Creed, Code and Cult: Day 2, Talk 2

Pope John Paul II referred to Catholics as People of Life and for Life! The second presentation focused on positive ways to build a creative Culture of Life.

1. True Devotion to Our Blessed Lady The first of these was to cultivate true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is full of grace. No other creature will ever give such a total fiat to God and to Life. Revelation 12 describes the dramatic clash between the pregnant Woman clothed with the sun and the red dragon who waits to devour Her Child. This can be interpreted both in relation to Our Lady and the Church; both bring forth new life and both are at war with Satan and his minions.

At Guadalupe in 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Juan Diego as a pregnant mother and gave him the miraculous tilma cloak. Through this a serious Culture of Death in the Aztec world was reversed and within 9 years, some 9 million natives had been converted by missionaries who used copies of the tilma to evangelise and teach the Faith. The long stream of sacrifices to false gods had ceased. The miraculous tilma image is a mystery which only deepens as scientific research progresses. For example, it appears to be photographic in nature and when the eye of Our Lady is enlarged it reveals tiny images which look like St. Juan Diego, Bishop Zumarraga and his interpreter. These were the very men present when the tilma was first unfurled. The mantle of Our Lady also bears symbols which resonate with Aztec culture and were used to great effect in catechesis. One example is the situation of the Nahui Ollin flower over the growing Saviour in her sacred womb; in Aztec iconography this flower represented the centre of the universe.

A good way to practice true devotion is to keep the First Five Saturdays Devotion, in which one makes reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary through making a good Confession, receiving Holy Communion, praying the Rosary and spending 15 minutes contemplating one of the Rosary mysteries.

2. Caring for women who have had abortions

Evangelium Vitae 99 expresses the call of the Church to women - and all involved in abortion - to seek healing and reconciliation through sacramental confession and professional support and care. If our pro-life activism is not to end in mere condemnation then we must strive to bring healing to women who suffer post-abortion trauma and the isolation this brings in a culture which accepts the killing of the unborn as normal. We need to have trained counsellors and to provide help-line numbers in the porches of our parishes for this end. We could encourage other local ecclesial communities to do the same. All Catholics should be aware of EV99 and where to get hold of a copy to help women who may be despairing.

The Rachel's Vineyard reconcilation and healing retreats are highly recommended. Please refer to www.rachelsvineyard.org.uk/

3. Challenge Sex Education

The constant tradition of the Catholic Church has condemned explicit sex education and all misuse of human sexuality. Unfortunately many of our bishops have colluded with the government in recent times to allow increasingly anti-life and anti-family programmes in Catholic schools. Parents are the primary educators of their children and have certain key rights and duties in this regard. Anyone responsible for young people needs to know the teaching of the Church about proper and improper content and methodologies for education. A good place to start is the 1995 document The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality from the Pontifical Council for the Family. Other vital ways to get informed include checking the content and methodology used in the schools attended by one's children and reading SPUC's excellent daily blog.

We can also help our young people by giving them the full and authentic catechesis in the Catholic Faith which it is their right to have; teaching them how to critique false world-views such as moral relativism and leading them to the fullness of truth and freedom in Jesus Christ. Home schooling is another viable means to overcome secularist indoctrination and every parent has the right to remove a child from a lesson/lessons if they are not happy with the content.

Another laudable aim is to learn the stages of foetal development from good web resources like SPUC. Too many people are unaware of basic knowldege, including the fact that the human heart begins to beat at 21-25 days in the womb. Abortion really does stop a beating heart. One could also develop images of foetal development, purchase plastic baby models of the same or obtain ultrasound DVDs (TinyTots in Ireland provide these for a small donation). With these tools one could apply to local schools to offer presentations on foetal development to RE/PSHE classes. Another idea is to learn the true facts about the dreadful death caused by the withdrawal of food and fluids in euthanasia in order to inform students and others of the grim reality.

