I recently read about an 87 year old woman who is one of those people we all know who is just full of very practical, down-to-earth wisdom. According to the article, this elderly woman was being interviewed after a hurricane had blasted the East Coast. She spoke of how devastated she was when she watched as the hurricane destroyed the huge pine trees that had been her pride and joy. “Those beautiful trees have been there for most of my life,” she said. “I could look out my front window and just give God thanks for them. I always felt like they were guarding and protecting me. I guess that is literally what they did for me during the storm. Oh my, now they just lay in a pile of total destruction.” She lamented.

 

Recently I read about an event that occurred in the Connecticut House of Representatives back in 1789. According to historical records, one day while the house was in session, a terrible storm blew up. As the members of the house gazed out the windows they saw a sky darker than any of them had ever seen. Terrible flashes of lightening began to fill the sky and deep, rumbling thunder filled their ears. Winds began to howl and trees were uprooted, one after the other. The lightening flashed brighter and brighter, the thunder rumbled louder and louder.

As I was reading at the library this past week, I came across a little piece written by the Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker. In that article Alice recalled an experience from her childhood that even today has a deep impact on her. “When I was a little girl,” she wrote.”I accidentally broke a fruit jar. Several brothers and a sister were nearby who could have done it.

I’ve been thinking about something I noticed when I was on vacation with some friends last year. Part of our travels together involved driving on a toll road, which required us to stop from time to time to pay the toll. What struck me about that experience were the people who worked the tollbooths. In fact, I remember one of my friends even saying, “How’d you like to have that terrible job? Can you imagine sitting there for eight hours a day just making change?

I just finished reading a little article in which Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles wrote about what he considers a rather striking image of Pope John Paul II from the days he was visiting the Archdiocese of Los Angeles back in 1987. The cardinal recalled one special night at around 10:30 p.m. when the cardinal went down to the kitchen. Mahoney said, “I came into the kitchen to find the pope’s secretary sitting at the table drinking coffee, and the pope standing at the stove stirring a pot of left over soup. The pope just looked up and smiled at me.

As I was sorting through a bunch of old files the other day, I came across a paper I had written for a college philosophy class. The paper itself wasn’t all that good or interesting, but the title caught my eye. The title of that paper was “The Significance of the Ring of Gyges”. When I read the title I couldn’t for the life of me remember just what the Ring of Gyges was, so I had to read my old paper! Then it came back to me.

 

 There is one thing that is true of our world today and that is that everyone seems to be in a hurry. We all seem to rush from one thing to the next, not even pausing in the least bit before we are rushing off to something else. We are not only in a hurry in our daily schedules and routines; we are also in a rush to get through with things like school. How many high school students are looking to take some college courses while they are still in high school just so that they can "be ahead" when they actually get to college? We just seem to have this need to keep moving and to not want to wait for anything.

 

 

I was in the public library the other day just to sit and read through some of the periodicals and relax a bit.  As I sat reading, an elderly woman came along and sat down on the chair next to me.  She began to open a bag filled with candies, she took a piece of hard candy and began to unwrap it; the noise of the rattling of the wrapper caused me to look up from my reading. She smiled at me and said, "I see you are reading some magazines."  I said yes and that I enjoyed coming to the library to read.

 "You look like you'd enjoy reading." She said.  Then she paused and said, "And by the looks of you, I'll bet you'd enjoy this piece of candy too, wouldn't you?"

 

I was reading a novel this past week and came upon this little scene:  There are three men sitting on a bench at a funeral. One of them says to the other two men, “What do you want your family and friends to be saying about you at your funeral?”  The two men thought about it for a moment. The first one finally said, “I’d want them to say that I was a nice guy who took good care of his family.”  The other man said, “I’d want them to say that I was faithful til the very end.”  The two men then turned and asked, “So, what do you want them to be saying about you at your funeral?”  The man replied, “I want them to say, ‘Look!

 

  I spent some time this past week reading about the life of Buddha.  According to the little book that I read, Buddha taught that one should never return evil for evil.  One day, after Buddha had taught a rather large crowd some of his principles, a man came up to speak to him. The man had decided to see if Buddha practiced what he preached. So, as soon as he came into Buddha's presence, the man began to spew out all kinds of insults, using foul language and calling Buddha many disrespectful names.

 

  There was a man who every morning,  as he was shaving, would turn on the news and listen to all of things that had happened in the city and in the world throughout the night. When he finished shaving, he would turn off the radio and say to himself, "The world is one dark, ugly place and I'll be glad to be out of it when my time comes."  In a very similar way, each night, before he went to bed, that same man would turn on the TV and watch the news.  By the time the news was over, he was shaking his head saying, "What an awful world we live in!" 

