Furthermore…

Growing up in Rochester, NY, I would pass the St Joseph House of Hospitality on South Avenue. I had only the most dilute idea of what it was about.

When I attended Aquinas Institute high school I would see copies of the Catholic Worker newspaper in the library, and read a little bit of it. I thought, “Wow, that is powerful, those people are really living the Christian message!”

In the Army , stationed in Utah, I came to find out that Ammon Hennacy, one of the writers at the Catholic Worker, was living there. Somehow or other I got to visit him and have a wonderful conversation.

At the University of Chicago, the Calvert House Catholic Student Center had Dorothy Day as a speaker one evening. I felt so priviledged to be in the same room with her. A captivating talk!

Kid to other kid, seeing obese person coming out of church:

“That must be one of those ‘Cafeteria Catholics’ Sister told us about!”

I come more and more to appreciate how wise and all-knowing was Our Lord in giving us the Eucharist to sustain us in our discipleship. As I  came out of a rather empty, going through-the-motions observance of my faith and began to receive the Holy Communion more frequently, I filled in  a couple of spiritual potholes.

A fastidious or squeamish part of my makeup didn’t sit well with loving and being in an intimate physical relationship with what I visualized as the human man Jesus, the True Presence of my imagination. I was so happy when I had the grace to realize I could love Jesus solely as manifested in the seeming bread which masks His True Presence, and that I could leave behind the discomforts connected with being in intimate closeness with another, even Divine,  male person. Learning to concentrate on and directing all my love to the refined purity of the sacred host mercifully laid the squeamish discomforts to rest.

The other improvement in my relating to the Eucharist was in considering, perhaps for the first time seriously,  how generous and prudent was Jesus in instituting the sacrament in the way we know it, so that He can remain with us through the years. He designed things in such a way that the daily miracle of  the consecration  at Mass puts Himself in all His Holiness in our midst, in a form accessible to unholy beings such as ourselves, over and through the years.

 Talk about Intelligent Design! Divine Design, I’d call it!

Driver sees sign:

ROAD TO HELL

Handbaskets Keep Right

I have a tough time relating properly to Advent. I guess I can blame this on the culture, which so hypes Christmas that Advent is eclipsed. Besides, there is no place in the culture for the Church’s Advent, with its spiritual significance. We get along quite well without spiritual significance, thank you very much!

On the same day I heard two opposite statements, that Advent is and is not penitential. Maybe the big league thinkers will slug that one out. Women, with license to change their minds unaccountably, might be more comfortable between these two stools.

Also with waiting, planning, preparing, anticipating, decorating, wreaths, candles, garments, colors and going to Confession.

Men do well at buying, hauling home, and setting up the tree.

Scientist at press conference:

“Our new pill causes monogamy in mice, but we can’t predict any similar results in humans!”

I remember a period in my life when I had gotten very far from the Lord.  Jesus, to me, had become a wispy, unreal non-person barely existing, mainly in some borderline region of peoples’ minds. Outside of any struggles with the perennial question Does God Exist, my sense of him was as a diaphanous, weak, vulnerable ectoplasm who could easily fall victim to just about any who-knows-what  stronger entities abroad in the world. He was, to me, at that time, the furthest thing from the  all-conquering Son of God, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He was a lot like me! My faith had become wispy, weak, diaphanous etc. Quoting lines in the song ‘Be My Life’s Companion’

Don’t let it happen to you,

Don’t let it happen to me.

One nerd kid to other,  working on a computer, as gloating devil looks over their shoulders:

“Just for fun, I’m going to put in www.Hell.com“

One gentleman in our lay faith group feels a strong sense of reverence for the Lord whenever we read the Psalms. We get together on Wednesdays and delve express thoughts about the readings for the previous Sunday Mass.  He asked if perhaps we couldn’t make the Sign of the Cross or in some other way express a special sense of prayfulness before we entered into our treatment of the Psalms he loves so much.  So we made the Sign of the Cross from then on before  the Psalms, at least for the next few meetings.

Anyway, I felt that there might be something even better for the need, so I poked about a little on the Internet, but didn’t find a good, short prayer to enhance reverence before the Psalms.  So I then went through the actual Psalms,  looking for some appropriate verses or expressions, and found some I really like, including :

Teach me, LORD, your way that I may walk in your truth, single-hearted and revering your name.
LORD, hear my prayer; let my cry come to you.
Bless the LORD, my soul; all my being, bless his holy name!

Bless the LORD, my soul; do not forget all the gifts of God,
Bless the LORD, all you angels, mighty in strength and attentive, obedient to every command.

Bless the LORD, all you hosts, ministers who do God’s will. 

Bless the LORD, all creatures, everywhere in God’s domain. Bless the LORD, my soul!
Bless the LORD, my soul! LORD, my God, you are great indeed! You are clothed with majesty and glory, 
robed in light as with a cloak.
I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God while I live.
Give thanks to the LORD, invoke his name; make known among the peoples his deeds!

Sing praise, play music; proclaim all his wondrous deeds! 

Glory in his holy name; rejoice, O hearts that seek the LORD!

Rely on the mighty LORD; constantly seek his face.
Recall the wondrous deeds he has done, his signs and his words of judgment,

Gladden the soul of your servant; to you, Lord, I lift up my soul. 

Lord, you are kind and forgiving, most loving to all who call on you.
Gladden the soul of your servant; to you, Lord, I lift up my soul. 

amen
 

Line going  up to communion includes a tranvestite, hooker, devil,  Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the Wolfman. Wife whispers to reluctant husband, “Come on up with me. No one stays back in the pew anymore!”