Monthly Archives: June 2009

It is Mine and I am Keeping It!

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I had a glorious day yesterday where I felt good, had minimal issues, and was in great spirits. Alas, that is not the case today. However, I am content, if not joyful. Having such a good yesterday is definitely helping me deal with today.

No one can take my wonderful yesterday away from me! 🙂 It is mine! And I’m keeping it! 🙂 I don’t care how sick I am today, yesterday I was awesome. Praise God for giving me that day! 🙂

Here is my sick-day passage:
James 5:13-15

Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint [him] with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.

And . . . I think I shall unite my little sufferings today to the cross of our Lord for the purposes of all of our priests on this Thursday (the day of the institution of the Priesthood) in this amazing Year of the Priest. God bless you! 🙂

Follow our Archbishop as he goes on pilgrimage to Rome!

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Archbishop Vigneron has established a blog so that the faithful may share in his pilgrimage to Rome. Below is an explanation of the purpose of the blog, taken from the site:

As he travels to the Vatican to receive the pallium from Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron invites the faithful from the Archdiocese of Detroit to share in his journey. His Excellency, and a few fellow pilgrims who are travelling with him, hope this blog can be a way for you, too, to share in this experience. It will culminate with a Mass on June 29, the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, at which the archbishop will celebrate the Eucharist with Pope Benedict and fellow bishops from around the world, and at which he will receive his pallium.

The pallium itself is a thin, woolen scarf or band that an archbishop wears during liturgies. It is given only to metropolitan archbishops to represent their sharing in the pope’s ministry of shepherding God’s people on earth. As Archbishop of Detroit, Archbishop Vigneron is the metropolitan archbishop for the six other dioceses of Michigan. Four other archbishops from the United States, and several more from around the world, also are receiving their pallia on June 29.

For more detailed information about the pallium, please visit the Archdiocese of Detroit Web site at www.aodonline.org/pallium. And, of course, follow along on this blog as you pray with and for Detroit’s chief shepherd on his pilgrimage.

Health Update

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I was blessed with a good day today! A very good day! Today, I had the least chest pain that I’ve had in weeks. I was able to breathe! I even ran today! Granted, it was only 50 feet — but I ran! Last week Wednesday, I was gasping for air just sitting, and for much of the past week or two, I’ve been barely able to walk without being very short of breath, and today I RAN! 🙂 I am much less itchy today, and I have hope that maybe this poison ivy might be clearing up! 🙂 Except for just a little bit in the morning, I haven’t been dizzy all day!

And…

I had fat free Häagen-Dazs mango sorbet in the freezer waiting for me when I got home from work. 🙂 Yum! (By the way, no, my parents never said I couldn’t have ice cream for dinner!)

And…

Both yesterday and today, I have been disgustingly, sickeningly . . . happy. 🙂

I *will* get air conditioning if it kills me!

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I think we all remember the last time I had a struggle getting my A/C up and running…

This year:

I have a temporary roommate. Which means that I have given up my bedroom in favor of sleeping in a chair in my prayer room. The window there is very small. And it does not raise up very high. So the window air conditioner that I have is too tall to fit nicely in the bottom part of the window.

But, you all know how stubborn I am. It is 11 pm, and my thermostat on my house says 82.5 degrees F, and I am itchy from this rash and poison ivy or whatever it is that is plaguing my skin and I am having NONE OF IT! 🙂 I am determined to have air conditioning.

So, I try and move all the window panes to the bottom instead of to the top and putting the air conditioner on the top part of the window. Never mind that I am short of breath and being worked up for a cardiac condition. I am lifting heavy things over my head because I am a) stubborn and b) dumb. Okay, it mostly fits in there. It’s a little tall still, so it is not going to pitch backwards out of the house. The only question is if it going to pitch forward and fall into the house and on my head.

Hmmmm….

How can we fix this?

Holding up my curtains is this flimsy, cheap metal rod.

Maybe…

I can stick something in there, wedge it between the rod and the air conditioner, to hold it in place. But what?

I got it!

A tripod!

Genius!

And now I have air conditioning! 🙂

DSCN7976

Year of the Priest

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Obviously, this is going to be the Best Year Ever!!!! 🙂

I am so excited and my heart is so full of squee! 🙂 I have been doing the happy dance in anticipation of this day, this year, since I first heard about it. I cannot wait to see all of the great things which are going to come out.

We have heard so many awful things about our priests, so much doubt and venom, all aimed at tearing them down. After the Fr. Cutié incident, I heard many people either stating that celibacy was an antiquated and unnecessary practice, or that it didn’t really matter that he decided to leave the Catholic church, among other things. My purpose in writing this is not really to debate that issue, although I could, but rather to focus on what is important.

Sure, there are going to be times when this priest or that priest is in the news. Sure, some of them are actually going to have done something scandalous. Not all of them. Their lives have a level of scrutiny most of us do not have to deal with. I would pray that if we come across something, that our reaction not first be offense or judgment, but love. Don’t condemn these people, pray for them!

Our society revels in tearing people down. It loves to show everyone else as being corrupt and dirty. Instead, we should be building people up. We should recognise that they fall, yes, but instead of rubbing their face in it, causing them shame and making a spectacle, we should be there to stretch out our hands and help them back to their feet. We are all in this race together, and the point is to make it home. We all stumble and we all fall.

I live with the conviction that our priests are good men. These are our beloved brothers. They, as so recently pointed out, have chosen to give their lives in service to us. They have chosen to be ontologically conformed to a man who was nailed to a cross — for us. If we find it heroic that a person, in a moment of crisis will give his life for another person, what about a person who routinely, every day, gives his life for another person? And, usually, without notice or thanks.

