feminine-genius

A rollicking good life

I have no clue as to the state of her soul, but humanly speaking, she was a real pip.

Bënda grew up a considerable beauty, with long golden hair and sapphire blue eyes. She joined her father in Malaya in 1921, when his younger daughters went home, and found him fiercely protective of her: he drove off all potential suitors and placed her under the tutelage of Mrs Jean Cavendish, head of the Girl Guides and the wife of a senior Malayan civil servant. Accordingly, Bënda lived in what she called “a state of suspended sophistication.”

He never did come around to he idea of her marrying, but she had as much firm will as he did. Then of course, she found another just as bull-headed. A good read, and we pray she rests in peace.

What courage!

It's unfortunate that often we don't hear about such tremendous actions on the part of our contemporaries until they die, but better late than never:

Eileen Mary "Didi" Nearne was born in London on March 15 1921 into a large Anglo-Spanish family which moved to France during the interwar years; she was thus brought up speaking French. When France fell the Nearnes fled through Spain, eventually arriving in England in mid-1942. Eileen Nearne and her older sister, Jacqueline, joined the FANY, but their language skills were highly prized and later they and their brother, Francis, were recruited by SOE.

At first Didi worked as a home-based signals operator, receiving messages from agents in the field, while Jacqueline was sent to France to work as a courier; both girls were supposed to keep their roles secret from one another, but were unsuccessful.

Then, on March 2 1944, Didi Nearne was also dropped into occupied France with her organiser, a Frenchman, Jean Savy. On landing she was greeted by two Frenchmen, who exclaimed: "Oh, a young girl. Go back, it's too dangerous!"

Using the code name "Rose", she was given the mission of helping Savy set up a network in Paris called "Wizard"; its aim, unlike the networks dedicated to sabotage, was to organise sources of finance for the Resistance. Didi Nearne's role was to maintain a wireless link to London, and in the course of the next five months she transmitted 105 messages.

The obituary offers great detail concerning her dangerous work amidst triangulation, which brought the Germans closer and closer to her ever shifting operations. Ultimately she was caught, and interned at Ravensbrück where she underwent torture -- but she never revealed compromising information. From there she was sent to perform forced labour until the arrival of American troops.

Didi Nearne lapsed into unconsciousness for several days and awoke to the sound of gunfire. Peering out, she saw white flags everywhere, and when American troops stormed into the church she tried to explain that she was a British agent. The incredulous Americans reported that she was unbalanced and her story invented; but London confirmed her story, and within a few weeks she was back in England.

Didi Nearne was one of only a handful of British agents to have survived Ravensbrück but her experiences marked her profoundly, and after the war she often had to live in the care of her sister. She painted violent pictures as a way of exorcising her time as a German prisoner. She trained as a nurse, and at one stage tried to find a job as a radio operator.

She indicates that she maintained a strong Catholic faith, despite the hardships. May she find peace in God's eternal embrace after working so hard to free Europe from that totalitarianism threat.

Pray for the Pope, for England

by Joanna Bogle

Walsingham is England’s national shrine to Our Lady, and a major place of pilgrimage and prayer. It is in Norfolk, a few miles from the North Sea, and is a small village set in the green countryside characteristic of this corner of Britain. The shrine dates back to the 12^th century, when the local lady of the manor, Richeldis, had a vision of the Holy House – the home of the Holy family at Nazareth – on this spot. For centuries, pilgrims visited here and Our Lady of Walsingham was honoured with countless processions and prayers. Springs of water – they still exist today – were said to have healing powers. A great priory drew men who devoted themselves to the religious life. At the shrine itself, the image was always surrounded by candles, flowers, and gifts left by grateful pilgrims who had knelt there in prayer.

In the early 16^th century, among those who came were the young king Henry, and his wife Catherine. They were praying that God would grant them a son. England had seen terrifying wars in an earlier generation as the houses of Lancaster and York battled out their struggle for supremacy, and now stability was needed for the new ruling house of Tudor. It was not to be. Catherine bore several children, but all died in infancy except one daughter, Mary. Henry, angry and disappointed, decided to marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. He sought an annulment of his marriage through the Church, but failed to obtain it. Divorcing Catherine unilaterally, he married Anne – who by then was carrying his child – and announced himself head of the Church. The Lord Chancellor, Thomas More, and the Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher, were beheaded at the Tower of London in 1534 for refusing to affirm him in his claims, maintaining instead that only the Pope, the successor of Saint Peter, could hold that office. . Needing funds, Henry turned on the Church and crushed monasteries and priories. On the excuse of its being idolatrous, the shrine at Walsingham was destroyed and the statue burned. For some 400 years, there were no more pilgrimages, processions, or signs of devotion to Mary in this quiet village.

