Yesterday’s readings had a theme running through them; kindness. We heard in the first reading how the Sovereign, powerful God is just, how he treats the insolent kindly, and we are told also the virtuous man must be kindly.

This is illustrated in the Gospel reading. In the parable of the wheat and the darnel the righteous are not harmed for the sake of the sinful, the all powerful, kindly sovereign God looks after those who turn to him.

The second reading acknowledges that even the righteous can be challenged by God. We all know the times we are at a loss at something God has done. We don’t understand it and we are confused, hurt and all those other adjectives that are used at this time when we think about what has happened. When this happens we can have trouble praying, we can have trouble saying what we need to say. But the Holy Spirit knows this, and here we are being told how he listens to what is in our heart.

We are told the Holy Spirit is kind to us, we are told God is just to the insolent, and we too are to be kind to the insolent.

Christ never refused a just request, he treated all who met him in a fair manner. If we wish to be with him in heaven, we need to be more Christlike.

Scenario: Laura starts a Twitter feed in the name of Margery Dore. Margery Dore exist mainly to be unkind to people. She has allies, the allies are also unkind to people, they, like Margery Dore are anonymous Twitter feeds.

One of Margery Dore’s great allies is Ted. Ted runs a Twitter feed call All Gas and Gaiters. This twitter feed is particularly unpleasant and cowardly. Both Margery Dore and All Gas and Gaiters enjoy being unkind to Gordon. Gordon is told by one of the other anonymous unkind blogs that Margery Dore is run by a lady called Eileen, who works in IT. Gordon is also presented with scant evidence as to who Ted is, pointing to someone called Darren. Gordon does a bit of work and draws wrong conclusions as to who Laura and Ted are.

However, Laura and Ted are quite happy for two innocent people to be accused of running the unkind, attacking, accounts that are Margery Dore and All Gas and Gaiters. But then Ted slips up! Ted should be aware that being an untrustworthy sort himself, his friends will be equally untrustworthy, and having upset one of his friends by showing a bit of compassion to an enemy, one of Ted’s friends gets annoyed and tells Gordon who Ted is. Gordon proves this, and it ties in with someone else’s previous actions, however, he stays schtumm.

Later Gordon realises that Eileen cannot possibly be the author of Margery Dore, Eileen is a nice lady, polite, stylish, faithful. Not the frump he has been told the author of Margery Dore is. Soon afterwards he finds it’s Laura. Again he stays schtumm. But by now a wriggling squirming Laura and Ted are very uncomfortable. What will they do?

But there is more. Laura and Ted are both known to Abigail. Abigail seeks a high profile for herself and converses with Laura and Ted regularly on Twitter. Laura and Ted will always support Abigail if she finds herself in a lively debate.

Abigail refutes she knows who Ted is but this misrepresentation is transparent. She does, however, admit to knowing who Laura is, and when Eileen is being accused of being the author of Margery Dore, Abigail stays silent, allowing Eileen to be misrepresented, as she has done to poor Darren.

Now what sort of person would get mixed up in all that?

We had a communion service in school today, as part of our day of prayer. As we got to the start of Communion I noticed a few people looking at me wide eyed. As everyone came to receive communion people were looking over my right shoulder. Although curious, I didn’t stop to look at what they were looking at.

When they had all received I returned the Blessed Sacrament to the tabernacle and looked in the direction they were looking, at the vestry door. There was nothing there. I returned to the altar when something emerged into my line of vision from my right.

To say you could have put a saddle on the spider that had been on my shoulder as I had distributed communion would be an exaggeration, but it was a fair size. How I didn’t jump like a wooss I do not know (for I am one), and to be frank, the size of the thing! I am surprised I neither felt or heard it, even through my alb.

As I looked at the spider it slightly raised a leg to its right, as if to wave. As I did the post communion prayer it scuttled down my sleeve until shook it to the ground, where it then made its way into the sacristy, which is where it must have come from in the first place.

I was told later that it slowly appeared on my right shoulder and just stayed there until it moved when I saw it.

My sister-in-law told my wife a Catholic priest would be taking my brother Mike’s funeral service at the crematorium. As we were outside the chapel waiting for the cortege to arrive, I went up and introduced myself to him “Hello Father” said I “I’m Mike’s brother who is a permanent deacon in Southwark”. We exchanged pleasantries, I told him also I am part of the diaconate formation team and therefore knew some people he would know. Having mentioned names, we chatted heartily until it was time to stop.

