The other day I visited an elderly couple.

They were watching television — a tennis match between Serena Williams and Ekaterina Makarova.

They wanted me to watch with them, so I did, for about ten minutes.

A few minutes can’t do much harm, I thought.

I don’t know if you’ve watched television lately.

I was amazed.

It was nothing like I remembered it – the screen perhaps ten times the size I had been used to — the clearness almost overpowering.

You could almost count the players’ hair follicles.

* * *

A persuasive, potent, compelling weapon — especially if directed at those who can’t or don’t read much.

Even the most appalling behaviour and ideas could be made to seem tolerable.

And viewers rendered even less likely to find the motivation to spend generous time with God.

* * *

How much more meaningful our lives could be if we found even small periods of time for silence and reflection . . . .

Would we not, then, experience what Saint Mary MacKillop described, “God’s presence seems to follow me everywhere and make everything I do, or wish to do, a prayer . . . .”

Libya’s Interim National Transitional Council (NTC), which seems about to take over the country, repeatedly announces its commitment to “democracy”.

Hard to believe.

It doesn’t seem to be happening in Egypt. It won’t happen in Syria.

Why should it happen in Libya?

Throughout most of history there has been no such thing as “Libya”.

 “Libya” holds over 100 tribes, many speaking different dialects.

The tribes around Benghazi have never considered themselves obliged to take orders from Tripoli.

The west-versus-east brawling of recent months is merely a continuation of what has been going on more or less forever.

Meanwhile, democracy remains a concept foreign to most North Africans.

* * *

How, then, to achieve peace?

The politicians will come up with various strategies.

But politics alone won’t do it.

There are two ways to seek peace in the world — the natural way and the supernatural way — i.e. politics and prayer.

Politics is unavoidable — but without supernatural help from God, violence will NEVER end.

When the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the children at Fatima, she offered a plan for peace:

“Pray, pray a great deal and make sacrifices. Penance is necessary. If people amend their lives Our Lord will, even yet, save the world – but if not, punishment will come.”

* * *

There are now fewer Muslims in Africa than there were in the year 1900 . . . .

 Whereas numbers of African Christians have increased by 33,000 percent — from an estimated one million to 330,000,000.

Why not in Libya?

I have pinched most of the following.

Hope it is some help to somebody out there:

I asked God to spare me pain. God said, “No. Hardship is your chance to detach yourself from worldly things and draw closer to me.”

I asked God to give me patience. God said, “No. Patience is a by-product of suffering. It isn’t something given. It is something to be learned.”        

I asked God to take away my bad habits. God said, “No. It is not for me to take them away, but for you to give them up.”

I asked God to give me happiness. God said, “No. I give you what is my will for you. You must decide to be happy about it.”

* * *

Catholics who pray the Divine Office prayers daily, begin every morning with this act of self-giving to our Creator:

Lord God, all-powerful, you have brought us to the beginning of this day.

By your power, keep us on the road to salvation.

Do not let us fall into any sin today . . . .

But grant that all our words, all our thoughts and actions may tend toward the fulfilment of your law of holiness.

Amen

On Thursday night, three ABC broadcast staff died in a helicopter crash near William Creek south of Lake Eyre.

They were Paul Lockyer (journalist), John Bean (photographer) and Gary Ticehurst (pilot).

They had been filming a documentary about the lake and intended covering yesterday’s official opening of William Creek airstrip.

The airstrip opening went ahead, but was more like a memorial service.

* * *

The priest, Father Paul, read from Saint Luke’s gospel, chapter 10, the story told by Jesus about the Good Samaritan – a story of undiscriminating love, an attribute which Australians admire and aspire to have:

A man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by robbers who stripped him, beat him and went away leaving him half dead. A priest who happened to be going down the same road, seeing him, passed him by on the other side. So too, a Levite, coming to the place, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came near and took pity on him, bandaging his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then, putting him on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and cared for him. Next day he gave two coins to the innkeeper, saying,  ‘Look after him and when I return I will reimburse you for any extra expense.’

“Which of these three”, asked Jesus, “do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The teacher of the Law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “You go, then, and do the same.”

When bad times come, God calls us to show neighbourly compassion, even when there is sacrifice involved — or even danger.

* * *

God does not only want us to be kind.

He wants us to put worshipping him first, above all else.

The story of the Good Samaritan is not the end of chapter 10.

The following section shows how, although practical kindness is important, there is something else at least as important — if not more so.

Look it up.

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

After the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, his mother lived with the Apostle John for about another 12 years.

On the third day after her death, when the apostles gathered at her tomb, they found it empty.

They understood that Mary’s body had been taken up (assumed) into heaven. That is what “the Assumption” means.

Why didn’t her body just reabsorb into the earth like everybody else?

The grave had no power over this woman. She was immaculate and sinless from the time of her conception.

As she had shared with Jesus in his sorrows and agony, so she now came to share in his victory over death.

God had given her great privileges, and she had been faithful to the graces received.

* * *

Many who profess to be Christians have trouble with the Church’s teaching about Mary, the Mother of God.

They shouldn’t. To a thinking Christian, there is no alternative.

Followers of Jesus believe they he was both true man and true God.

Because he was true man, Mary is rightly called a mother.

Because he is truly God, she is called the Mother of God.

* * *

It is fitting that we should consecrate our lives to this Mother, and pray to her in words such as these:

O Mary, conceived without sin, I wish to place myself under your special protection.

I choose you for my patroness, my mistress and my mother . . . .

I desire to make a solemn profession of belonging unreservedly to you, imitating your virtues: particularly your angelic purity, your profound humility, your blind obedience and your incomparable charity . . . .

Obtain for me, dear Mother, the grace of being faithful to this profession all my life, so that I may merit the favour of being your child during all eternity.

Amen.

A United Nations report of the Rights of the Child says Australia has made little progress in improving the plight of its most vulnerable children — Aboriginal children, the homeless and those in detention centres.

The report suggests appointing a “National Commissioner for Children” — adding that it would need to be “a very high ranking person”.

A spokesman for the federal Attorney-General says the government “is considering it”.

* * *

So who compiled this report?

UNICEF Australia, plus a few quango-type groups: the “Human Rights Law Resource Centre”, the “National Association of Community Legal Centres” etc.

We know what kind of “rights” UNICEF will be trying to impose.

* In 2004, UNICEF tried to interfere with a New Zealand government proposal requiring consent from parents before an under-age girl could be aborted. UNICEF wrote to all MP’s denouncing the proposal, claiming that parents would inflict violence on their daughter in such situations.

* This year, in New York, UNICEF has been campaigning for the sexualisation of the minds of children as young as ten — by means of “HIV-prevention education”, including condom-use etc.

If UNICEF is involved in selecting Australia’s National Commissioner for Children, it will be somebody anti-parent and anti-family.

* * *

It’s true that many Australian children are denied their rights.

Serious rights — about which UNICEF would have no interest or understanding.

The problem with UNICEF is its ideology that excludes any understanding of children as being primarily God’s children.

To them, children are the young of a species which has no loving Creator and no objective purpose.

With such a worldview, what hope is there of UNICEF being aware of what are, and what are not, children’s rights?

* * *

The first and most fundamental right of a child is to be baptised.

This is the natural action of parents who understand that their children are a gift from Almighty God.

And children have the right to be brought up – unless death or some other tragedy intervenes– by their natural parents (a mother and father who are married and living together).