5 May: To all you dedicated followers …

I mean followers of fashion. Come to think of it, the last time I picked out the perfect outfit was the morning of my daughter’s wedding, and, let’s be fair, my outfit was chosen by the influencers in my life, that’s to say, the women in my life. Am I alone in this? Well, Natasha from Canterbury has found a research article that warns against fast fashion and explains why it’s bad for the planet. Click on the link, then the link at the top of the window that appears.

Fast Fashion

Who doesn’t love to keep up with the latest fashion trends? We love to express our personality, moods and ideals through the clothes we wear everyday. And why not? It’s rather fun picking out the perfect outfit every morning (I do it all the time!)But did you know that picking the right brands and materials is really important. Fast fashion clothes, that are inexpensive and mass produced to keep up with the trends, are actually one of the main contributors to greenhouse gases being released into the environment.Read more about the details of this in the article The Global Glut of Clothing Is an Environmental Crisis. Natasha Viegas

As the Kinks once sang:

 He flits from shop to shop just like a butterfly 
In matters of the cloth, he is as fickle as can be
 'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion

Let us pray not to be fickle, but considered, in our choices of clothing.

Advertisement

16 June, Heart VII: If you forget …

Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.

Deuteronomy 8:17-19.

‘That’s not a threat, it’s a promise!’ as one of my old teachers used to say, not necessarily to great effect. I wonder whether some of us are looking at our pre-lockdown lives and realising that a sense of self-importance has crept into our hearts our and veins. It’s encouraged by so many aspects of our life: the cult of celebrity and of riches — with the conspicuous spending that can go with it; competition and the riches that accompany elite sports players; the vastly higher pay given to people with clean hands.

At Pentecost time, let’s pray for wisdom as we come out of lockdown, and for a love of our planet that will provide a sustainable future for all creatures of our God and King.

27 May: Tagore IX: Time is short

It is heroic to hug one’s sorrow and determine not to be consoled.

But a fresh face peeps across my door and raises its eyes to my eyes.

I cannot but wipe away my tears and change the tune of my song.

For time is short.

from “The Gardener” by Rabindranath Tagore

Surely hugging one’s sorrow and refusing consolation is to be the hero in one’s own tuppence-coloured soap opera? After a catastrophic event in life it is surely normal and good to take time to recuperate, but live on we must, commending all things to their Creator. Maybe the poet is writing in the person of a young teenager, a star-crossed lover? He follows the philosophy, not of Romeo and Juliet, but of Clementine’s admirer: How I missed her, how I missed my Clementine, but I kissed her pretty sister and forgot my Clementine. Time is short. Let’s not succumb to worrying about the virus or its effects. let’s rather be here, full of hope for whoever needs to hear a change of tune.

10 April: More vital than cake …

These days, I guess most of us think of an indulgence as something we can enjoy but do not really need. Like a slice of cake with your cup of tea. That’s a simnel cake, a sort of  English Easter version of the German stollen.  A daffodil for the risen Lord and eleven dots for the more-or-less-faithful  Apostles.

We know that there were no recriminations from Him in those weeks after Easter. They were forgiven. Full stop.

 

So how the situation arose where people were selling indulgences, and many more people buying them, is hard to comprehend, except that if you were led to believe that paying down a week’s wages would secure your place in Heaven, well, What price would you pay?

That was an Indulgence in mediaeval times. Follow the link to an interesting article about an Indulgence on show in Manchester. And What price would you pay?

As our contributor Tom points out, you would readily pay a week’s wages for eternal salvation.

Here then is a connection to yesterday’s post, both about wartime, but this is a story of the aftermath of the Second World War.

The same day as I read this article I was in the Archive in Westminster diocese and found a 1947 exchange of letters between Miss Winifred Callaghan, head teacher of English Martyrs’ School in York and Cardinal Griffin in Westminster.

She writes:

Most Reverend Father,

Kindly accept the enclosed £1 as a small donation to your ‘Children of Europe’ fund, from the children and some of the staff of the above school.

We would have made it more but many local calls kept us collecting. But on Friday we had a quick whip round with ‘your’ box, as we call it, and £1 resulted.

We ask your blessing and a prayer for us all please. May God bless you dear Father, from the children and teachers.

And not an indulgence in sight.

How blest the children of York, to have had such a head teacher! The generosity of many people, rich and poor, can be traced in the correspondence. They were supporting Germans, as well as Poles, Hungarians, Yugoslavians, Estonians: people exiled from their homes across Europe, Germans stranded in the New Poland, many people who could not go home to what were now Communist countries.

Forgiveness freely given towards former enemies, and plain Christian charity.

And not an indulgence in sight.

MB. TJH.

June 12: Justice, VII: Justice, Gratitude and Religion

The just person does not repay another merely because the other needs it, but because the other has done something good for us. We wish to make a return. There is a deep and soul-enriching reciprocity about justice, then. We are touching something fundamental in the human make-up here. To repay a good deed done to us with a reciprocal good deed is something we need to do in order to be whole. On the other hand, to be constantly on the receiving end of goodness without ever acknowledging it is a kind of solipsistic existence that is not good for us, and in our heart of hearts we know it. Even babies will spontaneously respond to goodness by smiling back at a loving smile, by embracing the one who embraces them with love. We are made to respond to goodness and love by a goodness and love of our own.

