My apologies for the recent lack of posts… I am taking a class in sociocultural anthropology. There are some assumptions about evolution that I must read—thankfully though, I’ve been able to reconcile them with faith. It is a very interesting class— but it is also very penitential: I have a lot to read and discuss every week,  and I have a project to start working on because it’s due on the 29th! So,  I hope this class will get me to get into the  Lenten spirit.

I’ll be back soon with another post—hopefully.

February 22 is the Feast of the Chair of Peter; the feast honors the gift of the Papacy. Please free the following article about the biblical basis for the Office of the Papacy:

 http://docs.google.com/View?id=dg98rq5w_51c8dwz8gr

Now, I am a no fan of the huffington post but here is a noteworthy article deserving to be read. 45 years ago a young black man named Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered in cold blood and others beaten because they simply wanted to vote.

Jimmie Lee Jackson: The Death That Gave Life to Voting Rights

This is a re-post from FB. I’ll be back with a related reflection tomorrow.

The following song by Mars ill, off of their album Raw Material, is appropriate for today… do you know what love is? Look below for lyrics…

Verse 1
Love. What is it? A solid or a liquid?
The question resonates from inner space to outer limits
Outer space to inner city dwellers timid, not committed
Love just isn’t built on child support and weekend visits
You kill it like strychnine when you treat it like a cancer
You don’t feel it so you spend time seek pleasure, not the answer
In clubs peeping dancers in a jacked-up type of manner
Stuffing g-strings with dollars that should buy your baby’s Pampers
Love’s not waking up with different women every morning
Love’s not beating her down at nine months, with child forming
Love’s not leaving your wife and your seed with no warning
Love’s not, and when it’s raining its pouring
Scoring no points you smoke joints, and toke your life away
You might have another year or two but you really die today
Display respect for yourself, or you can’t love nobody else
The hand you’re dealt requires action, not just something you felt

Chorus:
I know what love is and it just don’t stop
but I can explain it better when I say what love’s not.
Yeah I know what love is, and it just don’t stop
But I explain it better when I can say what love’s not.

Verse 2
A house divided against itself is prone to utter desolation
So for this generation on the brink of extermination
I pour out a libation, a lyrical libation
In observation of the annihilation of the moral foundation
The desperation of the situation was clearly foretold
That in these last days the love of many would grow stone cold
And if hell is without love
Then all hell has broke loose in this culture
Feel the negativity circling overhead like a vulture?
The inverted priority of the majority, squander the sacred
To give what’s profane seniority
And incredibly we fail to see collectively
The reasons why things fall apart like leprosy
Passion is the fashion taboos are taboo
Do you see through this voodoo
Cause it stinks like doodoo
Yo it’s sad but too true how many don’t have a clue
To the fact we’ll be judged for all we think say and do
From east to west coast and all areas in between
Real love is like a ghost — talked about but rarely seen
Except on TV screens where they flash these caricatures
That on the down low are meant to influence our characters
But love is not love if it’s manufactured for the moment
That makes it more than the physical between a man and a woman
Wisdom is justified by her children in the end
And real love is being willing to lay down your life for a friend

Chorus

Verse 3
Love’s not caught in mug shots or seen in drug spots
Love’s not sex or who you do next Love’s not
Road rage, porno pages in the eyes of a racist
Loves not whoring and love’s not abortion
Of course then love doesn’t bomb clinics to make it finish
Love’s not hate and love’s not a cynic
Love’s not seen on Jerry Springer or expressed by middle finger
And love is rarely captured in the words of any singer
Love’s not domestic violence saying shut up or be silent
And love’s not represented in the way of the police sirens
Abandoned children in abandon buildings
Random killings, love’s not slow to help you, love is ready and willing
Love is patient and kind, love is sight for the blind
Love was borne before the morning, love’s transforming your mind
Love is body and blood, bread and wine, remember the time
Love is God divine, crucified for mankind

Chorus

Well I’m watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter games, 2010 Vancouver.

Tragically, one of the athletes will not be able to participate because he was killed this morning in a practice luge run… very difficult to watch what happened to 21 year old Nodar Kumaritashvili from the county Georgia. He was going so fast before he crashed that he didn’t have time to think.  This would have been his first Olympics too. Very sad… life is fragile. Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord… may he rest in peace.  Let us pray for the safety of all athletes.

Incidentally,  did anyone catch the premiere of the “We are the World” video tonight? It can be viewed here:

http://wearetheworldfoundation.org

Lord, thank you for Lourdes…

Our Lady of Lourdes (feastday: Feb. 11)

Mosaic from the Rosary Basilica in Lourdes, France

We’re just about fed up of snow around here. There’s more than 2 feet of that stuff outside! I’ve never seen so much in my life. Our area got hit pretty bad; now it’s snowing again. They’re referring to the situation as ’snowmaggedon’ and ’snowpocalypse.’  It’s not that unwarranted.

