Weblog of a Country Priest

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa - after accusing the Church Times of bowing the knee to the hierarchy of the Church of England in not publishing my letter about taxing their retired clergy, they've been and gone and done it.  My grovelling apologies!

The Reverend Victor T. McClaughrey died on the 25th April 2005, aged 91 years.  He was a complex irishman always seeking the end of whatever rainbow he was currently looking at.  I was his curate at East Preston with Kingston, West Sussex back in the early 1970's.  Our relationship was a rollercoaster of promise and disappointment on both sides.  One lovely anecdote - in my first year he complained bitterly about being taxed so heavily.  I was present when he received a letter from his tax inspector saying that all his discoverable income would be taxed at 50% if he didn't make his tax return by 30th September.  Now all his paper work was kept on his desk-top (a big wooden one - this was before computers) and when it grew too big a pile he would cover it all with another table-cloth and start again.  I persuaded him to dig back and find the latest tax return, which he did.  Together we filled it in, disclosing his stipend and other incomes.  Then we came to the bit about wife and children.  He was genuinely mystified.  "What's that got to do with the taxman?" he asked.  I explained that they represented allowances from which he could benefit.  We entered the details. I posted it off.  About a month later he got a large cheque from the Revenue representing 7 back years of missed opportunities, and a coding notice which negated his current liability.  I can't say I loved or respected him, but he was a prisoner of his race and situation.  May he find now what he searched for.  May he rest in peace and rise in glory!

The last two days have been hectic, hence no writings.  However, today has been very exciting.  The field at the end of the road has been sprayed with some sort of fertiliser; and the young couple opposite have had two lorry loads of bricks and breeze blocks delivered.  Two loads because the first wrong load had to be replaced by the second right one.  It was rivetting watching the great British labour force working it all out.  Thank goodness for the mobile phone!

Last evening whilst sliding towards bed-time Michael Howard rang.  Well, it wasn't him really, just a recorded message to say how much he'd appreciate me voting for the Conservatives in the coming election.  I thought "How nice", and then I checked the call-minder.  The cosy British election chat was coming from an "International" number.  An Indian call-centre?

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I've been in hospital all day today.  First I had a radioactive jab.  Then an Xray. Then a body scan.  The whole process took over 5 hours.  Six if you count the journey times to and from the clinic.

They wouldn't let me go until I had flushed the contents of the jab through my system.  Drink, pee.  Drink, pee.  Then another scan of the bladder area.

What a palaver!

I shan't get the results until August!               

Abigail Witchell's family's grief over the savage and mindless attack which at best leaves her paralysed is palpable even in the distance lent by television.

How could anyone do this to her?

Today, a day late, as is Anglican wont, we celebrated St. George as Patron Saint of England and as Patron Saint of our little country church.  We were reminded of the many-headed modern dragon of media prurience, intrusion, and misrepresentation; of spiritual antagonism from hateful beings; of the imposed ignorance of the things of God in school and family, and through the neglect of us, the church, to speak plainly of Jesus through whom alone we can be saved from all this and ourselves, and the alternative, eternal separation from God and those being saved.

Perhaps there is a connection between Angela's position and the lack of submission to the will of Our Father as He is found in the life, death, resurrection, ascension and promised return of Our Lord.

Kyrie eleison!

Newspaper reports today state that the use of the word "immigrant" is a racist remark.  A policeman has been disciplined for this!

Well, well, so is the term "German Shepherd" used by the same papers to describe Pope Benedict also a racist remark?

The Titan Arum Lily causing the stink at Kew will be nothing like the stink that will be raised when the now released bird of political correctness comes home to roost!

The sun is high, Paul O'Grady is on TV, the Boot Sale will be on at the end of the road, the Saturday papers will be here soon, the mute button is working during anything political, God's in His heaven and all's well with my world! The Sun is up, the grass is ris, I wonder where the boidis is, The boid is on the wing, But that's absoid, I always thought the wing was on the boid! Boom, Boom!

I don't know why I expected anything else, but before Benedict XVI has said or done anything other than he wishes to reach out to other churches and faiths and continue work among young people, they're at it.

Scraping about in his teen years in Hitler's Germany and trying to find him guilty by association, and putting up what they say he is going to do and say so that it can be criticised and rubbished.  What a world.  No wonder Benedict warns against confusing what the world wants and what God wishes for all - repentance and acquittal through the Lord Jesus.

Thank God for Benedict XVI - for the integrity of the message!

Oremus!

Charles Kennedy takes time out to be with his wife and baby son.  Hurrah!

The LibDem candidate for Great Yarmouth takes time out to stay on holiday with his family.

Any politician who puts family first gets my vote!

53 years ago today I was travelling on the now defunct Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (or the Slow and Damn Jolty as it was affectionately known).  I was going to join the army at Blandford Camp.

In the same compartment was another young man.  In the course of conversation he revealed that he was an English Cricketer, and that he had just resolved to offer himself for ordination in the church.

He was David Shepherd, later to become champion of the urban poor, and eventually Bishop of Liverpool.

He is now dead.  May he rest in peace and rise in glory!

My son in law's father was one of the officers who, together with members of the Wiltshire Regiment (my home county) and the Royal Norfolk Regiment (my retirement county), pushed open the gates of that dreadul place.

Oremus. 

 

Pope John XXIII asked that the Church should open a window so that church members could look out and those who were not could look in -

But

so much for transparency - I wrote to the Church Times this week trying to start a debate concerning the Church of England's attempt to require it's retired clergy to remit 33% of any casual fees earned for funerals etc., to the diocese where the retired cleric lives.

I really expected the letter to be published - of course bearing in mind that it could be interpreted as an attack on the hierarchy - I should not be surprised that it wasn't.  So here it is!

Took a service for a lovely family mourning their Mum and Nanny.  They sang "All things bright and beautiful" with all the gusto of real country folk.  One of the sons said "I know you", then "We used to meet at the Workingmens' Club" (in my last parish before I retired).  We exchanged memories of some odd folk we both knew.  When we parted he promised to tell my old parishioners we had met.  For a funeral it was a very happy occasion, I shall pray for them all.