The 247 Catholic - A Parishioner's Blog - Our Lady Of Lourdes Catholic Church, New Milton, Hampshire, UK
I named this blog The 24/7 Catholic because it expresses a desire that I had tugging at my heart. I want to live my Catholic faith every day, every hour, every minute. All the time. Not just on Sundays, not just at Mass, not just when I’m feeling inspired - but 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s what it means to follow Christ, right?
At least, that’s what I aspire to do...
... and yet, more often than not, I fall short...
This blog is for people like me - those of us who want to be saints, but who find ourselves slipping, stumbling, and sometimes just plain giving up. 
It’s for people who want to live the faith 24/7 but don’t always know how. People who go to Confession and mean it - but then snap at someone ten minutes later. People who say their Rosary while mentally ticking off their to-do list. People who love Jesus with all their hearts - but still struggle with doubt, distraction, despair, and daily demands.
This is The 24/7 Catholic - not because I’ve mastered it, but because I need to be reminded of it every single day...
Often overlooked is His quick wit, sharp irony, and well-timed humour.
Jesus wasn’t a gloomy figure. He enjoyed wedding feasts, told stories full of exaggeration and satire, and gently teased His disciples when they needed it.
After all, joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit - and Christ was filled with it.
Laughter is part of love, and Jesus, who is love incarnate, used humour to reveal truth, disarm pride, and draw people closer.
Let’s
explore 10 moments from the Gospels that shine with Jesus’ holy
sense of humour.
Daily Offering to the Immaculate Heart
“O Immaculate Heart of Mary, I consecrate myself to you. Take my heart and make it more like yours: pure, trusting, faithful, and surrendered to God. Intercede for me, and lead me always to your Son. Amen.”
This month, place your daily joys and trials into the heart that pondered all things, trusted God in all things, and stood faithful beneath the Cross.
While his words are divinely inspired and timeless, one can only imagine how his correspondence might have looked in a world of inboxes, CCs, and dreaded spam filters.
So,
let’s have a little fun and picture an alternate reality where the
Apostle to the Gentiles had access to a first-century email accounts.
Mass begins. The choir sings the entrance hymn. The priest processes reverently to the altar.
The Sign of the Cross opens our sacred encounter with heaven... and… we're not there yet.
Maybe we’re rushing up the path, breathless and distracted. Maybe we’re just leaving home, thinking, “I’ll miss the beginning, but at least I’ll make it for Communion.” Maybe it’s become a habit. A harmless little habit - so we think.
But what joy is there in being regularly late for Mass?
No Ordinary Gathering
Let’s remind ourselves what we’re walking into when we attend Mass.
It’s not a club meeting or a lecture. It is the Holy Sacrifice. Christ offers Himself, through the hands of the priest, for the forgiveness of sins and the life of the world. Heaven breaks through. Angels surround the altar. The veil between this life and eternity is lifted.
And we are invited - not merely to observe, but to participate.
To be late is to step in halfway through a miracle!
The sun, though temperamental in Britain, is (at least occasionally) shining. And yet, in a corner of TK Maxx - among the discounted homeware and fashion bargains - sits an eerie and unwelcome sight: Halloween products. Pumpkins, skulls, witches’ hats, and cobwebbed ornaments fill the shelves like a swarm of locusts invading a peaceful land.
Isn’t
it sad? Not just strange, not just out of place - but genuinely sad.