'Israel Folau' - 'blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'.

Israel Folau, the Australian international rugby-football player and a committed Christian, recently posted a banner on his Instagram account that read: "Drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolators - Hell awaits you.".

Folau has apparently previously posted remarks in a similar vein on his personal website, which aroused controversy, and for which he received an official warning from the Australian RFU. His most recent comments above, aroused even more controversy, and as a result Folau has been banned outright from playing Rugby union in Australia, with automatic exclusion from the national team, and essentially deprived of his livelihood.

            Israel Folau - https://www.flickr.com/photos/125524007@N08/ - https://www.flickr.com/photos/125524007@N08/33121716755/in/dateposted/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57409585


A few observations are surely called for:-

1. Folau’s comment is taken directly from the Bible, the word of God.  

2. It was posted on his own personal Instagram website, and was not aimed at specific individuals.

3. It has been taken up by the Australian Rugby Union authorities, yet It was not aimed at them. They have made it an issue on which they consider that they have the right to intervene and authority to adjudicate. But what gives them this right?  Furthermore have they the right to deprive a man of his livelihood for quoting the word of God?

4..An English top class rugby player, Billy Vunipola, has expressed his agreement with Folau’s comments, as a result of which  he has been disciplined by his Club (Saracens) because of his Christian views.  Again what right does this Club have to act in this way?

5. The silence from ‘supporters’ of Folau’s views has been deafening!   Folau’s outspokenness may have been embarrassing to some, but what he has said is Christian teaching, yet I have not seen one letter or article of support in the national press. Of course this might just be because the Press have chosen not to publish them, although they may well have received them.

6 This matter has been headlines in the national press for nearly three weeks, yet I have not seen any support for Folau’s statement from representatives of the Christian hierarchy, of any denomination. This matter is newsworthy and  offers a real opportunity  for God’s word  to be preached to the world.

7. Folau’s statement does not advocate violence in any shape or form. It clearly is unpopular in certain quarters, no doubt  because  it advocates a way of life which flies in the face of today’s hedonistic and materialistic culture which prefers to ignore God and His commandments. Much of our society is uncomfortable when faced with unpalatable moral truths, to which it has no answer except unjust punitive reprisals. The cruel and barbaric punishment inflicted on Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the founder of Christianity, 'the Way, the Truth, and the Life', is the Cross that all Christians have to share in one way or another.

8. If the comment had been made by a different person unknown to the media, whose sole intention was to preach the word of God, as indeed was Fallou’s intention, would we have heard anything about it?. I doubt it.

9. Australian sport was recently in the headlines because a Tennis centre named after the famous woman Australian tennis player Margaret Court, eleven times winner of the Australian Open tennis championship, has been  the source of public controversy, with some players demanding that the Centre has a change of name. The reason for this is that Margaret Court, now in her seventies, had expressed no support during or after her playing career, for the LGBT cause, and in fact has alleged that since the legalisation of same- sex marriage in Australia,  lesbianism had become an unedifying and  undesirable fact of life on the women’s tennis circuit. The ensuing controversy has now reached the stage whereby  players opposed to Margaret Court's outspoken beliefs, are now refusing to use this centre, unless and until the name had been changed. 

10. In Folau’s case, I have seen  on the internet,  comments  from sportsmen and women  worldwide  criticising  Folau. I have no doubt that he has at least as many supporters as critics, yet I have not seen any of their  comments published. 

11. It is interesting to note how much  publicity the BBC has given this matter, clearly attributing  to it great significance. On the internet BBC Sports page, Rugby Union section,  it has published the same report about Folau  for 17 days, and it has only been removed in the last day or two. Additionally it has published details of  the punitive action of the English RFU against the Saracen's player, Billy Vunipola,  who had the temerity to support Falou. This report has been on the same sports page as above for 13 days, and is still there.There have also been other criticisms of Folau, creating the  impression of a witch-hunt against sportsmen and women who dare to profess their Christian faith? In the past, personal religious beliefs have rarely if ever, been a problem in sport, with personal religious beliefs  accepted and respected, and the game goes on.

