Saint Mark’s Gospel:

When the Sabbath day was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices with which to go and anoint Jesus.

Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb, the sun being now risen.

They were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’

But when they looked, they saw the stone – it was very big – already rolled back.

On entering the tomb, they saw a young man in a white robe seated at the right-hand side, and they were astonished.

He said to them, ‘No need to be amazed. You are seeking Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Look, here is the place where they laid him.

‘But you must go and tell his disciples, and Peter, “He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will find him.”’

* * *

So that is why Easter is celebrated . . . .

Because of that unique, one-off, historical event.

Some people find it hard to believe that it really happened.

Did it?

* * *

Or was the story invented by his disciples for reasons of their own?

Not likely. All the disciples gained — humanly speaking – by teaching the Resurrection, was persecution . . . .

Like being fed to the lions.

If the Resurrection really happened, it is the pre-eminent, supreme event of history.

Without it, the Gospel record is nonsense.

With it, Jesus Christ is God.

The government of Chile is running a program called “Chile Grows with You” – described by TV commercials as “an invitation from the government to protect children”.

Chile seems to have a clearer idea of what a child is than, for example, Australia does.

One Chilean ad shows a baby moving its arms and legs inside the mother’s womb, with a voice-over saying, “My child hears and experiences the world just as I do. We’re connected . . . .”

And the program also emphasises that “the unborn child is a member of the family . . . .”

* * *

Chile has Latin America’s lowest maternal mortality rate.

Abortion was legal in Chile from 1931 until 1988 — then outlawed in 1989.

Will it stay outlawed?

The Bishops’ Conference of Chile is at present opposing a bill to legalise abortion in certain cases (to save the life of the mother, cases of rape and cases of foetal deformity).

 The bishops explain that it is never licit to take the life of the unborn even in these circumstances: “There is only one option . . . every effort must be made to save both lives, that of the mother and that of the child.”

While the mother’s feelings deserve care and respect, “no feeling must given more importance than the right to life of every human being . . . this is the first of all human rights, without which no others exist.”

 “The level of development of a community is measured by its capacity to care for the weak and the sick.”  

Otherwise it becomes “a dictatorship in which the strongest end up deciding the fate of the weakest. No one has the right to assume the power of deciding who deserves to live and who doesn’t,”

* * *

For centuries a Catholic nation, Chile is now targeted by the forces of secularism and atheism . . . .

 Also by “charismatic” and “pentecostal” breakaway groups . . . which draw would-be Christians away from participating in the Catholic Sacraments.

Contraception is now fairly freely available in Chile, which is never a good sign from a Catholic point of view.

Yesterday was apparently International Women’s Day.

Australia’s Governor General, Mrs Quentin Bryce, who is a woman, said she is “open to the idea of quotas” to boost numbers of women in senior positions at their workplace.

Is she then?

So she believes in discrimination on the grounds of gender?

Anyway, let’s forget about her . . . .

* * *

Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, used IW Day to claim some credit for Australian women having “the right to chart our own lives and careers” and for introducing “our country’s first national Paid Parental Leave Scheme”.

Nonsense.

The scheme REMOVES a woman’s right to chart her career.

If her career choice is to stay home to bring up her own baby for a few years at least, she will be punished — by getting none of the money handed out to mothers who go out to jobs, leaving their baby’s care to mercenaries.

It’s not a parental leave scheme at all.

It’s feminists taking revenge against those women who infuriate them by loving their children enough to give them the time of day.

Feminists HATE traditional families.

So mothering mothers miss out on the money.

But they get other things that may be worth more.

* * *

Parents of traditional families treasure memories of seeing the “milestones” of their child’s development.

Like when he/she first started to walk.

Modern job-going mothers will only hear about such things from the childcare centre staff when they pick up their offspring — too tired to care whether he/she walked or not — on the way home from work.

Australia’s main political parties are all equally determined to cut parents out of their children’s lives by promoting double-income dependency. 

Having parents with double-decker  incomes is little compensation for toddlers who have no brothers or sisters — and no idea where mum is for most of the 24 hours.

In Britain, 80 million Easter eggs are sold each year.

80 million little nails in the coffin of the Christian religion.

80 million little propaganda units spreading the word that Easter is about holidays and chocolate.

Not about God.

* * *

But this year something new under the sun is about to appear.

Some British supermarket chains will be stocking the Real Easter Egg — the UK’s first and only fair-trade charity Easter egg.