4. Build or rebuild your own family

The family is the Domestic Church. We can become so caught up in life and work (even pro-life work!) that we neglect our own family and their needs. To overcome this we need to start listening actively to our own family members to understand them and their problems, challenges and aspirations better. Family prayer is essential. Whilst it may be difficult to pray together if this has not been developed it is time to begin afresh. Even one decade of the Rosary prayed well each evening is a start. The ideal would be to create a family altar as a focus for family prayers and plan ahead in order to build up to a Rosary per day together.

A key way to fight euthanasia is to help our children to learn the value of vulnerable people. This can be done by including them in visiting and caring for sick/elderly relatives and neighbours. Do we show our children by example that people and life are more important than money and things? Another good way is for older teens to help out at homeless outreach centres.

5. Wear the little feet badge

Organisations like SPUC sell the Little Feet badge which portrays the actual size of the feet of a baby at the 10 weeks stage of foetal development. By wearing these, good conversations can be initiated in favour of life. They also make good gifts for family and friends. Young teen-aged girls generally love them!

6. Support good pro-life charities

Good Counsel Network, Sisters of the Gospel of Life and SPUC do sterling work and would be very grateful of prayers and financial offerings.

7. Fortify a pro-life parish

Dr. Bernard Nathanson was a prominent abortionist responsible for 75,000 abortions who also helped to pave the way for liberal abortion laws in America. He has since repented and became a Catholic in 1996. Today he fights abortion. Dr. Nathanson states that abortion would never have been accepted in America if the Catholic clergy had been informed, organised and unified. The same can be said of us all as a body of believers. Too much time has been wasted by people rebelling against the Magisterium, arguing in-house and focusing on secondary issues. It is time to fight back!

A. Develop a Parish Pro-life Group

This would need to be headed by a sensitive and mature person and would ideally meet regularly with the parish priest to pray, discern and develop local tactics.

B. Vigil for Life

The Holy Father has called for a vigil on the 27th November for all nascent human life. It would be great to host an all-night vigil but even Mass followed by a period of Adoration would be good.

C. NFP Teacher in Parish

Every diocese and parish should by now have a trained woman or married couple to help couples who have a serious need to space pregnancy without resorting to contraception. Such trained representatives would also be able to help infertile couples without resorting to IVF.

D. Pro-life Bidding Prayers

These could be included at Mass on a fairly regular basis to intercede for the victims and the conversion of all involved as well as keeping the issue in the consciousness of the parish.

E. Annual Pro-life Mass

The Mass could be offered in reparation for the sins of abortion and euthanasia, for the unborn or for the conversion of all involved. The homily could impart the teaching of the Church on these issues. The collection could be taken for pro-life work.

F. Pro-Life Chains

On the Saturday nearest to the 27th April each year SPUC host pro-life chains of witness along streets in various towns. This involves prior planning with the local police force and there is plenty of time to organise this for next year. The witness of a whole parish would be very valuable as is evidenced by the practice in many American parishes.

G. Pro-life witness at abortion facilities

There are different levels of sacrifice and danger to which people are called in a war. Not all are called to the same level. However, if we never go to pray and witness at the actual abortion facilities we are in danger of making pro-life work a hobby or an issue which we care about. But it is never a mere issue. It is about individual people who need our witness and prayers; the babies, the mothers, the fathers, those who work in the abortion facilities.

A woman in America who ran an abortion facility prior to being converted to Christ and the Church said that whenever she saw a priest praying outside she knew that she would have problems that day. It is a spiritual thing. A lady once saw Fr. Pavone praying outside of the abortion mill where she was sitting waiting for an abortion. She thought, 'If there is a Catholic priest out there, then what am I doing in here?' She fled and was given counsel by a woman with Fr. Pavone. By the end of the day she had been to Confession and eventually the baby was born and baptised Guadalupe.

At times people will indeed turn around and keep their babies because they saw someone praying or even spoke to those that were.

Last year a good friend of ours prayed outside an abortion facility after praying before the relics of St. Therese. That day 5 girls turned around and kept their babies. A couple of months later our friend died suddenly. It was the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was a great comfort to his family and friends that he had responded to the fight for human life because of his deep faith in God.

What will be our response?

