being lost can lead to being found…

“There are two ways of knowing how good God is:
one is never to lose Him,
and the other is to lose Him and then to find Him.”
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

(Fra Fillipo Lippi, Madonna and Child with Angels, 1450-65/ Uffizi Gallery/ Florence, Italy)

It never seems to fail does it??

I think it’s pretty safe for all of us to opt betting the full pile of chips
on the fact that this time of year will be, nay is, nothing less than nuts.

It will be, if it’s not already, oh so crazy, oh so hectic and oh so overwhelming…
or for some of us….
it may just be simply a little too quiet, a little too empty and
a little too lonely…

So just for fun, lets throw in a lingering pandemic, a variety of flus,
a mixed bag of weather, an angry divided nation, a wounded duck economy,
one’s own personal ups and downs….
and suddenly we find the perfect storm is churning…just waiting to unleash
its full fury on our unsuspecting souls.

And just like that, suddenly and overwhelmingly we realize that we don’t
know whether we’re coming or going—
and with the truth of the matter being that we really just don’t care.

And if that same truth be told, many of us are probably well on our way to
being much more lost than we are being found.

Thus as the full torrent of the season begins sweeping over us like the unrelenting
waves of an angry sea…knocking us over and over while consuming
what semblance of sanity remains…blessedly, if we stop fighting the madness
just long enough and if we stop to listen just oh so keenly…
a tiny jolt, a tiny shock wave, can be faintly sensed.

And it is in that tiny jolt, that tiny shock wave which jerks us back to
reality—a reality that poignantly reminds us that we’ve actually been
much more lost than we’ve ever been found.

Thus this is why Archbishop Sheen’s words uttered at the beginning of this post
resonate so beautifully today.

Some of us may know how good God truly is—but chances are right about now,
many of us might not be so certain and might just not even be aware
of the fact that we truly are so very lost.

Thus it is my hope that we may all rest in the knowledge that if we can stop
just long enough…
if we can just be still long enough,
we might be so fortunate as to taste that oh so longed for, awaited for
overtly yearned for, and painfully pined for sweetness…
a sweetness found waiting to reward those who are knowingly, or simply unknowingly,
lost…
sweetness for those who are simply waiting to be found…

And suddenly it dawns of us that it is God who has been patiently
waiting this entire tumultuous time…waiting on the lost to stop
long enough to feel and hear His call home…

for even the angles will find themselves rejoicing…

In the same way, I tell you,
there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:10

discipline and a holy will

“It is part of the discipline of God to make His loved ones perfect
through trial and suffering. Only by carrying the Cross can one reach
the Resurrection.”
Archbishop Fulton Sheen

(a rose still covered by the morning dew / Julie Cook / 2021)

“O my God, teach me to be generous, to serve you as you deserve to be served,
to give without counting the cost, to fight without fear of being wounded,
to work without seeking rest, and to spend myself without
expecting any reward,
but the knowledge that I am doing your holy will.
Amen.”
St. Ignatius of Loyola

“Be brave and try to detach your heart from worldly things”

“Be brave and try to detach your heart from worldly things.
Do your utmost to banish darkness from your mind and come to understand
what true, selfless piety is.
Through confession, endeavor to purify your heart of anything which
may still taint it.
Enliven your faith, which is essential to understand and achieve piety.”
St. John Bosco

(Notre Dame pre fire / Julie Cook / 2018)

Yesterday, I wrote a post about a Catholic priest from Wisconsin,
Fr. Altman, who is being relieved of his duties by his bishop.
The bishop states that Fr. Altman is both “divisive and ineffective.”

The real reason for his removal is due to his publicly stating that
one cannot be a true Catholic while supporting abortion…
one cannot be a true Catholic and a democrat.

That was a comment directed to both then presidential candidate
Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Two politicians who espouse to be practicing Catholics yet
are both very vocal regarding their support for abortion.

Support for abortion is a stance that is in direct opposition
to the teachings of the Church.
Or so we thought…

Fr. Altman was also very critical of fellow prelates who would deny their flock
communion during the course of the pandemic.

Father Altman doubled down on his stance despite the threats from the Church
hierarchy.
“Jesus warned the Apostles and us that if the world hated him,
it would hate us, just because we are trying to be faithful.
In other words, the world will be divided by the truth,” he continued.
“There will be we who are faithful, who follow the truth,
divided from those who are not faithful and who oppose the truth.”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-fr-altmans-bishop-has-asked-him-to-resign

My post brought about a powerful comment from our biology leaning friend IB
(aka Insanity bytes)

I don’t think she will mind if I share that comment here:

Good stuff, Julie! This really triggered me,
“other shepherds are offended because I simply state
the fact that they abandoned their sheep in a time of need.”

Yep!

My church stayed open, never wavered even when things got heated,
so I was really blessed!
Just the same, every church around me shut down and some are
still shut today.
It’s been such a huge betrayal,
such a feeling abandonment that goes all the way down to my toes.
I had always thought the church would be there for us,
the church is our refuge when an asteroid is heading right for us
or a global pandemic comes.
I did not expect to see so many collapse and abandon their
people immediately.
A church who is not there for her people during hard times
is not a church. A two week quarantine is understandable,
forgivable.
But more than a year?
Get off my planet!

Obviously I got some powerful feelings about all this. 🙂

My response was a resounding AMEN!

It is a betrayal really.
A betrayal by those who’s calling has been to be the very
shepherds and polestars…those who are charged with directing souls
to the risen Savior.
And as IB states so succinctly, it has been a total collapse.
A collapse of the very institution that has been charged
with spreading the very Word of Salvation.

My response to IB:
“Indeed IB— if the Church—as in our sanctuaries, our places of refuge,
our earthly tangible connection to Jesus himself…
if they lock us out during our very hour of need—
if they remain(ed) silent when seniors were shut away from all family
with many dying isolated and alone,
if they refused communion to a spiritually hungry fold or if they
side(d) with death rather than life—
that is not the Bride of Christ as we know her.
Shepherds of the world or shepherds of Christ—
they need to truly ask who it is they serve!!!

When I think of our Church, our bulwark never failing,
I am always reminded of the scene from that classic 1939 movie
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with the cries of Quasimodo “SANCTUARY”…
meaning one is safe and protected within the walls of the Church…
the Church will protect those who seek her aid…

Here is a scene from one of the greatest films of the 1930s.
The gypsy girl Esmeralda (Maureen O’Hara) has been sentenced to
hang for witchcraft in front of Notre Dame cathedral by
the Chief Justice (Sir Cedric Hardwicke).
She is saved from certain death by the cathedral bell-ringer Quasimodo
(Charles Laughton) to the delight of Gringoire,
who loves her (played by a young Edmond O’Brien) and given sanctuary.

And so if the Church now decides to side with the world…our
sanctuary… our help in ages past and hope for years to come,
has become just another victim, lost to the cancel culture wars…

“Whenever that sacrifice of Christ is memorialized in the Church,
there is an application to a new moment in time and a new presence
in space of the unique sacrifice of Christ Who is now in glory.
In obeying His mandate, His followers would be representing in
an unbloody manner that which He presented to His Father in the
bloody sacrifice of Calvary.
After changing the bread into His Body and the wine into His Blood:
He gave it to them (Mark 14:22).
By that communion they were made one with Christ,
to be offered with Him, in Him, and by Him.
All love craves unity. As the highest peak of love in the
human order is the unity of husband and wife in the flesh,
so the highest unity in the Divine order is the unity of
the soul and Christ in communion.”
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, p. 401-2
An Excerpt From
Life of Christ