12.It may be that Folau's statement was unusual in that he spoke God's word without fear or favour, somewhat rare in our  western society, but not so in many other parts of the world. But why has Folau been singled out among many other Christian proponents of Christ's teachings? Why is Australian Rugby Union so incensed? What has it got to do with them that Folau chooses to proclaim Christ's teachings on his personal website?

13. Is it that their criticism  applies  to the inclusion of 'homosexuality' in the list of sins? I suppose that if a homosexual lifestyle is not considered sinful, then to say that it is will be criticised   If people hold this view, then so be it, but there is no need for a visceral war of words, or threats to one's job  This situation is not new, neither is it unique.  Folau has been openly preaching the Christian message for years, a message which  itself has been around for 2000 years or so,  and yet suddenly it has become an international issue! Is there an agenda in this matter, an agenda pursued perhaps by the LGBT lobby, who continue to actively try to impose  the homosexual life-style on a generally  unsympathetic society, regardless of the cost to religious belief and individual conscience?

14. This whole matter is ongoing and there could conceivably be many developments. Is the  sandwich-board man with his message 'The Wages of Sin is Death' likely to fall foul of  local business interests? What about the preacher in the pulpit doing his job and what he believes in, repeating the very message published by Folau, and  leading souls to God? He may even publish details of his sermon on-line, to be seen by perhaps thousands of viewers, who will either accept or refuse his message. End of story!  So why the unnecessarily heavy-handed and punitive action against Folau? 

15. For those who appreciate appropriate biblical chapter and verse,  I include  numerous references relating to those sins high-lighted by Folau.
      

1 Cor.6 9/11 ‘do you not know that the unjust will not possess the kingdom of God. Do not err:  ‘neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor the evil-tongued, nor the greedy, will possess the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.’

 1 Cor 6/13                 Eph 5/5
 1 Cor 6/18-19            1Thess 4/3
 1 Cor 5/1-3                Jude 1/7-8
 1 Cor 5/9-11              Matt 15/19
 1 Cor 7/2                   1 Cor 6/15-20

                                                    **********************

I feel somehow, that this post is incomplete, in that it presents certain questions but almost certainly does not  provide the answers. I must admit that I wanted to express in writing some of my thoughts relating to this matter, without necessarily being clear in my own mind exactly what these thoughts were. I have done this to the best of my limited ability, and am aware that I have only  touched the tip of the iceberg. I do think that this situation raises serious questions, viz. freedom of speech, the right to criticise on matters of conscience and principle, the powers of state and other authorities  to become involved in controversial matters, what constitutes appropriate action in any particular case and the reasons governing it, etc .etc. Last but not least, I feel some satisfaction in being able to express my support and admiration for Israel Folau , an inspiration to us all. May God bless him. 

Memories - 1940's London - Caryll Houselander, 'Afternoon in Westminster Cathedral'; 'In an occupied Country'

(The following post was originally posted in 2015, and after I updated the 'label',  mysteriously appeared as a new post dated today! Rather than lose the post altogether it seems sensible to retain the post here. Thank you.)

Tragically, war is always with us. Every day through the media, we are assailed with details and images of death and destruction, terror and suffering, experienced on a wide scale in different parts of the world. We hope and pray that we will not be caught up in these horrors, and pray for peace in the world. I am of an age for which life in Britain during the Second World War has a particular relevance, for this was the time of my  childhood, a period which I lived through, and certain details of which I can remember quite well.This is no place to enlarge on these memories, however it so happened that in 1946 I was enrolled as a boarder at Westminster Cathedral Choir School when it re-opened after the war. As choirboys there were very few days on which we failed to be involved in one or other of the liturgical services in the Cathedral, and I have never lost that sense of mystery and of God ever present in the Cathedral, even to me as a small boy. The following extract from the poem 'Afternoon in Westminster Cathedral' reinforces these impressions.

'Afternoon in Westminster Cathedral'
 Caryll Houselander (1901-1954)

‘In the cathedral
through ages and ages of men,
the people come and go.
They sorrow, but One endures,
they falter, but One is strong,
they pass, but One remains,
they change, but One is unchanging.

Christ is there,
in a corner behind a lamp,
He is in the world,
as a man’s heart in his breast,
almost forgotten,
until a lover,
lays her head on the piteous ribs,
of the cage of bone,
and hears
the mysterious beat
of  the pulse of life.

