Belloc, Chesterton, 'Right-wingers' And Former 'Right-wingers' Birthday Books

I had read an excellent review (http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2016/09/merrie-england-joseph-pearce-spiritual-journey-shire-kv-turley.html) of this short book by Joseph Pearce about a trip around Merrie England, and Wales and was very happy to recieve a copy after a gentle hint. I have read the book with great interest and with many questions, did Joe know that Hilaire Belloc's Mum and Dad Married at St James's Spanish Place? Did he know that Cecil Chesterton was Married at Corpus Christi Maiden Lane? And when I read the bit about wanting to follow in Belloc's footsteps on his epic Pilgrimage, I stood up on the train shouting, "I'll lend you my maps!". Joe is former 'Right-winger' and you can read his conversion story called Race with the Devil.

Peter of the GK Chesterton tie fame (http://ecumenicaldiablog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/annual-gk-chesterton-pilgrimage.html?m=1) dropped a couple of GKC books off for me on my Birthday. As with all of Chesterton's stuff, priceless.

I even got some Birthday cash, which is good as you can exchange it for books. I have been told that you can spend Birthday money on things other than books, but not wishing to insult those who have given me money I have never tried this. I don't like to pay much for a book, which is why I've never had a copy of Belloc's 'A General Sketch of The European War, The Second Phase'. But one can be more generous with Birthday money and so £10 offered and accepted I now have a copy. I remember reading the First Phase a couple of years ago, and being quite moved. Then I heard a chap called Michael give a great talk about Belloc and mention both of these book so I'm sure this is £10 well spent.

Not long before my Birthday I got an email for Carmel Books (http://www.carmel-books.org/) about a book called The Attack on the Family, I had not the time to read it, but thought it sounded interesting. I dropped no hints, but a copy arrived in the post. I had to smile as Wikipedia describe the pubishers as 'Right-wingers'. Why smile? Because a lot of anti-Brexit types go on about the rise of the Right and the need to remain in the EU to combat this. Then inside the book it says, the publishers "are financially supported by the European Parliament."

It's a funny old game.

6th Annual GK Chesterton Pilgrimage Report And Photos

On Saturday 30^th July 2016 my brother-in-law Stephen agreed to give me a lift to the starting point of the Annual GK Chesterton Walking Pilgrimage. This allowed me to stay in bed slightly longer than normal, for which I am grateful. Hooray! While waiting outside St George’s C of E Church in Aubrey

Walk, to see if anybody else would arrive for the 8am start, Malcolm wandered around the corner, went into the Church grounds and promptly announced on social media that I wasn’t there! At 8am we read the paragraph from Chesterton’s autobiography, said the prayer and started marching off in the direction of Ealing. Hooray! We bemoaned the fact that many people had said they would come if the pilgrimage was ever on a Saturday as two is the smallest number that we have had start the Pilgrimage since the first year we walked. Upon arriving outside the abortion “clinic” at 87 Mattock Lane in Ealing 5 minutes ahead of schedule, we prayed for the closure of the “clinic” with the hardy souls who go there each Saturday to pray and offer support to the women tempted to abort. We were joined by three more pilgrims at this point, the five of us headed off, joining the canal just before Hanwell Hospital by The Fox public house. We now had to pick up speed as we needed to arrive in Uxbridge for the 1.30 Mass.

The Sung Old Rite Mass started shortly after our arrival and thanks to Fr Schofield for allowing us to use his parish.  To Fr Michael Cullinan for being the Celebrant, Gordon for being MC and Peter, Steven, Nathanael and Jerome for serving and a special thanks to Matthew Schellhorn who provided the excellent musical accompaniment to the Mass. And thanks to the Latin Mass Society for helping to cover the expenses of the Mass. Hooray! There were more than 50 people at Mass, which was offered in thanksgiving for the Conversion of GK Chesterton, whose reception into the Catholic Church had taken place 94 years ago to the day. After a brief lunch we were off again to walk the last 12 miles through the countryside to the grave of GK Chesterton in Beaconsfield. There were now more than 30 of us for the last leg of our journey. Hooray! A couple of American film-makers joined us for the afternoon, filming proceedings to be part of a documentary that they are making about GKC. We said the Rosary on the way, sang a few bits, said the Angelus twice and even stopped in one pub.  Upon arriving at Chesterton’s grave we said the Prayer for the Beatification of GK Chesterton in English, Welsh, Gaelic, French, Maltese, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Latvian, Hungarian, Portuguese and Latin, Hooray! 

