With Father’s Day almost upon us, expect a host of media stories on men and family life. Some will do a good job of capturing the changes and continuities associated with fatherhood in contemporary America. But other reporters and writers will generalize from their own unrepresentative networks of friends and family members, try to baptize the latest family trend, or assume that our society is heading ceaselessly in a progressive direction. So be on the lookout this week for stories, op-eds, and essays that include these five myths on contemporary fatherhood and family life.
1. THE ‘MR. MOM’ SURGE
Open a newspaper or turn on a TV in the week heading up to Father’s Day and you are bound to confront a story on stay-at-home dads. I have nothing against stay-at- home dads, but they make up a minuscule share of American fathers.
For instance, less than 1 percent (140,000) of America’s 22.5 million married families with children under 15 had a stay-at-home dad in 2008, according to the U.S. Census. By contrast, about 24 percent (5,327,000) of those families had a stay-at-home mom. This means that the vast majority — more than 97 percent — of all stay- at-home parents are moms, not dads.
The focus on Mr. Mom obscures another important reality. In most American families today, fathers still take the lead when it comes to breadwinning: In 2008, the Census estimated that fathers were the main provider in almost three-quarters of American married families with children under 18. Providership is important to protect children from poverty, raise their odds of educational success, and increase the likelihood that they will succeed later in life. Thus, the very real material contribution that the average American dad makes to his family is obscured by stories that focus on that exotic breed, the stay-at- home dad.
2. WOMEN WANT EVERYTHING 50-50
Another prevailing media myth is that contemporary women are looking for fathers who will split their time evenly between work and family life. It may be true for the average journalist or academic, but it is not true for the average American married mom.
On Pentecost, we rejoice that “God cannot lie” (Titus 1:1-2). The same cannot be said of Hollywood.
Father Stanley L. Jaki, OSB
1924-2009
On the fiftieth day after the Resurrection, God filled his Church with the Holy Spirit. Jesus kept his promise: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). Pentecost is the start of Christian life rather than the end of the story, rather as Churchill said after the battle of El Alamein: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
The power the Holy Spirit gives the Church is the truth. Truth is the ultimate power because it is reality. “Men may all lie, but God is always true” (Romans 3:4). Truth always wins, in the long run. In the short run it may seem that lies win. But truth sustains life while falsehood destroys it. Jesus said that Satan “was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Lies do have power, but it is a fatal power and eventually self-destructs. In our society there are lies that an unborn baby is not human, and that marriage is not naturally the union of male and female, and that truth is only opinion. When a society accepts these lies, it eventually clashes with inescapable reality and crumbles. Even Satan is forced to tell the truth in the presence of Christ: “I know who you are, the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24).
A recent film, Angels and Demons, is the latest embarrassing attempt to lie about Christ and his Church. It is filled with amateurish technical mistakes, not to mention the historical and archeological ones. The script says the Church opposes scientific truth, when in fact, as the recently deceased Benedictine priest Stanley Jaki explained in dozens of books, the Church provides the philosophical matrix for the motive and method of physical science. The Church attends to the truths of Heaven, but she does not neglect physical science, because God made the world as a blessing. Galileo, whom the film mentions as a member of an esoteric secularist sect known as the “Illuminati” (which in fact was founded two centuries after Galileo), became the leading member of the original Pontifical Academy of Sciences founded under the patronage of Pope Clement VIII. Major discoveries in mathematics, astronomy, physics, genetics, botany, zoology, and medicine have taken place in universities established by the Church and they continue to be the work of Catholics from John XXI and Sylvester II, through Hermann of Reichenau, Robert Grosseteste, Bacon, Albertus Magnus, Buridan, Descartes, Copernicus, Schyrleus, Pascal, Lobkowitz, Secchi, Pasteur, Carrel, Marconi, Fleming, up to Father Georges Lemaître who proposed the Big Bang theory.
My son and daughter, ages eight and five, seem to be having a contest over who can tattle on the other more. I’m at the point where I don’t want to hear another accusation of any kind. How can I end this constant tattling? — Tattle Weary
Kids like to tattle. It seems to arise from some juvenile sense of justice. As Benedict sees it, there’s no way he can idly stand by as his sister gets away with the very same things he tries to get away with. That simply isn’t fair, and it must be stopped.Basic tattling comes in several forms. Most straightforward is the Do you know what he did? tattle, designed simply to get a sibling into hot water. “Mom, Cliff just climbed on the couch again.” Here the tattler benevolently leaves the form of discipline up to you, the parent. He just wants to make sure you’re aware of the transgression.
