Furthermore…

One of the couples in our Scripture Readings discussion group showed a documentary last night from one of the outfits that allege that ‘the Vatican’ has been less than honest about disclosing the ‘Third Secret’ Mary told the children at Fatima. The inference is that the secret dealt with evils among the hierarchy and that’s why it is not being revealed. Additionally, some issues are raised about the Church having not properly carried out the instructions of Our lady regarding praying for the conversion of Russia. It is implied that such malfeasance by the Church is going to bring down God’s wrath and some kind of cosmic disaster upon the world. The folks at Catholic answers don’t seem to buy this line of thinking, nor does Fr. Ed on the Living Your Life Abundantly program on EWTN. I hope all this gets thrashed out sooner rather than later. Everyone seems to agree that the thing Catholics ought to do is pray the Rosary and honor the First Saturdays devotion, so I hope that at the least this kind of ‘holier than the Pope’ proclamation gets more people doing so.

This weeks readings (5th Sunday of Easter, B) all had something to do with ‘unity.’ The analogy of the Body of Christ resembling vines and branches was understood and meaningful to all. One member related the analogy to his work visiting people in nursing homes, mentioning that he feels that in a way he is acting as a vine in that ministry, reaching, reaching out to bring blessings to others. Another member likened the blessings hthat man tries to bring to the fruit that Jesus tells us that we are supposed to produce. It would have been instructive to delve into some of the other analogies to the body of Christ or Kingdom of Heaven which are found in the scripture, but no one was prepared to explore that vista, and in fact there was not the time to do it.

Kid answering nun’s question in class:

“Litany? That’s a long list, like all the things you remember us doing when you catch us being bad!”

A pretty challenging discussion of Forgiveness and the Our Father (”… and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…”) got underway on the Multiply.com domain which I haunt, and I weighed in with a reference to what is said in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I was asked what are my personal thoughts on the subject, so I came up with:
I must say that forgiveness is not something that I dwell on greatly. I guess I have not had a lot of hurt in my life to forgive. I guess I should thank God more than I do for this favor. I realize that there are many people carrying a heavy burden of hurt that was never neutralized, perhaps childhood abuse or being unjustly accused or convicted of something they did not do, and they can’t get past the sense that justice cries out because of how they were wronged, and forgiveness seems beyond them.
I say the Our Father (the Lord’s Prayer) very often, aloud at Mass as well, and what crosses my mind is that God forgives easily because of His greatness and Divine Mercy, but only until (”as”) we forgive graciously does he fully forgive us. As a Catholic I have often gone to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and had very horrible sins forgiven with ‘no problem’ so I have a sense of God’s forgiveness being overwhelmingly abundant and available.
As I was trying to put together some thoughts for this comment, I struck on a similarity between how we should forgive (generously and completely) to the way Mary surrendered to God’s will (generously and completely). “Easy for you to say” might come to someones mind and true, it seems easy to me, I guess because I have been spared terrible hurts by others. I tend to think in terms of a ‘leap’ of forgiveness, forgetting about justice, reparation and retaliation and all the accumulated baggage of the past. I realize that God’s grace is necessary to accomplish such a leap; it is beyond our human nature.

Yesterday we dicussed the readings for the 4th Sunday of Easter, B Cycle. Some of the people in the group had attended a showing of the movie The Robe the previous Saturday, and some had attended a lecture on conditions in the world at the time of St. Paul (specifically in Corinth) so there was greater than usual interest in the historical background of Acts, as well as of the times of Jesus and the Gospel. A good part of our discussion involves looking for similarities and differences between lidw in our time and Biblical times. We spent a little time picking out some variations in the words in our different Bibles, such as finding both ‘love’ and ‘mercy’ used in the same place, or ‘thanks’ and ‘praise’ similarly standing for the same thing.

