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I just finished reading a book called “All That Remains” for my book club. It’s written by a forensic anthropologist from Scotland. The book was a bit disappointing for reasons I don’t have time to go into, but much of the book was centered on the author talking about death. There was one point in the book where she was describing different family members that had died. Commenting on the day of her uncle’s funeral, she said, “I realised that day that when the animation of the person we were is stripped out of the vessel we have used to pilot our way through life, it leaves little more than an echo or a shadow in the physical world.” Later, she commented on how when someone is sleeping, they are still animated. We know the difference between someone asleep and someone who is dead. The reason we can tell the difference is because the soul has gone in death. We’ve all experienced this at funerals. We see our loved one lying there and we know it’s no longer them. As humans, we are both body and soul, but it’s the soul that truly makes us who we are. Twins essentially have the exact same body, but they are two distinct persons because of their souls. Why do I mention all this? Well, today is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila. I read her book “The Interior Castle” for my podcast last year and I grew to love her. She once wrote, “Because we have heard and faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value. Consequently, little effort is made to preserve its beauty.” The more we care for our souls, Catholic Pilgrims, and the more we make them an acceptable place for God to dwell, the more we will transform into who God envisioned us to be at the moment our soul was created by Him. Take care of your body, take care of your soul. Have a beautiful day. St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
Continue ReadingBecause I’m a public presence, I definitely draw the ire of people who are extremely opposed to my views. This is fine. It exhausts me sometimes, but some people’s arguments are so bad that it really takes asking one question and they go silent and delete their initial comment to me. This past week, two people didn’t like a comment I made on a video and one told me “I wasn’t too bright” and the other told me that “perhaps your college owes you your money back.” Now, none of these comments bother me. They come from people who have no real argument and they are just trying to make me mad, which they don’t. It used to bother me, it doesn’t anymore. What bothers me is the glaring lack of wisdom. We have nearly all the information in the world at our fingertips. We have more people with college degrees than ever before. Most kids in first world countries get nearly year-round education, but we are not the wiser for it. You can have all the education in the world, but if that knowledge is not married to the wisdom of God, our ethics will suffer and all our degrees will essentially amount to not much. The Book of Wisdom is my favorite OT book and that is where we get our first reading today. “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne…” Wisdom 7:7 We will not seem too bright, Catholic Pilgrims, if our intellect is not led by the wisdom of God. So, we must plead and pray for it daily. Have a beautiful Sunday. *Picture is from Sequoia National Park. I’m sitting in The Senate.
Continue ReadingYesterday, I dropped my son off at his soccer game and had to run home real quick before it started to get a few things I forgot. It was a good thing I came home, because my neighbor called. She couldn’t find her keys and she asked if I could run her son and another teammate down to the game so they wouldn’t be late. The boys hopped in my car and as we went I listened to their conversation. One said, “Today, I finally counted how many cousins I have. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to count them. But, I was wondering and so I counted. I have eight.” The other one replied, “You didn’t know you have eight cousins?” “Well, when we travel around to visit family, I just play with the cousins that are there. I just play with them because they are in front of my face. Then we pack up and visit more family and there’s more cousins and I just focus on them. I’m always like, ‘Whoa, this is a lot of people. I don’t have time to count.’” The other boy said, “Yeah, that makes sense. It’s good you counted because now you know.” “Yeah, I wasn’t as busy today so I thought about it. Eight. That’s pretty cool.” I had to smile listening to this sweet conversation. May we be ever present to those that are in front of our faces, Catholic Pilgrims, and may we stop and find time to count our blessings. Have a good weekend. P.S. I realized that I have never actually counted my first cousins either, so I did. Thirteen. That’s pretty cool.
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