Everlasting joy shall be theirs. Isa. 67:2
How Wonderful to Pee!
During each waking hour, we joyful Catholics should have the mantra of “Thank you!” It is a device that can fill the cracks in each day with an exhilarating flash. Anxiety, boredom and fatigue can be diminished by a quick acknowledgment and appreciation of something good. For example, it is astounding that each of the billion cells in our bodies that are constantly dying and reproducing has its own disciplined operation. Thank and congratulate each cell for the good job it does.
The operation of our senses will forever baffle science. How can the million of rods and cones in each eye receive images through the lens and flash recognition through the optic nerve into the brain? Astounding! Thank you!
As the writer Terri Mifek said, “Maybe we don’t need more of everything as much as we need a deeper appreciation for what is right in front of us.” For example, we can be thankful for not being in a war-torn country with only four hours of electricity a day, and limited food and water. Thanks for family, friends and a sense of security. As I breathe, I remember an associate, dying of emphysema and gasping, “I would give up everything I have for one deep breath.” And I find an endless source of things for which to be grateful.
Peeing is a phenomenal act. A healthy body necessitates intake of fluid. However, after distribution throughout the body, its residue becomes a deadly liquid and must be extracted from the body. If not, urinary poisoning can kill in a short time. Realizing this, every pee deserves a “thank you.”
Thanking has two components. First, we are expressing appreciation for the act or thing received. Then we are acknowledging the kindness of the giver. As joyful Catholics, when we expand our “thank you” to a higher plain, we thank God for having become man, for having lived among us, for his crucified death and glorious resurrection. Wow! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Admired saying by Leo Zanchetti, editor of Luke: Devotional Commentary
Lord, what a merciful God you are. We love you because you have so perfectly loved us. We want to pour out our gratitude to you today, and every day.
Shame on a former Senator, who scratched the back of the applauding members at the recent Catholic Leadership Conference by condemning the Catholic funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy. He said, “The damage done in the Church is profound” then “We have Catholic politicians who have led this country astray, have led generations of Catholics astray.”
Let’s look at the facts. Kennedy served for 47 years, and his critic for a one term, during which time CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) voted him one of the three “Most Corrupt Members of Congress.” When he ran for re-election, he was defeated by the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent Senator in 26 years.
Kennedy, undeniably one of the most effective senators of the last century, signed almost 1,000 bills, 300 of which he wrote himself, including legislation for the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, immigration reform, children’s health care, the Family and Medical Leave Act. Yet, because Kennedy’s conscience wouldn’t let him vote with the pro-life protagonists, his critic protests Kennedy’s dignified (and rightly justified) Catholic funeral. There is an old Catalan saying that the curs always bark at the heels of a great man.
Returned serve
My new friend, Father Aloysius Smallhart, really gave me hell about I said about him in the last blog. At his age of 87, I was flattered that he called me “a young dingbat” (and I’m a year older than he). This was his return to my hard serve:
“You hot-shot converts give me a pain you know where. It’s because of young dingbats like you that the Church is in so much trouble today. And, as a layman, you’ve got your nerve telling a priest how to help himself, like you did in your book Light Reading for Good and Wayward Catholics. My wayward friend, why don’t find something useful to do with your time?”
Joyful Catholic Quiz
(The first to send the right answers will receive a gift copy of
Light Reading for Good and Wayward Catholics)
1. Who is the saint patroness of laundresses?
2. Where do Papal Elections take place?
3. Who was the first USA bishop?
Chuckle time
British Church signs:
Adams blamed Eve
Eva blamed the snake
And the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on.
There are some questions that can’t be answered by Google.
As you pass this little church,Be sure to plan a visit So when at last you’re carried in, God won’t ask, “Who is it?”
(Just click here to submit your recommendation for your favorite priest)
Of our 165 Bishops, the 33 who oppose a pro-choice person of prominence setting foot on the grounds of a Catholic educational facility are remnants of a bigoted past. They merit our prayers. And for Catholics who would prefer to be governed only by those who are pro-life, regardless of their qualifications, may they continue to enjoy having their heads in the sand (and God save America!). Father Michael Place, chair of the International Federation of Catholic Health Institutions, wrote in a recent article, “A commitment to life does not replace the virtue of charity.”
“I know God loves everybody, but he never met my sister.
I reserve the stool in the other corner of the room for Harlan Drake, who murdered Jim Pouillon and his partner, because he was offended by Jim’s pro-life message. Drake also had planned to kill a third person.
Your current assignment: As a Joyful Catholic, each day be a smile-collector. It’s easy because often you’ll find that your smile is contagious. When you greet a stranger and add his smile to your daily tally, your smile might be the only smile that poor soul will get all day. So, each day, collect a bundle of smiles!
Although The New Yorker is one of my favorite magazines, they blew in the August 31 issue with the article, “God in the Quad”, written by James Wood, who reminds me of a self-admiring professor who is so enthralled by the sound of his voice that he rambles on with intellectual jargon. In this overflow of theological slop, he attempts to wow you by quoting twenty-two thinkers. 
A little girl watched her mother slaving all day in preparing for a dinner party. That night, seated at the large table filled with many guests, her mother asked her to say grace. When the child protested she didn’t know a grace, her mother said sharply, “Well, just say a prayer you have heard me say.”
