I recently bought a new watch. It is not anything fancy. That really is not my style. Instead it is just a functional face watch with an hour hand and a minute hand which I purchased from a discount store. The only special feature on the watch is a small panel that displays the current date. Today I decided to set it to the right date, but I did not have the instructions. I do not think they were necessary because the watch only seems to have one way to adjust it. I ended up turning the little knob numerous times until it set the date to today's date. As I was doing this, I was struck at how fast the hands went around. I could not help thinking that my life is just like that. It really is speeding by, and the next thing I know it will all be over.
I am not that old, but fairly regularly I think about whether I have done much with my life. The answer is not one that makes me very comfortable. Instead, it really bothers me because I figure that even if I live to a ripe old age, I have wasted so much time. And it really pains me to realize what everyone knows--which is that you cannot go back and do it again. There really is only one shot, and the older I get the more I realize how much more seriously I need to take my life.
This business about being serious keeps coming to me. It is a form of the virtue of prudence in which you figure out how you are going to reach your goal. If my goal for my family and me is heaven, I need to map out, as best as I can, how we can hope to attain that beautiful and most magnificent of gifts. This requires seriousness. Not an uptight type of seriousness, but a seriousness that this is God's call to me. It is not a joke, but a real invitation that I can either plan to accept everyday with the long term plan in mind, or I can fritter away my time and painfully regret it later.
I am not sure where this thinking will lead me, but it certainly has given me food for thought and prayer. I know that I cannot remain where I am. My family depends on me to help plan for the future. I need to be more sober about my daily actions because the sum of them is what is building my life. There are just far too many habits and behaviors that are troubling to me, and I know that it is up to me to prayerfully work on those. The hands of time do not lie and they do not stop. Here is prayer that I use what time I have left much more prudently than I have the time to now.
Posted by David at
12:34 AM
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I was reminded by a commenter that I had written about the Pope's address to young people at Blonie Park in Krakow when he was in Poland last month. (By the way the commenter is TheresaMF, who is graduate of the tremendous Christendom College and whose blog
Destination: Order is listed in my list of Blogs of Interest. Also, she could use our prayers as she is discerning a vocation to the Dominicans. Click
here to read more.) The theme of the Holy Father's talk regarded the parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount where are Lord speaks about the wise and the foolish man (Matthew 7:24-27). The foolish man builds his house upon the sand, and the wise man builds his house upon the rock. The storms test the houses of both men. Only the wise man's house survives the storms. I wrote
a bit about how these theme really meant much to me because of my own understanding of how I desire a home.
Her reminder about my post seemed quite apropos because as it turns out one of the reasons that I have not been posting over the past weeks has been because my wife and I are trying to purchase a home. We are set to close at the end of July, but one of the contingencies in our contract is that we are able to rent our current home. Consequently, we have been busy getting our house in order (so to speak) in order to show it to potential renters. I would appreciate your prayers for God to provide us with a good renter. Since we have never been landlords this is all a bit daunting. However, it seems like this is what should be the next step. And truly this has been one small step at time while trying to trust God and to discern His Will. Thanks for your prayers.
Posted by David at
11:59 PM
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Patron Saint of World Cup 2006?
As the world, or at least the sporting world, begins to turn its focus in earnest toward Germany because of the 2006 World Cup which begins on Friday, today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Boniface who is known as the Apostle to Germany.
A Benedictine monk was chosen by divine Providence to become Germany's great apostle and patron. Boniface's first missionary endeavor proved unsuccessful (716). Before attempting a second he went to Rome and received papal authorization (718). Under the holy bishop Willibrord he converted Frisia within a period of three years. On November 30, 722, Boniface was consecrated bishop by Pope Gregory II.
In 724 he turned his attention to the Hessian people, among whom he continued his missionary activity with renewed zeal. On an eminence near the village of Geismar on the Eder, he felled a giant oak that the people honored as the national sanctuary of the god Thor. Boniface used the wood to build a chapel in honor of St. Peter. This courageous act assured the eventual triumph of the Gospel in Germany.
The resident clergy and the priests dwelling at the court, whose unworthy lives needed censure, were constantly creating difficulties. Nevertheless Boniface continued to labor quietly, discreetly. He prayed unceasingly, put his trust in God alone, recommended his work to the prayers of his spiritual brothers and sisters in England. And God did not abandon him. Conversions were amazingly numerous. In 732 Gregory III sent him the pallium, the insignia of the archiepiscopal dignity. Boniface now devoted his time and talent to the ecclesiastical organization of the Church in Germany. He installed worthy bishops, set diocesan boundaries, promoted the spiritual life of the clergy and laity, held national synods (between 742 and 747), and in 744 founded the monastery of Fulda, which became a center of religious life in central Germany. In 745 he chose Mayence for his archiepiscopal see, and affiliated to it thirteen suffragan dioceses. This completed the ecclesiastical organization of Germany.
The final years of his busy life were spent, as were his earlier ones, in missionary activity. Word came to him in 754 that a part of Frisia had lapsed from the faith. He took leave of his priests and, sensing the approach of death, carried along a shroud. He was 74 years of age when with youthful enthusiasm he began the work of restoration, a mission he was not to complete. A band of semi-barbarous pagans overpowered and put him to death when he was about to administer confirmation to a group of neophytes at Dockum. Source
Here is an
article about some of the efforts of the Church in Germany to use the World Cup to reach out to proclaim the Gospel to football supporters. Also, here is a
Web site (in German) put together by the Catholic Church in Germany to the same ends. (I like the link
"Play and Pray" which provides meditations with a sports-related theme from a book of the same name.) I know there are many other efforts by Christian groups to share the Good News during the upcoming tournament. I think that St. Boniface will be praying in support of their efforts.
Posted by David at
5:38 AM
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General - That Christian families may lovingly welcome every child who comes into existence and surround the sick and the aged with affection.
[M]arriage and the family are rooted in the innermost core of the truth about man and his destiny. Sacred Scripture reveals that the vocation to love is part of that authentic image of God that the Creator willed to imprint in his creature, calling man to become similar to him precisely in the measure in which man is open to love. The sexual difference entailed in the body of man and woman is not, therefore, a simple biological fact, but bears a much more profound meaning: It expresses that way of love with which man and woman become only one flesh; they can realize an authentic communion of persons open to the transmission of life and cooperate in this way with God in the procreation of new human beings. (Benedict XVI in an address to the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family)
Source
Missionary - That the Pastors and the Christian faithful may consider inter-religious dialogue and the work of the inculturation of the Gospel as a daily service to promote the cause of the evangelization of peoples.
In carrying out his ministry, the new Pope knows that his task is to make Christ's light shine out before the men and women of today: not his own light, but Christ's. Aware of this I address everyone, including the followers of other religions or those who are simply seeking an answer to the fundamental questions of life and have not yet found it. I address all with simplicity and affection, to assure them that the Church wants to continue to weave an open and sincere dialogue with them, in the search for the true good of the human being and of society. I ask God for unity and peace for the human family, and declare the willingness of all Catholics to cooperate for an authentic social development, respectful of the dignity of every human being. I will make every conscientious effort to continue the promising dialogue initiated by my Venerable Predecessors with the different civilizations, so that mutual understanding may create the conditions for a better future for all. (Benedict XVI in his first address to the College of Cardinals)
Source
For fathers who are trying to save their unborn children from abortion.
Posted by David at
12:24 AM
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