Being Rich Is A Temporary Thing

From the Letter of James 

Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries. Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire. You have stored up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure;  you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter. You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous one; he offers you no resistance.

Happy Sunday to you.  Let me begin by saying that I do not have anything against rich people.  As a matter of fact, being in America means that our poorest are richer than many other people in the world, so since I have a place to live, clothes on my back, and can actually choose what I am going to eat today, well, I am a rich person so what I am writing here today applies to me as well. 

Everything we have, every dollar in our bank account, every stick of furniture in our homes, every designer shirt or dress in our closets, the shoes on our feet, everything, has its source in God's love for us.  He gives us opportunities to earn the things we need to live.  Sometimes, He just gives them to us as part of the package we call the world.  But we own none of it. The land that people make payments to the bank for every month, do they really think that they own it?  They have the exclusive use of it but it will not follow them into the grave even if they are buried on it.  Have you ever seen an abandoned cemetery?  If not, google the term and you will be surprised at how many there are.  We own nothing.  In the words of Job:  "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD."  It is so sad that we sometimes forget this saying.

On YouTube, you can see videos of "urban explorers" finding and entering abandoned homes that have everything left in them that the person who resided there owned.  The home itself once was a source of pride and the things inside of it, they were all worked for and accumulated over a lifetime and now they are fodder for people look at on the internet. 

I know we need things to live and as I said Our Heavenly Father provides them to us as He sees fit.  But some of us go off of the deep end when it comes to ownership of things.  We make it our focus in life and forget that there are those around us with less and that they are our brothers and sisters because we have the same Father.   Some business owners refuse to pay a living wage.  I have read about a man in the area where I live who has been working at a very popular pancake house who has been working there for twenty years and still is only making minimum wage. As an aside, he travels an hour and a half via public transportation to get to this grease pit every day. This restaurant is very successful charges big for their pancakes, has multiple locations so I have removed it from my list of possible places to go. 

Look around you. How much of the stuff that you own will fit in the coffin with you?  Not much, and that which would fit would do you no good anyway.  It is okay to be rich as long as you do not lose focus as to who really owns what you have.  St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is coming up soon, had to restrained under his vow of obedience from giving away his only tunic in the winter time.  He believed that if there was someone less well off than he was, well, then the tunic was theirs.  Be generous to those less fortunate than you are. God knows how hard you have worked to get the things that you have and He will be pleased if you share what you can with those that need it.  God will never be outdone in generosity, never. 

One gift God gives us is time. Please, on this Sunday, use some of your time to pray for the poor souls in Purgatory. They need your prayers.  Pray especially for your relatives by name and for those that have no one to pray for them.  Consider the millions of faithful Protestants who find themselves in Purgatory.  They do not get prayed for by their loved ones because they do not believe in purgatory.  

Here is an idea, look at the death notices in your local paper. Pick one of the deceased at random and pray specifically him or her. If they are in purgatory and need your prayers they will be so very grateful, if not, well, then the prayers will help another deserving soul.  If you do not get the newspaper,  find your local funeral home's website and pray for one (or more) of the people listed there.   God will be so pleased that you have taken part of your day and sacrificed it for the Poor Souls.  

A Final idea: Pray The Prayer of St. Gertrude the Great for the poor souls.  Every time the prayer is devoutly recited, Jesus told her that one-thousand souls are released from Purgatory.   Here is this powerful prayer and wonderful gift from the Lord. 

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.

Read more at https://www.praymorenovenas.com/prayer-st-gertrude-great-souls-purgatory

Do We Need a Hero to Save The Church ?

Jesus summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He said to them, "Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them." Then they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the Good News and curing diseases everywhere.

In a few days, the Church will be celebrating the memorial of St. Francis of Assisi.  I want to bring him up early because the Church needs a man with his devotion, his trust, his love, and his disdain for himself now.  He was born into a rich merchant family and he was, in his early days, what we would call a playboy and quite a party person.  There was not a goblet of wine that could defeat him and he lived for himself and his amusement and counted the hours spent in debauchery as time that was wisely spent.  As a young man, he did not bridle his passions, he lived for them!  Yet, for all of the outward appearances, inside this young man burned a question. That question was, "Is this all there is to life?"  He buried his worry beneath pleasure and self-seeking.  One day he approached a ruined church and he gazed at the cross hanging there and especially at the corpus of Christ portrayed on it. 

