Month: February 2021

Good morning! The readings today are filled with the word "Today." Especially critical are Moses and Jesus exhorting that "Today" is the time… Today, listen to God who gives decrees… (When we were little did we think God was the Great Rule Giver"?) Honor, Give thanks, Give praise… Do good things. Well… Moses writes: "Hearken to the Lord … and you will be a people sacred to the Lord." (Deut 26:16). Jesus says, "Love those" … who seem unworthy to me… Love as God does. Be holy. Oh dear. I am guilty of seeing for example the convention taking place in Orlando Florida, CPAC. I listened to a few speakers and I immediately felt abhorence at the jokes about things that happened like Texas freezing with water ruining homes, the election fraud, and other things. What we should be focusing on is healing the nation, vaccinations and feeding the hungry. Focus! …. and so I fume. Oh dear. What does Jesus say? "Be salt and light. Pray for those who persecute and hurt. Have great love. Do good. Be like the sun and shine out." If I focus on those I resent for their words and behavior then I am not focusing on what Jesus said (see Matthew 5). I will be filled instead with anger. A priest once said this to me, "Pray for those you don’t like. Pray for those you have "feelings" against. Then you will be filled with prayer." Then I will be filled with blessings! Take the action of love. Shine out and warm souls… Keep praying and ignore the naughty thoughts within. Ignore the reaction and the anger. Keep Praying. The essence of holiness is loving God. Think about God and his blessings pouring out on us.

Today I will enter the ranks of the vaccinated. I’m a little concerned about a 4pm appointment. Will the vaccine be spoiled if it’s left out until 4pm? Will there be great crowds.? Will the shot giver be exhausted? See how my brain goes to the negative? Oh dear. Surround me with angels dear Lord. Let us go smiling into the breach. Of course they can’t see me smiling as I will have a mask on. Oh well, I’ll wear a smart red Caribbean shirt. God bless us!!! Angels with us. Pray for Peace.

"Only" is an interesting word. It means "Single, solitary, nothing more." When we speak or think, if we say "only," "Only" is highly separative, highly dividing. Yesterday as I flipped through the channels I landed on a blurp from a town hall wherein the President remarked that "certain people" don’t know how to access the Covid systems to sign up for a shot. He named the certain people by ethnicity and color. This is separative. I haven’t been able to access the Covid system yet. A friend said, "You have to get on at 7am on Friday, if you don’t, they will be full and you have to wait." I should be singled out because I am old, having trouble, because I am not pushy! But, I can isolate for a little while; let’s help those who are hungry… they are white and black, they are Italian, Irish, African, Mexican. They are hungry because they have lost jobs in restaurants, bars, and places that serve large groups of people that are still closed or doing "only take out." Food banks are trying to find the hungry especially the children. Parents aren’t to blame. They are standing in line.

Yesterday the priest read about Jonah who went through the streets of Ninevah exhorting the people to pray to God for intercession and today we read from the Book of Esther. Tonight, Purim begins for our older brothers, the Jews. Esther was a beautiful Jewish slave and harem woman who was selected by the King for her beauty to be his queen, but she could not approach him and speak to him, or she would be killed. Esther heard of a plot to kill the Jewish people and she prayed to God to help her. Small me, Big You God, help my people. Psalm 138 reads, " Lord on the day I called for help, you answered me." Jesus said, "ask and it will be given to you." (Matthew 7:7-12). Well, what should we do with all this knowledge about Jonah and Esther?

While we are looking for the Light; trying to be light, why not consider the readings I mentioned above. Look at the way Esther humbled herself and asked her companions to pray with her. Look at the Psalmist praising God. Pray for what we need and expect, maybe we won’t realize, but, pray to accept that we get what we need. I realized today that the vaccine is a great miracle. One year after the pandemic "started", We are dispensing vaccine to everyone in the US. It will take a while as there are 320 million of us, and we need 2 doses each. I have often asked you to do the math. Thats 720 million and that is only the US. Then yesterday the WHO announced that we have agreed to help get the vaccine to Africa where in many places it has not been dispensed at all. Many people have argued against supporting the WHO and giving money outside the US when we need help inside the US so desperately, but if the world is not vaccinated, we won’t get hold on this virus. It will just continue to spread. If you don’t think that way, please pray for guidance. Me too. I am praying constantly for guidance.

Consider that God answers our prayer out of mercy! God does not look at our merits; he loves us, and through the merits of Jesus, God pours out Grace. I can’t understand what makes a vaccine, and I haven’t stood up in the marketplace and made speeches! I feel that I am just a small person and all I can do is pray: ("Thank you God for the vaccine; thank you for flowers and butterflies. And while I’m at it God, I need help making change. I need to stop judging; stop arguing. I pray for my change.") Satan doesn’t like that when we ask for help from God. Satan likes us to be in trouble! He gets tired of our prayer! Job asked God, "What is man that you should care for him?" God is here, and He cares for us. He desires conversation with us. Tell God what makes you sad. Tell God what makes you happy. Go sit on the door opening to the Ark; Noah will let you sit there. Watch Noah work. He’s praying he can save some people. Pray for friends and family. Tell God what you need for friends and family. We won’t change them, but we can ask God to do the work! God bless us. Angels with us.

