Tag Archives: hope

Bishops Speak Loudly for Christ -Clearly for the Church

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Some thoughts apart from the daily news:

Bishops of the Church: focusing on their duty to lead the People of God.

A bishop is not just one voice among many, or even one important voice among others.  In his diocese, he is the unique leader of the Faithful.  For Christians, the bishop’s voice speaks with clarity for Christ. It is important to note that even a body of bishops serving the church such as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) do not speak with the authority of the Bishop of the Diocese.

These are days of darkness and times of confusion. In our loud and intrusive culture, we listen to more voices than we can stand. Exhortations like “listen to your bishop” have long since faded in the background of our day to day struggle. For this reason,  we need the Church more than ever.  We need the Church to speak over and above the world. This is a time of vigilance and a time to choose sides.  Our fallen natures find it hard to submit to valid authority, but now is not the time for self-serving arrogance or pettiness.  We need our bishops and we need our bishops to speak and speak clearly.

The Fathers of the Church write:

St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Magnesians:

Let nothing exist among you that may divide you ; but be ye united with your bishop, and those that preside over you, as a type and evidence of your immortality.

As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and presbyters. Neither endeavor that anything appear reasonable and proper to yourselves apart; but being come together into the same place, let there be one prayer, one supplication, one mind, one hope, in love and in joy undefiled. There is one Jesus Christ, than whom nothing is more excellent. Do ye therefore all run together as into one temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ, who came forth from one Father, and is with and has gone to one.

Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans:

It is reasonable for the future to be vigilant, and while we have yet time, to repent unto God. It is well to honor God and the bishop; he who honors the bishop, is honored of God; he who does anything without the knowledge of the bishop, serves the devil.

These days are so troubling and leadership so wanting that I make so bold as to suggest that those of other Christian persuasions would do well in days yet to come to give Peter, the Bishop of Rome, an ear.  Beyond our failures, beyond our broken unity, beyond prejudice is Christ breathing His Spirit upon His Apostles, upon His Church, upon His Body.

Comfort, Give Comfort

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Isaiah speaks the words I need to hear this morning.

Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. Isaiah 40: 1

The day is new and as they say” hope springs eternal.” The world has definitely been heavy on my mind. I need to turn the page if only at the beginning of this day.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:

Man never is, but always to be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come. (Alexander Pope – An Essay on Man)

This is a gift to myself today.  It speaks to the heart of love and memory that even crosses the line between Man and Beast.

Have a wonderful day!

Unity,Hope,Change – Truth & Conscience

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It been two weeks since Archbishop Chaput’s addressed over 700 participants on the campus of the University of Toronto at St. Basil’s Church.  The Archbishop urged Catholics to live out their faith in the public square.  He sounded a warning saying that in the United States Catholics “needed be on guard against “a spirit of adulation bordering on servility” that exists towards the Obama administration.  Of President Obama, he said, “There’s no way to reinvent his record on abortion and related issues with rosy marketing about unity, hope and change”

“I think modern life, including life in the Church, suffers from a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners, but too often turns out to be cowardice. Human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy. But we also owe each other the truth — which means candor.”

That Catholics voted for Obama despite his stand on life issues proved  Chaput’s point that  the “Church in the United States has done a poor job of forming the faith and conscience of Catholics for more than 40 years.” In his book, “Rend Unto Caesar” Archbishop Chaput traces the Catholic struggle to be accepted in the United States, which was formed mainly by Protestants.  President John F. Kennedy ushered in a coming of age of Catholic respectability.  What will that acceptance cost us, if, for it’s sake, we lose our sense of duty, our will, and our nerve to be outspokenly Catholic?

I have a friend who said her father taught her that she needed three things to be happy: “a wish bone, a funny bone and a back bone.”  I think our catholic back bone is being tried, but if we are found wanting, there will be no happily ever after in America.

Understanding Only Now

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Writing as she must because that’s just the way she is and she just has to….Amy Welborn shares from the bottom of her heart and from the pain of her grief. I don’t like prying into someone’s soul, so I’m one who waits for words to be forthcoming to help me understand the meaning of a look, action, or a time of life.

Amy has a way of revealing the very real with a sympathy for herself, as though she were just watching instead of living it.  Thank you, Amy. I don’t understand the way you do now, but I understand as a friend can from a safe distance.

Amy writes:

“I understand how, if one had been married for decades and decades, the death of a spouse would just take it all out of you and propel you on the same road. I felt it very strongly that first day  – a sense that I do not want to be here, that I would rather be with him, I would rather just follow than stick out another day here. I understand how married people die within days of each other.”

Remember Me

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Paraphrasing Rev. Fr. Michael DePalma:

In life, it’s not how you begin.  It’s how you end.

How will you be remembered?  More importantly, how will The Father remember you?

Begin today to become a beautiful remembrance in the mind of God.


Our Day of Judgment should be our Day of Glory!


Reluctant Prophet

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I’m thinking about Jonah, the reluctant prophet.  He usually pops up in the readings of the Liturgy of the Word during Lent.  He made his appearance yesterday and has been wondering in the back of my mind giving his prophetic word, “Repent!”

Jonah needed to be hurled into the sea (a place of chaos) before he realized there was no escaping his responsibility before God.  Jonah needed a second chance to get it right. Fortunately, for the people of Nineveh (the worldly city of sinners), having gotten Jonah’s attention, God called the prophet a second time.  God was not going to fix things without his servant’s cooperation.

How like Jonah I am.  I need to be carried kicking and screaming to the Lord’s will.  How slow I am to remember that the only sign I’m going to get is the Now of my life.  I do want Resurrection without the Crucifixion.  So, here I sit in the belly of the whale,  my only sign, the sign of the Cross.  As Jonah spent three days in the belly of the great fish (a sign for Christ ) so Jesus spent three days in the tomb, and I must be there with Him waiting with faith.  Maybe, my Now says I have to do something.  Maybe it says I have to change.  Three days with Jesus in the tomb will prepare me for both mission and mercy.

“Who knows, God may relent and forgive, and withhold his blazing wrath,
so that we shall not perish.”
When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,
he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;
he did not carry it out. Jonah 3: 10