The shrine was revived in the early 20^th century – an Anglican vicar researched the history and re-created the Holy House in a new shrine, and a Catholic lady obtained the old “Slipper Chapel” just outside the village and this became the revived Catholic centre of devotion. Today, there are pilgrimages throughout the summer and the Catholic shrine has its own large church built of attractive local stone. Pilgrims pray and sing  as they walk the “Holy Mile” – traditionally barefoot – from the village. Schools, parish groups, Catholic organisations – all come with their banners and their choirs, their sandwiches and their children, to greet Our Lady at a place which combines the pleasures of unusually beautiful countryside with an atmosphere of real devotion and joy. Some groups stay for days – a local farmer rents out fields in which  large groups of young pilgrims and families can camp – and in recent years Walsingham has seen a revival of Eucharistic adoration and confession, promoted by “Youth 2000,” a major initiative of the “John Paul 11 generation.”

When Pope John Paul visited Britain in 1982 the image of Our Lady of Walsingham was brought to London where it was the centrepiece of a major rally attended by the Holy Father. Many Catholic families, churches and schools, have copies of the image: it is an unusual one in which Mary is seen seated, as a dignified queen wearing a simple Saxon-style crown and carrying the Christ-child seated upright on her lap. Honour to Our Lady of Walsingham is linked to prayer that the people of England may once again return to the practice of the Catholic Faith: Our Lady of Walsinghan, pray for us!

Prayer for England

O Blessed Virgin Mary,
Mother of God
and our most gentle Queen and Mother
look down with mercy upon England your Dowry, and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in you.
By you it was that Jesus
Our Saviour and our hope,
was given to the world:
and he has given you to us
that we may hope still more.
Plead for us your children,
whom you did receive at the foot of the cross, O sorrowful Mother, Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Chief Shepherd, the Vicar of your Son.
Pray for us all, Dear Mother,
that by faith fruitful in good works
we may all deserve to see and praise God, together with you in our heavenly home. Amen

Mary's Tears, Christ's Blood

The tears of the Mother of Sorrows fill the Scriptures and spill over the ages. All the mothers, widows and virgins who weep, add nothing to that superabundant effusion which would suffice to wash the hearts of ten thousand despairing worlds. All the wounded, the naked and the oppressed, the cumbersome, suffering processions we find at all of life's desperate crossroads, are a perfect fit in the generous folds of the azure-blue mantel of Our Lady of  Seven Sorrows.

Each time someone bursts into tears, in a crowd of people or all alone, Mary is the one crying, because all tears belong to her as Empress of Beatitude and Love. Mary's tears are the very Blood of Christ, shed in a different way, since her compassion was a sort of interior crucifixion of the holy humanity of her Son.

Mary's tears and Jesus' Blood are the double effusion of the same heart and one can say that the Blessed Virgin's compassion was the Passion under its most terrible form. This is the meaning of the words that were addressed to Saint Bridget:

Christ's affliction was my affliction, for his Heart was my heart; for as Adam and Eve sold the world for only one apple, my Son and I have redeemed it with only one Heart.

Tears are a legacy of the Mother of Sorrows; such a formidable legacy cannot be squandered in vain worldly attachments without committing a sacrilege. Saint Rose of Lima used to say that our tears belong to God and that whoever sheds them without thinking of him, steals them from him (Leon Bloy).

On election day, consider this...

Others pay an enormous price to run for office. And that doesn't mean in campaign funds, but blood and tears:

Fawzya Gailani says her husband beat her when she won a seat in Afghanistan's parliament. He was jealous that she won more than 14,000 votes in the country's first parliamentary election in 2005, while he only polled 160.

"He hadn't really beat me very often before then," she told AFP of the man she was forced to marry at age 14. "But he was so jealous that he beat me a few times. I left soon afterwards and I've never been back."