Then there’s the more urgent Do something about him tattle. “Make Iris quit looking at me.” In this instance, the tattle-worthy offense, looking, is brought to your attention, along with the demand that you do your parenting duty, now.
Most major league is the Don’t just look at her, do something tattle. “I can’t believe you’re letting her talk to you like that. You never let me use that word, in that tone of voice, yet!” Here the tattler makes sure not only to point out what you’re already aware of, but also to pressure you into feeling that if you don’t take action, you’re being lazy, unfair, or — heaven forbid — inconsistent in your discipline.
Probably the simplest way to silence tattling is to ignore it. Set up a house rule: Tattled words are unheard words. If you didn’t see what happened, or if you have no solid evidence of misconduct, you will not act. Obviously, if you spy Rufus hanging upside down from the spouting or Harry shows you his bald spot where Cutler snipped a chunk of his hair while he was sleeping, you may want to investigate further. But, on the whole, the stuff of day-to-day tattling is highly ignorable, however highly irritating. Then, too, if you try to ferret out the degree of truth of every tattle, you risk opening a can of worms, filled with tattles and counter-tattles, but short on facts.
To quiet an inveterate tattler, one whose main aim seems to be to shadow his siblings and make their lives miserable by reporting to you in graphic detail every misstep, you might consider a more active approach. “Ripley, whenever you tattle on Angel, whatever happens to her will happen to you.” For instance, if Angel has to sit inside for fifteen minutes because, according to Ripley, she flung the kickball over the house again after being tagged out, Ripley too will cool down for fifteen minutes inside. Essentially, his tattling is being directly disciplined because its sole intent is to make life difficult for his sister, not to guide you in her upbringing.
With either method, must you worry that you’re teaching your kids never to monitor each other’s behavior and never to act responsibly if the situation calls for it? Absolutely not. Tattling is a far cry from genuine sibling concern. Tattling is endlessly bringing to your attention minor scrapes and childish conduct that you’d be better off just overlooking. A chronic tattler knows, or will quickly learn, what you’ll attend to and what you won’t.
There’s a bright side to tattling. It should leave no doubt in your mind that your kids know exactly what you expect. Even while Polly is tattling, she is also telling you loud and clear that she knows what is right and what is wrong, what is allowed and what isn’t.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Ray Guarendi. “A Cure for Tattling: Hear No Evil.”
Self-esteem is a deeply secular concept, and not one with which Christians should be particularly involved.
Today, the largest and most familiar part of American Psychology is the popular psychology of self-esteem, now found throughout American society. Self-esteem and the obsession that so many have with it, is familiar to almost all of us these days. Self-esteem programs affect the lives of countless school children, because this idea, really an ideal, has been taken and applied primarily in education. Historically, the concept of self-esteem has no clear or obvious intellectual origins. No major psychological theorist made it a central concept. Many psychologists, however, have emphasized the self in various ways but the usual focus has been on self-actualization or fulfillment of one’s potential. As a result, it is difficult to trace the source of this emphasis on self-esteem. Apparently, this widespread preoccupation is a distillation of the general concern with the self found in so many psychological theories. Self-esteem seems to be the common denominator pervading the writings of such varied theorists as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, ego-strength psychologists, and moral educators especially recently. In any case, the concern with self-esteem hovers everywhere in the US today. It is, however, most reliably found in the world of education — from professors of education, to principals, teachers, school boards, and the television programs that are concerned with education, particularly those programs concerned with preschool education like Sesame Street
Why a strong, intact home life is the biggest single factor in raising good, successful kids.
It took the media a while to acknowledge that most of Katrina’s victims were black. Apparently, it will take longer to mention that most of the victims were women and children. I noticed three commentators who brought up the delicate subject of the mostly missing males — George Will, Gary Bauer, and Thomas Bray, a columnist for the Detroit News. Will noted that 76 percent of births to Louisiana’s African-Americans are to unmarried women, and probably more than 80 percent in New Orleans, since that is the usual estimate in other inner cities. Will wrote: “That translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males, and that translates into chaos, in neighborhoods and schools, come rain or come shine.”
