YOU

You are the Body of Christ. In you the incarnation must continue. You are to be taken. You are to be blessed, broken and distributed as a vehicle of grace and love...

-St. Augustine

Perfection in imperfection

Man's self-experience includes an apprehension of his capacity to transcend himself and unselfishly love another, together with a parallel tendency to be self-centered by pulling into isolation and refusing co-existence.

Our experience of the Body of Christ is also a kind of twofold experience. We experience the gift of unselfish love as well as the self-centeredness and objectively evil actions of others. The Christian must develop a sensitivity to the presence of Christ in both these experiences.

He must discover that God can communicate Himself through the needs and lack of perfection of the Body just as much as He can in the clear manifestations of selfless love. Obvkously, God is never identified with the evil or imperfection, but the human experience of these realities is potentially a faith-encounter with God.

Becoming a Person in the Whole ChristEdwin McMahon, SJ & Peter Campbell, SJ

You call me "teacher"

"A teacher is someone who makes two ideas grow when there was only one before"

"You have not used your education until you have given it away"

Elbert Hubbard

All things are possible...

Trust. Trust. Trust.

"The covetous claim to be Christian, yet they have no trust in Christ. For they are always afraid of want in the time to come, no matter how much they have. "

St Thomas More

turning one's back

King Robert the Pious, son of Hugh Capet, was excommunicated for divorcing his legitimate wife Susannah and "marrying" Bertha. Pope Gregory V excommunicated him through his representative in Paris. The scene is depicted as imagined by artist Jean Paul Laurens.

Risen...

Well, it's a nice thought...

"This is the difference between us and those who do not know God: they, in adversity, complain and grumble; we , on the other hand, are not drawn away from virtue by the things that go against us but are strengthened in it, for we know even the hairs of our head are numbered."
St Cyprian

what does it mean to be real? asked the rabbit

The essential foundation of our ability to become a person lies in our ability to transcend isolation and to share ourselves as free gift with another.

Becoming a Person in the Whole Christ
McMahon, SJ & Campbell, SJ

and so is the person you like least

only you

"I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings." Elie Wiesel

It was...

... the summer of '69

Give it all...

"The beginning of sanctity lies in my total abandonment to the Lord's will, even in little things."
Bl. John XXIII

healing

"Let us learn to feel for the ills our neighbors suffer, and we will learn to endure the ills they inflict." -St. John Chrysostom

Mixed-Messages (Mother's Day Edition)

I like to move-it, move-it...

"Do not ask the Lord to guide your steps if you aren't willing to move your feet."

A Thinker for our times...

by: Peter Maurin

Share your wealth
God wants us
to be our brother's keeper.
To feed the hungry,
to clothe the naked,
to shelter the homeless,
to instruct the ignorant,
at a personal sacrifice,
is what God
wants us to do.
What we give to the poor
for Christ's sake
is what we carry with us
when we die.
As Jean Jacques Rousseau says:
"When a man dies
he carries
in his clutched hands
only that which
he has given away."

Why not be a beggar?
People who are in need
and are not afraid to beg
give to people not in need
the occasion to do good
for goodness' sake.
Modern society
calls the beggar
bum and panhandler
and gives him the bum's rush.
The Greeks used to say
that people in need
are the ambassadors of the gods.
We read in the Gospel:
"As long as you did it
to one of the least
of My brothers,
you did it to Me."
While modern society
calls them beggars
bums and panhandlers,
they are in fact
the Ambassadors of God.
To be God's ambassador
is something
to be proud of.

At a Sacrifice
In the first centuries
of Christianity
the hungry were fed
at a personal sacrifice,
the naked were clothed
at a personal sacrifice,
the homeless were sheltered
at a personal sacrifice.
And because the poor
were fed, clothed and sheltered
at a personal sacrifice,
the pagans used to say
about the Christians
"See how they love one another."
In our own day
the poor are no longer
fed, clothed, and sheltered
at a personal sacrifice
but at the expense
of the taxpayers.
And because the poor
are no longer
fed, clothed, and sheltered
at a personal sacrifice
the pagans say about the Christians
"See how they pass the buck."

St. Anselm...

Therefore, let it be your sole endeavor wherever you may be to live in a way benefiting a good man and servant of God; and be assured that God will provide for you whatever is good for you