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Going down a rabbit hole as I so frequently do, I ended up watching the last Mass of Padre Pio.  That led to watching an old black & white video of a "day in the life of" clips.  In one of the clips, he was standing in a hallway with his brother Capuchin talking to children gathered around him. As I watched this video, it struck me that he was one man among many standing next to his brother Capuchins, dressed exactly like them.  I wondered, "What made him so different, set apart from the others?" I kept digging.  Miracles, stigmata, and most intriguing, an account of him bi-locating. He had been at a concert, thoroughly enjoying it, when, at the intermission, it was noticed that he was leaning forward on a chair, appearing to be resting, "silent and motionless," for about 5 minutes.  The people that were with him recounted that he never left, and after the show, went directly home.  You can read more about it HERE . At the very time that h...

 A little story  The Day of the Picnic I remember the day well,  everybody was talking about Him. We could see Him with His friends,  so some of us followed. Others joined us on the way.  What did we expect to see? So many stories,  I wanted to see for myself. Three men in Bethany claimed   He'd cured them. One, Joseph, he's my cousin,  he was lame, he'd never walked,  lame since birth. But now, I saw him myself,  both legs good, walks upright. So yes, I followed Him to the mountain,  I was at the front, crept near His friends,  heard Him ask Philip where they might get food for the people. I remember the blue sky,  and way up high up, crows in silhouette, the hot sun.   His look,  those eyes,  those eyes loving all they fell on. I looked around , five or six thousand  standing there,  waiting. . Is He mad, I thought. Philip was saying it was  impossible,  what could they do wit...

31st August 2022 We Trust in His Holy Name   There was a beautiful verse in the psalm at Holy Mass this morning, that made me think and gave me food for prayer. It is from Psalm 33: Our soul is waiting for the Lord, The Lord is our help and our shield. In Him do our hearts find joy. We trust in His Holy name Is my soul waiting for the Lord. How often do I think about Him as I go about my day? Many of the saints yearned eagerly for the time they received Our Lord in Holy Communion. They would prepare in very special ways.  Sometimes, maybe, we get too comfortable, too used to being able to receive Him every day, that we forget who it is we are receiving. Our faith may be lacking somewhat.  It is no surprise, though I have to confess it came as a shock to me , to find out that around 70% of mass goers don't necessarily believe in the real presence and are happy to believe it's just a symbol. Well, my answer to them is, go find an Anglian church, because here in the Catholic...

(From Coconut Creek Police Department(?), via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.) (Suspect arrested, after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. (2018)) A fervent defense of capital punishment popped up in my social media feeds recently. By the time I went back, looking for the post, it had disappeared into the digital mists. I don't remember what had inspired the declaration of allegiance to execution.... ...None of that's particularly noteworthy. Fervent defenses, denunciations and declarations happen. Sometimes they're aimed at old-school ideas, sometimes new notions are targets of praise or blame.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . Capital punishment is legal. And, by some, valued. Stoneman High School, Boston Marathon killings; and a change in Catechism of the Catholic Church.

  Young Jew as Christ Rembrandt [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 14:1, 7-14 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India) . One Sabbath,  when Jesus went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them,   “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him,   and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person’, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.   But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may s...

I was listening to a story on National Public Radio about three sisters who were tested to see if they have a gene that predisposes them to Alzheimer's ( A family looks for answers . . . " At the end of the interview, they commented that they were planning for the future.  One of the sisters moved back to the "holler" in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina where they grew up, hoping the others would join her one day.  The other two liked the idea. Here is their reasoning: "The good thing is, we would be surrounded by family and people that have known us since we were children. And so if we walked away, somebody would find us, help us find our way back home." Wow.   I thought about the neighborhood I grew up in. There isn't anybody left that would be able to direct me back to our house. I suppose their plan reflects the difference between growing up in a city neighborhood versus growing up in a "Kennedy-like compound, except redne...

 I started reading a 400 page book by Cokie Roberts called Capital Dames, The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868 . If history has taught me anything, it is highly unlikely that I will make it to the end.  I pick it up and read some, and then lay it back down.  Not because it isn't good.  It's very good.  I just get antsy, I guess.  Anyway, one thing I have found while reading this book, which covers a lot of the politics of the time, is that nothing has really changed.  A different book I'm reading that contains Lincoln's speeches is fascinating, and leads me to draw the same conclusion. I am no student of history (I'm working on it), but to read about all of the heated debates on slavery at the time and Lincoln's opinion that a nation divided half and half would not work is interesting.  At times, Lincoln had to correct an opponent's misinterpretation of what he said by revisiting his speech and standing his ground, all ...

I was reading at article in VISION (a publication of the National Religious Vocation Conference) which is packed with good stuff.  I happened to come across Unravel the mystery of your call by Sr. Julie Vieira, I.H.M. who serves from Monroe, Michigan. The very readable article discussed steps of discernment.  What caught my attention was this: "Whether you intentionally enter into discernment or it sneaks up on you, discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit who leads us to be aware of and attentive to how God is moving and calling us in our life." Discernment, we sometimes think, is a sort of "figuring out."  What am I supposed to be doing?  Am I in the right job?  Is God asking something of me other than what I am doing?  And in the case of this publication, "Is God calling me to religious life?" But I asked a popular speaker one time about discernment and she responded, "You don't have to figure it out.  It's not like a mystery to ...