A good deal of hard evidence shows that this is so. Two decades of research produced a consensus among social scientists of both left and right that family structure has a serious impact on children, even when controlling for income, race, and other variables. In other words, we are not talking about a problem of race but about a problem of family formation or, rather, the lack of it. The best outcomes for children — whether in academic performance, avoidance of crime and drugs, or financial and economic success — are almost invariably produced by married biological parents. The worst results are by never-married women.
High crime. In a policy brief released last week, the Washington-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, http://www.marriagedebate.com/pdf/imapp.crimefamstructure.pdf looked at 23 recent studies dealing with family structure and youth crime. In 19 of the 20 studies that found family structure to have an effect, children from nonintact or single-parent families had a higher rate of crime or delinquency. Neighbourhoods with lots of out-of-wedlock births have lots of crime. Ominously, one study said that the more single-parent families there were in a neighborhood, the more crime there was among two-parent kids living around them. Again, these studies are controlled for race.
Among the other findings:
Adolescents in single-parent families were almost twice as likely to have pulled a knife or a gun on someone in the past year. This was after controlling for many demographic variables, including race, gender, age, household income, and educational level of parents.
In a large sample of students in 315 classrooms in 11 cities, the “single most important variable” in gang involvement was found to be family structure. In other words, the greater the number of parents at home, the lower the level of gang involvement. A study of American Indian families found that living in a two-parent family reduced gang involvement by more than 50 percent.
Isn’t love supposed to just find you, like you just “find” a hole in the middle of the street when you fall in? Sure, romance and infatuation may initially require little effort, but to experience deep long-lasting, intimate love requires a passionate pursuit.
In his book, Soul Cravings, Erwin Raphael McManus writes eloquently about intimacy and love. “We are most alive when we find it, most devastated when we lose it, most empty when we give up on it, most inhuman when we betray it, and most passionate when we pursue it.”
Most passionate when we pursue it? Hmmm. . . it reminds me of Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians in Chapter 14 verse 1: “Pursue love,” he writes.
Wait a minute. Isn’t love supposed to justfind you, like you just “find” a hole in the middle of the street when you fall in? Sure, romance and infatuation may initially require little effort, but to experience deep long-lasting, intimate love requires a passionate pursuit, just like Paul said.
This passionate pursuit sounds vague and for that reason it seems impossible. After all, what does it mean to pursue love? Most of us have never been taught about developing emotional intimacy with another human. We’ve learned how to tie our shoes, do algebra, balance a checkbook, cook lasagna and maybe change the oil in our car; but no one has ever taught us how to pursue love.
Here are some basic but powerful ideas on how you can pursue love and make an art out of developing deeper emotional intimacy with those who mean the most to you. These principles can help you in your relationship with your boyfriend, girlfriend and even just your friend-friend. If you put them into practice, I’m confident that you’ll even find your pursuit for emotional intimacy and true love enjoyable.
Intimacy is spelled A-C-C-E-P-T-A-N-C-E
There are keys that open just about every door on planet Earth. I have one to my car door, the door to my home and even the door to my jewelry box. Intimacy is the same. There is one particular key to open the Intimacy Door in your relationships: it’s called the Key of Acceptance. Because intimacy means that we allow another person to “see into” us and they allow us to “see into” them, the Key of Acceptance must be used. After all, no one wants to allow someone to “see into” their heart who is controlling, judgmental, critical, sarcastic, unforgiving, abusive, selfish or just plain nasty.
So, if you want others to open their heart to you, you’ve got to give them a safe to do so. Why? Because the truth is that while most of us may act like we’re not afraid of anything, in the deepest part of ourselves, our hearts are very tender, fragile and generally fearful of relational pain. For hearts to thrive in intimacy, they’ve got to feel safe and accepted.
Here are some ways you can use the Key of Acceptance to open the door to emotional intimacy in your relationships and pursue love!
Share in your friend’s emotions
Laugh together
When Rebecca dated Brad, she often felt like an unaccepted alien. Why? Because whenever she told a joke, he looked at her as if she had three heads. His look said, “I don’t like the part of you that is funny.” He rarely joined in her humor and if he did, it seemed forced.
