Wednesday 30 November 2022

  THE LATEST FROM DETTERLING... (updated)

Image result for trainspotting in the 1950s                                            Detterling aged fifteen trainspotting in 1959


Detterling is threatening to use a Norwich Pharmacal Order against me.

He writes that he will obtain a "Norwich Pharmacal Order against Google Blogspot to obtain full personal information about you which will serve to confirm the information I already have about you." 


Ha! Ha! Ha!  This gave me a great laugh back in the day!

In fact, it gave me the best laugh I had since I put salt in the Head's sugar bowl at the staff Christmas dinner in 1980.

GENE

30th November 2022

Tuesday 29 November 2022

 

How God Is Guiding You To His Secret Plan For You


The events through which God guides each person in the Plan he has for his life.

The true God, Creator of everything, is a personal God Who directs the life of each person, but without imposing His plan on them.

Each person is the fruit of a dream of God and came to earth with a mission, which will bring them a wider, happier life, the more they carry it out.

But He respects our free will and therefore does not force us to choose His plan as if we were robots; instead, He guides us by putting in our path the things that will direct our lives toward that plan.

We are free to choose or not choose to follow His plan.

Or we can have our plan, but be aware of what God thinks is appropriate in that plan and what is not.

And when we notice that something is not accepted by God, we put it aside and align ourselves with what He has prepared for us.

Here we will talk about how God is guiding us toward the plan He has for each one of us, what instruments He uses, and the signs He gives us to guide us.

We have all had the experience of an unexpected phone call from someone we were thinking about.

Or we meet someone on the street who changed the direction of our lives.

What made that person call you on the phone at that time?

What made the other person stand in your way at the right time? [scroll more more]:

We can consider those things coincidences, circumstances without an apparent causal connection, mere things that happen.

But in fact, if we live with our eyes open, we will see that independent circumstances often line up so wonderfully that it’s obvious there is a Hand behind them.

And for one who believes in a Divine Supreme Being, who sincerely cares for the welfare of His creations, such occurrences are more than mere coincidences.

Through these coincidences it is that God guides us in His Plan.

Believers know that what seems like a coincidence is actually orchestrated by a sovereign God, who cares about the sparrow and the hairs on our heads, according to Matthew 10:29.

Because the administration of the universe is not based on chance, the Bible says that God controls even the most random event.

And He is not only in charge of the big events of our lives, but also our daily challenges.

There are no coincidences. The succession of events and circumstances that sometimes apparently favor us and others harm us are always arranged by Divine Will.

Accepting coincidences and believing in them as the result of chance, destiny, or circumstances, is to deny Divine omnipotence and marginalize Providence.

Our lives are not random, like branches floating in a stream going to destinations unknown.

We all have a greater purpose.

And He is actually there watching over us and directing us through a gigantic GPS.

So God enters our lives usually disguised as coincidences.

And therefore, being open to coincidences is like having access to an extra set of eyes.

Saints are constantly on the lookout for such signs and take full advantage of them when they appear.

Because God has a mission reserved for each one of us, which only the person in question can carry out and guides us through apparent coincidences.

Everything that happens to us is an opportunity to fulfill that mission, which we probably won’t fully understand until we get to heaven.

And if our lives move towards fulfillment of what God wants, we will never lack Divine help to focus on the mission and develop our full potential.

However, few are those who follow this path from birth; we all insist on walking on our own and letting go of the Hand that the Lord extends to us.

And only when we realize that we have made a mistake, seeing that we have crashed, do we go in search of that loving hand that is always outstretched towards us.

So that all the evils that God allows to happen to us, and all the good that we can receive, are always incentives for us to get closer to Him.

To repeat: what He seeks is to stimulate us with good or bad, so that we walk toward Him.

To save us frustration and pain, the Lord asks us to place our faith and our hope only in Him, to love Him with all our hearts, to renounce our own strength and our plans, through humility and abandonment, and He will do the rest. 

One day He told Saint Catherine of Siena “you take care of Me, I already take care of you.”

And we see this most clearly when turning points occur in our lives, in circumstances when the path of our life takes a new direction. For example, when you lose someone you love or something you valued; or you have a new job; or a new relationship; or a new home.

And surely there was always a sign at each turning point, to provide you with assurance that everything was going to be alright, and that you were not alone.

Therefore we need a confident look to distinguish God hidden in the midst of coincidences. 

It is important to try to see the meaning of a chance encounter, a delay, a loss, an abandonment, a forgetfulness, a word, a silence. 

Because behind everything is His hand guiding your boat. [scroll for more]:

But His guidance is normally not through signs of fire and sparks. 

God is usually subtle in his messages and miracles.

He can cause a candle to drip so that it resembles an angel, or the sun to have a slightly unusual reflection, or the bark of a tree to form what looks like a vague silhouette of Jesus, or a stone a heart.

And those are signals which play together with the things that happen to us in the day, with those we meet and those we don’t, the conversations that arise, etcetera.

Therefore, look for the signs in the ordinary; be aware of the signs always and everywhere.

