I enjoyed yesterday's Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes in Decatur, marking the 150th anniversary of the apparitions at Lourdes, France, and the beginning of Lourdes Parish's 50th jubilee year observance.  My parents and I were charter members of the parish when it was created on October 28, 1958 (the same day Angelo Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII!). 

I am happy to pass along this document, more conciliatory in tone when speaking of other Christians and people of other faiths than what I refer to as "the July thing."

We all appreciate a quiet, loving hint so that we can be informed of a need to change something.  We don't appreciate it when this need becomes a topic of common conversation and we end up being the last to know.  Jesus was giving Zacchaeus that quiet, loving hint that leads to conversion.

Apparently Libsyn has been having some problems over the last few days with access to their site.

Anyway, here's my first theology-bite on heaven, and my thought on responding to what is ultimately a meaningless question.  Accept discipline and stand up straight!

I had bought the set in 1993; I did not begin reading in earnest until early 1996 -- over eleven years ago.

Now that I have read the "Great Books," I have the rest of my life to engage in scholarship: dipping back into these books for the sake of my ongoing enrichment.  It's going to be good.

Travel safely if you must travel, and remember, especially in regard to coming to Mass, that no one is bound to the impossible.

Very shortly I will upload my homily from the weekend of the First Sunday of Advent.

Given that I bought a new computer recently, I am a bit delayed in making all the transitions from old to new.  In the case of the homilies, my recording software seems to be clashing with the version of Windows XP that came with this new computer.  I am checking with the software company on this.  I did not record last Sunday, 33rd in OT, but I do have 32nd OT recorded, and I will keep recording so there will be plenty to listen to after I have resolved the problem.

I heard Mr. Rumsfeld's parting words.  He is unrepentantly arrogant to the end.  His comments informed all of us who oppose his precious "first war of the twenty-first century" that we misunderstand it -- as one might misunderstand a gifted child, I suppose.  How can we fail to understand that this war in Iraq was conceived because of this administration's fatal hubris and willingness to lie to the world about the existence of weapons and the nonexistent connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001?  How can we fail to understand bloodshed for no reason?  But this quality is inherent in arrogance: to suppose that those who disagree, if not disloyal, are, at the very least, stupid.  But this is the chief and mortal flaw of the arrogant person: the unwillingness to see that he does not have a monopoly on wisdom -- the resistance to the fact that others perceive truth without its being "managed" or "spun."  Someone once said that the truth will set us free.  There is freedom in acceding to the fact that truth is accessible to all human minds and hearts.  But the arrogant one denies this.  And so he condemns himself to self-inflicted deception.

This reminds me of something I once said when at Mass a seminarian and I were struggling with getting incense to burn: "This is why we spend eight years in the seminary: to learn to light charcoal!"  More to the point, we as the Catholic Church are experiencing a rollback of the great liturgical progress we were making following the Second Vatican Council.  The Council taught us that each believer (not just the ordained) has an active role in the liturgy.  Further, we learned that the sign-value of each sacrament must be used to the fullest.  Cardinal Arinze's comments on intinction, on the other hand, belittle the importance of actual eating and drinking in the sacrament of the Eucharist.  We will comply, but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

Check back here for occasional book reports.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/archive_db.cgi/tablet-01193

I am in the midst of an experiment to figure out how to get tribunal work done smarter and faster.  I may actually get some time today to work on some work I've brought home.  But I also have to get in some serious back-porch time!

I hit a wall about a week ago.  I was extremely tired, and I wondered whether I needed a change in my antidepressants.

I began to consider whether my brain just needed a rest.  I have been trying to rest my brain and I seem to be doing OK.

You there, staring at the computer: Are you thinking too much?

I found myself, these last two weekends, deciding that doing the recording was one multitask too many.  I hope that a homily will appear here on the Third Sunday of Easter.

On Easter Sunday, I gave a brief homily which concluded: "The tomb is empty.  Our hearts are full."  On the Second Sunday of Easter, I talked about the earliest Christians having all their goods in common, and I extended this idea to our need to care for our one household, the planet Earth.

I am definitely discontinuing my AOL blog.  It is much handier for me to write ideas in the same place where I put my spoken ideas.