95
God is Good for You by Greg Sheridan $32.95

Father Brown 1 & 2 Readers by Nancy Carpentier Brown $22.50 each or 2 for $40.00 (7-15 years)
The Chestertons and the Golden Key by Nancy Carpentier Brown on special $20.00 (7-15 years)
How Far is it to Bethlehem? by Nancy Carpentier Brown on Special $39.95
The Woman who was Chesterton by Nancy Carpentier Brown on Special $29.95

Celebrating Christmas Picture Book by Rev Jude Winkler $3.00
The Story of the Birth of Jesus by Rev Jude Winkler $3.00
Celebrating Advent With The Jesse Tree Picture Book by Rev Jude Winkler $3.00
Joyous Christmas (Children's Tree Shaped Board Book with Ribbon) $14.95

Brother Francis presents The Story of Christmas CD by Herald Entertainment $13.95
This is an engaging, heart-warming, dramatization that recounts the story of Christ's birth. The story-telling, music and songs give the children a deep understanding of Christmas.
Brother Francis 7: O Holy Night DVD $14.50
Nicholas: The Boy who Became Santa DVD $10.00
My Golden Christmas Book by Rev Thomas J Donaghy, $15.95
The Story of Christmas Carry-Me-Along Board Book $8.95
Christmas Joy (St Joseph Rattle Book) $9.95
The Story of Christmas by Rev Jude Winkler $10.95
Advent Colouring Book by Catholic Book Publishing Corporation $3.00
Christmas Colouring Book $3.00

Recent additions from Corinna Turner
Brothers: A Prequel Novella (I Am Margaret series) by Corinna Turner $19.95
Margot's Diary & Notebook (I Am Margaret series) by Corinna Turner $21.95
Mandy Lamb and the Full Moon by Corinna Turner $25.95
Elfing by Corinna Turner $27.95
Secrets: Visible and Invisible by various including Corinna Turner and Susan Peek $21.95
The Siege of Reginald Hill by Corinna Turner $19.95
Her latest book and only just released.

Caroling at Ephesus special price $24.95
The purchase of these CDs and all the other 8 CDs (including Christmas at Ephesus) from the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles helps to fund the establishment of their abbey. We have maintained the prices at last year’s rate so you can afford to enjoy their beautiful heavenly works. Their latest album, Jesus, Mary and Joseph at Ephesus is also available for $24.95.

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 6^th August, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 168

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Part 1. Christ Jesus Our Lord

Download as a PDF

CHRIST is the first of 4 parts, all starting with “C”, in this submission: the others are:-

· CATECHETICS in the faith once delivered to the saints;

· CONFESSION of sin and seeking holiness; and

· CONCEPTION of saints in matrimony and priesthood.

These are the four vital topics in this submission for the renewal of Catholicism and Christianity in Australia, to rebuild vital items that have gone missing, and to clear away obstacles to virtue.

THE FACTS of our PRESENT SITUATION

The Second Vatican Council [VCII] has given us the ideas and ideals for the new Evangelization. However, the greatest concern of VCII has not yet been achieved.

This concern was declared by Pope St John XXIII at its opening, on 11^th October, 1962:

The greatest concern of the Second Vatican Council is

that the Sacred Deposit of Christian Doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously.

Quoted in Abbott, Documents of VCII, p. 713; and Catechism of the Catholic Church p. 2; emphasis added.

In actual fact, the Sacred Deposit of Christian Doctrine is less well guarded and taught than in 1962. So Catechetics will be the nucleus for our renewal in Christ, in Confession, and in Conception.

IN CHRIST: vocations to His priesthood

“Jesus did not want a Church without priests,” declared St John Paul II to Australian seminarians in Melbourne in 1986. Christ desires vocations to His Priesthood and perseverance in it.

Vocations require catechesis for a renewed faith and devotion to Christ in the Holy Eucharist:-

· This “Presence-Sacrament” needs much more reverent genuflections and adoration than customary today.

· This Sacrifice-Sacrament requires matching sacrifices in participants, including celibacy in priests.

· This Communion-Sacrament is symbiotic with prayer and zest for holiness and so for Confession.

CATECHETICS of faith

· The Apostles’ Creed unveils the Trinity & Incarnation, the life of Christ and our life in Christ.

· The Our Father is the key to all prayer, first privately, then liturgically at Mass.

· The Ten Commandments and Sermon on the Mount alert us to sin, Confession, and holiness.

· The Catholic Family Catechism Disciples’ Edition offers easy memorization and understanding.

CONFESSION of sins

· This Sacrament has been almost abolished in the Protestant mindset of many Mass-going Catholics.

· Contraception, General Absolutions, general worldliness, no sense of sin: all cry out for Confession.

· Without regular Confession, zeal for holiness ceases and sins multiply.

CONCEPTION of saints

· Contraception is the chief enemy of the Sacrament of Matrimony by which spouses should sanctify each other and their children (CCC n. 1534) and for sustainable marriage.

· “Contracepting the Gospel” by concealment, corruption or even cowardice is a major vice or temptation for quite a number of otherwise good priests who desperately need leadership and support.

Personal Covenant

Seven Pledges of a glory-giver

On MY HONOUR, I promise that I will do my best to be God’s glory-giver:-

a child of the Father,

a cross-bearer with Jesus Christ, my Saviour and Friend,

with the Holy Spirit as my Helper and Guide.

I reject Satan, sin and selfishness.

I will be a child of Mary and the Church,

a Good Samaritan to my neighbour,

and faithful to the duties of my vocation in life to which it has pleased God to call me.

Saint N., named my patron at Baptism

(and Saint N. at Confirmation),

help me to please Jesus (today)

by imitating your virtues.

Modesty before God and man

Goodwill flows from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith, (cf. 1 Timothy 1:5)

Lord, help me save my soul

by putting others before myself

— their safety, feelings, comfort —

and make me pure and humble,

truly manly/womanly,

modest and well-mannered

in gesture, deed and dress, speech and thinking,

never rude or crude,

and to shun pride and vanity,

or any vulgar display of my body, talents or successes;

may I always imitate Mary Thy lowly handmaid,

the Living Catechism of Christ Thy Son,

Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

The Reform of the Reform of the Liturgy

VCII began the New Evangelization with Liturgical Renewal in Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC). Yet its implementation has failed to deliver what VCII intended. Its implementation needs Reform.

Proof: People with no memory of the Old Rite, youth and young families, are escaping from the Ordinary Form they were attending, to the Extraordinary Form 1962 Latin Mass, or to the dignified sacral English and deportment of the new Ordinariate Mass for convert Anglicans, or simply to the SSPX. New liturgy is so often celebrated in a way that does not raise them to God and grip their souls.

Surely we must re-read what the Council said and also evaluate the pastoral efficacy of changes not in VCII, e.g. Mass “facing the people”, Communion in the hand, standing up, from lay ministers. See “A Liturgy Awesome and Wondrous”, Appendix pp. 23-24.

Another indicator is a dearth of vocations to sacramental states of life — matrimony, priesthood, Religious Life, from families. Shonky liturgy, shoddy catechetics, worldliness, have killed off vocations.

THE SENSE OF THE SACRED — “We beheld His glory” (John 1:14)

It is evident that the liturgy must favour the Sense of the Sacred and make it shine forth.

It must be permeated by the spirit of reverence, adoration and the glorification of God.

Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Rome, 1985, Final Report IIB(b) 1

But it isn’t! The Sense of the Sacred is negated by worldly entertainments and alien ceremonies merging off into mere antics. Such do not hold the faithful, proven since 1970 by 85% adults, adolescents and children no longer present at all. “Actual participation,” participatio actualis, not just “active participation”, participatio activa, is a subtlety missing in the translations of VCII’s SC. In practice, the Sense of the Sacred, that vital “sacramental” such as human nature needs, is missing too.

PRIEST at ALTAR: Which side of the altar ?

Leading them Godward to the altar? or Facing the people across the altar ?

We assume Mass should be “turned to the people” — but it’s not in VCII’s SC, and came later: The altar should be built separate from the wall, in such a way tiiat it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible...

General Instruction of the Roman Missal [GIRM] n. 299

This is the only mention of “Mass facing the people” in the GIRM, or indeed in the entire Missal. Its purpose seem to be that a free standing altar can be incensed all round; and only secondarily, it makes “facing the people” possible, “can be”, preferred, “which is desirable", but not commanded.

Yet contrary passages in GIRM and repeated in the rubrics (red print in altar edition), assume the priest is not “facing the people,” but leading them to the altar, “on their side”. Never say “with his back to us” because the priest turns to greet the people — except for the start of the Eucharistic Prayer.

If facing the people were normative, these directives “to turn to the people” are meaningless:-

Rubric	GIRM	Location in the Eucharistic Liturgy
28	145	Washing hands
29	146	“Pray, brethren”
31	—	Before Preface no rubric says “turned to the people”, unlike rubrics 29, 127, 132, 139
127	154	Sign of Peace
132	157	“Behold die Lamb of God”
133	158	“Turned back to the altar”: the only such mention after a rubric “turned to the people”
139	165	“Let us pray” before post-Communion prayer: significant if at the altar and not at the chair
141	167	Blessing and Dismissal

We need reports from priests and parishioners who have experienced the English Mass ad orientem (priest facing liturgical east), whether English Novus Ordo or Old Latin Rite.

SACRED SILENCE — No chatter in church: it’s stealing the attention people owe to God.

Sacred silence... at the designated time... Even before tire celebration itself, it is praiseworthy for silence to be observed in the church... sacristy... vesting room... adjacent areas, so that all may dispose themselves to carry out the sacred celebration in a devout and fitting manner. (GIRM n. 45b)

UNCLUTTERING

Electronic sights and sounds of “power presentations” negate the Sense of the Sacred. And their impact on the young is quite blunted by familiarity. Overhead projectors and liturgical dancing are destructive of the Sense of the Sacred. The faithful cease to forget themselves to meet God. So Our Lord cleansed the Temple:-

Take all of this out of here! (John 2:16; Mark 11:15-16)

Turn your steps to these places that are utterly ruined! The enemy has laid waste the whole of the sanctuary. Your foes have made uproar in your house of prayer: they have set up their emblems, their foreign emblems, high above the entrance of the sanctuary. (Psalm 74:3-5 — Little Hour, Thursday Week 3)

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 8^th August, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 169

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”
Download as a PDF

This Handouts continues on The Reform of the Reform

ALTAR BOYS & YOUTHS are needed on the sanctuary, and no more unisex

(1) It encourages “the less couth sex” to edify the faithful; (2) promotes vocations to priestly fatherhood in the sacred ministry or in families; (3) and inspires males in the manliness of Christ in His Action. (4) We can transform existing altar girls into new groups; (5) with their own special devotions before &/or after Mass, dress and functions, to serve the faithful before, during and after Mass, as choirs, welcomers, distributing and tidying up notice sheets, organizing Offertory Procession, florists, sacristans: a new sort of Children of Mary. For more details, see Handouts 131.

FAITH & DEVOTION to live in Christ Jesus

Our vocation is to holiness (VCII LG n. 42) There is no lay apostolate without it. It is urgent — now. The soul of the apostolate is the interior life. Growth in holiness depends on contact with God. Quality contact with God depends on earnest Confession and properly prepared Holy Communions. Liturgy makes Christ’s Mysteries become ours: His words, Revelation, Pascal Mystery and charity. His visible presence passed over into sacraments (St Leo the Great, Liturgy of the Hours, vol. II, p. 641).

His Mysteries of Salvation are re-enacted in, and empower, the Mass and other Sacrament. Thereby we enter into His Mysteries and into Him. and into the life of the Blessed Trinity. His Mysteries are further praised and contemplated in The Liturgy of the Hours and meditated in the 20 Mysteries of the Rosary, which are sometimes enriched with Bible texts (only by agreement of participants) or pictures, and most of all His abiding Presence in the tabernacle or the monstrance.

THE LORD’S DAY — the Day of Christ’s Resurrection from the Dead

We can strive to restore Sunday to its God-status and a rest day from work such as human nature needs, for renewal of body and soul and enhancing family bonds. No more economic determinism!

TRANSLATIONS from the Novus Ordo Latin

There should be no more textual changes, not for years — tinkering is destabilizing, even if it were to bring in more sacral language like archaic 2^nd person pronouns as on. pp. 2, 5, 6, 9 and 18.

And NO UNISEX: no further surrender whatever to its false science, philosophy and femspeak!

THE FORGOTTEN PRESENCE — “The Lord is in this place and I knew it not!”

In the Development of Doctrine and of Devotion over centuries and millennia, the faithful came to recognize the Abiding Presence in the Sacrament reserved for the dying and sick in the tabernacle: it really is the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the appearances of wafer bread, and, at Mass, of the consecrated wine as well.

Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament is a special blessing.

Without Mass “facing the people,” tabernacles can be restored to altars. Hear a Pope prophesy: The altar is more important than the tabernacle, because on it is offered the Lord’s sacrifice. In the tabernacle, on the other hand, He is present as long as the consecrated species last, yet is not making a permanent sacrificial offering. ...An awareness of their unity is more important than a realization of their difference. It is one and the same Lord Who is immolated on the altar and honoured in the tabernacle, and Who pours out His blessings from the tabernacle. ...A person who is thoroughly convinced of this would avoid many difficulties. He would be wary of exaggerating the significance of one to the detriment of the other. There is... a tendency to... a lessening of esteem for the presence and action of Christ in the tabernacle. The sacrifice of the altar is held sufficient, and the importance of Him Who accomplishes it is reduced. Yet the person of our Lord must hold the central place in worship, for it is His person that unifies the relations of the altar and the tabernacle and gives them their meaning... to separate tabernacle from altar is to separate two things which by their origin and nature remain united.

Venerable Pius XII: International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy, at Assisi, 1956

· Restore Communion kneeling at altar rails: it’s far more reverent, and actually faster, and there is no need for bows or genuflections since kneeling counts as adoration.

· Meanwhile, recognize the contradictions on genuflections in GIRM between nn. 160 and 274-275.

· Limit extraordinary ministers of Communion for numbers >50; and use Both Kinds only for small groups.

· Encourage Communion on the tongue: it saves irreverence and is the default setting in GIRM n. 161.

Catena Aurea

A Golden Chain of texts on the Presence of God

O God Almighty, the mystery awesome & wondrous

Truly Thou art a hidden God, the God of Israel, the Saviour. (Isaiah 45:15)

Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory (cf. Isaiah 6:3)

Be still, and know that I am God. (Psalm 46 [45]_: 10)

Speak, Lord, Thy servant is listening (1 Samuel 3:10)

O Blessed Trinity, the Holy One

Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit... and said, “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father;

and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son

and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come unto Me... (Luke 10: 21; Matthew 11:27-28)

Glory be to — the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. (Luke 2:14; Matthew 28:19)

O Son Incarnate

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;

the same was in the beginning with God;

all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made...

and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,

the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1,2,14)

The Real Presence of Jesus Christ

contained in a Presence-Sacrament, offered in a Sacrifice-Sacrament, received in a Communion-Sacrament.

And behold! I am with you always — [until] I come in glory (Matthew 28:20; cf. 25:31)

With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you, before I suffer. . . (Luke 22:15)

Do this in memory of Me (Luke 22:19)

Eat this Bread and live for ever (John 6:58)

His Abiding Presence in

the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar of Sacrifice

Truly, the Lord is in this place and I knew it not... How awesome is this place!

It is none other than the House of God and the Gate of Heaven. (Genesis 28:17)

.The Lord is in His holy temple; let the whole earth keep silence before Him. (Habakuk 2:20)

Our situation is perilous and deteriorating

We are failing to Hand on the Faith to the younger generation, “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), a “trust committed to us” (cf. l Timothy 6:20) in Catholic Schools. See Conclusions p. 20.

The evidence is there for all to see: hundreds of children in school playgrounds, all healthy, scrubbed and uniformed, yet at best a mere handful seen at Sunday Mass. After 13 years in Catholic Schools, few boys and girls graduate as practising Catholics committed to the lay apostolate.

Vocations to priesthood or Religious Life are sparse, and even to marriage becoming scarcer, also begetting children — evidence is in the Parish Registers of Marriages and Baptisms.

Check it out for yourself. Ask pupils, “What did Jesus do and why did He?” Or ask them,

“Say the Apostles’ Creed. Name the Sacraments. Recite the Ten Commandments and the Our Father.”

The Catholic Schools cannot cope with their vast majority of lapsed Catholics and non-Catholics. Sometimes they corrupt children even of practising parents. For decades, Catholic education lacked solid religion teaching, an absolute necessity for lay apostles. And many teachers lack faith and fervour — unlike Catholic homeschoolers. Homeschoolers do not identify education with schools, nor even with a schooling. See VCII GE on Christian Education nn. 1-3 on an upbringing at home (including n. 1 for sex education); n. 5 says “the special mission of schools is nurturing the intellectual faculties”.

MENDING THE MESS — Bishops & Priests: we are the teachers of the teachers: pp. 27-28

Catholic home-schooling (tutoring/education) has proved successful for a really Catholic education.

Parent-run schools are another alternative. They are freer from interference from the failed theories of Church and government bureaucrats. Their simple secret: an upbringing and schooling by loving mothers and fathers, or professional teachers devoted to their Faith in Jesus. (See p. 12)

The most vital part of a Catholic education is not academic success, but an upbringing, and then accompanied by a fitting level of academic schooling, for young disciples to become adult lay apostles.

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 15^th August, 2018
HANDOUTS n. 170

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Part 2. Catechetics in Christian Doctrine for Religious Education

Download as a PDF

Catechetics is handing on the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3)

The Church must abandon RE programs which fail to teach the basics of the faith. Real teaching includes “heralding”, telling the potential disciples what the faith is: catechetics with Catholic content.

This lack in RE was recognized 33 years ago at the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops summoned by St John Paul II in 1985. This synod was to assess the implementation of VCII 20 years after its conclusion. The Synod’s Final Report [henceforth FR] issued a general warning:

There had been a defective understanding and application of the Second Vatican Council.

That is an accurate translation of defectuoso intellectu et applicatione. It was mistranslated in the St Paul Edition for Australia in FR on p. 19: “an incomplete understanding and lack of application,” as though all that was needed was ‘more of the same’, which was quite false.

Specifically, on catechetical matters, the Synod also said:

Everywhere in the world today the transmission to the young of the faith and moral values deriving from the Gospel is in peril. The knowledge of the faith and the acceptance of the moral order are often reduced to a minimum. FR p. 31 as translated accurately in the St Paul Edition.

The 1985 Extraordinary Synod called for a new catechism akin to the Roman Catechism of Trent:
and an integral and systematic catechesis,
and the provision of a catechism or compendium
of all Catholic doctrine, both faith and morals. fr pp. 31, 33.

This was delivered to us in 1992/94 as the Catechism of the Catholic Church [henceforth CCC], The Second Edition in 2000 adds a helpful Glossary especially to suit Catholic and State School catechists and adult catechesis. Subsequently it was supplemented by the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in 2006, with 598 Questions & Answers. It is not designed for schooling K-10, but maybe would suit years 11-12.

Not yet implemented in Australia, but rather unknown or ignored or even bitterly opposed, yet vitally relevant to our Australian problem, was the second sentence in CCC n. 22:

At the end of each thematic unit, a series of brief texts in small italics sums up the essentials of that unit’s teaching in condensed formulae. These “IN BRIEF” summaries may suggest to local catechists brief summary formulae that could be memorized.

In Australia, officially mandated catechetics has mostly led us into a dead-end. See Vera Doctrina — True Doctrine, at the end of the listing of Handouts on www.cardinalnewman.com.au.

We shall evangelize and catechize successfully when we restore the teaching of the Gospel faith “in its entirety and integrity,” as Bishop William Brennan (RIP) said.

This is the very message of:-

The Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965
The Code of Canon Law, 1983
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992/1998/2000
The Compendium, of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2005/2006
Their implementation for beginners in the Catholic Family Catechism, editions from 1981 to 2009.

Catholic Family Catechism — for Home, Parish & school

With it, local priest, parishioners and school can help families to get started.

The “brief summary formulas that could be memorized” (ccc n. 22 second sentence) are absent in materials from dioceses, nor are they in the texts they recommend — they seem not to believe in it. For these formulas, we need children’s catechisms of Q&As designed for memorization.

A catECHism is a book of echoes, ECHoes of the faith, for the faith to ECHo in the minds and memories of disciples. Its Q&As and Bible texts unite home, parish and school.

