Friday, December 25, 2015

Merry Christmas

The people who walked in darkness
Have seen a great light;
Upon those who lived in a land of gloom
A light has shone.
Isaiah 9:2

May the light of the newborn babe grow in your heart.  Merry Christmas!

Friday, December 18, 2015

And the Second Year Passes

"He who bears his sufferings with patience for God's sake, will soon arrive at high perfection.  He will be master of the world and will already have one foot in the other world.
-St. Giles of Assisi

How symbolic that on the second anniversary of Michael entering eternal life I am driving to San Antonio to spend Christmas with our children.

How happy I am that I will have two days to myself to talk to him as the miles move under my wheels. So many times we made this journey together.  In some ways we still make the journey together.  I talk to him all along the way!

I remember all the previous trips full of jokes, teasing, pushing on when he wanted to stop.  Asking if he wanted to stop at the Cochise Stronghold.  His answer was always that we would stop on the way back.  We never did.  We were always ready to be home.

I will visit his grave though I know he is not there.  But there is something comforting about sitting there and talking with him. I know that we will share memories while there.  I am sure there will be tears.  I know there will be laughter.

I would be remiss if I did not thank St. Joseph for the holy and peaceful death he gave Michael.  It was truly an answer to prayer.  Michael bore his sufferings with patience for God's sake.  I pray he has one foot in the other world.

Lord,
Thank you for all the memories that you give me.
Thank you for the health to make this trip.

Give me strength for the coming year and the changes it will bring.

~Cindy

Monday, December 7, 2015

A Year of Mercy

"Mercy is a good thing, for it makes men perfect, in that it imitates the perfect Father.  Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy."
-St. Ambrose

If ever the world needed mercy it is now.  I look around and see terrorists, evil, and a country that seems to have lost its moral compass.

Some drag out the Founding Fathers and talk about their search for religious freedom.  Forgetting that as soon as they landed they set about making sure that everyone obeyed their version of religious freedom.

Have we forgotten that they committed genocide on the Native Americans.  The same Native Americans that saved them from starvation and certain death from the brutal New England winter.

We have always had different rules for different ethnic groups for immigration.  It depends on who we consider our enemy to be at any given moment.  Every time in history that we have attempted to divide our country on ethnic or religious differences we have lost.  We lost because of the Chinese Exclusionary Act, the Japanese Internment Camps, the Indian Reservations.  As Catholics have we forgotten that Maryland was a Catholic Settlement because the others did not want us.

Have we forgotten the Jesus came as a man.  A man that would look like most of the individuals on the no fly list. Jesus was not blond haired and blued eyed.  No, He looked Middle Eastern.  He looked Jewish.

I do not have many answers but I do know this.  We all will be judged based on how we have treated our fellow man.  Jesus is in the face of every refugee, every illegal immigrant, the stranger that walks past us, the beggar on the street corner, and the family member we haven't spoken to in years.

Mercy is something that the world needs now.  Mercy begins with me.

Lord,
Help me to see past the person
and see You in them.

Fill me with mercy for my fellow man.
Help be to be an agent of mercy for You.

Let not my fear stop me from seeing You.

~Cindy