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I was teaching my son about purgatory the other day during school. He’s learned about it before but we were talking about how the stains of even forgiven sin have to be cleaned from our souls. He said, “It’s like tomato sauce.” I asked, “What?” “When you get tomato sauce on your white shirts, you always get mad and run away to clean it because you say it stains really bad. But, I can still see the tomato sauce on your shirt after you clean it. Like it’s still there just a teeny bit. So, stains of sin are like that. You might be able to clean it off here on earth, but if you don’t you’re still going to need to be cleaned in purgatory before Heaven.” “So, you can still see the tomato sauce on my shirt after I clean it?” “Yeah, a little bit.” “You didn’t want to tell me?” “I don’t know, you seemed happy about it.” (Sigh) “Well, yes, you are right. The stains of sin are like tomato sauce on a white shirt that’s been cleaned.” Guess I need some new white shirts, Catholic Pilgrims. 😂😂 Have a beautiful Monday!
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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