The image of the savior on the cross spoke to Francis and told him, "Francis, repair my church which is falling down."  Francis was a changed man from this moment on.  He set to work repairing the broken down the church of San Damiano, brick by brick.  When he ran out of bricks he obtained a donation of money from his father.  It would have been better if his father had known about it at the time, but Francis had his job to do and was ready to weather the coming storm when his father found a significant amount of money had gone astray.  In the end, his father was paid back and in front of the bishop, Francis removed all of his costly garments and told his startled father, "Up until today I called you my Father. Now I call God my father."  He returned the finery to his dad and the bishop who was shielding Francis' nakedness with his robe gave him a rough-hewn habit to wear.  Francis went back to rebuilding the church.  He endured a lot of ill-treatment from former friends, but he kept begging and soon had a supply of bricks to continue his repair of the church.  Most of his friends laughed at Francis and thought that he had gone crazy.  Children would throw rocks and donkey exhaust at the mendicant as he wandered the town in search of his supplies or a bit of food.  One day he attained his first follower and at mass that day they decided to engage in a practice at the time by opening the Bible to see what word God had for them that day.  They opened the Bible at the same place we are viewing today.  From that moment on, Francis and his followers began to court Lady Poverty and there was no one more faithful to her than Francis. 

Today in our Church a crisis is blazing.  Those in charge of it have forgotten sacred principles that are supposed to guide them in managing the Church.  They have relied too much on their own understanding and their own passions while what they need is a healthy dose of trust in God.  I do not know how far up the ladder the corruption of our Church goes.  I fear that it goes straight to the top, to the holy father himself but I pray not. I pray that someone, somewhere, in the Magisterium there is a man that will be able to lead us out of the desert that we have created.  Our current pontiff, while a good example, does not seem to have the wherewithal to be able to pull people together.  I pray to God that he gives our Pope the power to mend the Church and the courage to wield the sword and cut out the cancer or I pray that God gives us one who can do the job and get the Church back on the right path again. 

Is this an impossible job?  In the words of Francis: 

"Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."  One more quote before you go.  Francis, by the end of his life, had built a great and holy order of men, caused a great many reforms in the Church, was the inspiration of St. Clare to form her order or nuns, established an order for lay people who could not leave the world, received the Stigmata, the wounds of Christ in his body because he prayed to feel the suffering of Jesus.  All of this and more he had done while embracing Lady Poverty as he called her.  He said to his brothers shortly before his death, "Let us begin now, brothers, for until now we have done nothing."

Remember the Poor Souls in Purgatory today. 

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

Mother and Brothers

The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him but were unable to join him because of the crowd. He was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside
and they wish to see you."
He said to them in reply, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it."            

The family was very important in the time of Christ.  The family is the centerpiece of  God's creation, it is important to Him so it has to be important to us. Look at the Old Testament.  In its many stories, it speaks about the family of Adam, the family of Abraham, the family of Moses and so on.  Very seldom will you find a person in the Bible where their families do not form an integral part of the story.  Look at the story of Job.  It is when his family, his sons, and his daughters are killed that he takes to the sack-cloth and ashes. So, if the family is so important, then why does it seem that Jesus is being rude to his and keeping them outside and away from Him? 

Jesus was not being rude.  He was using those he loved the most as a tool to teach his audience that while relationships here on earth are important indeed, they pale when it comes to the relationship we should cultivate between ourselves and God.  We should love our family but our love for God, when compared to this love, should pale by comparison.  Jesus did not disown his Mother, at the cross while in the midst of his death by the worst way known to humans at that time, he took tender care of Mary by placing her into the care of John who took her into his home from that point on. 

