Unearned Luck

The following was related to me by a friend.  His story made me think very seriously about what an ass I have been in very similar situations. "If we say we have fellowship with him, while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth...If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us....If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us."    -1 John 1:6a, 8, 10 At dinner the other night a friend of mine told me about a date he had had a while back with a very intelligent, very successful woman.  He said that they had had a few, very good conversations before the time they actually went out.  Everything prior to the date seemed to suggest that they would have a very good time together. Their date finally arrived.  Both of them confessed to nervousness and excitement.  She had brought a bottle of wine for them to share, since they had some time to kill before heading to the...

The names of those involved have been changed to protect the discerning.  The following is based on an actual case. It was the Friday before St. Patrick's Day and the work day was about over.  I had been asking co-workers who were clearly not Irish what they're plans were for celebrating St. Patrick's Day.  I am a bit ornery.  A woman who works in the front office and dresses according to "The Standards" of the Apostolic Pentecostal church was passing by my fork truck, so I stopped and asked her what her plans were for the next day. Joan:  "I've never celebrated St. Patricks's Day.  I'm Irish, though, so you would think that I would have." Me:  "You're Irish?" Joan:  "Yes, I am." Me:  "Then you're going to be Catholic before you die." J:  "No, I don't think so."  She chuckled. M:  "Sure you will.  With all of those Irish ancestors praying for you, you certainly will be....

There are six things which the L ORD hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers . - Proverbs 6:16-19 John said to him, "Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us."  But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me.  For he that is not against us is for us." - St. Mark 9:38-40 It is already so easy for the average Catholic in the pew to feel isolated.  Most parishioners relate through the parish school and the extra-curricular activities surrounding the school.  Catholics without children in the parish school are out of luck.  Most Catholics are so harried and exhausted that they pass...

"Speaking Through an Ass," comes from an anecdote Rich Mullins related at a concert he gave in Lufkin, TX. When Rich was in bible college, his favorite professor said to them one day, "Class, you will forget almost everything I will teach you in here, so please remember this.  God spoke to Balaam through his ass and He's been speaking through asses ever since.  So, if God should choose to speak through you, you need not think too highly of yourself.  And, if on meeting someone, you recognize right away what they are, listen to them anyway."

I've wasted so much of my life running away from God. It's not that I don't love Him.  I do so, so much. But see, when I was very young, we'd go to church and on those Sundays when we would get there before Mass had started, we would kneel down to pray and prepare ourselves for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, this most beautiful re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross from which flows all of God's grace and mercy.  I never knew what to say, so I would pray, "Dear God, let me serve  you."  I prayed that for the longest time before each Mass I ever attended. I wasn't really aware of what I was asking until He started taking me up on my petition.  In so many ways and at so many different times, God has asked me to do something for Him and I'm pretty sure that I've declined every offer. Except it wasn't an offer.  God wasn't asking me to do something like wash the car or take out the trash.  Those kinds of things I d...

The HHS mandate is about curtailing religious freedom.  More specifically, this current administration seems most interested in curtailing the Church's evangelization efforts and acquiring for itself a nation-wide health care network. With the HHS mandate, the current administration and its adherents are revealing that they know as well as we do that the separation of Church and State is a fallacy.  As long as the Church exists, it will always be involved in evangelizing the State and its citizenry.  The Church, or more broadly, religion cannot be separated from the State and in the history of the world, there are very few, if any, examples of such a separation.  To effect a separation requires the elimination of the Church. Over these two and a third centuries the Church has worked hard to appease the State in the hopes that the State will allow her to maintain her tax exempt status.  Appeasement has taken many forms from carefully wording homilies and sta...

Easter Sunday! It is on this day that the empty tomb replaces the empty tower. "Come...let us make a name for ourselves..." The Tower of Babel.  The Tower of Confusion.  Man, generations after the Fall and the Deluge, was still trying to make himself his own god, was attempting to reach Heaven and enthrone himself.  Man built a city and in it a tower reaching to Heaven.  God confused their language, though, and scattered them throughout the earth. The fruit of man's attempt at self-divinization was confusion, division and emptiness and continues to be to this day.  Muted, the empty tower stands as testimony to the emptiness of Satan's promise: "You will not die....[Y]ou will be like God, knowing good and evil."  Neither Satan nor we can make ourselves gods. "The Word was made Man, so that we might be made God." By His resurrection, Christ makes us God, makes us children of God and co-heirs to the kingdom.  "See what love the Father h...

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John Candy was a Catholic. Maybe that explains the excellent pathos of his characters in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Uncle Buck."