Salt of the Earth or Dangerous Fanatics?

In 1833 slavery in Great Britain ended. For eighteen years William Wilberforce had lobbied against the slave trade and had introduced anti-slavery motions in the British parliament. Finally the law to end the slave trade had ended in spite of the opposition of influential people who profited by it. After this success Wilberforce worked to make education accessible to all children and was involved in the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. William Wilberforce was an Evangelical Christian.
Three hundred years before Wilberforce, Thomas More, a Roman Catholic lawyer, was Lord Chancellor of England and Henry VIII's right-hand man. Because More would not acknowledge Henry's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and would not recognize the King as the Head of the Church in England over the Pope, the King had him beheaded. Before his execution More proclaimed, 'I die the King's servant, but God's first.'
Obviously these politicians did not believe they should leave their religious beliefs outside the doors of parliament.
Closer to our own time, Father Maximillian Kolbe, a Polish priest, boldly criticized the politics of Hitler in his newspaper and hid 2,000 Jews, saving them from the Nazis. Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian, participated in the resistance movement against the Nazis in his native Germany. Both of these men died in concentration camps because of their actions. Notably, Father Kolbe offered to die in place of a man who was married and had children. Father Jerczy Popieluszko (1947-1984) a chaplain for Poland's Solidarity Movement, was instrumental in the resistance to Communism in his native land. He was killed by the Communist secret police in 1984 and his martyrdom led to the final defeat of Communism in Poland. They were not politicians but Kolbe, Bonhoeffer and Popieluszko took their religious beliefs into the political arena and risked their lives for them.
Lest some think there were no like-minded women, read about Florence Nightingale, who felt that God had called her to be a nurse, a profession that was unheard of for women of her class in the Victorian era. Florence defied convention and not only improved medical care of soldiers during the Crimean War but overhauled the training of nurses in Britain and made nursing a respected profession. An American convert to Catholicism Dorothy Day (1897-1980),began the Catholic Worker Movement to help the poor, many of them immigrants.
Were these people the 'Religious Right' of their day? Were they criticized by their non- believing contemporaries? Did they have a' hidden agenda'? Or were they just trying to be 'the salt of the earth' as Jesus had told his followers they should be?
In today's Canada surely there are those whose tactics even make some of their fellow-Christians cringe. But let us not forget there are still Christians who speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. There are still those who feel it is their responsibility to defend natural law. They may do this by their votes, by petitions, peaceful protests or even by running for political office but as long as they are not disobeying any law in Canada don't they, as taxpayers and Canadians, have a right to free speech? Perhaps we may even look back someday and thank them for the way they helped change society for the better.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

I just returned from a trip to the Holy Land. On hearing Pope Benedict XVI's homily of the Palm Sunday Mass I wanted to share what he said about his own trip last year to the places where Jesus walked.


"The pilgrimage to the earthly Jerusalem," he said, "can be something useful for us Christians. Faith in Jesus Christ is not the invention of a fairy tale. It is founded on something that actually happened. We can, so to speak, contemplate and touch this historical event.

"It is moving to find oneself in Nazareth in the place where the angel appeared to Mary and transmitted the task of becoming Mother of the Redeemer to her.

"It is moving to be in Bethlehem in the place where the Word, made flesh, came to live among us; to put one's foot upon the holy ground where God wanted to make himself man and child."

"Following the material paths of Jesus should help us to walk more joyously and with a new certainty along the interior paths that Jesus himself points out to us," he said.

The Holy Father added, "When we go to the Holy Land as pilgrims, we go there, however as messengers of peace too, with prayer for peace; with the firm invitation that everyone in that place (which bears the word "peace" in name), has everything possible so that it truly become a place of peace."

"Thus," he said, "this pilgrimage is at the same time an encouragement to Christians to remain in the country of their origin and to commit themselves in an intense way to peace."

So to summarize the Pope said:
1) It is a great privilege to see the places where Jesus lived and walked and this can help us to appreciate His teachings and the sacrifice of His life for our salvation.
2) A visit to these lands should help us to pray for peace in these sometimes troubled lands.
3) Our visit can give hope and encouragment to Christians who have not left because of danger but have stayed.
(Pope Benedict's homily taken from a post on Zenit News Service on Palm Sunday, 2010)

Help! Where has Grammar gone?