For heaven's sake, love your family.  Those of us without families envy you and I pray that you and your family remain together through the years, that there be no "black sheep" that is not ignored and sent outside the pasture, and that love and forgiveness are always there for the errant one.  But I also remind you to tend to your relationship with God and His kingdom for in doing so you will help bring about joy for all of the people in the world.  You can do it. Start today - I mean right now.  

Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory today for tomorrow you might find yourself among them and needing prayers yourself.  Be generous to the Poor Souls and pray devoutly for them.  It will always be remembered by them and they will be your friend forever.  Remember especially those that have no one to pray for them, those who have been forgotten by their relatives, Protestants whose relatives do not believe in Purgatory, and those souls who have been in Purgatory the longest.  Praying for the dead is a spiritual act of mercy and it pleases God greatly when you take time to do it.  Please remember them today and pray for them, if only for a minute.  Bring the refreshment of your love for them as a cool drink of water to moisten their lips.  

Hidden By Darkness - Revealed By Light

Jesus said to the crowd:
"No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel
or sets it under a bed;
rather, he places it on a lampstand
so that those who enter may see the light.
For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible,
and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.
Take care, then, how you hear.
To anyone who has, more will be given,
and from the one who has not,

even what he seems to have will be taken away."

What if Einstein was wrong about the theory of special relativity?  I mean, he tells us that light travels at a speed of 

186,000 miles per second and that no object can go faster than light. What if he is wrong?  What if he is focusing on the wrong thing?  If the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, what if there is no light?  Is the speed of darkness the same as the speed of light or is it faster?  Look up at the sky some night.  The visible universe contains much more darkness than it does light but our eyes and our minds are conditioned to search out the light and find it because we need the light to see and consider the light a friend.  Our primitive ancestors considered fire a great friend because it not only chased away the cold of night, it also illuminated the area, chasing away the darkness so that hazards could more readily be seen and guarded against.  

There is power in darkness. The dark of the night conceals the burglar, the murderer, the prostitute, and her customer, the renegade priest who sullies his vows with corrupt contact of others, your sins, my sins are all concealed by the dark. Darkness, no matter if it is physical darkness or a darkness that is embedded in your character has a power, but that power is limited and those that use darkness as a friend should tremble in fear because it is a scary thing to consider what Jesus has said in today's reading; "For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light."

Are there things in your life that you would rather not come to light? I think most of us have things that we would prefer that the darkness conceals for all time but alas, even the darkness of the grave will be penetrated and wiped out by the power of Jesus when He returns. The things that were concealed the deepest, the evil in men's hearts, will glow with the power of the sun as it is revealed to all. 

Pity those that chose darkness for their friend.  For their friend is a coward and will flee when the Light of Christ, which is irresistible, is turned full force upon their misdeeds.  Those who live in the light, who do not befriend the darkness in their conscience will be vindicated on that day as those who have concealed their misdeeds will be shown for who and what they are.  Be the light for someone today.  Show them the way by your example.  The torch you carry illuminates the part of the world you live in.  Let it be a bright spot in a world that loves the darkness. 

Please pray for the Poor Souls in purgatory. Who knows, you may be joining them later in the day...

Know What To Ask For and You Will Always Receive It !

Beloved:
Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there is disorder and every foul practice. 
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure,
then peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity. 
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
for those who cultivate peace.
Where do the wars
and where do the conflicts among you come from? 
Is it not from your passions
that make war within your members? 
You covet but do not possess. 
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war. 
You do not possess because you do not ask. 
You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Let's face it, there is much more discord than there is harmony in this world.  The one place you would think that would be an exception, an oasis of harmony, would be the Church. Yet, if you listen to the news you will find factions pitted against one another even in the Church.  By Church I mean the one Christ founded the one that is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, the Roman Catholic Church.  

We have cardinals that are defying Church rules, ones that are attempting to undermine the holy father.  There are those that say priests should face away from the people, use Latin and go back to ancient ways.  And as for us in the pews, we have decided that there are rules we will keep and rules that we will ignore.  We pick and choose as if the Church were some sort of cafeteria.  

