Category Archives: Religion

The Latin Mass – The Road Goes Ever On

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001002 001The Latin Mass magazine was kind enough to write a thoughtful and insightful article reviewing my book The Road Goes Ever On – A Christian Journey Through The Lord of the Rings.  When they format a file I can download I will make it available here. The Latin Mass Magazine – The Journal of Catholic Culture and Traditions has serious in-depth articles which enlighten and challenge the reader to study and inform their faith and life more comprehensively.  For example their articles in this month’s edition include: Lingering in the Courts of the Great King: The Sanctification of Time through Prayer, The Japanese Catholic Martyrs Part 2: Samurai for Christ – The Shimabara Rebellion, The Strange Case of an Anti – Catholic, Culture Wars: Redefining Marriage, Redefining Parenthood and much more.

For more information about The Latin Mass Magazine follow the link below or simply google The Latin Mass Magazine.

www.latinmassmagazine.com

 

Mystery, Romance and Learning to Fly

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country roadMy family and I have been busy with the usual things of life; school (final exams and standardized testing) piano, (preparing for their end-of-year recital) gardening, getting things ready for the new batch of chicks, cleaning house…..all the usual sorts of things that occupies many, if not most, of American households.  But in spite of all the “ordinariness” of our lives I must comment that I do not think our lives are in fact “ordinary” - signifying of little real value like a rock is compared to a nugget of gold.  On the contrary…I see our lives in a very different light.  I see great mystery and romance in our lives which steers us toward a world of even greater mystery and romance…where the imagination soars and the hoped for is made real, touchable, and true.

Recently, I read some new literature - stories supposedly put out to inspire and I was rather horrified by their grimness. (They would have sent Charles Dickens to the nearest psychiatrist searching for a bit of cheer). The stories told in vivid, brilliantly clear detail all the graphic woes of the ordinary trials that we all must experience – betrayal, loss of a loved one, aging bodies, peeling paint…used up cigarette butts…and all the rest of our human grisly reality.  Not pretty but it really put you in your place if you were ever tempted to laugh or even smile at life’s trials.  Obviously, the reader doesn’t feel enough for the gritty, ground down, desperate souls on the brink of despair. If you happen to be on the brink of despair…this kind of stuff would do nicely to push you right over the edge.

And then, in a completely opposite extreme, my family and I rented some of the recent superhero videos that are out…inspiring through media magic the aspirations of the human soul to do more and to be better….conquering grim horror and deadly evil with amazing technology and a can-do attitude.  Actually the movies, for the most part, were deeper than I dared to hope and they do hold up for our pondering the human “will” as it is displayed in all its terrible destructiveness or its superhuman ability to learn from mistakes, to repent, and to grow in goodness.  Well done…though I’ll never be ale to fly through space like they do. (Well, not in this life time.)

So, after the grim story is read, I look up into my ordinary room and sigh with grey grief, or after the movie is over and we turn off the t.v. and we look at each other’s rather non-super-heroic qualities…we see ordinary people on an ordinary day.  And then I think….But so much depends on where we look.  Reality does exist beyond our personal perspective, I am not a relativist, but even in that fact, there is an enormous world of reality for us to choose from….and our emotional and mental living space is designed by where we look.

I home-school eight kids and I work very hard to do as good a job as I can but as any home-schooling parent will tell you – its a tough job that isn’t always filled with A+ and understanding students.  You are teacher, principal, organizer and cleaning crew all wrapped into one.  Plus, our family has chosen to be concerned about the physical world we have been given, so we try to leave as positive a hand-print on our earth as we possibly can.  That means we try to grow chemical free foods…we treat the land and animals with due respect.  And frankly, whenever you treat anyone with sincere respect, expect to work a little harder.  It takes physical effort to compost, to turn the soil without machines, to weed by hand, to harvest and can….hard work that is so real that my blisters have blisters.  And with animals you have…well….you have natural mess that must be cleaned up.  Nature is well balanced and very forgiving but you better do something and tend to your part or you’ll face the consequences of nasty smells and nastier bugs!  I’m sounding rather grim – aren’t I?  And when you are mucking out a dirty stall the world can seem grim…when you are pulling weeds or cleaning the house (again) it can all seems rather gritty.  So, where do you go?  What do you do? You remember the superheros with super powers that go beyond the ordinary…

