Provocative thought for the day...

"Well", said George to his beloved girlfriend, Gemma, after they had had a bit of tiff, "Girls do tend to take things more personally, you know, Gemma".

"I don't!" retorted Gemma, thereby instantly (and unwittingly) proving George's very point.

"Exactly my point, darling!" cried George. But Gemma couldn't see it, proving George's point even more thoroughly. George found it hard to suppress a chuckle which only made Gemma furious.

"Women", declared Gemma, "have many faults but men have only two. Everything they say and everything they do!" and flounced off in a huff.

"Oh right!" called George as Gemma's back receded into the distance, "what Feminist cookbook did that come out of?".

It was perhaps an unwise reply as Gemma carefully stored it up for a later occasion. Much later, after a very pleasant dinner á deux at her flat, when George was eloquently admiring her culinary skills, she slyly claimed to be surprised that he liked the recipe since it had come "out of a Feminist cookbook". Touché, thought Gemma gleefully to herself, that'll teach you!

George, thought Gemma, has not learnt the lesson of his own first discovery: we women do take things personally so be careful what you say to us! In so thinking, she was effectively tacitly admitting that George was quite right in the first place. But no way was she going to admit that to George. Not on your nelly!

And so it goes. The unfailingly fascinating, sometimes irritating, never-ending mystery of the relationship between the sexes (or "genders" as the Feminists inaccurately insist upon mis-calling them).

Today, however, there is a fly in the ointment. Indeed that is to put the problem rather mildly.

Feminism really has had a major impact upon society and upon the relationships between people. It really has changed the way we look at each other. But has it been for the best?

Our not so very fictional Gemma is not really a Feminist but she had, like so many others of her age and generation, picked up the jargon of that particular ideology since it had been thrust upon her from an early age at school, by her peers, by TV, film and the media, by government and the law and by so many key organs of society as a whole, even by the Church.

It would have been a miracle if she had not been affected by it. The fact that it seemed to lend respectability to every gripe that a girl might have against a boy naturally gave the ideology an additional attraction.

But what has been the real legacy of this ideology which we call Feminism?

Lara Croft, played by Feminist actress Angelina Jolie, is a kind of fantasy-model for many modern Feminists. Jolie adulterously stole another woman's husband and now lives with him, unmarried, with various children both adoptive and "biological".

Let's just sit back for a minute and look at it objectively - if we can, that is, now that it is virtually the official ideology of most Western countries in the formerly Christian Diaspora.

The most odious legacy of Feminism has undoubtedly been the gigantic change of law in relation to procured abortion. This was, from first to last, the one really big project of radical Feminism, aided and abetted by those unscrupulous men who saw in it an advantage for themselves.

Early Rad Fems like Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and lapsed Catholic Germaine Greer endorsed this as the big aim and later Rad Fems have pushed for more and more liberal abortion and other so-called "reproductive rights".

There are now something like 42 million abortions per year according to various sources including the "pro-choice" Alan Guttmacher Institute and PP's Family Planning Perspectives. That's about 115,000 per day.

"Pro-choice" Speaker of the US House of Representatives, "Catholic" Feminist Nancy Pelosi, is another role model for many so-called "Christian" Feminists.

Since the 1970s there have probably been something approaching 1 billion babies aborted, in total, and possibly many more.

When you realise that the population of the entire world is only about 6.7 billion then that is a terrifying statistic.

We rightly agonize over the terrible fate of some 6 million Jews who died during what the Jews now call the Shoah or "disaster".

But what of the abortion Shoah?

According to "pro-choicers" this little cutie was "just a blob of cells" when in the womb and could be justly destroyed therein, her "silent scream" unheard by her heartless killers. And yet there are hundeds of millions like her...

Who will cry for these holy innocents, the children of wrath, done away with through the compliance of their own mothers and often fathers, too?

"Rachel weeps and will not be comforted, for her children are no more" [Jeremiah 31:15].

But what of the hard-hearted who do not weep for their children? What of those by whose own hand their very children were destroyed? Well, even many of them come to weep in later life. The enormity of their actions comes back to haunt them so strong in man is the call of the natural law. This terrible depression and sadness is called "post-abortion syndrome" and now afflicts many millions upon millions of women who are, too, the victims of radical Feminism.

"Rachel weeps and will not be comforted for her children are no more..."

This is the real legacy of radical Feminism.

But that is not all.

