In your dreams.

I had a dream last night that I was swimming naked in a public pool.  All the swimmers were naked.  When I emerged, I couldn't find my clothes and tried to find something to cover myself with.  I entered a tavern and the proprietor told me he had something to put on.  It was a dated leather jacket and huge pair of workman's pants - which I did my best to make them look stylish, but the jacket had to go.  The proprietor looked at me approvingly and handed me a cool t-shirt.

So what does it mean?  I knew immediately.  I have pretty much bared all on Facebook and blogs - and I'm poorer for it.  But I look good thin, wearing baggy trousers and a tight t-shirt. 

[Once again, I think I need to remove some posts.]

Busy connecting dots, are you?

Then connect them all the way back...

back to JPII.

The hermeneutic of continuity.

Dare we join the dots?

When the circus performers are in town, they sometimes perform for the Holy Father at the General Audience - in costume.  Circus performers are itinerant workers.  In the top photo with Pope Benedict XVI, "the event was organized by the Vatican office that looks out for the welfare of migrants, refugees, seamen as well as prostitutes and street children — people who by force or choice live without stable homes."

I used to make fun of these things as well, and it was easy to insinuate a gay theme to it all, but it is also feeding spreaders of calumny and detraction who love playing connect the dots and hunting down homo-heretics and demons.

On little faults and imperfections and 'little sins' ... A saint speaks.

So I don't have to.

I don't have to be right either.  I don't have to please people, much less 'correct' people.

However, today these words of wisdom from a sainted Jesuit seem to confirm my intuitions on a related subject.

Nothing makes more visible how much The Son of God hates sin than what he has done to destroy it. Is it not too much to say that he wanted to descend from heaven and die himself to wipe it out?… The Son of God has hated sin as far as to want to die in order to destroy it…. 

I speak of the faults that Christians who live in half-heartedness are accustomed to commit deliberately and of which they make for themselves habits that they hardly bother to correct. Such are the minor angers, the minor swipes, the words of contempt, the slight gossip, the mockery, the lies, the irreverence and the voluntary distractions in prayer, the desire to please people, the humorous talk that can produce nasty thoughts, the curious looks, too great a love of neatness in dress, laziness, the minor overindulgence in drinking and in eating, the negligence in things that pertain to duty, as in the instruction of servants and in the education of children; in a word, all sins of whatever kind they may be, when the issue is slight or there is more lack of consideration than malice. I say…that these faults, above all when they are actual—when one often falls back into them, when one neglects to mend one’s ways from them, when one counts them for nothing—I say that these are the greatest evils. 

Of many reasons that present themselves in order to prove this, I choose not but one sole of them, which will be the whole subject of our discussion. The little sins are great evils because they are great dispositions to the greatest sins; they are all mortal in this sense that they lead to the death of the soul, that they dispose to mortal sin; they dispose to it, both from the side of God whose graces they deplete, and from the side of the individual whose forces they exhaust. - St. Claude La Colombiere

Thou hast placed men over our heads. - Rule of S, Benedict


In closing, I want to share something else to consider ...

The judges chosen by God to save Israel were not always holy people. Some of them did not come to a very brilliant end. We observe in them all kinds of faults. Yet God saves Israel through them and assures them of victory.

There can also be, and will be in the New Testament, apostles, persons who have accomplished great things and were not themselves holy when at the height of their mission and works.

In the Life of Teresa of Avila we come upon a remark which is somewhat terrifying for priests, or apostles in general. She writes: 'At the Last judgment, how many of these trees will we see who appeared like beautiful oaks, branches extending far and wide, sheltering birds of the air that take refuge in them, yet when the come to the Last Judgment we see that tree with its trunk eaten away by the worm of pride and vanity.' They have achieved some good works - but their work has not profited them, and may only gain them condemnation. - Where The Spirit Breathes,  Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus, OCD

This gives me hope ...

The 2018 Lenten Message of His Holiness Pope Francis
“Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold.” (Mt 24:12)

Amid so many rumors and gossip and news reports concerning the Pope, the Vatican and Cardinals, I welcome the Holy Father's Lenten Message.  It gives me hope.  Therein - it seems to me - is the convincing power of the Holy Spirit.

“Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold.” (Mt 24:12)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Once again, the Pasch of the Lord draws near! In our preparation for Easter, God in his providence offers us each year the season of Lent as a “sacramental sign of our conversion”.[1] Lent summons us, and enables us, to come back to the Lord wholeheartedly and in every aspect of our life.

With this message, I would like again this year to help the entire Church experience this time of grace anew, with joy and in truth. I will take my cue from the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew: “Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold” (24:12).

These words appear in Christ’s preaching about the end of time. They were spoken in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, where the Lord’s passion would begin. In reply to a question of the disciples, Jesus foretells a great tribulation and describes a situation in which the community of believers might well find itself: amid great trials, false prophets would lead people astray and the love that is the core of the Gospel would grow cold in the hearts of many. - Finish reading here.

It seems to me the Holy Father's Lenten message is prophetic. 

It is now important for me to avoid giving too much credence to the controversial news reports and editorials on this or that scandal concerning the Church and the episcopacy, and rather to re-focus upon the one thing necessary. 

Today's responsorial psalm ends with one of my favorite verses, which I often repeat in my prayer:

I had rather one day within your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;

I had rather lie (abject) at the threshold of the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of the wicked. - Ps. 84

S. Roch, pray for us.

"Listening to sermons failed to give me what I wanted, and having had my fill of
them without gaining understanding, I gave up going to hear public sermons. I settled
on another plan—by God's help to look for that teaching about unceasing prayer which drew me so urgently. For a long time I wandered through many places. I read my Bible always, and everywhere I asked whether there was not in the neighborhood a spiritual teacher, a devout and experienced guide, to be found." 

- The Pilgrim continues his way.

What?

"Even if [the Pope were an incarnate devil], we ought not to raise up our heads against him, but calmly lie down to rest on his bosom... He who rebels against our Father is condemned to death, for that which we do to him we do to Christ: we honor Christ if we honor the Pope; we dishonor Christ if we dishonor the Pope." - S. Catherine of Siena