Saturday stuff...

Twiddily dee...dah... dah... ta... dah.... twidid... whatever.
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I'm painting shepherds today - with an angel appearing to them - on the first Christmas eve.  I would have liked to have seen that - the angels.  I decided to dream about it last night, but nothing happened - I was hoping to see angels.
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Have you ever seen an angel?  I don't know if I have either - I saw someone once - but I didn't realize it could have been an apparition until after it was over - and there is no guarantee it was an actual apparition either.  Anyway, though I wanted to get away, I looked in the direction the person was pointing - just for a moment mind you, when I looked back - the person had disappeared.  I may have written about it before - it happened in the Basilica of St. Peter's years ago.  At least the shepherds knew they were seeing heavenly beings, all that light and glitter and music and stuff - my experience was pretty normal.  I think God prefers normal.
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You won't believe what happened to me this morning.  I saw Mrs. Rabitowitz!  No kidding.  I was saying my prayers and looked out the french doors and there she was - looking into the house.  She was saying something but I couldn't hear her because the doors were shut.  I made a gesture of praying hands, and then lifted my office book to show her I was praying, so she'd understand why I couldn't come to the door.  (I never go to the door or answer the phone when I am praying, and frequently while I'm painting.)  She nodded and cocked her head towards the bird feeder indicating it was time to start feeding the wildlife.  Then she hopped off into the hedge and took up her station, watching and waiting for I don't know what.  And here I thought she was dead.
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Speaking of prayer.  This morning I considered how every sin is a choice - after baptism that is.  The temptations - or the tribulations of life - test our fidelity.  In every life one is faced with a fundamental choice - to choose between good or evil, Christ or the Antichrist.  Some people may live in such severe testing, the choice is every day.  Sometimes we lose, sometimes we win - yet so long as we live in the body we have  hope and mercy is available to us - so we can lose a battle, recoup, and begin anew.  But we have to keep trying.
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"Even though we are unable to remain in control of the temptation, we are nevertheless being asked not to run from it or avoid it.  We need to undergo the temptation and pass through it in order to come to Jesus, and we need to follow in his footsteps, our eyes focused upon his, he in us and we in him...  In every temptation, in the depths of the infatuation of our senses or in the densest darkness of our mind, there is but one way out, for us as well, the way of Jesus." - Dom Andre Louf, o.c.s.o.
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Don't run from the struggles of the temptations and trials and tribulations - if you do - come back - come back to Jesus.  Never settle for, or opt for the easy way out - if you do - come back - come back to Jesus.  If you fall away - or die like Mrs. Rabitowitz did, which is just a metaphor for mortal sin - come back - come back to Jesus.  Choose life, not the temptation.  Choose real life, eternal life, and not a lifestyle.  Choose Jesus not the drama of daily compromise.  It's a choice - it really is.
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Art: Govert Flinck - Aankondiging aan de herders  Source
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