On the civil calendar it's Labor Day but on the church calendar it's the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
This weekend's scriptures and commentary on them are right here and if your bringing young ones to Mass, hints for helping children prepare to hear the Word can be found here.
Every Sunday's worship is colored by the universe of experience worshipers bring to the sanctuary. This weekend, the majority of American worshipers will be celebrating a holiday when they countenance these words from Jesus:
If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Happy Labor Day!
The preacher's task with such texts is not an easy one. The gospel is paired with a passage from the Book of Wisdom which echoes wonder in the face of God's inscrutable wisdom (minus that harsh vocabulary from the Lord's mouth.
And if those two texts weren't difficult enough for the preacher to deal with, throw in the passage from Paul's letter to Philomen and the question of Onesiumus' status as a slave!
Not an easy slate to preach on... got any ideas for the homilist?
For folks searching for Labor Day "thoughts and prayers," I offer this holiday collection:
- A Prayer for Labor Day - Learning About Labor Day - Some Words about Work
A Prayer for Labor Day
O God, creator of the world,
of sun and moon and stars,
you chose to fashion us, your own,
your handiwork of love.
Indeed, we are your hands’ own work
and yet into our hands
you give the care
of every living thing.
In more ways than we can count
our work builds up
or tears apart what came
from your own hand.
Keep us faithful in preserving
all you’ve given
lest we harm the smallest part
of all you’ve made.
Give us good and honest work to do
and rest at each day’s end.
Give a fair and good day’s wage
for a good day’s work well done.
Give us work that nurtures and sustains
the ones who serve and those they serve.
Let those who labor work in peace,
in freedom without fear.
Give those in need a job to do
and to the tired well earned rest.
Let all our work and toil, Lord,
give glory to your name.
Amen.
Learning about Labor Day
This Labor Day weekend is a good opportunity for us to remember the wealth of Catholic teaching on concerns and issues related to labor and justice for workers. The Catholic Labor Network provides an excellent collection of resources on such issues with links to documents as old as the papal encyclical of 1891 and as recent as the 2009 Labor Day statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
On the long Labor Day weekend, take a few minutes to click on the link above and to read, at least, the US bishops' Labor Day statement. And here's a link to the USCCB site and their many statements on labor issues.
And some Words about Work...
Work
is what I:
do and avoid
love and hate
need and ignore
thrive on, put off
look for, hide from
want, reject
relish, despise
overdo, skip
share, possess
quit and begin...
Work
rules and frees me,
weakens and strengthens me,
separates and connects me,
empties and fills me,
annoys and gratifies me,
saps and energizes,
destroys and defines me,
dispirits and lifts me,
consumes and develops me,
ruins and saves me...
If it's not too much work for you... do you have any pairs of words about work to add?
They say great minds think alike, so perhaps it's true that earnest souls pray alike!
Not far removed from the spirit of today's Monday Morning Offering is a prayer Diana Macalintal just posted on Pray Tell. While she wrote her prayer with the forthcoming changes in the Roman Missal in mind, I find it to be a prayer helpful for many seasons of change and I'm pleased to offer it here:
Prayer to Accept Change
Just when I thought I had it all figured out, Lord, things change again. When will I be able to rest in the comfort of knowing what comes next?
You, who transcend all time, who created the stars and set them in place, you, who are ageless yet known in every age, grant me the grace to accept the changes that are happening.
Empty my heart of anxiety, and fill it instead with wonder and awe. Release me from the chains of complacency, and bind me to your ever-moving Spirit.
When the things I believed to be permanent and stable are left by the way side, enfold me in your undying love that I may remember in whom all things are bound.
When fear of something new paralyzes me, and grief cripples me with anger over the loss of what had been, send your angels to give me a gentle push over that frightening edge into the unknown, so that I may learn to trust in you.
For you alone are eternal. You alone are enduring. You alone are the everlasting Lord. And in you alone will this restless world find peace. Amen.
A friend reminds me it’s only early spring "down under" - but of course, you know that, Lord!