Our Lady of Guadalupe - Pray for us!

Creed, Code and Cult - Day 2, Talk 1.

We enjoyed being back at St. Joseph's on Saturday to deliver the second set of presentations in the Creed, Code and Cult series. Here is a synopsis of the content of the talks - more details will be found at http://www.torchofthefaith.com/

Talk 1

The Gospel of Life is nothing other than the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In light of Divine Revelation we are able to understand something of the remarkable depth of the dignity of the human person. Genesis 1:27 teaches us that we are made in the image and likeness of God. No other creature has been endowed with the same level of dignity as we have. Human beings have the powers of the intellect, memory and will together with the ability to receive and give love even to the point of total self-sacrifice.

The tragedy of the Original Sin of our First Parents Adam and Eve gravely damaged the image of God which we bear. In spite of this, humans retain great human dignity; God maintains us in being; we are still able to love and to be loved and we still have our memory, intellect and will. However, we are in a state of alienation from God which Baptism rectifies. We also suffer a darkening and rebellion in our memory, intellect and will and even our capacity to love can fall into lust and making use of other persons. Nevertheless, our dignity as humans remains.

In the Incarnation, Jesus Christ restores the image of God and even raises and perfects it to a new and higher level than before. This means we are made capable of sharing Heaven with God if we respond to His Grace and love. Indeed, Jesus Christ has identified with each individual person in a unique way, at each stage of their life from conception to natural death, by becoming one of us in all things but sin. In some sense all wombs are sacred. The lowliest task, the worst sorrow, the greatest joy are now made able to be bearers of grace and holiness. Truly great is the dignity of the human person!

Unfortunately, this profound dignity is under serious threat in our time due to a highly organised and efficient Culture of Death which spreads a low understanding of the human person through politics, medicine, education and the media. Abortion and euthanasia are two key and prevalent results of this. At the root of the Culture of Death is none other than Satan. He is the Father of lies and a murderer from the beginning.

An effective tool in the spreading of the Culture of Death has been the use of atheistic sex education which uses a combination of graphically impure content, moral relativism and social engineering to entice young people into an atheistic paradigm. Some of the key architects of sex education used it with an ideological agenda. George Lukacs was the Education Commissar for Hungary during the early days of the Communist regime. He saw sex education as a means to break young people from the traditions of their family, religion and culture. In this way they could be more easily controlled by an atheistic regime. Documentary evidence links Lukacs with the Rockefellers. Other key figures behind the development of atheistic sex education include Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes and Alfred Kinsey. It is interesting to note that each of these three had eugenic beliefs, links to prominent Nazis and were influenced by Occult ideas. Sanger and Kinsey were both funded by the Rockefellers as was the IPPF - International Planned Parenthood Federation.

IPPF has been one of the leading proponents of the Culture of Death at the global level and Fr. Paul Marx made it his life's work to fight it. As such IPPF labelled him as its public enemy number one! IPPF promotes atheistic sex education, contraception, sterilization, abortion and euthanasia throughout the world and assists the Chinese government with its forced one-child-policy. In Great Britain IPPF goes under the auspices of the FPA - Family Planning Association. Together with Brook Advisory, Marie Stopes International and BPAS these organisations spread their ideology through education and influencing government policy.

The result is a veritable death culture with 550 - 600 surgical abortions per day; a massive teen pregnancy problem; a seriously low fertility ratio which threatens to overload the pension/healthcare system due to more older people than young people; the neglect of the elderly and the growing spread of the horrific death due to euthanasia by withdrawal of food and fluids. The number of chemical abortions due to the Depo-Provera implant, the IUD coil, the so-called Morning-After-Pill and the little-known abortifacient component of the regular contraceptive Pill cannot be known exactly - but must be dramatic. Barrier methods of contraception increase the incidence of abortion as even the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute acknowledges.

In spite of all this we must maintain Christian Hope! Pope John Paul II sought to build a new Civilization of Love based on the Gospel of Life. He reminds us that, although the blood of Abel and of all innocents cries out to God for vengeance, the Blood of Christ cries more eloquently and calls for Divine Mercy. This is truly the limit which is placed on evil. We may not be complacent but neither may we despair. As with all things the answer is Jesus Christ.

