From a homily by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
Life to me means Christ, and death is gain
The waters have risen and severe storms are upon us, but we do not fear drowning, for we stand firmly upon a rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot break the rock. Let the waves rise, they cannot sink the boat of Jesus. What are we to fear? Death? Life to me means Christ, and death is gain. Exile? The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord. The confiscation of goods? We brought nothing into this world, and we shall surely take nothing from it. I have only contempt for the world’s threats, I find its blessings laughable. I have no fear of poverty, no desire for wealth. I am not afraid of death nor do I long to live, except for your good. I concentrate therefore on the present situation, and I urge you, my friends, to have confidence.
Do you not hear the Lord saying: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst? Will he be absent, then, when so many people united in love are gathered together? I have his promise; I am surely not going to rely on my own strength! I have what he has written; that is my staff, my security, my peaceful harbor. Let the world be in upheaval. I hold to his promise and read his message; that is my protecting wall and garrison. What message? Know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!
If Christ is with me, whom shall I fear? Though the waves and the sea and the anger of princes are roused against me, they are less to me than a spider’s web. Indeed, unless you, my brothers, had detained me, I would have left this very day. For I always say Lord, your will be done; not what this fellow or that would have me do, but what you want me to do. That is my strong tower, my immovable rock, my staff that never gives way. If God wants something, let it be done! If he wants me to stay here, I am grateful. But wherever he wants me to be, I am no less grateful.
Yet where I am, there you are too, and where you are, I am. For we are a single body, and the body cannot be separated from the head nor the head from the body. Distance separates us, but love unites us, and death itself cannot divide us. For though my body die, my soul will live and be mindful of my people.
You are my fellow citizens, my fathers, my brothers, my sons, my limbs, my body. You are my light, sweeter to me than the visible light. For what can the rays of the sun bestow on me that is comparable to your love? The sun’s light is useful in my earthly life, but your love is fashioning a crown for me in the life to come.
Copyright Joann Nelander 2011
All rights reserved
Ceaseless the prayer You desire of me.
Your Eyes behold me.
You wait for me to lift my eyes
From the world
To gaze heavenward,
To behold You smiling upon me.
You long for our eyes to meet
In an exchange of love
And longing.
Ceaseless prayer is no less
Than a return of Love’s attention,
Glances passed one to the Other,
Constancy of care,
Attentive watchfulness.
Hearts speak in wordless knowing
All the while willing to know and be known.
The Greater gifting the lesser
With nothing less than His own Life.
The world becomes a room
Filled with the Light You shed
As I become a candle
Held in the Hand of God,
Melting in a pool,
Readied for a new mold,
True to the goodness
God gives me,
As He beholds
His creation from eternity
And says throughout Time
“It is good. ”
©2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
Joseph Card. Ratzinger wrote this many years ago:
From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. It will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. It will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices it built in its palmy days. As the number of its adherents diminishes, so will it lose many of its social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of its individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry, and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Alongside this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly.
The Church will be a more spiritualized Church, not presuming upon a political mantle, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost it much valuable energy. It will make it poor and cause it to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. (…). But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. (…) It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that it was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming, and be seen as humanity’s home where they will find life and hope beyond death.
From Glaube un Zukunft (1970) Faith and the Future (1971/2006)
Your Cherubim move with You,
Or hover aloft,
All to Your desire.
My wheels are spinning, my God.
I am neither still
Nor moving with You.
Help me to wait upon Your Word,
Until I am sent.
Filled with your peace,
My comings and goings please You,
As works of faith and love.
In stillness prepare
My heart to journey forth,
Only by Your leave
And grace.
Then shall our union
Bring forth the works
You perfect in me
As a child of Your Heart,
Doing that which I see my Father doing,
As the obedient angels,
Who serve and delight You.
Copyright 2012 Joann Nelander
All rights reserved
This can’t get old:
Text of Eastwood’s speech:
EASTWOOD: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Save a little for Mitt.
(APPLAUSE) I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what’s a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left-wingers out there, left of Lenin. At least that is what people think. That is not really the case. There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot-dogging it.