We need to support these men. We need to be behind them. No one operates in a vacuum. We are the body of Christ. All the cells of the body work fundamentally on an osmotic or diffusionary principle. Where there is great abundance of a substance, it goes to the area of the greatest need for that substance. You get sick when there is a disruption in this mechanism. The body of Christ needs to work the same way. Whatever abundance you have, you should be seeking to distribute that abundance to the place where it is most needed. A healthy body lives in continual interchange between all the different cells. So, too, does a healthy society need to have a continual interchange. There is always something that you have to offer, and there is always something which you need to receive from someone else. Perfection is not a static condition, but a continually changing state — always rebalancing. This is how we grow and adapt — and thrive.

[To be continued/edited…]

Thursday Humor

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(Thanks to Michael for sharing!)

Recently, a large corporation hired several cannibals to increase their diversity, “You are all part of our team now,” said the Human Resources Rep. during the welcoming briefing. “You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don’t eat any employees.” The cannibals promised they would not.

Four weeks later their boss remarked, “You’re all working very hard and I’m satisfied with your work. We have noticed a marked increase in the whole company’s performance. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?”

The cannibals all shook their heads, “No.” After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, “Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?” A hand rose hesitantly.

“You fool!” the leader said. “For four weeks we’ve been eating managers and no one noticed anything. But NOOOooo, you had to go and eat someone who actually does something.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

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Thanks to Ironic Catholic and The Curt Jester for today’s Humor of the Day! 🙂

Teilhard de Chardin:
The chicken was pursuing a teleological upsurge toward final consumation in the Omega Point of Divine Love.

Flannery O’Connor:
The chicken was struck by a truck while crossing the road, but experienced a flash of grace in the instant of its death. I prefer peacocks anyway.

Thomas Aquinas:
Whether the chicken crossed the road?
Objection: It seems that the chicken did not cross the road, for chickens are accustomed to the farmyards that are the source of their food, and the henhouse that is the source of their rest.
On the contrary, “And God said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, and take with you . . . seven pairs of birds of the air. . . .” — which could not have been accomplished had the chickens not crossed the road to the ark.

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
We don’t care why the chicken crossed the road, as long as it had the right of way and crossed in an approved crosswalk.

St. Lawrence of Rome:
Run, chicken, run! Run from the rotisserie!

St. Paul:
Let’s just hope that the chicken had a life-changing encounter with the risen Christ along the way.

Moses:
And the angel of the Lord went before the chicken, and there was a strong wind, and the traffic parted before the chicken, so that it was able to go into the midst of the road, with the traffic forming a wall on the left and a wall on the right, so that the chicken crossed the road safely. The farmer pursued the chicken into the midst of the road, and the angel of the Lord looked down on the chicken, and the traffic closed in on the farmer, so that the chicken did prevail with the help of the Lord.

Father Daniel Berrigan:
Clearly, the chicken crossed the road as a nonviolent protest of the road’s implication in the military-industrial complex.

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments:
We’re not sure, but if it was trying to reach across the road to hold hands with another chicken during the Lord’s Prayer, we may have to butcher it.

Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that this joke is not in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church because 1) it lacks Trinitarian organization; 2) it fails to teach about the judgment of all chickens and the real possibility of hell for all chickens; 3) it fails to mention the fallen nature of the chicken; 4) it fails to use the male personal pronoun to refer to God . . . in fact, it doesn’t mention God at all. Why we are reviewing this? What was the question again?

Job:
…and while we’re getting into it, why did the chicken cross the road, anyway?
God:
Who is this who dares darken counsel by asking why the chicken crossed the road? Gird your loins like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me: Where were you when I made the chicken, with its ineffectual yet tasty wings? Did you give the chicken its cluck? Is it by your wisdom that the chicken runs, flapping its wings toward the distant horizon? Did you set the foundations of the earth upon which the road runneth? Answer, for surely you are great in years!
Job:
Of what account am I? See, I will lay my hand on my mouth, and ask no more why the chicken crossed the road.

Karl Rahner:
If the chicken has made a fundamental option to cross the road then he will indeed cross the road

G.K. Chesterton:
A chicken decided to go to a foreign country and to invent his own heresies. What the chicken found instead is that in fact he had never left his country and had crossed the road and discovered that his heresies were orthodoxy.

Therese de Lisieux:
If the chicken decides to make himself small, God will lift him up and place him on the other side of the road.

Sister Joan D. Chittister:
The chicken crossed the road as a sign of prophetic road crossing to get away from the male dominated hierarchy

Saint Benedict:
The chicken crossed the road to get away from me even though I assured him I was not the Benedict associated with eggs.

Saint Jerome:
The chicken crossed the road since some fool left the vulgate open and he escaped.

Saint Ignatius:
The chicken crossed the road out of obedience to the Holy Father. The chicken should always be disposed to believe that crossing the road is good, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.

Blessed Mother Teresa:
The chicken crossed the road to help the poorest of the poor chickens.

Saint John of the Cross:
The chicken crossed the road because he realized he was attached to this side of the road. The chicken that is attached to one side of the road however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union.

Saint Anthony the Great:
Obviously the chicken crossed the road to get to the desert to purge himself because he suffered from boredom, laziness, and the phantoms of hens.

Saint Domenic:
I suspect that the chicken had Albigensian sympathies since he crossed the road when he saw me coming to preach.

Saint Anthony of Padua:
I have no idea why the chicken crossed the road, but fish I have experience preaching to.

Saint Joseph:
The chicken received a dream over the night warning him to cross the road.