25 April 2008

Bits and pieces

My great fault is perfectionism. I resolve never to post anything on here until I have time to do it right - which means I never do it at all. Just really want to mention a few things that have happened - and some of them not small things, either! - in the past few months.
  1. Biggie! Johnny got married. Sue and I went to Sydney the last week-end in March. Johnny and Diane were married Saturday the 29th at St John the Beloved (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAIxsCiVL1s) Maronite (http://charbela.blogspot.com/) Catholic Church in Mt Druitt, Sydney. So much, so very much, that I would like to say about this experience - but see above about doing it right - so I won't at this time :-) - here are some photos, by the way - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/johnthayerjensen/JohnnySWeddingEddieSPhotos
  2. And another biggie! Ka'ai has (almost certainly) got a job - that is, a geological job! She has a clerical job right now, but wants to work in geology. She has finally had to go to Australia to get something, but has received an informal offer from a coal mining place in Central Queensland (Moura - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moura%2C_Queensland).
  3. And Susan went to Wellington last week to help with the wedding of Helen's sister-in-law Frances. And this week-end is up visiting our friends the Van Boxels in Opononi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opononi).

And that really is it for now! I just had time for a couple of lines and thought it better than nothing.

jj

13 April 2008

Where to, Mortal?

From a post by Father Mike Fones on the Intentional Disciples blog (http://blog.siena.org/2008/04/where-to-mortal.html) - reflexion on the death of a loved one:

I am standing on the seashore. A ship spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. I stand watching her until she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says, She is gone."Gone where? The loss of sight is in me, not in her. Just at the moment when someone says, "She is gone," there are others who are watching her coming. Other voices take up the glad shout,"Here she comes!"

06 April 2008

The Church Militant

Friday morning Mass at our rural New Zealand parish usually sees a couple of classes from St Joseph's primary school attending. I am on leave this week and want to go to Mass, though the thought of a school Mass is a little off-putting. Today, Friday the 4th of April, is perhaps more depressing than usual. We have, of course, as always, the pretty little "Jesus loves me" music played on the cheap portable CD player, but this time something new: liturgical dance. Six children about seven or eight years old walk slowly up the centre aisle vaguely waving their arms in the air. I am embarrassed for them. They, however, show no sign of embarrassment, and when the bad music is played, the children, sixty or eighty of them, sing with obvious pleasure and enthusiasm. That little girl over there with the full mouth and the fetching hair - what will she be in fifteen years? Will she still go to church? Will she have had four or five lovers by then? Worldly-wise, she will no doubt have taken precautions to ensure that no child will be born from these encounters. The young boy in the pew in front of me who already has his hair artfully shaped - doubtless by his mother - in edgy fashion to show his independence of mere neatness - in fifteen years will he be striving for pre-eminence in the constant war to push more product on a world cloyed with novelty? These gloomy thoughts - gloomy and in some cases surely unreasonable - some of these children will - please God! - grow to love Him and His Church, to bring forth many of their own kind - perhaps priests to serve His Church - these gloomy thoughts remind me of Simpson and Henderson and their ANZAC donkeys (http://donkeyrehomecentre.orconhosting.net.nz/ANZAC.html). We are, most of us, like the fallen soldier in Moore-Jones's watercolour, in need of some Simpson or Henderson to pick us up, put us on his donkey, and carry us to a place of refreshment, from which, it may be, we may come back to the fray. I pray for all these young persons - and for me, and for you, for all of us. This is the Church Militant. These are the Christian soldiers. This is the band Christ will lead to victory. jj