Jennifer Lynch

Many scholars believe Rivendell was inspired by a real place. Tolkien hiked there in the summer of 1911. He was 19 years old, and the valley left a mark on him so deep that more than 50 years later he was still describing it from memory... The valley is called Lauterbrunnen. It sits in the Bernese Oberland, in the heart of the Swiss Alps. Tolkien went on foot, "carrying a great pack, in a party of twelve." They walked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, then up to Mürren, and finally to the head of the valley in what he later called a wilderness of moraines. They slept in haylofts and cowsheds. They ate in the open. They walked by map, mostly avoiding the roads. Goethe had stood at the foot of those same falls more than a century before Tolkien did. The poem he wrote about them, Song of the Spirits Over the Waters, was published in 1779. There is something about this valley that has always pulled writers toward it — as if its sheer scale and beauty demand a response, and ordinary language keeps falling short… In 1967, at the age of 75, Tolkien wrote to his son Michael describing the 1911 trip in detail. He called it the "very part of the world that had the deepest effect on me." That is what this valley does. You walk into it once, and it follows you for the rest of your life... If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter for over 50,000 readers who love rediscovering the beauty of the past: James-lucas.com/welcome Join us!

The English Martyrs: Blood That Still Speaks open.substack.com/pub/drgavinash…

Please pray for the Catholic hostages kidnapped by islamist terrorists in Nigeria As their ransom demands have not been met, the terrorists have begun to execute women and children No coverage in western media Please RT so that the world knows about the inhuman crimes committed in Nigeria with the compliance of western politicians, religious leaders and media

Today is the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker

I know it's boring but QT is the biggest mistake we've ever made. It is not clear it has had any effect on inflation, but has transferred £100bn of cost to the taxpayer which could be far better spent on roads, the military and deportation flights.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla chose to forgo potentially life-saving treatment during her pregnancy to ensure her daughter's survival. Some of her last words on earth were: “Jesus, I love you.” Happy feast day to the patron saint of mothers, physicians, and unborn children. Pray for us!

@BurnsideWasTosh A great repeal act. And jail time for those responsible. Bring back the treason laws

If in 1997 you has been asked to design a series of actions to destroy the UK in a generation you'd be hard pressed for the Government to have overlooked anything since. This also means the country can be rebuilt by reversing every Government action of the last 29 years.

In late 1960s Bishop Sheen predicted that the ruination of many countries in future will not be caused by wars, but by FALSE COMPASSION. Bp. Sheen: "False compassion is a pity shown, not to the mugged but to the mugger; not to the family of the murdered, but to the murderer."

Today is the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. May God bless all the victims, living and dead.

💰 Redbridge Council spent £23 million on recruitment agencies last year. To put that into context: It’s more than they spend on homelessness support and weekly bin collections COMBINED. The council spends £21m on those a year. Serious, this is a council with over 2,800 families in temporary accommodation. They needed a £60m bailout from the government and are forecast to overspend by £45m. Yet it’s still blowing tens of millions on agency staff. And before anyone says “these are frontline roles”… The council employs thousands of staff. If you still need to spend £23m on a few hundred agency workers to deliver basic services… …why not hire the people actually doing the work permanently? And pay for it by cutting back some of the thousands of roles that clearly aren’t delivering front line services. The entire resourcing model for our public sector is backwards.

Today is the Feast of St. George, Martyr and Patron Saint of England. A Roman soldier of Greek and Palestinian origin and officer in the Praetorian Guard of Emperor Diocletian, who was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. #StGeorgesDay Ora pro nobis

Yarden Bibas wrote: Here we are, Shiri - we moved to the Golan like we always wanted. And we keep going, or at least trying, to travel the way we used to love - but it doesn’t feel the way I wish it did. I miss you so much - every day, every minute, every second. I feel so alone and lost without you. I died that day too - but only you stopped breathing. That’s the hardest part - that I’m here, and you’re not here with me. I try every morning to find a reason to get up and keep breathing, and to be honest, sometimes I can’t. At night, when I feel lost and Alone, I look up at the sky and search for those three stars - I can’t claim them, but to me, they are mine. Shiri, Ariel and Kfir - I love you more than anything in this world. Always.

@BurnsideWasTosh My car is worth less than this picture cost. It will outlast this picture. Yet I now have to pay £700 a year in tax to keep my older vehicle on the road. Thieving charlatans.

£3k for this shit? Taking the piss.

Today the Eternal City celebrates its 2,779th birthday "Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her." ― G. K. Chesterton

@CptHastings1916 Pray for priests!

Occasionally some enthusiastic priest charges into a new parish & tries to change everything at once & alienates half his flock. While it's true that folk shouldn't leave their parish because hymns are replaced with chant or whatever, you do have to work with people as they are.

Some excellent observations here on the hard, slow work that priests face if they want to change things in a parish. Easy for us as lay people to forget, I think, especially if we are more trad-minded and desirous of bringing back some traddish things.

Un anno fa Papa Francesco tornava alla casa del Padre. Il suo è un ricordo ancora molto presente. Nel suo magistero ha richiamato con costanza il valore della pace, dell’attenzione verso chi è più fragile e della responsabilità verso gli altri. Ha saputo parlare al mondo con parole semplici, raggiungendo credenti e non credenti, toccando anche questioni che riguardano la vita delle persone di tutti i giorni. Conoscerlo è stato per me un privilegio, così come la sua presenza al G7 presieduto dall'Italia - la prima volta per un Pontefice - è stato un regalo grandissimo che porto nel cuore. Resta una figura che ha segnato profondamente il nostro tempo, e il cui messaggio continua a essere attuale. Grazie di tutto Papa Francesco.

Mass migration harms the country you leave. It is wrong to encourage it.

There is a way past the absurd and deeply divisive “war” between the President and the Pope, which has been enthusiastically ginned up by the press. And it is indicated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2309 to be precise. After laying out the various criteria for determining a just war—proportionality, last resort, declaration by a competent authority, reasonable hope of success, etc.—the Catechism points out that “the evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.” The assumption is that the just war principles function, to use the technical term, as heuristic devices, designed to guide the practical decision-making of those civil authorities who have to adjudicate matters of war and peace. The role of the Church, therefore, is to call for peace and to urge that any conflict be strictly circumscribed by the moral constraints of the just war criteria. But it is not the role of the Church to evaluate whether a particular war is just or unjust. That appraisal belongs to the civil authorities, who, one presumes, have requisite knowledge of conditions on the ground. So, is the war in question truly the last resort? Is there really a balance between the good to be attained and the destruction caused by the war? Are combatants and non-combatants being properly distinguished in the waging of the conflict? Do the belligerents have right intention? Is there a reasonable hope of success? The posing of those questions—indeed the insistence upon their moral relevance—belongs rightly to the Church, but the answering of them belongs to the civil authorities. The Pope has said, on numerous occasions, that he is not a politician and that his role is not the determination of any nation's foreign policy. But he has just as clearly said that he will continue to speak for peace and for moral constraint. In making both of these claims, he is operating perfectly within the framework of paragraph 2309 of the Catechism. If we understand that the Pope and the President have qualitatively different roles to play in the determination of moral action in regard to war, we can, I hope, extricate ourselves from the completely unhelpful narrative of “Pope vs. President.”

Telling the truth is good for one's mental health. It's lying about reality that is unhealthy. That is why radical progressive leftist ideology tracks with internalizing psychopathology. Depression. Anxiety. Sadness. Especially in young people.