In our life with God, we will always be indebted to him. The sheer size of what we’ve been given by God is truly astronomical: he has given us the universe! He has given us life. He has given us himself in his beloved Son. He continues to sustain us in being by his love. We will always be loved more by him than we can possibly love in return. But that does not excuse us from trying. It is religion that allows us to attempt some expression of our gratitude to God. God does not need gratitude in the same way our employee needs his pay, or in the same way our friend needs to be thanked for his acts of kindness to us. God does not need. Full stop. But we need to express it.

Gratitude, then, is inseparable from religion and is an aspect of justice. Eucharist is a word that literally means thanksgiving. One of the psalms exclaims, ‘Oh how can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me? The cup of salvation I will raise, and I will call on the Lord’s name’ (psalm 115). Through religion, we raise the cup of salvation, we give ourselves to God, who gives himself to us. This reciprocal giving, on such a deep level, is itself a gift – the greatest of gifts.

St. Thomas Aquinas, who never seems to overlook anything, ever, points out (S.T., II, II, Q. 106:5) that gratitude isn’t always related to the material size of what we have been given. From our human benefactors, also, we have been given many things, large and small, on many levels, by many people. Yet, as St. Thomas comments, we are ‘sometimes under greater obligation to one who has given little, but with a large heart.’ What a beautiful thought. I think of the gift of a sea-shell given by a child with shining eyes. The gift of a smile from an adult with intellectual disabilities. The gift of trust given by a friend. These gifts are what help to make us human, and to make life liveable. As we study here the virtue of justice, we see that it reminds us to notice that the gift with a heavy weight, with a countable quantity, or with a vast size is not the only thing that make a gift valuable, and that obliges us to respond in kind. The intangible quality of the gift is perhaps what is most valuable to us. The gift of the heart, the gift of love, this is the greatest gift. To return it is one of the greatest of human acts. The virtue of justice helps us to live lives of gratitude, of reverence, of joy and of greatness.

SJC.

Anyone wishing to make a further study may consult:

Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II.II. Q. 58f.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1803 – 1811.

20 January: Inter-galactic Discoveries, XXI.

There was great excitement one misty Margate morning when Will and Mrs Turnstone appeared on the doorstep for a fleeting visit. ‘Sorry boys, I can’t take you out this time,’ said Will. ‘No dogs in the art gallery. Unless stuffed by Damien Hirst.’

‘He doesn’t mean stuffing your face, Alfie,’ beamed Ajax, licking Will and tangling his claws in Will’s scarf. ‘He means … skinning us and putting us on show in a glass cabinet.’

Alfie almost choked on the biscuit he’d snatched in his initial excitement.

‘Probably dressed in silly clothes like those Chihuahuas in woolly elf suits we saw on the train,’ continued Ajax.

‘You promised never to dress us for comic effect, T,’ Alfie growled.

Will, oblivious to this exchange, heard T say, ‘Nothing like that will ever happen to you while I’m here, boys, and you know it. And Will loves you too much for that to cross his mind.’

‘Indeed I do boys,’ said Will, ‘but just stay still, Ajax, while I free your claws from my scarf.’ ‘

Honestly! Ajax, you need them cutting,’ said Mrs T.

When Will and Mrs T had gone, Alfie asked if people did treat animals in that way. ‘A few people do,’ said T, ‘A few sad people. Hirst got rich and famous that way. But Will’s neither rich nor famous. He just likes dogs. And your nails do need clipping.’

‘We are so dependent,’ mused Ajax. ‘Back in the pod I had my own auto-nail-bar, completely independent. No need to go to the vet.’

‘No, but you enjoy being spoiled when you get there. You never had treats from an auto-nail-bar. In fact, zero treats in the pod at all. Every need fulfilled by the ’bots. Scientific food and drink, exactly what an Ossyrian needs. Exactly. No more. No excess.

‘Next time Will comes we might join him at Peter’s Fish Factory for fish and chips. If you don’t mind being dependent on the cooks to serve the whitebait just right?’

30 November Jacopone da Todi 4 :Making our Way back to God.

Some of Jacopone’s poems work as a dialogue. This one is between a person who takes decisions carefully and develops relationships in a caring and responsible way, and his friend who is self-indulgent, living only for superficial pleasures and a worldly consumer way of life.

“O my brother, before death overtakes you

Come to terms, find your way back to God.”

“If I change my ways, brother,

What will become of these sons of mine?

Come, why not think on death, which awaits

Both father and son? Follow the path

That leads out of the labyrinth.”

“But I’ve become accustomed to being well dressed,

To a certain decorum. How can I suddenly change,

Become an object of people’s contempt,

Have them point to me as that poor idiot?

A baited hook looks good to a fish,

But once he has swallowed it

It gives him little pleasure.

Your arguments frighten me, brother;

You make me feel the wound of holy love.

The world will no longer deceive me.”

The bait is worldly pleasures and High Street glamour. The hook is a bite of conscience about living an aimless and unmerciful existence.

We realise, however, that we share our mysterious and beautiful lives with a great expanse of fellow mortals. They, too, have buried desires for integrity and kindness poured into their hearts by God. We can only learn how to be meaningful in our relationships, and to make love our purpose, by seeing the beauty of others more clearly.

 

Chris D.

October 2016.