50  people who became successful after being rejected
Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas"
Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. Eventually, he was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School

Jan 30

Update from Uganda Any kind readers like to help Bill Mulcahy's project?

Slum dwellers remember help from Fr Tisa OMI

Vatican vs Fr Flannery Ashamed of my Church

10 New Year resolutions

Jan 29

Vatican vs Fr Flannery Fr Flannery answers CDF

Baroque comeback?Walahfrid Strabo, who died in 849, wrote: " 
In earlier times priests celebrated Mass dressed like everyone else."

Urgent prayer request update:
Saeed sentenced to 8 years in "death" prison

Who attended Last Supper?  (Questions from a Ewe)
The gospels state that women followed/accompanied Jesus to Jerusalem. John has Jesus' mother at the cross. The Passover meal, even at that time, was a family celebration. Why would Jesus exclude his own mother and women friends/followers from this meal? It makes no sense (Comment three)

Message from Tony Hoey who started the petition
"Married and ordained to the priesthood"

Vatican vs Fr Flannery: ACI speaks out

Jan 27

Reform that never ends Denys Horgan
But what if it’s the hierarchy, even the papacy itself, that’s in need of reform? Who will police the police themselves? If the hierarchy is not doing its job properly, must the laity step up to the plate? And if they do, where does their mandate come from?
Anderson suggests that the basic problem with today’s church is what he calls a crisis of accountability on the part of the bishops and priests. We have a church where the pope, apparently, does not listen to the bishops, where the bishops do not listen to the priests, and where nobody listens to the laity

Forum of Asian Catholic women theologians: Ecclesia of Women in Asia

Confusion over Vatican II is normal Fr Ladislas Orsy SJ   

Jan 26

Australia Day Judith Lynch

Mini-reflection  John W
Sometimes when we meet disappointment and opposition and ridicule in the Church or in the wider society, we might be inclined to think "What's the use of getting involved? What's the use of speaking up? Doesn't make any difference. I've had enough".  That's how a famous fellow named Jeremiah once spoke. He thought of not speaking God's message any more. But then he felt a fire burning in his heart. He just had to keep on speaking God's message.
Same is true for us. When we feel our efforts in our families, our work place, our church ...are a waste of time...then our hearts also can have a "fire attack" if we humbly give a few minutes each day to some Bible reflection and prayer. God's word revives our drooping spirits...and gives us energy to witness another day!
So, may I once again encourage dear readers to use the Reading Reflection Prayer menu below. "It's just what the doctor ordered"!

10 ways to mix up the teachings of Vatican II

Tennis: Li Na !

Jan 25

Pope Benedict XVI: The conversion of St Paul
We are Christians only if we have an encounter with Christ. Of course, he does not reveal himself to us in the way he revealed himself to Paul. But we too can encounter Christ by reading sacred Scripture, in prayer, and through the liturgical life of the Church.
(Would that B16 could have a Damascus Road experience!) 

Vic child abuse inquiry: Child abuse link to celibacy

Today is the birthday of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
On Jan 25, 1816 Eugene de Mazenod and four companions began their apostolic life in France

Jan 24

January 23 presentation by Catholics for Renewal  to Victorian abuse inquiry

Accompanying paper from Catholics for Renewal
re Towards Healing and Melbourne Response

Who will hear our voice? The plea of Afghan women
Fr John Dear SJ (NCR)

Criticize church officials, not Church
Joseph Girzone
I wonder how Jesus feels when he sees his bishops being far from servants and acting like princes and making their importance felt so that people have to treat them as if they are members of royalty

China & Australia top list of "carbon bomb" projects

Jan 23

Bring back Jesus Joseph Girzone
We face the risk of a Church  being run by bullies who demand silence about issues because they know they cannot defend their stand on those issues

How well do we identify with the poor?
 (Questions from a Ewe)
After introducing this topic about poverty, (Cardinal Dolan) said he had to limit discussion to “14 minutes or the pasta will not be al dente” and the brothers responded with laughter. This country has tens of millions of hungry people – many of them children. Yet, Dolan - who looks like he has never involuntarily skipped a single meal - limits discussion about the poor to just a few minutes lest it impact his lunch. The poor are so important that the bishops can mock them by trivializing discussion about the hungry so that these very well-fed bishops won't experience a delay or impediment to their meal's quality

What kind of bishops  are they appointing?
Joseph Girzone

Israel's new settlements

J Ratzinger suggested the Western Church should have patriarchates!
(paragraph 7)

Wikipedia: Patriarch Historical overview ... not a simple topic!

As UK freezes in snow, Sydney has record 46

Africa: Excellent report re current crisis in Mali

c.f. Intervention welcomed by Christians

Secular scrutiny can save the Church
Fr Michael Kelly SJ

RIP: Tisa Balasuriya OMI

Jan 18

Good & bad shepherds Joseph Girzone 
re the type of priests being produced by today's seminaries

Using poor language in the liturgy   Andrew Hamilton  
At a time when Christians increasingly experience a gap between faith and their world, a language of liturgy that is disconnected from the ways in which people can speak about things that matter puts unnecessary lead in the Catholic saddlebag.
And see the many, many comments, like this one from Graham Quinlivan:
I am a member of one of the largest multi-cultural parishes in Australia and I can't help wondering what the wonderful devout people around me each week make of this archaic, incomprehensible jargon we are forced to endure....

