The Goal

Brothers and sisters:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing

compared with the glory to be revealed for us.

                                                                                                        

There are tough times that come into everyone's life.  As Matthew Kelly says it is not an "if" but a "when" the next storm will befall us.  So often we try so very hard to make our way out of the raging storms with its roaring waves and flashes of lightning without any help.  To ask for help is seen as being cowardly or if you are a man, unmanly.  We are taught from early on to stand on our own two feet and to grit our teeth and bear it.   Asking for help in times of need does not feel good to our ego.  Asking for help is seen to put us under an obligation to the one that assisted us.  But we forget that the so-called obligation to that other person is already there because we are to help one another bear each other's burdens.  As Christians, we are there to serve, not to be served.  So, asking for help is what one Christian does to another Christian. 

What happens when even though you ask for help, it does not come?  Some burdens are ours alone to carry for reasons known only to God.  When everything seems to be going against us and we can find no one to share the burden with us then we have to remember that we will not be tested beyond our strength.  God loves us so deeply that He will help us if we let Him.  

In the end, the sufferings we encounter in this world will seem like nothing once we arrive in heaven.  Once there all knowledge will come to us and no subject will be too complex for us to understand.  We will see those things that we considered burdens in our former life, God considered stepping stones.  The storms of life we endured, God saw as passing spring showers that would make the seed of goodness inside of us grow.  The darkness that was in our life will be recognized for what it really was, an opportunity to search for the light. 

Our sufferings in this world will come, some of them will be intense, but none of them will be spiritually fatal if we trust in God and in His Son Jesus.  

Remember our brothers and sisters in purgatory.  They need your prayers and want your friendship.  Please take a moment and read about purgatory by clicking on the link at the right. Pray for them today in your spare time.  It will mean so much to them.

The Journey Must Continue

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled,

he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem,

These two sentences say so much in just a few little words and it seems that these words can be words of comfort to us as we try to get our hands around the terrible event that happened in Las Vegas the other day.  Fifty-eight innocent party goers were slain by a madman armed with an automatic rifle of some sort.  He broke out the window of his hotel room and shot indiscriminately into the crowd gathered for a concert below and minutes later blood ran in the venue and dozens lay dead or dying.  These were innocent people, out for an evening of harmless fun at a country music concert.  Why did they have to die? What snapped in the mind of a man that had been described as a self-made millionaire, a man who had everything that the world had to offer?  We will never know the answer to this question. 

What we do know is that like Jesus, we must resolutely determine that we must continue our journey.  Along the way, there will be more moments of sorrow that will slow our travel and cause us to be stunned, to shake our heads and wonder why God has such patience with his awkward and disobedient children.  The journey for Jesus was to end in death, death on a cross, a death reserved for slaves in ancient Rome.  Jesus knew this and yet he fixed his eyes on the goal of arriving at Jerusalem where he would suffer and die for us and in doing so save us from all of our sins.  Our journey, while it sometimes goes through valleys of sadness, we do not despair for Jesus, the Lamb of God has achieved the victory for us.  Our journey, unlike His, will end in the joy of heaven. 

May the souls of those taken from us in this tragic event and all of the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace.  Amen. 

PLEASE REMEMBER TO PRAY FOR THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY, ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE WHO WERE THE VICTIM OF SUDDEN DEATH.  YOUR PRAYERS WILL GARNER THEIR THANKS. 

He's Gotta Be Kidding, Right?

Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.

The vengeful will suffer the LORD's vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail.

Forgive your neighbor's injustice;

then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.

Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the LORD?

Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself, can he seek pardon for his own sins?

If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins?

remember your last days, set enmity aside;  remember death and decay, and cease from sin!   

Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor; remember the Most High's covenant, and overlook faults.

                                                                                                                       

Oh My Goodness ! What I am to  make of this reading from the book of Sirach?  This spells out something that is quite hard for me to do and it spells it out in simple terms that even a two figure I.Q. person like me can understand!  God expects me to forgive and not to take vengeance against someone who hurt me!  There has to be a loophole somewhere.  I know, this is from the Old Testament, that's it! Forget about this, I am covered by the New Testament. What do you mean this subject is also covered in the New Testament?    

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,

"Lord, if my brother sins against me,

how often must I forgive?

As many as seven times?" 

Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. 

That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king

who decided to settle accounts with his servants. 

When he began the accounting,

a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. 

