are miracles happening at medjugorje

An interesting contribution regarding Medjugorje came my way recently when Margaret Burke from the town of Dunlavin in Ireland told me about her experiences.
Seven years ago Margaret Burke visited Medjugorje with her then eight year old daughter Emma.
Her daughter had childhood athritis which meant she spent a lot of her time in a buggy.
When she walked she appeared hunched over and barely able to move.
Margaret maintains that unaided the little girl could only walk a few steps in a bent over posture.
"In the church at Medjugorje I felt my daughter tugging my arm," Margaret told me. "My daughter said that a voice was telling her she had to climb a mountain which had a cross on top of it. She said that every time the voice mentioned the cross, a cross lit up on her chest. I was thinking this is not going to happen. There is no way this child can climb a mountain. A man in our group came over. I didn't know him well. He said he had gotten a very strong feeling that my daughter was meant to climb the mountain. He said he could see Jesus waiting for her at the top, arms outstretched with big smile on his face. It was 8 o'clock at night. A bit late to be starting on this venture. We decided to get a taxi to the mountain. I was thinking we could take a few steps, say some prayers, and head home for tea. We got out of the taxi at the foot of the mountain. My daughter took a few wobbly steps and next minute she was gone like a rabbit up the mountain. We couldn't keep up with her. There are pictures of the Stations Of The Cross all the way up the mountain. We caught up with her again at the Fourth Station. We went on to the top of the mountain. Lightning started flashing all through the valley. It was spectacular. There wasn't a drop of rain. We could hear prayers rising up the mountain side from the Church far below. At the base of the cross on top of the mountain we found a postcard picture of Jesus with his arms wide and smiling, probably left by another pilgrim. It was incredible. The next day I said to my daughter: 'How did you do that?' She said: 'A way opened up for me, It was like I was sitting in a chair, dangling my legs and letting them skim over the ground. You should have gone the way I went Mammy and you would have got to the top quickly too.' It took my three years to throw away the buggy.  She never needed it again but I kept thinking maybe she'll need it someday. She plays GAA football and all sorts of sports, though she still has arthritis, and needs medication, and recently had to get an injection for her wrist. She's completely active. No longer crippled at all either in her walking or in her posture. One more thing happened. About three months after we came home from Medjugorje, we were praying the Rosary in the kitchen at home. I noticed my daughter's face go very peaceful and I could no longer hear words coming from her mouth. When we finished the prayer, she told me she had been away with Jesus and Mary and that Mary had said to her: 'Walk with me.' The story went round the locale. One woman told me that when her eighty year old mother died, she had died peacefully talking about what had happened to the Burke Child. while praying the Rosary."

a peaceful interlude

"James," said Rowena "my children don't believe in God. They don't care about religion. So what does it matter to them all that stuff you go on about. That stuff about Muslims. They don't care about that stuff. It doesn't affect them. It doesn't concern them. So what does it matter?"
I nodded.
"It doesn't matter at all," I said, "because they're going to be Muslims."

giblet

Scene: Denmark. A castle. Midnight. Alarums, flourish and hautboys. Enter Tim Marshall of Sky News carrying a taper. He seems strangely troubled.

Tim Marshall: To be or not to be.
That is the question.
Whether tis nobler in the mind
To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of Muslims
And by opposing end them
Or to continue to explain away
Every new Islamic atrocity
With twee euphemisms
Suggesting those who oppose Muslim Terror are racists
While your television station finances itself
From donations by the Royal Family of Qatar
The big hearted non racist Mussies
The same ones who run Al Jazeera the Nazi channel
I kid you not
Ay there's the rub
For telling the truth about Muslims can get you killed
Or unemployed
Or worse
You should see what they do to schoolgirls who cross them in Afghanistan
Hoo baby
Whereas surrendering to Muslims
Or ignoring what they are doing to humanity
Or acquiescing to it even
Might mean I can hack another few years
Out of this dishonorable trahesion of discourse
Masquerading as a career
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought
You know how this ends don't you
We will all live and die
In black Islamic night
Ay there's another rub
The Caliphate
That barbarism from whose bourne
No dreamer or society returns
Oh it is death
Living death
But in that sleep of death
What dreams may come
Some of the Mussies claim to believe they get to ride women in the afterlife
As a prize for killing honkies
The women apparently have no say in the matter
Le plus se change
To die
To sleep
To sleep no more
To become immersed in Sharia Law
To drown in it
And by a sleep
To say we end
Culture, civilisation, freedom
The whole enterprise of man
The heartaches and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to
And that make life worth living
Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished
But what do I care
I never believed in God
I'll barely even notice
What matter if I swap
Hopeless Atheistic Rupert Murdock Worshipping Marxian Conformism
For Hopeless Psychopathic Murderous Humanity Destroying Muslim Nihilism
What difference to me
I've been well paid
Hark
Tis the Saudi Muezzin
Calling his Jihadis to prayer
On the streets of London, Rome, Paris, Dublin,
Hear it not Europe
Tis a knell
That summons thee to heaven
Or to hell

from the heelers phone texts

Barbie to Heelers.
Via Vodaphone.
"James, Remember in the Bible how God decided not to destroy the city for the sake of ten good men who resided there. Well I refuse to condemn all Muslims, for the sake of my Muslim friend Tania. Barbie."

