Unearned Luck

Photo by Veri Ivanova on Unsplash So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority." -Acts 1:6-7 He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. -Ecclesiastes 3:11 This afternoon at Mass, Father began his homily on the need for patience with God by relating his recent frustrations trying to return from his three-day vacation in Colorado. In the end, he and his traveling companions drove seventeen hours to get home in time for him to say his Masses today. Traveling seventeen hours in a vehicle with three other people does require patience of a kind. The boon patience receives in this scenario is knowing that there will be no need for patience in seventeen ...

Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet all kinds of trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.    -St. James 1:2 People annoy the daylights out of me at times and it is the hardest thing for me to keep from responding to their insensitivities and intrusions in ways demonstrative and even violent. Most of it comes from their mistaken understanding of their own importance, a selfishness deeply rooted in their personalities. Short of a miracle or their deaths, nothing will ever cure these people of doing exactly what they want when they want without any regard for anyone's regard. What I want to do is to lay out in a very logical fashion why they are wrong and what they need to do to become better people and leave me alone. Unfortunately, their own behavior makes it clear that they are impervious to logic or pleas to anything higher than their own egos. Then I fantasize about battle axes and dungeons, but that wouldn't really get...