An Epiphany Conversation

I imagine, as I clasp my hands to pray,

two bigger hands enfolding mine gently.

“I am here with you in truth and Spirit:

leading, healing, saving—when you let me.

Together, you and I can do great things;

for, remember, I have never left you.

With your heart, and attention to my Word,

your willingness, energy and virtue,

we can teach others about my Father.

Step up, feel my closeness, be not fearful.”

In the quiet of the morning, I smile;

my joy, overwhelming, makes me tearful.

Here, in his presence, nothing else matters.

I am fully drenched in his love outpoured.

Feeling strength and Jesus’ patience with me,

I am renewed again: “Thank you, Lord!”

!

When they were teenagers, Tim and Jill fell in love. They would phone each other often and have long conversations. At the end of any conversation, when it was time to hang up, they would each take a turn declaring, “Love you.”

Tim worked part time at a home-improvement store when he was not taking college courses. One busy day, his boss, Frank, phoned him to discuss a question about work. As the conversation was ending, distracted Tim said to his boss. “Love you,” to which his boss replied, “Don’t go there!”

It was a silly mistake, resulting from habit and fatigue; every time I remember the incident, I have to chuckle. However, I did start thinking about how habit can somewhat detract from the meaning or essence of a reality. For example, at Mass, the celebrant says several times, “The Lord be with you,” and we respond, “And with your spirit.” Do we ever think about of what that means? The priest could be reminding us of the Lord’s presence, or he could be prompting us to intentionally invite the Lord into our celebration.

“Ah..ah..ah choo!”

Someone often responds to that with, “God bless you!” Is that a real mini-prayer for blessing or is it just a habitual response to a slightly disrupting sound?

As we come to the close of the season of Advent, let’s take a few moments to think about our prayers of love to the Lord. We tell the Lord we love Him, but are we really paying attention to what that means? That word, love, is tossed around a lot: we love that food, we love to go surfing, we love that story. We read that God so loved the world.

I suggest that as Christmas draws near we pray some love prayers that are very persona:

I love you, Jesus, and thank you especially today for….

I love you, Savior, and today I will make a special effort to be tolerant and forgiving of……..

I love you, God, who came to set us free, and I will work, in your precious name, to free someone of a challenge or problem.

I love you, Lamb of God, and I will gently share your message of salvation to another person today.

I love you, babe who slept in a manger, and I will spend a few minutes in attentive silence today and allow you to speak to me.

Redeemer of mankind, Love you!

!

                                                      The Insignificat

                             My soul proclaims the insignificance of me,

                 and my spirit rejoices in God my very significant Savior;

                       because in my humble unimportance and smallness,

                         the Lord has done great things for and through me,

                                                    and holy is his name.

                             He who made the galaxies with countless stars,

                               and the trees in all their autumnal splendor,

                                     has graced me with existence;

                                and even though I am but a lowly speck

                                         In this vast expanse of creation,

                                 God finds me lovable, calls me his child,

                         and sent his only begotten Son to die to save me.

                             So all generations may call me insignificant,

                                     but they will also call me blessed,

                             because I can know, love and serve the God

                                               who chastises the proud

                                     and teaches the humble His way—-

                                               and his way is LOVE.

A few months ago, I resurrected a craft that makes use of recycled greeting cards. I had bought a couple ornaments at a crafts fair and had taken them apart to figure out how to make them myself. I have added some extra decorations and personal touches to what I now call “categornaments,” and have really gotten into making them again. Each ornament has a particular category—for example, deer, birds, Nativity scenes, children, and dogs. Needless to say, I am limited by the subject matter of the cards I happen to have. Each ornament requires 20 circular pictures.

I was taught brainstorming in high school as an aid to answering essay questions on exams or assignments requiring creative writing. It is a very useful problem-solving tool. We just storm our brains to list items on a certain topic and then work from there.

Of course, one thought led me to another, and I started considering just how much we all categorize things, sometimes unintentionally. When we are faced with challenging situations, our brains start going up and down the list of possible solutions.

Brainstorming for certain categories can be helpful in our spiritual life, too. Certainly, it helps with examining our conscience at the end of the day so that we can humbly tell our Lord any sins we may have committed. On the positive side, we can also categorize all the little daily blessings we have enjoyed and thank him for them, one by one.