Half the Pilgrims were dropped back to Uxbridge station in a minibus while the rest of us patiently waited in Chesterton’s local pub, The White Hart, for the minibus to return and take us back to London. Thanks to Ken who patiently followed us in the minibus during the day, to provide lifts to anyone who needed a break or was having trouble keeping up. Our youngest walking Pilgrim was 5 years old and we have no idea how old our oldest Pilgrims were as we were too polite to ask them but we are fairly sure they were septuagenarians.

Please say the Chesterton Prayer and print copies off. Please email Canon Udris (Chesterton (at) oscott.org) and tell him that you say the prayer even if you haven’t received any favours yet as at this time, Bishop Peter Doyle just requires evidence that there is a cult of prayer and devotion to GK Chesterton so that his cause for Beatification can be opened. Please like and follow the Catholic GK Chesterton Society on Facebook and Twitter (@CatholicGKCSoc), Read GK Chesterton’s books and essays, many of which can be read here for free  and watch ‘The Apostle of Common Sense’ on EWTN (Sky 589 or online) Tuesdays 5pm or Wednesdays 7am or Thursdays 10pm each week. (30 minutes long) and do give Chesterton books to friends and family for birthdays, Christmas and etc, ensuring that you put a GK Chesterton prayercard in the book, which they can use as a bookmark.

Chesterton once said, “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.” If each time we open a book we find a Chesterton prayercard marking our page, we could say the prayer before we read.
And £4,735.68 was raised for the wonderful Catholic Pro-Life work of The Good Counsel Network and you can still donate here.

6th Annual GK Chesterton Annual Pilgrimage

Saturday 30th July 1.30pm Sung Old Rite Mass (Music sponsored by The Latin Mass Society), at Our Lady of Lourdes and St Michael, Osborn Road, Uxbridge, UB8 1UE, in thanksgiving for Chesterton's Conversion, which took place 94 years ago on this day. You are welcome to attend the Mass even if you are not doing the walk.


Bring and eat packed lunch.


For those who wish to, you can then join the pilgrimage walk to Beaconsfield (12 miles approx) where Chesterton lived, converted, died and is buried. We will say the prayer for the Beatification of GKC at his graveside. The prayer can be found, in a number of languages here; www.catholicgkchestertonsociety.co.uk


Or join us at 9.15am. outside the abortion centre at 87 Mattock Lane, Ealing, W5 5BJ where we stop for a few minutes prayer before walking on to Uxbridge along the canal.


If you’d really like to walk the full 27 miles, meet us at 7.30am outside St George's C of E Church, Aubrey Walk, London, W8 7JG, where GKC was Baptised as a baby.


Send us names of people for us to pray for along the way and for more details or to join the pilgrimage email;  catholicgkcsociety@yahoo.co.uk and follow on Twitter on the day, @Stuart1927 #GKCWalk


Stuart will do the walk to raise money for Good Counsel




A report of the 2014 Pilgrimage appeared in The Catholic World Report


Read a report of the 2012 Pilgrimage here & 2013 here
Read the Sermon from 2012 Mass here & 2013 here

UEFA Response To Brexit

Love the UEFA spokeman's  response to Brexit on Friday, when asked if it will affect Euro 2016,  "Northern Ireland voted Remain, so if they win the trophy they can take it home with them. Wales voted Leave, so if they win it they cannot take the trophy home with them."
An hour later Roy Hodgson phoned the spokesman to ask about England, "as we voted Leave?"
The spokesman was unable to answer due to ill health, but is now in hospital having had his sides sown back together :)

I Will Vote Leave, Although We Will Lose

I will vote leave because I love my Country and all others. I don't care for the rubbish about economics on both sides, I just want FREEDOM. 

"THE men whom the people ought to choose to represent them are too busy to take the jobs. But the politician is waiting for it. He’s the pestilence of modern times. What we should try to do is make politics as local as possible. Keep the politicians near enough to kick them. The villagers who met under the village tree could also hang their politicians to the tree. It’s terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged today." 

~G.K. Chesterton: Cleveland Press interview (March 1, 1921)

I think the EU will win and thus our Countries and Europe will lose. But I will vote to leave anyway.

"We must do what we conceive to be right and not bother our heads or burden our souls with whether we'll be successful. Because if we don't do the right thing, we'll do the wrong thing and we'll be part of the disease and not part of the cure."

EF Schumacher

Finally A Book On The Catholic Theology of Harry Potter

Over the years I’ve read many books about the Catholic Theology of books by JRR Tolkien like, Tolkien: Man and Myth and Bilbo's Journey: Discovering the Hidden Meaning in The Hobbit  by Joseph Pearce, or The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision of the Lord of the Rings by Stratford Caldecott for example. But none about JK Rowling.....so far. On the following pages you will find all of the truly amazing Catholic theology I’ve discovered in the Harry Potter books.