The divinely noble and completely unique vocation of motherhood, that mystical vocation by which the human race is continued and perpetuated, is degraded and even mocked by Feminists.

By such mocking the very Mother of God herself is mocked and the most sublime vocation is slighted and abused. And if she is mocked then so is God mocked for He prizes no creature more greatly than He does His own mother, the most Blessed Virgin Mary, our tainted nature's solitary boast.

She who should be the prime model for all women, the Immaculate Conception herself, is slighted and belittled. Modesty, a supreme courtesy, gentleness, humility, docility, long-suffering, patience, deep wisdom and above all charity - these virtues that were supremely those of the Blessed Virgin - are also mocked whenever our Holy Mother is mocked and never more so than by Feminism which might fairly be described as the principal anti-Marian heterodoxy.

I have heard some so-called Christian Feminists saying that women are the "gentler" sex, more "people-oriented" and more caring. Apart from the intrinsic self-contradiction in making such a discriminatory about the entire male sex whilst, simultaneously, complaining of discrimination by men, the statement is anyway dubious.

Some Feminists even go so far as to extol withcraft and devil-worship, pretending to distinguish between good and bad "magic" powers.

Some women are gentler and more caring but some aren't. The Feminists are a prime example of those who so often aren't. Where is the gentility and care in defending the abortion of a defenceless, innocent babe in the womb? And on such a vast and terrifying scale?

The divorce courts are clogged with applications by women seeking to divorce their husbands on the advice and encouragement of a great array of Feminist friends, advisers, counsellors and lawyers.

Fully 75% of divorce petitions in the UK are brought by women - the same in the USA.

The result is yet another disaster for the children born of such broken marriages who then become a tool in the divorce battle.

Few people realise the extent to which the divorce courts, so thoroughly and institutionally "sexist" (to use the favourite Feminist buzz word) but in the wife's favour, frequently strip the husband bare and degrade him before his children to the supposed advantage of the wife. He is ousted from his home (which he may have paid for 100%), is often prevented from seeing his children and is humiliated time and again by the courts. This directly leads to the sad statistical fact that 55% of fathers, within 5 years of the divorce, never see their children again until they have grown up.

Heather Mills explaining why she should have got even more millions in her divorce from Paul McCartney.

The Feminists seek to blame this upon men, of course, but the blame more often lies with the Feminists themselves who persuade the wife that divorce is her moral right and in her best interests. In fact, many wives who were persuaded by Feminists that divorce would be to their advantage, later deeply regret their decision.

Feminists would have men re-created in a Feminist-preferred image (a bit like Lenin's "new Soviet man") but they can never decide what that image is. They are only agreed that it is not like the image which God has given us in the Holy Family.

How many girls remember with the deepest love and affection their own fathers in whom they see God the Father and St Joseph? Yet out of the mouths of some of these very same girls will come the odious words of Feminism castigating all men for "oppressing" women over the centuries. Does God the Father oppress women? Did St Joseph "oppress" women?

How many girls remember with deepest love and affection their own fathers? But when they mouth offensive Feminist slogans against men they should remember that they are abusing other girls' equally beloved fathers, not to mention all those men saints, not least St Joseph himself.

Radical Feminists, and even some supposedly "Christian" Feminists, pretend that God is not a Father at all but really some kind of immanentist "Goddess", an idea with which the most savage and primitive of heathens and pagans would have been at home.

I once heard, from the mouth of a well-known Feminist nun, the arrogant words "What's so great about humble?!". She is now an ex-nun and, indeed, now openly admits what has for a long time been true, that she is also an ex-Catholic. Here, indeed, is a modern version of the "foolish virgin" of Scripture.

Among those who suffer the most deeply from radical Feminism are the children who are often emotionally traumatised for the rest of their lives. The government complains that fathers are absent from the lives of children so that the children suffer but whose fault is that? The very same hypocritical government which allows the divorce courts and the Feminists to bring about this situation in the first place!

Feminism also encourages women to "have it all" - job, career, glitzy lifestyle, "arm candy" or "trophy" husband (get a new one if the old one doesn't match up!), "trophy" children (but not too many, now!) and the whole "me first" and "I love me best" culture of rotten selfishness and self-obsession.

It is this very self-obsession that causes people most harm - psychological, emotional, spiritual and even, ultimately, material.

Few people are as unhappy as the self-obsessed and that includes all too many Feminists.

Many young girls are positively badgered into careers they don't want, to avoid the marriage and family they want (often until it is too late) and to expect to get only the richest, most beautiful, most famous and most intelligent of husbands and to reject all the rest.