And that is truly what we have here in our world, if we just look up and around.  We are fighting a battle…but it’s not a battle for money, power or land.  We may be working the land but we are not working for the land.  We may be serving our kids, families and countries but in serving them we serve Someone much higher.  The battle we face is a battle for eternity, for eternal souls.  It is bigger than any super hero, though you have to become a superhero of sorts, to engage in the battle.  In fact, by engaging in the battle, by admitting that you fight for God, that you love souls more than earthly life…you are becoming more than this world could ever produce.

I believe in my simple duties - teaching kids, cleaning, pulling weeds and all the rest of ordinary life - in those things I witness an extraordinary truth: faithfulness to the good things that God has given us – transforms us. We can be raised up from the grimness of dreary reality to supernatural truth.  God exists in this world yet he transcends this world and he calls us to do the same but we do not get to enter the kingdom of Mystery like slaves or robots with no discerning part to play. There are temptations and evil influences which want to lead us to the cavern of despair – that nothing we do really matters - to the hopeless fantasy of a techno disconnect that is not part of our reality.  We can’t fly…yet.  But maybe some day we will.  We have to accept our God given role here and now as grim and gritty as that may be at moments.  We have to see service and sincere concern, respect and dedication, as the really triumphant forces which transform us from humans to “superheros”.  It is in love and faithful service on ordinary days that we are gifted most with the mystery and romance of the distant call…the voice that reaches into our souls and draws us home…and teaches us to fly.

Sinking Ship, Sinking Culture – What Can We Do?

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sinking of the titanticThere have been various studies done on particular calamitous events to see how people responded to the crises, like in the sinking of the Titanic, and it seems that there are generally three categories people fall into. But in reflection of the series of terrifying current events I would like to add a fourth.

It seems that the main reactions to a disaster are: to panic, to ignore the problem, or to react reasonably to actually find possible alternatives to the situation. I would like to add - an absorbing fascination with the horrible details.

In our culture today we are faced with a nearly constant flow of calamitous events in the form of wild shooting sprees, bombings, natural disasters, international instability and an overwhelming debt which has done a great deal to punch holes in the fabric of our future.  All these events, reported on regularly through every media source available from main stream media to face-book and blogs, has made sure that hardly anyone is unaware of the current reality of pain and suffering all around our land. Most of us are not in the middle of the immediate situation, we are mere by-standers watching with horror events which we can do little to change.  Yet, if we pull back from the t.v., computer, or radio we can get a larger picture…in fact we can come to the rather obvious conclusion that we are all on board this particularly troubled ship in turbulent waters.

So what can we do about it?  Well, if we act like the majority of disaster victims of old, we can do one of two things; we can panic and run around blindly fearing for our lives seeing danger in every shadow…afraid to go out in public and terrified of every stranger or we can ignore the problem and pretend that this is just one more terrible event in a world full of terrible events and its nothing to get worked up about. And I would add my other possibility – we can become obsessed with watching the details with horrified fascination…kind of like the guy on the sinking ship who keeps shouting out with the precision of a court reporter..hey, the water is over my feet now, over my knees, over my chest….

But rather than go back and catalogue the recent string of shootings and now the advent of bombings I suggest we pull back…not from our sympathy and sincere concern for those who have suffered so terribly for it is in that very concern that we make any reflection meaningful…but rather we pull back long enough to get a view of what is actually happening here.  We need to ask the question, why?  Why are kids taking up guns and shooting their families?  Why are disgruntled young people blasting away in a movie theaters, in schools…in any place?  Why are there so many young suicide victims in a world of abundance?