Later that day we were at the reception and my sister-in-law said to me “and didn’t Deacon Rory do an excellent job?” It hit me like a rock, “Father” as I called him, was wearing a deacon stole, therefore he wasn’t a priest but a deacon, the same as me, and the same as the men I have in my care aspire to be. And I didn’t spot it.

Perhaps I am that widely acknowledge disgrace to my office and diocese after all!

(I’m not, I checked, it’s still libel)

This time two weeks ago I was overwhelmed. The forthcoming three weeks were packed with things going on. In the first week there were two in-house retreats, a governor sub committee meeting, meetings for my diocesan job and a day and a half at the diocesan Heads of RE Conference, which I was asked to attend. On the first Saturday I had two meetings with my diocesan hat on and finally on Sunday I got to enjoy my most favourite of pastimes, and sit in an armchair.

While it was nice to have a heavy week out of the way, there was still more to come. The second week started with the funeral of our much loved Michael. As funerals go, it was beautiful, it was very ‘Mike’, and while Christ’s victory over the cross was the theme that ran through the service at the crematorium, it was still immensely sad, for we don’t have him any more.

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday saw me at St George’s Cathedral with three lots of Year Eights for a day of reflection, giving them a chance to know about the mother church of the diocese. Tuesday evening there was a summer concert, Wednesday a new parents evening, Thursday was the first night of the parish Baptism course and Friday evening, having been at the cathedral all day, I was back there for a retirement Mass. Saturday was the induction day for the new diaconate students, at Wonersh.

I’ve still got a busy week next week, I have a Day of Prayer, a diocesan youth conference and two whole days on a school trip to the Battlefields of France and Belgium. But how do I feel now? Undaunted, nothing like two weeks ago, and here’s why.

One constant throughout the past fortnight has been the constant prayer, prayers to say ‘thank you Lord’, prayers to say ‘over to you Lord’, prayers for strength, and prayers to stop me getting unnecessarily tetchy. I think if prayers were biscuits I’d have put on half a stone.

This morning at Mass, I proclaimed the Gospel, the final line of the reading, although I had prepared it, hit me right between the eyes at I said the words out loud ‘Come to me all who labour and are overburdened……..for my yoke is easy and my burden light’. I had not been overburdened, but I had a lot on, more than I could articulate without being so boring I’d not want to read it myself. But I had turned to Jesus, and he helped me, and as I read those words, he pointed this out to me, and how I wish everyone I knew would do the same.

Kirstie Allsop recently issued a plea for mothers to put motherhood first. Some lauded her for this, others attacked her. I would not attack her, but while lauding the sentiment I think there is a vital point having been missed here, which results in one of the most damaging messages third millennium society has seen.

Why mothers? Why not parents? How often do we hear the cry and worry about disaffected boys not having a positive male role model? How many times do we hear reference to feckless fathers? How often do we hear of the plight of women juggling so many things when returning to work? How many times do we hear of mums who are at home with the children looking for some sort of recognition for the role they have been blessed to be able to undertake?

If we talk about ‘mothers’ rather than ‘parents’ the message will be heard that childcare can be left to women. Is it any different than sending out that message that page three is acceptable? We know it’s not and manoeuvres are afoot to correct this. Look at the sit-coms of the 70s that allowed women to be portrayed as bimbos, or were racist, or homophobic, we’ve moved on from this.

What we have not moved away from is the generally held view that childcare is a woman’s role, and often we see it referred to as a woman’s problem. For a single woman, who has a child without a man around, it is, and it’s right and proper that we should afford them all the help we can. But for those children who have two names on the birth certificate, and both those people are alive, it should not be “her job”.

Organisations such as Mumsnet are, I feel, guilty of exacerbating the problem, why just mums? I am sure they would say ‘dads can get involved too’ but what if it was called Dadsnet with the caveat that mums can contribute?

Children need their parents. There are many families where mum is the main or sole breadwinner, there are many families where dad will be the one at home for whatever reason, but all the help, support and value is afforded to the mums. Well those hard working primary breadwinner mums need our recognition too. But so do the dads. Fatherhood need to be raised to the same level, society needs to recognise dads have a place of equal value. Then perhaps absentee fathers will get the message.

