Anzac Day this coming Wednesday.
That gives you time to nip down to the local library and grab a copy of a book written 40 years ago about one Anzac Day in the life of one fictional boy.
Five pages from the end of the book it says:
“Did Margaret know that he had fought for her? Did she care? Was this the way it was with wars? The people you fought for not caring. Did you fight for nothing? After it was all over did they all go home, not looking back, shrugging it off, forgetting that you weren’t the same any more?”
* * *
Why did he say that?
You have to read the book to find out.
It is a book about a particular boy.
It is a book about all of us.
It is a very odd book.
It is a very good book.
It is called “Bread and Honey”
Author: Ivan Southall.

A new book about atheism and religion is creating some interest.

Swiss multimedia commentator, Alain de Botton, calls his book “Religion for Atheists: a non-believer’s guide to the uses of religion”.

He says modern atheists are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

He has little time for Richard Dawkins, for example. Such people, he says, have forgotten important truths — and must now humbly revisit at least some aspects of Faith to get them back.

Truths about how to live and love, care for others, handle suffering and death etc.

* * *

Some of the book’s suggestions are misguided: for example that atheists copy the idea of a weekly communal meal — as is, he says, “found at the heart of the Catholic Mass”.

No.

The communal meal concept is not the heart of the Mass.

The Mass is first and foremost a sacrifice — the sacrifice of Christ’s Cross made present, its memory celebrated and its saving power applied to the faithful.

Mass can be validly celebrated when non-communal — celebrated by a priest alone.

The Mass is something totally supernatural.

It has no “natural” equivalent that atheists can borrow.

It is part of the Catholic Faith or it is nothing.

OPPOSITION Treasury spokesman, Joe Hockey, says a Coalition government will consider reducing welfare payments while lowering taxes:

“The longer we rely on government handouts, the greater the burden for taxpayers and particularly those that follow.”

Some European countries spend 30 percent of GDP on welfare. Australia spends closer to 10 percent. Many poorer countries spend very little

Prime Minister Gillard parodies Coalition policy as being “if you can’t cope then try fending for yourself and if you can’t fend for yourself, well, unfortunately that’s too bad.”

* * *

At my work every day people tell me about life on the receiving end of Oz-style big-government big welfare.

. . . the long queues, the suspicion, the anonymity, the feeling of being a B-grade robot.

No, J Gillard, the only alternatives need not be either fending for yourself or dependence on pension/dole etc.

In the third world country where I worked, old and sick were cared for by family.

When this failed the Church stepped in.

Those helping you did it because they loved you, because you belonged.

A government that doesn’t believe in traditional marriage, with mother and father raising the children when possible, inevitably creates a distorted, clumsy, inhuman, unChristian environment for us all — especially the vulnerable.

Victoria’s parliament is holding an inquiry into the handling of child abuse allegations by churches and other non-government organisations.

ABC announcer, Wahid Ali, commented, for the benefit of listeners who hadn’t thought of it, that this really means the Catholic Church.

The Sydney Morning Herald and other anti-Catholic publications are underlining a similar message.

* * *

It is true that Catholic clergy who have sexually penetrated young children should be punished — ideally hung.

However the usual worry exists — false accusations could lead to innocent persons being executed.

The superiors of such offenders, e.g. bishops — if shown to have lied to protect them or failed to ensure that they have no further dealings with children — they should be locked up.

But Tony Abbott, federal Opposition leader, warns committee members not to single out the Catholic Church.

* * *

Everybody knows that most child abuse happens within families, especially step-families and de facto-headed families — not in churches.

Yet the ABC, SMH etc. never condemn de facto relationships — and tend to be supporters of teaching kindergarten and primary students that homosexual coupling is normal.

Don’t the media generally, especially television, reinforce our worst tendencies?

Wall-to-wall programs focussed on instant gratification and the joys of demeaning other people by word and deed?

Cardinal Pell, debating atheist Richard Dawkins, insisted that hell does exist.

Then added that he hopes hell is empty.

Contradicting himself.

Jesus Christ taught that there is a hell, and that it is not empty:

“At the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 13)

Best ignore modernists, no matter how high they rank in the Church, whose teaching is anti-Catholic.

If you believe in hell, the struggle to avoid it is worth any sacrifice — denying yourself seemingly pleasant disobediences to God’s laws.

If you don’t believe in hell, then whatever you do makes no difference to anything . . . .

You don’t really exist except as some kind of a robot.

* * *

Many so-called religious people think that everybody will go to the same place — namely heaven.

Atheists believe that everybody will go to the same place – namely non-existence.

Both groups are on the same side of the argument.

Both are wrong.

So believe in God. And believe in hell.

Pray that you will escape hell.

Pray for the souls of your friends and for all sinners everywhere.