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Another repost  from Costing Not Less Than Everything - I was ever so slightly furious when I wrote this but tried to be measured...update at the bottom. And for non-UK readers, we've had several unpleasant scandals of  late. And, no doubt, sadly, plenty more to come. I was discussing with some neighbours the Jimmy Saville matter and the Justin Lee Collins matter and the way in which, in previous decades, our mothers and grandmothers were the protectors of the family, figures of righteous wrath often belittled and derided by comedians and entertainers. So, 'Our Lady of the Rolling Pin' was vaguely on my mind when I wandered out on a sunny Sunday afternoon and walked straight into someone else’s nightmare. A young woman had found herself utterly alone and in great distress.  I sat with her in a cafe for the time it took for her mother to drive from Yorkshire to London to pick her up. Sad to say, but she was lucky she had a mother who would do that for her chil...

A silver cup  for  netilat yadayim , the Jewish ritual washing of hands Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)  Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)  Gospel  Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23   (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) Now when the Pharisees gathered together to him, with some of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, observing the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they purify themselves; and there are many other traditions which they observe, the washing of cups and pots and vessels of bronze.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of th...