Enclosed is the Catholic Family Catechism Disciples’ Edition (CFCDE), with 50 Q&As (129 pp.). Its Apostles’ Edition (AE) has 500 Q&As (145 pp.). Family catechisms support faith and piety, as do parish catechists and some Catholic schools. CFCDE’s 50 Q&As fit on one sheet of A4, see pp. 29-30. Their underpinning is on pp. 31-32; and the same principles applied in a non-religious topic, pp. 33-34.

A necessary SKELETON, not sufficient, but without one you’re ONLY JELLY FISH!

Since 1970, catechesis has lacked a skeleton and been a spineless jellyfish chewing cotton wool. Yet a skeleton is not sufficient. It must be taught by a zealous believer and with participation in a -worshipping community, i.e. at Mass on Sundays, with parents persuaded to take the young disciples. Such a catechism can unite home, church & school (p. 11) in “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).

The Catholic Family Catechism [hence cfc], is designed first and foremost for Family Catechetics. It was conceived in 1975, constructed in 1980 and defended from suppression and rejection ever since.

Such a Q&A catechism is the required skeleton. The Catholic Family Catechism, has sold over 300,000 in multiple editions and translations from 1981. Its carefully crafted Q&As use literary devices like alliteration, assonance, sense lines, and rhythm (more than rhyme) to facilitate learning by heart and to be chantable. It fulfils Pope St John Paul’s memorization and contents requirements of 1979:-

The blossoms of faith and piety [he said] do not grow in the desert places of a memory-less catechesis…

1. the words of Jesus e.g. Our Father...

2. Important Bible passages e.g. God so loved the world...

3. the Creeds e.g. I believe in God, the Father Almighty...

4. the Ten Commandments e.g. / am the Lord Thy God...

5. liturgical texts e.g. I confess to Almighty God...

6. essential prayers e.g. Hail, Mary...

7. key doctrinal ideas etc e.g. the 50 Questions & Answers in CFC.

Catechesis in our Time, 16^th October, 1979, §55 with sample items added in italic.

CATECHISM of the CATHOLIC CHURCH justifies CATHOLIC FAMILY CATECHISM

The Catechism of the Catholic Church... is not intended to replace local catechisms duly approved by the ecclesiastical authorities... especially if they have been approved by the Apostolic See.

Catechism of the Catholic Church from the First Edition, repeated in the A.D. 2000 Second Edition, p. 6

...sources are Scripture, the Fathers, Liturgy, Magisterium to serve as a point of reference for local catechisms. It is offered through the bishops for redactors [authors/editors] of catechisms. (CCC nn. 11,12).

Cardinal Silvio Oddi, Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy, on 2^nd December, 1982, wrote me:

We [i.e. the dicastery of cardinals, not just himself] do hope that your catechism will be widely used in all the English speaking countries and will be of great help to Christian families which are, to use the term of the Vatican Council, true ‘domestic churches’.

Earlier on, in the early 1970s, came my first support for doctrinal catechesis:

This Sacred Congregation restricts its formal evaluation of catechetical texts to those so-called ‘national texts’ intended for approval by a national conference of Bishops. However, I do not want to allow this opportunity to pass without commending you for including in your Programme the complete Ten Commandments; the fact of sin, original and actual; the need for sacramental confession; the basic prayers for Catholics as well as other essential elements which, unfortunately, are often lacking in modern catechetical publications.

A/Bp Palazzini, Congregation for Clergy, 15-11-1972, regarding Apostles of Christ lesson plan Years 7-10

Parents should be provided with catechisms written for families. (Rite of Baptism for Children 1972, pp. 10-11.)

Soon after the publication on 2^nd February, 1981 of the original Catholic Family Catechism:-

[Provide]... a suitable catechism for families... clear, brief and easily assimilated by all...

Pope St Joint Paul 11, Familiaris Consortio n. 39, 22^th November, 1981.

I have the honour to assure you of his [His Holiness’s] continued interest in your catechetical apostolate.

Secretary of State, 23^rd August, 1991

Advice concerning your CFC 2^nd Revised Edition has been included in our recent bulletin.

Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, Pontifical Council for the Family, 14^th March, 1992

Father James Tierney

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Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 78 - May - June 2018

noreply@blogger.com (CNFRI Manager) — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 02:08:00 +0000

It doesn’t matter whether one is living in a world which justifies optimism or pessimism. Our responsibility, before God, is to endeavour to outline principles upon which a [Catholic] restoration may take place and to work as hard as we can to make those principles prevail, regardless of the prospects. BA (Bob) Santamaria

Message from the Manager

Welcome to our May-June Edition of the Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Newsletter. A warm thank for your prayers and the incredible generosity of those who have helped us afford some new display spinners and second hand Dexion wall shelving.
At St Marys, we are excited about our extension and are blessed with several hard-working volunteers who have already started the ball rolling. Two Catholic Bookshops in the western Sydney region have closed their premises in the last twelve months so we are very busy in the meantime.
The display of Parousia Media products continues to grow. In addition to the vast range of CDs we have all of the amazing Ascension Press Programmes on display. If there is anything you are interested in or are running parish evangelisation programmes please ring us. We offer a 20% discount to parishes in the same manner as we do Father Murphy’s Faith Catechetical Workbooks.
Evangelisation is hard. In the words of Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, “we are often hated and spat upon for speaking the truth”. It is a privilege to be a Catholic but with that privilege comes responsibility. We must seize opportunities that comes our way, through word and example, to spread our beautiful Faith, despite the risk that we will suffer. Arming ourselves, by learning more about the Faith and developing our spiritual life is primarily achieved by frequent reception of the sacraments, attending Mass, and praying often. We must , however, build on this by reading good Catholic books, watching DVDS about the Saints or on spiritual and devotional topics, listening to Catholic talks and music on CDs and buying sacramentals for ourselves, our homes and as gifts for relatives and friends for the reception of the sacraments, birthdays, Easter and Christmas. Some priests believe there are two generations of Catholics who have not been evangelised. Through good example we can help many of these people. Our simple acts of kindness are usually met with grateful thanks but if you wear a crucifix it may be noticed. A question may be asked such as “Why?” A simple response could be “Well, because I love God who suffered and died for me, I wear this as a reminder to me of His Love for me. In bad times, it reminds me that He is with me giving me graces to get through.” Preaching a one hour lecture to someone who needs us may not be all that wise or fruitful but grasping small opportunities to display a deep love for Our Lord and having a knowledge of our Faith often helps that person think. If they ask more then we can continue the conversation if we have been educated to know God. If they do not continue the conversation we have done what we can but they might begin their own search for God.
We have many highly recommended books and materials to help people know, love and serve God. Father Tierney’s work for the upcoming Plenary Council and his Handouts are invaluable resources. Please help us continue our mission by praying for us and our supporters, buying from us, reading Father’s great work, recommending us to your friends and relatives and continuing to donate to our cause in any way you can. Father remembers each and every one of you in his daily Mass. Come and visit us and see our new room. Thank you for your prayers and generosity. May God continue to bless you and your families.

Note that Handouts 161 Quadratic Equations is not included in this newsletter and is available here.

Gai Smith
Manager

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Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 8^th April, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 160

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

John L. Tierney, Teacher Extraordinary

A Tribute, by Ray McCulloch
Download as a PDF

RAY MCCULLOCH was a pupil of Fort Street Boys’ High School in 1931. On leaving school he became a teacher, then a psychologist and educational planner, and finally a professor of education.

In February, 1995, he wrote reminiscences about John L. Tierney for Mary McPherson, Historian and Archivist of the NSW Department of School Education:

HIS TRIBUTE

JOHN TIERNEY was very different from the other two English teachers I remember — Charles Harrison, James Baxendale — and from the one or two others I had who were unremarkable enough then to be unrecallable now.

Charles Harrison, Master of the English Department and Deputy Headmaster, knew the public examination requisites and past examination papers in fine detail, followed with great care every word of the outlines in the Syllabus of Studies and stuck rigidly to suggested editions of the prescribed texts.

His comments on plot, character, style and so on were very often quotations read out from the current ‘cribs', which he recommended to us for purchase. His methods were appreciated by many pupils, particularly, I thought at the time, by those whose real interest lay outside the subject.

His undoubted success as a teacher was due to his being able to get to, and stay at, the level of the student who was battling with the subject. I later met other teachers teaching that way who illustrated the point that the easiest way to get anywhere is to be there.

BY CONTRAST, Jim Baxendale and John Tierney ignored to a great extent examinations and syllabuses, but in quite different ways.

Jim Baxendale used any writing being studied as an example of the creativity of the writer and challenged everyone in the class to analyse how the author had achieved his effects and then, using the writer's piece as a model, be equally as creative by writing a parallel piece.

He said regularly that no one had to be creative and that creativity had to be volunteered, so any proposals of his were simply suggestions or invitations.

But he was very severe on those few who did not hand in any suggested work on the due date. He told them that this was a school where people could choose to participate or not. If a pupil had chosen not to participate then he as a teacher would exercise the choice he had and would not have that pupil in his class that period. So the unfortunate pupil was stood out in the corridor.

After a week or two of this, all pupils got the message and handed in something, whether original or copied. He would then praise the class for all volunteering, collect the work and later pass it back. Every pupil’s work had a tick on it, with no further mark or comment, and was never referred to again.

WHEN I got to John Tierney, in Fifth Year, I took a new view of English as a subject. It came to life. John Tierney was, as far as I see him now, a very committed teacher who paid little or no attention to trends or fashionable slogans, but tried himself to live out the values of literature as he knew them to be, and to give his pupils enough view of him doing just that for them to start gaining the same commitment in the same direction. A true professional.

John Tierney put a lot of himself into his teaching of literature, at least to a Fifth Form [Leaving Certificate] class, which is where I had him for a year in 1931. He told us often what writing he liked and why, how he thought people formed and lost personal relationships, how, in his understanding, movements in history came about and dissolved.

His voice was fairly quiet, his fluent speech very easy to follow, and his eye contact with pupils very intense. As I recall it, everyone took him seriously and accepted without question that he was putting his all into every lesson.

The highlight of every week was Monday, when he handed hack our written assignments with his notes written everywhere there was space.

Other teachers used to give us a mark out of 10, and leave it at that. But his marginal notes suggested other ways of saying what we were trying to say, or other things we might have said, or books, stories and poems we might read to get better ideas of how to develop our thinking and writing...

What I earned away from that year with John Tierney was a recognition of the unlimited scope of literature, an awareness of the joy of reading as a lifestyle, and of its value in understanding myself and others.

____________________________________________

OTHER TRIBUTES

Eric Rolls was author of They All Ran Wild on the various species of animals and plants imported into Australia, and how often they proved to be an ecological disaster, especially the rabbit. He gave Dad an autographed copy inscribed with a note thanking him for being a wonderful guide.

Don Hayward had been a Minister for Education in Victoria. In 1974, he wrote a short piece of 90 words for Melbourne’s The Age among ‘in briefs’ on ‘My Favourite Teacher’. If anyone can find that article on the web, please send me a copy. In 1998, Donald K. Hayward and Brian J. Caldwell co-authored The Future of Schools: Lessons from Reform of Public Education.

Father James Tierney

Comment on his father by Father James Tierney

JOHN TIERNEY (1892-1972), my father, named me 'James' — or 'Jim' for short — after his colleague and best friend, Jimmy Baxendale, who was killed in a tram smash just before I was born in 1935.

1 well remember Dad’s insistence that a teacher owed it to his pupils to read carefully every word they wrote.

His written comments on his pupils’ written work always began with SOMETHING ENCOURAGING and only then went on to the VERY NECESSARY CRITICISMS.

In his concluding years as a teacher, in the late 1940s, until his retirement in 1951, Dad, in his capacity as English Master at Homebush Boys’ High School, would assign to himself the ‘dud’ classes such as 3E.

These boys were doing their final year of schooling for the Intermediate Certificate. Most of them would go into trade courses at the Technical College, mainly in evening classes. Dad himself did some teaching at ‘Tech’, which has now mutated to TAFE, Technical and Further Education.

Dad thrived on doing something with those whom no one else wanted to teach. And he assigned the brighter classes to the younger teachers to give them the chance to prove their mettle.

He had a fascinating technique for classes such as 3E. On their first day together he would remind them they would be leaving school at the end of the year and so he had decided not to bother them with any work...

When the cheers subsided he pointed out that, as attendance at class was compulsory, he intended filling in time by reading them some interesting stories. It would be entertaining, he said.

In the outcome, they turned out what for them was quality work, including written work. They realized they had been conned but they didn't mind.

Dad had never wanted to be a teacher. He longed to be a farmer. Growing up on a small holding of about 80 acres at Eurunderee, a locality north of Mudgee, he would have liked to stay there.

He was the youngest of ten of whom seven survived infancy. One of the earlier children who died had also been named John, which was after their father, John Tierney, 1838-1891.

But it didn’t pay its way. They were so poor they couldn’t afford kerosene or even candles, and managed at night on slush lamps, burning a smoky flame from animal fat in a saucer, saved from the cooking. So they joined the exodus from rural life into the city, where he supported his aging mother (1854-1927) by becoming a teacher, first in primary, then secondary, and later tertiary teaching.

Only in retirement, 1951-1972, was he ‘back on a farm' growing lots of vegetables and at least 80 orange trees on our four fifths of an acre at Beecroft.

IMITATION

SUBSEQUENTLY, in the early 1970s, I used a kindred trick (technique?) with my Year 8 boys in a Catholic ‘Scripture’ class at the State high school in Ryde parish.

Towards the end of a term I announced that there would definitely NOT be any exam. That was popular!

Then I continued, “But the Archbishop might want to know if I have been teaching you properly.”

That puzzled them, but sounded harmless. I continued, “He might say to me, ‘Have they really learnt anything?”’ Here I paused, to let this sink in.

Then 1 looked at them earnestly, and added, “Well, have you really learnt anything? Or have I been wasting your time?”

The novelty of this possibility had not occurred to them. 1 went on, “The only way to find out is for you to answer these questions...” and I wrote them on the blackboard and handed out the inevitable pieces of paper. “Please answer them as well as you can. Then I shall be able to give an accurate report to the Archbishop. He will probably expect me do better and to teach you much more clearly in the future...” They, too, knew they were being conned and they didn’t mind either. They went at it willingly.

It was at this time I was writing A Programme for Apostles of Christ in High School, printed in 1972. It provided the alternative for the disastrous programmes to which the then Sydney’s Confraternity of Christian Doctrine launched in 1971.

It was trialled by me and eight catechists. It proved the falsehood of the official assertion that, “If you think you can teach doctrine to the teenagers of the 1970s you’re sadly mistaken.”

Well, the nine of us were doing it quite successfully and other parishes adopted it as well. It was taken up by a rearguard of orthodoxy in some Catholic High Schools — until banned by strenuous efforts of a trendy dictatorial Catholic Education Office.

Apostles of Christ was an overall plan of 9 lessons for each of the then three terms of the first four years of high school. It was not meant for novice teachers, and in 1975 I produced duplicated detailed notes and blackboard summaries in Teacher’s Manuals.

OTHER WRITERS on teaching

Gilbert highet in The Art of Teaching says a teacher must wed his own firm purpose with pleasant good humour, and so be capable of instilling incentive and arousing desire for truth, beauty, goodness and God in tertiary, secondary, primary schooling.

JACQUES BRAZUN in The House of Intellect is scathing on modem pussy-footing in teaching. He repudiated his popular acclaim as a ‘great educationist’. He said, “I am a teacher. An education is far too vast for one man or even one institution.”

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 24^th May, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 162

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

The Way Forward

Download as a PDF

^“O GOD, Thou hast made me live in a terrible age.” Thus prayed St Athanasius, even as he fought for the faith against the 4th century heresies.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” lamented Frodo. To which Gandalf replied, “So do all who live to see such times. But it is not for them to decide. All we have to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given us.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, chapter 2.

Thus does fantasy fiction provide Christian counsel — see his Tree and Leaf to understand how.

The Shadow of the Past

Imagine yourself living in the 1^st century of the apostolic Church: “Stone them!” cried the delinquent adherents of the Old Covenant. “Christians to the lions!” screamed the brutal populace living under the cruel Roman emperors.

Imagine yourself living in the 16" century, with the likelihood, or at least the high risk, of being hung, drawn and quartered, or burnt to death, or a grim gory decapitation as the price for upholding “the faith once delivered to the saints”; (Jude 1:3).

SEE, JUDGE, ACT, accept, adjust, achieve

OUR NEW PERSECUTORS mock morality, decency and common sense and thrive on cruelty. They have weaseled their way to gain dictatorial control of most of tertiary, secondary and primary schooling and much of the media, also of political parties, the public service, the judiciary and tribunals.

In times past the libertines used slogans such as "free thought” and “free speech” as their battering rams to bludgeon acceptance of filth and falsehood.

Now they use their ill-gotten power to oppress and suppress any idea or ideal excepting only their own ideas and ideals notable for lack of common sense, for promotion of indecency and the destruction of morality as in the Ten Commandments of natural moral law which is that natural morality born into man; (cf. Romans 1:19-20; 2:15;see Handouts nn. 156-159.

Read your Bible. Read Church history. Read lives of the saints, and not just the martyrs but all who made a “good confession” (i.e. told the truth):-

Fight the good fight of the faith;

take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made the good confession

in the presence of many witnesses.

In the presence of God who gives life to all things,

and of Christ Jesus Who in his testimony before Pontius

Pilate made the good confession

I charge you to keep die commandments unstained. 1 Timothy 6:12-14b

Indeed all who desire to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 2 Timothy 3:12
Dare to be a Daniel,

Dare to stand alone;

Dare to have a purpose true

And dare to make it known. Daniel 1 :8; 6:16; 14:31

STIR THINGS UP

· privatize the ABC; sell it off by auction;

· privatize state schools; sell them off by auction;

· restore parent-power to educate their children;

· curriculum controlled by parents;

· charter schools paid from taxes owned by parents;

· stop the Freudian-Marxists corrupting children;

· no multiculturalism: integrate/assimilate migrants;

· promote freedom of thought and free speech, foundational for creatures with intelligence and free will, and basic for freedom of religion; and only limited by human duty not to damage others by murder, adultery, theft, calumny and detraction;

CON-JOB (confidence-trickster job)

TODAY’S governments are largely made up of the Godless without moral conviction and conscience, or worse, of anti-God philosophy with an inhuman agenda of death.

Both sexes in government tolerate unisex or are even its virulent promoters — the old fierce feminist revolutionaries are now swept aside by even fiercer gender-benders.

Remember, we must love our enemies while we detest the evils they promote. We must love them towards repentance.

The tolerators of evil maintain their popularity for re-election by hand-outs. It’s a rerun of the ‘bread & circuses’ formula of the Roman emperors 2,000 years ago. The ancients used military force and brutal executions, and kept the populace at peace with entertainments of violent combat of gladiators or cruel public torture of Christians. This went hand in hand with a permissive immorality, in particular, divorce and disordered sex. Divorce destabilized marriage and hence the upbringing of children in virtue and upright character.

PROCESSING JOB APPLICANTS

Excerpt from Parkinson’s Law or the Pursuit of Progress by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, 1958.

THE modern tendency is to trust in various methods of election, with results that are almost invariably disastrous. Were we to turn to the fairy stories we learned in childhood, we should realize that at the period to which these stories relate far more satisfactory methods were in use.

When the king had to choose a man to marry his eldest or only daughter and so inherit the kingdom, he normally planned some obstacle course from which only the right candidate would emerge with credit; and from which indeed (in many instances) only the right candidate would emerge at all.

For imposing such a test the kings of that rather vaguely defined period were well provided with both personnel and equipment. Their establishment included magicians, demons, fairies, vampires, werewolves, giants and dwarfs. Their territories were supplied with magic mountains, rivers of fire, hidden treasures, and enchanted forests.

It might be urged that modern governments are in this respect less fortunate. This, however, is by no means certain.

An administration able to command the services of psychologists, alienists, statisticians, and efficiency experts is not perhaps in a worse (or better) position than one relying on hidden crones and fairy godmothers. An administration equipped with movie cameras, television apparatus, radio networks, and X-ray machines would not appear to be in a worse (or better) position than one employing magic wands, crystal balls, wishing wells, and cloaks of invisibility. Their means of assessment would seem, at any rate, to be strictly comparable.

All that is required is to translate the techniques of the fairy story into a form applicable to the modem world...