Look for the signs that appear in your daily routine and accept the course of events, as directed by Him.

And remember that when it is God’s time, there is never a frenzy; everything is smooth.

However, it can happen that sometimes you feel frustrated, waiting for something that just isn’t happening and you can’t understand why prayers are not answered.

And in these cases there is only one solution: let go of whatever you are longing for and put it in God’s hands.

Trust beyond what you usually do. 

Do not be agitated, for anxiety inhibits Grace, and may be caused by the spirit of fear.

Think that sometimes an elbow is also a miracle.

And that each temptation is a gift, because it is the opportunity to become closer to Jesus.

And what are the tips to deal with the signs that God sends us?

Start by having faith that God handles coincidences, that He gives you signs to guide you along the way, and that everything works for your good.

Look back at the wake that your life is leaving, when you sail the sea of ​​life, and you will find coincidences to better understand what God wants from you and has to give you in the future.

Because we live our lives forward, but we understand them looking back.

Think for example when you ever met someone by chance and they gave you information that solved a problem you had.

Because the most common thing is that coincidences happen to us in daily life that we often dismiss too easily and often they are something significant.

Therefore we must be in constant work discerning if the coincidence that happened to us is our fantasy or something that comes from God. And then, what does God want to tell us with this: the message for us.

Turn to prayer, and then the Holy Spirit will give you information or put you in front of facts to go in a certain direction or to do the exact opposite.

Put yourself in God’s Hands, but do not easily give up what you think is good for you, because God can also test you before giving you what He has in store for you.

Remember that we are never going to ask God for too much, because His resources are unlimited.

And whenever you ask you must also believe.

The more you believe, the more your faith in God grows. And the more you let yourself fall into God’s arms, the more He will save you from danger — He will get you out of hard jams, He will hold you and help you achieve a goal.

And once you feel that God has given you a promise, wait. Which means knowing that the promise will come despite any setbacks or delays that occur.

Look for signs that the process is running and wait for redundancy.

Because the Holy Spirit sends us redundancy in case we are distracted; He often gives us one sign after another.

And get ready to experience the Divine tipping point, which occurs when God puts us in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.

And I would like to ask you if you have seen those coincidences that come from God or not act in your life?

+

 

Less than half of England and Wales population Christian, Census 2021 shows

  • Published
Crowds of peopleIMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Fewer than half of people in England and Wales describe themselves as Christian for the first time, the Census 2021 has revealed.

The proportion of people who said they were Christian was 46.2%, down from 59.3% in the last census in 2011.

In contrast the number who said they had no religion increased to 37.2% of the population, up from a quarter.

Those identifying as Muslim rose from 4.9% in 2011 to 6.5% last year.

People were also asked about their ethnic group and national identity - the responses of which were released in the results just published.

The census is carried out every 10 years by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

People were asked the broad question what their religion was rather than being asked more specifically about their beliefs or religious practices, in the voluntary question included in the census since 2001.

Ticking "no religion" does not mean having no beliefs, says Prof Linda Woodhead, from King's College London.

"Some will be atheist, a lot will be agnostic - they just say, 'I don't really know' - and some will be spiritual and be doing spiritual things." she said.

Separately when people were asked about their ethnic group, 81.7% of residents in England and Wales identified as White, down from 86.0% a decade earlier, according to the census.

And 74.4% of the total population identified as White as well as English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British.

The next most common ethnic group was Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh accounting for 9.3% of the overall population - 5.5 million people, up from 4.2 million.

The number of people identifying as Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African was 2.5% of the population, up from 1.8%, taking the figure from 990,000 to 1.5 million.

One in 10 of households across England and Wales are now made up of of people from two or more different ethnic groups - an increase from 8.7%.

Leicester has become one of the first cities in the UK where people identifying as white are no longer the majority - with 41% compared to 51% in 2011.

In terms of national identity, among those who described it as not being the UK, the most common response was Polish, followed by Romanian.

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Analysis by Aleem Maqbool, BBC religion editor

It may feel like a pivotal moment, with the census showing fewer than half of people in England and Wales identifying as Christian, but for years social surveys have shown a rapid rise in those who define themselves as having no religion, often reporting that as the largest category - that is not the case in the census data.

With its very simple optional question, "What is your religion?", the census does not illustrate the range of 22.2 million people in the "no religion" category; from those who do not believe in god at all to those who do in some form, or believe in the power of prayer and an afterlife or are spiritual in some way.

The trend away from faith is not something that is reflected in major non-Christian religions which all saw a rise, with more than 1.2 million more people identifying as Muslim in England and Wales in 2021 as compared to 2011. As with ethnicity, patterns of family size and immigration are seen as contributory factors.

Of those who chose to write in their answer under the "any other religion" option, the largest group identified as Pagan, with a tenfold rise from 2011 in those identifying themselves as Shaman.

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In terms of religion, London is the most religiously diverse region of England, with just over 25.3% of people reporting a religion other than Christianity.

And south-west England is shown to be the least religiously diverse region, with 3.2% selecting a religion other than Christian.