By now we all know what it was about, Michael Fabricant MP tweeted

I could never appear on a discussion prog with @y_alibhai I would either end up with a brain haemorrhage or by punching her in the throat

The @y_alibhai in question being the journalist Yasmin Alibhai Brown. Ms Alibhai Brown was on a Channel Four programme with Rod Liddle. In the course of that programme, Ms Alibhai Brown informed Mr Liddle how much she loathes him.

Mr Fabricant was obviously witness to this exchange, where Ms Alibhai Brown lauded the fact she was able to say this to Mr Liddle’s face without any comeback and he tweeted the above.

Now, I may have missed something, but somewhere along on the way the words ‘want to’ have been attributed to Mr Fabricant and Ms Alibhai Brown has run with it. We have now seen a feast of victimhood from the lady, and lots of generalisations about men.

Ms Alibhai Brown descirbes herself as a ‘responsible person’ ( see third paragraph http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhai-brown-jack-straw-is-right-to-ask-hard-questions-about-asian-men-2180318.html

but I cannot say I am convinced. Saying you are happy to tell some to their face you loathe them is akin to hate speech, that’s a crime in the third millennium. Loathe their views yes, but tell them you loathe the person?

The following evening Ms Alibhai Brown was on Channel Four with James Delingpole. Ms Alibhai Brown’s take on the whole issues refers to her Pakistani ethnicity and her gender. Mr Fabricant does not mention either of these matters. She guesses what he is thinking, in doing so she implies racism on his part, this is false witness.

Ms Alibhai Brown added ‘want to’ to Mr Fabricant’s words, which again is false witness. If you look above, you’ll see he does not mention the word ‘want’ once. The tweet does not mention wanting a brain hemorrhage, it refers to what he might do. Everyone has had one of those ‘I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions’ moments where we throw a cup or rip a book or smash up a pen, that is what Fabricant referred to.

Alibhai Brown simply could not take the criticism. I have seen this before, you criticise someone and their response is to imply it’s about their gender, age faith, whatever, and labelling you a bigot is their only defence.

If you doubt me, ask yourself this, what if Fabricant had spoken of Liddle’s throat?

The dismissal of the apology rings a bell too.

I entered into a very good Twitter debate today. I’d seen a thread earlier in the day where some folks with traditional leanings were highlighting the lack of merit they give to some more contemporary music. To say this struck a nerve with me is too strong, but it did hit a sensitive spot.

My personal taste in liturgical music is more traditional than contemporary as a rule, I still love the old hymns like Faith of Our Fathers, Oh Bread of Heaven, Soul of my Saviour etc, I always will, and I love it when they are used. I love sacred music, O Vos Omnes, Beati Quorum Via, Miserere Mei Deus and the like, I can lose myself in it all day.

There are some contemporary hymns I like, Christ Be Our Light is one I will always love. Partly because I am such a huge fan of Bernadette Farrell, more for her social action work (which kicks rubbish out of anyone else in the world ever, who I have met) than her music. Be Not Afraid I want to be carried out to at my requiem, and Tell Out My Soul, lifts my spirits every time.
(as an aside, today has been a very very hard day, I’ve been singing ‘Tell Out’ ad nauseum)

I have reported before that I see so much more denigration of contemporary liturgical tastes by traditionalists than comes the other way. And very often when they denigrate they go for it hammer and tongs. Some traditionalists might say ‘and rightly so’, but no, not rightly so.

Something I have seen, not a lot, but enough, is a person who not as secure in their faith as they would like to be, having their tastes, the tastes God gave them, being derided by those who are more secure. I have seen someone told, quite vitriolically, “That’s not a hymn, that’s a nursery rhyme” (I omitted an adjective there) which cut the poor chap to the quick, i know he continued to go to Mass, but never again to that church, never again with his community.

Traditionalist will always dislike the contemporary, Edwardian house fans would not be carried into church in a 60’s through lounge kitchenette special, Fans of Fragonard, Goya or Turner would set Hodgkinites alight for heresy, fans of Euripides would not look at a Dickens, let alone a La Plante, it’s ever been thus and ever will.

But in matters of spirituality it’s different, very very different. The Church is huge, and encompases all sorts of people, with all sorts of tastes and all sorts of abilities to find a way to praise and glorify the heavenly Father of us all. At no point in scripture are we told ‘down with this sort of thing’, but we are told to be kinds and gentle to one another, to look for the things of mutual upbuilding and to love one another. We don’t do that by being unpleasant to each other, or about each other to our friends with similar tastes and sensitivities.