Often I hear people on television say things like:

I never seen it coming.

Please note that:
'saw' is the past tense of 'see'
For example: I see you in the picture.
Yesterday, I saw you at the Mall.

'I seen you.' is wrong, wrong, wrong.
We must say:
I have seen the movie, 'White Christmas six times.'
or She has seen the movie, 'White Christmas six times.'
You can say it quickly like:
I've seen the movie, 'White Christmas'. or
She's seen the movie, 'White Christmas.'
But you cannot say
I seen the movie, 'White Christmas'.
or She seen the movie, 'White Christmas'.
It is not correct English.
So in order to prevent early grey hair in English teachers or others who believe grammar is important, please try to use 'see' and 'seen' correctly.

Thank you.

Oh Canada or Not

Oh Canada, or Not.


I admit I was upset when I heard that a school principal in New Brunswick had “banned the singing of the national anthem” because of two families who did not want their children singing it. With other Canadians I wondered incredulously, “What kind of people do not want their children to sing the national anthem?” and “Why would a school principal cave in to two families who did not want it rather than consider the majority of people in his school?”

On February 9, 2009, Susan Ormiston interviewed the Principal, Eric Millet, on CBC’s The National. The Principal stated that he had never banned the singing of the National Anthem but rather than having it played over the school’s PA system everyday changed to singing the anthem only at assemblies. By the way, there is no law which says “Oh Canada ’ must be sung at schools.

After the media broadcast the story of a “principal who banned the singing of the national anthem because several families didn’t want their children to sing it”, Eric Millet received over 2,000 e-mails, largely hate mail including some death threats. I wonder what this says about our civilized society? Many people (check out The National’s website comments on the story) assumed, incorrectly, that the families who complained were immigrants. The Canadian parliament ordered the school to re-instate singing the anthem and Eric Millet’s career as a Principal has been ruined. In fact, he wonders if he can ever go back to teaching again. He has obviously been traumatized at the amount and intensity of hate that was directed towards him.

In the interview with Mr. Mallet, Susan Ormiston did not apologize on behalf of the CBC and other media who made the false claim in the first place. Wouldn’t you think news reporters would check with the principal to get his side before releasing the story?



In the end there are some important things we can all learn from this unfortunate incident:



1) Don’t believe everything you read in newspapers or hear on television even if it is the news. Take the media to task if you feel it has not acted in an ethical or truthful manner. And check with Snopes before forwarding "hate-type" items received via internet.

2) Don’t jump to conclusions. Letters to the CBC written by those whose children attend Bellisle School in Springfield , NB. clearly state that the two families who complained about the anthem were not immigrants but were Canadians several generations back. Do some research on “religions’ that don’t allow the singing of national anthems – there aren’t that many.

3) Don't generalize - there are good and bad people in every nationality, every group.



4) Don’t send hate mail to anyone. No one deserves it. If people are guilty of a crime – do what you can in order for justice to be done – but let the criminal justice system take care of the punishment. If you don’t think the criminal justice system is doing its job – write to the MPs involved and tell them so. Fight for justice for all – which means only the guilty are punished and the punishment is appropriate for the crime.



5) Remember what Flower said to Bambi, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”



6) And if you claim to be a Christian, remember Jesus’ words, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” (Actually a form of this is also taught by the other major world religions).

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Mozart!


The hills around Salzburg are alive with the sound of music. It was, after all, the setting for the movie “The Sound of Music” and the real-life story of Maria von Trapp that it was based on. But Salzburg is first and foremost alive with the sound of the music of Mozart for the city is justly proud of its most famous son.
I traveled from Vienna by train which turned out to be a very comfortable ride on Austria’s efficient rail system. The time went by quickly as we passed villages that looked like scenes from fairy tales. Too soon the train pulled into Salzburg station. My compartment companion was on his way to spend a weekend in Salzburg with his girlfriend and said they would drive me to my accommodation.
After settling in my lodging next to St. Sebastian Church, I went out for a walk around Salzburg. Winding streets where no vehicles are allowed are lined with shops to entice the tourist: savvy fashions, hand made pottery, cafes and of course, restaurants.