All of these things add to the discord that we have to endure in this world.  What we, the people in the pews, have to do is to be counter-culture.   First, we have to filter what we hear about our Church.  The media is looking for ways to attain more readers or viewers.  You can attack the Catholic Church without fear of being retaliated against. We should expect to be attacked and persecuted for our faith.  Our Lord went to the Cross, can we expect to escape a similar fate?

Remember, the deacons, priests, bishops, and higher-ups that were involved in the sex scandal were a minority.  The number of holy men and women in the Church outnumbers them by one-hundred to one at least.  Next, we have to remember to be good citizens and good Catholics.  You cannot be one without being the other.  This means we have to take an active part in elections, making our votes count for the best of the slate of candidates. We must also support worthy causes that help to bring Catholic morality to people's attention.  We must also love one another as Jesus has loved us and people must see the difference between us and those of the world.  If they cannot see the difference then we are not living our lives as we should.   

We must look at each person we see at mass as if they were standing next to us in heaven.  This is because they will be!  We don't always have the same ideas as the person next to us in Church, but we should have respect and love for them because they are our brother or sister in Christ. 

Loving our fellow pew dwellers can have its moments but what we also need to do is to love our enemies and those who persecute us.  We must not return evil for evil for that is what our enemies expect and guard against.  Instead, we must adopt the turn the other cheek principle and we must always respond with as much love as possible.  This is a very hard thing to do. almost impossible in fact.  But, remember we can call on God to give us the strength to represent Him in the way He wants us to.  All we need to do is ask.  

Some people will pray for things that are downright evil and expect God to provide the means to attain their sinful goals. For example, drug dealers have a saint that they pray to and ask that their enterprise is protected from the authorities and that their drugs are delivered safely.  Do you think that God will allow this favor to be granted?   Our prayers must be for holy things, for graces for ourselves, our families and friends, and for our enemies as well.  This is all part of doing good to those that wish us evil. 


Our God is an awesome, loving, faithful God.  He is aware of the chaos that is infesting this world. His hand is ready to move at the most opportune moment. We pray for His help assured that it will come when it will do the most good.  This week, pray for someone in your circle of people that you do not like.  It might be a relative or a co-worker that rubs you the wrong way.  Whoever it is, pray for them and pray that God makes it possible for them to reach the heights of sainthood.  This prayer is one that God will always grant and you might even see subtle changes in the short-term.  God will be pleased if you pray as suggested for He wants us to help everyone attain heaven. 

A word from our Sponsor - The Poor Souls in Purgatory

St. Gertrude the Great is invoked often, for prayers for the poor souls in purgatory. She had a deep empathy for those souls in purgatory and would ask God at each mass to have mercy on them.

God would reply to St. Gertrude that He would use whatever was offered to Him for the faithful departed, according to His inclination to show pardon & mercy.

St. Gertrude was a Benedictine and mystic writer. She had the gift of miracles and prophecy.

Jesus revealed to her His infinite love and asked her to spread it, with love, for the suffering, and for sinners.

The Prayer of St. Gertrude

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family.
Amen.

Sowing and Growing - Time is Of The Essence.

When a large crowd gathered, with people from one town after another
journeying to Jesus, he spoke in a parable. 
"A sower went out to sow his seed.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled,
and the birds of the sky ate it up.
Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew,
it withered for lack of moisture.
Some seed fell among thorns,
and the thorns grew with it and choked it.
And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew,
it produced fruit a hundredfold."
After saying this, he called out,
"Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear..."
"...This is the meaning of the parable. 
The seed is the word of God.
Those on the path are the ones who have heard,
but the Devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts
that they may not believe and be saved.
Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear,
receive the word with joy, but they have no root;
they believe only for a time and fall away in time of temptation.
As for the seed that fell among thorns,
they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along,
they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, 
and they fail to produce mature fruit.
But as for the seed that fell on rich soil,
they are the ones who, when they have heard the word,
embrace it with a generous and good heart,
and bear fruit through perseverance."

Wow, the picture I found on the internet to go with my reflection today just about says it all.  Our Lord knew his audience.  They were people who would understand stories about the land and farming.  Even the Pharisees and Scribes would have some knowledge about the proper way to grow food because there were regulations to be followed and taxes to be paid.  Two aspects of the equation are not mentioned by Jesus in the parable and that is the timing of the planting of the seed and the time of harvest.  

