Book meme

I found this little meme on my random wanderings through the blog world and thought I'd have a go.

Here are the instructions:

1. grab the nearest book.
2. open it to page 161.
3. find the fifth sentence.
4. post the text of this sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. do what’s actually next to you.

So the nearest book to me (other than my diary - no not the kind with juicy sercrets in - my boring "what shift am I on this week" diary!) was Teach yourself Christianity (which only just beat The Bible by being on top of it and therefore slightly closer to me). What does it say about me that these two books were laying on the floor by my bed under a paper with the job adverts in and surrounded by balls of wool and other odds and sods??

(Here I got all confused and proceeded to post about the 5th sentence on page 160 - d'oh)

Here is the actual 5th sentence on page 161:

Edmund Campion and Margaret Clitherow were canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1960.

Now haven't you always wanted to know that???

I wonder whether I should post the preceeding bits of the book to inform you as to who these two people were?! I think I will 'cos if it were me reading this entry I'd be annoyed and have to go googling up the names (which you can still do lol)

Edmund Campion (1540-81) was a Roman Catholic priest who worked hard in Protestant Briatin to sustain the faith of his fellow Catholics. He was betrayed, tortured and condemned to death. When sentence was declared he sang the Te Deum ('We praise thee, O God...'). Edmund was visited in his cell by the man who betrayed him. His own life was in danger and he needed Father Edmund's help. Campion wrote a letter of intoduction to a nobleman in Germany. His betrayer escaped; Edmund Campion was dragged through the streets to Tyburn where was was hanged and quartered.

Margaret Clitherow (1556 - 86), a butcher's wife, was described by her contemporaries as good-looking, witty, merry and caring. She was a devout Roman Catholic who lived in the ancient city of York. Accused of harbouring priests, she was brought to trial. Margaret refused to defend herself in court because in this way she could save her children from being forced to testify against her. She was crushed to death under immense weights. Her hand - a hol relic - is held in the Bar Convent just outside the city walls of York.

Hmmmmmm not quite sure what to make of this meme - these kinds of passages are the things that terrified me as a child - same as when I thought about the crucifiction as a child - made me feel sick thinking what it must have been like.

I thought I would look (out of interest) to see what the 5th sentence on page 161 of my Bible was.

He washed the inner parts of the legs with water and burned the whole ram on the altar as a burnt offering made to the LORD b fire, as the LORD commanded Moses.

Leviticus 8:21

I am beginning to wonder why the theme of sacrifice seems to be throughout all of this. Campion made a sacrifice of sorts by helping out his betrayer. Clitherow sacrificed her chance at a better outcome from her trial to save her children. And then there is a sacrifice made as an offering.

I do not believe in coincidences - or rather I do but I believe them to be occurences which happen to catch our attention and make us sit up and think. So what is this all about? What am I sacrificing in my life and what am I doing it for? I think I need to go think...