{"id":377,"date":"2002-12-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-12-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanuera.com\/cmwp\/?p=377"},"modified":"2002-12-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-12-02T00:00:00","slug":"dear-ted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/?p=377","title":{"rendered":"Dear Ted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"justify\" class=\"MsoBodyText\" style=\"margin: 3pt 0cm;\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\"><span class=\"dropcap\">W<\/span>hen                            I first met you Ted, almost 20 years ago, I was immediately                            struck by the significance of what you had to say and                            the integrity of your life. Never before were Christ&#8217;s                            words so lucid and alive.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">\n<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"MsoBodyText\" style=\"margin: 3pt 0cm;\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"MsoBodyText\" style=\"margin: 3pt 0cm;\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">Ted,                            I will always treasure your friendship and our time                            together, particularly when you came to <\/span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">Ireland<\/span><\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">                            with Kathleen and me in 1996. You opened our eyes and                            hearts to so much &#8211; the terrible injustices inflicted                            upon our Aboriginal brothers and sisters and the riches                            of a free and open heart. You quietly invited us to                            join you on your journey and it has been a journey stripped                            of rules and dogma, with large spaces for the many people                            for whom there is no room at the <\/span><st1:place><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">Inn<\/span><\/st1:place><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">.                            With integrity and grace, you offered us the challenge                            to be more fully human and you filled our lives with                            people requiring of us that we personally face that                            challenge. In your insistence that we love and care                            for one another, you have been at once demanding, subversive                            and understanding.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">                           <\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"MsoBodyText\" style=\"margin: 3pt 0cm;\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">Mum                            Shirl always spoke at the end of Mass, each time as                            if to a new audience. It often went something like this:<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">                           <\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"Quotation\" style=\"margin: 3pt 34pt 0pt;\"><em><span class=\"BodyTextItalicChar\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"quote\"><span class=\"BodyTextItalicChar\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">&quot;I                            <\/span><\/span>am <span class=\"BodyTextItalicChar\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">an                            MRC <\/span><\/span>&#8211; <span class=\"BodyTextItalicChar\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">Mad                            Roman Catholic. This man here, he is Father Ted Kennedy                            and next to St Martin de Porres and Jesus Christ himself,                            he is the greatest man that ever walked this earth&quot;.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"BodyTextItalicChar\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">                           <\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"MsoBodyText\" style=\"margin: 3pt 0cm;\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"\">I                            am in the company of a great multitude when I say I                            love Ted Kennedy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p align=\"justify\" class=\"MsoBodyText\" style=\"margin: 3pt 0cm;\">When I first met you Ted, almost 20 years ago, I was immediately struck by the significance of what you had to say and the integrity of your life. Never before were Christ&#8217;s words so lucid and alive.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" class=\"MsoBodyText\" style=\"margin: 3pt 0cm;\">\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/church-mouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}