Virtue, our “Way Forward”

TODAY the world of man is polluted with the smog of immorality — all Ten Commandments “are broke” (see Moses, Exodus 32:19 in context of idolatry).

This is especially so of modem idolatry, murder and adultery: they’re anti-Creator and pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia, worshiping their reproductive organs as the new Golden Calf.

Teachers in schools are called on to be agents of Freudian-Marxism (see Kengor, Takedown). A new baby can be registered as unisex so they can switch back and forth from boy to girl later on.

Government forms no longer want M or F in a box. Yet the last census showed most citizens had not been brainwashed yet.

Be ready for the wicked question, “What’s your sexual preference?” — any answer at all will be acceptable, except to reply, “Virtue!”

“Sexual preference” will be replaced by a "Gender declaration” with a note in small print that this is not expected to be the same as yesterday or tomorrow.

THE GENDER-BENDERS: M for Muddled

THE Gender-Benders do not believe in marriage — at least, not in the what was formerly called matrimony between a man and woman, to the exclusion of all others, freely entered into, pledged for life, with the intention of having children and educating them in Godliness and humanity.

In other words, “marriage” will become a word exclusively for same-sex couples coupling!

The evolution of ideas in today’s gender-benders began further back by asserting that science was in opposition to religion. It never was, of course. Good science was really an argument for a Creator.

Now we have the gender-benders rejecting sexual genetics, sex hormones and experience of male and female. They’re batty, and we ought to say so.

Those who once wanted to conceal their Miss or Mrs behind the mask of Ms will now have to homogenize or emulsify their abbreviations with the most hated of all, ‘Mr’ — “for only man is vile”! No more Ms!

Will everyone become an M? Will anyone be willing to say what it stands for? Or will it be simpler to preface all names with GB, for “GENDER BENT "? It’s a denial of reality and of common sense!

Violets are red, roses are blue,

We’re confused and you’ll be too.

If you’re not, we’ll make you see,

Anything at all except reality

Our rainbow once was pink and blue,

But now it's murky grey like stew.

SEX is not an evolutionary accident !

Sex in man and woman is God’s cunning design for reproduction, so that husband and wife co-operate with the Creator to make saints of each other and procreate and educate their children for Heaven.

Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out. CCC n. 2333

Remember the battle cry of Vatican II euphoria, ecclesia semper reformanda, “the Church is always to be reformed”. Reformers are not keen on someone else reforming them — and they often need it.

Reform of all members of the Church is more urgent than ever. The Devil is hurling regiments of demons (i.e. fallen angels), human spies, quislings and guerillas into the front line of the spiritual battle on earth, the battle for each immortal soul, whose outcome decides whether God or the Devil will say, “Mine!”

Satan’s minions aim to drag immortal souls into the kingdom of his hate. He hates everyone, everything. In Hell, everyone hates everyone else. The lost souls hate their Father Below and each other, as well as God, their Father Above, He Whom they spurned in life and now forever (cf. C.S. Lewis).

The Devil specializes in the sins against Hope, in presumption and despair. He likes cynicism, gloom and gloomy negatives, and keeps nagging that:

* The world is in a mess.
* Australia is in a mess.
* The Church throughout the world is in a mess.

* The Church in Australia is in a mess.

Note the half-truths. They are a smoke screen to conceal all the good being done and unnoticed moral miracles of grace triumphing over sin.

LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS

God specializes in repentance, believing, hoping, loving. God’s particular genius is in using sinners to reform other sinners and unbelievers.

The Church’s work, Christ’s own mission, is to turn sinners into saints. So there’s plenty we can do to mend the mess. We start on ourselves.

And we won’t get bogged down in illusory plans.

BIG FAMILIES...

· supply new tax payers for the bloated welfare budget;

· save scoffers from getting ‘put down like dogs’ in old age;

· stabilize marriage covenant and revoke anti-family laws;

· abolish anti-discrimination tribunals;

· ensure a secure child, eager adolescent, mature adults;

· value life, especially of unborn babies and the aged;

· hand on the love of God and of life;

· hand on the faith once delivered to the saints;

· remind others of natural morality and supernatural virtues;

· pray daily, Sunday Mass; Friday Penance; Confess monthly;

· value human hearts above money and possessions;

· use possession well, never be enslaved by them;

· built social support networks by extended family;

· let your children cheer up small families and the childless.

Father James Tierney

THIS APOSTOLATE NEEDS YOUR HELP

Being a Volunteer on a roster for a few hours a week; a regular 2 hours or more would be great
Making a donation, either by direct deposit or by using the form below
Buying books and religious goods from us

Direct Deposit - ANZ Bank: BSB 012408 Account: 227329572 Please cite your name as our reference. For notification of the direct deposit remittance: fr@cardinalnewman.com.au or fax: (02) 9623 3181
credit card, cheque, money order - please return the form below to: Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc PO BOX 359 ST MARYS 1790

Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 79 - July - September 2018

noreply@blogger.com (CNFRI Manager) — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 02:03:00 +0000

When we began our daily Holy Hour ... our community started to grow and blossom... In our congregation, we used to have adoration once a week for one hour, and then in 1973, we decided to have adoration one hour each day. We have much work to do. Our homes for the sick and dying destitute are full everywhere. And from the time we started having adoration every day, our love for Jesus became more intimate, our love for each other more understanding, our love for the poor more compassionate, and we have double the number of vocations. God has blessed us with many wonderful vocations. The time we spend in having our daily audience with God is the most precious part of the whole day. Saint Teresa of Calcutta

Message from the Manager

Welcome to the Spring 2018 edition of Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Newsletter. Time seems to be flying by. We have been really busy since the building work was completed. We thank you sincerely for your prayers and financial help at this time. Our heartfelt appreciation goes out to the team of wonderful volunteers who scrubbed, cleaned and helped put the fixtures together. Their back-breaking efforts were tremendous. The shelving is now in place and labelled and the time-consuming re-organisation of our materials is progressing.
Unfortunately, our online shop is unavailable at present. We apologise for any inconvenience and ask you for your patience. We are working on a completely new e-commerce solution which we hope to launch shortly. If you have any orders or enquiries please ring or email us and we will endeavour to answer and fill your requests. Email is fr@cardinalnewman.com.au and phone is (02) 9673 2235. Please leave a message with your name and phone number if someone does not answer and we will reply as soon as possible. 2019 Calendars and liturgical products are available for pre-order with a 10% discount.
This year marks 50 years since Pope Paul VI released the beautiful document Humanae Vitae. This profound Papal Document which has upheld God’s plan for humanity since Creation has proven to be the most insightful teaching of the Church for Marriage and Life ever promulgated. Marriage is a Sacrament instituted by Christ to give grace. It is a covenant which can only be broken by the death of a spouse. The indissoluble nature of this sacrament is for the protection of the spouses and the children. Often people interchange the word marriage with matrimony. “Matrimony” basically means the making of a mother which in essence means that true marriage is between a husband and a wife. Artificial Contraception destroys its true meaning and will objectify women. We recommend that every person reads Humanae Vitae and understand how Paul VI’s predictions have come true for secular society where people advocate the use of Contraception as a woman’s right. It has led to an unimaginable increase in abortion, marriage breakdowns and an epidemic of psychologically damaged children. In light of this we are featuring books, DVDs and CDs about marriage and life issues.
Many priests have realised over the past ten years that there are now two generations of Catholics who have not been catechised. It has come to our attention that many Catholic parents and school teachers do not understand the sacraments especially the incredible value of frequent Confession and some are unaware that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. This sad situation has prompted us to ask everyone to spend an hour in front of Our Lord praying for a deepening of our own Faith and the spreading of the truths of our Beautiful Faith in its fullness. We ask you to urge your parish priest to have Eucharistic Adoration for as long as possible. It is often hard to find the time but we encourage you to do so. The difference this will make to you and your families is immeasurable. Parishes that have Perpetual Adoration or regular days have seen incredible differences in everyone’s personal life which has even extended into the wider community. There are a wonderful number of new books available for spiritual reading and to help you make a Holy Hour. We thank Fr Brendan Murphy SDB, parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, St Marys for permission to include below his introduction to Eucharistic Adoration.
Father Tierney has been working hard on his submission for the Plenary Council in 2020. For those who receive the print edition of the newsletter the submission will be included in the next edition. For those who receive the email edition of the newsletter the submission will be included in sections over the coming months. Copies will also be downloadable from the "Downloads" page of our website. Please read it as the content is so important in this day and age.
Once again we offer you our sincere thanks for supporting our work. Without your prayers and offerings we could not make Father Tierney’s wonderful handouts and books available. The books and materials we have are there to help you spread God’s Word to your families and friends. May God’s goodness shine on you and Mary’s motherly love accompany you always.

Gai Smith
Manager

Featured items

Transforming Your Life through the Eucharist by Fr John A Kane $21.95
The Holy Eucharist has nourished the Faith of Catholics for centuries. It is all too easy to let routine dull your sense of the transforming power of this sacrament so read this book to stir the embers of your love for the Eucharist into a bright glowing flame. Fr Kane explores the selfless humility shown by Christ in His presence in the Eucharist, opening the way for you to receive greater spiritual fruit from worthier receptions of Communion and from adoration of Christ in the Eucharist. You'll learn how the Eucharist is truly a sacrament of love that not only demonstrates Christ's love for you, but gives you the grace you need to love God and your neighbour with a fervour unquenched by passing changes in fortune or feelings. As Fr Kane opens your eyes to how much God longs to be with you in the Eucharist, and how much He delights in you, you will come to experience the Eucharist as that inexhaustible source of grace, peace, and comfort that He intends it to be for you.

Eucharistic Meditations of St John Vianney compiled by Abbe H. Convert, trans. Sr Mary Benvenuta $19.95
For over forty years, St John Vianney was the agent of a complete spiritual, social, and material reform of his parish, which became a joyful refuge and a place of pilgrimage. Men and women would travel for weeks simply to confess before the humble and holy man. His particular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is manifest in this book of twenty-seven meditations, which had its first English edition two years before his canonization in 1925.

Also:
Seven Surprises of the Eucharist DVD & CD by Robert Haddad value at only $14.95
Eucharistic Miracles by Joan Carroll Cruz on special for $24.95
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass CD by Deacon Harold Burk-Sivers $5.00
The Lamb’s Supper CD by Dr Scott Hahn $5.00
Eucharistic Adoration: Prayers, Meditations and Devotions on special for $14.95

In Sinu Jesus: When Heart Speaks to Heart: The Journal of a Priest at Prayer by A Benedictine Monk $28.25
“It is my fervent hope that In Sinu Jesu will inspire many to be ever more ardent adorers of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus.”— Cardinal Burke
Also available: The Chaplet of Reparation and Other Prayers from In Sinu Jesu $13.95. This pocket-sized booklet can be carried anywhere easily.
In 2007, Our Lord and Our Lady began to speak to the heart of a monk in the silence of adoration. He was prompted to write down what he received, and thus was born In Sinu Jesu, whose pages shine with an intense luminosity and heart-warming fervour that speak directly to the inner and outer needs of our time with a unique power to console and challenge. The pages of this remarkable record of spiritual communication range across, and plunge into, many fundamental aspects of the spiritual life: loving and being loved by God; the practice of prayer in all its dimensions; the unique power of Eucharistic adoration; trustful surrender to divine providence; the homage of silence; the dignity of liturgical prayer and the sacraments; the mystery of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; priestly identity and apostolic fruitfulness; the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in our lives; sin, suffering, mercy, healing, and purification; the longing for heaven and the longed-for renewal of the Catholic Church on earth.

Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity by Anthony Esolen On special for $24.95
This book is a compelling defence of traditional, natural marriage. Here, Anthony Esolen, professor at Providence College uses moral, theological, and cultural arguments to defend this holy and ancient institution, bedrock of society, and to illuminate the threats it faces from modern revolutions in law, public policy, and sexual morality.

Also:
The Wisdom of Nazareth: Stories of Catholic Family Life Introduction by Michael O'Brien $26.95
What Every Couple Should Know about Marriage and Prayer CD by Fulton Sheen $5.00
The Catholic Church Saved My Marriage: Discovering Hidden Grace in the Sacrament of Matrimony by Dr David Anders $25.95
Be a Man! Becoming the Man God Created You to Be by Fr Larry Richards on special $20.00

2019 A Nun's Life Wall Calendar (New from Tan) $21.95
2019 Defending Christendom Wall Calendar (New from Tan) $21.95
2019 Mary and the Saints Wall Calendar (Tan) $21.95
2019 The Angels Wall Calendar (Tan) $21.95
2019 The Life of Our Lord Wall Calendar (Tan) $21.95
2019 Saints Calendar and 16 Month Daily Planner (Spiral Bound) $25.95
Ordo 2019 $12.50
God's Word 2019: Daily Reflections Liturgical Diary $15.25

EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

Come to Jesus in the Blessed Eucharist

Do you desire many blessings from God?

Do you desire healing for yourself, or for a loved one - whether physical, emotional, psychological, moral, or spiritual?

Do you desire to help in the purification of the Church?

Do you desire special graces for your family members?

Do you desire to console Jesus and to make reparation for the sins of the world?

Do you desire to praise and thank Jesus for all He has done for us and for you personally?

Do you desire to spend time with Jesus so that you may grow in love of Him?

Do you desire a foretaste of the joy and peace of heaven?

Do you desire to be close to your deceased loved ones?

Do you just desire to rest awhile?

Do you desire to grow in personal holiness? In faith, hope and love?

Saint Teresa of Calcutta
and

Eucharistic Adoration

"Perpetual adoration with exposition needs a great push... People ask me: 'What will … save the world?' My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer."

"Through Mary the cause of our joy you discover that no where on earth are you more welcomed, no where are you more loved, than by Jesus, living and truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament...He is really there in Person waiting just for you."

"When you look at the crucifix you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now."

"It was not until 1973, when we began our daily Holy Hour, that our community started to grow and blossom... In our congregation, we used to have adoration once a week for one hour, and then in 1973, we decided to have adoration one hour each day. We have much work to do. Our homes for the sick and dying destitute are full everywhere. And from the time we started having adoration every day, our love for Jesus became more intimate, our love for each other more understanding, our love for the poor more compassionate, and we have double the number of vocations. God has blessed us with many wonderful vocations. The time we spend in having our daily audience with God is the most precious part of the whole day."

From: 2007-2016 Messages of Our Lord to a Benedictine monk

about Eucharistic Adoration

Tuesday March 2 2010.

"I am alive in the Sacrament of My love and, at every moment, divinely active, doing from My place upon the altar all that I did during My sojourn on earth. From the Sacrament of My love I heal the sick, I give sight to the blind, I cause the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, and the mute to speak. I am the healer of souls and bodies. Those who approach Me in faith will not be sent away empty-handed. Those who come to Me trusting in My Eucharistic love will experience its healing power."

Thursday August 26 2010.

"Where there is faith in My real presence, there will be adoration; and where there is adoration, there will also be an efficacious radiance of My presence, drawing souls to My Eucharistic Heart and surrounding them, even at a distance, with the healing influence of My Eucharistic Face.

In those places where I am exposed upon the altar to receive the adoration, the reparation, and the companionship of My friends - and, first of all, of My priests - My radiance is powerful and strong. Faith, adoration, and love act as receptors; thus is My power drawn out and made effective, invisibly but really, in space and time. It was the same with My sacred humanity during My life on earth: the faith and love of My friends drew out the virtue of My divinity, and an invisible radiance acted in souls and upon them, bringing healing, holiness, and many graces of conversion.

When I am adored in a place, My hidden action upon souls is wonderfully increased. The place where I am adored becomes a radiant centre from which love, life, and light are diffused in a world in the grip of hatred, darkness, and death.

Chapels of adoration are not mere refuges for the devout. They are the radiant, pulsating centres of an intense divine activity that goes beyond the walls of the place where I am adored to penetrate homes, and schools, and hospitals; to reach even those dark and cold places wherein souls are enslaved to Satan; to penetrate hearts, heal the infirm, and call home those who have wandered far from Me.

For these reasons, the work of perpetual adoration, or even of prolonged daily adoration, is intensely apostolic and supernaturally efficacious..."

From: In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart-The Journal of a Priest at Prayer By a Benedictine Monk. Angelico Press, U.S.A., 2016

Pope Saint John Paul II

and

Eucharistic Adoration

"The worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church... It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (cf Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart...

St Alphonsus Ligouri wrote: "Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us."

***************************************

Pope Benedict XVI

and

Eucharistic Adoration

"An intrinsic connection exists between celebration and adoration. In fact, Holy Mass is in itself the Church's greatest act of adoration: "No one eats of this flesh", as St Augustine writes, "without having first adored it"."

"Adoration outside Holy Mass prolongs and intensifies what has taken place in the liturgical celebration and makes a true and profound reception of Christ possible.

"I rejoice to see that many young people are discovering the beauty of adoration, both privately and in groups. I ask priests to encourage these youth groups in their adoration, but also to guide them, to ensure that the form of their community adoration is always appropriate and dignified and that they allow sufficient time for silence and listening to the Word of God.

"In life today, often noisy and dispersive, it is more important than ever to recover the capacity for inner silence and recollection. Eucharistic adoration permits this not only centred on the "I" but more so in the company of that "You" full of love who is Jesus Christ, "the God who is near to us".

"May the Virgin Mary, the Woman of the Eucharist, introduce us into the secret of true adoration."

(June 10 2007)

Twelve Reasons from the Teachings of the Church for Wanting to
Spend One Hour with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament

You are greatly needed!

"The Church and the world have a great need of Eucharistic adoration." (Pope John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae)

This is a personal invitation to you from Jesus.

"Jesus waits for us in this Sacrament of Love." (JP II, Dominicae Cenae)

Jesus is counting on you, because the Eucharist is the centre of life.

"Every member of the Church must be vigilant in seeing that the Sacrament of Love shall be at the centre of the life of the People of God, so that through all the manifestations of worship due Him shall be given back 'love for love' and truly become the life of our souls." (JP II, Redemptor Hominis)

Your Hour with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament will make reparation for evils of the world and bring about peace on earth.

"Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Jesus and be ready to make reparation for the great evils of the world. Let your adoration never cease." (JP II, Dominicae Cenae)

Day and night Jesus dwells in the Blessed Sacrament because you are the most important person in the world to Him!

"The Eucharist is reserved in the churches as in the spiritual centre of a parish, yes, of the universal Church and of all of humanity, since beneath the appearance of the species, Christ is contained, the invisible Head of the Church, the Redeemer of the World, the Centre of all hearts, by whom all things are and by whom we exist." (Pope Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

Jesus wants you to do more than to go to Mass on Sunday.

"Our communal worship at Mass must go together with our personal worship of Jesus in Eucharistic adoration in order that our love may be complete." (JP II, Redemptor Hominis)

You grow spiritually with each moment you spend with Jesus!

"Our essential commitment in life is to preserve and advance constantly in Eucharistic life and Eucharistic piety and to grow spiritually in the climate of the Holy Eucharist." (JP II, Redemptor Hominis)

The best time you spend on earth is with Jesus, your Best Friend, in the Blessed Sacrament!

"How great is the value of conversation with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, for there is nothing more consoling on earth, nothing more efficacious for advancing along the road of holiness!" (Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

Just as you can't be exposed to the sun without receiving its rays, neither can you come to Jesus exposed in the Blessed Sacrament without receiving the divine rays of His grace, His love, His peace.

"Christ is truly the Emmanuel, that is, God with us, day and night, He is in our midst. He dwells with us full of grace and truth. He restores morality, nourishes virtue, consoles the afflicted, strengthens the weak." (Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

If Jesus were actually visible in church, everyone would run to welcome Him, but He remains hidden in the Sacred Host under the appearance of bread, because He is calling us to faith, that we may come to Him in humility.

"The Blessed Sacrament is the 'Living Heart' of each of our churches and it is our very sweet duty to honour and adore the Blessed Host, which our eyes see, the Incarnate Word, whom they cannot see."(Paul VI, Credo of the People of God.)

With transforming mercy, Jesus makes our heart one with His.

"He proposes His own example to those who come to Him, that all may learn to be like Himself, gentle and humble of heart, and to seek not their own interest, but those of God." (Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

If the Pope himself would give you a special invitation to visit him in the Vatican, this honour would be nothing in comparison to the honour and dignity that Jesus Himself bestows upon you with the invitation of spending one hour with Him in the Blessed Sacrament.

"The divine Eucharist bestows upon the Christian people the incomparable dignity." (Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei)

Twelve Biblical Reasons for Wanting to Spend One Hour

with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament

He is really there!