This absurdly self-obsessive view often prevents many a young girl from finding a perfectly good and loving husband in foolish anticipation of finding a man with the brain of Einstein, the looks of Robert Redford, the money of Bill Gates and the charm and spirituality of Pope Benedict.

Needless to say such a man simply does not exist.

What a blight upon the life of an innocent young girl with so much to look forward to in life if she is cheated out of marriage by such absurdly excessive expectations.

This is the terrible legacy of Feminism. What error, ironically, could be more harmful to women? Or more afflicting to the already much-afflicted heart of our Lady?

It is truly one of the prime heresies of our age and has re-crucified the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart, and the Just Heart of our good father and lord, St Joseph, more savagely, remorselessly and cruelly than many another heresy.

When "Christian" Feminists abuse men do they mean to include the saints like St Joseph? It's funny how they never bother to make an exception for them...

It strikes right at the heart of the Holy Family by attacking the very foundations of the idea of the family, of motherhood and fatherhood, and of the Divine fatherhood of God, the motherhood of our Lady and the humble justice and charity of the fatherhood of St Joseph.

From such evil, good Lord deliver us all!

Ab omnia mala, libera nos Domine!

Have mercy upon us for so far forgetting the perfect model of our Blessed Lady, the Queen of Heaven, who is the model for all women and, indeed, for everyone, man or woman.

Let us take a leaf out of the book of the blessed St Mary Magdalene who had once been a woman of ill repute and evil life but turned to God and became a true lover of God and men and one of the greatest of Christian mystics.

So greatly did God reciprocate the sorrow for sin of this once fallen woman, and esteem her humility, that He did not hesitate to give her the great grace of seeing Him first after His Resurrection. God resists the proud but he lifts up the humble and contrite to the greatest heights.

That, after all, is the meaning of Christianity and Redemption. Man sinned but God raised him (and her), after redemption, to even higher still heights. So great is the love of God. In the words of the Magnificat:

"He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble."

Let us then pray to our Lady and to the Magdalene, the great saint and mystic, that they will teach us to re-learn again to be humble and contrite for our sins.

Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam...






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St Bridget of Sweden: saint of chivalry

St. Bridget (sometimes called Birgitta) - Feast day 8 October - was born about the year 1303 (by tradition on June 14th) in Upland, the chief province of Sweden, where her father, Prince Birger, was governor. Her mother, Lady Ingeborg of Finsta, was a daughter of the governor of East Gothland. When only seven Bridget had a vision in which our Lady placed a crown on her head, and when ten, after a sermon on the Passion, she saw in a dream Christ wounded and bleeding. These two experiences seem to have been the formative ones of her life.

Her mother died in 1314, and she lived with an aunt until, in 1316, obediently but against her inclination, she married Ulf Gudmarsson. They had four boys and four girls. Two of the boys died young; Karl, the eldest, was worldly but devoted to our Lady; Birger, the second, though married, later became his mother's companion and brought her body home to Sweden from Rome to be buried. Three of the girls married: Merita and Cecilia staying in Swedish society, while Catherine lost her husband and lived with her mother; the fourth, Ingebord, became a Cistercian.

Twenty-eight years after their marriage, Ulf died and Bridget went to live the penitential life she longed for near the Cistercian monastery at Alvastra. While there, she planned the Rule and Office of the order she was called to found but which she never saw in existence. After two years, in 1344, she went to Rome, where she died on July 23rd, 1373. Her canonization took place only eighteen years later, on October 7th, 1391.

St. Bridget had the gift of prophecy and worked many marvellous cures. Once widowed, she lived an ascetic life, eating very little, sleeping short hours, and praying continually. She followed a strict rule and practiced every possible kind of charitable work, even reducing herself to begging. She received constant inspirations which were either taken down by her chaplain and put into Latin, thus becoming known as her "Revelations", or took the form of letters to the succeeding popes, cardinals, and secular rulers of the day, telling them of their wickedness and how to reform their lives. Both in Sweden and in Rome she was either hated violently or loved as a saint. "Strong and full of courage", she was "homely and kind and had a laughing face".

She founded the Order of the Saviour or the Bridgettines at Vadstena in Sweden, was richly endowed by King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden and his queen. King Magnus had been named at birth after Carolus Magnus i.e. Charlemagne the Emperor. The Order really started after St. Bridget's death but with her daughter, St. Catherine of Sweden, as first abbess.

