We are now halfway between Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and the highest point of the Christian year, Easter Sunday.

There are six Sundays in Lent. Today is the fourth.

Entering the second half of Lent, a person should check his progress.

 (1) Every Christian must make his Confession at least once during Lent. Do that today or sometime this week.

(2) We should also make some sacrifice (e.g. giving up meat) and do something extra to help others (e.g. sponsoring a poor child).

(3) We should also make regular PRAYERS.

* * *

One prayer used for centuries during Lent is the Prayer of Saint Ephrem — traditionally said morning and evening.

It is in three parts. After each part, kneel briefly and reflect for a moment before going on:

“O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.  (kneel)

“Give me instead the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love. (kneel)

“Yes, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for Thou art blessed forever and ever. Amen (kneel)

* * *

The great thing about this prayer is how practical it is — a three-part check-list.

* What sins most distract us from preparing to celebrate Our Lord’s Passion? Aren’t they sloth (laziness), faint-heartedness (apathy/despair), lust for power (worldly ambitions) and idle talk (gossip)?

* This prayer reassures us that God wants to give us the virtues needed to overcome our weakness.

* Finally, we must abandon pride — knowing that only with God’s help can we please him.

* * *

The KNEELING is important.

We pray, not only with our minds, but also with our body.

Our body contributes to our sins. Now let’s conscript it into the fight against sin.

Kneeling is “psycho-somatic” evidence of our real desire to lose our pride and humble ourselves before Christ — by whose Passion our salvation is made possible – and our celebration of Easter a reality.

Last October, when Mary MacKillop was canonised, everyone was talking about miracles.

Before recognising a new saint, the Church waits until two miraculous cures following prayers to the saint are investigated and found genuine.

Mockers of the Catholic Faith despise miracles.

David Marr, in the Sydney Morning Herald:

“Let me whisper this from the back of the crowd gathering for the celebrations in Rome: miracles don’t happen.”

Mr Marr is a real believer.

He believes in infallibility — not the Pope’s infallibility — the infallibility of David Marr.

“Miracles don’t happen”. How do we know? Mr Marr said so. End of story.

Marr is, in fact, a fundamentalist. Whatever the evidence, his belief is fixed. Nothing can shake it.

* * *

The Bible records 34 miracles done by Jesus.

The gospel writers simply recorded what they saw.

Christ’s enemies never denied his having done miracles.

The High Priest, Caiphas, suggested they were “works of the devil”, but he knew better than to deny the miracles themselves.

The people he was talking to had seen them with their own eyes.

* * *

At Mass today, the Gospel reading describes a miracle known as the Transfiguration:

Jesus took Peter, James, and John up into a high mountain: and he was transfigured before them.

His face shone like the sun: his garments white like  snow.

And there appeared Moses and Elias, talking with him.

Peter said to Jesus: ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here: let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.’

As he spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him.’

The disciples hearing it,  fell upon their faces.

Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Arise, and fear not.’

As they came down from the mountain, Jesus told them: ‘Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead.’

* * *

Jesus was saying that an even bigger miracle was coming – the Resurrection.

It came. The apostles who witnessed it based their whole lives around this greatest miracle — the one we celebrate at Easter.

Easter is unique.

Don’t waste it.

Use it as a time of relating to God — not just as a holiday weekend.

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.

Whose fault is it that Queensland is being flooded and people are drowning?

Why Queensland?

Self-styled “Pastor” Daniel Nalliah said the other day on his website, “We had a strong prompting by the Holy Spirit to repent on behalf of Australia. As we started doing so, I was reminded that every time America went against Israel, there was disaster in the land . . . .

 “Then I was reminded of Kevin Rudd speaking against Israel on December 14. It is very interesting that Kevin Rudd is from Queensland . . . .

“Is God trying to get our attention? Yes, I believe so.”

* * *

Mr Nalliah once famously claimed that the Victorian bushfires were God’s punishment for Victoria for having passed abortion laws permitting late-term babies to be aborted by the head-crushing “partial-birth” abortion technique . . . .

Yes, that law certainly seems to cry out for divine retribution.

But it’s hard to be sure that the Black Saturday fires had anything to do with it.

* * *

The Bible records what Jesus said about this subject.

Gospel of Saint Luke:

“Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered like that they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!’

“Or those eighteen people killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them – were they more guilty than everyone else living in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!’”

By “repenting”, Jesus means feeling sorrow for having done something that offends God – plus a resolution to avoid situations where we are likely to fall into sin again.

* * *

If God sent a major natural disaster every time our community flouted his laws, there would be disasters every day and we’d have been wiped out long ago.

We probably deserve worse than what we get.

Final justice comes after this life.

We should all be happy about Christmas, the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The fact is that only Jesus can solve the real problems of mankind.

All real problems of men derive from sin (disobedience to God).

Health disorders, material, economic and political troubles – even bad decisions by umpires – all these are only really problems insofar as they affect our spiritual relationship with God.

* * *

That’s why Christmas is a good thing.

Christmas carries the message that there is a remedy for our troubles — the remedy being God’s forgiveness for our sins.

If we continue in unforgiven sin, we are a waste of both time and space – and can expect God to treat us as such.

So the problem of sin is serious.

Fatally serious.

The answer to that problem is NOT for us to make up our minds to do better.

That way we’ll merely discover that we’re incapable of persevering in ”doing better” for any length of time — because we’re spiritually broken, and can only be repaired by supernatural means.

The supernatural means being found exclusively in the confessional at a Catholic Church.

We might think it would be nice if there were some other alternative remedy — but there is none.

* * *

Anyway we don’t need an alternative.

God loves us enough to have given us the way back to him that we need.

Do we hate ourselves so much as to not accept his loving gift?

God will forgive because the sacrificial death of the God-made-man, Jesus Christ, was so infinitely meritorious  . . . .

So meritorious that it more than counterbalances all our attempts to make an enemy of God by disobeying him.

* * *

Let us thank God for his plan for our salvation, and for that first Christmas Day when it began to make itself apparent here on earth.

Let us also thank the Blessed Virgin Mary for her part in the birth — and in the Passion and death — of our Saviour.

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Even the ruling classes, and the media with which they manipulate us, have a soft spot for Christmas.

They permit, in small controlled doses, some mention of “the true meaning of Christmas” – a baby born in a stable somewhere, choirs of angels etc.

The reason they tolerate it is that they do not understand it.

To them Christmas is a kind of “Coca Cola of the people” – giving a sensation of sweetness, while leaving you with no teeth.

They understand Easter better — which is why at Easter time we are under pressure every year to focus exclusively on raising money for charities, family get-togethers, bunnies . . . .

And, above all, chocolate.

* * *

But the messages of Easter and of Christmas are the same message.

A message that:

 * God entered in Person into human history

 * he came to save us from our sins.

 * we must put him first in our lives.

 * we must detach ourselves from everything not essential to our union with God.

 * religion is everything in life, trumping every other concern.

* * *

Yes, once Christ arrived on earth at Christmas, Good Friday and Easter were inevitable.

Inevitable that he’d be persecuted and butchered by the trend-setters of his day (only to triumph by rising from the dead).

Christ’s message was hated in his lifetime — and it’s hated now.

If we attend to this world’s consumer items and fashion statements, while finding no time to focus, long and unhurried, on Christ’s life, Passion and death . . . .

Then we have succumbed/surrendered – such things being for us, idols, false gods, fetishes and perversions.

Anything that takes your mind off God is a tool of the devil.

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