“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
–Winnie The Pooh.
Today is Mothers’ Day. It is not Birthing Persons’ Day.
My sister Karen placed the most beautiful yellow flowers on our Mother’s grave. Karen lives close to the Southside cemetery where our parents are buried, and she never forgets flowers, particularly on birthdays and holidays. We miss our Mother so.
Holland was very thoughtful in remembering English. Without going into details, suffice it to say that tears of joy would not stop streaming down English’s face. Holland loves her Mother very much, and she shows it all the time.
We hope all mothers enjoy a wonderful day, and that they are celebrated in the presence of their children. Mothers are incredibly important in the upbringing and nurturing of children, and deserving of gratitude and recognition, on Mother’s Day, and on every day. If you cannot be with your mother, call her. Let her know how much you love her. Because sadly, one day you will not have that opportunity. Please take advantage of your ability to express your love and gratitude.
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Who is Tucker Carlson to call the church a mess?
We attend services because we are all flawed
BY: Everett Piper, The Washington Times (May 3, 2026).
In his ongoing campaign against American conservatives, Tucker Carlson has repeatedly shown that he doesn’t understand Christianity or the Bible.
The latest example of his ignorance comes from a recent podcast in which he said, “One of the reasons that I have a lot of trouble going to church is [that] all these Christian leaders are so flawed.”
Frankly, the suggestion that the church is not worthy of him because it includes people who are sinful should leave anyone with even a Sunday school understanding of Christianity slack-jawed.
Christian leaders throughout history have written about the imperfection of the church. Mr. Carlson would do well to read what they have said.
J.R.R. Tolkien refused to abandon faith over flawed Christians. He understood that the church is about belief in Christ, not the failings of priests or parishioners. “I should not leave the Church [because of flawed people],” he wrote. “I should leave because I did not believe … even if I had never met anyone in orders who was not both wise and saintly.”
Charles Spurgeon argued that hypocrisy validates the church rather than the other way around. “There could be no hypocrites if there were no genuine [Christianity],” he said. “No one would try to forge banknotes if there were no genuine ones.”
G.K. Chesterton commented extensively on this issue of hypocrisy in the church. In “The Everlasting Man,” he wrote, “The Church is justified, not because her children do not sin, but because they do.”
He then noted that Christianity gets rejected not because it is false but because it is hard: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
Chesterton admonished that rather than flee hypocrites, we should try to see our brother’s faith beneath his flaws: “We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.”
C.S. Lewis viewed church attendance as essential for his spiritual growth, even amid his hypocrisy and that of others. He likened the church to a “hospital for sinners rather than a museum for saints.”
He said he went to church because Scripture commanded it and grace flowed through its imperfect gatherings. Lewis emphasized that the church was not for perfect people but for the imperfect, for flawed pilgrims pressing toward Christ. He wrote, “True Christians … stagger forward on the road to becoming like Him, picking up many scrapes and bruises on the way. They aren’t perfect, but their Master is.”
For Lewis, hypocrisy didn’t disqualify the church; it proved that it was real. Jesus came for sinners, not for saints. Lewis even suggested that criticizing the church over other people’s sins was demonic. In his seminal work, “The Screwtape Letters,” Lewis portrayed the Master Deceiver as saying, “Let [the Christian] judge his mother [i.e., the Church],” arguing that such pride masquerades as discernment when it is actually little more than self-satisfaction and, thereby, proof of one’s own sin.
A.W. Tozer dismissed using other people’s sins as an excuse for condemning the church and suggested that we would all do well to look in the mirror rather than the pews.
“Hypocrites in the church? Yes, and in the lodge, and at home. Don’t hunt through the church for a hypocrite. Go home and look in the mirror,” he said.
Chuck Colson believed that because we all need redemption, we must support the church rather than abandon it. The church exists for sinners needing forgiveness. He understood that accusations of hypocrisy assume a moral standard of which we all fall short.
He wrote that “the next time someone says, ‘I don’t go to church because the church is full of hypocrites,’ remember that hypocrisy requires a moral standard,” which is very poorly defined without the church.