The late Cardinal Trujillo, former President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, had a bronze statue of David and Goliath opposite his office door to remind him that with God we shall conquer and slay the giant of the Culture of Death.

The first talk concluded with the words of Deuteronomy 30: 15, 19: 'Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. .. I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; choose life then, that you and your descendants may live.'

Creed, Code & Cult - Session 2

On Saturday 13th, Alan and Angeline Houghton arrived for the second set of talks under the heading of Creed, Code & Cult. The topic this time was "The Gospel of Life and the Culture of Death", phrases taken of course from Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical letter "on the value and inviolability of human life".

We were lucky again with the numbers who attended: 35 in all, including Fr David Gornall, S.J., from St Beuno's Spirituality Centre in nearby Tremerchion, who concelebrated Mass with me before the talks began.

Stephanie Redfern Jones had also invited a few friends - young Catholics who had met several times before at retreats and talks elsewhere in the diocese.

They had a quick lunch at the end of the talks and rushed off to the cinema in Rhyl, leaving the rest of us to review the contents of Alan's talks over a plate of party food and a glass (or two) of plonk.

Thanks for making the day such a success!

We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Fr. Ian Dalgleish, to all who helped out behind the scenes and everyone who came along for making Saturday such a big success! Cheers to you all!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church follows Acts 2:42 in its understanding of the Christian life as having 4 dimensions. These include what we believe, how we worship, how we live this out in morality/prayer and how we share our life together as a community of believers. In this way we are called to keep in balance our communion with God and with one another. Creed, Code, Cult expresses these four elements by the inclusion of Celebration - thanks to Fr. Ian's hospitality, Catherine's culinary skills and the generosity of the parish!

The day began with the reverent celebration of Holy Mass, progressed through the presentations on some of the rich content of the Faith and ended with us all sharing good food, wine, conversation and laughter.

We will be back on Saturday 13th November when our theme will be The Gospel of Life and The Culture of Death.

And again on Saturday 11th December for Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body: Human Sexuality and the Call to Holiness.

We look forward to seeing you then! Or if you would like to book us for similar events at your parish/prayer group/retreat centre please e-mail info@torchofthefaith.com

In Christ,

Alan and Angeline Houghton.

Saturday 9th October - Summary of the Talks

It was great for us here at Torch of the Faith to be back in St. Joseph's on Saturday to launch the new series of Creed, Code and Cult with the theme of Back to Virtue: Christian Values in an Age of Chaos.

Is this an age of chaos?

In our first presentation we acknowledged that we do live in an age of unprecedented opportunities in terms of communications, diet, healthcare, technology and travel.

Nevertheless, our present era gives much evidence of grave moral collapse including the widespread loss of the Christian faith, the rise of the Culture of Death and the growing acceptance of the Occult.

Various ethical commentators acknowledge that the crisis is becoming so grave that it could even pass over into the total collapse of democracy or even of civilization itself. The philosopher Peter Kreeft explained in his book Back to Virtue: Traditional Moral Wisdom for Modern Moral Confusion, that nothing short of a return to the acceptance of a universal moral code can prevent such a demise. Fr. Bernard Green SDS agrees; in his CTS booklet Rediscovering Virtue, he recalls that uncontrolled individualism harms the social order. Without moral sensitivity we descend into a state of being in which power, rather than goodness, makes things right. Whoever gains power can control society according to their own ideology. This results in the paradoxical destruction of freedom and democracy.

The Virtue Tradition

The good news is that the Catholic Church is the guardian of an ancient virtue tradition which was formulated by Plato in ancient Greece. He is not the inventor of these virtues because they can be known by all human beings with sufficient reflection and support. Other ancient cultures including China, the Indies and the Hebrew worlds exhibit similar virtue traditions. We can thus think of Plato as formulating the laws of virtue in the same way as Newton formulated the laws of motion; they discovered rather than invented them.