If I was to take a look at our culture in a broad way – say I was an alien from outer space and just happened to stop in for a look-see…I might notice some general trends.  One, we are an affluent world materially speaking…certainly over flowing with more material wealth than in any age of humanity gone by.  We are also a very connected society…we have communication resources never dreamed of in the past and thus we live in a very small world - in a manner of speaking.  Yet despite all this abundance and all this connectedness we have results which look very much like they spring, not from abundance or connectedness, but from the desolation of utter poverty and the isolation of terrible loneliness.

We do have abundance, our alien friends would probably affirm this about us.  We have stuff…lots and lots of stuff…but do we have our own minds? Do we know our own souls? As I have said in earlier blogs…I have to wonder about our society’s loss of creative spirit.  Have we lost the ability to become more than owners of stuff and managers of our technological accomplishments?  Have our things become our masters and are we sacrificing our best selves to our tools?  When I think of a medieval poet or painter I realize that someone like Michaelangelo spent much of his life with the bare necessities.  But yet he was one of the most “alive” men that ever lived.  He thought and pondered and he created fantastic beauty in a variety of venues; painting and sculpture for public, religious and private use…because he had it in him to respond to that inner call.  He BECAME more than he was because he developed the artistry of his human soul.  How many of us have been intimidated by our technological assistants to think that anything we create by hand is no good…amateurish and thus worthless.  But can a machine, can any technological tool, respond with empathy?  Can they ponder their existence?  Can they strive to perfect their souls?  Can they love?  Can they desire God?  I submit that despite our outward wealth we are a very impoverished society and we see it in our children.  We shall be known by our fruit.  Our young people are disabled by never having what matters most….the command to go out and be fruitful.  They don’t need to BE anything…other than the owner and arbitrary user of tools that can do the business of sustaining our livelihood better than we can.  Frankly, I wonder if our alien friends would shake their heads at us and wonder if we have lost ourselves in our mountains of wealth.

Secondly, when I look at the mass murderers of recent days I see isolated souls…not because no one cared for them…but because they did not care.  The recent media silence about the abortion doctor who killed the babies he delivered (and all the horror there-in) and the repercussions of a furious society which said that he should never have done what he did and that we should notice these things…is anemic when we look at the fact that we have been slaughtering our babies for over forty years….in the womb…out of the womb…now we are just seeing kids take the next step and slaughtering who ever happens to be in their way.  After all, the abortion industry is built on the notion that what I perceive as my need is more important than an innocent life.  The isolation of not being able to feel the pain of a baby being poisoned, burned or torn apart seems to bear directly on the reality of a society which is murdering itself…because some people do not care about others.  They do not know the command…Love as I loved you.  They do not know or believe in self-sacrifice or offering up personal pleasure for the good of another because they have been taught in schools and movies, games and toys that self preservation, self fulfilment is everything.

So, we continue being fascinated by the horrors which occur on an almost daily basis.  And the only question we seem to ask is: “What next?”  Yet we are ON THIS SHIP and by cataloguing the horrors, by noticing the terrifying details, by being paralyzed by fear, by driving ourselves into insensible distraction…we do nothing to float the boat.  We look at the boat and we feel the water around out ankles and we cry out but we know we are too small…to weak…and completely unprepared to right this ship.  Yet there is One who can.  But He does not make us slaves with no will.  He gives us our daily choice along with our daily bread.  What will we do to bring life back to the living and hope back to the despairing?

May we turn back to the God who made us with love to become alive and to know, love and serve each other as we prepare for the ultimate voyage…one our alien friends might even want to take…to that Homeland where we are truly connected to Life and Joy.  But first…we must right the ship.