The figures also showed differences in nations - in England alone, 37.2% of people said they had no religion, while in Wales this rose to 46.5% from 32.1% in 2011.

Following the announcement, the Archbishop of York said the country had "left behind the era when many people almost automatically identified as Christian".

The Most Rev Stephen Cottrell said: "It's not a great surprise that the census shows fewer people in this country identifying as Christian than in the past, but it still throws down a challenge to us not only to trust that God will build his kingdom on Earth but also to play our part in making Christ known."

He said that, facing a cost-of-living crisis and war in Europe, people still needed spiritual guidance, adding: "We will be there for them, in many cases, providing food and warmth."

The census explores how British society is being shaped from people's answers to questions about themselves, their household and their home.

The results help organisations make decisions on planning and funding public services including transport, education and healthcare.

The 2021 survey, carried out on March 21 last year, was filled out by more than 24 million households across England and Wales. More data from the census is set to be published in stages over the next two years.

Scotland's census was due to take place in 2021 but was delayed by a year due to the Covid pandemic.

 

NO WOMEN PRIESTS!

With America magazine pope 

talks about church division, 

women, abortion

Pope Francis speaks during an interview with the top staff of America magazine at the Vatican Nov. 22, 2022. During the wide-ranging interview, Pope Francis talked about polarization in the church, the role of women, the ministry of bishops, and more. (CNS photo/Antonello Nusca, America Media)

By: Cindy Wooden

Date: November 28, 2022

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a wide-ranging interview with top staff of America magazine, Pope Francis decried increased polarization within the Catholic Church, affirmed the need to involve more women in church administration but ruled out women priests and emphasized the importance of the ministry of individual bishops over the role of a bishops’ conference.

“The more polarization there is, the more one loses the Catholic spirit and falls into a sectarian spirit,” the pope told staff from the Jesuit weekly. “What is Catholic is not either-or, but is both-and, combining differences.”

Jesuit Fathers Matt Malone and Sam Sawyer, respectively the outgoing and incoming editors of America, executive editor Kerry Weber, Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and podcast host Gloria Purvis interviewed Pope Francis Nov. 22. The interview was released Nov. 28.

Asked about abortion and the way the emphasis on church teaching against abortion seemed to be politicizing and polarizing Catholics in the United States, Pope Francis insisted the fetus is a human being and repeated his view that abortion is killing a human being to resolve a problem.

But, he said, the problem for the church “arises when this reality of killing a human being is transformed into a political question, or when a pastor of the church uses political categories.”

“When I see a problem like this one, which is a crime, become strongly, intensely political, there is a failure of pastoral care in approaching this problem,” the pope said. “We cannot deal with (abortion) as if it is only a civil matter.”

Pope Francis did not explain how he thought a bishop or priest could explain church teaching in a way that was pastoral but not political and he declined to give an opinion on whether the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops should present the fight against abortion as its preeminent concern.

“This is a problem the bishops’ conference has to resolve within itself. What interests me is the relationship of the bishop with the people, which is sacramental,” he said. “The sacramental part of the pastoral ministry is in the relationship between the pastor and the people of God, between the bishop and his people. And this cannot be delegated to the bishops’ conference.”

“Jesus did not create bishops’ conferences,” the pope said. “Jesus created bishops, and each bishop is pastor of his people.”

On the question of women in the church, Pope Francis insisted that ordained ministry is open only to men but that the church has a feminine, Marian dimension that is even more important. But, he said, administrative roles do not belong to either theological category, and the church should appoint more women to those offices.

“That the woman does not enter into the ministerial life is not a deprivation. No,” the pope said. The place of women, as a “mirror” of the church as mother and spouse, “is much more important,” although he admitted the Catholic Church has not done a very good job developing that aspect of theology and explaining it.

On the question of Russia’s war on Ukraine and on the Vatican’s relationship with China, Pope Francis insisted that openness to dialogue is the best way forward.

While many Ukrainians and others would like the pope to condemn Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, the pope said he did not think it was necessary. “If you have a martyred people, you have someone who martyrs them.”

“Why do I not name Putin? Because it is not necessary; it is already known,” he said, adding that “the position of the Holy See is to seek peace and to seek an understanding. The diplomacy of the Holy See is moving in this direction and, of course, is always willing to mediate.”

As for China, the interview was conducted two days before a bishop was installed as “auxiliary bishop of Jiangxi,” a diocese the Vatican does not recognize and an appointment the Vatican said it did not agree to, in violation of its controversial accord with China on the appointment of bishops.

Asked about criticism that the Vatican has been silent on China’s human rights violations in exchange for having input on the appointment of bishops, the pope said: “It is not a matter of speaking or silence. That is not the reality. The reality is to dialogue or not to dialogue. And one dialogues up to the point that is possible.”

“With China I have opted for the way of dialogue. It is slow, it has its failures, it has its successes, but I cannot find another way,” Pope Francis said. “There are Christians there. They have to be cared for, so that they may be good Chinese and good Christians.”