Comments(0) The School Sisters of Notre Dame nuns in my grammar school had the most luminous stories. One told the story of a busy little paper boy and how he prayed.
He never had much time, but every time he passed the church he popped in and said “Jesus, it’s Jimmy.”
When he died he saw the Lord, Who said “Jimmy, it’s Jesus!”
Comments(0) One Preschool kid to another:
“How do priests get so smart? Just like us - they go to priest school - only longer!”
Comments(0) End of the world type carries sign:
REPENT!
(you, not me)
Comments(0) On talk radio I hear people refer to ‘unpacking’ a topic, a term which seems to be a useful stand-in for ‘exploring,’ ‘looking into for the first time,’ or ‘open up.’ It conveys a sense of vigorous competence, pushing forward sensibly to whatever might be encountered.
Opening up ”alone,” I remember when I was considering joining a religious order. I went into their chapel to try to get some clarity. I never felt so alone. The gold metallic fixtures seemed icy cold and inert. My inner resources, my reason for being there, seemed to have fled. I can’t enter into such a cold, metallic world alone, I felt. Somehow the realization that I would have God, prayer and the sacraments, and communal life eluded me.
About how we can be either holy, or wholly, alone: I think that on the one hand there are the hermits, stylites and desert monks, seeking and trying to love God. On the other, there are those with anti-social tendencies, self-absorption, or such unhygienic habits or obnoxious personalities as to make them social pariahs.
People with some devotion to God likely have a mindset which requires love, or at least charitable treatment of, others. Still, there can be legitimate reasons for ignoring or excluding others, or course, such as a shy girl trying to give a would-be boyfriend the message that she’s not interested, without the unpleasant business of directly telling him to get lost, or even letting on that she is aware of his existence. How good it is to be alone, she might think.
Comments(0) Church sign says
IT’S TIME FOR CHANGE
Panhandler sits next to the sign, his hand outstretched to the passersby.
Comments(0) I have always had a hard time getting into the spirit of the 5th Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, The Finding of Jesus in the Temple. Today I was thinking, Mary and Joseph searched for three days before they found Jesus and joy in the Temple. Mary and Joseph did what good parents should do, search. He seemed to say to them: you should have known I would be here. Plainly, if we feel distant from, or have lost Jesus, the house of God is the place to look. We should do what good Catholics should do, seek Him at church or in the Church. And get some of what He offers: ( cf. Luke 2:46) …all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.
Comments(0) On talk radio I hear people refer to ’unpacking’ a topic, a term which seems to be a useful stand-in for exploring, looking into for the first time, or opening up.
Exploring how we can be either holy, or wholly, alone, on the one hand there are the hermit, stylites and desert monks, seeking and trying to love God. On the other, there are those with anti-social tendencies, self-absorption, or such unhygienic habits or obnoxious personalities as to make them social pariahs.
Those with devotion to God likely have a mindset which requires love, or at least charitable treatment of, others. Still, here can be legitimate reasons for ignoring or excluding others, or course, such as might be the case with a shy girl trying to give a boy the message that she’s not interested, without the unpleasant business of directly telling him to get lost, or even letting on that she is aware of his existence.
Among the holy, might there be a meaningful dichotomy between sociable and solitary saints?
Comments(0) It’s easy to think God must be crazy to love THAT person; even easier to think it regarding oneself. But He’s not, and I suppose it helps to remember that He made us. Seems understandable that if someone makes something, they had a positive concept of it in anticipation, affection for it when it is realized, and sadness once it’s lost or gone. Even God, analogously.
I never laughed so hard as when I viewed The Gods Must Be Crazy, about the little native man who found a Coke bottle that had dropped out of the sky, and found it impossible to believe that it had any meaning or purpose, when all it seemed to do was cause him trouble. Maybe it’s a natural tendency for us small-minded humans to conclude that anything or Anyone we can’t understand is “crazy.” We create a comfortable distance, and no longer bother trying to come to terms. Not wise, though, regarding God.
But it must be admitted that if we loved some of the people He does, we would have to be crazy — like a saint.