So, like a lot of other people, we have to watch Moonstruck every six months or so.

Someone asked me, how can you watch the same movie over and over again? I said, because every time I watch it, I notice things that I didn’t see before. This time, for instance, I noticed that, in that movie, there are several messages for Ash Wednesday and Lent.

One of those messages is in a remark that Rose Castorini makes to her husband:

“Cosmo … I just want you to know that, no matter what you do, you’re going to die, just like everybody else.”

To which he replies, “Thank you, Rose.”

And, of course, that’s what the ashes remind us of today. The liturgy provides two formulas for the minister to use when applying the ashes. The one used most often these days is, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel,” but the old classic that is still used in some places confirms Rose Castorini’s statement: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” — you’re going to die, just like everybody else.

I have seen plenty of snow over the years here in Connecticut, including the past couple of weeks. After the recent accumulations, several snowmen have appeared, and they got me to thinking about what a Lenten snowman might be like.

The bottom section of such a snowman would have to be a good foundation so that it could hold up the rest of the body. During Lent, we are reminded in the readings at liturgies of many of the truths that are the foundation of our gift of faith concerning the Kingdom of God. For example, in St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (6:2) we read about what God has said:

“‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’  See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!”

 So God’s gift of salvation through Jesus is our firm foundation. We will also be reading about Christ proclaiming Peter as the rock, the foundation, on which Jesus is building his Church (Matthew 16). And in Chapter 6 of Matthew’s Gospel, we receive a wonderful foundational prayer—Lord’s Prayer.

There I sat on the stage. I was dressed in my green uniform jumper and white blouse, clip bow tie on my blouse collar, and green knee socks. I was chosen from my fifth-grade class to be in a religion bee. I had committed to memory the answers from my Baltimore Catechism so that I could fare well in competition with students from other nearby Catholic schools. I was ready.

Upon reading about St. Jerome Emiliani (1481-1537), whose memorial is celebrated in the liturgy today, I learned that he is credited with developing the “question-and-answer catechism technique” to teach children religion. A great protector of orphans, St. Jerome apparently never fell short in taking care of the needs of the poor and needy.

Thanks to St. Jerome, I did pretty well in the spelling bee, but I honestly don’t recall who won—probably not me. What I do remember is that I grew up knowing there were many laws and commandments I had to obey. I did go through a period of scrupulosity as a young teen. I got lost in the mountain of laws and prescriptions and, being a very conscientious and detail-oriented person, I found it difficult to be grateful for the underlying truth and love taught by the laws.

Dane was a big girl. She sat behind me on the school bus that transported us to a private high school in a nearby town. My cousin, Donna, was sitting next to me. I don’t recall what I said to Dane or what exactly provoked her, but, to my surprise, she grabbed the two ends of my winter scarf that was draped around my neck and proceeded to pull. I don’t think she was trying to end my life or even injure me, but she certainly scared me.

Dane was twice my size and probably did not realize her own strength. I poked Donna and she reached over and freed me from my predicament. I suffered no ill after-effects from the incident, but when my mother saw the remaining irritation mark on my neck when I got home from school, she had quite a phone conversation with Dane’s mother. Needless to say, I did not sit in front of Dane on the bus after that.

What brought that incident to my mind? Well, February 3, the memorial of St. Blaise, is the day we Catholics have our throats blessed in church. St. Blaise, a doctor and bishop of Sebastea, in what is now Turkey, is credited with having saved a child who was choking on a fishbone. Saints & Angels Catholic Online tells us that St. Blaise was a “physician of souls” and a “beast tamer” as well.

The Old Testament book of Tobit is interesting. As I see it, Tobit, progressed through about six life journeys before dying at a very old age. He certainly had a prayerful relationship with God; in the short book, we read his heartfelt prayers in chapters 3, 11, and 13.

Before Tobit was taken into captivity, with other Israelites, from Thisbe to Nineveh, he lived a life full of virtue and works of charity. He followed the law of Moses and was very generous with any money he could amass.

Once Tobit was taken to Nineveh, he courageously expedited the burials any of his people the king had ordered executed. Tobit faithfully performed numerous corporal works of mercy for his tribal brethren. However, one night, after burying one of his own people, his journey into blindness began after he fell asleep by a courtyard wall; his eyes were covered with sparrow droppings that produced white films that obscured his vision.