There are many concerts where one can hear “a little night music” performed in Salzburg. Churches in Salzburg often pay tribute to Mozart by using his music in the Mass, which is, of course, for what many pieces were originally composed. The best part of these “performances” is that they are free!
Some of these performances include dinner such as does the one at St. Peter’s Stiftskeller, which claims to be Central Europe’s oldest restaurant. This restaurant, built in AD803, was documented during a visit by Charlemagne. I searched the winding streets to find the church and restaurant and, when I finally did find it, decided to have dinner there. The turkey schnitzel served with parslied potatoes and cranberry sauce accompanied by a glass of white wine was truly heavenly.

At its Mozart’s concert, later in the evening, the restaurant serves a menu that is made up of 18th century dishes; food that may have been served during Mozart’s time. Mozart’s Mass in C-minor was first performed at St. Peter’s Church in 1789 and the Mozart family did actually eat at the restaurant at least on one occasion (but more than likely more often). Nannerl, Mozart’s older sister, wrote in her diary, “Papa and Henry had lunch at St. Peter’s and made music.” Nannerl, whose real name was Anna Maria, was a talented musician in her own right and both she and her more famous brother, Wolfgang, were taken by their father to play at the courts of Europe. You can still see her grave behind St. Peter’s in the cemetery.

Mozart’s birthplace, a house on Getreidegasse 9, is now a museum where the violin he used as a child is on display along with other items. A later Mozart residence, Tanzmeisterhaus or The Dancing Master’s House is near Trinity Church on the Markartplatz. It is also open to the public with an entrance fee.
The next day I took a short city bus ride (# 6 bus to Plainbruke) followed by a pleasant twenty minute country walk to Maria Plain Basilica. On the way I passed typical Austrian farm houses, complete with the smell of manure, and looked back on fantastic views of the city of Salzburg. There were spring flowers blooming along the road and the air was crisp and cool. Maria Plain is a twin-towered, cream and turquoise basilica on the top of a hill overlooking Salzburg. At the altar is an icon of the Virgin Mary which in the 16th century miraculously escaped being destroyed in a fire. Mozart chose the peaceful sanctuary of this basilica to compose his Coronation Mass for the Blessed Virgin Mary. From the hill where Maria Plain is situated there is an unbeatable view of Salzburg lying in the valley below.
At the traditional nearby Gasthaus I had a light lunch of cold cuts, salad and scrumptious fresh bread before walking back (this time downhill) to Salzburg and the bus.
On the bus I noticed the stop, Mirabelplatz, and decided to get off to explore. In the gardens of the Mirabel Palace, amongst fountains and formally laid gardens, there is a moss-covered pavilion where Mozart composed one of his most popular pieces “The Magic Flute”. One of the fountains made an appearance in the movie, “The Sound of Music”, too, for that is where the family danced and sang “Do, Re, Mi.”
A tour offered by one company is a “Sound of Music” tour which takes you to places featured in the film including the convent where Maria was a novitiate nun before her marriage, the church where Maria and Baron von Trapp were married and the villa used as their home in the film. I didn’t take this tour but I did hear that it is very worthwhile.

Back in central Salzburg I relaxed with a melange (the Austrian version of cafe latte) and apfel strudel at the Stern Hotel Terrace and drank in the view as well. The Hohensalzburg Fortress, built in 1077, overlooking the Salzach River and the town below with its many church steeples is a memorable picture.

The narrow streets of Salzburg are filled with unconscious charm, no doubt one reason the old, baroque part of the city has been chosen as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sight. There are outdoor restaurants, graceful arches with painted murals and the inevitable gift shops overflowing with Mozart chocolates, liqueurs and other souvenirs.

Even if you are not a fan of Mozart there is still lots to keep you occupied in Salzburg. Slosh down an Austrian beer with weiner schnitzel at one of the outdoor cafes. Get lost in the small winding streets shopping for china or drindls (traditional Austrian dresses). Spend a peaceful moment in one of the lovely old churches. Or climb up to the Fortress for another view of the town. One thing is for certain, you will never be bored in Salzburg.