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Three of us were out walking in our local nature preserve in the evening and we came across two little boys, separately.  The first was walking out on the small dock looking at all of the "goldfish" swimming in the pond, with his dad nearby. The second came up later near the same dock, looking for the turtle, pad and pencil in hand, with his dad as well.  He was six.  His dad told us he was really into maps and was leading him around the preserve according to the posted map signs. They were both so cute, but I jokingly asked my husband if this was dads' night.  It was interesting that both little kids happened to be out on the trails with just their dad.  It wasn't until the next day I wondered where the moms were. My husband suggested maybe the dads were giving the moms a break; maybe it was a moms wine night out.  I thought maybe the moms were working.  Maybe it was the start of a custody weekend, or maybe the dads were just intentionall...

It's been a year since I wrote about the Mars 2020 mission. This seemed like a good time to catch up on what the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter have been up to in Jezero Crater. The Ingenuity helicopter has been scouting ahead, giving folks back on Earth up-close aerial views of places the Perseverance rover will be visiting. It was a test vehicle for powered flight on Mars, so it wasn't loaded with a great many sensors.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . Studying Mars: Ancient Egypt, Schiaparelli and Lowell. Perseverance in Jezero Crater. Martian weather and climate: and maybe ice ages.

  Year C   Crowning a baby after baptism George Cardinal Alencherry,  Major Archbishop of Ernakulam-Angamaly  (Syro-Malabar), India  [ Wikipedia ;  photo ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 13:22-30 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India) . Jesus went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem.   And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them,   “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.   When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us’, then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ ...

I'm back!  I know it's been a few weeks since I have written, but hopefully I can get back on track! I hope you will find today's post worth your time. I'm not sure where to begin to write about today's reading from the Gospel of Matthew, because reflecting on it has caused a multitude of thoughts to go swimming around in my head.  Please be patient, as I try to get this out. In the 20th chapter of Matthew, we read a quite familiar account of a landowner who decided to hire laborers to work in his vineyard.  To make a long story short, at the end of the day, the workers who had been hired last and worked a shorter time were paid the same as those who had worked all day.  The landowner, i.e., God, pointed out that the early arrivals were originally happy with their wages, until they compared them to the others' wages. I've read this scripture a thousand times, but as many of you know, depending on where you are when you read scripture, different...

(From Farragutful, via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.) (Interior of St. Jude the Apostle Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Florida.) One thing's certain. Well, actually, quite a few things are certain. Something that's certain about Saint Jude the Apostle is that he's not Judas Iscariot. Which may take some explaining. Then again, maybe not. In any case, "Jude" and "Judas" look like two different names in English translations of the Bible. But they're two ways of transliterating the same name, יְהוּדָה, Y'hudah, into my language's version of the Latin alphabet.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (Jude, Saints, a letter, dead emperors and how Nero handled a public relations problem. Plus Elizabethan playwrights, chorizo and making sense.)

Blessed Margaret Ball and Blessed Francis Taylor St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin [ Wikipedia ;  photo ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 12:49-53 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India) . Jesus said to his disciples: “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!   I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!   Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.   For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three.   They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against moth...

  I Know I'll Never Find Another You Sung by The Seekers in 2013 (L to R: Keith Potger, Bruce Woodley, Judith Durham, Athol Guy)  Song written for them in 1964 by Tom Springfield in who also produced their  original recording  of the song that year. I was very saddened by the news of the death of Judith Durham (3 July 1943 - 5 August 2022). She was less than three months younger than me - 1943 was a vintage year! - and the youngest of The Seekers, all of them from Melbourne, Australia. Judith was from Essendon, the Melbourne suburb where the Columbans have been for 100 years. This song became the anthem of Worldwide Marriage Encounter ( Philippines ,  Ireland ). Morningtown Ride Written by Malvina Reynolds This is one of my favourite songs by The Seekers. According to a comment below the video from a man who was a child in it, the boys were from St Vincent de Paul Boys' Home, South Melbourne, and the two girls with Judith from St Vincent's Children's Home, Black...

(From NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; used w/o permission.) (The Cartwheel galaxy group, 500,000 light-years out, in the constellation Scorpius. (James Webb Space Telescope image released by NASA (August 2, 2022)) I'll be looking at some of the first pictures sent back from the James Webb Space Telescope, starting with the Cartwheel Galaxy. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . New views of the Cartwheel Galaxy, Carina Nebula and the first compact galaxy group discovered. Infrared images and the value of color astrophotography.

  St Francis and Brother Leo Meditating on Death El Greco [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Gospel   Luke 12:32-48 ( English Standard Version Anglicised: India) . Shorter form, Luke 12:35-40. Omit  [text in square brackets] .  Jesus said to his disciples: [“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.   Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.   For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ] “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,   and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from th...

  Fr Otto Imholte 3 January 1937 - 25 July 2022 This obituary was posted originally  here . I have made some minor editorial changes. Father Otto passed away due to several health complications in Hope Health Hulitar Hospice, in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 25, 2022. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, August 1, 2022 at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Leigh, Nebraska with Fr Steve Emanuel celebrating. Burial will take place in St Mary’s Catholic Cemetery with lunch following in the church social hall. Visitation will be on Sunday, from 4 until 5 p.m. with a parish rosary recited at 5 p.m. Memorials can be directed towards the Columban Fathers or the Leigh Legacy Fund. Svoboda Funeral Home is assisting the family with arrangements. Father Otto’s family would like to offer a sincere thank you to Columban Fathers for all of their care and assistance as well as thank the doctors and nurses at Rhode Island Hospital and the Hospice House. A special thank...