"I myself am the living Bread come down from heaven." (John 6:35)

Day and night Jesus dwells in the Blessed Sacrament because of His infinite love for you!

"Behold, I will be with you always, even to the end of the world" because "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and constant is My affection for you." (Mt 28:20; Jer 31:3)

The specific way that Jesus asks you to love Him in return is to spend one quiet hour with Him in the Blessed Sacrament.

"Where your treasure is, there is your heart..." "Could you not watch one hour with Me?" (Mt 6:21; 26:40)

When you look upon the Sacred Host, you look upon Jesus, the Son of God.

"Indeed, this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks upon the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life. Him I will raise up on the last day." (Jn 6:40)

Each moment that you spend in His Eucharistic Presence will increase His divine life within you and deepen your personal relationship and friendship with Him.

“I have come that you have life, and have it more abundantly.” “I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in him shall bear much fruit because without Me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5)

Each hour you spend with Jesus will deepen His divine peace in your heart.

"Come to Me, all of you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you..." "Cast all of your anxieties upon the One who cares for you." "My peace is My gift to you." (Mt 11:28; 1 Pt 5:7; Jn 14:17.)

Jesus will give you all the graces you need to be happy!

'The Lamb on the throne will shepherd them. He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water." (Rev 7:17.)

Jesus is infinitely deserving of our unceasing thanksgiving and adoration for all He has done for our salvation.

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive honour, glory and praise." (Rev 5:12)

For peace in our country!

"When My people humble themselves and seek My presence...I will revive their land." (2 Chr 7:14.)

Each hour you spend with Jesus on earth will leave your soul everlastingly more beautiful and glorious in heaven!

'They who humble themselves shall be exalted..." "All of us, gazing on the Lord's glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into His very image." (Lk 18:14; 2 Cor 3: 18)

Jesus will bless you, your family and the whole world for this hour of faith you spend with Him in the Blessed Sacrament.

"Blessed are they who do not see and yet believe..." "Faith can move mountains..." "What is needed is trust..." "Behold, I come to make all things new." (Jn 20:29; Mk 11: 23; Mk 5: 36; Rev 21:5.)

Each moment you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament brings joy, pleasure, and delight to His Sacred Heart!

"My joy, My pleasure, my delight is to be with you." (Prov 8:31.)

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 31^st May, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 163

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Christianity, a Revealed Religion,

— and the status of human thought

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LIMITED, RESTRICTED, FINITE

MORE AND MORE, governments simply assume they can remake morality and disregard natural morality, which is natural law, natural moral law.

This is a grievous error and a great evil.

VITAL DIFFERENCE of GOOD and EVIL

“Does something become good because governments say so?” Not necessarily so!

“Or do governments say so because it is good?” i.e. good in itself and in the circumstances: Yes.

GOOD versus EVIL, TRUTH versus ERROR

Similarly, “Is it true because the Church says so?” OR

“Does the Church say so because it is true?” Yes

since the ‘true’ and the ‘good’ flow from God’s nature and God reveals these things through His creation AND through His New Creation, His Holy Catholic Church, an ‘extension’ of the Incarnate Son of God guided by the Holy Spirit.

LIMITED SCOPE of GOVERNMENT POWERS

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the money for the tax.” And they brought him a com. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Matthew 22:17-21

LIMITED SCOPE of CHURCH’S AUTHORITY

— authority to teach but not to change the Gospel

Just as governments cannot rewrite God’s natural morality, neither can bishops and higher authority in the Church rewrite Christ’s Gospel or teach a Gospel contrary to Tradition, Scripture and Magisterium.

THERE IS BUT ONE GOSPEL, says St Paul, so there cannot be a “New Paradigm”

...bear with me in a little foolishness. For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus titan the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit front the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel front the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough.

2 Corinthians 11:1,4

Again 1 am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel — not that there is another gospel, but there are some who double you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1:6-9

BE WARNED — it is happened now, in 2018

...for I did not shrink front declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

Acts 20:27-30

For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

1 Corinthians 14:8 (KJV)

St John’s visionary revelations

You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice immorality.

Apocalypse 2:14; cf. Numbers 22-24

But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and beguiling nty servants to practise immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Apocalypse 2:20; cf. Jezebel in I Kings 19:1-2; 21:1-16

Christ’s Gospel, held in trust by the Church

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you.

Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

1 Timothy 6:20 (cf. 1 Tim 1:11; 2 Tim 1:12,14; Titus 1:3)

Beware of false prophets who prophesy lies

Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, “I will entice him [the king of Israel]”. And the Lord .said to him, ‘By what means?” And he said, “I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.”

1 Kings 22:21-23

My hand will be against die prophets who see delusive visions and who give divinations... Because, yea, because they have misled my people, saying, “Peace”, when there is no peace...

Ezekiel 13:9-10

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Matthew 7:15

False Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

Matthew 24:24

False prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

2 Peter 2:1

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1 John 4:1

The True Development of Gospel Doctrine and Good Government

the DEVELOPMENT of gospel doctrine

THE FAITHFUL are entitled to the truths of the faith in their entirety and integrity. The new evangelization aims at this for all the modern world.

The new paradigm does not. The Church cannot re-interpret the Gospel to suit the modern world, nor call that new interpretation a ‘development of doctrine’.

St Vincent de Lerins (450) gave a test for a true Catholic development of doctrine: Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est, “What has been believed always, everywhere and by all”:

Is there to be no development of doctrine in Christ’s Church? Certainly there should be great development. Who would be so grudging towards his fellow-men and so hostile to God as to try to prevent it? But care should be taken to ensure that it really is development of the faith and not alteration. Development implies that each point of doctrine is expanded within itself, while alteration suggests that a thing has been changed from what it was into something different.

But it must be growth within the limits of its own nature, that is to say within the framework of the same dogma and of the same meaning.

Let religion, which is of the spirit, imitate the processes of the body. For, although bodies develop over the years and their individual parts evolve, they do not change into something different. It is true that there is a great gap between the prune of youth and the maturity of later years, but the people who reach these later years are the same people who were once adolescents. So, although the size and outward appearance of any individual may change, it is still the same person, and the nature remains the same.

But if the human form is changed into some shape that is not of its own kind, or at least something is added or taken away from the full complement of its members, then the whole body must perish or become a monster or at least be weakened in some way.

It is fitting, then, that Christian doctrine too should follow these laws of development, so that with the passage of years it may be strengthened, with time it may make progress and with age it may achieve greater profundity. Long ago our ancestors sowed the seeds of the faith in the field of the Church. It would be quite incongruous mid wrong if their descendents were to reap the weeds of error in place of the harvest of truth.

Quoted from The Divine Office vol. Ill, Friday Week 27, p. 626.

See Blessed John Henry Newman, The Development of Christian Doctrine, his convert’s act of faith in 1845.

DEVELOPMENT of GOOD GOVERNMENT

GOVERNMENTS exist to harmonize society.

Left to ourselves, relationships between persons and countries always seem to degenerate into acrimony.

Good governments legislate finer details of natural rights. They never try to legalize immorality.

Rights and duties are not just anything we like. They are built into our nature as moral creatures.

Good government is responsible to its citizens.

It is reasonable to hold that governments get their authority to govern from God, via the people. Persons are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) and get rights directly from their Creator. Each person has dignity, duties and destiny. These are the ultimate source of natural human rights and duties.

Such a philosophy is at least a workable hypothesis as judged by Scientific Method, and sometimes even accepted by atheists.

Alternative hypotheses must find another source of authority. Whence comes a right to elect governments? Where do voters get authority to replace it?

Governments cannot just legislate anything they like. Religion and morals (or even some dwindling moral capital lingering after their abandonment) empower people collectively to govern themselves and, incidentally, to escape being choked with pettyfogging laws.

The foundations on which democracy depends are beyond the whims of governments. They includes the human rights and duties which guard life, marriage, property and truth, by forbidding murder, adultery, theft and lies. Not even democratic governments can change such rights and duties, nor make the biological facts about unhealthy acts into healthy acts, or change wrong into right.

Good Governments operate on principles

THE principle of subsidiarity is a social right since a government in a society exists for the sake of persons, not persons for the sake of government. A government must help persons and smaller societies to function (only usurping them as a last resort) so that they enjoy freedom and rights, and share in the common good.

Subsidiarity means being supportive. It is not the same as subsidiary, which means being subordinate.

The PRINCIPLE OF SOLIDARITY is a complementary principle, a social duty. Every person and smaller society has a duty to make society work by accepting its laws — laws that contribute to the common good supportive of persons, and persons subordinating themselves to the common good, i.e. to natural rights and duties. Solidarity implies that some subordination will be necessary. Personal freedom and social order are ensured by a proper balance between subsidiarity and solidarity, so that the common good is upheld.

Practically speaking, subsidiarity is “all for one”, and solidarity is “one for all”.

If subsidiarity is ignored, a false emphasis on solidarity leads to socialism — socialization is only justifiable as a last resort — and to totalitarianism, either fascism or communism. If solidarity is ignored, a false emphasis on subsidiarity leads to individualism or to an unsound capitalism, and a trampling on natural rights.

The function of the State’s authority is to protect individuals and to foster family life, but not to absorb them nor partly substitute itself for them.

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 1^st June, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 164

The power of Q&A Catechisms - “Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Catholic Family Catechism Disciples' Edition II in 50 Questions & Answers

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Part 1: THE CREED

1. In Whom do you believe?

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,

and in Jesus Christ,

His only Son, Our Lord,

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried; He descended into hell; on the third day He rose again from the dead;

He ascended into Heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

from there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body,

and life everlasting. Amen.

THE CREATOR

2. Who is God?

God is the Holy One, the Creator Who made all things from nothing,

the Mystery Awesome and Wondrous, the Supreme Being, the Supreme Spirit, All-knowing, All-loving,

Almighty and Eternal.

ITALICS means an ADD-ON to the first part of the answer.

THE BLESSED TRINITY

3. How is God the Blessed Trinity?

God is the Blessed Trinity,

one God in Three Persons,

the Father & the Son & the Holy Spirit.

GOOD ANGELS, FALLEN ANGELS

4. Who are angels?

Angels are spirit creatures

God made to adore Him in Heaven; some led by Lucifer rebelled and became Satan and devils in Hell.

MAN’S DIGNITY, DUTY, DESTINY

5. Who is man?

Man is a creature of God with a soul made in His image, with memory, mind and will, responsible to God for his actions, and with a body procreated by parents.

6. Why did God make us?

God made us to know, love and serve Him here on earth and to see and enjoy Him forever in Heaven.

ORIGINAL SIN

7. Why are we born in Original Sin?

We are born in Original Sin

without grace and the special favours

because Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and disobeyed God out of pride when the serpent Satan tempted them.

CHRISTMAS & INCARNATION

8. Who is Jesus Christ?

Jesus Christ is true God and true man, Our Lord and Saviour, the Son of God, Who became the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

GOOD FRIDAY

9. Why did Jesus Christ die in agony on the cross?

Jesus Christ died in agony on the cross

to take away all sins,

original and personal,

by offering His life, His Body and Blood in sacrifice to His Father.

EASTER SUNDAY

10. Did Jesus Christ really rise from the dead?

Jesus Christ really rose from the dead: the stone was rolled back and the tomb was empty; the Apostles and holy women saw Him, spoke with Him, touched Him and ate with Him.

ASCENSION

11. What happened at the Ascension?

At the Ascension, Jesus Christ entered Heaven in His glorified body and sits at the right hand of the Father from Whom He sends the Holy Spirit.

PENTECOST

12. What happened at Pentecost?

At Pentecost, the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit

shown by a mighty wind, tongues of fire and foreign languages, to begin the work of Christ’s Church.

THE CHURCH

13. Who is the Church?

The Church is God’s family

of the baptized disciples of Jesus Christ which He founded on His Apostles and on Mary, His Mother and ours.

14. Who is the Pope?

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Saint Peter, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

THE FOUR LAST THINGS:

DEATH, JUDGEMENT, HEAVEN, HELL

15. What happens at death?

At death, bodies die and souls go to God for Judgement: those with perfect charity, to Heaven; those imperfect in charity, to Purgatory; those in mortal sin, to Hell.

HEAVEN

16. What is Heaven?

Heaven is where God reveals His glory to the angels and Saints who enjoy the greatest happiness of seeing Him face to face forever. PURGATORY

17. What happens in Purgatory?

In Purgatory souls are purified

of the effects of their sins and made perfect for Heaven, helped by our Masses, merits, indulgences and prayers.

HELL

18. What is Hell?

Hell is where the Devil and his angels and all who die in mortal sin suffer in the greatest pain the loss of God for ever.

THE SECOND COMING

19. What will happen at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ?

At His Second Coming Jesus Christ will raise up our bodies for the General Judgement and life-everlasting.

Part 2: THE SACRAMENTS

THE LITURGY

20. What is the Liturgy?

The Liturgy is the public worship of God through Jesus Christ the Priest in His Mystical Body, the Church. SACRAMENTS ‘DO WHAT THEY SAY’

21. What is a Sacrament?

A Sacrament is a bodily sign instituted by Jesus Christ to give grace,

to build up His Church and give worship to God.

22. What Sacraments did Jesus Christ give us?

Jesus Christ gave us seven Sacraments:

Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Eucharist;

Penance and Anointing of the Sick;

Holy Orders and Matrimony.

BAPTISM

23. What happens at Baptism?

At Baptism, the priest (or other minister) pours water on the person’s head, saying, “[Name], I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

24. What does Baptism do ?

Baptism forgives all sins, original and personal, and gives us sanctifying grace; it makes us members of Christ’s Church with His indelible mark of ‘Christian’ on our souls.

CONFIRMATION

25. What happens at Confirmation ?

At Confirmation the Bishop (or priest), to make us like the apostles, anoints the forehead with chrism

by ‘laying on’ his hand saying, “[Name], be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit”.

HOLY MASS — HOLY EUCHARIST

26. What happens at Mass?

At Mass, we hear the Word of God and join in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and, when properly prepared, I receive Him in Holy Communion.

27. What is the Real Presence?

The Real Presence is Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity under appearances of bread and wine. By transubstantiation He is ‘contained’, offered and received.

PENANCE

28. What happens at your Confession?

At Confession, I accuse myself of my sins

accept a penance, express my sorrow,

and the priest forgives me

saying, “I absolve you from your sins

in the name of the Father

and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

ANOINTING OF THE SICK

29. What happens at the Anointing of the Sick?

At the Anointing of the Sick the priest puts blessed oil on the forehead and hands of someone seriously ill — for the complete healing of the soul and sometimes of the body.

HOLY ORDERS BY APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION

30. What is Holy Orders?

Holy Orders makes men priests with power to preach and offer Mass, hear Confessions and Anoint the Sick, and take spiritual care of the faithful.

MATRIMONY

31. What is matrimony?

Matrimony makes a man and woman husband and wife until death,

for love, children and family.

It is like the covenant between Christ and His Church.

Part 3: LIVING IN CHRIST

PERSONAL COVENANT

32. What is life in Jesus Christ?

Life in Jesus Christ is living in His grace in a personal covenant with Him: by prayers and sacraments, virtues and good works.

VIRTUES

33. What are virtues?

Virtues are good habits built up by repetition and powers God gives with grace.

SIN

34. What is sin?

Sin is any wilful thought, word, deed or omission against the Law of God.

If there is ‘serious matter’, full knowledge and full consent it is mortal sin.

SANCTIFYING GRACE

35. What is sanctifying grace?

Sanctifying grace is God’s free gift to make us holy and pleasing to Him: by it He makes His home in our souls, shares His Divine Life with us and heals us of sin.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

36. Say God’s Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord Thy God: thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.

2. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.

3. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

4. Honour thy father mid thy mother.

5. Thou shalt not kill.

6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

7. Thou shalt not steal.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.

10.Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.

THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD (l^st-3^rd)

GOD

37. How do we keep the 1^st Commandment?

We keep the 1^st Commandment by adoring God alone through faith, hope and charity; and saying ‘no’ to atheism and idolatry, sacrilege, Satanism, self-worship, simony, sorcery and superstition.

GOD’S HOLY NAME

38. How do we keep the 2^nd Commandment?

We keep the 2^nd Commandment by hallowing God’s Name and honouring oaths and vows, and avoiding perjury, blasphemy and profanity.

GOD’S HOLY DAYS

39. How do we keep the 3^rd Commandment?

We keep the 3^rd Commandment by taking part in Mass and resting from unnecessary work on Sundays and holydays.

THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF (4^th- 10^th)

PARENTS AND AUTHORITY

40. How do we keep the 4^th Commandment?

We keep the 4^lh Commandment by honouring and obeying our parents and all lawful authority; and, when we are parents, by loving and caring for our children.

RESPECT FOR LIFE

41. How do we keep the 5^th Commandment?

We keep the 5^th Commandment by protecting human life and health, and avoiding anger, hate and injury, murder and suicide, euthanasia and abortion, and getting drunk or drugged.

PURITY AND SELF-MASTERY

42. How do we keep the 6^th Commandment?

We keep the 6^th Commandment by keeping the wedding vows, by purity in what we do and say, by modesty in dress, and by not abusing the God-given powers to have children.

HONEST

43. How do we keep the 7^th Commandment?

We keep the 7^th Commandment by honouring other people’s ownership of things, and not stealing or damaging public or private property.

TRUTHFUL

44. How do we keep the 8^th Commandment?

We keep the 8^th Commandment by telling the truth mid not telling lies, not gossiping about the faults of others, or making rash judgements.

CLEAN-MINDED

45. How do we keep the ^thl Commandment?

We keep the 9'^h Commandment by purity in thought and modesty in what we look at

BIG-HEARTED

46. How do we keep the 10th Commandment?

We keep the 10th Commandment by mastering our desires, working for our wants, and avoiding greed and envy.

Part 4: CHRISTIAN PRAYER JESUS CHRIST TAUGHT US

47. Say the Lord’s
        Prayer.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven: hallowed be Thy Name;

Thy Kingdom come;

Thy Will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from Evil.

Amen.

INTERCESSION OF OUR LADY

48. Say the Angelic Salutation.

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit

of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

PRAYING ALWAYS

49. What is prayer?

Prayer is raising our minds and hearts to God, especially in a Morning Offering, and bedtime thanks and sorrow.

AMEN

50. What does 'Amen' mean?

‘Amen’ means “so be it”.

The content of the 50 Q&As is based on the 500 Q&As in die CFC Apostles' Edition II with a simplicity inspired by the success of the Bush Catechism with its 50 Q&As.

The Australian Bush Catechism of Camping

"Now, it is written — though few be that are wise enough to read before the punishment comes for disobedience — that the wilderness has rules of her own. To follow these without question is to be safe. To violate them is to invite the inevitable.” Northern Lights, Alan Sullivan

QUESTION: What is in the camping catechism?

ANSWER: The camping catechism offers us FACTS, DOs AND DON’Ts, clear, brief and easily learnt with rhyme, rhythm and sense-lines.

SURVIVAL

1. What do we need to survive in the bush?

To survive in the bush we need water and food, clothing and shelter.

WATER

2. Where do we find water?

We find water in creeks, springs, and water roots of trees; by digging wells, and by condensation on plastic.

3. How do we purify polluted water?

We purify polluted water by boiling it to make tea or with water-purification tablets.

FOOD

4. Describe good camping food.

Good camping food is nutritious, cheap to buy, light to carry, easy to package, prepare and wash up.

CLOTHING

5. What are bush clothes and what do they achieve?

Bush clothes are (working down from head to toes) hat, shirt, shorts, socks and boots. They have modesty and dignity, and suit work and weather and honour others.

6. What are hats for?

Hats are for keeping off the sun, rain, cold, falling sticks and stones; for fanning fires, carrying water, and charging head-down through the scrub.

7. Of what should our clothes be made?

Our clothes should be made of cotton, not polyester, but wool for cold, wet and windy weather.

8. Describe good boots.

Good boots are light and tough, grip the ground, fit the foot, and easy to lace and unlace.

9. What other clothes do we need?

Other clothes we need are raincoat, woollen jumper and swimming costume.

10. When do we wear long trousers?

We wear long trousers and even over-pants in cold and windy weather, and scratchy scrub.

11. What if clothes get dirty, wet or torn?

If clothes get dirty, we wash them; wet, we dry them; torn, we mend them.

PERSONAL GEAR

12. What is basic personal gear ?

Basic personal gear is a knapsack, sleeping bag (or blanket), toothbrush, mug, dixie and spoon (and shaving gear).