Homeschoolers Keep the Flame Alive

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homeschooling familySomeone, somewhere had to keep the home fires burning when the men went off to kill some meat for the proverbial table or fight invaders to protect the clan.  Someone, somewhere had to keep the faith alive and the books of learning preserved when barbarians came and destroyed much of the known civilization.  Someone, somewhere has to pass along the basic information of how to grow food, cook a meal, keep a home, and what we believe from generations past…and I am becoming more and more convinced that in today’s world it is homeschooling families who have taken on that mighty task.

Everywhere I go I see kids interacting more with little boxes than with other people, much less with the natural environment in which they live, and even much, much less with the supernatural world which exists all around us.  The closest most kids get to supernatural reality is really supernatural fantasy…and that’s not very real at all.

But when I visit homeschooling family homes I often find things very different from the average homestead.  First, I find a lot of people…kids, parents, friends, other relatives…all working and playing, talking and laughing together….often cooking or building something.  Second, I find shelves and shelves, stacks and stacks of books…real honest to goodness books…books that have actually been read! Third, I find art work of religious beauty…paintings, statues, hand-drawn pictures, embroidery, pottery, words carved in wood and stone which inspire and encourage.  I find pianos and violins, guitars and flutes and people who know how to make beautiful music…people who like to sing and can sing very well!  Amazing. Fourth, I find gardens…flower gardens, vegetable gardens and fruit trees…and even the bees to pollinate those trees. I am finding more and more homeschooling families are raising bees because they care a great deal about our natural world and they aren’t overly worried about a sting or two. They also have a tendency to have a plethora of stray cats, dogs, rabbits, geese or what ever critter has come their way and made a home. Of course some critters are living there on more strictly utilitarian motives…but these families tend to know the difference between animals and humans and that can be quite helpful in a society which has become sadly confused at times. Fifth, I am encountering a quiet steadfast joy in these families and homes.  That is not to say that these people don’t work hard, that they don’t get tired and that they don’t have problems.  But rather that they seem to have held on to the solutions to those problems…which is something in the creative spirit of the human soul…our connection to the God who made us in His image.

I congratulate the flame keepers of this generation.  You are alive…you are living a fullness of life many today may never have had the pleasure of experiencing. May you keep your flame bright and may your joy live on long after you….

Spiritual Life or Death

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sunlight through dark cloudAs I see it now our society is going through a spiritual life and death struggle.  And for good reason.  If one takes even a cursory look at our past (long past or recent past) we have a pretty good outline for what is ahead of us if we don’t change our ways.  In the Old Testament we see that God promises renewal – after repentance.  We don’t get to enjoy life to the fullest when we are far from His divine protection and guidance.  To insist that we don’t need Him is rather silly…really much worse than silly when you realize that our hearts beat at His command.

Recently, I have read a lot about the spiritual life and it seems that all the saints had the same guide book.  Basically they all knew that in order to even have a spiritual life ( a connection to the life of God)  one had to have some serious purging going on.  Now, in today’s world we think of purging as nothing more than getting rid of candy and sweets so we can make our bodies healthier and more beautiful.  But actually purging is a far more serious business and actually harder than getting rid of soda and sweet cakes.  What God means by purging is getting rid of all the false gods – those things that take us far from Him and block His life giving grace to us.  We can’t hear His voice if the radio, t.v., computer and every other source of techno connection is in the way.  Or if we put other people in the way.  Or if we put activities in the way.  Or if we put fun in the way.  There are a lot of ways of blocking God’s voice.  There are a lot of ways we become so accustomed to this state of being that we feel quite comfortable being distant from the God who made us.  So purging isn’t all that important eh?

Well, lets take a look at what happens to people who turn away from their greatest good.  Think about history and every society that didn’t need God any more.  What did they eventually do?  They purged their own people.  They purged those who did believe we need God.  They purged every vestige of faithful imagery, tradition and teaching.  They purged young and old alike.  Right now we live in a society where we kill babies and we call it freedom of choice.  We value choice more than the life we kill….more than the laws of God – The 5th Commandment says: Thou shalt not kill.  What happens when we make choice our God?  Well, take a good look at the recent shootings.  The people who opened fire on school rooms, family members and innocent bystanders were simply making a choice.  If choice rules then they aren’t wrong – they got the idea - they are just fulfilling their creed.  If God is purged then what takes His place?  Personal view?  Personal rights?  Unfortunately that also happens to be the very definition of a Psychopath.

