I'm actually working this week. I'm narrowing the hedge - it's a big job - for me. I need a space between the fence and the hedge - I don't know how successful I'll be. It's overcast and rainy this morning so If I can't go outside I'll force myself to paint - I have to get back to painting.
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I had TV on in the background and heard that the UK is encouraging kids to masturbate instead of being sexually active with one another - I guess to avoid unwanted pregnancy, disease, and so on. People do not think masturbation is sinful - but it is - for Catholics it is a grave sin that must be confessed. (It was only about a decade ago that I found out women do it. I know! I can be surprisingly naive sometimes.)
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Elsewhere online I noted Sarkozy has always been a champion of abolishing Sunday restrictions on trade in France. I wasn't aware businesses were closed on Sunday's in that country. The headline read something like, "France to abolish Sunday" - how revolutionary is that! I immediately recalled Our Lady of LaSalette warning of famine and disaster because of the desecration of Sundays and blasphemy against the Holy Name.
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I'm reading Archbishop Weakland's memoir you know. I laughed to myself that I once said the book should be burned - that was hyperbole of course. The book is interesting however. Especially for those interested in Benedictine monasticism - I'm reading it slowly, despite the fact it almost reads like a novel. I can't really comment on the man's life until I read the whole thing, but the history he provides is very telling as to why his ecclesial life turned out as it did - and he wasn't alone either. Things started going down hill for him after JPII became Pope - although Weakland's resistance to Rome began early, and like I say, he wasn't alone, which may explain the resistance of some congregations of sisters to the Vatican visitation now underway.
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Photo: Ecclesial fashion show sequence from Fellini's Roma
Those light-up vestments make me want to die a little o_O
ReplyDeleteAnd I didn't realize people closed things on Sundays except certain businesses here in the South. Nowadays they only do that in rural counties anyway. Sad. It used to be that no one would even think of doing anything but church and family on Sunday...now missing Mass is the biggest struggle that keeps me going back to Confession. I really do try!
Stores are closed on Sundays in France. There are a few exceptions. But main streets are empty. As a child, we used to go walk in the countryside on Sunday afternoons. Now I don't know what people do. They certainly don't get up early, 95% of the French (or more) don't go to Mass. If you dress up for church, they ask "what is that for?" Going to Mass is not something they .. don't do, it's something they don't even think about doing. I heard a Catholic (NO Catholic) who asked where there was a quick Mass for Easter, not on Easter Sunday but on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteIt would be really sad if stores were open in France on Sundays. But people don't know what to do with themselves, so I think the government will allow it. Sad situation.
Telling kids to masturbate--what a sicko world we live in.
ReplyDeleteTerry, get back to painting--you have true talent! Why is it so hard to sit down and paint? I don't know--I think we have to many other distractions, and then the time to paint just sorta passes away.
Commonwheal (I know) reviewed the Weakland memoir. I'm tempted to read it myself. I'm really curious to hear what you think after you've read it.
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