Great. I’ve just broken my stapler fiddling with the anvil piece so I could make cool pointy-out staples instead. I would mend this except one vital innard has pinged into the great beyond.

Oooooo no, I’ve just found it – huzzah!

Now that I’ve mended my stapler and can make pointy-out staples I’m off for more Fun With Staplers (and other fascinating things in your office drawer). Visit Virtual Stapler today for all your stapler wallpaper and stapler poetry needs.

And I have hiccups. Noisy ones. The fun never ends chez moi.

Once again a rather long hiatus. Prodded by certain people have come back into the fold.

It’s been an eventful month. New Pope elected. Lovely week and a bit in New York (Long Island and Manhattan) largely thanks to the generosity of Him’s employer. General Election and playground politics. Plus lots of other things (probably) that I can’t quite remember at the moment.

For now, though, I leave you with Virtual Stapler.

Last night the Pope died.

“I am happy, and you should be as well. Let us pray together with joy.”

I’m more optimistic this morning than last night.

Two prayers in a leaflet received at Mass this morning:

Prayer for John Paul II

O God,
from whom the just receive an unfailing reward,
grant that your servant John Paul, our Pope,
whom you made vicar of Peter and shepherd of
your Church,
may rejoice for ever in the vision of your glory,
for he was a faithful steward here on earth
of the mysteries of your forgiveness and grace.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Eternal rest, grant unto him O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon him.

May he rest in peace.
Amen,

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Amen.

Prayer for the New Pope

God our Father, shepherd and guide,
look with love on Pope N, your servant,
the pastor of your Church.

May his word and example
inspire and guide the Church,
and may he, and all those entrusted to his care,
come to the joy of everlasting life.

Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.

Amen.

Goodbye, Holy Father.

It is a rather peculiar feeling, feeling numb the way I felt numb at my own grandparents’ funerals. Displacement is perhaps the word I’m groping for. As for so many others under 30, he’s the only Pope I’ve ever known. As a child you never think of mortality or what happens when someone who has always been there suddenly isn’t.

It is something bigger than the death of a man. For me, at least, it is the fear that with his death will also come the death of the moral and ethical codes that he fought for during his papacy – bringing it home, moral and ethical codes that I and millions of other Catholics try to fight for in our own ways, however minor, every day.

They’re already speaking of him in the past tense.