It’s starting! 3 prominent Florida Republians participated in a "runoff" election for President. Oh dear. As I freely advised 6 months ago, "You have a vote." Go for it. We all better get busy and start talking, but… Let us think for a moment about a small child named Manuel Fodera. Born June 21, 2001, the small boy developed a neuroblastoma that finally killed him on July 20, 2010. Throughout a horrible medical ordeal, the boy became quite docile as he prayed and spoke with his "friend" Jesus who, he said, resided in his heart. The boy was sure that Christ lived in his heart and that he himself had a mission to be a warrior of Light. He told his mother many things that a young child couldn’t possibly know that Jesus told him. In Isaiah 58, the prophet tells us, you will know it is a day acceptabe to the Lord when "your light breaks forward like the dawn." Think of the small boy dying, but so joyful because he saw what is truly important, and it isn’t politics, it isn’t political gain or greed. It is light and helping people. Oh how I pray I can ignore all the fighting that is about to begin for it destroys my peace. Let us continue to help others, the poor, the single families, the children. Let us think only of how we can help. Let us think of how we can be light. God bless us. Angels with us.

In my last writing I asked what does the ark Noah built have to do with Lent? One righteous man built a wooden boat and he invited us to join him. Climb aboard. It must have been pretty crowded and stinky! Aside from the noise and the stink, what else was in the Ark? A righteous man. He did what God asked. He loved. He worked obediently to serve others despite neighbors taunting him. Surely he was taunted for building the big boat in his yard! How many times he looked up, asking for guidance and strength. We don’t know. He just kept building. Called to love. Leaning on God. Hearing God’s voice. And that is the hard part.

How many of us know we have heard God’s voice? Right now my neighbor is making a lot of noise in his side yard and honestly all I hear is a saw and men talking… Out front, in my neighbor’s yard people are mowing and chopping… It’s noisy! Ah! where is God’s voice? I can’t hear it for all the distractions. I’ve heard that his voice is in my heart. In Deuteronomy (30:15) Moses prayed we would listen to God’s voice… "Heed his voice and hold fast to him", but I can’t "hold fast" to him unless I am up against him. Leaning on his chest. I would lean, and he would catch me. Embraced, I could relax.

But I have walls and thorns I have built over the years. Bad things have happened. Many people have "left the church" because of stupid things "the church" has done. Many people have been hurt by priests and pastors. My church has recently, continuously, cleaned house and the latest is the leaving of office by a so called "Conservative Cardinal." Oh yes. We all share the labels, Conservative, liberal…. We develop thorns that keep us from getting too close to what we reject. Lent is 40 days of journeying in the desert with no outside influence; just soul and God. God is trying to move us. Try to imagine a dance teacher or a yoga instructor adjusting our limbs. We are straining to pose and here comes someone who says, "Like this." and they adjust our limbs. As you are adjusted by God, what do you feel? God bless us. Angels with us.

After the inauguration I felt hopeful and positive despite the Capitol invasion a short 2 weeks prior. Then the President ordered the rescinding of the Mexico City Policy (allowing taxpayer dollars to go into countries who might use it for abortion). Then we watched the trial of a President who was accused of ordering insurrection… "Who Won?" I wrote in my journal in big letters. Nobody is the answer. Nobody won and nobody was held accountable. There were, and still are, dark times. Troubled waters. Once more the slings and arrows were launched. Lawyers are able to say things that sound very believable… On both sides. So slings and arrows from all sides. I watched, because as I told Chuck, "This is history." Knowing the result despite the way I feel can make the tummy hurt. More hurt. Being unvaccinated; I’m still isolated so talking these things through with people face to face is difficult. I’m on the county list for a vaccination, and I’m following the "rules." Friends are getting vaccinated in other counties than their own so that is a good thing for them.

All through my silence I was writing in my journal though and I strongly recommend a journal! My friend says, "No one wants to read that …. " … "what?" I ask, "No one wants to read stuff from your heart? stuff from your very intelligent brain? stuff from your pain?" Ah, pain! there it is. I accuse another friend of ignoring the fact that she is lying to herself and to me because she can’t bear the things she does to get her into trouble, so she says, "My debt and pain are my fate. There will be a miracle." Oh there I go again, thinking I have the answer. What I do know is that we are not left in the pain. In the darkness. In the tomb. Jesus brought us up to be creative and to procreate. Build beautiful things. Write beautiful words. Make beautiful music. Serve God with good deeds done by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. We were made for eternal life; our Grace was restored in Baptism, and we are healed with Sacraments which are the healing touch of God. We are healed by Jesus, who, saying, "I will it," reached out and touched a leper (Mark 1:40) healing the man who asked for healing. "If you wish it Lord!" I weakly whisper. "Of course I do!" answers our God. So, I asked myself in the past few weeks, "How do I get out of these troubled waters that are hurting me and drowning me?" Well the reading on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday is good for all of us! In Mark 8:14-21, Jesus made a second miracle of loaves and fish… "Don’t you understand?" he asks? "Uh No," I answer. At one point, God got so exasperated that people just didn’t get it, that he told Noah to build an ark. There is a wonderful church in Nowa Huta, Poland. The government built a Socialist city with no churches, but the people, inspired by Karol Wojtyla, (Pope John Paul II), built the church by hand like Noah did. It resembles the Ark. Why do we need that symbol? Because God found one righteous man and told him, if he works he can save civilization… One righteous man, on an Ark in the shape of a Cross saved us too and that is what Lent is all about. Stay in the Ark was the message to Noah, until I bring you safely outside again. So what does this have to do with Lent? God bless us!