Furthermore…

I am a customer of a company in Texas that specializes in the annointing oils mentioned in the Bible and other items from Israel. I receive an occasional e-mail from the company, and today one came that included the following interesting note:

We can personally testify to God’s power to protect. As we were preparing for the onslaught of Hurricane Ike two weeks ago, we anointed all of our doors and the four corners of our facility and our home, asking our Father God to station His mighty angels all around our property and on the roof as protecting agents against the violence of this impending storm. Thanks and praise be to the Holy One, we were spared any damage! Even though several large trees near us blew down, they fell away from our building. In the midst of hurricane conditions, the peace of the LORD truly kept our hearts and minds from fear.

Our blessings to you!
Rodger and Greer Kenworthy

www.abbaoil.com

Politician:

“Our problems are growing but I know the easy solution. I’ll abort them!”

I once heard that when a blessing is given over radio or TV, it is only received by those who are listening live, but not by those who catch a rebroadcast. Is this the complete and accurate truth, or are there other subtleties which bear on the matter?

Sleepy, disheveled guy whispering to usher in nearly empty church:

“Am I late for the 10 o’clock, or early for the 12:15?”

Today at Mass as Communion approached my thoughts turned to how Jesus gave us Himself in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, sharing the divine. That the many people in the congregation who would receive were sharing in a unity and having a participation in a divine reality struck me in a way clearer and more unmistakable than I can ever remember previously experiencing.

“Mystical Body” came to mind. That which we would soon share came from Jesus, and was His way of entering into us, providing a presence of divinity, His body and Blood, Soul and Divinity. Amidst all of us. And amidst millions all around the world. A kind of universal unity and simultaneous participation in a transcendent vivivication.

Then the call was given for the little children present who had not yet received First Holy Communion to file forward for individual blessings. Even they, I thought, are participating in the communion, although not in the sacramental way. But they probably are more holy in their tiny developing way than the rest of us, I thought.

The interpenetration of vast masses of humanity with Jesus’ gift of divinity brought to mind a passage I once read in a novel of ideas that depicted a character musing on how the chemicals he was ingesting in his food could have at one time been part of the bodies great figures from history, such as Mozart or Napoleon, because, of course, the same chemicals endlessly recycle and reenter countless different living systems.

I was grateful for these reminders of the omnipresent quickening of God.

One school official to another, peeking into classroom:

“We’re watching that little girl in the blue dress. I think she was moving her lips in prayer!”

Almost every week I have some favorite factoid or nugget that I plan on working into our discussions, but whicv for one reason or another doesn’t get aired. We always use as our texts the previous Sunday readings, in this case, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) from Sept. 21st.

Today I was all set to say something about the parable of the workers hired for the vineyard, who were all paid the same even though they worked different hours. I had come across a statement that the workers standing in the marketplace waiting to be hired were deeply grateful at being chosen, because they really needed the pay and there were a so many of them that they couldn’t count on being hired. This point was that they were acting out of resentment of others’ good fortune as much as dissatisfaction with the amount paid.

I like to prepare for the meeting by looking up any unfamiliar names or places, reading our pastor’s bulletin message on the passages, reading the articles in the Florida Catholic SUNDAY WORD section, and reading the associated meditation in The Word Among Us magazine. Then I switch over to the computer, and read some emails I subscribe to which treat the Sunday readings, and then listen to short audio comments on “Catholic Mens Podcast.” Recently I found another valuable source, a verse by verse consideration under the title “Bible Study” which is published by St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Picayune, Mississippi, and offers some interesting pointers.

Man flashing badge to pastor:

“Climate Change Police! Those candles have to go!!”

I never focused on it much it most of my life, but now listening to Christian radio of a Fundamentalist bent I have become fascinated with the “personal Lord and Savior” way of understanding one’s relationship to Jesus. It usually seems to coincide with a deep devotion and commitment to the Lord. I have heard it referred to , perhaps somewhat disparagingly, as ‘me and Jesus’. But I wonder if we, as Catholics, don’t think too much in terms of we, rather than I — congregations, parishes, ‘the Church’ and so on, and not enough about how Jesus loves us as individuals and wants us to have a loving closeness to Him. The children’s song “Jesus loves me, this I know” strikes adults as childish, which it is, but do we need to rediscover the reality it points to?

Signs outside Satan’s residence:

BEWARE OF GOD

NO CHILDREN ALLOWED

CASH PAID FOR SOULS

JUST DO IT!