Jesus of Nazareth

In my quest to be the slowest reader of the hard back edition of the book, I'm half way through the Our Father and reading a little bit on the train in the morning.

(In my defence, I read half of Anna Karenina in two days when I was a student, but in those days that's all I had to do...)

Note the bright cover.
Time for some product placement.
Regular commuter spotted reading book by Pope.

Forget the boorish behaviour of the yobbish yoof at the FCO, time to inject the stripey book into the everyday.

As various

comments on Fr Ray's blog said, it's up to us folks to do the spade work. It always was, I suppose, it's just that it's more obviously the case now.

Two options, either to get digging or support the people who are already spade in hand.

Ever feel

you are watching a car crash in slow motion?

The CES.

It has to be said that the number of frames per second does seem to be increasing.

There exists a particularly difficult type of pupil to teach. The not very bright, who thinks they know better than you. They do worse in public exams than the even less able who follows your instructions carefully. Those can end up doing pretty well. I had a guy last year get an A* because he was prepared to do as he was told and concede that in GCSE Music at least, I know. The ignorant, slightly arrogant one who thinks he can run with a half understood idea, get the wrong end of the stick, distort what he's been told and ignore your increasingly strident directions, usually ends badly.

I think we can make some analogies.

To think that when our class teacher was away for an afternoon and the Head Master took our class we once had a lesson on indulgences. Plenary and partial. He said we'd probably never have a lesson on them again and he was right. That would have been the early 80's and obviously he knew what was going on elsewhere. We, in Junior 3, did not.

Btw, his party trick was to write the Greek alphabet on the board.
I was impressed!

God bless our Pope.

From youtube. Get in some practice. It'll come in handy in September....

No last verse alas and as the comments below make clear the tune does not date from 1615 and definitely not from The Scottish Psalter. No way.

Digging

Spent a happy morning with old school friend doing battle with the couch grass. All under the clear clear blue sky. Not a vapour trail in sight. As Old Friend said not something we a likely to see again for a while.

We bth looked out this am, saw the morning mist and thought, 'Volcano dust!' as did her Mum, but it was in fact just ordinary mist and had lifted by the time I got out with my fork.

We were wondering what the conspiracy theorists will be making of this.

Tricky words

from last Saturday's Guardian Guide

'Some cities make cars but New Orleans manufactures ineffable musical experiences.'

Making hay whilst the sun shines

Too busy to blog.

Crops must be sown before it

a) starts raining again

and

b) work intervenes.

I see from the borough allotment survey that 50% of plot holders are retired. There's a reason for that. Colin and Pat, the guys I chat to everyday are there everyday. There's a reason their plots look the way they do.

Anyway,

Currently planted - parsnips, broad beans, rhubarb, onions, raspberry bushes.

Nearly in- potatoes, sweet corn, french beans, courgettes (in pots in fact awaiting germination,) carrots.

In the airing cupboard - tomatoes.

Right Then

Over a fry up at Fr Tim's 2 millionth party, the Papal Visit came up and what to do.

Obviously, we don't have the schedule yet, but when it all happens, hopefully public transport in London, Coventry and assorted Scottish locations will be flooded with happy smiley Catholics with flags.

After all, look at all the folks who turned out for St T of L in the Autumn.

I have a little pic of the HF up in my window and maybe I will forget to take it down.

Aside from 'God bless our Pope,' Newman has supplied us with plenty of cracking hymns, so that's a bit of the soundtrack sorted.

Back from hols

After playing a few things and singing a few things over the past week, it was holiday time.

I got to go with family-round-the-corner on an adventure taking in lunch with some friends of theirs, a night in a Youth Hostel in Sussex and a great walk on the South Downs. Fantastic weather yesterday too. Lucky me.

Am now running low on excuses for not digging...

From the back bedroom window I can see the industrious Irishman, rotovating away.

Still, I'm thinking that the couch grass makes me all but carbon neutral. I just need it to be a staple food and I'd be sorted.

The industrious Irishman is now raking. Oh the jealosy of his fine tilth.

Anodyne

From The Times April 5th

After referring to various sermons dealing with child abuse....

'The sermons reflected one of the most dramatic Easters in memory for church leaders and their flocks, more used to listening to age-old and often anodyne messages about the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ.'

Mm. Must have missed something all these years.

Anodyne defn - comforting thing: something that soothes, comforts, or relaxes.

Maybe the authors have never been to Stations of the Cross.

'Til Tuesday

Let's hope the General Election date is declared on Tuesday and then the media attention will have a different focus.

Meantime, classic reporting of Urbi et Orbi on the BBC, doom and gloom voiceover about thousands in the crowd - more like tens of thousands - whilst you look at masses of smiling faces

Happy Easter

Credibility

I do not understand what that means with respect to the Catholic Church in Ireland, just Ireland? ( I should say that for all his reported brilliance, I always want to scream WHAT IS YOUR POINT? every time I read anything Rowan Williams says. Bring on Benedict XVI, totally clear and easy to understand.)

For one thing the Catholic Church is not about geographic boundaries. That's an English thing.

The ABC needs to read the CTS booklet on Heresy through the Ages. Penned by a classicist, I'd say, because it has that crystal clear, straight to the point, QED style, it quickly gets you through all the big no-nos.

One of the no-nos is saying that sacraments are invalid because the Priest is guilty of immoral behaviour.

That's all there is as far as I'm concerned.

Does the Catholic Church have teaching authority? Yes
Are the sacraments true? Yes
Do individual Catholics do very very wrong things? Yes, sadly.

And it will, alas, always be so.

April showers

I'm hoping to dodge them and get some digging done on the allotment.

Stuff needs to happen. Potatoes and carrots and broad beans need to go in.

I'm ready, but the clouds have other ideas.

Come back

Woolworths, all is forgiven.

Move along to something else if this is Good Friday and you are feeling hungry.

A friend pointed out to me yesterday that if you want a ready supply of Cream Eggs, post Easter, you have to make provision pre-Easter.

Tough eh? Again we live the opposite way round to everyone else. The shops are full of chocs when we aren't eating it, and are onto the next thing when we are in full on feasting mode.

Again, I left buying Easter eggs 'til I'd broken up. What do I find? The seasonal section is 1/3 sorry chocolate, 1/3 bare and 1/3 compost! I somehow think my family will not want a 20 litre bag of John Innes No.3. (I have to buy it in 10 litre bags anyway because I cannot lift anything heavier into and out of the car, but that's another heart breaking story...)