HK inter-denominational youth gathering
A good news story!

Second NCR research article re women and the history of ordination 
This time: how women were gradually excluded

New translation , joke! A good, one!

Change the way bishops are selected (NCR)

Jan 16

New York Times Best Seller for the last 10 weeks:
Proof of Heaven  by Dr Eben Alexander

Bang goes the Theory George Monbiot
In 2012, the world’s 100 richest people became $241 billion richer.
They are now worth $1.9 trillion: just a little less than the GDP of the United Kingdom.

Jan 15

Aust abuse commission:
Unknown unknowns
Ray Cassin (Eureka St)

A hoax currently doing rounds of social media:
500 Christians burned alive

CC to make USA  hotter, drier, more disaster-prone

Worth re-reading:
Vatican Vandalism - the new translation

Jan 13

TV's effect on children
Two US doctors outline statistics & suggestions

Urgent prayer request:
Update re US man in Iran
Heavenly Father, please help your beloved son Saeed!

Peace witness from prison
Fr John Dear SJ
How much longer will drone madness continue?

Australia abuse commission
Update reports

Australia's heat wave linked to climate change

Jan 12

People want kind and humble priests
He was unhappy because the parish priest sees his parishioners as objects to be disciplined, giving a good scolding during his homily, interfering in parishioners’ activities and making arbitrary decisions without listening to them.

Almost half of clergy in England/Wales over 70 c.f. Priests say 9 Masses a day -  ordain married men

Vatican strips US priest of (on paper) priesthood for supporting ordination of women

Anything different from Pope Benedict's interpretation of Vat II is heresy!?!

c.f. David Timbs:
The Year of Faith
The Reform of the Reform sets up a dialectic between the Hermeneutic of Reform and Continuity with the Hermeneutic of Discontinuity and Rupture. This is both very Teutonic and highly contrived. It gets it oxygen from Ratzinger/Benedict’s favoured Augustinian oppositional construct of reality, the City of God in conflict with the City of Man.

How others see us Joseph Girzone

Jan 11

Fr Anscar Chupungco OSB,one of the world's leading liturgists, died Jan 8. 
His 2011 HK talk    NCR tribute

New weather new politics George Monbiot
Climate change denial is almost a national pastime in Australia. The Australian – owned by Rupert Murdoch – takes such extreme anti-science positions that it sometimes makes the Sunday Telegraph look like the voice of reason. Perhaps this is unsurprising. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal – the most carbon intensive fossil fuel. It’s also a profligate consumer.  Taking meaningful action on climate change would require a serious reassessment of the way life is lived there.

Urgent Prayer Request US citizen to be sentenced by Iran "hanging judge"

Bishops should talk to priests Fr Brendan Hoban (ACP)
Behind the growing chorus of disapproval among Irish priests is a great mixture of unease, worry, anger that the Irish Church is imploding before our very eyes and our leaders seem to be sleep-walking into the future.

sad: first three lettersAnd: Words fail us

Stupidity: at time of Galatians & now
A powerful article (NCR)

Another NCR VIP report:
Women leaders in early church

Recently I met a cousin who checks the "homework" of prisoners doing Bible study courses  
for this most interesting group: CBI

Yesterday Australia's hottest day since records began.
 Any connection with  climate change???
And notice all the comments from the anti-cc lobby,
cousins of the gun lobby

Jesus' Cosmic Presence Joseph Girzone
His presence is like the sunshine & air all around us

Jan 8

Performatism & liturgy
A powerful article that questions the current return to "operatic" liturgy

After the Magi left Joseph Girzone

Thank you from Canada to Association of Irish Priests

China training children as young as 4 for Olympics

 Q. What kind of man was Boaz before he married Ruth?  A. Ruthless

Jan 7

New file at top of this page: Microsoft-Google war
...why this site looks better in I.E. than Chrome...and why many Apps have pblms

Heart of Life Spirituality Centre (Melbourne) Open House Feb 24

"Never trust a doctor whose office plants have died"
 - sign in medical centre where I went for annual check-up last Saturday

Magi honor poor baby Joseph Girzone
When the Jews were in captivity in Persia, they were treated kindly by the Persian king. As a gesture of appreciation, Daniel the prophet was told by God to announce to the Persians that when the Jewish Messiah was born,  his star would appear in the east and they should go and pay their respects

Jan 6

Hugh Jackman:  We Three Kings

Recommended by readers: Jewish businessman re  anti-Catholic bias in media Global food poisoning

Jan 5

Recommended by a friend in Sydney: 
Kitchen Table Wisdom - stories that heal by  Rachel Naomi Remen.
Beautiful words of Rachel

He pitched his tent among us

Jan 3Why women in China do not get breast cancer
For more info re this,
put "Jane Plant China diary products breast cancer" into Google

Jan 2
Once upon a baby Judith Lynch
Perhaps one of the first messages we can take from the accounts of Jesus' nativity is that each of us has a nativity as well—a birth story that holds within it all the promise and hope that attended that Christmas some two thousand years ago. Whatever excitement or sorrow your birth story holds, whatever ordinariness surrounds it, it is worth knowing and celebrating

In this time of shame and sadness, The Church needs Mystics. A review of Richard Rohr's new book "Immortal Diamond: the Search for Our True Self’.
Overall this book helps to validate Karl Rahner’s conclusion that “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.”

How to make the world a better place Joseph Girzone