Purging really isn’t such a bad idea – in fact it is a necessary first step on the journey to God – but perhaps we ought to be a little more careful about what and Who we purge from our homes, our lives, our minds and our hearts.

Dorothy Day and Strong Catholic Women’s Voices

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DorothyDayDorthy Day’s cause for canonization is being put forward by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the city where she lived and worked the later part pf her life.  Dorthy Day always left me a bit flummoxed.  Her life was such a mix of great good, confused allegiance and horrifying evil.  She grew up in a world renowned for its confusion and she was herself a reflection of someone moving from chaos into a more ordered world with more ordered thinking though she was always a woman who thought for herself.  Early in life she had a series of relationships, attempted suicide and aborted her first child; not the marks of a a future saint.  But then - few saints knew what was coming. Dorothy later embraced Catholicism and came to live for the cause of the poor and the disenfranchised.  She did a great many heroic things, things most of us would not dare to do; stand against war, identify with the poor, begin a newspaper called The Catholic Worker.  But as popular, and unpopular, as some of her actions were she did live her vocation - attempting to do His will in her life - to the fullest.  One thing that can be said for Dorothy – she was no coward!

When I think of Dorothy Day I also think of other Catholic woman who did amazing things.  I think of Flannery O’Conner (author of many short stories who also spoke and wrote about being a Catholic writer) and Sigrid Undset (author of Kristin Lavransdatter-Nobel prize winner and a Catholic convert.) both Catholic women authors who had a lot to say about the world and humanity in general.  They too offer different paths in their approach to God but they did approach and that is the amazing thing.

There are other examples of famous Catholic women who were brave and amazing and saintly but these three stand out in my mind not because they were the best – but perhaps - because they were not the best.  They stand out because they overcame so much and tried to see through such incredibly murky depths.  I guess, for me, the fact that Dorothy Day is being considered for the cause of sainthood – coming as she did from so troubled a past into so heroic a future – says as much to me about the power of God as about a woman’s redemption.  After all…women have been committing sin for an awfully long time.  It seems in our day and age that it is somehow politically incorrect to admit that, but it is true.  Abortion – slaughter of the innocents - in today’s world is as much as anyone’s a woman’s crime.  Yet from such terrible depravity as killing one’s own unborn baby a woman can be reborn.  Eve came to be redeemed not only by Christ but by another woman – Mary- the one who said yes and lived that yes in every heartbeat of every day.  What God can do with a willing heart!

I do not know the state of Dorothy Day’s soul.  I hope she is in the arms of Christ.  I hope a lot of people are in the arms of Christ.  I don’t get to make those decisions.  Thank God.  I get to look at their lives in the clarity of time, be amazed that they ever approached God…and try to do so as well.

Letter to Support Traditional Marriage in Illinois

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Dear Senators and Representatives of Illinois,

I am writing to you today to urge you to support moral legislation which will in turn support traditional families in Illinois. The bedrock of our society is the family, and children learn most and thrive best with both a mother and a father.  Despite many well-intentioned attempts to expand the definition of marriage to include two men or two women we find our society cracking at the seams.

Our children have a right to proper models in the person of both a mother and a father and to suggest that one of these elements can be replaced by a person of the same sex is ignorant to the extreme.  There are families who must under duress due without one or both parents but these situations have never been held up as an ideal.  A child needs to experience a worthy role model from both sexes and to discard this truth in favor of some politically correct view that sexuality does not make a difference in human nature is to disregard elemental reality for a unsupportable human idealized-utopia that has never been ours.

