Seeking Shelter

Peace! We hosted "Las Posadas" this evening. A beautiful remembrance of the humility of our Lord, and faith of Mary and Joseph. A lot of people joined us. Praise God!

A Brother And Friend

Peace! I just learned of the death of Br. Eymard McKinnon, ofm cap., of our Province of St. Mary. I thank God for the gift of him. In my own life he was a friend and an inspiration as well as a brother. Eternal Rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may he enter into true LIFE. God bless you, Mac!

Viva La Virgen de Guadalupe!

Paz y Bien! This morning I preached at the mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The power was out as we began, and then returned toward the end of my sermon. Just what every preacher dreams of: to see the light go on during a sermon! My favorite image from the account of the apparitions is our Lady taking the time to arrange the roses in Juan Diego's tilma before she sends him off to the bishop. Such care for a little detail, yet how much about God does she reveal. Gracias, Madre!

Pax et Bonum! I have been gone long from this blog, but not, God be praised, from musing. Advent is the perfect time to walk consciously in our path, to seek God's will, and most of all to listen to His words of love in our hearts, our relationships, and the whole created universe. God bless and keep us!

Why Saul?

Peace! I thought I had while listening to the Acts of the Apostles reading as mass today. Did Barnabas go to Tarsus to fetch Saul (soon to be Paul) because he spoke Greek without and accent and understood better the culture of the new non-Jewish converts in Antioch? Just wondering. God bless!

Jubilee

Peace! With God's grace, reflections will relaunch! Happy 50 Anniversary, San Lorenzo Seminary, now the interprovincial novitiate for the Capuchin Franciscan Friars of the NAPCC. God bless!

Stigmata of St. Francis

To begin again to praise my Lord, through my poor words.
I think it's significant that when St. Francis wanted to remember the pivotal moment of his conversion--the action of God's grace--he chose his encounter with lepers. "The Lord led me among them," God's grace, "And I showed them mercy," a human response, and "what was bitter was changed to sweetness of body and soul." God's grace once more. But it's the 'sweetness of body and soul' that intrigues me on this day on which we remember Francis' being marked with the Stigmata, the wounds of Christ. In his body.
This was God telling Francis, and us, that all the He has created is good. That includes the body. It was through a human body that Jesus Christ made God's love clear on the cross. Redemption without our bodies makes no sense, nor does redemption of our bodies without our souls. And so that's how we have to live. And thank God, always.
The Lord bless and keep you!

No Rapture Yet

Peace and Good! A thought on May 21, and then May 22:

The world, so far as I can tell, is still here...
So Jesus is vindicated.
For what consolation would it have been
To have his second coming
Predicted to the day and the hour
Which would therefore make Him a liar!

God bless!