And the first to mention Jesus on the box.

The packaging tells customers: “Easter is all about cute bunnies, fluffy chicks and eating too much chocolate, right? Well, not quite. We happen to think it’s a bit more meaningful than that. That’s because billions of people all over the world believe that Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday, then rose again three days later . . . on Easter Sunday . . . .”

Two charities will benefit from the sale of the £3.99 eggs.

Traidcraft Exchange will receive 30p from every egg sold.

Baby Lifeline will receive 10 percent of the Real Easter Egg net profits.

* * *

The manufacturer, Meaningful Chocolate Company, says it has received more than 70,000 orders since the egg was launched last September 2010.

It has exhausted its supplies of direct mail-order eggs.

However the Christian-themed eggs won’t be found in Britain’s three biggest supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda – which between them have a 63 percent market share.

Perhaps these organisations are less interested in the Real Easter and more interested in real money.

Perhaps if the Real Easter Egg turns out a big seller these big supermarkets may get an attack of religion – and next year be glad enough to cash in.

Yesterday the media reported a survey by Girl Guides Australia into bullying.

They said that 68 percent of schoolgirls are “very concerned about bullying”.        

Experts talk about “stamping out” bullying amongst the young.

It won’t be easy.

* * *

Parents give their children electronic gadgets which are perfect for bullying.

What better than a mobile phone or somebody’s inbox for a bit of fun terrorising?

Are Australian parents ready to refuse their offspring electronic bully-toys?

If they do they’ll cop some bullying themselves — the kiddies blackmailing them one way or another until the privileges are restored.

* * *

Bullying isn’t exactly the problem.

Bullying is a symptom . . . of a universal social cancer.

You can no more stamp out bullying in present-day children that fix a melanoma by putting Vicks on it.

For starters, our children have never encountered a situation where bullying isn’t considered normal.

At home, do they not hear their neighbours being run down?

Do they not watch TV — programs full of insult-swapping, gossiping and violation of the weak?

Our adult society – with its capitalism, deregulation, globalisation, community-consultation-after-the-funding-has-already-gone-through – isn’t it wall-to-wall bullying, dressed up to look nice?

* * *

Christianity, correctly understood, is the one and only antidote to the bullying mentality.

Jesus told his disciples, “Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”

It’s the heart that matters.

Christ’s life was nothing but humiliation by those we might call “bullies” from beginning to end.

He welcomed it.

His death at the hands of his enemies he offered up to God.

The merit he gained makes those willing to follow him eligible to be partakers in the nature of God himself.

If we are on the receiving end of humiliations, let us, likewise, be glad to accept them.

As mentioned yesterday, a human genetic mutation has been with linked with “impulsivity”.

The mutant gene interferes with serotonin receptor development and,  in at least some males, with the chemistry of restraint and foresight in human behaviour.

This could be of interest from a practical point of view.

For example, with genes so important to instinctive behaviour, perhaps the central ideas of modern-day feminism are nonsense . . . .

* * *

Feminists say that male and female role-behaviours are “social constructs”  – that boys play with cars, and girls play with dolls, purely because their parents’ stereotypical thinking  makes them do so –  not because there’s something built into boys’ and girls’ brains making them fundamentally different.

But it seems likely to most people – confirmed now apparently by genetic research — that different male and female brain physiology must control how boys and girls instinctively behave.

Genes predispose males to traditional hunter/tribal leader-type instincts – in contrast with the gatherer/motherer-type instincts of females.

This could explain men’s tendency to “hunt” women and to mate with multiple women — while expecting their wives and daughters to be chaste and faithful . . . .

This blog considers male promiscuity and female mothering instincts to be built-in human basics – with which we must learn to live.

These male instincts must be controlled, sublimated and transformed if we are to make the world a better place – safer for our women and children.

* * *

To achieve this, wives must help their males to focus more on the family . . . .

And less on the breasts, thighs, buttocks and associated endowments of other people’s wives (and daughters) . . . .

All women might like to wear clothes that do not draw attention to the bits of their anatomy mentioned above.

And particularly to teach their daughters to dress modestly.

* * *

Perfectly ordinary, well-meaning, females do the wrong thing in this regard.

You’d think they have no idea how men’s minds work.

But they cannot really be so ignorant.

Do they live in such a state of self-absorption that they don’t care if they destroy themselves, their children and society — as well as their menfolk?