We have rejected
the yoke that is sweet,
and  bowed to the yoke of fear.

We have feared discomfort and loss,
pain of body and mind,
the pang of hunger and thirst,
we have been abject
before the opinions of men.

We have been afraid
of the searching ray
of  truth.
Of the simple laws
of  our own life.

We have feared
the primitive beauty
of  human things.
Of love
and of  birth
and of death.

We have lost
the integrity
of  the human heart.

We have gone to the dying embers for warmth,
to the flickering lamp for light,
we have set our feet on the quicksand,
instead  of the rock.

We are the mediocre,
we are the half givers,
we are the half lovers,
we are the savourless salt.

Lord Jesus Christ,
restore us now,
to the primal splendour
of first love.
To the austere light
of  the breaking day.

Let us hunger and thirst,
let us burn in the flame.
Break the hard crust
of complacency.
Quicken in us
the sharp grace of desire.

Let us not sit content
by the dying embers,
let the embers fall into cold ash,
let the flickering lamp gutter and die.
Cover with darkness
the long shadows
thronging the lamp.
Make the soul’s night,
absolute and complete,
the shrine of one star.

Shine in us,
Emmanuel,
Shadowless Light.
Flame in us
Emmanuel,
Fire of Love,
Burn in us,
Emmanuel,
Morning star.
Emmanuel,
Go with us!’

 'Afternoon in Westminster Cathedral' (extract)
From 'The Flowering Tree'- selected poems by Caryll Houselander.  (Sheed and Ward)
                                               
                                                                      *************

As a child during the war I was evacuated out of London, but occasionally was taken by my mother to see friends and relations who lived in London, travelling by train and bus or tram. I cannot remember much of these visits but the following description of London during the hours of darkness, with blackout regulations strictly enforced, has a familiar ring about it. I seem to recall in particular the blue lights in the buses, the lighted cigarettes of pedestrians, and the red, amber, and green crosses on the traffic lights. I am grateful to say that on these visits I was never in the vicinity of bombing raids.

The Blackout

'The weather continued warm, but the nights were lengthening. People looked forward to the winter and the long cold darkness with no relish.  The streets emptied now after dusk, and the black-out became largely the property of the wardens and the police; though in the West End there persisted a dogged and darkly hurrying crowd of revellers. A City bereft of electric and neon light took on a new beauty – by moonlight the great buildings assumed a remote and classic magnificence, cold, ancient, lunar palaces carved in bone from the moon; and angular overdressed Victorian eccentricities were purified, uncoloured, quietened by the moon’s ubiquitous sanity. But in clouded nights and moonless nights it was not so beautiful – in the total blackout nothing could be seen. Torchlight was rationed by a filter of paper, the insides of passing buses glimmered blue, cigarette ends became the means of demonstrating one’s passage. A match might not be struck, nor a headlight switched on. A glimmer of ‘starlight’ filtered down from some street-lamps in the main thoroughfares, the red, green, and yellow traffic lights were masked to show only thin crosses of their colour. This darkness flared into sudden relief – in the yellow flash of gunfire, in the whitish-green hiss of incendiaries, in the copper-red reflection of the fires, in the yellow flare of the burning gas main, in the red explosion of the bomb. In such light the gilt tracery of Big Ben’s tower flashed into colour, the sombre drab alleys round Covent Garden blazed with a theatrical daylight, the corrugated skylines of Park Lane and Knightsbridge showed black against the deep red sky, the streets of Pimlico and Soho saw the high scarfing columns of a naked gas flame flaring like some giant idealization of the naphtha flames that through the years had lit their fairs and their stalls.
    These were the lights – but there were also dark streets, streets where suddenly a house of blackness collapsed with a roar, shifting down heavily like some bricked elephant lumbering to its knees, thickening the darkness with a poisonous cloud of dust, shrouding the moment after its fall with a fearful empty silence broken only by small sounds, the whispering of broken water pipes, slight shiftings of debris, moans and little cries of the injured; then into the torchlight of the wardens there would stagger those un-trapped, lonely figures in the dust-fog, bleached grey with powder and streaked and patched with black blood; or – there would be nobody, and not a sound, only a living silence in the knowledge that under a smoking, spawning mass of timber and brick and dust there lay pressed and stifled the bodies of warm people whose minutes were slowly ticking away, whose rescue was absurdly blocked by a mass of intractable weight that angered those standing so few yards above.
These are not pleasant memories, but they must be written – otherwise the picture that was essentially one of dirt and anguish becomes too clean. Death and wounding from such explosives was never as neat as a bullet in the head; but the details shall be left to a Barbusse. One of the few consolations was that the explosive force proved in most cases so great as to shock its victim into unconsciousness or at least into a physical incomprehension of what had occurred.'
                                                                                                                                          ‘WilliamSansom’
 Westminster in War (1947) 
'London is London' by D.M.Low (Chatto and Windus) 1949.                                                                                                                                      
                                                      *******************                                                                  
Recently I saw a photograph of a dwelling house in the Ukraine, severely damaged by gun-fire. The photograph included two elderly women walking in front of the house, going who knows where. The whole scenario was one of tragedy and suffering, made worse by the knowledge of the futility of this war, and the helplessness of those caught up in it. The following short poem, again by Caryll Houselander, is particularly appropriate.

