In 2001, Islamic terrorists declared war on Western nations by destroying New York’s World Trade Centre.

In 2002, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights (a Catholic) said Islam is “entirely consonant with the principal of fundamental human rights and . . . bestowed rights upon women and children long before other civilisations.”

In 2008, the President of France called Islam “one of the most beautiful civilisations the world has known.”

In 2009, the President of the USA spoke of his “deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world – including my own country.”

* * *

It is intrinsic to the aims of Islam that ultimately all nations bend to Sharia law.

Non-Muslims are to be given the traditional three choices: (1) convert to Islam, or (2) die, or (3) become second-class citizens in one’s own nation, subservient and tribute-paying (they call it “dhimmitude”).

The Commissioner and the two Presidents quoted above seem to have volunteered themselves into dhimmitude without a struggle.

Everyone seems to be doing it — the rate of Westerners converting to Islam having supposedly doubled since 11/9/2001.

* * *

The only other alternative — that Muslims start converting to Catholicism — seems a long way off.

But we had better start making it happen soon, or it is going to be a very sad world indeed.

Where can the much-needed historical U-turn begin?

A good place would be in Catholic schools.

Let’s teach Catholic students that non-Christian religions are NOT good.

Let’s teach them why.

Let’s teach them how to understand their Faith — how to argue the case for Catholic belief – how to be living role models of the good that God can achieve in lives devoted to his obedience.

* * *

Let’s be willing to die, by all means.

But let us NOT be ready to sell ourselves to those who despise our weakness.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent.

Some Anglican bishops in England are getting headlines this Lent by asking their followers to do, this year, a “carbon fast”

They are talking about less using of energy-guzzling luxury items — including, for some reason, iPods.

Has the climate-change lobby skyjacked Lent?

* * *

There’s nothing wrong with cutting our carbon-based energy use. That is something we can do any time . . . and perhaps we should.

Would it “save the planet”? Who knows.

The important thing to remember this Lent is that saving-the-planet is not what God gives us Lent, Passiontide and Easter for.

There is something more important at stake than the planet.

The stakes are higher — spiritual, infinite and eternal.

* * *

Jesus Christ spent 40 days in the desert between Jerusalem and Jericho, fasting, before he started on his public life.

That’s why the Church asks Catholics to spend Lent — 40 days before the seasons of Our Lord’s Passion and Easter – preparing our souls for the supernatural climax of the year.

The traditional methods of preparation are “fasting, prayers and works of charity”.

* * *

So the most important thing about Lent is to make ourselves humble.

We need God. Without him we are nothing.

Our thoughts towards God should be like those of Saint Catherine of Siena:

“Your Passion is neither desired nor loved by anyone who loves himself, but only by the one who has stripped himself of self, and clothed himself with you . . . .”

Although Our Lord can no longer suffer, we, his Church, his Body on earth, can suffer . . . .

And  if we willingly accept our sufferings, offering them up to him, he can use our fasting, prayers and charity to continue his work of redemption in the world.

What is a saint?

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines a saint as a “holy person.”

However, we’re already hearing a lot of baloney about Mother Mary from people keen to play down her holiness.

Yesterday a chappie on the South Australian Catholic Church payroll told the media: “The thing about Mary is she’s a bit more vibrant, she’s not a goody-two-shoes type figure . . . .”

* * *

Cringe.

Are we so afraid of the notion of holiness that we must pretend that even true saints — who have given their whole lives to sacrificial devotion in the hope of becoming holy — are not really holy at all, but are, in fact, just a little bit like us?

Are we determined to domesticate even this greatest and holiest and most God-centred and prayer-centred Australian of all time, and make her ordinary – so that we, in our state of personal decay and feeble compromise, need not feel embarrassed or challenged to change ourselves?

* * *

Pope John Paul II warned against this: “Dear friends: Mary MacKillop cannot be understood without reference to her religious vocation . . . Mother Mary of the Cross did not just free people from ignorance through schooling, or alleviate their suffering through compassionate care. She worked to satisfy their deeper, though sometimes unconscious, longing for ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’.”

* * *

Here is a prayer that Mother Mary MacKillop used in her personal devotions:

“I resolve, with the help of God’s grace

to die any kind of death,

or to suffer any kind of pain,

either of mind or body,

or any other affliction that can befall me,

sooner than for one moment to commit a deliberate and known sin

against God’s love,

and the claims he has upon my duty and service. 

Hitherto I have sadly forgotten my great end . . .

I will come back to thee, my Eternal Father . . .

Let me not prove a coward in thy service. 

Let me love to be humiliated and persecuted,

so that I may, during the remainder of this short life,

remain as near to thee, my Jesus,

in the thickest of the strife,

as in thy Divine Wisdom thou art pleased to permit.  Amen.”