Good Friday, 2008.
We are often led to believe that churches nowadays are empty. Oh, one may guess that the more lively, aggressive churches attract members but the Catholic churches plagued by scandals and an outdated papacy must have empty pews. Right?
Well the Catholic church I went to on Good Friday was packed to the rafters – no sitting room and people standing at the back. As there is nothing unusual about this parish, I have no reason to believe that any of the other parishes in the area were lacking worshippers either.
Why would people spend two hours in church on a spring day-off from work? Were there just old people there or those who had nothing better to do with their time? No. There were old people and young people, families with small babies, those with young children and those with teenagers. There were old and young and those in between. There were just as many men as women. There were those who were dressed in jeans and hoodies, and those that were dressed in “dressier” outfits. There were teachers, business men and women, truck drivers, students, stay-at-home moms, electricians and university professors. There were those who were born in Italy, Ireland, Germany, the Philippines and Korea and those who were born in Canada.
One might say that these are the Christmas/Easter crowd –those that go to Mass only at these times. But this was Good Friday not Easter Sunday. The ‘twice a year crowd’ would normally go on Easter Sunday.
In a former age (years ago when I was kid, for example) one could say people went to church because it was good for business, they had to keep up appearances or they wanted to look good. But today it is not particularly fashionable to go to church, it is not necessary and one doesn’t gain much socially from going. Furthermore, why go on Easter if you don’t go the rest of the year?
But there they were – people going up to venerate the cross, people kneeling and praying – traditions and prayers that have been used since the first centuries of Christianity. Not all of these people are stupid or deluded or out-of-date. Maybe, just maybe there is something to Christianity after all.
Whatever. I have come to the conclusion, though, that the people who spread the rumour that churches are empty are people that never really go themselves. Perhaps it is one of those “urban legends” one hears about!

Did the Catholic Church Suppress the Bible?