In an Occupied Country

Mother of God,
Save the walls of my cottage.
They are only bricks and mortar,
But they embrace
The memory of my son.

War is so cruel!
It not only treads
Our children’s faces
into the mud,
and waters the harvests of sorrow,
with their innocent blood,
but it shatters
the four walls,
where an old Mother,
(who asks no more in the end)
could cover her grief.

My home
Is only a ruin,
But the four walls are sacred,
They hold and embrace
The memory of my son.
They are the shell
That once was around
My little chicken.

Mother of God,
By Christ’s empty tomb,
Leave me the walls
Of my ruined home.

Caryll Houselander(1901-1954)
From 'The Flowering Tree' - selected poems of Caryll Houselander (Sheed and Ward)

'Mr. Bumbleby's Outburst' - Fr.Bernard Basset S.J.

More years ago than I care to remember, I was a teenager at Wimbledon College in south-west London, a boy’s Catholic Grammar School, administered by the Jesuits (Society of Jesus). In the middle years it was customary for the boys to attend a Retreat lasting two or three days, the object being to reinforce  knowledge and appreciation of our Catholic faith. The Retreat was given by a Jesuit priest, not necessarily from the school, and on two occasions in separate years, I was fortunate to attend a Retreat given by Fr Bernard Basset S.J., a well - known and much sought after Retreat Master. Father Bassett was an excellent speaker with the ability to capture and retain the attention of his young listeners on spiritual matters, no mean feat, with light-hearted humour a potent weapon in his armoury.

            Recently I came across a copy of an old book entitled ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues – and other Stories’, by Bernard Basset S.J. published by Sands & Co. London. The stories are a delight to read and not too long, and I offer you one that I think you will enjoy and appreciate;  an antidote to the current helping of gloom and doom  within the Church, which of course is but a  glitch in its divine mission, and one which will pass.

            These stories first appeared in Stella Maris and the Southwark Record, with permission granted for the author to publish them in book form.

Mr. Bumbleby’s  Outburst

The Church recommends that we should spend fifteen minutes in making our thanksgiving after Holy Communion, and the story is told of St Philip Neri that he once sent two altar boys with lighted candles to escort a culprit who had darted off the moment Mass was done.  Of course we all agree with the Saint, and would not ourselves cut away without a suitable thanksgiving, but if two acolytes with lighted candles came and stood by us while we arranged our thoughts after Holy Communion, we might better appreciate the honour which is ours.

            As it is, we must all admit with some confusion that our knees are often more impressionable than our minds and hearts at that time of the morning, and that with the best intention in the world we find it very difficult to pray. That at least is what we think, and when five minutes have taken half an hour in passing, we find it hard to believe that it is worthwhile struggling with distractions and hunger any more.

            Perhaps it might help someone if I set down Mr. Bumbleby’s views on thanksgiving after Communion, for though I know all the theory and was already a weekly communicant on paper before I talked to him, yet he certainly helped me a great deal.  Up to that time, Marjorie and I, suffering from the common complaint of inability to feel holy or prayerful before breakfast, had alas, become remiss about going to early Mass.