Heelers to Barbie.
"That won't save you. "

archie unchained

Archbishop Django Martin has thrown some interesting shapes during the present campaign by Ireland's atheistic Fine Gael Labour Party government to legalise the murder of unborn children through abortion.
As a supposedly Catholic Archbishop, Archie would normally be required to oppose abortion in all its forms.
But as a Soviet era infiltrator of the Church, and would be leader of the Church in Ireland, his position on matters of such high principle might be expected to be a little bit more nuanced.
So, no surprises this week when Archie issued a public rebuke to Cardinal Sean Brady the actual head of the Catholic Church in Ireland for Cardinal Brady's honorable and clearcut stance on abortion.
Cardinal Brady had warned that any politician legalising abortion would be excommunicating himself from the Christian faith and should therefore not present himself for Communion in Catholic Churches.
On foot of the Cardinal's principled stand, Archie ran to the Irish Times and Independent Newspapers, viz the most anti Catholic media groups in Europe, to warn against any Church leader politicising the Communion ritual.
(Viz is a scurrilously sexist English magazine and has nothing to do with anything. Although some of its most vulgar story serials actually have a tither of wit to them. - Rod note.)
Yes.
Archie, a miserable little guttersnipe shleeveen Archbishop from Dublin, the man who would be king, accused Cardinal Sean Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, of politicising the Communion ceremony simply because Cardinal Brady had dared to speak out in defence of unborn babies.
Well, well, well.
Words fail me.
Normally Archbishop Diarmuid Martin contents himself with using the Irish Times and Independent Newspapers to falsely label Cardinal Brady as a concealer of child abuse.
Perhaps this time he really has gone too far.

vermillion

the birds of northernesse
had gathered to sing a lay
in a dark tree near a torrent
where the nether world issues
a word they want
a word they need
a word for an array
there spashed on vision none
their marvellous mystic hues

vermillion said the eagle
the maker of all laws
and since twas he that said it
so by life it was

vermillion said the osprey
keeper of the flame
and he looked around for challenge
in hauteur and disdain

vermillion said the hawk
and none could give the nay
for his claws were long and sharp
and he would have his way

vermillion chimed the other ranks
the pheasant and the hen
the jackdaw and the cormorant
the peewit and the wren

vermillon sang they all
in a wondrous symphony
and their voices rolled throughout the land
from the mountains to the sea

red blood quaked the sparrow
his plumage modest brown
and the birds could no see him
for his station lay far down

red blood piped he again
grown stronger at the truth
and the birds faced reality
and reality was mute

red blood cried he at last
and they saw him crouching low
and they flew at him and raged at him
and struck a mighty blow

shaking the ancient tree
about its massive girth
they seized him and they bore him
and they crushed him to the earth

regaining lofty branches
they did as they were meant
and shook their ruffled feathers
and nodded in assent

a word they had a good word
of a million words abhorred
they would hold to it cling to it
vermillion they roared

laugh in

Question: How many Muslims does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Nine hundred million, ie one to change the light bulb and eight hundred million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine to screw humanity to the peaceloving religion of Islam

apologia pro self righteousness mea

Evening in the heartland.
Ireland's greatest living poet is cadging a free dinner at the home of his Aunty Mary.
It's nice work if you can get it.
"James I was in church today and I thought of you," says Aunty Mary.
I preen awaiting soulful compliments.
"The reading was about you," continues Aunty Mary. "There was something along the lines of: If you have .
mastered all the philosophies and sciences and every field of human knowledge, but you do not have love, then you have nothing. That's you."
"Woman what are you saying to me?" I manage through a mouthful of her best spaghetti bolognese.
"I'm saying that you have no love."
"And are you saying this as some sort of drive by sneering at a lonely single man who is particularly vulnerable because he happens to be eating your vittals or is there some deeper meaning?"
"I'm saying it because of what you write about Muslims."
"What?"
"When you write about Muslims you have no love."
The noble Heelers pauses.
I nod for deeper effect.
"It is not that I love Muslims less," I tell her, "but that I love Ireland more. And America. And Britain. And Israel. And every other free country on earth. Oh and humanity. I have buckets of love for humanity. I can't abide the thought of humanity being enslaved to a new dark ages. Yes I am positively brimming over with love. It's my future supply of spaghetti bolognese that I'm worried about..."