13. What are pockets for?

Pockets are for handkerchief, pocket knife, matches, string and Rosary Beads.

14. What are handkerchiefs for?

Handkerchiefs are for blowing noses, mopping faces, drying hands, holding hot handles, and bush baths and bandages.

15. Describe a good pocket knife.

A good pocket knife has a big blade with a keen edge but no dagger point, a marlinespike, tin opener, and screwdriver.

16. What use is a staff?

A staff is an extra leg on steep slopes, an extension arm for pointing at things and rescuing people from drowning in water or quicksand, and a weapon for defending the innocent.

17. What extra items must the leader bring?

The extra items the leader must bring are a First Aid Kit, rope and torch, map and compass, watch and whistle.

18. Describe a good knot.

A good knot does not slip or jam.

19. What lights do we need at night?

The lights we need at night are hand-held or headband LED torches.

FIRST AID KIT

20. What items should the First Aid Kit have?

The First Aid Kit should have 2 crepe or pressure bandages, 12 band aids, a tube of Betadine Cream, and phials of ammonia and tea tree oil.

21. What are crepe or pressure bandages for?

Crepe or pressure bandages are for binding up bleeding, broken bones, sprains and snakebite (pressure bandages best for snakebite).

21. What is Betadine Cream for?

Betadine Cream is antiseptic for cuts, grazes, scalds, burns and blisters.

22. What is ammonia for?

Ammonia is an antidote for bull ant bites and bee stings.

23. What is tea-tree oil for?

Tea-tree oil is for fly and mosquito bites and to soothe cuts and inflamed skin.

GROUP GEAR

25 What group gear do we need?

The group gear we need is cooking gear, cleaning gear and a tent.

26. What is group cooking gear?

Group cooking gear is enough billy cans and dixies to cook the food on the menu.

27. What is group cleaning gear?

Group cleaning gear is soap, scourer (i.e. pot mit), toilet paper and toothpaste.

SHELTER

28. How do we sleep warm and dry?

We sleep warm and dry using a tent or cave, or a gunyah of bark or branches.

29. Describe a good tent.

A good tent is rain-proof, roomy enough, light-weight, and needs a floor or groundsheet. It may also need a fly.

CAMPCRAFT

30. Describe a good campsite.

A good campsite has level grassy ground, no branches overhead, and is out of the wind and above the flood, with wood and water handy.

31. How do we. light a fire in the rain?

We light a fire in the rain using dry kindling and graded fuel, with a hat to keep the rain off, and fan it to a blaze.

32. Describe, dry kindling.

Dry kindling is tiny sticks which point upwards, or stringy bark or turpentine bark rubbed into bull’s wool.

HYGIENE

33. What is camp hygiene?

Camp hygiene is washing and latrines:

wash hands with soap and water

before meals and after using toilet paper;

wash up utensils in hot soapy water

and clean teeth after eating;

wash face and hands on rising,

and, on long camps, have bush baths.

34. What is a latrine?

A latrine is a bush toilet, a hole, dug with boot, stick or tool, well away from creek and camp.

Bury manure and toilet paper, then wash hands.

35. What is a bush bath ?

A bush bath is sponging the body all over with hanky, hot water and soap, rinsing well-away from waterways, and a cold plunge in the creek.

36. What does rubbish disposal mean?

Rubbish disposal means that any plastic, tins or glass are taken home, food scraps buried, but paper may be burnt.

THE LEADER AND GOOD DISCIPLINE

37. What is essential for bush safety and happiness ?

Good discipline is essential for bush safety and happiness.

38. What are the two rules for good discipline?

The two rules for good discipline are ‘Answer properly when you’re spoken to’ and ‘Obey, straight away’.

39. What must a good leader be like?

A good leader must be both friendly and strict, control the group and look after them, tutor them to look after each other, prevent accidents by Safety First, be able to give First Aid, and find the way there and back.

40. What is the leader’s duty before setting out?

Before setting out, the leader’s duty is to plan out everything and check the gear; leave every family with written directions of where the party is going, when they’ll be back and whom to contact if overdue.

THE SEVEN DEADLY DANGERS

41. What are the Seven Deadly Dangers which lead to death in the bush?

The Seven Deadly Dangers which lead to death in the bush are getting lost; getting drowned; violent collisions; snakebite; burns; dehydration, heat exhaustion, hyperthermia; and hypothermia.

42. How do we avoid getting lost?

We avoid getting lost by obeying the leader, not splitting-up the party, navigating by creeks and ridges, map and compass, sun and stars, and GPS.

43. How do we avoid drowning?

We avoid drowning by

not trying to cross flooded rivers,

not swimming in cold or muddy water,

not after eating or for too long at a time,

not diving because of rocks, snags or weeds,

not bombing and breaking people’s necks,

keeping to shallow water

and having a resuscitation officer.

44. What are violent collisions?

Violent collisions are falling over cliffs, or being hit by falling rocks or limbs from trees.

45. How do we avoid snake bite and spider bite?

We avoid snake bite and spider bite by wearing boots at all times, watching where we’re walking, not distracting the man in front and using a torch at night.

46. What is the First Aid for snake or spider bite?

The First Aid for snake and spider bite is bandages, pressure or crepe, bound as tight as for sprains from thigh to toe or shoulder to finger; next immobilize leg in splints or arm in sling, re-assure the victim, treat for shock and carry him to hospital.

(but don’t compress red-back bite — it’s too painful)

47. How do we avoid burns and scalds?

We avoid burns and scalds by not fooling with fire, and never passing hot things over others.

48. What is the First Aid for burns?

The First Aid for minor burns is to immerse them in icy water; but for major burns to cover them with a clean wet cloth, treat for shock and get a doctor.

49. Between October and March, do the bushfire regulations allow cooking fires?

Between October and March, except during a Total Fire Ban, the bushfire regulations allow cooking fires if cleared around for 3 metres with an adult, or in a permanently constructed fire place cleared around for 2 metres.

50. Recite the seven points on the Camping Checklist.

Camping Checklist:

1. Food: three proper meals a day.

2. Drink: tanking up with lots of tea.

3. Clothing: protection and modesty.

4. Shelter: tents or caves or gunyahs.

5. First Aid: for the wounded and sick.

6. Safety First: avoid accidents.

7. Hygiene: wash body; bury manure and scraps.

The Bush Boys series are adventure stories that grew out of The ABC of Camping as a “life-situational catechesis”:- Bush Boys and Cuthbert (2 books in 1 volume); Bush Boys and Bush Rangers; Bush Boys on the Move; New Boys in the Bush; Squiggles and Squinter; New Boys Go Bush Again

Father James Tierney

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Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 77 - April 2018

noreply@blogger.com (CNFRI Manager) — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 03:07:00 +0000

Don’t ask Our Lord for anything else except Himself – He knows what else we need. Fr John O'Neill

Message from the Manager

Our second edition of Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Newsletter for 2018 will be a little shorter than usual. We warmly welcome all our readers and supporters and sincerely thank all those who have helped us in our extending our premises. It has been a very busy time, packing away stock, and dismantling and covering the present shelves. Through the goodness of God’s providence we had a wonderful team of workmen who have finished cutting an archway through the brick wall, moving light switches and power points, replacing lights and painting patched walls. We had the blessing of donated high quality display shelving that was destined for the tip! We cannot thank God enough for providing this and just at the right time. We are open with the repacking and reorganising of shelves almost finished.
It is an exciting time as we now able to display much more than before and have new shelves dedicated to spiritual reading from wonderful Catholic authors including Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, Scott Hahn, Fr Robert Spitzer, von Hildebrand, G K Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc and many more. There is a stand for the large range of booklets from the Catholic Truth Society. These are a blessing for those who have busy lives and find more than fifteen minutes reading time a day a huge task. Please note that we have many new releases available from Tan Books, Sophia Institute Press, Ignatius Press, Scepter Publications, Ignatius Our Sunday Visitor, Gracewing, Angelico Press and other reputable Catholic Companies.
Half of the new room will be Parousia Media’s production (only) site and Cardinal Newman Faith Resources will now be selling all their products from our own rooms. This means you can now buy the full range of Parousia Media, Lighthouse Talks, St Joseph Communications, Jason Evert’s Chastity Project, Catholic Answers, Ignatius Press Multi-Media Products and more from our outlet in St Marys. This association with Parousia Media will be a big step in our mission of catechesis and evangelization. Please feel free to visit us and peruse at your leisure. If you cannot come in you can call us on 0296732235 during opening hours or visit our website. If there is something you require we will do our best to source any good Catholic materials for you.
Father Tierney’s Handouts regarding the Parliamentary submissions on religious freedom are extremely important and very informative this month so we ask you to take the time to go through them. We thank all our readers for your prayers, financial support and patience during this busy time. May God bless you and your families abundantly,

Gai Smith
Manager

Featured items

Say Yes to Christ! by Scott Hahn $5.00
This talk teaches the importance of giving our complete “yes” to Jesus Christ and fully recognizing him as King of Kings, and Lord over all. Dr Hahn delves into Scripture to show that by dedicating ourselves to the Lord, he can accomplish more in us and through us than we ever could on our own. This talk is filled with wisdom to help us grow closer to God.

Could God Love Someone Like Me? CD by Fr Mike Schmitz $5.00
Fr Schmitz speaks powerfully about the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Leonie Martin: A Difficult Life by Marie Baudouin-Croix $28.95
A sister of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Léonie Martin (1863-1941) was a daughter of Zélie and Louis Martin. The least gifted of the five Martin sisters and an emotionally disturbed child, she suffered much and caused anguish in her family. Marie Baudouin-Croix has carefully researched Léonie's life, including her mother's voluminous correspondence. In letters to her daughters and other family members, Zélie confided the challenges faced in raising Leonie. Yet Léonie was the first in the Martin family to understand and follow Thérèse's Little Way.

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 19^th March, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 156

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Freedom of Religion
for Prime Minister’s Expert Panel, first, of 4 parts

Download as a PDF

TRUE RELIGIONS all worship, or at least acknowledge, a Supreme Being called God.

In the broad sense, religion is a belief system which offers answers to ultimate questions such as the origin of things and of man, the meaning of life on earth, how to conduct oneself, and man’s destiny after death.

In an even broader sense, atheism is almost a religion, an anti-religion religion, since it often functions like one. Nowadays, atheism often asserts an ever aggressive body of thought and fervently strives to stamp out all ordinary religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

THESIS 1: Freedom of Religion in one of four freedoms which stand or fall together: These four freedoms involve freedoms from external coercion or repression, and freedoms for action:-

Freedom of Thought,

Freedom of Speech,

Freedom to Publish one’s thoughts.

Freedom to Act according to one’s beliefs: to act not on whim but as one ought.

Any religion seeking to negate the freedom of another religion to function is usually acting contrary to natural morality. As a last resort, a government may restrict it as far as is necessary.

THESIS 2: Religion is foundational to a culture and a civilization:-

A civilization emerges from and depends on a culture,
and a culture emerges from and depends on a Religion.

THESIS 3: Whatever is received (or heard) is received (or heard) according the mindset of the recipient, and whatever is uttered is uttered according to the mindset of the utterer.

THE GOD-QUESTION

NOT ONLY politicians and their committees, indeed all citizens, cannot avoid the God-question. Whether God exists or does not exist makes all the difference in one’s Declaration of Interests.

It is a vital aspect of one’s mindset:-

MIND-SET or “World-View”

To what extent is my judgement on Freedom of Religion decided by my mindset?

Is the truth and value of my judgement enhanced or retarded by it?

Where do human rights come from?

What sorts of rights can civil law confer? What can cancel, negate or limit them?

Arc there limitations on governments, or are they totalitarian?

If they are not omnipotent, what are their limitations?

Is “enjoyment” of freedom of religion simply some sort of privilege conferred by government?

Where do governments get authority?

What rights have citizens or countries if they negate human rights?

Are human rights complementary to and correlative with human duties?

Will conscientious objection to taking part in the immorality of others be disallowed?

Is modern atheism a substitute religion which insists on and enforces Godlessness?

Is the rise of modem atheism already forcing Godlessness on our country by legislation?

Where do our present Federal Constitution and our State criminal codes come from?

Will the Bible be banned for its utter condemnation of adultery and sodomy as sins?

Will catechisms and other religious books be banned as “hate speech”?

Will schools violate parental rights to bring up children in their own religion and morals?

Will peaceful protests against the slaughter of the innocents by abortion be criminalized?

Are the new laws making same-sex unions into “marriages” intended to exterminate matrimony?

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Australian laws and Federal Constitution originate in the Bible's Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, revealed by God to Moses, 13^th century B.C..

God: pre-amble to Constitution and use of the Lord’s Prayer in Parliament.
His Name not taken in vain: hence swearing into office and oaths in court in God’s Name.
Keep holy the seventh day: workers’ rights to a weekly day-off for rest and worship.
Honour father and mother: upholding of marriage and family life — until recently!
Duty to defend human life from murder — now weakened by abortion and euthanasia.
Duty to defend marriage from adultery — now abandoned.
Duty to defend property from theft — more or less upheld.
Prohibition on false witness — more or less upheld.
Duty to avoid lustful thoughts — now little protection from pornography.
Duty to avoid covetous thoughts — never could be law, but socially desirable.

The Code of Hammurabi from Babylon, 18'^h century B.C., has six of the Ten Commandments. It is a pagan testimony to natural morality (natural moral law), though in a motley mix with civil edicts and laced with penalties so draconian as to make Leviticus read like a toddler’s tale.

DECLARATION OF INTERESTS by politicians etc

POLITICIANS and their committees must divulge their existing interests when legislating on matters in which they are financially involved or in matters in which they have already made judgements.

Hence I state my own interests: my letterhead is a manifesto, as are my publications as listed.

Thus the mindset factor of those assessing this will govern how they receive it. Some might routinely stereotype me from my ideas by a sort of knee-jerk reaction and DISCARD it into a mental pigeon hole; i.e. anything said by a Christian, let alone a Catholic, more so a Catholic priest. There is also a possible stimulus-response rejection of any use of religious concepts like “the Ten Commandments”.

Father James Tierney

Editorial explanation for this Handouts:

My submission was on the letterhead of my retirement apostolate, Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants, It says:

+ An apostolate, free service, not a business, no sales, no cheques

+ Specialists in Family Catecheties

+ Consultants on Catholic Homeschooling

+ Originally Cardinal Newman Catechist Centre, 1974-2000

+ Patron — Blessed John Henry Newman, 1801-1890

+ Cor ad cor loquitur — “Heart Speaks to Heart”,

PUBLISHED WORKS

Catholic Family Catechism Apostles’ Edition II (500 Q&As),

also Disciples’ Edition II (only 50 Q&As);

Confirmation Kit for Home Preparation;

Heart Speaks to Heart prayer book;

Apostles of Christ in High Schools duplicated Teacher’s Books;

For other publications: Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc. 02 9673 2235 and see <www.cardinalnewman.com.au> for regular Handouts (single A4 sheets).

Bush Boys and Cuthbert (2 in 1); Bush Boys and Bush Rangers; Bush Boys on the Move; New Boys in the Bush;

Squiggles and Squinter; New Boys Go Bush Again

The above is part of the p. 1 covering letter of my submission to the Expert Panel on 6'^h February, 2018; then it omits p. 2 Table of Contents and resumes in the first of four parts of pp, 3-10. The short lines in two columns make it more compact.

THOUGHTS ARISING

HEREWITH are ideas for the ongoing conflict — for we are not yet at the height of the storm. There will be debates in Parliament, but the fiercest fights will be in the Law Courts and with the inquisition-like Anti-Discrimination Tribunals.

We need to be fighting-fit in soul and body:

• Sanctifying grace and fidelity to the Christian Covenant in sacramental worship and personal prayer.

• Healthy food, exercise, sleep and peace at home.

• Study the Catechism of the Catholic Church:-

CCC 2108: The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error, but rather a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right.

CCC n. 2109: The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a “public order” conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner. The “due limits” which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with “legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order”.

See Social duly of religion and right to religious freedom CCC nn. 2104-2109

OUTDO and OUTBREED

WE must outdo in simple goodness, in the human and Divine virtues our weaker brethren inside the Church and our fellow citizens outside the Church.

And we must outbreed them.

It means bigger families, if possible.

We can do it. We can outbreed them in quantity and outdo them in quality! This is not for our own glory but that God may be glorified in us.

We must prepare children to be counter-cultural in their life in society; for the lay apostolate in such a pagan society; and for persecution for Christ (cf. John 15:20); and thereby help got them to complete their testing time on earth to be saints in Heaven.

OBSTACLES

Human Respect:

‘Human respect’ here means moral cowardice. It is not that other sort of respect for human beings as fellow children of God in their creatureliness, for this is a virtue, a part of charity. Rather, the vice of human respect is a human weakness, a sin of respecting the errors and amorality and immorality of others.

Mobile phones and Internet

Beware of the internet and the mobile phone and its subsequent developments. Brilliant technology is being exploited by the Devil’s hatred of God and man.

The Declaration of Interest

After the 2014 enquiry by the Upper House of the NSW Parliament into Homeschooling, it occurred to me that some members of their Select Committee had missed out on a happy home upbringing by loving parents and the blessing of many siblings. They seemed to lack the background to grasp that homeschooling was a richer form of an upbringing.

Likewise religious freedom is incomprehensible to men who don’t pray to God and whose consciences are unformed in moral principles, yet are in positions of power over us.

For all such persons we must “be the salt of the earth and let our light shine before men,” (Matthew 5:13-14).

Essential Action and proposing an Ideal

Family Catechetics counters confused doctrine & morals in pulpits, schools & seminaries, cause or occasion of the crisis in marriage, priesthood, Religious life, paucity of vocations.

Home tutoring in Christian doctrine (with apologetics later) truly fosters faith and piety — alas! many Catholic schools fail to graduate practising Catholics even after 13 years schooling.

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 25^th March, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 157

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Four Freedoms in Freedom of Religion
for Prime Minister’s Expert Panel, second of 4 parts

Download as a PDF

Freedom of Thought, of which Freedom of Religion is part, is now under attack

Freedom of Thought already seems restricted, at least implicitly, and less obviously, by laws and tribunals hampering Freedom of Speech.

Thoughts and Words

Thought is made up of ideas which are expressed in words. Words are learned from parents, relatives, friends, neighbours and institutions like schools. Controlling spoken words is a way of controlling thoughts using these words, especially to limit the range of thinking. Thus Mao Zedong:

If you use our words you will think our thoughts.

He or others developed this further:

If you think our thoughts you will do our deeds.

In Man's Search for Meaning, the Viennese psychiatrist Dr Victor Frankl said the ultimate freedom, the freedom that can never be removed by force, even in the most brutal concentration camp (where lie formulated his ideas) is the freedom to choose one's attitude to one's environment.

Yet he could not pass these ideas on to others without speech or publication.

To preserve Freedom of Thought, and for the common good, Freedom of Speech must be maximized.

Freedom of Speech — in the name of Academic Freedom and J.J. Rousseau...

“Academic Freedom” was once a slogan which let university professors and even students utter harebrained or obscene proposals under cover (or excuse) of protecting the development of new ideas.

That’s now outdated. University students now need “trigger warnings” lest they get offended, or upset at anything against the prevailing “political correctness”. Protests of former days against government censorship of immoral books has gone into reverse, by banning any opposition to silence it.

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) used to be quoted for his strident defence of Freedom of Speech: “1 disagree with you completely, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Nowadays, the enthusiastic heirs of his atheism simply hide this embarrassing assertion.

Yet Rousseau would have defended the right to Freedom of Speech of those who “think outside the box” with ideas lacking Political Correctness such as these, now totally unacceptable:-

Governments should treat schooling as “free trade” and let the market decide, let it find its own level..

They should give up control of schooling and sell-off State Schools to parental groups.

Abolish compulsory schooling.

Let “evolution” eliminate the unfit!

Uphold the noble status of fatherhood and motherhood founded in nature itself.

Hold parents primarily responsible for children’s upbringing in the civic virtues, on biological, psychological and societal grounds.

Save money in the Welfare Budget by upholding tire noble status of the natural family of a man and woman and their children, and their extended family, to help solve societies’ problems of the care of the aged, nervous breakdowns, neglected and abused children, delinquent youth and suicide prevention.

These seven non-P.C. utterances might soon attract a prison sentence when one refuses to pay the fines imposed by courts or tribunals — unless genuine Freedom is available for Religion.