(APPLAUSE)
So—but they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in fact, some of them around town, I saw Jon Voight, a lot of people around…
(APPLAUSE)
Jon’s here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are all like-minded, like all of us.
So I—so I’ve got Mr. Obama sitting here. And he’s—I was going to ask him a couple of questions. But—you know about—I remember three and a half years ago, when Mr. Obama won the election. And though I was not a big supporter, I was watching that night when he was having that thing and they were talking about hope and change and they were talking about, yes we can, and it was dark outdoors, and it was nice, and people were lighting candles.
They were saying, I just thought, this was great. Everybody is trying, Oprah was crying.
(LAUGHTER)
I was even crying. And then finally—and I haven’t cried that hard since I found out that there is 23 million unemployed people in this country.
(APPLAUSE)
Now that is something to cry for because that is a disgrace, a national disgrace, and we haven’t done enough, obviously—this administration hasn’t done enough to cure that. Whenever interest they have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem.
(APPLAUSE)
So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when you were running for election, and how do you handle them?
I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just—you know—I know—people were wondering—you don’t—handle that okay. Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when you didn’t close Gitmo. And I thought, well closing Gitmo—why close that, we spent so much money on it. But, I thought maybe as an excuse—what do you mean shut up?
(LAUGHTER)
Okay, I thought maybe it was just because somebody had the stupid idea of trying terrorists in downtown New York City.
(APPLAUSE)
I’ve got to to hand it to you. I have to give credit where credit is due. You did finally overrule that finally. And that’s—now we are moving onward. I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that’s okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was okay. You know, I mean—you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how they did it—they did there for 10 years.
(APPLAUSE)
But we did it, and it is something to be thought about, and I think that, when we get to maybe—I think you’ve mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home. You gave that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question, you know, he says, “Why are you giving the date out now? Why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning?”
(APPLAUSE)
And I thought—I thought, yeah—I am not going to shut up, it is my turn.
(LAUGHTER)
So anyway, we’re going to have—we’re going to have to have a little chat about that. And then, I just wondered, all these promises—I wondered about when the—what do you want me to tell Romney? I can’t tell him to do that. I can’t tell him to do that to himself.
(APPLAUSE)
You’re crazy, you’re absolutely crazy. You’re getting as bad as Biden.
(APPLAUSE)
Of course we all now Biden is the intellect of the Democratic party.
(LAUGHTER)
Kind of a grin with a body behind it.
(LAUGHTER)
But I just think that there is so much to be done, and I think that Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are two guys that can come along. See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to the president, anyway.
(APPLAUSE)
I think attorneys are so busy—you know they’re always taught to argue everything, and always weight everything—weigh both sides…They are always devil’s advocating this and bifurcating this and bifurcating that. You know all that stuff. But, I think it is maybe time—what do you think—for maybe a businessman. How about that?
(APPLAUSE)
A stellar businessman. Quote, unquote, “a stellar businessman.”
And I think it’s that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane.
(APPLAUSE)
Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like that.
(APPLAUSE)
(APPLAUSE)
I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we—we own this country.
(APPLAUSE)
We—we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.
(APPLAUSE)
And—so—they are just going to come around and beg for votes every few years. It is the same old deal. But I just think it is important that you realize that you’re the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you’re libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.
(APPLAUSE)
Okay, just remember that. And I’m speaking out for everybody out there. It doesn’t hurt, we don’t have to be…
(AUDIENCE MEMBER): (inaudible)
(LAUGHTER)
I do not say that word anymore. Well, maybe one last time.
(LAUGHTER)
We don’t have to be…what I’m saying, we do not have to be mental masochists and vote for somebody that we don’t really even want in office just because they seem to be nice guys or maybe not so nice guys, if you look at some of the recent ads going out there, I don’t know.
(APPLAUSE)
But okay. You want to make my day?
(APPLAUSE)
All right. I started, you finish it. Go ahead.
AUDIENCE: Make my day!
EASTWOOD: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Be Holy! 