Travelling in Europe without knowing the language and being unaware of a few other things

My brother was in Italy and wanted to get to a railway station.  He communicated with some of the locals by making train sounds (Thomas the tank!)   It did the trick. They pointed in the direction of the local railway station.

I was also in Europe and into my third week. It was my first chance there to use the internet. At a hotel in Lourdes, France, I was given a computer to use for the purpose.  It was in the foyer and the lighting was very poor. I started to touch type and it came out all wrong.  This was my introduction to the French keyboard! I never knew that the French keyboard was laid out differently to the one I use.  My first internet session is Europe was a dismal one.

The presidential pardon for the turkey

It is a cute custom to pardon a turkey each year. I hope that President Obama will now pardon one of the innocent babies due to be aborted. What is the use of looking after the poor turkey and killing the unborn?

Now I have a word for the Kennedy Family, not all of them,  but only those members of the Kennedy family, who are for abortion etc.  Your wealth, fame and power, won’t be any good to you when you come to judgement before God after your death, so don’t imagine that it will.

A providential happening during WWII

During WWII my dad was in the Australian army.  He caught a military boat from the Eastern side of Australia to Fremantle, Western Australia. He was in Fremantle for about three days and was supposed to catch another military boat which was going to sail up towards Japan. My dad and some other soldiers missed the boat by about half an hour. They were put into the local jail for about two weeks until the next military boat was due. (The jailing was a punishment given to my dad and the other soldiers by the Australian army for missing the boat.)  Missing the boat was actually providential for my dad and the other soldiers.  The boat that he was supposed to have sailed in, was torpedoed by the Japanese and sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Many things in life look as though, they are bad for us, when in truth they are actually good  for us, however it might not be as apparent as it was in my father’s case.

Doctors overstepping the mark

I visited the dermatologist the other day (to get the stitches out from my operation to remove a skin cancer). While I was in the waiting room, I picked up a brochure on acne. There were some funny cartoons on it depicting animals worrying about their acne. It had some good information on it about the skin condition and then towards the end of the brochure it mentioned a drug which is used for acne is all else fails and if the acne is severe.

I was impressed that it mentioned possible harm to: unborn babies. They actually used those words, not the word: fetus, so the doctors writing the brochure acknowledged that the unborn are real people. The brochure was spoiled by the last bit of information. It said that the dermatologist should counsel the patient who was going to be prescribed the ‘acne’ drug to take suitable contraception! Doctors have no right to tell patients to do this. Contraception is an intrinsic evil and in some case it is even an abortifacient i.e. causes an abortion.

It is acceptable to tell the patient that a drug will harm an unborn baby, but it is not acceptable to tell a patient to take contraception.

What happens to my prayers, if the person being prayed for, is already in heaven?

If you are praying for the soul of a particular person who has died and that person is already in heaven, your prayers won’t be wasted. God will apply your prayers to another soul in Purgatory, so it is always valuable to pray for the souls of those who have died, even if they are actually in heaven, because you will be helping another soul in Purgatory.

If the church has declared someone to be a saint: e.g.  St Therese, you do not pray for them, but to them!

Purgatory stems from God’s Mercy.

If there were was no Purgatory, anyone who died with even a slight stain on their soul would go to hell. Purgatory is a place of purification.  Make no mistake about it though, it is a place of great suffering. It is not like a waiting room, where there is air-conditioning, a water cooler, a vending machine with drinks, snacks and some magazines to read while you wait for your appointment. Having said all that, God does not want you to go to Purgatory and you don’t have to. God can give you all the graces that you need to go straight to heaven.  You need to respond to them.

Devotion to Maria Bambina

In some countries there is a devotion to Maria as a baby, just as many of us pray to Jesus as an Infant.  This statue is in a church in Italy.