You may have heard it said that the shortest distance between two hearts is laughter. If you want to develop intimacy with someone special, it doesn’t hurt to find your funny bone if they have found theirs. When they crack a joke, have fun! It will make your friend feel like a genius of humor and it will add an element of joy to your relationship that everyone needs.
Cry together
I remember the first time someone cried with me when my heart was broken. It moved me and I knew my friend deeply loved me.
When we can cry with another person, and they can cry with us without feeling judged, a deeper intimacy develops. Yes, it takes patience and understanding not to try and “fix” the other person or their problem, but just sit with them in their pain and encourage them. Don’t give them advice unless they ask. They will appreciate it and love you more for it!
Disagree
True, intimacy can only be developed when we are willing to accept another person just as they are. This doesn’t mean that we never disapprove of their actions, or that we never disagree with them. In fact, a certain amount of independent thinking that leads to disagreements is healthy and normal. (If disagreements are not happening, it generally means that communication is lacking because someone isn’t being honest.)
In light of this truth, developing intimacy means that we have learned the art of disagreeing well while still sending the message: I love you even if we disagree. I’ll still accept you if you don’t accept all of my ideas. I am glad that you can share your viewpoints with me and I am not threatened by our differences, and no matter what, you’ll still be my friend.
One of my dearest friends is great at disagreeing with me and making me feel honored at the same time. She knows how to tell me when she believes that I have gone off the deep end, or that I’m about ready to do something stupid. She often says that she accepts me just how I am. For this reason, I never doubt her care for me, even when we argue. I feel secure because she continually celebrates me and cheers me on in life. With that kind of support, our disagreements do not feel like a threat that will destroy our relationship. I do the same for her. We are both free to be ourselves.
Disagreements can lead to greater intimacy because opposing viewpoints mean we are being honest about who we are. However, during disagreements, remember to stay away from insulting your friend’s character, manipulating or blaming. Watch what you say because the emotional safety someone feels in a relationship which feeds intimacy can be destroyed in minutes through poorly selected words.
I recently heard of a man who told his wife during an argument that the only reason he ever married her was because someone else wouldn’t marry him. She was devastated. From that moment on she never felt entirely accepted and wondered if he had meant what he said.
Words can heal or sting, build up or tear down. They can be the reason for, creation of, or the demise of love and intimacy (James 3:6).
There you have it, three ways you can pursue love and use the Key of Acceptance to develop deeper emotional intimacy in your relationships. Most of all, remember to entrust your relationship to God. He is the One who made love and intimacy and knows how it works. If you want to love someone more, ask Him to help you. That’s a prayer He will be pleased to answer!
Copyright 2009 Shana Schutte. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Marriage is the intimate, exclusive, indissoluble communion of life and love entered by man and woman at the design of the Creator for the purpose of their own good and the procreation and education of children; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.4
Intimate communion of life and love: Marriage is the closest and most intimate of human friendships. It involves the sharing of the whole of a person’s life with his/her spouse. Marriage calls for a mutual self-surrender so intimate and complete that spouses — without losing their individuality — become “one,” not only in body, but in soul.
Exclusive communion of life and love: As a mutual gift of two persons to each other, this intimate union excludes such union with anyone else. It demands the total fidelity of the spouses. This exclusivity is essential for the good of the couple’s children as well.
Indissoluble communion of life and love: Husband and wife are not joined by passing emotion or mere erotic inclination which, selfishly pursued, fades quickly away.5 They are joined in authentic conjugal love by the firm and irrevocable act of their own will. Once their mutual consent has been consummated by genital intercourse, an unbreakable bond is established between the spouses. For the baptized, this bond is sealed by the Holy Spirit and becomes absolutely indissoluble. Thus, the Church does not so much teach that divorce is wrong, but that divorce is impossible, regardless of its civil implications.
Entered by man and woman: The complementarity of the sexes is essential to marriage. There is such widespread confusion today about the nature of marriage that some would wish to extend a legal “right” to marry to two persons of the same sex. The very nature of marriage makes such a proposition impossible.
At the design of the Creator: God is the author of marriage. He inscribed the call to marriage in our very being by creating us as male and female. Marriage is governed by his laws, faithfully transmitted by his Bride, the Church. For marriage to be what it is, it must conform to these laws. Man, therefore, is not free to change the meaning and purposes of marriage.