Snow is difficult to deal with. Saturday morning, our electricity went out—and wouldn’t you know it, the generator wouldn’t kick in. For people on ventilators, that’s pretty catastrophic. My wheelchair ventilator only has about 12 hours of battery power. Some neighbors tried to troubleshoot the generator and circuit breakers, to no avail. The generator eventually started running but the power wasn’t flowing into the house. In the meantime, I was not freaking out too much… actually, by the grace of God,  I was very calm. We called a neighborhood maytag repairman and 911. Two EMT guys showed up followed by our repairman neighbor who took care of the problem. What a relief that  I didn’t have to go to the hospital to be hooked up to a power source.  I thank God for that– as well as for the fact that my night nurse,  a former Marine corp soldier, comes equipped to stay with us for a few days.  I shudder to think what others, especially the elderly and infirm, have to go through.

I just saw on the news that 4000 people are still without power! What a mess. Please pray for us.

By the way, we didn’t have cable on Sunday but we still got to see the Saints win their first Superbowl, thanks to a cousin’s digital box.

I was in an online Bible study yesterday with a friend from Phatmass. During the course of our study, we agreed that the world is immersed in darkness and life itself can seem a bit dark; however, we were filled with the assurance that, “the Light shines in darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”  There is always at least a glimmer shining through what seems to be a hopeless situation.  It’s no coincidence that yesterday was the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ, a feast also known as Candlemas. 40 days after his birth,  Our Lord’s parents brought him to the Temple at Jerusalem to be dedicated to God.  The Lord entered his own Temple and revealed himself as the Light come into the world to illuminate it. Sharing in our humanity, God reveals to us that he is with us; we are never alone; He is our High Priest who knows what it is to suffer and he sympathizes with us.

Here is today’s meditation by Fr. K  about Candlemas and today’s feast day of St. Blaise—whose name sounds like blaze:

Last Sunday I was struck, as if by a bolt of lightning, by the meaning of the connection between the Scripture readings that were read at Holy Mass.  Very briefly,  I will summarize the readings:  In the 12th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul describes how all those who have been baptized “in one Spirit…  into one body,” have become members of Christ’s body with different functions (”You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it”).  In the Gospel, Jesus comes to his hometown of Nazareth, enters the synagogue and stands up to read of the scroll. He read the words of Isaiah the prophet, a messianic passage that people longed to see the fulfillment of:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Jesus hands the scroll back and delivers the shortest a homily ever preached,  “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” He manifested Himself as the One to live the words from Isaiah.

Now, we might wonder about the continuation of the mission of the Messiah:  specifically, where is the ministry of Christ today? Are not people still in captivity? To these questions, I ‘heard’ the answer. Those who are baptized into Christ are anointed with the Holy Spirit and are entrusted with the mission of Christ because they are His extensions. We Christians are to proclaim liberty to captives!

I have learned that ignorance is one of the worst types of captivity man can experience. People perish for lack of knowledge. The teachings of the Catholic Church are truly liberating — God’s people need to be taught how to truly live as children of our Father!  In last Sunday’s  first reading, the Israelites have returned from their exile in Babylon and they gather to hear the Law publicly proclaimed— and they weep aloud.  They weep because it was precisely their deviation from the Law that resulted in their exile in the first place!  Today, God’s people are woefully ignorant of His plan for their lives, ignorant of the Truth–in other words, they are in captivity!

Part II

St. Thomas Aquinas was one  who lived Christ by “proclaiming liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind.” He systematically wrote a massive ‘catechism’ or summary of theology called the Summa Theologica. St. Thomas used the gifts of knowledge and wisdom as well as his intelligence in order to make the truth of God known. His feast day was on Wednesday and so I thought of him in connection to the Sunday readings.  There are also, of course, other methods of making the truth known which I will touch upon before ending this post.

Catholics are to make the Truth known to everyone they encounter. Not in a way that badgers or hits someone over the head, but in a way that exemplifies truth in love; by being a good friend, worker, or listener, answering questions well when they are brought up in friendly conversation. In today’s second reading, St. Paul describes what love really is:

Love is patient, love is kind.
It is not jealous, it 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.

Armed with love and empowered with the spirit of Christ, we proclaim liberty to captives using whatever means we have. Recently, the pope has encouraged priests, as well as young adults and youth, to make use of social communications media such as Facebook and Twitter to make the Truth known to the world!

As so often evidenced, the Truth can be met with opposition. Jesus is the Truth, and he was rejected by his own people as illustrated in today’s Gospel. I mean they wanted to throw him off the cliff in his own hometown! If they persecuted the Master they will persecute the servant. But,  as we are reminded in today’s first reading, God chose us from our mothers wombs, and he has made us fortified cities:

“They will fight against you but not prevail over you,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.”

And, He empowers us with grace because without Him we can do nothing… but with him I can do all things. So what is there to be afraid of? Bring glad tidings to the poor!