Ok. I have heard this said before. There is a paradox here. The more one sibmits to God's Holy Will, the more freedom one experiences. I can understand how it is off putting. Personally I like it because the concept of slavery is so countercultural nowadays, and while it may be a voluntary slavery, it seems to me to express a fundamental reality. As Jesus said, "No man can have two masters". But there is a paradox here and it needs to be set against John 15:16. "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." Bishop Barron is his book called Exploring Catholic Theology, says that the aetheist, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre could make no sense of the paradoxical claims of St. Paul, who said: "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:1), and "I am a slave of Christ Jesus" (Rom 1:1). Sartre said that if God exists, we cannot be free. However, Bishop Barron says that "for those tutored in the dynamics of the Incarnation, Paul's statements are mutually implicative, not mutually exclusive". Hence the paradox. Bishop Barron goes on to describe the freedom of Sartre as "the freedom of indifference", whereas as the freedom St. Paul talks about is "the freedom for excellence". But apart from Theology, I am sure there is great experiential freedom for those living a contemplative and spiritual life. One other thing that occurs to me is that the concept of being a slave may not be for all because we all have distinct spiritualities while still all belonging to the Mystical Body of Christ. Taylor Marshall once talked about this, comparing the differing roles of different body parts. Along the same lines, Francis Hogan once talked about this. She compared those living in the Divine Will to fulfilling the same role for the Body of Christ as the peritoneal membrane which surrounds the vital organs in the body. She said that a healthy peritoneal membrane is "vital" for the health of the vital organs such as the liver, kidneys, pancreas etc. But she said that for those living in the Divine Will, when there is a crisis in the Church, the Body of Christ, they do not get "involved" in it, they "just set about healing the Church". I am not proposing, however, that living in the Divine Will is the only solution for the crisis in the Church. Down through the centuries there have been many Saints, some very active, others very prayerful and contemplative. But there is a quote from the Book of Ecclesiastes on my heart. And it is that there is a time for everything. My question to myself is what is this the time for? Sorry for blowing this way off topic...
St. Louis de Montfort recommended Consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He said we were to become the apostles of the latter days, if I recall correctly ( or not. ) He used the wording "slaves" to Our Lady. I have no problem with that. She is my Advocate and I am certain it is because of her intercession with her Son Jesus that I am not in Hell right now.
So King Charles has been gifted TWO pieces of the True Cross (why not just one?). Anyway, this may or may not be helpful to the recipient (depending upon his disposition) when we consider what happened to the Russian navy's flagship, the Moscva. According to this piece from The Times and, acknowledged as accurate by the Russian Orthodox Church a Russian businessman bought a piece of the True Cross from an Italian church for $40 million and gifted it to the Russian navy for installation in the Moscva's chapel to render it invulnerable to enemy weapons. Of course, the flagship was sunk by the Ukrainians early in the conflict (or 'sank in choppy waters' according to Russian news). The Russian Orthodox Church is vague as to whether it had actually been installed or that it was due to be so before the sinking. I wonder who benefited from the sale (is this not the serious sin of simony?). No comment from Rome. A strange story. More unusually, it was also carrying a purported splinter from the cross on which Jesus Christ was said to have been crucified. The holy relic was purchased from a Catholic church in Europe by Russian Orthodox Christian businessmen and handed over to the cruiser in 2020. Just a few millimeters across, it was stored inside a 19th-century cross that was kept in the cruiser’s on-board chapel, the Tass news agency reported. The Moskva was one of two warships that attacked Snake Island, west of Crimea, on the first day of the war. Alexander Nevzorov, a well-connected former Russian MP who is now a Kremlin critic, said the unnamed businessmen paid $40 million for the relic. He also claimed that Putin’s admirals believed that the Moskva was invulnerable to attack because the “magic sliver of wood was capable of deflecting missiles and torpedoes”. Many Russians who rely on state media for their news were blissfully unaware that the Moskva had plummeted to a watery grave, not to mention that the warship had probably been destroyed by Ukrainian missiles. Vladimir Bortko, an ultra-patriotic filmmaker, briefly spilt the beans when he shouted out during a current affairs talk show that Ukraine’s attack was grounds for Russia to intensify attacks on Kyiv. He was quickly “corrected” by the presenter, who repeated the party line about choppy waters and an on-board fire. REUTERS
Certainly looks like no traditional music festival we've ever had in Ireland. Looks like an initiation ceremony of some kind.