Of course, some restrictions on Freedom of Speech may be necessary but should be minimal, e.g. the 8^th commandment against slander in its various aspects.

Some complaints to Anti-Discrimination Tribunals seem contrived to persecute or harass Christians on the grounds of “hate speech” and being “offensive”. Other religions are not so targeted. Christians did not lodge complaints for hate speech and offensive words, let alone the violence, used against them in the recent campaign over the proposed postal plebiscite – which was cut down to a straw vote.

Opportunities for malice and revenge abound in dictatorial atheistic regimes In Stalin’s Russia, according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, a mere accusation without proof against a neighbour was evidence enough for a ten year imprisonment. Similarly, according to William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, in Hitler’s Germany there was no Freedom of Speech – except for Dr JP Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister. The sinister secret police produced a reign of terror.

Therefore Freedom of Religion is closely linked with Freedom of Speech. If Christians were banned by law from speaking of particular doctrines like the necessity of Repentance and rejection of popular P.C. sins, in order to avoid Hell, then it will be a negation of their Freedom of Religion.

Freedom to Publish one’s thoughts

The printer engaged for Dr David van Gend’s Stealing from a Child, the Injustice of ‘Marriage Equality' (2016), just one day before its scheduled launch, refused to print it. Was there intimidation?

Further, Dr van Gend, a general practitioner has already been persecuted over kindred issues.

Will his important book now be banned — or will Freedom of Speech in print be allowed?

The Global Sexual Revolution, The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom by Gabriele Ruby (German 2012, English 2015) exposes the carefully planned promotion of same-sex ideology and the details of its funding by UN, EU, UK and various US financial giants. Will Australian bookshops selling it be found guilty of promoting hate-speech?

Dr Paul Kengor’s Takedown, from. Communists to Progressives, How the Left has sabotaged Family and Marriage (2015) treats the history and promotion by modern Freudian-Marxism of same-sex unions.

Long ago, in 1934, anthropologist Dr J.D. Unwin, a non-Christian with no religion, published Sex and Culture. He researched the development of sexual behaviour in the history of many major and minor civilizations. Once they ceased to sublimate any of their sexual drives into other creative activities, they doomed themselves to rapid extinction.

[This is Thesis 2]

Further back in the 20^th century, Australian author and sculptor Norman Lindsay enjoyed fame (or infamy) for having more books banned by government censorship that any other Australian author. Might we now expect such books to be set as school texts?

Will the Bible be banned for non-P.C. teaching against fornication, adultery and sodomy? Will my publications be banned?

Freedom to Act on one’s beliefs

Freedom to Act is not merely about autonomous acts, but to act as one ought, on the will of God. It involves Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Publish.

Christianity is a missionary religion. To be missionary is part of its ‘package deal’.

It is of the essence of Christianity to proclaim to all the Good News of Jesus Christ:-

Go therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Matthew 28:19-20

Christianity respects the freedom of others to choose or reject it. It invites conversion by extolling personal prayer. It persuades by reason and convinces by patience and kindness as example of goodwill. It never coerces And the history of Christianity is a history of martyrs for Faith, Hope and Charity.

In the early Christian Church, St Peter and other apostles of Christ were put on trial by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court. These latter authorities were alarmed at the apostles’ claim that the Man they had crucified had risen from the dead, and that His message was spreading like wildfire.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13

The Sanhedrin had the prisoners taken out while they deliberated, then recalled them and said:

So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

When charged for a repeated offence, the apostles were reminded:

“We forbade you to teach in that name yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us”. Acts 5:28

But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29

Some modern anti-discrimination activities appear to be a rerun of historic harassment and persecution.

Can judges who do evil be your [God’s] friends? They do injustice under cover of law; they attack the life of the just and condemn innocent blood. Psalm 94 [93] :2021 (Grail Translation)

Here ends this second quarter of the Submission to the Expert Panel on the Freedom of Religion.

REFLECTIONS

ON THE POSTAL STRAW VOTE miscalled a plebiscite because voting was not compulsory

the straw vote for same sex unions will further negate rights and freedoms. The thought-police and the star chambers will see to that.

Any new law will simply be a further demotion of real marriage, reducing it to mere ephemeral emotional bonds. That’s not marriage. It’s Nineteen Eighty Four lies purporting to be truth, in implement Freudian-Marxism.

The history of philosophy is littered with lunacies from men entrapped in their own half-truths.

These lead to a reverse error with the reaction from homespun folk who say, “Philosophy’s all bunk.” In the same way, it is a half-truth to say one is not going to force others to accept one’s morality.

To claim this as a moral high ground is a fallacy, just as much as to say philosophy is bunk or that morality a purely personal matter.

It ignores the obvious: lawmakers, judges in law courts and police arc all forcing their own moral judgements on others. The old scholastic adage, “Whatever is received is received according to the mode or mindset of the recipient” can be mirrored, “Whatever is uttered is uttered according to the mode or mindset of the utterer.” (See Handouts n. 156) So academe, politicians, public servants, police, courts, media who lack sympathy, whether wittingly or unwittingly, for morality or for religion, will impose their own lack of morality or even force an amorality on others, and so prove less capable of giving fair treatment to parents, schools and employees.

It’s happening already! The Enemy is at the Gate. We are called to arms — with the weaponry of God, which is the Good News of the Cross: repent, believe, practise Faith, Hope and Charity.

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 1^st April, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 158

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Governments and Compatibility with Religions
for Prime Minister’s Expert Panel, third of 4 parts

Download as a PDF

SEPARATION of Church and State is Christian teaching from Jesus Christ:

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s. Matthew 22:21

Moreover, Governments rightly require religion to uphold natural morality, i.e. the natural moral law, “natural law”. Yet there are countries where one religion refuses to live peaceably with any other, and countries where atheism is enforced by totalitarian regimes. There is no Freedom of Religion.

Natural morality can function aside from religion, though religions are usually its mainstay. All religions must uphold it, for it is “the bottom line”, nor can governments function without it.

Gross public offences against natural law morality, e.g. pederasty, impose a grave obligation on a religion to correct its offender and a government its citizens.

Cicero speaks on natural law

Cicero was not a Christian but a pagan Roman lawyer, 106-43 B.C.

However, he claimed that no one can reverse the morals built-in to human nature:-

THERE IS in fact a true law, namely right reason, which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and eternal.

By its commands this law summons men to the performance of their duties; by its prohibitions it restrains them from doing wrong. Its commands and prohibitions always influence good men, but are without effect upon the bad.

To invalidate this law by human legislation is never morally right, nor is it permissible ever to restrict its operation and to annul it wholly is impossible.

Neither the Senate [of ancient republican Rome] nor the people can absolve us from our obligation to obey this law, and it requires no Sextus Aelius [a famous politician] to expound and interpret it.

It will not lay down one rule at Rome and another at Athens, nor will it be one rule today and another tomorrow.

But there will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times and upon all peoples; and there will be, as it were, one common master and ruler of men, namely God, who is the author of this law, its interpreter and its sponsor. Cicero, Republic III, 22 (transl. by Brother Christian Moe FSC)

He speaks of natural law again in another passage

IF IT WERE NOT grounded in nature there would be no justice, and all virtues would cease to exist. How otherwise can magnanimity, love of one’s country, [Roman] pietas, meriting the good opinion of others and honouring obligations, exist?

For these arise from the fact that we are by nature inclined to love our fellow men. This is the foundation of justice. Were this not so, then respect for our fellow men, and for the ceremonies and religions of the gods would cease — things that must be preserved, not out of fear but because of the link that exists between man and god [in coniunctione quae est homini cum deo].

If what is just is decided by the will of the people, or by decrees of princes or sentences of judges, then thievery could be lawful, as could adultery and perjury — if such were determined by the votes or opinions of the mob.

Were such power to arise from the opinions and commands of unwise people, then by their will the very nature of things would be turned on its head. What is to stop such people declaring evil and pernicious things to be good and sound? If such Law [based on opinion] can make unjust things just, what’s to stop it making evil things, good?

Nature is the norm that enables us to distinguish a good law from a bad one. And it’s not only justice and injustice that are judged by their nature, but also, of course, what is honourable and what is dishonourable.

For, as common sense makes clear to us, and instills in our minds from our very beginnings, honour is derived from virtue, and dishonour from vice. It would be madness to think that their reality is determined by people’s opinion rather than by their very essence.

Cicero, De Legibus. Liber Primus §§ 43-45 transl. by Father Paul Stenhouse MSC, Annals Australasia 2/2017

For Christians, St Paul proclaimed natural morality as the law “written in our hearts” Romans 2:15

INTERSECTION of the FREEDOM OF RELIGION and OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS

A government, with its public service, is at the top of a pyramid of human beings.

The ultimate source of government is family structure. Family life is the base of a pyramid.

A husband and wife procreate and educate children. Over time, an extended family develops, hence a tribe, a clan, a people, a race, a country.

Harmonious relationships between all these separate persons require some sort of control external to them. This provided by a government, usually working through a public service.

Neither the people nor their parliaments can change morality. Rather, parliaments are there to implement, support and often enforce vital aspects of morality: e.g. do no murder. The alternative is to declare there is no morality. No civilization has ever survived that. [This is Thesis 2 again]

By its origins, a government exists for the sake of those governed. Those governed do not exist for the sake of a government.

Sound social thinking is called a social philosophy. Its key ideas are subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good.

SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY

The following Q&As are adapted from the Catholic Family Catechism Apostles’ Edition nn. 464-469.

1. How is social philosophy based on natural morality ?

2. Social philosophy is based on natural morality:

3. Man is created by God, in His image;

4. with the dignity of being a person;

5. that is, with an intellect and freedom;

6. called to an eternal destiny with God;

7. with God-given rights and duties;

8. blessed by God to live in society;

9. which has authority to uphold rights.

2. Why is social philosophy complicated?

Social philosophy is complicated because the exercise of personal rights may have to be limited by society to ensure the rights of others, in that the purpose of society is to uphold the common good.

The Common Good

3. What is the common good?

The common good* is not the same as the public good; the public good is the means by which the political society supports the common good.

A “good” means a perfection or purpose, e.g. “After struggling for years, he made good.”

Subsidiarity — a social Right — all for one"

4. What is the principle of subsidiarity?

Subsidiarity means being supportive; it is not the same as subsidiary which means subordinate.

Solidarity — a social Duty - “One for all”

5. What is the principle of solidarity?

The principle of solidarity* is that every person and smaller society has a duty to make society workable by accepting its authority and so to contribute to the common good.

Solidarity implies that some subordination is necessary.

“All for one, One for all”*

6. What ensures both personal freedom and social order within society?

More or less, “all for one” is subsidiarity, and “one for all” is solidarity.

Social Evils

7. What happens if subsidiarity or solidarity is ignored?

If subsidiarity is ignored, an excessive emphasis on solidarity* leads to socialism and totalitarianism, whether fascism or communism; if solidarity is ignored, an excessive emphasis on subsidiarity leads to capitalism and individualism.

“To disregard these dangers is to rush headlong into the quicksands of Modernism in the moral, juridical and social order,” said Pope Pius XI, 1931, in Quadragesimo Anno §46.

Society, Family and Person

8. When is socialization justifiable?

Socialization is justifiable only as a last resort. “The function of the State’s authority is twofold: to protect and foster families and individuals, but neither to absorb them nor substitute itself for them.”*

Divini illius magistri §19

Here ends the third part of the Submission to the Expert Panel into the Freedom of Religion.

REASON and RELIGION

Further persuasion comes from a common sense appreciation of the logical sequences in the Ten Commandments by understanding their logic. There are three for God, then seven for man.

God must be honoured in thought, word and deed: so nn. 1, 2 and 3 are on God, His Name, His Day.

N. 4: parents must be honoured next to God, for they teach us out duties to others in deeds, words & thoughts. Nn. 5, 6 and 7: duties in deeds to Life, Marriage & Property; n. 8 our duty in words that don’t kill the good name of another; nn. 9 & 10, our duty to honour Marriage and Property in thought.

Father James Tierney

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 8^th April, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 159

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Lessons from Recent Canadian Experiences
for Prime Minister’s Expert Panel, last of 4 parts

Download as a PDF

THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE is spread over more than ten years and anticipates what we can expect from the legalizing of same-sex unions as marriages in Australia.

1. 1. Accusations of intolerance and hate-speech have erupted against those upholding biological marriage and Christian marriage. This must not happen here?

In an increasingly totalitarian State the thought-police will effectively criminalize non-conforming priests and religious ministers. Any safeguards for the adequate protection of the human right to Freedom of Religion or conscientious objections are likely to be removed as hateful and ultimately declared illegal by courts and tribunals.

3. 3. Motivation of the work of teachers in schools and doctors and nurses in hospitals and aged care is liable to be constrained by the thought-police. Church-based institutions may be forced to close to save their honour.

Anti-discrimination tribunals are notoriously intolerant of conscientious objectors who are fined and silenced. Is this democracy in action?
Only 2% of the 2% who are homosexuals wanted their union to be called a marriage. To redefine marriage as previously in Federal Law is totally disproportionate and an appalling price to pay for destroying families. Should ideology be legitimized in the cause of intolerance and pseudo-rights claiming this for the common good?
The Yogyakarta 29 Principles to implement a world-wide sexual revolution were set out in a 200 page handbook in 2007. This revolution is proceeding apace. In reality, our recent proposed plebiscite became a straw vote to recognize homosexual unions as marriage, to implement a complete agenda for gender mainstreaming and to abolish all sexual morality and restraint.
In a traditional family, an absolutely singular relationship exists between husband and wife. This extends to absolutely singular relationships between father and mother and their children, and between those children themselves. This forms the very fabric of human society No one else in all the world is related to anyone else in these unique relationships. Why ape countries who have regressed? Learn from their mistakes. Show the world true progress by upholding the primacy of biological marriage and family.
Redefinition of marriage deprives children of a male or a female biological parent, simply on adult whim, and without regard for the rights and needs of children, resulting in child unnecessary abuse.
The timely warnings in Aldous Huxley’s 1934 Brave New World and George Orwell's 1948 Nineteen Eighty Four have been ignored. If prosecutable in Australia, with fines, imprisonment and even lynch law, giving audience to one’s thoughts using traditional words like fatherhood, motherhood, father, mother, Mum, Dad will be forbidden. The Expert Panel into Freedom of Religion must prevent this from happening.
The “No” case in the recent so-called plebiscite was strangled by Goebbel-style big lies told repeatedly on tax-payer funded TV, and also by Gramsci’s long march of the Freudian-Marxists through academia, media, services and businesses. The violence, perpetrated exclusively by the “Yes” case, ranged from hate-speech to brutal physical assault in the style of Nazi thugs terrorizing German voters before their last pre-war “democratic” election six years before World War II, the election that swept Hitler into power from 1933-1945 — and shattered Europe and the world.

Will the same treatment already dealt out to Christians, with worse to come, be their legacy?

Will a failure to respect Freedom of Religion be dealt out to other religions?

The Expert Panel has grave responsibility for the consequences of its recommendations.

WITHOUT A Vision, the PEOPLE Perish

I conclude with an overview of what religion in general and Christian Churches more particularly have to offer society at large.

A World-view

The world-view sought by physicists is called GUT, Grand United Theory, also known as a Theory of Everything. In physics it relates fundamental forces like gravity, electricity, magnetism and nuclear forces to each other. The Law of the Inverse Square suggests there are links between the first three.

More prosaically, a world-view is like the panoramic view from a hill top, to take in the whole picture in a sweeping glance, through 360°.

The Christian World-view proclaims another sort of GUT, the Grand United Truth about mankind, about human dignity in its origin, human duty to imitate the goodness of God, and human destiny beyond bodily death to enjoy the happiness of God forever in Heaven, or to lose it forever in Hell.

Take it or leave it, believe it or not, this world-view has transcendent grandeur.

But is it true?

Well, it’s an absolutely certain fact of history and of much present experience that it has done a lot of good. Sinners have repented and even become saints. The crippled, the sick, the depressed, the anguished, the addicted and the dying have been comforted to accept and adjust to their situation, and to achieve in spite of what they suffer. Schooling with a vision of upward and onward into Truth, Beauty, Goodness and God has improved the fate of many, especially the underprivileged. Hospitals, and particularly for maternity and for palliative care, have often outshone others whose ethos lacked the Christian world-view. It gives people something worthwhile to live for, to hope for, to strive for, to achieve and to inspire others to do likewise.

Individual failures of Church members are a pathetic degradation into the same sordid sins of other human beings, especially when so much better was rightly expected of them, considering their privileged status. Prescinding for the moment from the harm they do to their victims, they are a testimony to the intensity of the struggle to be virtuous and the powerful hindrances along the way. The Christian world-view includes the Devil in rebellion against God and all goodness, out of envy and hate, and against all the goodness worked by God and the goodness He inspires in His creatures. The influence of the Devil is as empirically obvious as the effects of Original Sin.

Incidentally, though popular opinion may have been swayed to the contrary by the pundits of the mass media and academe, the sordid behaviour of some churchmen is not unknown among politicians, policemen, publicans, pedagogues, even parents and the practitioners of medicine and the law. Such people never had, or have lost, the Word-view to lead them upward and onward; rather, they are reduced to living for nothing more than satisfying urges for pleasure, power and pelf.

The Future of Democracy

Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is a terrible form of government — but the problem remains that the alternatives are even worse."

However, Solzhenitsyn said that democracy would not suit Russian tradition but a dictatorship would be tolerable if the dictator held himself responsible to God and to his conscience.

The adherents of religions generally and Christianity in particular suffer from many obvious defects — but the alternative of no religion with a State-imposed anti-religious atheism have been proved far, far worse, as recently as in the last hundred years.

The Expert Panel can let religions continue to prevent the breaking of the bruised reeds of humanity or its smouldering flax — a prophecy of the work of the Messiah in Isaiah 42:3 and its fulfilment in Christ, Matthew 12:20 — by really ensuring Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Conscience, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Publish one's Thoughts, and Freedom of Action on one’s legitimate beliefs.

Why enforce Nineteen Eighty Four and Brave New World — the road to misery? Why placate feelings offended at what they don’t like? Better to put up with such feelings, as Christians do, and not resorting to litigation and make the world worse.

“Without a vision, the people perish” — based on Proverbs 29:18 in King James Version.

Father James Tierney

Here ends the last of four Handouts on the submission to the Expert Panel on Freedom of Religion.

Acceptance, Adjustment, Achievement living in this age of the Church and the world

The Church of England has already been through similar situations in which are lessons for us now:-

Hymn for the Church

(Tune Aurelia “O Jesus Christ, remember”, metre 7676D)

THE CHURCH’S ONE FOUNDATION,

Is Jesus Christ her Lord;

She is His new creation

By water and the word:

From Heav’n He came and sought her

To be His holy Bride,

With His own Blood He bought her,

And for her life He died.

2. Elect from ev’ry nation,

Yet one o'er all the earth,

Her charter of salvation

One Lord, one faith, one birth;

One holy name she blesses,

Partakes one holy food,

And to one hope she presses

With ev'ry grace endued.

3. Though with a scornful wonder

Men see her sore oppressed,

By schisms rent asunder,

And heresies distressed.

Yet saints their watch are keeping,

Their cry goes up, ‘How long?’

And soon the night of weeping

Shall be the morn of song.

4. Mid toil and tribulation,

And tumult of her war,

She waits the consummation

Of peace for evermore;

Till with the vision glorious

Her longing eyes are blest,

And the great Church victorious

Shall be the Church at rest.

5. Yet she on earth hath union

With God the Three-in-One,

And mystic sweet communion

With those whose rest is one,

O happy ones and holy!

Lord, give us grace that we

Like them, the meek and lowly,

On high may dwell with Thee.