* * *

Holy Mary MacKillop, Saint Mary of the Cross, traditional Catholic, please pray for us.

Sometime in the next 24 hours Pope Benedict will announce Mary MacKillop’s recognition as officiallybeing a Catholic saint.

The formal canonisation ceremony will be later this year.

Then what?

Will Australians then suddenly change their ways and start living by the principles which Mary MacKillop lived by?

* * *

What principles did Mary MacKillop live by?

(1) Mary MacKillop believed in poverty — always ensuring that she had as little of this world’s goods as humanly possible.

Will we copy that?

(2) Mary MacKillop opposed government funding of Catholic schools.

She raised money, instead, by begging. All her nuns, including herself, begged — both in the streets and door-to-door.

Today’s church schools accept government money. Catholic teachers demand pay equal to government teachers.

(3) Mary MacKillop believed in obedience — expecting her Sisters to give absolute submission to the Rule of their Order, and to herself as their Superior.

Do Catholics today obediently submit to, and live by, Church teachings — or only to those teachings compatible with their worldly lifestyle?

(4) Mary MacKillop believed that God wants everybody to be a Catholic.

She requested prayers for her friends and relatives who weren’t Catholic, that they should convert.

So-called “ecumenism”, popular in today’s Catholic Church – the notion that God is happy with any religion so long as we’re sincere — was unknown to her.

* * *

So why is Mary MacKillop popular with Australians — most of whom have no intention whatever of living as she did?

We think we like her because we have created a FAKE Mary MacKillop.

A “feminist”, a “rebel” — that’s what we like to think she was.

But she wasn’t.

The “Mary MacKillop” we admire is a fraud of our own invention.

* * *

Do you want to learn what Mary MacKillop was really like, and to seek after God in her spiritual footsteps?

Then read about her — study what she herself actually said, wrote and did.

Don’t read just any old book about her, or you’ll end up misinformed.

What you need is a book about the REAL Mary MacKillop.

We think of China as a monolithic communist state.

But is it?

Or is there a different China that we know little about?

Out of China’s population of a billion-plus, there are only 70 million members of the Communist Party.

The number of Christians in China is estimated at 100 million and growing.

And there are so many “house churches” that nobody knows how to count them.

* * *

It is predicted that soon there will be more Christians in China than in any other country in the world.

This is a phenomenon that the Western media do not tell us about.

Is Christianity yet one more item that China will be exporting to us soon because our home-grown variety is so B-grade?

* * *

The Chinese Communist government itself has mixed feelings about its Christians.

The Catholic presence, despite persecution and repression, has great influence.

The Catholic Church in China, as in so many nations, is arguably its biggest non-government organisation.

Some Chinese leaders see Christianity as a much-needed “glue” to help keep their diverse society together.

* * *

In China, and world-wide, those who hate the Christian Faith have a few worries.

However, those who love the Faith also have worries.

Since 1970, world population has doubled.

Numbers of Muslims and Christians have both doubled.

But the big multiplier is the rising numbers of so-called Charismatic/Pentecostal “Christians” — these have increased 8-fold since 1970, now numbering about 600 million — almost a quarter of those calling themselves Christians worldwide — the majority of them ex-Catholics.

The universal culture that was once the Catholic Faith has dwindled since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.

Does not today’s world need, more than anything else, for Catholics to get their beliefs, liturgies and cultural framework back into gear in a hurry?

In 1983, on the seventh Wednesday before Easter, bushfires roared through many districts of Victoria and South Australia, leaving 85 people dead and over 3000 homes and other buildings reduced to ashes.

That event is remembered as the “Ash Wednesday Fires”.

* * *

The 46^th day before Easter was, of course, known as “Ash Wednesday” long before that.

A “day of ashes” to mark the beginning of Lent, the six-week pre-Easter season of prayers and fasting, has been celebrated by Catholics for over 1400 years.

It was mentioned in the Order of the Mass called the “Gregorian Sacramentary” (named after Pope Gregory I, pope from 590 to 604AD) which was the forerunner of the Traditional Catholic Mass used by all Catholics until the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s – and still used by traditional Catholics.

* * *

The name “Ash Wednesday” comes from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of believers as a sign of repentance. While doing it, the priest recites the words: “Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”.

Using ashes in ceremonies associated with sorrow for sins goes even further back into Old Testament times (in the books of Jeremiah, Psalms, Jonas, Judith, Job and others).

* * *

Ashes signify that we want God to give us a humble heart, so that we may weep for our sins and stop doing them – and to receive God’s strength to never give up, but to persevere in pleasing Him.

With such thoughts in your mind, go to church today and, as the ashes are put on your head, ask humbly for God’s mercy and grace.