Co-heirs of the Grace of Life

As Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you are, doing well, and not fearing any disturbance. Ye husbands, likewise dwelling with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the female as to the weaker vessel, and as to the co-heirs of the grace of life: that your prayers be not hindered.

- 1 Peter 3:6-7

It is truly an honour to be co-heirs of the 'Grace of Life', and one which can often be overlooked or treated in a common or profane way. Our modern culture tells us having children is something to be 'put off', to delay, until more satisfactory aspects of life have been exhausted. Children have become, like STDs, a consequence of sex to avoid and protect against. There are very real moral arguments against contraception, but we must not forget the consequences such a contraceptive attitude will have on the children left over: the feeling that they are somehow an accident, something which got in the way of their parent's true happiness.

If we are to reclaim a culture of life for our children, we have to tackle it at its very core: the way we view children, and the value we place on parenthood. Nurturing children is not a 'necessary evil', it is a path to holiness and a way of discovering the true value of human life. Often it is out of concern for our little ones that we want to avoid the things which deprive our lives of divine grace, even if we do not at first acknowledge them to be wrong. It can also teach us the sort of child-like faith which we should have in God - a simple obedience and humility, and an acknowledgment of the utter dependence we have upon Him.

Anglican Plea

After an overwhelming vote in favour of women 'bishops' in the church of England, conservative Bishop Burnham of Ebbsfleet has spoken about possible reconciliation with Rome as a way out of the crisis:

What we must humbly ask for now is for magnanimous gestures from our Catholic friends, especially from the Holy Father, who well understands our longing for unity, and from the hierarchy of England and Wales. Most of all we ask for ways that allow us to bring our folk with us.

Our thoughts and prayers are with these Anglicans who desperately desire to be close to Apostolic Tradition. May this sad course of events have a silver lining...

Credit to Damian Thompson.

New Look Valle

A commenter has noted the altered appearance of my site and suggested that it was better the other way around. Well, I'm afraid in my experimentation I messed the whole thing up, lost lots of 'widgets' and am faced with starting afresh.

I prefer the fixed width format now because it means the header stays put. There was a way I used previously where the header resized across the whole width according to the size of the window, but alas I have not been able to recall how. The most annoying thing is that I've lost my excellent tabs which made my template the envy of blogdom. And again, I can't remember how I did them.

Anyway, its now a work in progress and I'd welcome any feedback on changing colours and layout etc. but find that blogger beta is harder than ever to hack with. Once again, I'm sorry to the people who keep checking back for updates. I will commit something to writing later this week after I've got a big presentation out of the way on Wednesday. God bless everyone.