Snowball Launched

We had a snowstorm (a minor blizzrd) like the type we would get when I was growing up. Not a huge storm. I compare everything to a real blizzard we had in early 1975. This would be more of an appetizer.

We had fun shovelling the driveway and throwing snowballs at Dad. The kids have been off from school for ywo days now and going on three tomorrow. I had the day off today, but I go in tomorrow at an early 7 am. The temp will be @ 10 below zero F.

Tis the Season

I am reading a wonderful book called Seasons of Grace : Reflections on the Orthodox Church Year by a terrific writer, Donna Farley. The seasons through the lense of the Liturgical year, there is nothing better. The world was created in seasons (each day something different was brought into being from nothing). We grow through the seasons, year after year, hopefully growing spirtually more mature.

I've always felt a tug of a new year on or before All Saints Day, maybe as early as the Feast of the Archangels followed by the Feast of the Guardian Angels. At least for me, it becomes a time of preparation, the time of fooling around is coming to an end, time for the good stuff to start. The season of Advent is very short. According to Donna Farley, the Orthodox begin their year on September 1st. I like that. The first major feast in this schema is the Nativity of Mary, a Feast day that is all but ignored in my church (tremendously sad to say that). The whole year should be one of preparing for the coming of Jesus, in the sense of Christmas and ultimately in His 2nd Coming or my own death,, whichever comes first.

Funny, huh?

During Lent a few years ago, our associate pastor gave a presentation on the history of the church. He handed out a sheet that diagrammed all the splits including the Eastern Orthodox church. The whole presentation was excellent.

The part that caught my wife and I of guard was one off the senior deacons asked Father if priests were still required to take an oath against modernity. It was a rhetorical question. The kernel of our parishes leadership was there (about the only people who did show up besides my wife and I), including some of our more experienced deacons, their wives and the liturgist/adult formation person and her husband. They all burst out in sardonic laughter. Father did not answer. I wanted to get up and take over the class, do a little Jedi formation right on the spot. Modernity is funny? Fighting one of the heresy that is all heresies in one is funny? We are so much smarter in the bleakness of post modern age of enlightenment. It's more than ironic that we call one the richest times in our history, the Dark Ages.

Why is it now the people who are most faithful to the teaching of the Catholic Church are seen as divisive, schismatic? How did that ever come about? It's smacks of the diabolical if you ask me. It's sheer evil genius.

I wish I had the gifts of the likes of St. John Vianney. That is what our parish seems to need. My wife and I started sending our oldest kids to this parish's school twelve years ago because the two other Catholic grade schools that were closer, were full. I've thought about going to a less protestant influenced parish, and just when I was really going to do it, I was asked to serve on the parish council - a 3 year commitment. I took it as God saying not yet, wait and see. My main point I stressed in my biography for the election was adult formation. I feel like a failure.

Feelings are deceptive. Things could be brewing unseen, at least that is what I am hoping and praying for. It's a delicate situation to say the least. Just before our family joined the parish, the members were feuding over whether the altar should be in the middle of the church or not, and I heard it was moved around a few times. Over the years the people who would be a bit more enlightened er I mean formed (knew what the heck was going on) have been weeded out. I know a deacon at a nearby parish who used to attend our parish and was asked to leave because he made a comment on the wrongness of what was going on (about the time the location of the altar was being fought over).

The one big improvement we have had is we have a few hours we can come into the church on Tuesday evenings and pray before the tabernacle. We keep Jesus safely closed up in this tabernacle so it's not the adoration I experienced in another parish where the maverick associate priest at the time held covert adoration (the pastor there was against adoration if you can believe that). We had benediction and the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance that was Father's own. We prayed and we sang. It was awesome. Anyway, my next suggestion will be to upgrade our adoration time to actually letting Jesus come out with benediction.

If after my term is up, we might stay, or not. It's up to God.

Ahmadinejad

I remember the Iranian students taking the Americans hostage for was 444 days? It was a long time. I remember Jimmy Carter's inept bungling of the situation crowned with the very badly botched rescue attempt turned mass collision in a man made sand storm in the desert. I've seen film of the Iranian students leading hooded American hostages around and I could swear one of the Iranians looks just like a younger Ahmadinejad. He of course denies anything to do with it, but he is 52 now. He was 21 or 22 then.

