Armistice Day

America’s deadliest battle ever, with 26,000 U.S. soldiers killed.

100 years ago, the weather was bad - but the American offensive at Meuse-Argonne in 1918 turned out to be a great American victory that helped bring an end to World War I.

In Minnesota ...

The Fires in California

Every year, every season.

Prayers for my friends and family there - and all the residents.  Especially those most in need, those  losing home, property and possessions - even their lives.  

Living Stones

What does it mean?

What does the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica mean for an ordinary Christian?  

The angel brought me
back to the entrance of the temple

You are God's building...

Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God's temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

I have chosen and consecrated this house, says the Lord,
that my name may be there forever. - Today's Readings

Be very careful and be attentive to your angel ...

Be attentive to him and heed his voice.
Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your sin.
My authority resides in him.

There is a lot of talk about having two churches.  A bad pope.  A bad council.  A bad Mass.

Don't believe them.  That is what they wanted you to believe all along.  There is no such thing as two churches.  There is One Church.  One Faith.  One Baptism.  There is no such thing as a small church, a remnant.  We are living stones of One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Year by year you sanctify the Church, the Bride of Christ,
foreshadowed in visible buildings,
so that rejoicing as the mother of countless children,
she may be given her place in her heavenly glory. - Preface: The Mystery of the Church

"Realize that your soul is the temple of God - it is St. Paul who teaches this. At every moment of the day and night the three Divine Persons are living within you." - Elizabeth of the Trinity

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

St. John Paul emphasized:

"The saints, in particular,

are precious stones

of that spiritual temple."

The gunman who massacred 13 people at a country music bar ...

Ian Long, 28, the gunman who opened fire

 on Borderline Bar and Grill 

in Thousand Oaks, California.

Tattooed trenchcoat-wearing decorated ex-Marine, 28, is identified as gunman who massacred twelve people during student night at country bar: Suspect killed himself after hurling smoke grenades onto dance floor and slaying cop in California ...

Long had modified his legally purchased handgun so that it could hold more rounds.

'The handgun is designed to hold 10 rounds and one in the chamber. This weapon did have an extended magazine on it. - Source

Martyrs

I'm thinking about the martyrs of the Southwest.  I especially like Fray Francisco Tomás Arvide, who wears a machete in his skull in art.

Otherwise I don't have much to say lately.

All Souls

“I know when you pray for me, and it is the same with all of the other souls here in Purgatory. Very few of us here get any prayers; the majority of us are totally abandoned, with no thought or prayers offered for us from those on earth”(Message from a soul in Purgatory)

The Pope ought to remove McCarrick from the priesthood?

I'm not sure what that would accomplish.

Why?  Because ordination imparts an indelible character upon the soul - he's a priest forever.  Nevertheless, Fr. Ramsey believes that would help the faithful. 

Father Boniface Ramsey, the Dominican who taught at the seminar of the Immaculate Conception in Newark learning of the homosexual harassment perpetrated by Bishop Theodore McCarrick, and wrote to Nuncio Gabriel Montalvo the day after McCarrick's appointment in Washington, asks the Pope to publicly remove from the now former cardinal from priesthood. Ramsey wrote a detailed memoir published in the American Catholic magazine Commonweal. - Vatican Insider

Fr. Ramsey believes:  McCarrick’s public removal from the priesthood, not just the College of Cardinals would be an appropriate and generally understandable response to his crimes and sins”. Ramsey knows more than I do, but I think McCarrick's title removed and his exile of penance and prayer is sufficient temporal punishment.  Most of us just want to know why no one did anything about it before everything became public, especially since many bishops already knew about his particular exercise of 'corruption'.

"We all know that McCarrick had picked up a flight attendant at the airport".

That said, some of the stuff sounds like a script for a character in a screwball comedy.  Especially the following anecdote.

Ramsey reiterates why he was excluded from the college of voting consultants in the Newark seminary: for he spoke in favor of the expulsion of McCarrick’s favorite seminarian, whom the bishop had met on a plane where he was working as steward, inviting him at the time to become one of his seminarians.  

Father Ramsey adds a new detail, relating to the fact that "rumorsˮ on McCarrick's habits already in the early 'nineties were known even outside the narrow circle of the Churches of Metuchen and Newark. At least so he deduces from the words that the Archbishop of Louisville, Monsignor Thomas Kelly, said to him on the phone immediately after Ramsey had been deprived of voting power in the seminary: "We all know that McCarrick had picked up someone (the seminarian, ed.) at the airport". The Dominican believes that that "all of us" meant "McCarrick's brother bishops" and that this was "the first sign that knowledge of McCarrick's behavior was widespread among all American bishops". - ibid

He recruited/picked up a flight attendant to enter seminary.  Someone needs to remake Going My Way.

I give up.

The Jesuit Pope

Pope Francis.

A dear friend sent me a note from the Spiritual Exercises which I found very helpful when it comes to reading editorialized news reports online: "that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor's statement than to condemn it."  I take it to heart as advice to myself. 

It seems to me that Ignatian spirituality is the key to understanding the Holy Father, and perhaps why I find his teaching so appealing.  The Spiritual Exercises bolstered me in my conversion many years ago.  Shortly after returning to the sacraments I made an Ignatian retreat - not the long one - but the Ignatian method of prayer was how my prayer was initially formed and directed. 

That said, I came across some good stuff the Holy Father recently told the Jesuits in Vilnius:  "Meditate on the Passion, he tells his brothers, and be not afraid to go into the terrain of the devil..."

What?  I know!  But I totally get what the Pope means - it explains so much about this papacy.  It even corrects many of my misconceptions about the ministries of a few controversial figures.  What does the Holy Father mean? 

