Jesse Smith

"We must develop the awareness that nowadays we are either all saved together or no one is saved!" #PopeFrancis #FratelliTutti

YouTube video by Speak Life Tom Holland: Jesus' Disciples Saw SOMETHING. (Clip)

Here is my Easter present to everyone.
Here is an avowed nonbeliever (so he says...😉) and my new friend, testifying to the truth of the Resurrection more convincingly than any Easter sermon I've ever heard or ever preached.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry77...

Could I become a Christian in a year? After two friends unexpectedly converted, Lamorna Ash discovered a new generation of young people turning to faith. As she investigated the phenomenon, one of her first steps was to spend a week on a ...

I longed for our hours in the church. The words in the prayer book felt to me like escape valves. Each verse we spoke in chorus, it was as if some new guilt or hurt was released from my body.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Yes, I remember it well

Anglicans and Catholics Unite to form One Church - Liturgy Anglican Churches (which includes Episcopalians and others) have been recognised by the Vatican as being potentially in full communion"in plena communione cum Ecclesia catholica" - i.e. they are able ...

Giant leap for reunion of Catholics and Anglicans (Episcopalians) in one church: Pope Francis removes final roadblocks to reunion; full communion possible by 2028 - read more:
liturgy.co.nz/anglicans-an...

The former ambassador to Denmark for the United States, Rufus Gifford, posted this video on his Facebook account:

Ht: @hpsc24.bsky.social

"What we do to the poor, we do to God." #OscarRomero assisiproject.com/podcast

Trump's moves, which started on day one with his pardoning of roughly 1,500 people jailed for storming Capitol Hill four years ago, and commuting the terms of the hardest core offenders, have ticked nearly every box on the scholarly checklist of democratic backsliding. But his alacrity has also cast the system's defenders into disarray. "This is moving a lot faster than any of us anticipated," says Steven Levitsky, a Harvard scholar and co-author with Daniel Ziblatt of How Democracies Die. The capture of state institutions that took strongmen like Viktor Orbán or Recep Tayyip Erdogan many years to accomplish, "Trump is trying to pull off in months". Moreover, a hostile seizure of the key government organs has never been tried in a wealthy and established democracy like America, he says. "Trump's speed and intent is remarkable. Even when they happen slowly, such all-out assaults are hard to stop."

The Republican-controlled Senate dutifully confirmed every Trump nominee, including several whose conduct and record would have caused their rapid ejection in any other era. The US now has, among others, a health secretary who doubts the efficacy of vaccines, an FBI director who has vowed lawfare on Trump's enemies and a director of national intelligence accused of parroting Kremlin propaganda. Almost no Republicans objected when Trump stripped security protections from erstwhile officials, including Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, John Bolton, a former national security adviser, and Brian Hook, his ex-Iran envoy. The FBI says each are on an Iranian hit list. "It's pure fear and cowardice," says Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican Congressman who served on the committee that investigated the January 6 assault and who Trump has threatened with arrest. "I've lost

if you read one FT article this weekend make it this blistering piece by @edwardluce.bsky.social on Trump’s assault on democratic norms in America

www.ft.com/content/3741...

*has he 🤦

Hehe said anything about any of it?
+Barron is still a gifted teacher from whom I've learnt a great deal. Huge sadness about this

Inspiring

St. Patrick: A Sonnet Here is my sonnet for St. Patrick’s Day While Patrick is of course primarily associated with Ireland where he flourished as a missionary in the second half of the fifth century, he was not Ir…

Six years a slave, and then you slipped the yoke,
Till Christ recalled you, through your captors cries!
Patrick, you had the courage to turn back,
With open love to your old enemies,

malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2025/03/17/s...

The EU is economic NATO, so obvs.
-Wasn't there a UK government Russia report?

Surely the penance would be to self-report, as evidence of true contrition, with the priest offering to accompany the penitent through every stage of that process?

The most sickening aspect of the bullying of President Zelensky by President Trump and JD Vance was their demand that he show them gratitude. It is the Ukrainians who are shedding blood, losing loved ones and enduring the destruction of their homes and cities. Of course they are motivated by the desire to preserve their country but their defiance is also necessary to show that military aggression and the violation of sovereign states should not succeed. If anything, it is we who owe the suffering Ukrainians gratitude for their struggle in this cause. During the Cold War, every US administration understood that necessity. Terrifyingly, that no longer seems to be the case. Michael Grenfell London NW11

Reams of letters have been sent to newspaper editors in support of Ukraine over the past week.

One of the best, in the Times.

‘We’re here to stop Russia taking the Black Sea’: with the Ukrainian Navy as they battle for supremacy on the waves Captain Oleksandr and his crew are on constant alert to shoot down Vladimir Putin’s swarming drones

My dispatch from the Black Sea and a Ukrainian patrol boat that shoots down Russian drones. I also spoke to the vice admiral who sank the Moskva warship. "When Kyiv had a university Moscow was a bog & home to croaking frogs," he said. Pix: @alessiomamo.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

There are, of course, a thousand things going on in parallel, but I think this, by @davidfrum.bsky.social, goes a long way to explaining the relish and sheer nastiness of that Oval Office meeting. ~AA

It's not conservatism. And same language that you hear from the post-modern regressive left (to the surprise of no one). Both would surrender us to Putin.
National unity government of patriots, please.

📸 No one follows more etiquette rules than the Royal Family—but notice how King Charles didn’t make any smart-ass or demeaning comments about Zelensky’s attire today.

Why? Because respect isn’t about clothes—it’s about character. And that’s something money can’t buy.

Mike Myers at SNL closing tonight with “Canada is not for sale” t-shirt.

Mike Myers, Canadian legend, on SNL tonight.

V true. But also wish people would read Orwell - tempting as the comfort of the group may be, acquire the habit of asking yourself if something is true or false, right or wrong (rather than left or right).

Important to take the week as a whole. Statement from Dominic Grieve:

Making Welsh cakes for home and Church, because I'm Welsh and I love Dewi Sant /St David, and listening to Emmylou Harris, because there's so much about real America to love.

Walk away

Ukraine had a large nuclear arsenal, but freely surrendered that resource in 1994, trusting in the promises of others - the US, the EU - to guarantee its borders.

FT graph: The US is not providing disproportionately large amounts to Ukraine

An important reality check for Donald Trump.

Graph from the @financialtimes.com

Je suis Macron

Please share this fact sheet on Ukraine with anyone who needs it

understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

Usefully sober fact sheet on Ukraine. Please share with those who need it.
understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

The most unpatriotic members of any society are the far right. They will always align with foreign interests against the interests of their own nations. They will always undermine national institutions and national values in pursuit of their own interests. When they pose as patriots, they lie.