I’ve just thought: wouldn’t it be lovely if Binface won and Farage was unseated? I _am_ slow in the uptake this month!

1/ I am always one for minimising the number of books required for the Office. Disappointed with the current SEC number of 3 (poss 4), I was eyeing up Common Worship again. But the CofE lectionary is arcane at the best of times – I don’t agree with buying an annual booklet, nor do i have… ✝️⚓️🙏📚

Ann Widdecombe murdered. I did not see that one coming. Sometimes I agreed with her, though definitely not always. She was principled to refuse to divorce faith and politics. Not seen so often now. I pray it was quick.

was anyone here ever familiar with the Chicago-based Catholic rapper The Apologist, later called D-Major? (active around 2005 to 2008) 🎶 Not to be confused with today’s The Apologist who afaik is Reformed, nor the British David Rey who is a different person again. ✝️⚓️

Order a book. Notice afterwards it’s Print on Demand. Well, “new”. Oops. 😅 Wait for it to arrive. Book is absolutely faithful inside. However the cover, spine infact, merely states the translator (in this instance) and the original publisher. HUH? wtf? 🤬

As feared, I think I would read it with a highlighter. Part of me wants to send a missive telling him in precise terms (and dispassionately) how he is wrong. But he’d never read it (and neither would you guys). Maybe I should just stick to the Church fathers… (he should too! Who catechised him?)

I was going to order JD Vance’s book. Now I feel a bit of trepidation. Will I just sit there with a red pen and a highlighter? Answers on a postcard please. ✝️⚓️

Lookee what I got! …not that I need it yet, but one day maybe? ✝️⚓️

I’ve been on holiday, and because I’ve got Wednesdays off (compressed hours), I resumed on a Thursday. So yesterday was a CPD event, and then today I was just doing usual stuff. But honestly I’m knackered. Sitting here, after work, eating shortbread and watching Netflix! 😂

This week someone targeted my family for harm with a false report. We’re physically OK, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t harmed. I am beyond furious. Whatever your politics, this is awful, wrong, and can never become normal.

you lovely people. So very grateful for your answers, esp. when they are nice and challenging. Happy Sunday!

things I learnt today: You can get an antithetical minichiasm… …see Ps. 125:4-5

I have just seen a little Reel of a Priest, fully vested, standing outside the barbed wire fences of a jail in America, giving Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament. You may not believe in the Real Presence, but I pondered it. Is it appropriate? The liturgist in me says it’s still a spectacle… ✝️⚓️

top tip: If you are trying to get ChatGPT to understand the formatting on a Microsoft Word file (.docx), e.g. strikethrough or highlighting, it won't be able to see it on upload. However, compress the file (.zip) and then ChatGPT _can_ see your lovely formatting. Yay!

just got a reminder from the bank: Not that I have £20,000 spare, but I think the Government should not change the rules to limit cash ISA subscriptions to £12,000 whilst Stocks and Shares remain £20,000. They're pushing people into investments they might not want! 😡

1/ saw comments on FB today saying the E&W Conversion Therapy ban bill was unfit for purpose. Well,I hope they damn well fix it. And ofc there was some kind of fundie Christian claiming it was bigoted discrimination to use public institutions to do this,and prevent preaching the Gospel message… ✝️⚓️

that was the biggest thunderstorm I’ve seen in many a year, but it sure cleared the air! 🌩️ I woke up thinking I was having the flashes behind your eyelids that you’re meant to take to the optician!

Okay peeps: - Initial Referral ✅ - meeting with Provincial Director of Ordinands ✅ (that was today) Meeting and some ongoing work with a Vocations Advisor is next. It’s going well. But nervous as anything at times. Just want to do the right thing, and demonstrate that Call that won’t go away. ✝️⚓️

dear Diary, today I did the most fantastical Peacock impression. (never to be repeated again)

No laughing matter… parts of our economy, and more importantly people’s lives, have been totally screwed over by Brexit.

"I have accepted Keir Starmer's resignation as my chief servant and have invited Andy Burnham to lay out details for how many meals a day he'll give me"

And I get my wish. Saith the Beeb: “Minutes later, former Health Secretary Wes Streeting says he'll back Burnham's bid to become Labour leader and prime minister.” 👏

Wes: do the right thing; let it be “no contest”.

Vance really confuses me. For all he's a convert to Catholicism (been there, done that), he doesn't always seem to know enough about Catholicism, or he seems to be reshaping it in his own image. I will read his book with interest, but also with a fluorescent highlighter and red pen!