Today, October 4th, is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, one of the greatest and best known of the Church’s saints. Many gardens throughout the world are graced by statues of St. Francis because of his great love of all of creation.  He saw clearly the hand of God in each creature and was never happier than when he could walk through fields and forests taking in all of the sights, sounds, and smells that surrounded him. He often said that all of creation, down to the tiniest thing speaks powerfully of God’s goodness and love.

One of the Desert Fathers was asked for some wisdom about sin.  The holy man thought about this for a moment and then replied. “The most important thing I have ever learned about sin I learned from my own father many years ago.  We went out to a local river to fish.  As we sat along the banks of the river fishing, I began to be filled with many questions.  As I asked each question my father would give me some very stupid answers as well as some very wise answers. One of his wise answers comes to mind now as you ask me for a teaching about sin.

A few months ago I had a conversation with a couple of our college students about their future. A young man and his girlfriend had come to discuss getting involved in some kind of volunteer work.  They both mentioned the fact that they like to help people, especially less fortunate folks who others may not be inclined to help. In the course of our discussion, I asked them if they had ever thought about doing ministry in the church or out in the mission fields. Once I had asked the question there was a rather long period of silence. Finally the young woman spoke up.  “We would love to do some kind of ministry but we don’t

I was having breakfast the other morning with some friends, two of whom are school teachers, and we began talking about the beginning of a new school year. One of the teachers was telling us that she always likes to begin the year in her math class with what she calls a fun formula. “What’s a fun formula?”  We asked.

A high school teacher walked into the school cafeteria and saw some of his students making fun of an elderly woman who had volunteered to work as a cashier in the food line. Sometimes she was a bit slow in making changes, other times she was a bit confused when the students asked her questions.  They began to imitate her in a mocking way and then laugh in such a way that the

In recent days as part of my prayer time I have been reading the part of the Book of Genesis which tells the story of Jacob. You might remember him, he is the grandson of Abraham and Sara and he is the son of Isaac and Rebecca.

Recently, I took a morning off to make a kind of mini-retreat. The focus of that little retreat was a passage from the Gospel of Mark which was written down by a professional story-teller so that the translation is a bit different than I am used to. Here is the story:

 “And while they were out at sea there arose a great windstorm and the waves

How important is the Bible to you?  Do you have one that you keep in a kind of sacred place in your home, or is it stuffed in among many other books on a bookshelf in your basement?  I ask this question because of an ancient story I came across this week.

 

 

 

In recent weeks there has been much in the news media about the death of Michael Jackson. Much has been made of his influence on popular culture and the music industry.

His death and the recent deaths of other high profile entertainers, athletes and historic people has got me thinking about just what makes a person great.  There are perhaps many ways to define greatness, but I could not help but remember a kind of definition of greatness that I heard some years ago in a speech given by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.  Here is what he said:

   "Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. Anybody can do it.

   You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make

 

A few weekends ago at Mass, I was sitting after communion praying quietly. The whole church became quite still and there was a kind of peace that settled in. It was very pleasant. Then, all at once, a child began to cry. It was that kind of childhood scream that is followed by what seems like a long period of quiet that makes you stop to notice because the child has not yet taken a breath. Finally, after that seemingly eternal pause, a breath was taken and the true screaming began. That church, which was one minute before a real haven of peace, was now cast into such a din that I think everyone was a bit unnerved.

This weekend as we celebrate the Fourth of July, we are all aware of the freedom we enjoy in this country. We take so many of our freedoms for granted until, of course, one of them is taken from us; and then, we no longer take freedom so lightly. It occurred to me that there are many ways to lose our freedom. One very simple way is to have some thing or some one get “in the way” of what we want to do. A person steps into our path or something blocks our way as we are moving along and we are no longer free, no longer peaceful, and no longer very happy.
 

 

There is a Sufi tale told about a man named Nasruddin who became and ancient king's prime minister. Nasruddin's duties were many and varied and he took all of them rather seriously.  He wanted everything in the king's palace to be in perfect shape and everything had to be in its proper place.  Now as the story goes, one day Prime Minister Nasruddin wandered through the palace taking in all that was before him. His eyes fell upon the Royal Falcon. He said to himself, "I have never seen this kind of pigeon before. This will not do here in our king's great palace.  So he got out a pair of scissors and a pair of clippers and began to trim the bird's claws. Next, he noticed the bird's wings were not shaped like other pigeons he had seen, so he used the scissors to trim up those wings.

Early in the morning, one day this past week I was praying as I slowly walked around our church looking at the Bas Reliefs. I stopped at the image of Sr. Thea Bowman and felt called to spend a little time there in deeper prayer.  I don't know why I was called to pray at that spot, but I do know that later that same day, as I was clearing away some books from around the chair where I do most of my reading, I came across a very short life of Sr. Thea Bowman.  Because of my prayer earlier that day, I stopped and re-read that little biography. One particular passage struck me in such a way that it has stayed with me in my prayer every day since.  The passage I recall is from an interview that Sr. Thea gave a few months before she died.  She had been asked what her image of God was.