If a farmer plants too early it is possible that when the new life germinates and reaches for the sun it may find conditions too cold and hostile to make growth possible. In harvesting one had to be prudent as well.  You want to harvest just at the right time so your crop has had the maximum time to benefit from the sun but early enough so that the perils of the winter rains do not harm it. It is the second of these concepts I want to touch on this morning. 

Very often we see people who live only for themselves, taking more than they give and riding roughshod over the rest of God's family.  We notice that in spite of the fact that they do not have anything to do with God and His kingdom, money and prosperity seems to follow them wherever they go.  Why does God allow this flaunting of His gifts in His face by one who knows Him not?  

The answer is simple.  God is a good farmer. First, He sows the seed and He waits for it to grow and mature.  He is a God of many chances and what we see as Him turning a blind eye to the antics of an infidel is His way of being patient.  All of the time that this man is living, he is being showered with graces and he is being pursued by the Holy Spirit and all he has to do is to say, "Yes" and turn his life around and he would be welcomed back into the family of The Father. It is patience that God uses as His weapon of choice.  He will bide His time and work the ground as best as He can with the hope that the plant will respond. 

But seasons change and the harvest must come and if the plant has not produced it is discarded and burned in the fire.  So, when you are wondering why evil seems to prevail, remember that our God loves us all and wants all of us to be with Him in heaven and He will be as patient as He can be as He works with us to grow us into the plant that He knows we can be. 

Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. 

Did You Answer The Call or Did It Go To Voicemail?

Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit
through the bond of peace:
one Body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.

Paul urges us to live in a manner worthy of the call we have received.  The question is have we answered that call or have we ignored it and allowed it to go to voicemail?  It seems to me that we live in a world where we do not have much humility - the "I" word is one of the most important in the language and what affects the "I" is much more important than what effects the other.  Do we bear with one another with love and patience through love?  Get caught in a traffic jam and see how everyone is bearing with one another and examine how you feel as that red Audi moves from lane to lane without signaling and in doing so cuts you off.  Unity, peace, and love will most likely be the farthest thing from your mind. 

There is hope because inside of us there is a desire to live in peace.  It is the fondest dream of every human being to live without fear and with fellowship with his neighbor.  Now, in the world today we do have a problem.  The supply of humility, gentleness, and peace is in short supply.  We are more ready to think evil of our brothers and sisters than good. This is very sad, especially if you are feeling that way about fellow Christians because these will be the people that you will be living face to face with when you enter heaven.  

What we are called to do is to take the lead and become a distributor of peace by being humble and gentle and taking into account the fact that the person next to us is a person beloved by God and we may be the only face of God this person will see in his or her life.  We must not waste any opportunity to be the one who enriches another person's life with the gifts that God has given to us.  Sharing peace and joy with another will increase the amount of peace in the world and in your own soul. 

How do we do this?  First of all, we have to remember that the person next to us is one of God's children, a true brother or sister to us.  This can be difficult depending on the circumstances.  Next, we have to reach deep inside and make sure that this person, when he or she is done interacting with us, will feel a little bit of the love of God that is in our heart.  If we do this, we will be faithful to the calling that Paul has reminded us of in today's reading.  It starts with us, not with the other person, that is what we have to remember. 

Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory...You know why, don't you?  It is because it is an act of charity that will please Our Lord very much. 

Service, Hospitality, Forgiveness

A certain Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him,                       
and he entered the Pharisee's house and reclined at table.
Now there was a sinful woman in the city
who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee.
Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment,
she stood behind him at his feet weeping
and began to bathe his feet with her tears.
Then she wiped them with her hair,
kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this he said to himself,
"If this man were a prophet,
he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him,
that she is a sinner."
Jesus said to him in reply,
"Simon, I have something to say to you."
"Tell me, teacher," he said.
"Two people were in debt to a certain creditor;
one owed five hundred days' wages and the other owed fifty.
Since they were unable to repay the debt, he forgave it for both.
Which of them will love him more?"
Simon said in reply,
"The one, I suppose, whose larger debt was forgiven."
He said to him, "You have judged rightly."
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon,
"Do you see this woman?
When I entered your house, you did not give me water for my feet,      

but she has bathed them with her tears
and wiped them with her hair.
You did not give me a kiss,
but she has not ceased kissing my feet since the time I entered.
You did not anoint my head with oil,
but she anointed my feet with ointment.
So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven;
hence, she has shown great love.
But the one to whom little is forgiven loves little."
He said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
The others at table said to themselves,
"Who is this who even forgives sins?"
But he said to the woman,


