Medjugorje - Message of 25th May 2012

"Dear children!

Also today I call you to conversion and to holiness.

God desires to give you joy and peace through prayer but you, little children, are still far away - attached to the earth and to earthly things.

Therefore, I call you anew: open your heart and your sight towards God and the things of God - and joy and peace will come to reign in your hearts.

Thank you for having responded to my call."

I shall be commenting in due course.

Every good wish for Pentecost and a huge outflow of the Holy Spirit on you all!

Fr. Ted

Guidelines now in English!

The Vatican has published a translation of the criteria for assessing the validity of apparitions and such like.

However, don't get too excited.

The usual pundits have immediately connected these to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina where apparitions occur frequently. So the guidelines are published gleefully with a comment about other matters vaguely connected to Medjugorje.

But ... Whoaaaah!

The guidelines are not new. They were published in February 1978 following approval by Pope Paul VI and entitled "Norms Regarding the Manner of Proceeding in the Discernment of Presumed Apparitions or Revelations," What has been published is the translation from Latin
.
Reading it through, it is very clear that both Bishops of Mostar have used them extremely carefully and come to their opinions accordingly.

Surely, after all this time, we should accept what is being said - on both sides of the debate and get on with our lives while the theologians grind on with their own carefully nuanced, and commonly unpublished assessments?

The document, titled "Norms Regarding the Manner of Proceeding in the Discernment of Presumed Apparitions or Revelations," was approved by Pope Paul VI in February 1978 but was not officially published until Wednesday (22nd May 2012).

For my own personal appraisal go to http://www.spiritual-renewal.org

Best wishes

Ted Baty

Quick and Easy Fund Raising

Hi folks,

I have begun to publish some of the items from the computer which have been hanging around for some time and just needed tidying.

The first is short – a manual on fund raising through Garage Sales (very apposite in the US and Canada), Jumble Sales (equally so in the UK!) by making them better publicised and managed.

The web page is on the Medjugorje site which happened to be available!

You can access the details at www.spiritual-renewal.org

Click on the page about “Quick and easy Fund-raising” for more information.

Browse and enjoy”!

Yours ay,

Ted

It was truer than I thought!

Today on my diary page I wrote "The Victorian Churches site needs some restoration work, and Chopin-Festivals some advertising!"

How true that was. Most Victorian churches have needed or need some restoration work - after a century or so they all do!

Then, how big would the audience be, if Festivals didn't advertise.

Have a look yourselves: www.victorianchurches.com, and www.chopin-festivals.com

Best wishes all round!

back to work

Hello everyone!

It's back to work and again a new novel started in the "Ad Templum" series.

I shall be needing some volunteers as readers.

Any offers will be be kindly considered.

Best wishes to all,

Fr. Ted

Fr Ted’s New Year Message

What Ho! Just one “Ho” as Santa has taken the other three for his “Ho,Ho, Hoing “ all over the shop.

So what of 2012? Well, first of all it hasn’t happened, just a teeny, weeny, teansy bit, depending on the day  you are reading this.

2012 the pundits say will be difficult. Any more difficult than other years, I wonder? I think not. Our orthodox brothers and sisters have a splendid idea that life, especially the spiritual life, is always a struggle, a contest in the arena, amply used by St. John the Divine as the setting for his horrifically imaginative description of the contest, with its final scenes of triumph for those who have got through successfully.

So, my brothers and sisters, friends, all of you enter 2012 with the sure knowledge that this world is the arena in which we display our ability to succeed against whatever odds circumstances pile up around us.

Curiously for those in favour of odds, I believe we have a superb “odds-on” situation whenever we slot into the teaching of Our Lord. We are “on a winner” what eve5r is happening around.

Just in case I seem too gloomy with thoughts of struggle and so on, we have the splendidly expensive treat in 2012 of the London Olympics which is not all about winning but about enjoying the contest.  There are so many arenas, in terms of contest there are some which are about reaching out and moving towards perfection and beauty – the synchronised swimmers, ice dancers, floor exercising gymnasts, and dressage horses and riders. My brother and I were lucky in being given tickets to the 1948 Olympics in London. One of the pervading images was of the sheer beauty and elegance in motion of the great Dutch athlete, Fanny Blankers-Koen, winning the 220 yards (it was pre-metric then, I seem to remember), blonde hair streaming behind her.

So let’s all enter 2012’s arena with style ourselves, ready to give it all we have, and to enjoy it. For sure something beautiful and worth having will emerge for us 8if we do.

Time for a Change

Hi folks,

The old computer went off-line and collapsed generally giving a fortnight's break before the new became operative!

The main problem is that as yet I cannot upload onto the "spiritual-reneal.com" site. However for the monthly message from Medjugorje please go to "http://www.spiritual-renewal.org". Once there click on the last page where the latest message will have been loaded.

I trust you are all busy enjoying Advent. May it be a blessing to you all and a time when Christmas is not anticipated too much!

The news from St. Matidla's is that the congregation as a whole has decided to ally itself with the "Society of St. Wilfred and St. Hilda" in addition to Forward in Faith as an additional safeguard for its traditional but forward looking stance.

Lots of Blessings!

Fr. Ted