For the purpose of their own good: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Gn 2:18). Conversely, it’s for their own good, for their benefit, enrichment, and ultimately their salvation, that a man and woman join their lives in marriage. Marriage is the most basic expression of the vocation to love that all men and women have as persons made in God’s image.
And the procreation and education of children: “By their very nature, the institution of marriage itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children and find in them their ultimate crown.”6 Children are not added on to marriage and conjugal love, but spring from the very heart of the spouses mutual self-giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. Intentional exclusion of children, then, contradicts the very nature and purpose of marriage.
Covenant: While marriage involves a legal contract, this must be subordinate to the spousal covenant which provides a stronger, more sacred framework for marriage. A covenant goes beyond the minimum rights and responsibilities guaranteed by a contract. A covenant calls the spouses to share in the free total, faithful, and fruitful love of God. For it is God who, in the image of his own Covenant with his people, joins the spouses in a more binding and sacred way than any human contract.
The dignity of a sacrament: Marriage between baptized persons is an efficacious sign of the union between Christ and the Church, and, as such, is a means of grace (see below for a more thorough discussion). The marriage of two non-baptized persons, or of one baptized person and one non-baptized person, is considered by the Church a “good and natural” marriage. While not sacramental, such marriages are holy unions that share in the same goods and purposes of sacramental marriage.
LONDON – “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done” was the prayer of hundreds of Christians who gathered at a central London church on Saturday to cry out to God over the moral and spiritual crisis in the United Kingdom.
The State of the Nation gathering also focused on repentance over the church’s silence in the face of immoral legislation passed over the decades, particularly in the areas of the unborn child and marriage.
All mainstream denominations were represented at Saturday’s gathering at the Emmanuel Center, near the Houses of Parliament. Prayer gatherings were also held in Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh and in countries around the world, including the United States, Germany and Australia, in an expression of solidarity with the London meeting.
The day of prayer and repentance was organized following a meeting at the House of Lords last December of some 80 Christians from the church, the Houses of Parliament, and the business and education sectors. The meeting focused on the moral and spiritual implications of the financial crisis and concluded with a call for a season of prayer and fasting for the UK.
David Noakes, a member of the State of the Nation facilitating group, said the prayer meeting was possibly the most important gathering since World War II. “Only then it was a nation. Now it is a remnant people. But don’t be dismayed that it is a remnant,” he said, pointing to the battle won by the Lord with the 300 warriors of Gideon.
Noakes chided the church for failing to speak out against ungodly legislation and urged the church not to be swayed by political correctness. “God is not politically correct but biblically correct,” he said, adding that the church needed to cast out the sin within its own ranks and return to a fear of the Lord.
Noakes ended with a note of encouragement, saying that God had not forgotten about Christians in Britain because of the country’s special history and that the despair brought on by the financial crisis would prompt more people to turn to God.
“There are many people in great despair because the whole world system is coming down around them. God will bring many people into the light of salvation out of that darkness and they will come back again to a fear of the Lord.”
When I read the Soros piece I was reminded of a very important message from an Anglican priest whom I know personally for these times. I am including both of these in one posting and really urge you to read the Full Articles. These are trying times BUT the Lord our God is still the same yesterday, today and for ever!! Read on…………………
Soros sees no bottom for world financial
“collapse”
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.
Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.
He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.
“We witnessed the collapse of the financial system,” Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. “It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.”
His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama.
Volcker said industrial production around the world was declining even more rapidly than in the United States, which is itself under severe strain.
“I don’t remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world,” Volcker said.
As all of us know, there are massive shifts and crises in world politics, religion, and in global financial structures, not least in South Africa. The following is, in my view, a remarkable revelation of God received by a godly Anglican priests who is a SA theologian and currently working as a Rector and theological adviser to the Bishop of Mauritius. Canon Dave Doveton has approved it for the public domain, but I hope any that read this will do so with prayer and a sensitivity to what the Lord is saying through this revelation.
Above: Canon Dave Doveton
Word : A massive shaking.
The world is currently experiencing a tremendous financial crisis, in which the global banking system is being shaken.
I would like to share a dream which the Lord gave me several months ago, and which I believe relates to this crisis.