I recently was able to sit in on a training session for an organization which has a much needed mission, cooperating with and empowering people living in unhealthy and degrading slum conditions and ready to take measures so as to better their lot. They actually have developed a proven and well-accepted approach to bringing into reality attractive and liveable communites where formerly only blight and and struggle existed.

One thing that stood out among the many presentations that made up the session was that the organization is not striving to locate (rich) donors who might subsidize the programs and efforts. Rather, they look for people inclined to become personally invloved with the work, perhaps telling friends and associates about the good that being accomplished by the organization, perhaps traveling to and observing one of the communities that have brought into existence. In some cases, they have come to believe, donors have a way of making a donation so as to “buy off” or distance those asking for aid.

The website for this remarkable organization with the motto “Less for self. More for others. Enough for all.” is http://www.gawadkalinga.org .

I’ve been a guest several times, of some Philippine people in my parish, at some prayer and teaching meetings of Couples for Christ (CFC). I found out there was a CFC gathering today at a local hotel so I made a point of attending. I learned a lot.
It was a thorough introduction and training session for those ready to assist an admirable organization that is vigorously tackling the almost overwhelming problems of poverty and sub-human living conditions oppressing much of the population there.
This organization creates little communities of brightly colored homes for the poverty-stricken, at the same time leading them to a grasp of such redeeming values as responsibility, cooperation and community spirit.
Several times it was emphasized that the goal is to transform the lives of both those saved from the degradation of poverty as well as those doing what they can to assist in any way. The name of the organization is Gawad Kalinga, and it has the website http://www.gawadkalinga.org .

The simple model of sin involves a person consciously rejecting ‘the good’ or the will of God and “doing wrong.” Does this resemble what actually goes on inside a ’sinning’ person? It seems to be more a matter of concentrating and focusing on the lure of the wrong while obscuring and dismissing any awareness of the good, or will or God, perhaps best expressed as “stilling the voice of conscience.” Along with stilling the voice of conscience, there might be an element of weakness, a besetting sense that one is incapable of resisting the temptation, perhaps because of previous experience. A possible accelerant might be provided by another or others, ‘egging one on’ in some manner. It is almost as if one usually does not commint a sin, but rather ‘is committed’ by a sin., in the sense that it is more like falling into a bog than walking through a door.

I see I’ve written over 200 Catholic cartoon gags for my page, so I’m thinking I ought to put them together in a book. First I need to hire someone to draw them for me. I never developed the ability to draw – that’s why I call them ‘artless cartoons.’ At first I called them ‘undrawn cartoons’ but it occurred to me that ‘artless’ is better, because it has associations of crudity and buffoonery. I heard somewhere that lulu.com does a good job of putting a book together for an amateur like me. If I need to write some introductory or transitional matter it should be no problem. Two cartoons a page would only add up to about a hundred pages, so it wouldn’t loom too lengthy. I’ve gotten so that I don’t read regular books anymore because I have trouble concentrating, but I do enjoy looking at cartoons. I asked one cartoonist I used to send gags to if he would like to collaborate with me, but so far he has had other fish to fry. I sometimes ponder a little bit about what kind of cartoon style I am looking for, but about the only quality that comes tomind is ’simplicity.’ Simple line drawings, I guess, appeal to me most.

People used to be offended by stinky body odor or cluttered, messy yards. A person didn’t have to be hyper-sensitive or the member of a prickly activist bunch to take offense at these things, or at boisterous drunks, or late night neighborhood shouting matches. The remedy for the worst of the offensive carrying on was to call the cops, not run to a sympathetic judge. I always wonder, was that person behind the law suit really feeling offended by, say, another person mentioning God or sin or mother-and-father. It reminds me of those game shows where contestants must lurch out and mash a button in a millisecond in order to advance in the game. Here, the game seems to be ‘Thumb In The Public Eye’ (i.e. Be Offensive), and if they don’t squawk “I’m offended” at every opportunity they’re letting their opponents win points. And that would certainly offend them!