Still, on this side of the equator the sun sets a little earlier each evening and Labor Day's approach begins to eclipse these august days…
So, I'm wondering, Lord: why must good times come to an end? The good times sometimes come too seldom - and then, they’re gone...
And as wonderful as memories are, they are, well, memories...
Why, Lord, must the good days come to an end? Why are memories not enough? Why does the fall-filtered beauty of light and leaves seem not enough to let me let go summer’s warmth and pace and peace?
Of seasons there are four... but yet a hundred seasons more, in my life alone, Lord: seasons of presence, seasons of pain; seasons of sadness, seasons of gain; seasons of sunlight, seasons of rain; seasons of comfort, seasons of strain; seasons of planting, seasons of grain; seasons of waiting and waiting for seasons to break the seasons’ chain…
So many seasons, Lord…
And letting go of summer is not easy…
I should be grateful for autumn: your gentle preparation of everyone and everything for the dying winter will surely bring…
Still, letting go of summer is not easy...
You know the seasons better than I, Lord, and no season changes 'round me or in me but that you know first how the changes will change me...
Be with me, Lord, in all the seasons of my life and be with me in between the seasons, when moving from one to the next is a season of its own...
I offer you my heart this Monday morning, Lord, and every morning this week edging me to Labor Day and the end and the beginning of so many, many things…
Help me let go of what is slipping away... Take my offered heart and open me to what is new and changing in the weeks and months ahead…
You are the source of all seasons, Lord, and of the strength I need to live in them and through them...
Be my guide and walk with me through this day, this week, through this summer-fall season’s changes…
Amen.
(For an archive of previousMonday Morning Offerings, checkhereor click on the coffee cup at the top of the sidebar...)
The Creation of Adam by Andrea Pisano: photo by Carulmare
Homily for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Scriptures for today's liturgy)
Audio for today's homily
I’m sure you know of the 33 miners who are trapped a half-mile underground in a gold and copper mine in Chile. In the most literal sense, these men have been “humbled.”
Humility, the virtue urged on us in the first scripture today and in Jesus’ parable about the seating plan for a wedding reception, - the word humility is rooted in the Latin humus which means, simply, earth - the ground beneath our feet.
To be humble is to be low, close to the earth. The Chilean miners are a half-mile deep into the ground, literally “humbled” by the collapse of the main shaft in the desert mountain where they were working.
Some of us may have had experiences in our lives, not as dramatic as in Chile, when we’ve been humbled, grounded, by our own doing or by circumstances beyond our control.
But what’s of note in the scriptures here is that we’re being counseled, invited, urged to be humble, to become humble - even to humble ourselves.
And something may seem counter-intuitive in all that.
Aren’t we supposed to do our best, build ourselves up, make the most of who we are and what we have and of what we can offer to others? Of course we are!
But one can do all of that -- and still be humble.
The problem comes when success and prestige (or the desire for same) lead me to forget that I am a creature of God and that God, as the book of Genesis describes it, sculpted humankind out of the clay of the ground: the humus, the soil of our humble, human beginning.
Some of us are old enough to recall the words the priest used to say when imposing ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday: Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return… (The dust of the humus, the clay, from which we were made and to which we will all one day return…)
True humility is not walking around with my dead drooping. Humility is seeking and accepting my place (whatever it might be), not in terms of society and prestige, but rather my place as I stand before God.
This past week on my blog I invited my readers to comment on how they understood this notion of humility. Here’s the response of a reader who signed only as JW:
Humility for me is being in the most right place! Sometimes the shock of it can surprise me, but once I put my defenses down, realize it is from God and for my own good, I see it for the gift it is and the peace it brings. As a follower of Christ it is what I strive for!
For JW, humility is seeking and accepting the place which is right in the eyes of God - even and especially if you’ve got your eyes on some other place.
To be humble, to humble myself, is to recognize: that God is the Creator and I’m the creature; that this is God’s world and I’m only passing through; that in the end, God will look not to how high I climbed but to how well I accepted and shared the humble reality of who, in truth, I am.
