New Zealand Votes to Keep Union Jack on Their Flag

New Zealanders have chosen to keep their original flag

From The Crown Chronicles
By Victoria Howard

New Zealand has voted to keep their current flag, featuring the Union Jack of the United Kingdom.

In a second flag referendum, the current design won the majority with 56.6% of the vote, against the chosen blue, black and white version, seen below.

Other proposed flags had been whittled down to one contender for the new design, all of which featured the New Zealand fern. These designs lost with 43.2%.

2.1 millions New Zealanders voted in the referendum, a 67% turn out.

The issue with the current flag lay in that the flag of the UK formed part of the NZ flag, due to the former Empire and colonisation of the islands. Some felt the flag did not represent the people, instead an annex of Britain.

Prime Minister John Key told the people following the decision: “Use it, embrace it and, more importantly, be proud of it.”

He was, however, a supporter of a new flag and was disappointed with the flag result but respected the decision of the people. Key said that the National Government will not revisit the issue under his leadership.

Deputy PM Bill English also agreed: “We should all embrace that decision.”

Father Rutler: A "Beauty Ever Ancient, Ever New"

Fr. George Rutler

It was not enough for Professor Albert Einstein to tell the priest and physicist Father Georges Lemaître that his hypothesis of the Big Bang, which he called the “First Atomic Moment,” was true. He said that it was beautiful, which was more important because its beauty located it in a symmetry larger than itself, more like music than an equation. In a deeper realm, Saint Augustine said that the Gospel is a “beauty ever ancient, ever new.” True beauty is ageless. This is an admonition at a time when the Easter proclamation risks becoming old news and a fading echo. Saint Thomas More said that to be a real Christian is always to be surprised by the Resurrection.
 

Surprise permeates the primitive narratives: the groups of women as joyful as they are fearful, the two men on the Emmaus road whose hearts burn with an inexplicable astonishment, the apostles in the Upper Room stunned by what they thought might be a ghost. Had the Resurrection been exactly what they expected, there would have been no fear and no surprise.
 

The surprise continued when the Apostle Peter preached on Pentecost by the power of the Holy Spirit and told the crowd that they could “see and hear” the results of the Resurrection (Acts 2:33). Then as now, in times ever ancient and ever new, the only alternative to that is willful blindness and deafness. This Easter, while many Christians were dying for their faith in the Resurrection, in places like Pakistan and Yemen, morally isolated people were cavorting as giant rabbits on Fifth Avenue and trampling their own children during suburban Easter egg hunts. Of the latter it may be said that “having eyes they see not and having ears they hear not.” Theirs is not the surprise of the Resurrection but the creaking age of antique paganism.

Mother Angelica

There was a special grace at work in the death of a lady known to some of us, Mother Angelica, on Easter Day. She founded the worldwide Eternal Word Television Network starting with $200 and a garage as a studio. Our parish is fortunate that our church and rectory are used for some of its productions. While it is understandable that many were saddened that she left this world, I found it annoying that some “regretted” her “passing.” There is nothing regrettable about the death of a pious woman who accomplished much for the Lord, suffered grievous physical infirmities—including two strokes—for many years, and died on the Feast of the Resurrection. And as for “passing,” that is what gnostic sectaries like Christian Scientists do. Faithful Christians die and do not “pass,” and they pray for a happy death in the hope of eternal life.

So wrote Melito of Sardis in the second century: “The paschal mystery is at once old and new, transitory and eternal, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal. In terms of the Law it is old, in terms of the Word it is new.”  

The London Philharmonic Choir -- Three Great Hymns of Praise

Daniel Hannan MEP: 'EU Referendum is a Once-in-a-Generation Vote' – Video Interview

Mother Angelica Dies at 92 on Easter Sunday

It is with the deepest sadness that we note the passing of one of the greatest saints of our age, Mother Angelica.  Her impact on the Catholicism of our day will be seen as no less than the influence Saint Teresa of Ávila had on the Church of her day.  She was vital to the restoration and renewal undertaken by Saint Pope John Paul II and carried forward by his great and holy successor, Pope Benedict XVI.

In these days when the Church, at best, seems rudderless or in the hands of the enemy, we have Mother's example, her books, videos, and the legacy of EWTN and the two religious communities she founded, to guide us through the night.  We can be assured that a powerful new saint will be adding her prayers, as she always has, for our safe passage to the heavenly Kingdom.  A strong, great, outspoken and holy champion will light our path and the path of all God's children for centuries to come.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.  May she rest in peace.  Amen.

Calls for Canonisation as EWTN Founder Mother Angelica Dies Aged 92

From the Catholic Herald

Mother Angelica: a far-sighted pioneer (CNS)

The Poor Clare nun established EWTN in 1980 and saw it become the world's largest religious media network

Mother Angelica, the founder of the Eternal Word Television Network, the world’s largest religious media network, has died at the age of 92.

The Franciscan nun died on Easter Sunday at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Alabama, the monastery she had helped to found over 50 years ago. She had been in poor health for some time, and had been placed on a feeding tube.

Mother Angelica founded Eternal Word Television Network in 1980, using a converted garage at the monastery. It steadily grew, not least thanks to her own appearances on the talk show Mother Angelica Live. The channel broadcasts a range of talk shows, interviews, news programmes, and devotional items including daily Mass.

The Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom

ZWYCIĘZCA ŚMIERCI (Conqeror of Death) - Polish Hymn for Our Lord's Resurrection

Let all pious men and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord; let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward; let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and those who may have come after the sixth, let them not be afraid of being too late; for the Lord is gracious and He receives the last even as the first. He gives rest to him who comes on the eleventh hour as well as to him who has toiled since the first: yes, He has pity on the last and He serves the first; He rewards the one and praises the effort.

Come you all: enter into the joy of your Lord. You the first and you the last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance together; you sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day; you who have kept the fast and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded: enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one: let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of his goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Saviour has set us free: He has destroyed it by enduring it, He has despoiled Hades by going down into its kingdom, He has angered it by allowing it to taste of his flesh.

When Isaias foresaw all this, he cried out: "O Hades, you have been angered by encountering Him in the nether world." Hades is angered because frustrated, it is angered because it has been mocked, it is angered because it has been destroyed, it is angered because it has been reduced to naught, it is angered because it is now captive. It seized a body, and, lo! it encountered heaven; it seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible.

O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen and you are abolished. Christ is risen and the demons are cast down. Christ is risen and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen and life is freed. Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of the dead: for Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the Leader and Reviver of those who had fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. 

Amen.