Unearned Luck

"Then Job arose, and rent his robes, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground, and worshiped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return; the L ORD gave, and the L ORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the L ORD .'"    -Job 1:20-21 "'Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on....[D]o not be anxious...[Y]our heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.'"    -St. Matthew 6:25a, 31a, 32b, 33 Recently, I read through the Book of Job again. I had forgotten how beautiful a text it is, and in its beauty is its inspiration. From the account of Job offering sacrifice daily for the sanctity of his children to the description of God holding court and His interaction with Satan to God's own testimony to His infi...

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."  -St. John 11:1 "One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus;..."  -St. John 13:23 "And Jesus looking upon him loved him..."  -St. Mark 10:21 We all have a best friend. We may have known our best friends all of our lives or we may have met them more recently. Whatever other relationships to us they may have, they are, above and beyond everything else, our best friends. We know them. We trust them. We love them. We have all been to dinner with our best friends. Maybe it hasn't been for awhile. Maybe it was just last night. Whenever it was, spending that time with our best friends is always like none other. So, let us each think about being out to dinner with our best friends. For the sake of this illustration, our best friends' name is John. We are at the restaurant, sitting at a table, and talking with John. Maybe it is only about ten or fifteen minut...

Jack Sharp on Unsplash For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.    -Psalm 84:10 I went to confession, Adoration, and Mass this morning. It was indescribably incredible. There is no place I would rather be than at Mass or Adoration. I could live there, but do I? No. For reasons I don't even know, I always find something to get in the way. I maintain an illusion that I must do something else, that something else is more important at the moment. That's just sheer ridiculousness. It's easy to maintain illusions. In high school, I maintained the illusion that I was fat. Now I maintain the illusion that I am not. No, illusions are worthless. God is not a God of illusions. He is a God of the tangible and of presence and not of time. I may not think I have the time, but when I am with God, I am outside of time. Time becomes irrelevant. Anyway, if I don'...

I hate winter. The snow is pretty and the sun, when it is out, is always beautiful, but it ends there for me. It's the miserable cold that blankets Indiana at this time of year I dislike the most. It's like waiting for someone to break your legs. You know it's going to happen and you know when, but there's nothing you can do to stop it. The cold is horrible. It's as rude as a home invasion, as harsh as truth, and as bitter as the next morning. No matter where I go, it's there. In this over-priced box I call home, the only thing kept out by the windows are comatose people and animals, so the cold traipses in and out like drunk guests at a cookout. Whenever the thermostat decides to kick on, it blasts this space with heat straight from Hephaestus' forge. The dry, hot air mixes with the dry, cold air. The air, now devoid of all moisture, sucks it out of me, my sons, the wood, the plants, the dishwasher, towels, cups, the drywall,... I've awoken in the ...

In his contribution to How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors , Luis J. Rodriguez states, "...I am open to learn from all spiritual expressions, religious practices, and cultural/social traditions. They all contain truth and validity in them, even though not one of them is true or valid for everybody." How does he know that? He doesn't. He's cobbled together a mélange of beliefs which enables him to live his life with the least amount of guilt. Mr. Rodriguez is a good man and does a lot of very good work with the gangs in L. A., but is that all there is? We all do that, though. We all look at how good we think we look to other people, at work, at church, with our families and believe we are just fine. We refuse to look at our personal or secret sins, choosing to believe that those affect no one or that they involve consenting adults, so everyone is aware of the ensuing damage, if not prepared. But let's look at our secret sins. How many reading this ...