Virtue means moral goodness or strength. Cardinal means hinge. The 4 Cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude are thus thought of as the virtues upon which all others hinge. They are good in themselves and help us to live virtuous lives in order to flourish as individuals and as a society. Prudence helps us to act with respect for truth in itself. Justice helps us to act with respect for the truth as applied to others - including our enemies. Temperance (which includes chastity) and Fortitude help us to act with respect for the truth as applied to ourselves. These virtues can be acquired by human effort to become stable dispositions. The more we practice virtue the more we grow in each of the virtues. Prudence is thought of as the 'charioteer' of the other natural virtues. By these we control our passions and govern our actions. We are always focused on the greater good.

However the natural virtues are insufficient. We have the problem of Original Sin and the tendency to fall into actual sin after Baptism. The 7 deadly sins of Covetousness, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, Anger and Pride - the root of the others - make the practice of virtue very difficult.

Also we are a unity of body and soul; we do not just have a natural destiny but a supernatural destiny. We long for supernatural truth, prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. We have an eternal end.

The Christian moral life cannot therefore be understood healthily apart from Grace. We need God to pour out upon us His Divine Life. Because of sin He is not obliged to do this for us even though we stand in total need of His love. Nevertheless, He chooses to lavish His Grace upon us and constantly works to prompt us to accept His Grace.

The Christian accepts the Priority of Grace and then responds by living the moral life as an act of love. We cannot be moral by our own efforts. To be a virtuous Christian then is to accept the life of virtue as primarily a gift. It does not leave us passive however. It is both a gift and a task.

The 3 Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity are thus infused into us at Baptism. Unlike the natural virtues we could not have known about them by natural reason. We needed Divine Revelation. They have God - the Blessed Trinity - as their origin, motive and object. We need them to be pleasing to God and for our eternal salvation. Grace builds on nature and so the Theological Virtues build on the foundation of natural virtues and raise them to new heights of perfection which they could not otherwise have reached.

Many young people - indeed many Catholics of all ages - are not being taught these basic aspects of the Faith. This is one of the reasons why so many of them leave the Church. Peter Kreeft quotes a survey which asked young people what was the main thing which they felt that the Church did not give them. The number one answer was: A high and heroic ideal! This demonstrates that these young people have been denied the full teaching of the Faith in their families, parishes and schools.

In truth, there is nothing higher or more heroic than Christ's call to discipleship. In our age we need to respond to this call so radically as to become saints. The Second Vatican Council reminds us that everybody is called to holiness. In order to do this we need to become people who depend upon Jesus Christ and His Grace through the Sacraments, prayer and sharing the pilgrim walk with our fellow Catholics. We need to teach virtue both by working with God to become virtuous and by teaching the full Faith. This includes its more demanding elements. As Jesus said in John 14:15, 'If you love me keep my commandments.' We owe our young people nothing less if we are to help them to discover the full meaning of life. This is the New Life in Jesus Christ. The future salvation of our souls - and of our society - depends on this.

Will we accept God's call to become saints? Hopefully we will!

Creed, Code & Cult - Session One

Today was the first session of the Creed, Code & Cult talks which I hope will take place monthly between now and next June. Alan is going to write a post summarising his talks later. This is just my brief record of the event.

Between 8.30 and 9.30am I got two or three phone calls from people saying that, although they'd put their names down to attend, something had cropped up and they weren't able to come after all. I wondered: how many more will fail to show?

Thankfully I needn't have worried. In the ten minutes before Mass started the car park began to fill up.

Creed, Code & Cult

This coming Saturday, 9th October, St. Joseph's is hosting the first in a series of monthly talks about different aspects of the Catholic Faith by Alan Houghton, of Torch of the Faith. He and his wife Angeline (pictured above) will be arriving early that morning, ready to kick-off with 10.00am Mass, which I'll celebrate with any other brother priests who happen to come along.

Alan's first talk will start around 10.45am, there will be a break for tea and coffee at around 11.30am, then another short talk and a bit of discussion, if people feel chatty, and we'll finish off with a buffet lunch.