Listen... or rather read with the heart.

As the spiritual support of their flocks, the Jesuits must not fear to descend into other people’s “hell,” Pope Francis told his spiritual brothers.

We must not be afraid to go down into “people’s hell,” said the Successor of Peter on this occasion. Upon entering the “terrain of the devil,” one touches human and social sufferings, he said; that is to say, people’s “wounds,” and, through them, those of Christ. It helps, said the head of the Catholic Church, to “meditate on the Passion of the Lord.”

This mission, however, should not be undertaken “on one’s own,” but with the help of the Lord and the “beautiful mafia of angels,” he jokingly recommended.

Difficult situations must be confronted with the Lord, he assured, and in dialogue with the whole community, especially the superior. “The provincial is a brother,” said the pope, who himself held this position for the Jesuit community of Argentina between 1973 and 1980.

In addition, Pope Francis discussed the role of the confessor. According to him, it is “to embrace the prodigal son.” The confessor must therefore act with “paternity” and never chase away a penitent. If not, he warned, his bishop must question whether this priest should have the faculties to confess. It is not a question of granting “sweeping” pardons, but of acting like a “merciful father.” - Source

As St. Therese wrote: "a soul in the state of grace need never be afraid of the devil, who is such a coward that even the gaze of a child will frighten him away.”

I know I'm no good ...

The Holy Father speaks directly to me today...

His words today seem to sum up everything I have been thinking lately.

“The first step in knowing Christ, in entering into this mystery, is the knowledge of one’s own sin, of one’s own sins”, in recognizing that we are sinners, Pope Francis insists. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, he adds, “we confess our sins” but “it is one thing to tell our sins”, it is another thing to recognize our nature of sinners, “capable of doing anything”, “recognizing ourselves as dirty”. Shame, in short, to feel the need to be “redeemed”.

“[Jesus] is able to accomplish far more than all we can ask or imagine”. He has the power to do it.

“Christians of words, we have so many words; we too, so many words. This is not sanctity; sanctity is being Christians who work out in life what Jesus taught and what Jesus has sown in our hearts”. - Source

Yes!

That has always been my way, my confidence:  “Jesus is able to accomplish far more than all we can ask or imagine - by his power at work in us."  He knows that by myself I am no good.  He knows I can't be trusted.  He knows everything I touch, do, or say is tainted.

Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.

I haven't been paying attention to the Synod.

"I gotta get goin' around here!" - St. Gertrude of Sorens

Crazy Weather

What next?

Hailstorm in Rome ...

A wave of extreme weather bringing hail, floods and strong winds has brought parts of Italy to a standstill.
After a long spell of hot weather, Rome suffered damage from a major hailstorm and torrential rains overnight.
Firefighters were called out nationwide, from Milan in the north to Sicily in the south. - BBC

Earthquakes off Vancouver ...

The U.S. Geological Survey says several powerful quakes were reported Sunday evening. The of the depth the largest is about 6 miles (10 kilometers) and it struck about 149 miles (239 kilometers) west of Tofino, Canada. - Source

Cat 5 Hurricane bears down on Mexico ... 

Hurricane Willa, an "extremely dangerous" storm heading to Mexico's Pacific coast, was upgraded to Category 5 by the National Hurricane Center on Monday.
The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 160 mph, is about 135 miles away from Cabo Corrientes, a municipality in southwest Mexico. It is moving north at 7 mph, according to the NHC's latest advisory. - NPR

Have a nice day! 

Angel of the Apocalypse

St. John Paul II

St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II

It occurred to me this morning that Pope Francis is following closely in the footsteps of his predecessors, not only St. John Paul II but his predecessor St. Paul VI, and of course, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.

Patrick McGrath Muñiz Art

Santa Justica

À mon regret...

Non, je ne veux pas ...

I'm getting worse, about sending my regrets, that is.  Or not inviting friends over.  Or going meeting someplace.  It is difficult to say, Non, je ne veux pas - no, I don't want to - without sounding rude.

I'm so much like the person in the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye ...

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.

When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

This morning I was thinking of a Carmelite I knew, how she lived in the monastery all of her life and never left.  How she returned to her cell every evening after choir, owning nothing, having nothing but solitude and pain, until her death of love.

Just a note -

I've forgotten to check moderation for your comments and found a bunch and just posted them.  Sorry for the delay!   I will try to keep up and respond accordingly.  Thanks!

Saint of the Day – 17 October – St Ignatius of Antioch

St. Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us!

“I am a kernel of wheat for Christ. 

I must be ground by the teeth of beasts 

to be found bread (of Christ) wholly pure”.

I think of St. Ignatius as a Eucharistic saint-martyr.  This morning I thought, now with St. Oscar Romero we have two individual Eucharistic martyrs imaging both the Body and Blood.

I'm not sure if I expressed it well, but the holy death of St. Oscar Romero at the moment of consecration is as edifying to me as the martyrdom of St. Ignatius.  Imagine the blood of Christ mixed with the blood of Romero.  It makes me tremble.

St. Oscar Romero, pray for us!

What the Pope said ...

Painting by Jacek Yerka

Be careful ...

Be careful around those who are rigid. Be careful around Christians – be they laity, priests, bishops – who present themselves as so “perfect,” rigid. Be careful. There’s no Spirit of God there. They lack the spirit of liberty. And let us be careful with ourselves, because this should lead us to consider our own life. Do I seek to look only at appearance, and not change my heart? Do I not open my heart to prayer, to the liberty of prayer, the liberty of almsgiving, the liberty of works of mercy? - VN

"They were truly an example of formality. But they lacked life. They were, so to speak, “starched.” They were rigid. And Jesus knew their soul." - Pope Francis