Trying times for Roman Catholics

It is very easy to hold a pity party and bemoan the loss of the good old days. But are the "good old days" ever lost? This is a question that was much on my mind this weekend at a celebration of a friend's 50th Anniversary of Ordination to the priesthood. As we sat around a table of friends and laughed and spoke, sometimes tearfully, of all our great memories together, I realized that we were experiencing the sacrament of the present moment just like the Apostles had with Jesus, especially at the Last Supper. "A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace." We all know this and have memorized this response from our catechisms but do we ever really think about what "sacrament" means in the seemingly ordinary moments of life. All of us sitting around the table that evening with our priest friend received a grace from sharing the bread and wine of friendship and love and memories that no one can ever take away from us, not even if priests are forced to retire, not even if churches are forced to close, not even when the leader who is to shepherd his people in his diocese falls short of his job. No, "Amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:24)

What Gets Me Through Spiritual Crisis

This is a lovely prayer poem by Gerald Kelly. Enjoy.

Rob's God

I want to follow Rob’s God;

God-the-goal of my soul’s education.

Rob’s God is approachable, articulate and artful,

A glowing God, of graceful inclination.

Rob’s God snowboards cloudscapes

And paints daisies on his toes,

While watching Chaplin re-runs

On his i-Pod.

He smiles at cats and children,

Jumps in puddles with his shoes on,

A ‘where’s-the-fun -in-fundamentalism?’ God.

Rob’s God doesn’t shoot

His own wounded,

Or blame the poor for failing

At prosperity.

He doesn’t beat the broken

With bruised reeds from their garden,

Or tell the sick that healing’s their

Responsibility.

Rob’s God is a poet,

Painting people as his poems;

A sculptor shaping symphonies from stone

A maker of mosaics

Curator of collages

Woven from the wounds and wonders

We have known

A furnace of forgiveness;

Rob’s God radiates reunion

Pouring oil on every fight

We’ve ever started

A living lover

Loving laughter

Lending light

To the helpless and the harmed and heavy-hearted

Other Gods may claim more crowded churches

Higher profiles

Better ratings

Fuller phone-ins

But in the contest for commitment

In the battle for belief

In the war to woo my worship;

Rob’s God wins

In the fight for my faith’s fervour:

In the struggle for my soul;

In the race for my respect

Rob’s God wins.

Absolutely.

(Gerard Kelly May 11th 2006)

When prayers are answered. . .

Did you hear me Lord?
No words were necessary.
But somehow you heard the longings of my heart
Wanting just this once a pass -
A chance to have things turn out right.
You said, "Amen".

CD Rom The New Papyrus

Believe it or not but I have been using cyberspace since 1987 as a graduate student at Columbia University in NYC. It was not yet labeled the "internet" and we needed to use command strings to access the electronic bulletin board service or BBS. It was also a dial-up system. From day one I was just absolutely head over heels in love with the potential of this new technology. My final thesis, which was entitled, "CD ROM the New Papyrus" got some points taken off simply because my adviser admonished that this technology would never replace paper as a communication system. I often think that after 22 years I should renegotiate my grade just for the mere satisfaction of proving to my adviser that I was right. Well, as a Virgo, I can't help it - I always want to be right!

Everyday now begins with going "on line" and connecting to the world - to receive communication from the paperless universe! Each day I am inspired by gifted blog writers which I follow for daily bread, or food for my soul. Soul Flares is one site I like and today Annie had a poem by Rumi that was just dead on for what I needed to feed my soul today. I share it here:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today would have been my mother's 80th birthday. I miss her every day! This was on the Writer's Almanac from NPR today. Enjoy.

Music

by Anne Porter

When I was a child
I once sat sobbing on the floor
Beside my mother's piano
As she played and sang
For there was in her singing
A shy yet solemn glory
My smallness could not hold

And when I was asked
Why I was crying
I had no words for it
I only shook my head
And went on crying

Why is it that music
At its most beautiful
Opens a wound in us
An ache a desolation
Deep as a homesickness
For some far-off
And half-forgotten country

I've never understood
Why this is so

But there's an ancient legend
From the other side of the world
That gives away the secret
Of this mysterious sorrow

For centuries on centuries
We have been wandering
But we were made for Paradise
As deer for the forest

And when music comes to us
With its heavenly beauty
It brings us desolation
For when we hear it
We half remember
That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields
Their fragrant windswept clover
The birdsongs in the orchards
The wild white violets in the moss
By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it
Is the longed-for beauty
Of the One who waits for us
Who will always wait for us
In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us
And wanders where we wander.