Tick, Tick, Tick

Jesus said to his disciples:                                                                   
"Be sure of this:
if the master of the house had known the hour
when the thief was coming,
he would not have let his house be broken into.
You also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."

The clock had stood on the mantle forever.  There was not a time that anyone going back five generations that a member of the family needing to know what time it was failed to see the ornate clock on the mantle.  Throughout all of those years, it was dusted, carefully wound, and it responded to this care by always providing the correct time.  One day, however, a bit of moisture that had started corroding one small part over a hundred years ago finally triumphed and the clock stopped.  Thinking that someone had forgotten to wind the clock, the young master of the house pulled a chair over to the mantle, mounted it, found the key and promptly overwound the clock effectively stilling the heart of the ancient clock, stilled forever, or at least until the clockmaker was able to fix it.  No one knew the exact time anymore.  They had to guess by where the sun was in the sky, where the shadows hit the terrace or of course they could look at their wrist watches or mobile phones.   Come on now, I didn't say it was the only clock!  

Just as the people in our mythical house had to judge the time using other means, so too must we.  We do not know the time or date when Jesus will return.  Maybe it will be before you finish reading this sentence or maybe it will be a thousand years after the next two millenniums fade into the period we call the past.  For the vast majority of us now living, it is possible that we will face the end of the world on our own, perhaps with family around us as we take our last breath in here on earth and make that trip to the judgment of Jesus.  We do not know when this will happen.  If we are young we feel it will be in the far distant future, sixty, or even seventy years from now.  If we are older, such as your author, we know that the time grows ever closer with every blink of our eyes.  The point is no matter if you are young, middle-aged,  or in those years we call the golden years, you must always be prepared for the call home because it will come without warning and at a time that will not be chosen by us.

I've often wondered how I would like to die.  Would I prefer everything to end at the snap of a finger, leaving this world and arriving in the next without knowing what hit me?  Or, would I like to have my end staged, gradually taking my leave as one disease or another does its mischief on my body?  I would rather have the later because it would give me time to say goodbye to those I love and to straighten any crooked lines I may have written on my soul.  But whatever God has planned for me, I accept at this moment and as I continue to live, I try to live my life in a manner worthy of my calling as an ambassador for Christ.  I place my soul into the care of the God that has loved me and who has guided me in spite of my stubborn will.  I look at the clock, its hands creep always forward, what time will the bell strike for me?  Only God knows! 

Our brothers and sisters in Purgatory need our prayers.  Won't you dedicate some of your prayer time to them today? 

Holding A Grudge for Dummies

As far as the east is from the west,

so far has he put our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him

The story began on April 22, 1990.  My mother was in the hospital and underwent surgery for lung cancer.  She came through the surgery as well as could be expected.  Going into the game we knew what the ultimate outcome would be, there was no hope, she had terminal cancer and the surgery was done to buy her some more time.  My two sisters and my brother arrived at the hospital at 9:00 AM to be with Mom until the surgery was scheduled at 11:00 AM.  We arrived on her floor and were amazed to see her on a gurney in the corridor, the surgery had been moved up.  We got there just in the nick of time to give her our love and to let her know that we were pulling for her.  Then began the waiting, one hour, two hours, the time dragged on. Finally, the surgeon came and told us that she had come through the surgery fine and he had done what he could to extend her time on earth. We thanked the doctor and were taken to intensive care where my mother was on a ventilator but awake and alert. She smiled as her children gathered around her and she happily responded to questions using a dry erase board that they had given her.   We were all relieved and assumed that we would have Mom with us for the year that the surgeon promised.  We all visited her the next day and she was a little less okay, more distant.  I could not visit on April 24th and on the 25th Mom's eyes were open, but she no longer wrote on the dry erase board.  After some time, she closed her eyes and stopped responding to us and at 7:11 PM my mother went home to the Lord. We celebrated her life at a Mass that following Saturday and she was sent to be cremated as was her wish. 