Finally, Colson concluded that the church is essential precisely because we are all flawed. “None of us is thoroughly good. … Christianity doesn’t depend on someone else’s behavior: Whether or not Christianity is true does not rise and fall on the subjective experiences of human beings.”
In other words, the church teaches truth, embraces grace and fosters growth, despite its members’ flaws.
I could go on and on, and on, but here is the take-home: If you really want to understand the church, then the best thing to do is to stop looking at everyone else and start looking at Christ.
I don’t know about you, but I go to church because I’m the one who is flawed and I need Jesus.
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In the traditional Church kalendar, 25 April (the Feast of S. Mark the Evangelist) marks what is known as the Greater Rogation. The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday leading up to Ascension Thursday mark the Lesser Rogations. Thus, the Fifth Sunday after Easter immediately preceding Ascension Day is traditionally called Rogation Sunday.
The word “rogation” comes from the Latin, rogare, meaning “to ask.” Appropriately, the Gospel for Rogation Sunday, from S. John, chapter 16 states: Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. The theme of Rogation-tide is that of petitioning God, in prayer and fasting, and repentance, that He might accept our public contrition as well as to seek His blessing upon the newly planted crops. Throughout Europe and England, a Rogation procession would take place during Rogation-tide, in which the Litany of the Saints would be chanted as the parish bounds were perambulated. In England, this procession was known as “beating the bounds.”
A film came out in the late 1990’s, called “Antonia’s Line.” It concerned a woman who came back to her Dutch village after World War II, to reestablish herself and her daughter on the family farm. The film is a direct attack on the Church and traditional morality, and contrasts the diminishing influence of the Church in the village with the increasing influence of Antonia, who unabashedly embraces all things neo-pagan.
The film begins with a Rogation procession in which virtually everyone in the village participates. Following the priest around the village bounds, intercession is made to God, seeking His blessing upon the fields. Over the course of the film, as more villagers are drawn to the openly lax morality of Antonia and her daughter, fewer and fewer participate in the Rogation processions. The film closes with the priest (discredited largely through his own actions and lack of integrity) and several elderly women the only ones left performing the Rogation procession.
While the film is repugnant in spite of beautiful cinematography and exceptional acting, it does speak clearly to the centrality of prayer and the Mass in the Christian life. The villagers were easily led astray by the pseudo-hospitality of Antonia’s Sunday feasts because they were never transformed by the Sunday Eucharist, the authentic hospitality extended to us by Our Lord Himself. They did not take seriously the intention of the Rogation procession, and only participated as a cultural artifact.
Rogation-tide has been seriously eclipsed in the contemporary Church by extending the Easter season through Pentecost. It is as though the contemporary Church seeks to focus solely on times of celebration, at the same time undervaluing times of penitence and prayer. The kalendar revisions following the liturgical renewal of the 1960’s eliminated Rogation-tide and the Ember Days, as this was seen as being overly focused on a culture dependent upon agriculture rather than industry. But when taken with the elimination of the Pre-Lenten Sundays and the Sunday next before Advent, it often appears that the real concern was the Church placing too much emphasis on self-mortification in reparation for sin.
We are far enough out from those revisions to see the cumulative effect. It is nothing less than “Antonia’s Line” played out culturally. When we gut Christianity of discipline and penitence, we end up as neo-pagans, embracing such anomalies as same-sex marriage as a “civil right,” abortion as a “woman’s right,” and euthanasia as “mercy-killing.” We no longer have the mind of Christ on these matters because we have stopped taking prayer seriously and we have stopped taking sin seriously.
During these Lesser Rogation days leading up to Ascension Thursday, may we redouble our efforts to embrace an attitude of prayer in all that we do. May we also exercise self-discipline through fasting and refraining from indulging ourselves in things that satisfy our passions. Then we will discover the authentic victory that Our Lord has won over sin and death in our own lives!
GFK
Observations From The Fifth Estate 