Father James Tierney

THIS APOSTOLATE NEEDS YOUR HELP

Being a Volunteer on a roster for a few hours a week; a regular 2 hours or more would be great
Making a donation, either by direct deposit or by using the form below
Buying books and religious goods from us

Direct Deposit - ANZ Bank: BSB 012408 Account: 227329572 Please cite your name as our reference. For notification of the direct deposit remittance: fr@cardinalnewman.com.au or fax: (02) 9623 3181
credit card, cheque, money order - please return the form below to: Cardinal Newman Faith Resources Inc PO BOX 359 ST MARYS 1790

Faith Resources Newsletter - Number 76 - January/February/March 2018

noreply@blogger.com (Mark VK2XMB) — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 15:50:00 +0000

Take away the supernatural and what remains is the unnatural.
GK Chesterton

A quick update on the CNFRI apostolate from the President

The Apostolate of CNFRI continues to grow in strength, thanks to the support of all our volunteers, and to your support. Please come and visit our main centre at St Marys, which is exceptionally well stocked with excellent spiritual reading and religious goods. Our outlet at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mercy, Penrose Park, is also well stocked and is supported by the many pilgrims that visit there. In other good news we are looking forward to enhancing our relationship with Parousia Media, with shared arrangements at St Marys.
We are pleased to announce the opening of a second hand room, where you can purchase an excellent range of spiritual material, classic literature, and homeschooling resources. Much of the material has kindly been generously donated by Father Tierney, resulting from a sort-out of his extensive library prior to the move. The second hand room is located on the first floor of the Faith Resources Centre at St Marys. We are also very grateful for the continued support of the Parish Priest of Our Lady of the Rosary parish, Father Brendan Murphy.
The setting up of the second hand room required an extraordinary volunteer effort, and special thanks are extended to those who spent many days on the work during their summer vacation, and to our other volunteers who assisted.

Michael Brearley
President

Message from the Manager

A warm welcome to Cardinal Newman Faith Resources’ first Newsletter for 2018. Father Tierney continues to settle into his new surroundings. He is making new friends and acquaintances in the area as the slow job of unpacking continues. Despite the fact that many of the books that he refers to are still in boxes, he has managed to produce more of his famous Handouts. In the meantime he is far from idle as he investigates and writes numerous letters and articles to bishops and priests regarding the turmoil handed to all Australians after our Parliamentarians passed a bill, the principal aim of which is to destroy marriage and family. He has put in a well-researched submission to the Parliamentary Committee involved with Religious Freedom. The content of his submission has been divided into several handouts so that we can realise how disturbing the present wording of the bill about to be brought before Parliament really is.
More than ever we need to increase our prayers and be ever vigilant to ward off the evil that pervades society at present. Satan is always in the background and often coats his plans with sugar to deceive us. We must keep our minds and hearts open for God’s Word and never become complacent for it is easy to fall and very hard to crawl back up. So often we see the consequences of poor catechesis, combined with selfishness, leading people into sin, so often seeing those around us blindly and angrily turning vice into virtue. As pastors, parents and teachers we must realise the importance of praying often, frequent reception of the Sacraments and a properly formed conscience, so that our hearts are in unison with the Will of God.
The year has flown and we have already entered the season of Lent, a time of prayer, fasting and abstinence. We need to double our efforts this Lent and be aware of how many graces are given and how strong we can be when we go to Confession frequently, attend Mass and receive Holy Communion often. God’s graces can open up oceans of Mercy for us and give hope and peace to the world. It is wonderful to note that more and more parishes are building Adoration Chapels, but Our Blessed Lord is still present in the Tabernacle in every Parish Church and overjoyed if we choose to spend extra time with Him, even if we can only manage a few minutes after Mass.
Spiritual Reading is another essential way of strengthening our faith. There have been a number of new books published recently, including books for Lent, and we have these available for sale. One of our projects this year is to have more good literature available for children, teenagers and young adults. We will be emphasizing the importance of the works of traditional authors along with some new books. Our children are yearning for heroes and heroines who will not lead them astray.
In the next few weeks we will be working closely with Parousia Media to make more of their wonderful evangelising multimedia products available. As a result we will be able to expand our premises at the Mackillop Centre and have more storage and display area available for our children’s and marriage and family sections. Though we plan to keep costs and work minimal we do need to move light switches, cut a doorway and thoroughly clean and paint the room next to us. We would be very appreciative of help whether it be physical, financial or extra prayers to help this go ahead smoothly.
Note that we also have some second hand books available for sale again. In addition, there are a huge number of Homeschooling texts and you are welcome any time to go through these during our opening hours. The books are not catalogued but are neatly sorted into sections on tables and shelves. If you do not live in Sydney you may ring and ask us to send a selection or ask for a particular book and we will check to see if it is there.
Once again, we sincerely thank all our readers, friends and supporters for your prayers and generosity. May God grant you a Blessed Lent.

Gai Smith
Manager

Featured items

For Children:
Lenten Adventure Activity Books (2 books) from Holy Heroes Normally $39.95 now $24.95
Teaching children from an early age how to take part in Lent and Easter, Lenten Adventure Activity Books 1 and 2 are sold as a set. Book 1 covers Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday. Book 2 begins on Palm Sunday and finishes on Divine Mercy Sunday. They are packed full of excellent activities that will give five to twelve years a very deep understanding of Lent and Easter. Highly recommended.
My Very First Easter Story Sticker Book $9.95 or Easter Sticker Book $9.95
The Story of Easter (Carry-Me-Along Board Book) by George Brundage $8.95
Colouring Book about Lent Colouring Book from St Joseph Colouring Books $3.00
Colouring Book about Easter Colouring Book from St Joseph Colouring Books $3.00
Brother Francis Presents The Scriptural Stations of the Cross - A Colouring Storybook $4.25
Brother Francis: What is Lent? - Colouring Book from Herald Entertainment $4.25
Brother Francis 10: He is Risen – DVD $14.50
A Life of Our Lord for Children by Marigold Hunt $22.50
The First Christians by Marigold Hunt $21.50

Brother Francis 14: The Stations of the Cross – DVD $14.50
Lent and Easter in the Domestic Church: Activities to Celebrate Catholic Liturgical Seasons by Catherine and Peter Fournier $29.95 Filled with a variety of family activities, saint’s celebrations and crafts, this book has something for everyone in the family. Family activities include making of a Paschal Candle, special Stations of the Cross, a Family Altar, a Garden for Mary, activities, recipes for special homemade breads and more. Also included are stories of special saints for the season with activities and prayers. Finally, it offers numerous craft activities including cross stitching Guardian Angel patterns, making alms boxes, Easter eggs, Stained-glass pictures, table runners, and many colouring pages.
The Way of the Cross for Children DVD by Matthew Arnold $15.00
Celebrating Lent, The Way of the Cross for Children, The Stations of the Cross or the Easter Story from St Joseph Picture Books $3.00 each
Easter! Fun Things to Do and Make by Christina Goodings $16.95
Bringing Lent Home with St. Therese of Lisieux, Bringing Lent Home with Mother Teresa (Excellent family books) $7.50 each

Pascal Candle Kit from Holy Heroes $39.95
This gorgeous new Paschal Candle Kit is exceptionally lovely. Each kit contains everything you need to make one solid 8” pillar candle out of 100% pure beeswax sheets. This kit also includes: Wicking, rhinestones, nails, pre-printed water decal labels and an interesting explanation of the liturgical importance and symbolism of beeswax candles. Please Note: The five drops of craft glue needed to affix the rhinestones to the nail heads are NOT included in this kit.
Holy Heroes - The Stations of the Cross CD $14.95
Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy from Holy Heroes $9.95
The Works of Mercy Card Game from Holy Heroes $16.95
4 games in 1! Great to teach ages 4 and up the 14 Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy through games that will capture a child's imagination through delightful illustrations of Jesus and children performing the Works of Mercy.

For Teenagers and Adults:
Witnesses to Mystery by Grzegorz Górny & Janusz Rosikon on special for $49.95
In this lavishly illustrated large coffee-table volume, writer Gorny and photographer Rosikon embarked on a two year investigative journey to seek the truth behind all the relics associated with the passion of Christ. Beautifully presented and researched this book is highly recommended.
Lent and Easter Wisdom from Pope John Paul II $19.95
The Sacred Passion by Luis de la Palma $29.95
In this book, Fr de la Palma provides an aid for meditating on the Passion. He recreates the events of Jesus' life beginning with Holy Thursday and concluding with the burial of Our Lord and a powerful evocation of the coming resurrection.
The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Alban Goodier $24.95
The Sadness of Christ by Thomas More $23.95
40 Days and 40 Ways Daily Meditations for Lent Year B by Henry Wansbrough $9.95
Calvary through the Eyes of Mary by Helen Pepper $8.00

The Fourth Cup CD by Dr Scott Hahn $5.00
Easter Homilies by Benedict XVI $7.00
Making a Holy Lent: 40 Meditations to Prepare You for the Church's Holiest Season by Father William Casey CPM $25.95
Lenten Meditations with Fulton J Sheen $5.50
The Last Hours of Jesus: From Gethsemane to Golgotha by Fr Ralph Gorman $31.95
Praying the Crucifix by Julien Chilcott-Monk $7.00
Lenten Reflections by Scott Hahn on special for $19.95
Meditations on the Stations of the Cross by John Henry Newman $7.00
The Sacrament of Penance CD by Father William Casey CPM $5.00
The Pain of the Crucifixion CD by Steve Ray (Highly recommended) $5.00
Mystagogical Catechesis CD by Andrew Wood (Highly recommended) $5.00
St Faustina Prayer Book for the Conversion of Sinners by Susan Tassone $24.95
New Companion to Lent from the Catholic Truth Society $5.00
The Way of the Cross by St Alphonsus Liguori $3.50
Lent and Easter by Joanna Bogle $7.00

This Easter you may like to consider giving your children and grandchildren good literature as a present. The following title are highly recommended and will inspire them to keep and strengthen their faith:
The Golden Princess and the Moon by Anna Maria Mendell $27.50
The Golden Princess and the Moon by Anna Maria Mendell is a teenage novel highly recommended for children 13 years and up. It is written in a style not unlike the works of C S Lewis and George MacDonald. There is an element of Grimm's fairy tales with animal symbolism, the presence of an evil stepmother and heroes and heroines. The Golden Princess and the Moon is a classic retelling of “Sleeping Beauty,” steeped in legend and magic. The beautiful but spoiled Princess Rosamund (Rosa for short) has squandered the seven faerie gifts given her on her christening day. She must reclaim these gifts in order to face a terrible curse cast long before her birth. Prince Erik grew up hearing stories of a sleeping princess, but all does not end happily when he wakes her. For what happens when a princess of legend awakens in a world that fears all to do with the old kingdom and Faerie?
Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyber Thieves by Regina Doman $22.00
An Arabian-Night Tale is combined with hi-tech adventure and romance.
Black as Night by Regina Doman $23.00

Waking Rose by Regina Doman $26.50
The Midnight Dancers by Regina Doman $22.00
Catholic Philosopher Chick Makes Her Debut by Regina Doman and Rebecca Bratten Weiss $25.00
In a massive change of lifestyle, former NYC fashion writer Catelyn Frank travels to Texas to start a doctorate in Catholic Thomistic philosophy and search for Truth, Beauty, and the Perfect Guy.
Catholic Philosopher Chick 2 Comes on Strong by Regina Doman and Rebecca Bratten Weiss $27.50
Catholic, Reluctantly - John Paul 2 High Book 1 $19.95
All 5 books in this series are highly recommended. They are available at Cardinal Newman Faith Resources.
I Am Margaret, The Three Most Wanted, Liberation and Bane’s Eyes Each book by Corinna Turner is extremely good value at $24.95. This series of books will appeal to children 14 years and up. They again show how important it is for your people to live according to the Will of God. They can be purchased separately or as a set.
The Shadow of the Bear by Regina Doman $22.00
This gripping story set in modern times and based around the fairy tale of Snow White and Rose Red gives an insight of how Catholic teenagers overcome evil and temptations through struggles and keeping their faith. All teenagers and young adults love this book.

The Complete Father Brown Stories by G K Chesterton $9.95
Chesterton’s style is an inspiration to young adults.
Father Brown and the Ten Commandments $26.95
The Poet and the Lunatics $19.95
Man Alive $16.00
Four Faultless Felons $16.95
The Universe According to GK Chesterton edited by Dale Ahlquist $16.00

The Screwtape Letters by C S Lewis $16.95
The Space Trilogy by C S Lewis $35.00. This omnibus includes Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Full-Colour Hardback Collection by C S Lewis on special for $99.95
All 7 titles in the series are sturdy hardback books beautifully presented in a protective slipcase.

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 17^th January, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 153

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

Getting Operational

Download as a PDF

Dear Friends,

THIS is unique — a special Handouts to report on my arrival at Rockview, 143 Old Trunk Road, The Rock NSW 2655, phone 02 6920 2000.

Usually I avoid writing in the first person, though I am no doubt over-guilty of doing so in speech.

I did not drive myself to The Rock, but was driven by a priest friend on 9^tnNovember, 2017. He had much more stamina than I have, though with only one eye functional yet. [N.B. for grammarians: I was going to say ‘than me’ as a preposition rather than a conjunction — but feared it give offence.] Meanwhile my small (matchbox toy!) Suzuki Sierra 1995 (4-seater 4X4) was driven by Daniel Vieira, also heroically, since his forthcoming knee replacement operation, both-knees at once, was only a week later, and with much pain, before and after!

In the outcome of that momentous day, very late that night, long after I’d gone to bed in a temporary accommodation, a pantechnicon (in plain Aussie English, furniture van) finally drove in to Rockview.

But it wasn’t the one which had set out that morning. That had broken down in Gundagai — where yester-year’s Dog sat on the Tuckerbox. Some vital part had gone bung in that great swaying monster, and it refused to go forward or be fixed. The four stalwart furniture-removal men called up on their mobile phones for another vehicle, and reloaded the enormous load from one caboose to another.

The precious load included the voluminous remainders of my possessions and the whole of the family chapel’s sacred furnishings. All these things had been lovingly prepared for transportation by benefactors: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the Law of Christ,” said the Apostle (which is patristic code for St Paul). My first Mass here was in the dining room, “a home Mass”.

The welcoming family who so kindly care for me in my old age had already arrived at Rockview weeks before, and were already settling in themselves.

In their goodness, they had also been getting my new accommodation ready. It was the former army barracks 18 metres X 5 metres (or, for the pre-metric, about 60 feet X 16½ feet) transported from Laureleigh, Tarlo, c/- Goulburn, where it had been the family-overflow accommodation. Some employed, some voluntary, the labours of many were involved, all with their hearts in it, to help me to get operational once more in my retirement apostolate under its banner name of the Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants, which conveniently preserves the original initials from 1974, C.N.C.C.

So, dear Friends, I am and hope to remain,

Yours sincerely and gratefully in our Lord

James Tierney

Rev. Father B.J.H. Tierney

Known in traditional Irish style as “Father Jim”

MY SAGA CONTINUES

Arriving was only a prelude — only the end of the beginning. Settling-in to become fully operational will take at least the same time-span as packing up for relocation, at least six months.

On this 69^th day, I issue this cheerful report.

The chapel was operational for my second day, with its overhead fan in the high cathedral ceiling.

The diocese has authorized it primarily for my daily celebration of Mass, with the family usually here on weekdays. On Sundays, they participate in the parish Mass, while any visitors staying a few days would become my Sunday congregation.

Building up parish life is vital. What Pope St Pius X said to a few cardinals is as relevant today as it was then he said it over a hundred years ago:

What is most needed at the present day is to have in each parish a group of laity who are at the same tune Virtuous, Enlightened, Determined and really Apostolic.

The Vieira family’s new private chapel is again dedicated to the Holy Family. It is even more beautiful and inspiring of piety than its original at Laureleigh.

At the other end is my bedroom, the last 3 metres of the 18 metre building. My primitive mentality of split-slab cabins finds the en suite positively luxurious, but I am assured that this is nowadays normal, What is more, the bedroom has a modern airconditioning system to cope with the fierce heat west of the Great Dividing Range of which I had no experience. I wrote the first Catholic Family Catechism in a medium-grade shack on top of that Great Divide at Hampton, with wood fires throughout the year for cooking and continuous in winter.

The cool air goes through the bedroom door into the workshop-studio, known for short as “the study”. It is manu et. mente, ‘manual and mental’, i.e. “by hand and by mind” — man’s creative activities “making” things, because he is made in the image of a Maker, as J.R.R. Tolkien said. This is fitting, since our Great High Priest was a carpenter, “and He wrought with Joseph, with chisel, saw and plane”.

I have not yet rebuilt the homemade bookshelves which I had made for my L-shaped studio-bedroom at Laureleigh, Tarlo. I’ll start once I unpack the planks from the ship’s 20 foot long container — which means I shall have to postpone writing/typing.

This workshop-studio is the biggest room in the rebuilt insides of the old barracks. Its east end opens into the chapel, its west end into the bedroom It’s slightly longer than the chapel, and with the same high vaulted ‘cathedral’ ceiling, an overhead fan and the same wonderful modem LED soft-white lights recessed into the ceiling — no more buzzing noises from harsh white fluorescents.

Expect “further thrilling episodes” soon.

THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS by Don Trump, President of the USA

CHRISTMAS is not about the lighting of the National Christmas Tree...

Whatever our beliefs, we know that the birth of Jesus Christ and the story of his incredible life forever changed the course of human history. There’s hardly an aspect of our lives today that his life has not touched: art, music, culture, law, and our respect for the sacred dignity of every person everywhere in the world.

Each and every year at Christmas time we recognize that the real spirit of Christmas is not what we have, it’s about who we are — each one of us is a child of God. Each and every person being a child of God is the true source of joy at this time of the year. This is what makes very Christmas “merry”.

The tree-lighting ceremony is a reminder that we are called to serve one another, to love one another, and to pursue peace in our hearts and all throughout the world.

... thanked the country’s teachers, pastors and all those religious and those people who have taught us so much, for their leadership in our communities and our society.

And especially tonight I thank America’s families. At Christmas, we are reminded more than ever that the family is the bedrock of American life.

And so this Christmas we ask for God’s blessings for our family, for our nation, and we pray that our country will be a place where every child knows a home filled with love, a community rich with hope, and a nation blessed with faith.

The lighting; of the National Christmas Tree is a tradition that began in 1923 during Calvin Coolidge’s presidency.’

* * * *

Later in a tweet President Trump wished those gathered for the tree-lighting “Merry Christmas” everybody. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

Trump has not used politically correct euphemisms for the holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. He repeatedly promised on the campaign trail and after his election that “we gonna start saying Merry Christmas again.”

This year’s Christmas decorations at the Trump White House include a beautiful traditional nativity set with a baby Jesus, halls full of Christmas trees and classic decorations. The decorations are a tribute to the “time-honoured traditions” of White House Christmases past, according to the Office of the First Lady.

The Trumps’ first-ever Christmas says “Merry Christmas.” None of the Obama’s Christmas cards ever did.

Thank you, President Trump.

From Life Site News. See it for full text.

P.S. We must pray for him and for all our own friends & foes.

NON-P.C. THINKING TO BE ILLEGAL !

WAS it Mao Tse Tung who said, “If you use our words you will think our thoughts and if you think our thoughts you will do our deeds”?

Already Australian Thought Police enforce Laws which ban words, hence the mental ideas they express, to inhibit us from teaching or even thinking non-Politically Correct thoughts. Restrictions on Free Speech are getting tightened, like a mental garotting. The Devil inspires politicians and chattering classes to permit nothing but Freudian-Marxism.

Satan’s prototypes for a dictatorship in Australia are Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot. Silent surveillance in both sky and streets, enhanced electronically, is already all around and above. Even talking to a trustworthy friend under the thick shade of a turpentine tree could be monitored. We can expect the Bible and the Catechism will be banned books.

But be of good heart! The Word was made flesh and we have seen His glory in the Resurrection! May our own last words be, “Long live Christ the King”. Better suffer an honourable death than be a scoundrel.

WHAT I AM WORKING ON

THE regular Handouts of a single A4 sheet on both sides are my constant concern. They provide vital religious knowledge, attitudes and zeal, even when we but touch the fringe of His garment.

My highest priority is to keep the Handouts going. They inform, re-assure and encourage perseverance in “the faith once delivered to the saints”.

The next priority, simmering for years on the back-burner, is the Catholic Family CatechlST edition for fathers, mothers, older siblings and other teachers to guide and inspire use of the Catholic Family Catechism in both editions, Disciples (50 Q&As) and Apostles (500 Q&As).

A third priority is a Millennium Edition of the prayer book Heart Speaks to Heart. It crawls forward as I edit or write new prayers and plan its lay out, and test its texts on others.

Lastly, there is the recreational or hobby apostolate of “life-situational catechesis” in writing New Boys’ Bush Rescue, a sequel to New Boys Go Bush Again.

This last item has a status akin to daily exercise, eating, drinking and sleeping. These are a ready-made reasonable excuse for finding it, humanly speaking, a more attractive expenditure of time.

