Category: Spirituality

Catholic

A Christmas Gift from Dr. Seuss

A Christmas Gift from Dr. Seuss AUDIO

Remember Wacky Wednesday – a book by Dr. Seuss? A story where chaos is on the loose? Every page has pictures with things reversed. Order is banished and logic is cursed.

“A worm chasing a bird, a mouse chasing a cat“, and the Z before Y in the alpha-bat. It’s a fictional book for kids, it’s true. But Christmas for real is now crazy, too!

Jesus is the reason for the season, we’re told. But it seems that for most, He’s left out in the cold.

The miracle of God becoming a Child, is now just ignored or mentally filed.

Decorations, Christmas music, festive parties galore. Buying gifts online now instead of a store.

The Christmas season more than six weeks long, ends on Christmas day, doesn’t that seem wrong?

I’ll now stop channeling my inner Dr. Seuss. For making my point, it no longer has use.

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Catholic

The Laborers Are Few

On this Labor Day, many give thanks for the ability to earn a living. Others work within the capacity given them by their disabilities. And some must rely entirely on the work of others for their sustenance. But ALL are called to do God’s work.

Therefore, I offer this song to stir our hearts and rally to the cause of Christ. For though the harvest is full, the laborers are far too few.

Lord, Send Us Out – AUDIO
Catholic

The Little Way

The Little Way AUDIO

When you speak to him, you’re more likely to get a head nod than a verbal response.  He is incontinent and hearing impaired. Skin rashes and infections are frequent.  His monthly Social Security check comes by way of his cognitive disability.  His unsteady gait makes for slow going when you walk alongside him.

No, I’m not talking about a homeless man or a vet wounded in battle.  I’m describing my 25 year old son, Tommy. 

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Catholic

Unsearchable

My created space to create
Unsearchable – AUDIO

God is big enough to have created everything visible and invisible in the entire universe, and small enough to have been conceived in the womb of a teenage girl.

As the Irish abbot, St. Columban, wrote: “God is everywhere in his immensity, and everywhere close at hand.”

I can noodle on concepts like this because I’m writing from South Florida where I can watch sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico from my chair on the beach sans schedules, demands, or time constraints.

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Catholic

Wake Up Call

Wake Up Call AUDIO

 “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace (Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 , NRSV).” 

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Catholic

Sheer Grace

Sheer Grace AUDIO

It was early December.  Christmas was still over three weeks away.  “I need stamps with a Nativity scene, please,” I said to the postal worker I faced through the plexiglass COVID barrier.  “We’re sold out of those.  I’m sorry,” was her unconvincing apology.  I offered that any religious Christmas scene would be fine. It received the same response.  I left the building with a sheet of sea otters frolicking in the snow and icy water which was described to me as a Christmas seasonal stamp. I would like to think this shortage was the result of an overwhelming demand for religious stamps that exceeded the abundant supply.  Forgive my doubt.

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Catholic

A Vanishing Kingdom – part three

A Vanishing Kingdom – part three AUDIO

When you fall in love with someone, you can’t stop thinking about him; you look for every opportunity to be with her; you look for ways to show your love for him; you want to tell everyone else all about her. So I had to ask myself:

How often does Jesus occupy my thoughts; how frequently do I seek ways to spend time with him; do I look for ways to show him my love; do I find myself telling others about him and how much he means to me?

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Catholic

A Vanishing Kingdom – part two

A Vanishing Kingdom – part two AUDIO

Where are the subjects of the Kingdom?  If the Kingdom of God is fading from memory and visibility in our contemporary world, the question must be “What has become of its citizens?”  In 1978 Frank Sheed wrote that we were in a spiritual coma!  Apparently forty-three years have passed with little change in our condition.  Our malaise might best be captured in the word repeated ad nauseam in daily parlance: “Whatever”.  Intended to convey a benevolent tolerance, it instead communicates an indifference to anything or anyone outside of one’s own experience.

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Catholic

A Vanishing Kingdom

In the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church, next Sunday is the feast of Christ the King.  It’s a celebration of his kingship over the entire universe.  An affirmation of a central truth of Christianity.  But what do Americans know of kingdoms?  Have you ever met or even seen a king (the flat faced one with a silly grin that promotes burgers doesn’t count)?  Yet throughout the Gospels kings and kingdoms are a persistent theme.

A Vanishing Kingdom AUDIO

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