As a U.S. citizen and a resident of Illinois I urge you to support traditional marriage through legislation that regards a two parent family, including both a mother and a father, as the most ideal model for our society.  To change the definition will not change reality but will only offer our children a lie as truth thus doing them an extraordinary disservice.

Our Illinois preamble states: “We the People of the State of Illinois – grateful to Almighty God….and seeking His blessing upon our endeavors…” in order to fulfill any other part of this great preamble we must put God first and as He is the one who established families under the mantle of a father and a mother, I suggest we remember His wisdom and do the same.

God bless you and may God bless Illinois.

 

 

 

 

Faith in God vs Faith in Men

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Everyone believes in something or someone though too often we refuse to take a good hard look at what we are dumping into our faith basket.  I have been keeping half an eye on all the media reflections concerning who would make a a better President of the United States; Barak Obama or Mitt Romney and I cannot help but reflect back on one of our best presidents; George Washington. It helps me to understand the situation when I compare compare our present goals and beliefs to that which George Washington held some 200 years ago.

George Washington was hardly naive when it came to the reality of human nature.  He was reluctant to accept the office of the presidency because of that very knowledge; his own imperfections and the reality of human weakness in all people.  It is not just what one hopes for - in terms of good intentions  that counts. He understood the whole miraculous factor of the larger spiritual world in which we live.  I might say the whole spiritual battle we must endure.  To eliminate the spiritual aspect of governing a nation is to miss perhaps the greatest factor in success or failure. Let’s take a look at who George Washington was -  he was a man who not only recognized the spiritual elements of earthly life, but he embraced the assistance of a Universal God who would guide and protect him and this nation in the mission in which all Americans hoped to fulfil a lofty ideal - namely to help launch a nation “to our liberty and independence upon a lasting foundation,” (George Washington 1778) and he illuminated his support system when he said “my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations, that his Providential care may still be extended to the United States: that the virtue and happiness of the People, may be preserved; and that the Government, which they have instituted, for the protection of their liberties, may be perpetual.”  Thus George Washington recognized not only the need for God’s help but also – you’ll note – that we needed to be a VIRTUOUS nation.

As I look at all the present issues swirling around the debate floor; from the economy to foreign affairs, I must think first that what we need most is a man who lives a moral life in tune with the precepts of God’s law and aware of the absolute necessity of personal virtue.  I cannot believe that a man who supports the whole sale slaughter of God’s created innocents through abortion, calling it merely a woman’s choice, can be int tune with the sovereignty of God.  To put a woman, a doctor, or any other human being before the right of God to create any soul He pleases (under any circumstances He pleases) is to thwart the very order and understanding between God and humanity. It also shows a complete lack of trust in the nature of God’s goodness – that God will provide and protect His own if we but respond to Him.  By provide and protect I do not mean that God gives us what we want – so much as what we need for our eternal salvation.  Remember God thinks big!

There are many issues that illuminate the virtues or vices of men but in my mind abortion hits the core issue on the head.  Who gets to be God?  And who is willing to subordinate his will to the virtuous life – not demanding the bread and circuses of continued government care but rather the nation building sovereignty of Americans taking responsibility for their own lives, their own troubles and living their enduring struggles with bravery, faith, hope and charity.  I do not look to the government to fix me or my problems.  I do not look to the government to be assist me in identifying my faith or my virtues.  I look to the government to protect my right to discover these things for myself.

May we be wise when we choose the next president of the United States for a man who has already made it clear that his moral view is evolving…that his allegiance is with a woman’s choice rather than the innocent’s right to life…that he supports a new definition of marriage (which as my Mom used to say when your mind is too open the wind tends to blow right through)…thus marriage is stripped of all meaning - cannot truly support the virtues of a Godly people.  We shall be known by our fruit.  Have we checked the government’s fruit basket lately?  Lord, help us be wise.