Since he had no way of paying it back,

his master ordered him to be sold,

along with his wife, his children, and all his property,

in payment of the debt. 

At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,

'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.'

Moved with compassion the master of that servant

let him go and forgave him the loan. 

When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants

who owed him a much smaller amount. 

He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,

'Pay back what you owe.'

Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,

'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

But he refused. 

Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison

until he paid back the debt. 

Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,

they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master

and reported the whole affair. 

His master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! 

I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. 

Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,

as I had pity on you?'

Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers

until he should pay back the whole debt. 

So will my heavenly Father do to you,

unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart."

Oh My Goodness !  It looks like I am trapped!  I am charged with forgiving my fellow servants if I am to expect God to forgive me.  How can I do this?  Doesn't God understand just how deeply I was hurt and how grave the offense against me was?   

As I have gone through life, I have acquired hurts and scars and painful endings.  Outside the person that the world sees appears to be as strong as steel but inside the hurts have accumulated and have become very heavy on my back. These things have affected me and my thoughts in ways that would astound and frighten the child of God that lives inside of me. This child of God can turn into a mean spirited brat child seeking only the self satisfaction that payback for the hurts afflicted on him which will lead me away from God and into sin.  

I am commanded by God to forgive those who have injured me. I am to release all of the negativity that we are carrying around in my soul.  God indeed knows how deep the hurts have penetrated my very soul.  He is also aware of the gravity of the offense committed against me and he still insists that I grant pardon to my fellow creatures.  If I do this He will not consider the gravity of the offenses I committed against Him.  He will forget the injuries I have heaped up against Him as I thoughtlessly have gone through life and He will cast memories of my sins so far away that they will be remembered no more.  

On the other hand, if I insist on my way, if I insist on attaining complete satisfaction from those who hurt me, then He will insist on in immediate payment in full when I stand before Him on my judgement day.  On that day I will stand before God naked and afraid and without the means to pay my debts to Him. He will deal with me as I dealt with my fellow humans on earth and hand me over to the torturers until I have paid the last penny of my debt. 

Friends, this is serious stuff. Your whole eternity hinges on how you love and how you forgive. Face the facts.  The sins committed against you pale compared to the sins you committed against God.  We must forgive in our hearts those that have done us wrong. 

  

THAT DOES NOT MEAN WE HAVE TO GO BACK TO THAT PERSON  FOR ANOTHER HELPING OF THE OFFENSE.  It is not expected, for example, for a wife who has been beaten by a husband to return to him to make forgiveness complete. We just need to be like God to those who offend us and forgive and forget and leave vengeance to God's care. Clear your heart of all hate and resentment. Grant pardon even to those who don't deserve it. If you can't do it yourself then give it all to the Lord to handle for you. He is the expert, He will help you do this, and He will heal you and welcome you to be with Him forever in heaven. 

THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY WOULD BE FOREVER GRATEFUL TO YOU IF YOU OFFERED A PRAYER FOR THEM THIS DAY. PLEASE PRAY FOR MEMBERS OF YOUR FAMILY THAT MAY BE THERE AND PLEASE PRAY FOR THE SOUL THAT HAS BEEN THERE THE LONGEST AND HAS NO ONE TO PRAY FOR HIM OR HER.

