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compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion

" Don't CHANGE the world - CHANGE WORLDS "
- start by doing what is neccessary, then what is possible,
and suddenly you're doing the impossible




During the war dad formed some very special

friendships with a host of people he had met

- & spoke with affection of his friends in Rome

- whose WORLDS he no doubt changed

He certainly changed my world as a result of his

practical approach to life & his earth-husbandry

but he rarely mentioned, .. however, …

his experiences of the war.

These experiences had, obviously, left demon-scars in his memory,

which he chose to suppress throughout his life - no doubt for the

protection of his loved ones and colleagues who surrounded him.

In his last few years these experiences came back to haunt him and

eventually ...   "He died peacefully and with dignity"

- attended by the very best nursing care that his country could offer.

As we sit here in church today - all of us have - a completely different perspective on the reality which surrounds us, as a result of …

the personal information, memories and experiences stored in our minds.
Whatever our own personal perspective of dad was, let us always remember him with LOVE and affection and think on the words of Max Ehrmann …


“That we are all children of the universe,  which is, no doubt unfolding as it should - whether … it is clear to us or not - and that we should be at peace with god …..

whatever we conceive god to be



ONLY WE can enter the most sacred core of our beings ...
.... and find the secrets of LIFE - know thyself & you KNOW GOD



I am sure that dad died at peace with his god.

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Michael : catalyst-producer

7 months later
Michael said


Social entrepreneurs have existed throughout history. St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order, would qualify as a social entrepreneur - having built multiple organizations that advanced pattern changes in his “field.” Similarly, Florence Nightingale created the first professional school for nurses and established standards for hygiene and hospital care that have shaped norms worldwide. What is different today is that social entrepreneurship is developing into a mainstream vocation, not only in the United States, Canada, and Europe, but increasingly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In fact, the rise of social entrepreneurship represents the leading edge of a remarkable development that has occurred across the world over the past three decades: the emergence of millions of new citizen organizations.

David Bornstein

Source: How to Change the World : Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New..., Page: 3




about 1 year later
cHAngeL said


LIFE is church. LOVE is my religion. CHANGE is necessary.

THE kids have the answers this world needs…

WE just have to listen.

THEN we do the impossible…


maxie : Zaadster

over 2 years later
maxie said


Katzanzakis’ St. Francis changed my life - gave me one, actually.




Leave Your Wise and Insightful Comment

Views: 346

Comment by Michael Grove on March 14, 2013 at 15:05

IT IS - without question - most appropriate to re-post this zBlog in celebration of the fact that we now have a new Pope - most aptly named - Pope Francis the First - a humble man that is used to cooking for himself and traveling on the busFrancis, an Argentine who was elected on Wednesday, replaces Benedict XVI, whose papacy was plagued by a series of public relations blunders at the start of his reign that offended many. Benedict angered the Muslim world with a speech in 2006 in which he appeared to endorse the view that Islam is inherently violent, sparking deadly protests in several countries as well as attacks on Christians. After being revealed to the world, Pope Francis dined with the cardinals in a Vatican residence where he thanked them for electing him but then quipped:-

"God forgive you for what you've done!"

As Damian Thompson concludes in today's Telegraph editorial page article -

"It's a shame that Cardinal Bergoglio never had the opportunity to mingle incognito in the bars of modern Dublin, where he would have found an intensity of hatred for the Catholic Church that the Gordon rioters might have recognised. Young Irish people especially can hardly mention the Church without a curl of the lip. Older folk, meanwhile, feel miserably betrayed. It's the same story in, say, Boston or Quebec. How telling that the siblings of Cardinal Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, no longer go to Mass regularly.

I know this is a downbeat response to what, for Catholics, is a joyful and hopeful event. But savage reform to the curia is required so that Pope Francis can (should he wish) take advantage of the successful Benedictine reforms: for example, the formation of a breed of bishop who – as the new Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth is demonstrating – are reclaiming their spiritual authority from hippy-generation bureaucrats and using it to promote the so-called "new evangelisation". To put it bluntly, a Church associated in the public mind with child abuse isn't likely to be good at any sort of evangelisation, new or otherwise. Nor can it face down its angry, condescending and well-informed enemies. So welcome, Holy Father. You know what needs to be done; do not stay your hand." (which has been changed to 'and let the sackings begin' in the online version)

Comment by Michael Grove on October 4, 2013 at 14:41

Pope Francis is in the Umbrian hillside town of Assisi to pray at the shrine of the 13th-Century saint whose name he adopted when elected earlier this year. Francis is accompanied by eight cardinals, with whom he has spent the past three days discussing a radical programme of reform for the Vatican. He has said he wants today's Catholic Church to resemble Francis of Assisi's "Church of the poor".

He wants to use abandoned monasteries and convents to house refugees. And he says he wants to see a less hierarchical Church that is less centred on the Vatican.

Comment by Michael Grove on September 17, 2014 at 21:18

The Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) is a medieval pilgrimage route across northern Spain that is still walked by millions of pilgrims and tourists today. During the Middle Ages, Santiago became a major place of pilgrimage, surpassed only by Jerusalem and Rome

By the early 12th century the pilgrimage was a highly organized affair. Four established pilgrimage routes from starting points in France converged in the Basque country of the western Pyrenees. From there a single combined track crossed northern Spain, linking Burgos, Carrión, Sahagún, León, Astorga and Lugo.

St. Francis of Assisi is said to have made the pilgrimage to Santiago in 1214 - and this years 800 year celebration of the event is why the organisers have brought the final time-trial stage of the La Vuelta to Santiago, to follow the final course of that medieval pilgrimage route.

Comment by Michael Grove on July 3, 2022 at 10:25

[IN] the context of the development of my life-long understanding of the very fact that everything universal  [IS]in[DEED] connected to everything else - [IT] was as a result no doubt of been born himself to a blacksmith, that my dad trained as a steel-fixer & bar bender in the employ of John Laing and subsequently was involved in the development of the Bailey Bridge, prior to WWII and so it was that "HE did in[DEED] die peacefully and with dignity" in the knowledge that along with my mother, was able to purchase their first home in Lullington Garth, with the help and assistance of John Laing and their been granted a mortgage from Hertfordshire County Council @ 1.5% interest, to care for my sister and I and my maternal grandparents, having already turned down the offer of the opportunity of becoming a Yeoman Warder with his close family, which unfortunately would not have included my mum's parents.

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