 

 

This is our Hour

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Normally I do not comment publicly on “political” matters as a “political world” is more than I can handle – frankly life with 8 kids, homeschooling, sickness and health etc keep my days more than busy – but I am aware that there are few political issues completely separated from social, moral, and family issues.  As a matter of fact it seems that the political agenda lately has grown from honest governing and protecting this great country of ours into something that actually guides and informs our morals.  That is a complete reversal of what it is supposed to be for government is formed and informed…..by the people. The question then becomes…who forms and informs the people?

Well, some people would say that schools should do the job.  After all isn’t that what we pay taxes for?  Some would say that the media tells us what we need to know.  After all aren’t they the experts in finding everything out?  Some would say that friends and family form us with traditions and ethnic history.  After all isn’t that who we really are?

But the problem with leaving our minds and hearts to become formed and informed by these sources alone is that none of them are perfect and none of them are without the possibility of corruption.  So where do we turn then?  I suggest that we look where the greatest success has been before us.  Who did the forefathers of this greatest nation on earth look to?  Who did those heroes we love to admire look to?  Who did the saints of the ages look to?  They looked up.  They looked to Someone beyond our present vision where even a glimpse of the eternal Truth does in fact form and inform us.  There are those who say that we have to be realistic – we cannot turn to fairy-tales and imaginary hopeful visions to find our way in this world.  But I suggest that looking to a troubled world for clear answers only muddies the waters.  We are what we are and God we are not.

I have been impressed by the vision and understanding of people of many faiths who sincerely look to God-Creator of the universe- as their guide.  As a Catholic I believe the Catholic Church has a fullness in the reality of Jesus Christ, but no matter what religion you identify with - the fact of the matter is that all of humanity falls short in the fullness of our comprehension of His eternal reality (that is something we all share). Yet God is not hindered by our limited understanding of Him.  It is in the faithful acceptance of Him as our Creator, the diligent search for Truth, not being afraid that truth might come in a form we don’t fully comprehend, allowing God to be God and accepting our role as inheritors of an eternal life – it is then that we are transformed from mere servants of the Most High to Sons and Daughters of God.

The politicians of our day have a very hard job.  Actually they have an impossible job – if they accept the role put upon them by a world looking to be formed and informed – searching for the happiness of being where they are supposed to be, doing what they are best at and living their vocation; because no man, woman or superhero can do all that.  The best a good politician can do is to know that there is Someone who can do that – not by telling everyone what to believe – but by allowing people to know that they are safe in their search.  The government’s job has never been able to give, buy or sell the American Dream but rather allow people to fulfill their own dreams, to live their lives in search of their personal happiness, to decided for themselves what and who they want to be.  The genius of America is that when given that chance many people will look up.  And they will aspire to something bigger than themselves, better than government and more lasting than the moment.

May we remember that presidents, potentates and powers of this earth are here to serve, as we all are, to bring humanity closer to an eternal life which reaches beyond our present sight.  May we look up.

Angels

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One of the happiest moments of my life was when I first discovered the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  In that source I found the core truths of my faith written out in clear, easy to understand language.  One of my first big surprises – strange to say – was to discover that angels are real. Wow – that really opened doors for me spiritually speaking because it broadened my field of vision.  You might say I came to glimpse the greater world of God’s supernatural existence.  And this revelation has been comforting and startling in more ways than I can ever explain.  But for starters I’ll just go back to the source and share with you some of the things I learned that put my soul on new footing and widened the universe for me.

“The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls ‘angels’ is a truth of faith.  St. Augustine says: ‘Angels’ is the name of their office, not of their nature.  If you seek the name of their nature, it is ‘spirit’; if you seek the name of their office, it is ‘angel’: from what they are, ‘spirit’, from what they do, ‘angel.’  With their whole beings the angels are servants and messengers of God…..they are the ‘mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of the word.’ As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 328-329)

Sometimes when the troubles of this world seem too much to bear – it helps to know that we are not alone.  Not only does God keep us company along this journey - but in His infinite creative generosity He has made others who go before us and along side us and help us on our way.

Feel free to share your ideas about, or experiences, with angels.