Recently I watched a program which discussed the belief in the Bible as the Word of God before and after the Reformation. There were the usual ‘experts’ who gave their comments but in this particular program I must say they seemed to represent only Protestant thought and one that was particularly negative concerning the Catholic Church at that. Although some of it was very interesting, I felt that it misrepresented what the Roman Catholic Church has historically taught and still teaches concerning the Bible.
The line went, “The Catholic Church tried to keep the Bible from the people. We see this because the Bible was only in Latin, people were not encouraged to study the Bible and it was not translated into the languages of the people until the Reformation.” Although this is a popular fable passed around it is certainly not the complete story.
It is true that the language used by the Catholic Church for Scriptures and as well, the Mass, was Latin and remained so until Vatican II in the 1960s. In fact Latin is still the official language of the Church and important documents are still written first in Latin, thus not favoring any other particular language in use today.
In the Europe of the Middle Ages this had some other advantages. It was not uncommon for scholars to study in a university far away from their own country. Scholars and other educated people all understood Latin so one could be an Englishman studying in a university in, say, Bologna and still be able to understand the Mass. The university lectures would also be in Latin making it easier to study wherever you wanted to. Latin was a universally understood language in the Europe of the Middle Ages even more so than English is in the world today.
Now, of course, there were those who did not read or understand Latin: the common, uneducated people, and one might suppose they were at a distinct disadvantage. However, except for Scripture readings, the Mass follows the same pattern every time it is celebrated (even today) and those who attended would be familiar with the language they heard each Sunday. Furthermore, the homilies (or sermons) were in the language of the people so the teaching of the Scripture was in a language they could understand. It is probably true that the average person knew more of the Bible in the Middle Ages than they do today. The sermon at Mass, the art in the stained glass and paintings, the morality plays presented in the market – all these things taught the “unlettered” men and women the gospels in spite of the fact that they did not know Latin.
In any case, it was probably not until the late Middle Ages that the uneducated English could read their own language. Chaucer, who was born in 1340 or 1344, was the first to write in the language of the common man in England. How many ordinary people could read English? Until the printing press was invented probably not many.
It does seem though that in England the Scriptures in the language of the people lagged behind compared to other European languages. Remember that England had had Norman kings who spoke French and that only French or an Anglo-Norman dialect was spoken at court from the tenth to about the fourteenth century. English peasants called the animals in the field, cows, pigs and sheep but at court where the meat was served at meals they were boeuf, porc and mouton (which later came into English as beef, pork and mutton).
So much for England. Were there Scriptures in the language of the people in other countries in Europe?
Bishop Ulfilas (318-388) devised an alphabet for the Goths and translated the Old and New Testaments into their language soon after.
Another of the earliest translations of Scriptures must have been in 411 into Armenian by Mesrob who also invented their alphabet.
In the ninth century St. Cyril and St. Methodus invented an alphabet (the Cyrillic alphabet still used in Eastern Europe) for the Slavs and translated a Bible into Bulgarian.
Parts of Psalms, Revelation and some of the Old Testament were translated into French as early as the seventh century. A complete version of the Bible was made in the thirteenth century.
In Italy a complete version of the Bible in vernacular Italian was available in 1472 and this manuscript is now in the National Library at Paris.
There were numerous versions of parts of the Bible in German as far back as the seventh and eighth centuries and there was a complete Bible in the fifteenth century before the invention of printing and well before Luther’s New Testament in 1522.
The first Bible in Dutch was printed at Delft in 1475.
The first complete Polish Bible was printed at Kracow in 1561.
There were even portions of Scripture translated into Arabic as early as the tenth century and an Arabic Bible was published at Rome in 1671.
So we see that there were Scriptures in languages other than Latin available well before the Reformation. The Reformation or the Protestant Movement in the 16th century had the advantage of a newly invented printing press. The inventor of moveable type was the German, Johan Gutenburg (1400?-1468?) who, by the way, was a Catholic.
Before the printing press, Catholic monks had been copying Scriptures by hand from the earliest manuscripts down through the centuries We must remember that if they had not preserved God’s word neither Catholics or Protestants would have the Scriptures today.
Not only is it said that the Catholic Church did not have Scriptures available in the common languages, the Church is also accused of keeping the Bible away from the people, even going so far as chaining Bibles in the Church! Remember that before printing had been invented the Bible was hand-copied and therefore copies were both rare and expensive. Chaining the Bible to the Church would keep it from being taken away and therefore making it more available to those who were able to read. One can compare this with telephone books that are chained up at public telephone booths today – not to keep people from using them but keeping them available for all.
Did the Church discourage people from reading the Scriptures and “Bible study”? The answer to this is “yes” and the feeling of the danger of Bible Study has continued to recent times. Even though one might see Bible studies taking place in Catholic parishes today there are good reasons to discourage personal “Bible study”. One only has to look at the results of ‘uncontrolled’ bible study – the thousands of new denominations and even cults that develop because someone interprets a Bible verse in his or her own way. The resulting deep divisions are often over minute differences of Biblical interpretations. One simple example is: Paul wrote that a woman should cover her head in church. Is this something which reflects the culture of the time or is it a commandment from God that should be followed today? Some Protestant churches insist on women wearing hats in church but most do not.
Reading the Bible within the context of the Church is however encouraged by the Catholic Church today. With the guidance of scholars of the Church we can understand Scripture by knowing what the writer meant and how it was understood in the culture of the listeners of the time and then move on to what it can mean for us. The Church has people who are experts in languages, culture and translation who can help us understand the Scriptures. Furthermore, in the Catholic church perhaps the major reason for reading Scripture is that it might be obeyed, not so much that we need to dissect it every which way in order to understand it. Is it really so difficult to understand what it means to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” for example?

As to how the Catholic regards Scripture one only has to look at the following quotations to get an idea of this:
St. Jerome (340-420) said, “Not to know the Scriptures is not to know Christ.”

A document from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) states, “Among other things that pertain to salvation of the Christian peoples, the food of the Word of God is above all necessary, because as the body is nourished by material food, so is the soul nourished by spiritual food, since, '...not by bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4:4).

And finally, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “In Sacred Scripture, the church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, ‘but as what is really is, the word of God.” (103)
“And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting font of spiritual life. Hence, access to Sacred Scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful.” (131)
It is sad to see ignorance that causes misunderstandings amongst Christians but sadder still to see ignorance perpetuated by television programs and books written by those who should have done their research beforehand.