At the time of Jesus, everyone wore sandals or went barefoot. If a Pharisee (or anyone else for that matter) wanted to keep his house clean, well, he would have to offer the visitor a way to wash his feet which would have been dirty and dusty from the road.  This service was the custom and guests expected it. This particular Pharisee did not think much of Jesus (or his house, I guess) because Jesus was offered no way to wash his feet when he arrived.   A woman, who is described as a sinful woman, entered the house and cleaned Jesus' feet with her tears of repentance and anointed them with expensive ointment.  The Pharisee knew she was a sinful woman.  How he knew was probably from time to time he used her services otherwise why would she feel so free to enter the house?  This woman provided what the Pharisee did not and showed Jesus that she was sorry for the way she was living her life and she took what she had heard Jesus say over time and repented of her sins.  Her hospitality, her service, the love she showed for Jesus in her actions gave her that what she needed most, forgiveness for her sins. 

The poor souls in Purgatory are waiting for your prayers. Please do not forget them. 

All You Need Is Love (and coffee)

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, love is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing
but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things endures all things.

I am a child of the '60's and the '70's.  I guess you could have called me an undercover hippy type. I didn't appreciate all of the great rock bands of the era as much as I liked folk music.  I collected everything I could find by Peter, Paul, and Mary and other people who sang songs with a story.  It turns out that the difference between most rock pieces and most folk pieces of the era was the tempo because most of the songs were hawking love in some shape or form.  Of course, the love that they were selling was the eros kind of love, the physical love of procreation figures highly in the lyrics of the age.  That kind of makes sense too because we Americans speak a language that has only one obvious definition of the word love with us having to glean the other types of love our Greek ancestors spoke about by analyzing the context the word is found in.  The children of the period could not be bothered to engage in such things analyzing context because they were too busy with the procreation thing!  Americans of the current age are not much further along when it comes to the word "love."  Love for most of us is a feeling.  It is the feeling we get when we meet the one whom we feel a part of. We feel this procreative type of love at the beginning of every relationship that we find ourselves in.  It is a very strong, deep, and emotional feeling.  It burns very hotly and it does have a tendency to weaken, sometimes rather quickly, and we say that "we have fallen out of love."   Well, this love that we can and do fall out of is called Eros and its purpose is to ensure that the human race continues by making procreation a much-beloved activity.  But eros is not the be-all and end-all of love.  If it was, human beings would be like a herd of any animals, rutting, and mating just for creating new humans.  But we humans engage in this activity even when age makes it impossible to create new life so there must be another thing at work here.  

When the time for procreation is over we still love our mate but our love evolves.  We still have the eros in our life but we turn to love that lasts forever.  Agape love, the love of eternity. We love the person for their spirituality and even if the excitement of those first few months together or even first few years has faded, we still look at the person and we see the good that God has put there and it is this goodness that we saw above the eros love that excited our bodies.  This agape love is what keeps us together and it is the kind of love that is not self-serving.  It is the kind of love that makes us a servant to the one that we love and it keeps us together from first blush to end of life.   Read what Paul says about love and do not worry if, in your particular relationship that first feeling of eros has disappeared and is only a memory, it is agape love, the love that binds one spirit to another that will win the day. 

Oh, I forgot, you need one more thing, especially in the morning and that is a hot cup of coffee to chase the night and the cobwebs away.   Peace and Joy to you and yours this day. 

Purgatory - you know what I am going to ask so why don't just resolve to do it...pray for the poor souls in Purgatory today.