JW’s words remind me of the old Shaker tune, Simple Gifts:
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gain'd, To bow and to bend we won’t be asham'd, To turn, turn will be our delight, Till by turning, turning we come round right.
The song might easily be retitled, ’Tis the Gift to Be Humble, but don’t let the simple tune and the beautiful words fool you!
We Christians have a model for humbling ourselves, we have a model for bowing and bending without shame, close to the earth from which we were made.
And our model is Jesus.
Is there any better image of humility than the image of Christ on his Cross?
Divinity humbled to humanity in Jesus, "who humbled himself becoming obedient even to death on a cross." (Phil 2:6-8)
The entrapped Chilean miners have sent up word that they want to erect a small shrine for prayer, a half-mile down into the earth, and the rescue team has lowered a Crucifix to them: the image of the one who humbled himself for their sakes and who, like them, was entombed in the earth.
To humble ourselves is to bend low enough to discover the presence of God right where we are - even when that’s not the place we want to be - and therein, to find peace.
Christ rose from the depths of his tomb and we pray for the survival and rescue of the miners.
We do this at the table Christ left us on the night before he was humbled to death on a Cross.
He gave us the sacrifice of his love in the gift of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist.
Let us bend and bow low before the Lord who offers himself to us on this altar in the sacrament of his peace.
We couldn't observe St. Monica's day (August 27) and then forget her son Augustine's day (August 28).
St. Augustine is one of the most influential persons in the history of Christendom. His influence on theology and church life is great. You'll find a thumb-nail sketch of his life here.
(The image on the left is the work of John Nava in an installation at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Click on the image on the left for a larger version. Augustine is the middle figure of these five, from left to right: JurgisMatulaitis, Bernard, Augustine, John the Baptist, Maria Venegas.) Augustine is my patron saint. (The Gaelic for Augustine is Aibhistín {awv-ish-teen} which comes into English as Austin.) I remember that when I was a child my father (also named Austin, after his uncle in Ireland) would sometimes call me Aibhistín.
My patron's work on original sin played no small part in rewriting the baptismal practice of our Church. A prayer of his, written just after his own baptism, is a favorite of mine and one I return to often - and always when on retreat. Perhaps you will make these words part of your prayer as we celebrate St. Augustine.
Too late, have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, too late have I loved you! You were with me, and I was not with you; I was away, running after beautiful things which you created; things which could have no existence except for you, and yet they kept me from you. Then you called, you cried out, and you pierced my deafness. You enlightened, you shone forth, and now my blindness has vanished. I have tasted you; now I hunger and thirst for you. You breathed your fragrance upon me; I drew in breath and now I long for you. You have touched me, and I am on fire with the desire of your embrace.
Yet another interesting take on the question of siting an Islamic center two blocks from Ground Zero.
In the New York Review of Books, Scott Appleby (Director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame) and John McGreevy (Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Notre Dame), draw on the history of Catholics finding their place in American culture to comment on the question of the new Islamic center in Manhattan.
Sunset at Eastham, MA, Cape Cod: Photo by SpiritualWills
Well, the sun is setting on the last day of my vacation...
I'm back in Concord, refreshed and ready for the kind of weekend that is usually mine: word and worship with the wonderful people of Holy Family Parish!
I recently posted on one of the meals I had on vacation - here's another.
I remember some years back walking with a friend through the lobby of a hotel in Boston, past the Sushi bar. My friend mentioned that she wished we had time to stop there for something to eat and I said I was glad we were in a hurry!
I got a brief, chiding but gentle lecture on the wonders of sushi and what a shame it was that I was convinced I didn't like something I'd never tried. I was embarrassed by the truth of her statement: without ever having tasted sushi, I was sure that I didn't/wouldn't/couldn't enjoy it.
Fast-forward more years than I care to count... I'm at a local Italian restaurant I favor and there on the menu is an appetizer of tuna sashimi with a wasabi dip. In a bold moment I tried it - and loved it!
