The power of one...

"People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell." - Thomas Merton

Pope John XXIII

“I have to be pope both for those with their foot on the gas and those with their foot on the brake.”

one big umbrella

What we need

This planet doesn’t need more ‘successful’ people but is in desperate need of more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have very little to do with success - the way our culture has defined it. — David Orr

Pray Hard for the Hard Things!

resolution

2013 - both the good and the bad

We are...

haunting

pick one

links

The Pope's Secret Strength

Is Pope Francis a Socialist?

Catholics In the Age of Francis

Grace

Grace seldom appears as grace.  So seldom, in fact, that one should be suspicious when it does. 

A Fourth Order?

by: Ernest Raymond

And as I stood there thinking this, the fancy came to me there there cleaves always to Francis, whether he approves or not, a Fourth Order.  It is the Order of those who do not abjure their fighting and their oaths, who cannot abandon their comfort or their fame, who still like the top table at the feasts and are not in the least eager to return their excess profits, but who, in spite of all this weakness, love Francis of Assisi and wish they were more like him.  Perhaps, in a small way, limp after him, loose fellows though they are.  They look wistfully after his disappearing figure, and wish they were not so like Brother Fly, in that they do not pray too much nor work too hard, but do eat bravely.  The Limping Quaternaries, shall we call them?  I have been a member of the Order for a long time, limping on as well as I may; and I suspect that most of my readers are too, or I should have lost them long before this.  God bless them all, and lead them on to better things. 

Adrift

"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." - George Orwell

Good Guy Pope Francis

Mother...

...which always gives us more time...

“In my own life, I have so often seen God’s merciful countenance, his patience; I have also seen so many people find the courage to enter the wounds of Jesus by saying to him: Lord, I am here, accept my poverty, hide my sin in your wounds, wash it away with your blood. And I have always seen that God did just this – he accepted them, consoled them, cleansed them, loved them.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us be enveloped by the mercy of God; let us trust in his patience, which always gives us more time. Let us find the courage to return to his house, to dwell in his loving wounds, allowing ourselves be loved by him and to encounter his mercy in the sacraments. We will feel his wonderful tenderness, we will feel his embrace, and we too will become more capable of mercy, patience, forgiveness and love.”

–Pope Francis
Homily at the Possession of the Chair of the Bishop of Rome
Archbasilica of St John Lateran
7 April 2013

"Then neither do I. Go...