It’s not Father’s Day today! <grumbles> It’s my……….

trying to finish The Young Pope (2016). Ep 5 sees Jude Law address the College of Cardinals. My, it is full of heresies! I can’t actually figure out how much is the story-telling of what a scandalous Pope would say, and how much reflects ignorance of scriptwriters. Wanna play heresy bingo? 🤭😇✝️⚓️

So, on 25 July the Transalpine Redemptorists will effectively become sedevacantists, right?

Starmer: leadership challenges ‘are wrong’. Hmmm… 🤔 logic doesn’t stand up to me. Someone thinks you’re not doing a good job, or that they could do better. It doesn’t make it ipso facto wrong.

I do think the YouTube part of the impending ban for under-16s is short-sighted. It’s a resource in many settings. As well, watch and wait, as they say…

Hahah, I love it! MS Word picks me up for my grammar, but then doesn’t have a suggested change. How does it know I’m wrong then? 🤦‍♂️

1/ I think my Rector is writing my referral for formal discernment soon (but I need to be humble about that). The only reason I mention it is for context. I was a Roman Catholic (a Latin Mass one, even), and before that an 'Anglo-Catholic' Anglican. My current parish lower 'down the candle' ... ✝️⚓

I wonder what will come in tomorrow’s UK Government announcement about children and young persons on social media. Forgive me, but I still think parents who don’t give a flying fig their under-13 children are on age inappropriate services/app need admonished, even fined. Shocking. Sorry not sorry.

I don’t care if you can’t see it, but this is clearly a cosmic (or prehistoric) depiction of a mother pulling her upset child to her cheek. ❤️

Of your charity, please pray for Emma Herd and Lana Woolford, to be ordained to the diaconate at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, today. If you go on the Cathedral website, they are live-streaming the service. It’s not long started. ✝️⚓️

Trillionaire, eh? All that money could do a whole lot of good. That’s all I’m sayin’.

I wasn’t surprised when JD Vance chose to weigh in again on British society. My heart goes out to the Nowak family and that he can’t leave them alone in their grief. He needs to know when not to comment (yes, maybe me too). As a former Catholic I anticipate being bemused when i read his new book.

Robert Pattinson responds to criticism of his Batman body www.msn.com/en-gb/entert... – body-shaming is a disgusting thing. The man was 1000% more muscly than I'll ever be. And some people don't like men to be too muscly! 🥵 <cough cough>

still find it a bit confusing that O2’s Satellite functionality won’t allow for Emergency Calls, neither will Apple iPhone native functionality, but they allow data (e.g. WhatsApp), so why can’t they compress the signal or some witchcraft and send/receive it via data!? 📞 🛰️

On this Eve of Corpus Christi: I retain very firm views about Holy Communion, probably “High Church”, but not to the exclusion of others or their customs. I’d love to see the present feast observed more, even modified if necessary. The SEC sweetly names it “Thanksgiving for Holy Communion”. ✝️⚓️

Still in the strange interlude: “I’ve just finished my degree (yay). It was six years. Why the emptiness?” And yet, can I find time for any hobbies? No, the house and garden are relentless. I have three days off (compressed hours), and on each – apart from going to church – they monopolise my time!

✝️⚓️

ooops ✝️⚓

Interview with Bp. Dagmar Winter youtube.com/watch?v=Fefs... – this exciting day sees the happy translation and installation of Dagmar Winter as Bishop of Edinburgh. If you’d like to get to know her, watch this interesting interview with her (36 mins).

The government wishes to bring in AI facial recognition to estimate the age of supposed child migrants. But this technology is documented to fail more with people from a non-white background. Hang on, many migrants are not white… 🤦‍♂️ It seems, no matter the administration, the Home Office is inept!

Hottest May Day record broken again www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz... – and the populists on the right say there’s no such thing as Global Warming. Look around you, people! We are choking this planet to death. I helped deliver COP-26 in Glasgow. For nothing, seemingly. ☠️

The pope writes 42,000 words (presumably without the help of AI) and I can barely pull together 1,200 every week! (also, presumably without AI).

medication and heat = weird night woke up at 3am, half-in half-out bed, glasses in my hand, and the light on very, very weird!

One of the many sources cited in the new papal encyclical is... Gandalf

Sometimes I miss being Catholic. I miss Adoration, Rosaries. Despite issue with universal jurisdiction, feeling the Pope is “mine”. Pilgrimages like Chartres. Or going to abbeys like Pluscarden, and being the right denomination. Same for churches in sunny climes. But they rejected me, right? ✝️⚓️

this made my day… (so did badly writing the Alt Text)