"THANK YOU JESUS FOR CREATING ME SO GOOD OF AND ON DURING THE DAY" .....

 ..... Father Patrick from St Peter and Paul's Lower Hutt. (as recalled by Robert).

Fr. Patrick Bridgman
Parish Priest

I'm told that Father Patrick at Saints Peter and Paul in Lower Hutt gives a pretty good sermon, getting his point across without being too concerned about grammar, fact and common sense -

 "full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes".

This suits Robert no doubt, who has no doubt that anything a man in a dress at the front of a Catholic church says is true. Father Patrick is his new best friend.

- Robert the apathetic sanctimonious sinner toilet cleaner and person refusing to employ punctuation

I was interested to hear more from Father Patrick so looked up his website.

Pat is embracing the modern age here and is updating the Catholic Church's message (no doubt following the latest brief from Frank at the Vatican) and I don't think he mentioned the Holy Ghost or God once, using the name Jesus a lot instead. Does this mean that the Trinity thing has had its day? Watch this space.

Anyway, I had a peek at the latest newsletter where Pat bangs on about Matariki and its importance through the ages and in a rather convoluted way tries to bend it into a Catholic message. I think he failed in this though as this extract - summary really - shows:

A new national celebration gives rise to new possibilities of celebrating. There are three aspects to the celebration of Matariki, remembrance, thanks, and promise. Remembering those who have died since last these stars were visible in the sky, gathering to give thanks for what we have, and looking to the promise of the future ahead. We as a Church celebrate aspects of these at other times of the year as well. Looking to the stars is to be encouraged whenever we can, for this encourages remembrance, thanks, and promise. And these human activities help us to live life to the full.
In today’s Gospel Jesus challenges his followers to live differently, not according to past patterns. When we look to the stars God helps us with this endeavour.

Nice words? Yes but do you see the contradiction here? Pat (or the Vatican scriptwriter who admittedly wrote in another language) said  that we should look to the past, the present and the future and then immediately tells us that old Jesus said bugger the past, do your own thing - live differently.

No wonder Catholics are so confused and don't understand the true and socially and politically dangerous repercussions of the US Supreme Court's overturning of the Roe vs. Wade ruling. Sheesh!

Now just a little niggle here. Robert, in previous and (sadly?) deleted posts has disparaged Anglicans and any non Catholic Christian churches who perform their version of the chimps tea party - the Eucharist - as a remembrance of what Jesus was reported (300 plus years later) to have said rather than something magic and mystical as the Catholics do - you know, the host becoming actual fresh flesh and the wine actual blood. Yet, in this image that Te Awakairangi website uses it shows actual bread and a cup (of wine I guess) which is more in keeping with the Anglican ceremony of remembrance. I can't see any Home of Compassion produced hosts here and I should know as I traded in them when I was a Sacristan.

I'm sorry if this seems pedantic but we at The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ take pride in getting our facts right, or at least nicely packaged up before presenting them to our vast readership.