Road to Heaven Not an Expressway

If you know anything about Michael the Lesser then you know that I am a fugitive from a monastery. Back in the mid-1970's, I felt that I had a calling to be a Franciscan brother.  I began earnestly to look into the orders that were hiring at that time.  There were ads promising that I would learn to fly an airplane in my first year, some that promised I would live in Rome or the Holy Land and still others that made even more extravagant promises.  Then tucked away in the corner of Catholic Digest was a little ad for the Third Order Regular of St. Francis in a place called Loretto Pennsylvania, they made no extravagant claims, they just called young men to a life of penance in the Third Order Regular.  I applied and was accepted.  I quit my job and with eight hundred dollars in my pocket to last my postulant year, I packed up all of my worldly possessions into a television box (this was way before flat screen so the boxes weren't skinny) and after a tearful goodbye to my parents, who thought my idea was dumb, and my siblings who could have cared less, I flew off to Loretto.  For the next two years, I did my best to live the life of a Franciscan.  It is kind of nice living with a bunch of people who have the same thoughts and feelings about religion that you do.  On the other hand, living in community with a bunch of men was not the easiest thing to do.  One thing that I missed was the support of my family.  The other guys would come home from school and they would find a letter from this relative or that relative or a package of goodies from home while my pigeon hole was always empty. This weighed on my mind and did have a chronic case of homesickness, but I stayed the course for two years. Then, for reasons that I am not going to go into here (you can read about them in my autobiography "Glimpses of God" available through Amazon.com) I decided to leave. I packed up my television box and flew back into Chicago, my heart was broken and I was very angry at God.  My father picked me up at the airport and dropped me off at my former roommate's apartment.  The night before I ended my day with Compline, the Church's prayer said at the end of the day. This night, I ended my day by getting happily drunk at the Cork Lounge, I was a civilian again, dammit! Long story short, it took a year for me to recover to the point where I was not angry at God. He is most merciful and He allowed me to vent and yet stayed by my side through the whole ordeal.  Some mystics write about the dark night of the soul and how that is a sign you are close to God.  Well, forgive me, I know myself and I know that if that ever happened to me, I would perish. Through the years, God has taken me down some different roads. Some of the roads, if I had my druthers, I would not have taken, but He knew and knows what He is doing.  There is no way I would change anything that has happened in my life. The time in the monastery was my basic training.  It helped me grow up and become an independent person. All of the jobs and the people I've met along the way have helped me to become who I am. Change any one thing, any one incident, and everything that came after it would change and I never would have met and married my wife and my life would have been lonely and sad without her spirit joined to mine as we grow old together and love each other more day by day. 

So, what is the point of all this drivel, what do I as Michael the Lesser, owner and operator of one of the least known blogs on the internet want you to take away from this post?  I would say, be like Matthew in our reading.  He left everything to follow Jesus and he never looked back.  He is a man to imitate as we travel down life's roads.  I apologize for this posting, it contains the word "I" many more times than it should.  I do not see myself as a shining example to be followed, just a fellow traveler sharing stories along the way.  God Bless. 

What EVERY Christian Can Learn from Mother Angelica

Rest in Peace Mother Angelica

Mother Angelica was perhaps the greatest American Catholic in the last fifty years. All of us, Catholic or not can learn a lesson from this great lady. 

The eulogies written and said for Mother are many and far more beautiful than I can write. So rather than eulogize her I am going to point out what I feel are her  most important characteristics that we as Christians could emulate in our lives. 

Mother knew of only one road to take and that was the road of faith. When she believed that God was calling her to do something, she set her eyes upon Jesus, threw the throttle into full speed ahead, and turned a deaf ear to those who said what she wanted to do was impossible.  She also knew that sometimes she would misinterpret what God wanted her to do, those times she would experience failure. She did not fear failure. The only thing that she feared was standing before Jesus and being shown what she could have done. 

She was a caring person. I read where she was more concerned with the spiritual conditions of her employees than she was concerned with the television network.  She was also fearless when it came to speaking the truth. She saw that the Church was looking to throw away practices that were necessary to keep.  She took on the mighty and helped preserve important Catholic practices that she rightly thought as important.  She also was honest to those who worked with her and if she had a disagreement with say for example with inviting a certain guest on to a show because the guests views were too liberal, she came out and said it. She was also compassionate knowing that we are all sinners and she did her best to coax and coach people back into the Church when they had lost their way.

She also had a great sense of humor. There is nothing worse than a glum Christian. From what I've heard on EWTN these past few days she even kept her humor during her sickness over the last years of her life. She embraced the suffering that came her way.  She joined it to the sufferings of Christ as St. Paul tells us to and she made her pains and her bed-ridden state into something holy.  Her whole life contained suffering. For years she had to wear pounds of braces so that she could walk. She bore this cheerfully, without resentment, for the good of all and offered it up to Christ. 

The thing she did the best is that she brought Jesus to life for many many people!  We have a tendency to think of Jesus as "up there, somewhere."  She brought Him and His teachings back to earth.  She reintroduced something that some Catholics forgot about, a personal Jesus. She reminded us that Jesus loved us and our ideal fate is to be with Him in heaven. 

Mother will be missed, there is no doubt about that. The good that she did has reached around the world via the television and radio stations she founded.  How many people came to Christ because of her?  How many returned to the Church because something she said or did on TV?  We will never know, 

She is at rest now.  Probably in heaven talking with Saint Maximilian Kolbe about modern communication methods or speaking her words of thanks to Jesus and the Blessed Mother.  She belongs in heaven for because of her work many others will enjoy being with God that may not have made it at all.