King Charles III’s coronation oil has a very special link to his beloved grandmother By Lydia Starbuck 3rd March 2023 Public Domain, Wiki Commons The holy oil that will be used to anoint King Charles III at his Coronation has been made from olives grown at the final resting place of his beloved grandmother, Princess Alice. The olives have been harvested from a grove growing at the Monastery of St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem where Princess Alice is buried. Olives grown at the Monastery of the Ascension in Jerusalem have also been used. Princess Alice asked to be buried in Jerusalem. When she died at Buckingham Palace in 1969, she was initially laid to rest in the crypt beneath St. George’s Chapel, Windsor but her remains were taken to Jerusalem in 1988 when she was buried at the Monastery of St. Mary Magdalene. Princess Alice had long links with Jerusalem. She founded a nursing order of Greek Orthodox nuns inspired by the work of her aunt, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna who was buried at St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem several years after she was murdered in the Russian Revolution. Elizabeth had set up her own religious order in 1909. In 1994, Princess Alice was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem for protecting Rachel Cohen and two of her children during the Nazi occupation of Greece and helping save them. Her son, Prince Philip, was present to see his mother recognised. Now, olives grown at the Monastery have been made into the chrism oil that will be used to anoint King Charles and Queen Camilla at their Coronation. It will be used by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make a cross on their heads, hands and hearts in one of the most sacred parts of the service. The oil was consecrated in Jerusalem on March 3rd 2023 by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III, and the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, The Most Reverend Hosam Naoum. The Archbishop of Canterbury said ”Since beginning the planning for the Coronation, my desire has been for a new Coronation Oil to be produced using olive oil from the Mount of Olives. This demonstrates the deep historic link between the Coronation, the Bible and the Holy Land. From ancient kings through to the present day, monarchs have been anointed with oil from this sacred place. As we prepare to anoint The King and The Queen Consort, I pray that they would be guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.” https://royalcentral.co.uk/uk/king/...ecial-link-to-his-beloved-grandmother-186983/
I have to say that it does not sit well with me that Catholic Bishop will bless King Charles. I get ecumenism. Who knows maybe even one day the Anglican’s will cross back across the Tiber. But right now Charles will be made head of the Anglican Church with one of his tithes Defender of the Faith. I don’t see why a Catholic bishop would bless this? Am I misunderstanding ? https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/17029/first-coronation-role-in-500-years-for-catholic-bishops
Its a strange twist. The British in general don't like Catholics and mistrust them--at least thats what their history has shown.
Certainly the case since days if Henry VIII - who made himself head of his own Church… because he was an adulterer .. now the same Church that Charles will now be head of. All in defiance of the Catholic Church.
I'm sorry but I believe that this story is not entirely accurate. Princess Alice suffered poor mental health and severe deafness throughout her adult life and was hospitalised on several occasions. She was diagnosed as schizophrenic. It is established that she never took religious vows but insisted on wearing a nun's habit much of the time which was apparently related to her mental delusions. She did undertake generous charitable work in Greece during her periods of lucidity and she bravely sheltered a Jewish family from the German occupiers during the war but, good and brave woman that she was, it seems unlikely that the Greek Orthodox Church would have ever permitted a person with such impaired mental health to found a recognised religious order, it seems likely that her 'order' was a small informal group that she funded.
Let's not forget that, at the time of Henry VIII's apostasy, all the British were Catholics and huge numbers of them (concealed by the Protestant victors) were martyred in what was perhaps the most vicious and efficient religious persecution known to history.
I remember. One of the most vicious persecutions ever devised. It literally stamped out a vibrant Catholic faith.
My first school was the 'English Martyr's' School in York. The school was not far from the Knavesmire which was the local place of execution for some of the martyrs of Yorkshire and the parent church was very close to it. The church sign hung from a post in the shape of a scaffold. Occasionally, the eldest children acted as the choir at Mass (all in Latin). The church was beautifully ornate. I returned there once for Mass in my thirties, and it looked like the inside of a barn and the tabernacle had been removed to a side altar which formerly housed a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Walsingham and the Baby Jesus. Any English martyr seeing the post Vatican II church dedicated to them might have wondered why they bothered! Anyone interested in Henry's relationship with the Catholics of northern England should read about the 'Pilgrimage of Grace'. There are some great stories of the martyrs that we were told as children. One priest (whose name I don't recall) was being hung when the rope snapped. When he came round he was told that this was a sign that God wanted him to recant and he should do so to save his life. He said, if you had seen what I have just seen, you would line up behind me to be hung for the true religion and was hung once again. We also heard about Fr. Nicholas Postgate an old priest who will probably never be canonised because he told his persecutors and the person who betrayed him exactly what he thought of them. He was one of the last Catholic priests to be martyred and died in the reign of Charles II. My favourite, who was pressed to death in Elizabeth's reign and on a Good Friday, was a wife and mother who lived in York who converted to Catholicism and hid priests in her home which is still standing. She was called Margaret Clitherow.
I am glad to know this history. I did know about St Margaret Clitheroe. I actually saw her house when we were in York. The Catholics of the North held out to the bitter end as I recall.