If you can do so with a clear conscience then by all means do, but that’s rather like the 70s error of telling the faithful “it’s down to your own conscience”, it’s not actually, just read the short reading in this evenings Vespers (week 3 Romans 12: 9-12)

You know those ‘did I dream that?’ moments, I had one today. I was driving between schools and was coming up to make a right turn, I was indicating.

There was a chap in a convertible, coming out of the turning I was turning in to, I was on a main road and had right of way. The roof of the convertible was down (how vulgar, not envious) and the car was half way across the oncoming lane , however, the driver had his arm on the passenger seat and was looking behind him, I assumed he was going to reverse back into the road from which he was turning.

As I went to make the right turn a car came up on the right hand side of the convertible, in the lane I was about to turn into, we were all blocked. The driver of the convertible then started shouting at me “Oh you silly billy, what a daft chap you are” or words to that effect (think post watershed) I was just about to give him my best middle age/England/management “excuse me but I believe I have right of way” when in a flash he was out of the car, on the floor and handcuffed.

My first thought was “a bit OTT for some strong language “ when I realised the car that pulled up next to him had all four doors open and the convertible driver was being arrested, I heard the words “you do not have to say anything but, mind your head…….” and in seconds the convertible was being driven off by a policeman while three others drove off in their car with their quarry.

I made my right turn thinking ‘I’ll never know…………..’

In my brief time at Maryvale there were several ‘one liners’ that seeped into my limited intellect and stayed with me. One of those lines, quoted by Fr Robert Letellier is “the problem with facts is that they are stubborn”. I remember in that lecture how this line was developed as we were reminded that even though they are true, facts often, particularly in a pastoral sphere, need to be handled with sensitively. Blaise Pascal was also quoted in the same lecture; “it is as much a crime to disturb the peace when truth prevails as it is a crime to keep the peace when truth is violated” again reflecting Fr Letellier’s words on handling stubborn facts sensitively, and in doing so, acknowledging the dignity of those who might be effected emotionally by the matter. In the words of the great philosophers Fun Boy Three and Bananarama ‘It ain’t what you say it’s the way that you say it’.

When the news broke of the mass grave at The Home in Tuam, many of us knew that the Church, the Bride of Christ, would come in for a metaphorical kicking. Being second generation Irish I’ve heard the stories and seen the hurt caused by unacceptable treatment when people were younger. I had been a little on edge worrying that some people on our side might let us down by steaming in like a bull in a china shop to defend the Church but end up making matters worse. It would be all very well dealing with facts and presenting them in a matter of fact way, but no one will want to hear a doctor say “It’s cancer Mr Smith, you’ve got about three months at the most, we’ll give you palliative care, but that’s the facts”, or “your child is deaf, learn sign language and get on with it”. No professional would act in this way and all the while I was praying that those who might feel the need to give us the benefit of their opinion might leave it to be handled aptly, by the correct channels.

Well needless to say the inevitable happened. I’m saddened by how bad a light has been shone on us by those who should be ‘on our side’. I can cope to an extent with the comments coming from Ireland, or made by Irish folk who, like me are aware of the raw feeling which is still so easily stirred in people; but the pundits had to pundit and it has not helped.

One comment made to me was “I am not just talking about child abuse but all sorts of cruelty etc including young people who joined religious congregations but were still made to suffer, all extremely painful. Just annoying that they jump on the bandwagon of people’s pain and misery to get exposure”

Another: –

“I cannot say if that is down to the nuns or the workmen who were working on site or whatever. All I know is that people are extremely distressed, memories are being stirred, consciences being pricked.”

Most touchingly: –

“analysis of some research is lacking in compassion. We cannot shy away from unpleasantness. We must face it head on. Of course we do not know all the facts. However we do know that many many women and children had miserable lives and we must learn from that. They were the lepers of their day.”

And most upsettingly: –

“These are the sort of people who want their own way all the time, the sort who cry for tolerance but do not tolerate, the sort who exploit their personal misfortune as justification for a weak position”

As I said earlier, I am second generation Irish but I would not presume to use my heritage as any form of expertise or a licence to opine on the issue. What I will call on my heritage for is to listen to those who hurt because of the past, who are angry and to empathise with them as best I can. I will call on my faith to have faith in those the Holy Spirit has sent us to handle this as it should be, and keep us informed of what there is to know.

And also to pray, has anyone mentioned prayer?