About 1350 she went to Rome, partly to obtain from the pope the authorization of the new order, and partly in pursuance of her self-imposed mission to elevate the moral tone of the age.

She also set herself the task of persuading the Pope to return to Rome from Avignon, a task later completed by St Catherine of Siena.

She also composed a Rosary of 69 Aves in honour the number of years of our Lady's life, with 7 Paternosters and 7 Credos in honour of her joys and sorrows.

St Bridget received great revelations about chivalry and the great virtue of teh knights that fought for Christ and Christendom. Our Lord appeared to her and said in one of her visions, even emphasizing what He said to her, this:

"A knight who keeps the laws of his order is exceedingly dear to me. For if it is hard for a monk to wear his heavy habit, it is harder still for a knight to wear his heavy armour".

These were the very words of our Lord to St Bridget.

It was not until 1370 that Pope Urban V confirmed the rule of her order, but meanwhile Birgitta had made herself universally beloved in Rome by her kindness and good works. Save for occasional pilgrimages, including one to Jerusalem in 1373, she remained in Rome until her death on July 23, 1373. She was originally buried at San Lorenzo in Panisperna before being moved to Sweden. She was canonized in 1391 by Pope Boniface IX (also confirmed by the Council of Constance in 1415).

In 1999, Pope John Paul II chose Birgitta as Europe's co-patroness, along with St Catherine of Siena and St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

I love real nuns...

Real nuns have a unique charm and dignity about them which, at its best, is truly delightful and wonderfully feminine.

Ladies, if you want to be really feminine then try being a real, old-fashioned, traditional nun.

Accept no inferior substitutes!

Nowadays we hear so much utter nonsense talked about old-fashioned and traditional nuns. I have met hundreds of them and they were always a delight - charming, gifted, polite, often highly intelligent, learned even, compassionate, and always dignified and attractive. Even when nature did not bless them with conventional good looks, their deportment and manners coupled with their wimples and habits give them the beauty and character of little princesses.

But at the same time they are so often tough and resilient, able to tend to the most trying and difficult situations (in varying degrees, of course!) and are able to turn from entertaining a Duchess to fishing orphaned babies out of rubbish bins.

Other religions look on with envy and secularists positively fume that they cannot produce anything so impressive. So they turn to abuse, mocking, lies and calumny to try to bring these amazing women down to their own inferior level.

But to no avail. We shall have dignified nuns until the end of time, rage Satan and his minions never so much.

Even if, like Sister Luke in the film The Nun's Story (played by Audrey Hepburn), a sister leaves the convent there are still plenty to fill her place. Sister Luke left to fight the Nazis but today there are plenty who run away for less noble reasons but these are not really traditional nuns. They are the other kind of sister - the fakes.

I do not speak of them. They are the foolish virgins of Scripture and, oh my golly, are there not a lot of them these days! Sorry, Sister Serendipita - or whatever your name is - God loves you but you are not the kind of nun I am talking about. I'm talking about the real ones!

And, ladies, it's the real ones who really appeal to people, even to those of no faith. Men prefer them, too. I often ask myself why that is and I have come to the conclusion that it is because, in striving to be holy, they also become immensely feminine and modest and thus attractive to men - but attractive in the right way, the sort of way that women want to be attractive to men i.e. as their true selves.

Which brings me to another point: if modern women realised how attractive modesty makes them to men, some of them might ditch all this "me first" Feminist drivel.

Which is why real nuns are so important today. They show women how to be women and - ironically - though they themselves are already betrothed to Christ, their true husband, they nevertheless show other women how to be feminine and thus how to attract a good husband of their own. Which is a big problem these days - lots of girls want good husbands and can't find them.

Well, girls, go to a traditional convent for a while and learn from the good sisters. You'll soon have a good husband in no time!

Believe me. I'm a man. At least I know a little bit about this one!

Equally, I think that the real vocations crisis today is not that of priests but rather of women - women religious and women as wives and mothers. Secular Feminism has created that problem. It has made women unfeminine and more like men. Few man want to marry a woman who is like a man!

For those who would like to visit a convent of real nuns - and really delightful ones, too - visit the Benedictine sisters of the Abbey of St Cecilia's at Ryde on the Isle of Wight. They are a delight. And they sing like angels.

See their website here:

http://www.stceciliasabbey.org.uk/introduction/1.swf

Long live real nuns. We need them more than ever today!

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