            For six days in the week we proudly grouped ourselves among the regular congregation for the eight o’clock Mass on Sundays, and I would even stay in bed a wee bit longer on Saturdays to compensate for rising early on the next day. Yet by Saturday evening I invariably had a scraping feeling behind the nose, or a tooth which might give trouble, and I would decide after much humming and hawing that it would be inviting trouble to go to early Mass.

            Marjorie used to laugh at my complaints but she too had a battery of excuses on occasion, the children looked peaky, or she was so behind with her housekeeping, and after all, she must sometimes think of cook. Why cook should have a figure in our spiritual pie was a question that I could never answer, but Marjorie seemed satisfied, and in the end, after a long discussion, I would announce that we’d better go to late Mass just for this once, while Marjorie would say, “No, let’s leave it till the morning and we’ll see what the day is like.”  We both know what that meant.

            Now Mr. Bumbleby was the newsagent from whom I always bought the Sunday papers on my way home from Mass.  This was easy, for Mr. Bumbleby had no shop but used to open his pitch on the pavement not far from the church.  His glaring posters were strapped to some railings, his stock of papers screamed their headlines at you from the tarpaulin cover on which he had laid them, while Mr. Bumbleby sat by the side reading all about the latest murder, hoping that no purchaser would remove the last copy before the police had inspected the body.  I had seen Mr. Bumbleby inside of the church on occasions, for he was a Papist, but usually he was already doing a brisk trade on the pavement before we arrived for Mass.

            It so happened on the particular Sunday in question that I had for once overcome the temptation which beset me, and had struggled from bed to early Mass. Either the children were looking peaky or cook was being thought of, for Marjorie had remained at home.  I remember feeling that I might as well have stayed at home myself, for after Holy Communion I found it almost impossible to pray. And this disturbed me, for if you firmly believe as a Catholic that Our Lord is truly present on the altar, and that He comes to you in the literal sense at Holy Communion, then it is very humiliating when the mind pops off on to trivial subjects at the most sacred moment of His arrival.

             Well, my mind was certainly on the spree that morning, though I clutched firmly at my prayer book, rattled my rosary, compiled a long list of petitions to be asked for, and generally set about the duties of prayer. I thought of Marjorie and cook, Jimmie’s bad leg, Joe Stalin and Tottenham Hotspurs, and then returned with shame to my own lack of gratitude and respect. Unfortunately my rosary on the seat in front served admirably as a rough map of the Mediterranean,  and in the midst of remorse I was planning naval dispositions.  Within five minutes it was clear to me that progress in prayer was no longer possible,  and following the mood of the moment I swept the Mediterranean coastline into my pocket, seized my hat and went.

            Mr. Bumbleby was in position when I bounded across the road to greet him, but he was not reading the paper as I had expected, but was sitting on his heels beside his posters with a huge prayer book in his hands.  He was so busy that he did not notice me until I had said good morning,  and then he shut his book and whipped off his glasses.

            “Hello” said  I, speaking without purpose or consideration. “don’t tell me you are saying your prayers?”

            Mr. Bumbleby was not in the least embarrassed by my stupid question, but replied with alacrity that was exactly what he was doing,  for what with the blooming trains running late, and the R.C.s  going to church so early, he’d had the very dickens of a rush to open up in time anyhow, and that he had had to cut away from church with his thanksgiving half unsaid.

            “What’s more” he added, pointing menacingly at the newspapers with his glasses, “it ain’t ‘arf  ‘ard to be saying your prayers squatting on the public pavement with all them latest London editions to be read.”

            Partly from surprise, partly as a result of my own experience in church that morning,  I agreed that it was very difficult to make an adequate thanksgiving after Holy Communion, but my admission seemed to affect Mr. Bumbleby in a most unexpected way.

            “That’s just where you’re wrong,” said he,  looking fiercely in my direction, and then he flung open his battered prayer book, licked his forefinger and began turning over the pages as though they were treasury notes.

