Time is zooming along.

Easter approaches.

In Rome His Eminence Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Archbishop emeritus of Bologna has given the Pope and other Vatican officials a retreat.

The pope in his conclusion speech gave this interesting little tidbit:


Lastly, I would like to say "thank you" for your realism, your humour and your concreteness; even for the somewhat audacious theology of your maid: I should not dare to submit these words,

"The Lord may have his faults",

to the judgment of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

So a profound theological thought relayed by the pontiff just in time for IWD!

Is Pope Benedict is possibly playing a double entendre here, referring obliquely to Martin Luthers comments:

God himself is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid


"any milkmaid who could read" would possibly found a new church...?

Finally, a Hi to Regina my wonderful maid in Edinburgh, and a thank you to Susie who has got me reading theological texts again!

Happy Birthday Sandyd, thanks for your support!~!

one of my favorite holiday snaps, between Dax and Salies de Bearn, France.

I have been debating with myself for two days as to the correctness of posting this:

rites of passage / deconstruction / war love / innocence / manipulation

nice banner in Edinburgh

no need for deconstruction

french students had to wait in the cold for 45 minutes before they could skate outside Montparnesse Station

at Antwerp on my way to Salies de Bearn, France

Chicago - the musical was the final evening in London...
more Castle and Edinburgh:

children playing in the snow at the beach at biarritz, my lovely gracious hostess, snow,snow everywhere! Edinburgh. A fairy on the underground in London

the great adventure ended almost as quickly as it began with the bus breaking down one hour out of Canberra, however another bus came and onto Sydney and then Heathrow, where dreadul weather conditions in the Nederlands saw us waiting on the tarmac for a while, then Amsterdam, with backpack lost, and lots of bicycles...
After four great days it was onto SW France, a winter wonderland.....

Well it's time to close down the laptop and be internet deprived for a few days.
The trip to Europe begins and I have too much stuff to deliver, so no room for the laptop.

Netherlands, Francais and SW England and London will my destinations.

Over the past years I have promoted and actively assisted various sundry activities close to home, in Asia and the Pacific. Africa is a distant continent....

Yes, we know that people of religious conviction staff schools and hospitals in Africa, and we may even sponsor children or donate money to salve our consciences.

But, I want to write about 120 mothers and children that began to be cared for at The Holy Family Care Centre is situated at the foot of the Drakensberg Moutains at Ofcolaco in the Limpopo province in mid 2002. See googleearth for the location.

These children ranging from new born babies to teenagers suffer from AID's/HIV and TB. Since the centre opened most of the mothers have died.

Yes, in 4 years, most of the mothers have died.

However, the death toll for the children remains much lower. Approximately 60 children are cared for.

In 2004, the local Bishops Conference recommended that the Centre be given access to anti-retroviral medication. This is being funded by PEPFAR in America, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief. The children will grow into adult life dependent on the medication until death, unless another medication breakthrough is achieved.

The Director is an Australian religious sister who had spent ten years in Rome supervising her orders mission work, she now is at the 'real' front lines. Both her love for the children and her appreciation for the support this 'work of love' receives is immense.

I commend this special place. as worthy of prayer and financial support. Hopefully some gentle readers will be moved to join me in assisting this work.

As an interesting aside, apart from Australian support, this work of love and human dignity also receives support from the wonderful people of Netherlands, whose land I visit in two weeks. Some are visiting Zuid Afrika at present - My first link to a non English web-site: http://www.margrietinzuidafrika.fkraak.com/. I was gobsmacked to see that a school in my early childhood abode in the county of Essex, UK is also assisting in this work.

It's great that the internet allows us to join the dots and appreciate the global humanity of the little people.

2007 has begun, and the countdown to my trip overseas suddenly becomes more insistent.
13 more work days, and a few days off, a birthday, some entertaining with the weber and then it will be onto a greyhound bus, a plane to Amsterdam via Singapore and London and then EUROPE!

The trip to the UK several years ago was a bit less exciting than I had expected, the images of the UK seen on TV and movies over my lifetime led me to think ho hum at times, I have seen all this. It was great to be there in the flesh so to speak but I had more in common with my homeland than I will be in Europe experiencing the culture shock of travelling in countries where the native tongues will be alien to me. I will have to rely on others to explain signs and show me where to go!

The Nederlands and France will soak up 8 days then onto the chunnel and over to the UK to visit my relatives in the West Country.