Today I read Ahmadinejad demands an apology from Obama. It's seems to me Obama has nothing to apologize for and not only that Obama seems to be bending over backwards in his attempt to placate Ahmadinejad and the Iranian leaders. Ahmadinejad is obviously going to twist whatever we do or say into his own rhetoric to try to make this internal Iranian protest into a western influence thing.

"Do you want to speak with this tone?" Ahmadinejad responded Thursday, addressing Obama. "If that is your stance, then what is left to talk about?"

He added: "I hope you avoid interfering in Iran's affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it."

First of all Ahmadinejad would like nothing more than for us to avoid interfering in Iran's affairs as much as Hitler wanted the world to simply appease or ignore what he was doing. The second thing is at this point, there is nothing we have to talk about. If we knew as much about Nazi Germany in mid to late the 1930s as we know about Iran now, we would have a similar situation.

Back to Jimmy Carter... with Carter and Clinton, when the doo doo hits the fan, these guys are not the kind of guys we needed as president. One of the first things that happens is they cut back on military spending. Morale goes down the toilet and training does too. Why did the rescue mission in the hostage time fail? The same reason Apache helicopters were crashing in the hills of Bosnia in the 90s. Lack of training. When Al Gore debating George W for the 2000 election, he said Bill and he cut the government by 1/3. He did not go into the details that about the only thing they cut were the military and our intelligence services. More than a bit misleading.

Bottom line is Ahmadinejad is a liar. Who knows what has really happened in the recent election and supposed landslide victory. It just seems to me if it was a landslide, why is there such massive protest. I would place Ahmadinejad in the top 5 most dangerous men in the world.

Nicole's 1st Communion

Diane, Bill, Sarah and Nicole are in front. I am holding Mary, next to Nancy and Ned.
Our parish is St. Bernard church which has very recently been renovated.




















Nicole was a bit nervous for her first communion. Nicole looks as if she is facing her martyrdom. I remember my first communion. I was probably just as nervous. Sarah shows her loving support. I told you Sarah is a saint.

It was very nice to have Nicole have her first Communion today on Easter. One boy from her class was there today as well. The rest of their class will have their first Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday. It's a big class.

The Mystery of Holy Saturday

The mystery of Holy Saturday is one if the most compelling "lessor" mysteries for me because it goes a long way in explaining the world and our state of affairs today. It's like the quiet part of the song by Boston before the song bursts out in Long Time. Where is Jesus? Where are all the Holy Angels and Saints?

We do not share in the resurrection of Jesus as of yet, not in it's fullness. It has been a very hard mystery for me to understand. But knowing a little bit more and understanding this has helped. So today we savor the quiet and wait in great hope and anticipation for the future. Today can be a tremendous salve for those who suffer from depression if the mystery is entered into with a gentle childlike spirit. We should all have the expression of awe and wonder like the picture of Sarah below, especially during Mass. That's my goal.

Tectors and Nados

All children are sensitive little souls. Sarah is afraid of loud noises amongst other things. Sarah's middle name is Therese (after St. Therese, the little flower). Sarah could live on marshmellows and is very much a gentle little soul, very much like a butterfly.

Once our smoke detectors were low on batteries and beeped periodically, of course at 2 am. We have ours interconnected so if one goes off they all go off. They would announce, "Low battery." Sarah recalls the 'terrifying' incident every now and then and says the 'tectors' said "Beep! I need a battery!" When she was invited into our neighbors house she stopped suddenly at there front door for there as one of those montstrous 'tectors' inside their living room facing their front door. Sarah would have none of that.

A month ago the morning news reported possible storms for the afternoon with a slight chance of severe weather, with an even slighter chance of isolated tornados. Later when the kids had come home from school and wanted to play outside, Sarah would not let them because we were going to get nados.

OK now my point. I've always wanted to write a nice little childrens' book that deals with stuff that is scary for kids and link it to faith in Jesus and how we all have guardian angels to protect us and call the book Tectors and Nados.

The picture above is of Sarah at our local Childrens' Museum. The look on her face is as they say, priceless.