“I must return to Paradise. I must recover myself, salvage my dignity, re-collect my lost wits, and return to my true identity.” —Thomas Merton

Have you ever…? Have you ever done something you wish you could ‘take back’? Undo, erase, forget? My answer for this is, “You betcha!”, with an added, “Why, did I do that?” and “What was I thinking?!?” to punctuate the desire.

How do I make God the center of my life? That is the question, isn’t it, but isn’t the answer Jesus himself?

That one thing… All of us have ‘it’, that ‘one thing’ that is more important to us than anything else. Sometimes we can name it, sometimes not. Sometimes, depending on how we choose, we can find ourselves in a bad spot, depending on what the ‘it’ is.

The Jesus who spares us nothing. . .Last week I told you to pay attention. Did you? Did you hear today’s Gospel?

Our great Mysteries of Faith… The Easter season is officially over, and on the heels of Pentecost the church moves us back into Ordinary Time. This portion of OT is marked by the great feasts or solemnities central to the mysteries of our faith.

When life is difficult… As you might imagine, a parish day involves daily doses of both life and death. With life we are afforded the beautiful substance of our parishioners lives, and we revel as we share with them the associated joy that goes with such things. There is also the reverse, and at any given moment, there are those whose lives are not easy.

More St. Benedict musings: “Let a man consider that God is always looking at him from heaven,”. Ok, let’s stop here, and let’s remind ourselves to discard the gender driven pronoun and replace it with “Let ALL consider”.

The Instruments of Good Works… Do you ever wish you had a rule for your life? You know, simple snippets of wisdom to help guide your daily actions?

You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone… Isn’t that true of all life? It has sort of been one of those weeks. Risking dating myself and some of my co-workers, this week came the announcement of the death of Doris Day and Tim Conway.  Not to “out” anyone, but there was a group who knew AND a few in the office who didn’t!

50 Days of Easter, Part 2:  How is it going so far?  If you recall, I asked a similar question at the start of Lent. In Lent, we take on certain actions to keep the season, and along the way we evaluate how we're doing. Shouldn't that also be true for the Easter Season as well?

Easter is not over yet! We had 40 days for Lent and now we have 50 days for Easter! Now we get to celebrate the Good News so that the beautiful truth of our faith sinks in!

Euangelion — Christos Anesti! This is the good news — Christ is risen!