I was walking around in a daze.  this was not supposed to happen, we had been given a year.  The very fact that Mom was dead was a great wrong, she was only sixty-four when she died.  She died because of bad doctoring, and I do not mean the surgeon.  Mom worked for a doctor and part of her compensation was free medical care.  The doctor she worked for provided the absolute minimum in care and in doing so misdiagnosed the cancer that eventually killed Mom.  She provided her with a salve to put on a growth on my mother's shoulder.  It got no better and after six months Mom went to another doctor friend who immediately diagnosed cancer and had the growth removed but it was too late.  The disease had spread to her lungs during the six months on non-caring care that she had received.  

The funeral was a typical Catholic funeral. The Church did her job and offered prayers for my mother's soul.  For the next six months, I was in the grip of a great depression.  I held in my heart a great and bitter hatred for the doctor that cared so little that she did so little and in effect murdered my mother almost as if she took a gun and shot her. My life was in disarray.  I could not concentrate and went through the motions of life.  Then one day I came to the realization that while I was morose and in pain, the doctor that caused it was fat and happy and practicing her trade not bothering to think of what she had done.  Then it happened.  I passed a Catholic Church and the God of the Universe inside the tabernacle reached out to me and I forgave the doctor who caused my mother and me so much pain.  At that moment, through the grace of God, I came back to life.  

Since that time I cannot hold a grudge.  I forgave the person that murdered my mother, what else could someone do that would allow me to keep them in bondage? 

Every so often I trot this story out because I think it is important to remember that we have been forgiven much by God and we are called to forgive as well.  I write this as a reminder to myself. 

Reconciliation With God and Man -

I went to confession this last Wednesday. 
My spirit always feels so much better and I feel so much more alive once experience this great gift of God's love for us. This sacrament seems to have fallen out of favor for some of my fellow Catholics and I feel sorry for them because they don't know what they are missing.  There are all sorts of reasons people do not go.  Let's talk about some of them and see how they stack up.

"I go straight to Jesus for forgiveness, I don't have to tell a priest my sins. Jesus forgives me." 

On the surface this sounds real good and is very convincing but it is not what Jesus has in mind for his followers. How do we know this? First of all Jesus gave the power to the Apostles to forgive sin. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me...and later "As the Father has sent me even so I send you, And when he said this he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any they are retained. (John 20: 21-23) We also read in Matthew, "Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matt 18:18) 

That we are to confess verbally is clearly implied because how were the Apostles to know which sins they were going to forgive or not forgive unless they were told about them? 

What advantages are there in confessing aloud to a priest? The following has been harvested from an article on Catholic Answers. Click the link to read the whole article (LINK) 

1. First he seeks forgiveness the way Christ intended. 
2. By confessing to a priest, the Catholic learns a lesson in humility, which is avoided when one confesses through private prayer.
3. The Catholic receives sacramental graces that the non-Catholic does not get - through the sacrament of penance sins are forgiven and the graces are obtained. 
4.  The Catholic is assured his sins are forgiven and he does not have to rely on a subjective feeling.
5.  The Catholic can receive sound advice in avoiding sin in the future.

This assurance that I have been forgiven by God AND his Church which encompasses all believers, both those in full communion with the Church, my fellow Catholics and those brothers and sisters that are either not in communion with the Church but are brothers and sisters because of our common brother in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our savior. 

Some Catholics have not been to confession in years. Some not for 5, 10, 20 or even 30 years or longer. Being away from this great sacrament for so long causes a person to be greatly afraid as to what will happen to them if they tell a priest they have been away for so long. They envision hearing a gasp of horror from the priest and imagine hearing a long demeaning lecture.  

NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!!!  

Don't you remember what scripture says that there is more rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents than over 99 that did not have to repent?  Be honest with the priest, tell him how long you have been away, don't remember what to say? Father will help you. He will make it as easy for you as possible. The first step is yours. You have to go into that confession room, you have to take the first step.  After that it gets easy. The Holy Spirit brought you to this place, God already knows all of your sins, all you have to do is to face up to them and to confess them, be sorry for them, and try your best not to commit them again.  Don't be afraid, the Grace of God awaits you in confession. Take advantage of it. 

God bless you today and as we prepare to enter into Holy Week, remember God loves you more than you can imagine. He loves you just as you are and wants you to take advantage of the sacrament of confession and become closer and closer and closer to Him.  Peace!