PERSONAL PROVIDENCE — a reflection

IN 1960, my seminary lecturer in History of Philosophy asked me, “What are your main academic interests?” I answered instantly, “Scripture and Liturgy”. On reflection later, I realized I was actually saying, “Religion”. Yet I had no prospects of higher studies in either, being hopeless at the necessary languages, ancient or modern.

From ordination in 1964, I was much involved in classroom catechetics and teaching lay catechists. From 1975 to the mid-1980s, in between parish work, I was building up the Cardinal Newman Catechist Centre and writing A Programme for Apostles of Christ in High School and its Teacher’s Books, and my magnum opus, the Catholic Family Catechism.

My retirement apostolate since 1995 has concentrated on catechetics, the handing on the Faith: its supportive skeleton in Q&As, filled out with explanations and Bible texts, and augmented by the life-situational catechesis of writing fiction.

Father Jim.

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 25^th January, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 154

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

A Public Address System — the “Blahwah”

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TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

THE events quoted herein are ‘for real’! This apparently fictional account really did happen, in 1947 and 1948. Father James Tierney was actually there for the Monster fete in 1948, his first year in High School (now called Year 7), and his father was there all through it as the English Master, and one of the characters in his own book, which he called the Blahwah. The publisher changed the name to Hopeton High. Some later chapters, woven in from elsewhere, are embellishments of the story-teller.

You can buy it on internet second hand books: Hopeton High by Brian James, pen name for John Lawrence Tierney, father of The Rev. B.J.H. Tierney.

Hopeton High was published in 1963, but the events described mostly happened 15 or 16 years before, at Homebush Boys’ High School. Publication had to be delayed till three key characters died... What follows are excerpts from Chapter 1 on a Parents and Citizens Association meeting. They are being persuaded, or conned, by the Science Master, fictitiously named Mr Stingo.

Excerpts from Hopeton High

THERE WAS CLAPPING at the announcement.

Mr Stingo stood. Mr Stingo was forty and distinguished looking (he had a clipped black moustache) and alert (he wore big horn-rimmed spectacles). He spoke with a clear metallic voice.

“We are not strangers to each other,” began Mr Stingo, and there was something remarkably like a groan from Mr Skelter, which was drowned in a recurrence of clapping. “And I know you will bear with me in a short survey of modern thought as it impinges upon the educational problem. Not many years ago education was a matter of hit or miss —” “Hear, hear!” from Mr Skelter. “Hear, hear!” ignored.

“Education was a matter of crude imitation and an onerous conning of words and cramming of facts. Children did not think. They were not trained to think. The system was psychologically unsound and scientifically absurd. We have altered that. We now know exactly how the mind works...”

“Hear, hear!” from Mrs Wilton who had once done six months ‘sike’ at the University.

“We now know exactly. The receptivity of the mind works entirely upon the visual and the auditory. The mind is really nothing more than a modern factory, and in its economy the visual and auditory sensations are the raw materials that come in at one end and the finished product of thought comes out at the other. It is really as simple as that — but hitherto it was not realized. But, thanks to modern scientific method, the factory can turn out the perfect product.”

“But—but—Mr Dingo—”

“Really, really, Mr Skelter, I must proceed. Now, you people have seen the light: Last year you purchased, at the cost of many hundreds of pounds, the latest and most efficient of movie projectors. That is now part of our modern equipment and does much to provide for the Visual in our school work.” “But you don’t use it” — Blast the fellow! There goes that Skelter again.

“Mr Skelter.” Mr Stingo was metallically severe now in his tones. “Mr Skelter — you must know that we have no means of blacking out this hall, and how can we use the projector if the hall is not blacked out?”

“Whose fault is that? Couldn’t we...?”

“It is no one’s fault. The Department is responsible for the blacking out. It is strictly a departmental responsibility. We cannot possibly undertake anything of constructional activity. In September the Department sent two officers of the Architectural Branch. In December two officers of the Repairs Branch. In February four officers of the Building Branch. The reports of these are now in departmental hands, and we were advised early in March that the matter is receiving consideration.” “Still — in the meantime — as I say — the projector is not being used — ”

“It will be, Mr Skelter, rest assured, just as soon as departmental sanction is obtained. And knowing the Department as I do that should be in the future. However, we have now provided for visual education, so that lessons in geography, physics, chemistry and economics can be given with full profit to all. Even, if necessary, history, literature and sport can profit immensely. The big thing is—we have the projector.” “Where, Mr Dingo?”

Mr Grimwade [the chairman] sat up straight — with no little difficulty — and said “E-r-rh!” And then, “Order- eh - Mr- eh- Skelter! ”

“I asked where is it now?” Mr Skelter rose, his moustache bristling like the cat’s whiskers when confronted by the next-door’s terrier. “I have reason to believe, Mr Chairman, that the projector is not in the school, but is at Mr Snagg’s place and is being used for...”

A momentary glimpse of rage... a gleam of white teeth...

“I need hardly remind you of the seriousness of the matter. The projector is now the property of the Department, and any unauthorized abstraction of it can lead to prosecution... and we should inform the police at once...”

[Mr Snagg] ...“Mr Chairman. I must interpose... The projector is at my place at present. I have the Headmaster’s permission — needed at a charity fete — a children’s session, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and all that. The machine was idle pending the darkening of the hall... All rot talk of prosecution...” In such a spate all flotsam was carried forward as in a floodwater channel in a thunderstorm. But Mr Skelter was not carried forward, though shaken at the base a little. “It’ll look funny just the same if there is no departmental sanction.”

That revived Mr Stingo’s metallic ease and aplomb. He was an authority on departmental matters. “In a case of this kind, Mr Skelter, you know as well as I do that the Headmaster acts in loco. ”

“Pity he’s not here tonight then, Mr Dingo.”

“He is ill, Mr Skelter, and I am deputizing for him.” As a matter of cold hard fact the Head was so ill that he was attending a bridge party as a means of recovery. Mr Stingo didn’t see fit to mention this circumstance.

... Mr Stingo took up his theme and his scheme with all his wonted metallic enthusiasm. “My proposal is briefly this, ladies and gentlemen. Since no modem scheme of education can meet the demands of modem life without due and adequate provision for exploiting to the full all the advantages of the visual and auditory, and since the visual side has been catered for by the installation of our movie projector — unfortunately not at the moment being fully availed of pending the departmental provision of blacking-out for this hall — all that remains is the installation of a public address system.”

“Hear, hear!” from Mr Scroggie, and a shuffling of awakened interest in all but Mr Skelter...

“As you know,” whirred on Mr Stingo, “a public address system allows for full and clear communication by the Headmaster with every part of the school, and a pick-up attachment makes it possible to broadcast and relay programmes from every important radio station in the world. In a word, then, your boy, sitting in his classroom, with no move or effort on his part, can listen-in to the parliamentary debates in Canberra, a concert in London, a presidential address in Washington or an opera in Paris. In like manner important announcements by the Headmaster — or myself — can be heard. Your boy is therefore in direct touch with all that is going on in the world around him — he becomes truly a citizen of the world and an integral part of the march of human progress. And — oh yes” — he glanced at Mr Skelter — “I should say that a perfectly streamlined programme of lessons will be co-ordinated with the address system. For example: your boy will be in the hall, watching, say, a picture of peach-picking at Leeton while a specially selected departmental lecturer will be giving a talk on, say, the Murrumbidgee irrigation system. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the proposal I put before you for your enlightened consideration.”

Mr Grimwade announced that the matter was—eh —open for—eh—discussion. There was a deal of this, liberally mixed with admiration for Mr Stingo. Mr Skelter, hunched up in his overcoat, was almost forgotten. Mrs Wilton and Mrs Upjohn agreed that Mr Stingo was “Wonderful!”

“What will it cost?” asked Mr Bullock. “Yes, that’s a consideration,” said Mr Sims.

“Cost!” said Mr Stingo. “I have discussed the cost with Mr Scroggie.” (Mr Scroggie was an expert on such costs, being a salesman, on commission, for Winter and Slide, the big electrical and radio firm.) “Perhaps Mr Scroggie would like to say a word on that.”

Mr Scroggie had a lot of words to say. Fittingly, too, he was a live wire. “A little tinpot show,” he said, “would run to a hundred and fifty. No pick-up or anything like that. Out of date, really. Outmoded.” Mr Scroggie mixed the homely metaphor and the patter of the street with his shrewd calculations. “Then there is the job that picks up local stations only, panning out at three hundred. Not a bad job, really, but hardly up to the dignity and importance of the school. Then there is the Warwick Peerless — a regular sooper-dooper — that does all and more than Mr Stingo has said. And cheap at eight hundred.” He himself was “easy”, but the Warwick Peerless was the only outfit he’d consider himself.

Eight hundred pounds! A lot of money, certainly. But still a little thing beside the education of the young. Mr Puddle, on request, gave the financial position. The movie projector, said Mr Puddle, had cost three hundred pounds. It was now paid for. Monthly dances averaged, spread over the year, two hundred pounds. In hand at the moment was one hundred and twenty pounds. That would lead to finding another six hundred and eighty pounds if the system were installed. Could it be found? He thought so.

Mr Stingo looked hopeful... Mr Scroggie looked enthusiastic.

Mr Grimwade cleared his throat and said “E-r-rh”. In face of all this Mr Bullock proposed and Mr Sims seconded that an address system be installed. That was carried unanimously — but for Mr Skelter. He said nothing.

More discussion. It was decided to leave the final decision of type of system to Mr Stingo and Mr Scroggie. Couldn’t be left in more capable hands. But the Warwick Peerless was the only possible system. Mr Stingo and Mr Scroggie had already decided on that. There was only the detail of paying for the thing. A small detail. Mr Skelter unhunched himself. Mr Skelter said “Ah!” When Mr Skelter said “Ah!” there was generally something behind it. Mrs Wilton proposed holding a monster fete — at the school. Monster fetes, she said, could easily rake in (the phrase was clearly owing to the Scroggie influence) — could easily rake in seven or eight hundred pounds. It only needed organizing properly. The motion was promptly seconded by Mrs Upjohn. Supported by Mrs Snagg. Supported by Mr Templemore, who always supported anything popular…

The above are excerpts from Chapter One of Hopeton High as in the CNCC Newsletter n. 153 (end of 1997).

Father James Tierney.

Cardinal Newman Catechist Consultants — 2^nd February, 2018 — HANDOUTS n. 155

“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”

The Religious Formation of Boys

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From old Newsletter n. 109, 3^m July, 1992, before the attempt to abolish male and female!

IT IS a great evil for boys to become brutes or wimps. In the past, brutishness was more common than wimpishness. Brutishness was simply passed on from one generation of males to the next, partly by neglect and partly by the imitation of brutal adults. The wives and children of brutes suffered immensely.

The family and the peer group, for better or for worse, were, and still are, powerful influences on the young. Formerly, schools aimed to be extensions of the home: teachers saw themselves as acting on behalf of parents, in loco parentis, but now they sometimes act as change agents on behalf of secular humanists, often unwittingly, without any realization that they have been programmed to do so. Moreover, even in the home the TV and video box constitute stranger danger, (to use the new jargon of child abuse).

UNISEX

Since 1975, government policy has been more and more guided by the particularly virulent secularism of the feminist philosophy. Schools have become more and more committed to a unisex upbringing and a unisex outcome. This is not just government schools but often Catholic schools, too. One would have thought that, in a scientific age obsessed with institutionalized education, the truths of biology and psychology would have more impact, not to mention history, experience of life and common sense...

THE FEMINIST BOY

A unisex upbringing tries to make boys as like girls as possible — and vice-verse! Or to meet half way, as hermaphrodites. A sissy boy was once rare — but no longer, and his new name is wimp.

Wimpish men are increasingly common, and rise to high places of influence and power, as long as they profess the feminist philosophy of unisex. Real women despise them: wimps do not complement their femininity in the way real men do. Wimps are bad for marriage and family. Nor is it just in secular society that they abound, either: the Church has been infiltrated!

The feminists abhor, so they say, violence, but actually, they induce it, at least in the long term. Partly as a bi-product of their treatment of boys, and partly by their plans for “women’s liberation,” the unisex upbringing often brings out brutishness in girls. It is scarcely progress to have more women in gaol.

BIOLOGY AND ORIGINAL SIN

But biology is assertive, too, and original sin very influential. In the outcome, we have not only a new breed of wimpish boys but, paradoxically, an increase in the number of brutal boys, girls, men and women.

Perhaps it was to be expected, this violent reaction of the savage feminist attack on masculinity, and on fatherhood in particular. Perhaps it is also due to the new abhorrence for discipline, including the abolition of corporal punishment for boys. Perhaps it’s due to contempt for God and His grace and the facts of original sin. Perhaps it’s due to the studied lack of graciousness, manners, courtesy and chivalry. Perhaps it’s for all these reasons.

CRUELTY

The cruel facts remain. In 1992, brutality is on the increase: cruelty of all kinds, such as abortion, suicide, murderous driving, robbery under arms, bashing for self-fulfilment, rape, incest, drugs, hatred of parents... not to mention the refined forms of violence such as school sex education, self-worship psychology, fornication, adultery, contraception and all the other abuse of the body and the person contrary to the good God's plans for us.

THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN

It more urgent than ever for a great effort to help boys grow up into Christian gentlemen.

Neglect in the upbringing of boys has been a common failing on the part of their fathers down the ages. Nowadays it’s called a permissive upbringing, by which is meant indifference... “I don’t care what you’re like; just do your own thing; do it your way...”

Part of the vocation of a mother has always been to get a father to fulfil his vocation towards their sons. Part of the vocation of all women should be to civilize the brutishness of men, not just helping them practise self-control and self-restraint, but to overcome their male laziness. Thus a wife often has to prompt her husband to practise his vocation as a husband, to help with the menial tasks, a vital part of a man’s consideration for a woman, and a very necessary example to their children.

The mothering of boys (and girls, too) includes involving them in the chores: washing up, helping in the kitchen (and learning to cook!), making beds (properly!), keeping their own rooms tidy, gratitude for every meal and everything done for them.

Virtue — its root meaning, by the way, is strength and manliness — is not half way between the extremes of brute and wimp. Rather, the virtue of a Christian gentleman stands far above the evils and transcends them.

Therefore, one ideal for boyhood is to avoid both brutishness and wimpishness and become a Christian gentleman. Masculine strength should be cultivated, self-controlled, and placed at the service of God, family, wife, mother, women, humanity...

This won’t happen by accident, but needs discipline and grace. Grace is supernatural, from God, through Sacraments and Prayer; discipline is natural, from parents, and those who act for them, and essential for counteracting the remaining effects of original sin. If you don’t know what the preternatural gifts are, you need the Catholic Family Catechism Apostles’ Edition nn. 58 and 69 and its notes.

Ideals for Boys from Anglican authors

Richmal Crompton was the pen name of Miss Richmal Lamburn, the author of the famous William books, from 1922 to the latter 1960s.

The daughter of an Anglican clergyman, she persevered as a devout church-going Anglican throughout her virtuous life.

The next five paragraphs [except for words in square brackets] are quoted from her biography, Richmal Crompton, The Woman behind William, by Mary Cadogan, Unwin Paperbacks, London, Sydney, 1987.

In her adult novels [of which most people have never heard], the speeches of some of her characters draw on the Grail mythology as a symbol of idealism in the context of wartime sacrifice [in the first World War]: ‘We all felt we could die for our ideals — we were crusaders, we were the knights of the Holy Grail,’ [...] ‘the splendour of idealism and self-sacrifice and comradeship and courage...’

In 1924, Richmal Crompton spent a holiday in Paris. That she was bowled over by the beauty of the Roman Catholic Mass which she attended at the splendiferous church of Sacre-Coeur is clear from her account of it in her travel journal:

“Boys and young men in church in Paris: There must be a touch of devotion and piety in boys and young men in England untapped and wasted. All the natural chivalry and devotion repressed by training [she is referring to the English public schools, i.e. private schools open to the public]. It blazed forth at the call of war [1914-1918]. To many it was a religious war needing a religious fervour. As the rich idle young flocked to the Crusades in the old days to sacrifice ease and luxury and comfort and life — so would the young do now if modern life made any calls on it, if the idealism of youth were not allowed to die unused. Religion is too much repressed. Our clergy are too fond of trying to pose as men of the world.”

And, referring to the Roman Catholic Service: “That is how God should be worshipped — with light and colour and music. The wonderful beauty and intimacy of the exquisite little shrines with their blaze of candles like so many stars of hope and their band of apt and silent worshippers — the utter abandon and lack of self-consciousness of the worshipping — unmoved, unconscious of the staring and curious tourists who pass by.”

In the Sacre-Coeur experience, one sees glimpses of Richmal’s religious passion, which is normally quietly contained within her Anglicanism.

Ernest Raymond was an Anglican clergyman, a chaplain in World War I with the British army at Gallipoli. Later, he resigned from the ministry and wrote novels with clerical or religious themes.

One of his greatest books was Tell England, first published in 1922, and its edition of 1925 was the 23^rd reprint!

On the troop ship taking them to Gallipoli, the young subalterns fresh out of school asked their Anglican padre, a high church priest, “What are we to believe about the Mass?” The narrator (the story is written in the first person) describes his answer: “Padre Monty told us. He told us strange things for us to hear. We were to believe that the bread and wine, after consecration, were the same Holy Thing as the Babe of Bethlehem; and we could come to Mass, not to partake, but to worship like the shepherds and the magi; and there, and there only, should we learn how to worship. He told us that the Mass was the most dramatic service in the world, for it was the acting before God of Calvary’s ancient sacrifice; and under the shadow of that sacrifice we could pray out all our longings and all our loneliness.

“‘Now, come along to daily Mass,’ he pleaded. ‘Just come and see how they work, these ideas of worshipping like the shepherds and of kneeling beneath the shadow of a sacrifice. You’ll find the early half-hour before the altar the happiest half-hour of the day. You’ll find your spiritual recovery there. It’ll be your healing spring... ’

‘“You boys are hero-worshippers and there’s nothing that warm young blood likes better than to do homage to its hero, and mould itself on its hero’s lines. In the Mass you simply bow the knees to your Hero, and say, “I swear fealty [=loyalty].” I’m going to mould myself on you.’”

Further along, says the narrator, “Monty opened with a preliminary bombardment in which, in his shattering style, he fired at us every argument that ever had been adduced for private confession, ‘the Sacrament of Penance’, as he startled us by calling it. The Bible was poured out upon us. The doctrine and practice of the Church came hurtling after. Then suddenly he threw away theological weapons, and launched a specialized attack on each of us in turn, obviously suiting his words to his reading of our separate characters.

“‘Confession is simply the consecration of your own natural instinct — the instinct to unburden yourself to one who waits with love and the gift of forgiveness — the instinct to have someone in the world who knows exactly all that you are... ’

“‘Christianity from beginning to end is the consecration of human instincts. The Christ-idea is the consecration of the instinct to have a visible, tangible hero for a God. The Mass is the consecration of the instinct to have a place and a time as an Objective Presence, where one can touch the hem of His garment and worship. And confession is the consecration of the human instinct to unburden your soul; to know that you are not alone in your knowledge of yourself; to know that at a given moment, by a definite sacrament, your sins are blotted away, as though they had never been.’

The narrator continues, “His victorious contention, by its very impulse, carried its colours into my heart. I yielded to his conviction that Catholic Christianity held all the honours.” Monty then switched his argurnentum ad hominem to the other young man: ‘Don’t you think,’ he asked, ‘that if you’ve gone the whole way with your sins, it’s up to a sportsman to go the whole way with his confession? And everybody knows that it’s much more difficult to confess to God through a priest than in the privacy of one’s own room. It’s difficult, but it’s the grand thing; and so it appeals to an heroic nature more... ’ “‘The two cardinal dogmas of my faith,’ said Monty, ‘are, the Mass and Confession.’”

Not bad for an Anglican, and an improvement on catechesis within some Catholic circles in Australia.

POSITIVE THINKING

Catholic schools might well adopt the vision statement of some independent Protestant Christian schools in Victoria: To serve the Lord in the world according to the gifts God has given.

The role model for boys growing up is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is, of course, the model for Christians of both sexes; He is specially the model for boys growing to Christian manhood, to become Christian gentlemen. The apostles, especially Sts Peter & Paul, are also a tremendous help to boys, just as St. Joseph is for husbands and fathers. Hence another means of gaining this grace is the study of the Sacred Scriptures and the reading of the lives of the Saints. Start with St. Luke’s Gospel and Adventures of the Apostles (i.e. the Acts!).

Father James Tierney.

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