The head of the Austrian Church has launched an attack of one of the most senior cardinals in the Vatican, saying that Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, “deeply wronged” the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy when he dismissed media reports of the scandal.
I find it increasingly difficult to measure any consistency between the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lectures and his actions regarding the Anglican Communion. Contast his statement to the recent Global South gathering in Singapore to the Christian Muslim Forum Conference of Scholars dated March 22nd.
The phrase “he remains with you” is what someone who himself is leaving would say. And so, to calm their grief, he says that as long as he remains with them the Spirit won’t come, which means they wouldn’t come to know the greater or more sublime things to come. He wanted them, in other words, to see his departure as a blessing.
The uniqueness of Julian’s writings includes her incredible optimism in the face of the cultural chaos and confusion of her day, and her ability to transcend that confusion. Her phrase “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” is not a Pollyanna-esque blindness to reality, but the results of a deep faith that God is indeed in control of all,
Every year I wrestle with how to balance the almost idolatrous honoring of mothers by the greeting card, flower, and gift industries and the reality of “mother” for many. While many have wonderful mothers whom they wish to honor, others had abusive mothers and flee from activities on Mothers’ Day that only salts their wounds. Those who wanted to have children and could not and those whose children have died also find it difficult to sit through a service when the focus is on something they have yearned for or lost.
In that cemetery at St. Gabriel’s, on the 9th day of April, 1896, it being the Thursday in Easter week, there was committed to the ground the mortal body of one of the noblest and most remarkable women of our day; a body once the earthly tabernacle of a vigorous mind, a clear intellect, a resolute will, and a great heart full of love to God and man.
“How can human beings prepare for the death of a parent, husband, wife, child or beloved friend in ways that add value to our lives as well as to the lives of our family members?”
As Julian of Norwich said, creation “would fall to naught for littleness” (Revelations, 5). To me this truth is sheer joy. His creation of you is not something that happened once, x many years ago; he is still at it. His healing, creative hands are upon your body, upon your mind, upon that fine point of your spirit where his likeness is stamped on you—not a static likeness but an evolving reality.
If something is too true to be true, it probably is:
If escort service/bag lifting is how the right understands all gay relationships, I can understand their objections.