2006 ended with some special moments for me:- God's mysterious ways at work, I have no doubt, and I am sure that 2007 will continue to unfold in unexpected ways. Thanks once again to all who pray for my special intentions, and may we all know joy and peace in abundance in 2007.

Postcards from Europe:

Blogs on Air: www.blogspiel.de






Austrian Nativity: Joyeux Noel




THE KENNEDYS Berlin 1963

2007!
I wish all my gentle readers a wonderful year, may changes bring joy and peace to all our lives!

Well Christmas 2006 has begun, I was able to go to the childrens Christmas Mass with Ms 8, the church wa decorated with silver stars and cloth angels hanging from the ceiling.

Then enjoyed watching 'Miracle on 34th' with Ms 8, a family favourite over the past decade, it's funny how some things remain the same. A few presents opened with Ms 8 and then its Carols from the Myer music bowl in Melbourne on the tube.

I raise a glass of Cabernet Merlot and say a prayer for loved ones and all my friends.

Merry Christmas! In God We Trust! May 2007 be a happier year for all of us gentle readers!

love and prayers, Graham

another day closer to celebrating the anniversary of the greatest love the world has seen... a quote that I have been pondering:
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

And so 2006 draws inexorably to a close, my annis horribilis punctuated by the kindness and concern and prayers of so many - thank you! The world seems a real mess, but 'twas ever so...

2007 will be a new year, with possibilities that I have not even begun to think about. Suffice to note that I will enjoy a trip to western europe and the west country of my birth country in mid January.

What dreams may come, before we shuffle off this mortal coil? to twist the bard. Hope and expectations run deep, knowing that love conquers all. Yet love and suffering are intertwined, and hope and faith are sureties that one can only rely on in our interaction with other people. The scale of suffering in Iraq and Sudan, to name just two places seems to be increasing. But even the pain of individuals and society locally seems to be increasing. So I pray "come Lord Jesus, with your peace and healing." I look forward to increased peace and an increasing acceptance of my fragility in 2007.

But before that I will spend the last week of 2006 with the image of the child, the child who is the master of the universe dandled on his mothers knee, and know that in the sight of God, there is much more to life than we can know.

Merry Christmas gentle readers; rejoice for unto you a saviour is born who will free us from sin and suffering and lead us into the ways of love and eternal peace!

Advent - traditional understanding is a time of waiting, conversion and of hope:

waiting-memory of the first, humble coming of the Lord in our mortal flesh; waiting-supplication for his final, glorious coming as Lord of History and universal Judge;

conversion, to which the Liturgy at this time often refers quoting the prophets, especially John the Baptist, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mt 3,2);

joyful hope that the salvation already accomplished by Christ (cf. Rm 8, 24-25) and the reality of grace in the world, will mature and reach their fulness, thereby granting us what is promised by faith, and "we shall become like him for we shall see him as he really is" (John 3,2).


As part of my advent preparation (or in the old language: discipline!) I have been reading each day from a collection of writings, Watch for the Light I was particularly struck by a short passage from Edith Stein, which made a nice change from the lengthy extracts earlier in the week from Karl Rahner and Meister Eckhart.

Edith wrote (and I quote more than what is published in the anthology): The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole. If we become immersed in one, we are led to all the others. Thus the way from Bethlehem leads inevitably to Golgotha, from the crib to the Cross. (Simon's) prophecy announced the Passion, the fight between light and darkness that already showed itself before the crib. The star of Bethlehem shines in the night of sin. The shadow of the Cross falls on the light that shines from the crib. This light is extinguished in the darkness of Good Friday, but it rises all the more brilliantly in the sun of grace on the morning of the Resurrection. The way of the incarnate Son of God leads through the Cross and Passion to the glory of the Resurrection. In His company the way of every one of us, indeed of all humanity, leads through suffering and death to this same glorious goal.

It is only love that can conquer suffering, sin and evil. Love triumphs, the second reading at Holy Mass for the second Sunday of advent reinforces this: that the one who began the good work in you you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1). Love rules, keeps us focused and enables us to endure the waiting.

It's been a long hard week: the pain of people enduring the suicide of a young man, a family coming to terms with a miscarriage, a woman having a mastectomy, a woman attacking her mother and a support worker outside the bookshop with a baseball bat, ongoing news from a internet friend of a young man with bowel cancer, and so many others; all with their own story. My own woes pale into insignificance almost. For all who have shared with me, in the flesh and over the internet, my prayers continue:

Come Lord Jesus! Come again, into this suffering world and bring peace, hope and healing. AMEN!!