The Taliban have been waging an insurgency in Afghanistan for almost nine years and this month said anyone associated with the elections is a target. At least three candidates have been killed since campaigning began in June. Officials say women are the most vulnerable to Taliban violence, many receiving regular death threats, and New York-based Human Rights Watch said last week: "Women candidates are facing the highest level of intimidation."

Gailani is confident of retaining her seat but her victory will have come at huge personal cost. In late August, five of her campaign workers were kidnapped by the Taliban, she said, and shot dead. Four were relatives -- three cousins and a brother-in-law. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

While grieving the loss of her team members, Gailani is unwavering in her commitment to the cause that elevated her to political power -- that of Afghan women, whom campaigners say are among the most oppressed and abused people in the world.

While the post-Taliban constitution guarantees women such rights as education and employment outside the home, in reality many continue to be treated as chattels and slaves in the name of religion and tradition. Anecdotal examples abound of young women betrothed as toddlers, exchanged for animals or to pay debts, beaten and raped by their husbands, jailed by their families for refusing arranged marriages, murdered for the family's "honour", becoming mothers as soon as their bodies are ready, barred from leaving their homes.

The Taliban's five-year rule, which ended with a US-led invasion in 2001, was marked by general repression that was particularly brutal to women. Girls were not permitted to go to school -- and even now are sometimes attacked and their schools destroyed by extremists. Women were not allowed out unless accompanied by a male relative and wearing a burqa. They were attacked in the street for such perceived crimes as wearing white shoes and rape victims were publicly executed as adulterers.

Even today, women who become politically active face death threats and some have been murdered or forced into exile. Gailani likens the fight for women's rights to a war in which the other side, men and mullahs, have all the firepower. "From the first day I decided to enter politics, I have felt I have been on the frontline of a war for women's rights," she said, tears welling.

"This is a very emotional issue for me because women in Afghanistan suffer so much. If a woman is killed or kills herself, is locked up by her family or sets herself on fire because things are so bad, it is all the same -- she dies. Being killed is normal for Afghan women. If I am killed because I am a woman politician, it is all the same."

Gailani, 40, was her husband's second wife and had her "first child at 15 and one every year after that. I had ten children, six are still alive".

She shares fears that after nine years of insurgency, President Hamid Karzai's plans to pursue peace talks with the insurgent leadership could see women's rights traded for an end to the war. "If the Afghan Taliban accept our constitution, respect the law and equality between men and women, then this will be acceptable. But we know that won't happen. It is not possible for such animals to suddenly become human beings.

"If Karzai wants to play political games, using women's rights and human rights as his toys, then this will not be acceptable. I do not trust either Karzai or the Taliban and I have said so in parliament," she said.

"My request is that we live like all human beings, that women have the same rights under the law as all people. It is my duty to keep on fighting, and if I die doing it, then that is just the fate of a normal Afghan woman," she said.

I don't know what the future holds for Afghanistan or if the American-led effort can bring about real change for Afghani women, but let's pray that we choose wisely when we have the chance and help where we can.

[For another more reflective piece on child brides, go here.]

...the rest of the story

We're all praying for the trapped miners in Chile. Even the Holy Father has sent Rosaries so that the men know of the world's concern and prayers. Mary Kochan has an excellent piece here on a theological parallel that should not go unnoticed. But then, the more perverse side of life has wedged its way into the already tense situation that surrounds the men and their anxious families:

Authorities at Camp Hope have had to deal with a rush of women coming forward claiming to be first in the Chilean miners' affections in order to receive government handouts.

At least five wives have been forced to come face to face with mistresses whose existence was kept from them by their husbands, who have been trapped more than 2,300ft below since a cave in on August 5.

"We had a big bust up in the canteen tent when a wife came across a woman who claimed to be her husband's lover – we had to step in and pull them apart before things got physical." At stake are welfare packages issued to the families of the trapped miners as well as future compensation claims that could run into tens of thousands of pounds.

One miner, who has not been named, has a first wife he never divorced, his live-in partner, a mother of a child he had several years ago, and a woman who claims to be his current girlfriend all visiting the camp.

"It's a logistical nightmare trying to keep them apart and of course they all want to send messages," said Mrs Flores. The team of psychologists charged with ensuring the mental welfare of the men below ground are attempting keep such developments from the miners.

And yet, all the women want to send messages. If nothing else, knowing their goose may be cooked in more ways than one may make for some interesting prayers below, as well as conversations that might just as well remain below when they do surface.