The revelation came to me on in early May and I shared it with the bishops and diocesan representatives of Provincial Standing Committee (Anglican Province of the Indian Ocean) during the morning eucharist of the 6th May, 2008 in the Cathedral, Antananarivo, Madagascar. Also present were the provincial SOMA leaders. In brief, I saw that God was bringing a great shaking upon the world. I saw many wealthy people in the western world fleeing having lost everything. They will seek help from people in poor nations – especially developing countries like Mauritius and Madagascar will have opportunities for witness and outreach. This shaking will affect every country in the world – no-one will escape. I saw terrible things, there will be many people committing suicide, there will be turmoil and anguish. There will be at the same time a spiritual shaking especially in churches that are world-wide communions. The Anglican Communion will continue to be shaken. It will reach to Canterbury. The Lord also showed me that a melt down would begin in ‘the land of ice and snow’. The national currency of Iceland has virtually collapsed in the last few days, and I believe this is a confirmation of what I saw.
A couple of weeks ago in an open letter Bishop David Anderson wrote the following
“In many ways, the spiritual/ecclesiastical Anglican Communion meltdown is comparable to the financial meltdown in the US business world. In the latter, people bought sub-prime loans that were in effect bad paper, passed them on to others as if they were the real thing, trust was broken, and lies and deceit led to the economic ruination of many - and it isn’t over yet! In the spiritual/ecclesiastical realm, church leaders in North America put together sub-prime, bogus spiritual truths, passed them on to others as if they were the real thing, persecuted those who raised the alarm, and as a result, trust has been broken, lives spiritually ruined, lies and deceit have caused many to leave their churches and reorganize in line with traditional Christian beliefs, and this is leading to the ecclesiastical ruination of many. The problem with spiritual ruination is that you might wind up in hell….”
Bishop David Anderson has compared the activities in the US banking system to the activities in the Episcopal Church of the USA – a result of passing on a false gospel in the spiritual sense parallels the passing of bad debts in the financial sense.
I believe that he is right – there is a parallel, but there is a deeper and more direct application to the Anglican Communion – this is a sign, a portent. The portent has several aspects:
Corruption, greed and deceipt is going to be judged. It is time to stand for the truth, preach the truth, practice the truth. Those churches that continue to preach a false gospel of inclusion without repentance and faith in Christ, without a change in lifestyle, will wither and collapse. Those churches that continue to call evil good, and bless behaviours that scripture condemns will face the consequence. These consequences will be both spiritual and material.
As in the financial realm, those who associated with the peddlers of lies and deceipt, those who benefited from the ‘get rich quick’ schemes and tied themselves contractually to the defaulting institutions will themselves find themselves in default; so too those who covenant and associate themselves with churches and provinces that preach a false gospel will also come under judgement. It is time to separate from false teachers and false leaders and distance ourselves from false institutions. Light cannot have communion with darkness, nor can there be fellowship with those who believe and practice heresy. In the ecclesiastical sense it is time for churches such as the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the USA to be suspended from the Anglican Communion. This needs to happen soon – I believe there is very little time yet. It is one minute to midnight, and it’s only by the grace of God we have been spared a more violent shaking. But make no mistake, more shaking is coming.
I believe that the Lord will care for his people. Christians have nothing to fear if they are trusting in him and not in worldly wealth. People should avoid getting into unnecessary debt and be wise in handling their finances.
I also saw a date which I believe is a climax or key date of some sort – the 28th October.
Canon Dave Doveton, Diocese of Mauritius October, 2008.
Tel +27 021 8741120
Fax: 088 021 874 1120
email: frgavin@gmail.com
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Parish Secretary:
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Prayer for the Week:
Almighty God,
whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ
ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things:
Mercifully give us faith to perceive that,
according to his promise,
he abides with his Church on earth,
even to the end of the ages;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Next Sunday
10.00 AM Holy Communion
Wednsday Service
10.00 at St Georges.
Sunday Evenings
18.00 - in Franschhoek.
Contact Rector for venue.
CHILDRENS WORSHIP
The Children's Worship will take a break until the next School Term. Sunday 26th July
THE PARISH
Consists of four worship communities across the valley:
St Georges,
St Giles,
St Simons,
St Johns
By Maria Mackay, 