            “I used to think it was hard,” he said,  “ in the days when I was always fussing about my own feelings, because if I didn’t happen to be in the mood, then my prayer was a washout from the start.  That’s what you think too, and you’re wrong.  After all we’d never get nowhere in ordinary life if we only thought of ourselves.  When the Master comes to us in Communion, He’s not thinking of Himself, is He?  No, He’s out to give us a big help and pleasure, and so we in our prayers shouldn’t think about ourselves but about Him.  It’s because we’re always watching ourselves, worrying how it’s going,  wondering if it’s doing us good and can we possibly fill up the quarter of an hour, that we get all knotted up in five minutes.

             “ ‘Let Him look after me, and I’ll look after Him.’ That’s how I see it now, but mind you, I’ve not always ‘ad the sense to see it.  And then there’s far too much asking in our prayers.  Of course, He told us to ask, that’s just like Him, and we have every right to do so, but it seems to me that we oughtn’t to overdo it, because ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’ comes well before ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer.  Our first job in prayer is to stage a sort of reception, such as a town might give to His Majesty, the King, God bless Him, with a guard of honour, streamers, flags and the like fluttering about.  Now we can’t be waving no flags in church I know, though the flowers and vestments and our best clothes are for the same purpose, and there are one or two prayers that take the place of ‘God  Save the King.’”

            Mr. Bumbleby had been turning over the pages of his book while he was speaking and at last he found the required place.

            “Ever heard mention of the song of the three young men in the furnace?” he asked fiercely, and then went on without giving pause for reply.

            “I can’t rightly pronounce their names, not being educated, and I ain’t ever been in a fiery furnace myself either, but it seems to me that it is ‘ardly the ideal place for a spot of quiet prayer.

Well, there they were those three, all crammed into the blaze because they wouldn’t worship no idols, and instead of calling on God to help or preserve them they started singing about His glory for all they were worth.  If they could do it then, we can do it in the cool of the church or even out here on this blooming pavement, and we can use their very words.  That is what Holy Church thinks anyway for she gives their song in full for the priest to say after Mass.

            “And that is what I was doing when you came along, for it’s an easy prayer to say when you’re stuck for words or don’t feel able to make much effort, for you’ve only to run through the list of hills and seas and mountains, and say O.K. to each one of them and see how good and how powerful God is to have made them all.  ‘Mountains and waters bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all for ever;  all ye priests bless the Lord,  praise and exalt Him above all for ever;  Ernest Bumbleby bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all for ever’.”

            Mr. Bumbleby slammed the book and began fishing about for my Sunday paper.

            “That’s prayer,”  said he,  “real prayer, and it don’t matter a hoot what you feel while you’re saying it because you are calling on the mountains and other creatures to praise God, and mountains don’t have no moods like you and me.  Just you stick to the song of the young men, whose names I can’t pronounce though I’ve said them every Sunday morning this last decade, and when that song is sung then move on to the next psalm in the prayer book, all about praising God with harps and cymbals and the rest of the band.

            “We forget that we all look one way in church, Jesus Christ from the altar looks the other way.  What does He see?  He sees Mrs. Somebody in the front  bench praying for a whole list of odds and ends and maybe He gives her some of them’,  and further back He sees Mr. Somebody else and a crowd of others all asking for things, and because He’s so kind He listens.  But right at the back or even out here on this blooming pavement He sees an old sinner like me saying ‘Glory be to the Father’ over and over again, and you may be sure that He’ll give me what I need too.

            “Now I don’t say He isn’t pleased with all the others, because He’s bound to appreciate their effort,  but I know what sort of prayer would give me most pleasure were I in His position,  and what I would like best He would like best also, for Jesus Christ is God, but He’s a human being after all.”

            Mr. Bumbleby resumed his prayer, and as I walked away I did not read the paper but I opened my missal and called on the mountains and waters to praise and exalt the Lord.  It was certainly easy and I dawdled as I read so that I was very late for breakfast and Marjorie had to fall back on her favourite admonition, “We must think of cook, sometimes.”

Ack. 'The Seven Deadly Virtues & Other Stories' by Rev. Bernard

Basset S.J. published by Sands & Co. London.  These stories first appeared in Stella Maris and in the Southwark Record, with permission for the author to publish in book form.