Is Britain coming apart at the seams?

Last week Roland referred to the riots that took place across the UK following the murder of three children in Southport. 

Here's an interesting discussion by two commentators, Paul Embery and Inaya Folarin Iman (click on the picture below). Interesting analysis?

A Catholic writer reflects on the Olympics cause célèbre

Another scene from the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics

Fr Ian comments:

I recently came across a response to the Paris Olympics controversy, published a week ago (5th August) by Dr Thomas Rourke.

Here's a link to the full article for anyone who might fancy reading it:

Eroticism and the Paris Olympics: A reflection in the light of Augusto Del Noce.

'The best neighbour is a good fence' - a reflection on recent controversies

by Revd Roland Barnes

I write this message (actually my most recent Sunday sermon!) as a contribution to the FFF, in the context of the controversy over the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Paris. 

Some people found the content "heretical" and felt the need to protest and complain. Actually I watched the whole ceremony and all I saw was a French depiction of French culture and history. 

A seminar on prayer?

by Fr Ian

I've still got two final posts on prayer to add to the eight sections already available.

In the first two posts, I tried to give a broad definition of Christian prayer, and Roland responded with some observations and criticisms in a post of his own. There was a good discussion in the comments below the posts.

Since then I've quickly added a further six posts, focusing on different aspects of prayer.

It occurred to me that we might be able to look at these six posts as a whole (because they're really just separate sections of a single essay) and have a kind of seminar using the comments box below this post.

So to make it easy to read them in order (by clicking on them, of course) here are the other posts so far:

Post 3: the necessity of prayer

Post 4: the primacy of prayer

Post 5: vocal prayer and mental prayer, or meditation

Post 6: affective prayer and contemplative prayer

Post 7: Christian meditation

Post 8: A method of contemplative prayer

I hope that at least some readers of these posts will find them interesting and even helpful. And I hope we might have an interesting and productive discussion below.

Here are all the posts, in the form of two PDF documents. Part 2 includes a section on the drift towards prayerlessness in the modern Church and another section containing some reassuring facts about prayer.

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (8)

by Fr Ian

A method of contemplative prayer

Father James Borst, a Mill Hill Missionary priest who worked in India for many years, formulated a basic method of contemplative prayer for use by all Christians.

Jim Borst, 1932-2018

Christian Prayer: reflections from a Catholic perspective (7)

By Fr Ian

Keeping in mind everything that we’ve covered so far, in this post and the next I’d like to advocate two simple and practical ways of praying. These are two concrete practices that can help us move beyond a superficial level of prayer towards a more contemplative experience, strengthening the bond of communion between ourselves and God in the process.

'But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and you our Father who sees in secret will reward you' (Matthew 6:6) Photo: a room in a Capuchin Franciscan retreat centre.

Preparation for prayer: recollection

First let's recognise that if we want to pray well we can’t just turn rapidly from our ordinary daily activities and glide easily into profound conversation with God. We have to prepare ourselves beforehand. The Catholic spiritual tradition envisages three stages of preparation for prayer: immediate, proximate and remote.