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Cardinal Newman Catechist
Consultants — 20th August, 2016 — HANDOUTS n. 136
“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”
My priestly Ministry
Download as a  PDF
GOOD NEWS!
New Boys
Go Bush Again
is now on our website. Click link on the homepage
and you will find it in groups of three or four chapters at a time.
Printing is permitted. A print version is coming. First of all it is an
outdoor adventure. Its setting is politically incorrect: stable
marriage, big family, manners, mischief and daring-do.
Its appendices are a big upgrade on those in Bush Boys on the Move, especially the appendix on Home
Tutoring/Educating/Schooling.
Another project, partly a hobby, is writing more of New Boys' Bush Rescue, which is a sequel to New Boys Go Bush Again, on the Lawson family.
I’M up to my ears in work on so
many projects from which time is lost each day on peripheral phone
calls. Requests keep coming in for ‘demolition material’ to refute
trendy doctrine or morals or to support this or that worthy cause. Yet
my memory, hearing and sight are slithering downhill.
The project that suffers most yet of greatest import is
the Catholic
Family CatechIST
(sic) for parents and others who are teaching from the Catholic Family Catechism
Disciples’ Edition.
Yet this is displaced by an immediate need for a new
edition of the 1982 Heart Speaks to Heart Revised Edition. It might be called the Millennium
Edition until something comes up with a better name. The Mass texts
need replacing and a better I want translation of the Psalms than the
Grail as used in the present responsorial psalms at Mass and throughout
the Liturgy of the Hours, i.e. the Divine Office).
The 1982 Heart Speaks to Heart itself replaced the original of 1979 (in a pamphlet
size), which in turn replaced Lift up your Heart which Father Brian Moore SJ produced in 1973 with a
reprint in 1974.
All these prayer books preceded my computer acquaintance
from 1986, so I have to scan in the earlier material — with lots of
correction from scanning mistakes, yet quicker than my typing.
Given my other duties I cannot hope to get in more than
three hours work a day and this is eaten into by phone calls (a least
an hour a day) or writing answers to letters, all of which eat into my
prime time 0900 to 1300 when my mind is not too tired. Sometimes I get
up early between 0200 and 0330 if 1 wake early (lights out at 2000).
As for correspondence, if I don’t answer at once, it gets
displaced by new arrivals and forgotten. And Cardinal Newman Faith Resources
Inc need a monthly Handouts for the internet version, while
still posted out, three or four, at a time every three months.
The Media
IN the Old Testament, the Witch of Endor
summoned up the ghost of Samuel for Saul.
She was called a ‘medium’, and means of access to the
occult. Our word ‘media’ is simply the Latin plural of ‘medium’. Are
today’s mass media and social media might be a form of witchcraft?
Mass Media (a sample of a minor apostolate)
To the Editor of the local paper:
BEST TO BET ON GOD
Some agnostics, atheists and other irreligious persons
would like everyone to convert to them and thereby ensure peace in the
world — an attitude not unlike that of converting others to God and
Godliness.
A good test of any religious or non-religious faith is
which is the most noble in its teaching and practical results. The more
noble the teaching, the harder it will be to practise and the more
shocking the failures. Not surprisingly, people struggle with
Christianity. We have to love our enemies and those who hate us, and
alas, sometimes we find ourselves hating even our friends!
Pascal, who lent his name to air pressure in tyres, was
given to gambling. He reckoned it was best to bet on God since we would
never know if we were wrong! At least, that’s a starting point for
enquiry.
Father James Tierney Catholic Family Catechism
Social Media
(from press clipping service of Father Bernie McGrath This
sketch about Face Book probably came from it. Its grammar has been
edited to help those unfamiliar with its lack of schooling as displayed
in that medium.)
For those of my generation who do not and cannot
comprehend why Facebook exists, I am trying to make friends outside of
Facebook while applying the same principles: Therefore, every day I
walk down the street and tell a passerby what I have eaten, how I feel
at the moment, what I have done the night before, what I will do later
and with whom, and give them pictures of my family, my dog, and me
gardening, taking the apart in the garage, taking thing apart in tire
garage, watering the lawn, standing in front of landmarks, driving
around town, having lunch and doing what everybody does every day.
I also listen to their conversations, give them the
“thumbs up” and tell them I like them, and it works just like Facebook.
I already have four people following me: two police
officers, a private investigation, and a psychiatrist.
Father Tierney’s Comment (it isn’t on Facebook):
Is Face Book the ultimate in trivial pursuit —
or is it a means of evangelization?
Is it just good clean fun — or
psycho-manipulation by demagogues to lynch their enemies?
Is it a healthy develop of Pen Pals
— or a Stranger- Danger, corrupting thought, conscience and conduct?
Or it possibly all of these at
once?
Is healthy caution required? Should
we apply the motto of Jungle Warfare, “Constant Vigilance and Eternal
Suspicion”?
Media Evangelism Again
ACCORDING TO the old Sunday School song, the
best book to read is the Bible.
So once upon a time a boy [guess who?] wagged Sunday School by pretending
to be sick, and offered to sit in the wintry sunshine and start reading
the Bible from Genesis, which means the Beginning.
Genesis was chock-a-block with good and evil, ranging from
the noble to the obscene, from God to the Devil.
Some was inspiring. Let there be light. Increase and
multiply and fill the earth. Tend the Garden and keep it. Not good for
man to be alone. Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed
but a few days because of the greatness of his love. Lots of parental
affection.
On the other hand there was murder, slavery, masturbation,
rape, sodomy, fornication, prostitution, incest, polygamy, theft, lies,
false witness, false pretences, sibling rivalry, jealousy. Wow!
And life in society. Big government, centralized economy.
A high-rise tower, fire, flood, famine. Tragic infertility. Remarkable
obstetrics and animal husbandry. Sharp bargaining, even with God!
Actually, it’s just like today. All that’s missing is
abortion and euthanasia, where we have sunk lower.
However we are also far better off, with a Saviour from
sin, His moral code and power-packages to live Godly lives.
It’s a starting point for enquiry.
MAKING MOTHERS
Nothing is the same as matrimony.
While the word “marriage” comes from the making of a
husband, “matrimony” says more, for it means the making of a mother.
Only a woman can be a mother. Only a man can make her so.
One young man’s proposal of marriage was, “Can you hear the pitter
patter of little feet on the floor?”
No substitute is possible for matrimony. Nothing has
equality with marriage.
It’s one of God’s greatest inventions, a living symbol of
His union with creation, with humanity, and with His Church. It’s a
symbol which makes His purpose present from generation to generation.
Without such a vision, the people perish.
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>
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