I was very pleased, then, to find the same dish on the menu at emBargo (that's how the establishment spells it), a tapas restaurant in downtown Hyannis. Here the tuna is sesame crusted and served with thin slices of pickled ginger, a dipping bowl of citrus ponzu and a small mound of wasabi.
Absolutely delicious! ("Oishii" is Japanese for "delicious.")
Granted, this is as far as I've gone on the meno for sushi/sashimi but at least it's a step in the right direction - and I may go farther yet.
(In a subsequent post I'll share with you how I recently came to start eating mussels - another dish I was sure I didn't like although I'd never tried them.)
Do you know the origin of that familiar phrase? It comes from today's saint on the Church calendar, Monica, mother of St. Augustine.
St. Monica was a favorite saint of my mother who passed from this life to life with God on St. Monica's day, 16 years ago.
(Please follow the link above to learn more about Monica's life and faith - and the conversation that led to that famous phrase!)
The image on the left is one of the great Communion of the Saints Tapestries in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Below is a study of Monica (H/T to The Deacon's Bench) - John Nava is the artist. (Click on the image to the left to enlarge it and you will see Monica standing with Saints Peter Chanel, Thomas, Clare and Francis. Click on the image below for a larger version.)
Here's a Prayer to St. Monica for mothers (and fathers) to pray for their children:
Dear Saint Monica, patron of all mothers, please take my children under your protection, especially those who have turned away from the path of Christ and his Church. Help them be faithful to the grace of their Baptism and Confirmation and bring them home to the Altar of the Eucharist. Despite the temptations and difficulties that face them, help them find the wisdom and strength to walk always with the Lord. Dear St. Monica, pray for my children (mention your children by name) that they may share with you and all the saints the peace and joy of life forever with Christ. Amen.
(You might forward this post to moms (and dads) who pray for their children's relationship with the Lord and his Church...)
Photo by CP (For a "larger serving" click on the image!)
This was my dinner this evening and it was wonderful. In Hyannis there are, in my estimation, two places to go for fried clams: Cooke's and Baxter's.
Both have excellent seafood but while Baxter's has the edge on ambiance (right on the water, opportunity for rustic indoor or outdoor dining), I believe Cooke's (on a commercial strip of Route 132) serves up a better offering for those hungry for seafood.
Cooke's has been voted "Best Seafood" by Cape Cod Life every year since 1993 and was voted "Best Fried Clams" by WCOD for five straight years. Ambiance aside, Cooke's clams are consistently sweet, never chewy, and battered and fried to perfection. The clams are plated over a base of french fries and topped with onion rings (high marks on the rings, too). On the side is a small cup of cole slaw (always fresh!) and tartar sauce. For kids the menu includes the usual burgers, dogs, chicken fingers and grilled cheese. For adult taste, beer and wine are served.
If you're on the Cape for at least a few days, I'd suggest you try both places and make your own decision - you won't be disappointed in either case. Baxter's has its harbor side site on Pleasant Street while you'll find a Baxter's both in Hyannis and in Mashpee.
P.S. When ordering, you'll be asked if you prefer "whole belly" clams or clam strips. If you really want to know what great fried clams taste like - go for the whole clam!
August
rushes by like desert rainfall,
A flood of frenzied upheaval,
Expected,
But still catching me unprepared.
Like a matchflame
Bursting on the scene,
Heat and haze of crimson sunsets.
Like a dream
Of moon and dark barely recalled,
A moment,
Shadows caught in a blink.
Like a quick kiss;
One wishes for more
But it suddenly turns to leave,
Dragging summer away.
- Elizabeth Maua Taylor
Image: sunset at Eastham, MA, Cape Cod
Source: joyousoccasions
The summer days are winding down and the ordinals of Sundays in Ordinary Time increase - this week to the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
You'll find the scriptures for August 28th and commentary on them here. And for those shepherding young ones to Mass, you'll find hints to help children prepare to hear the Word here.
Both the first reading (Sirach) and the gospel (Luke) teach us about humility. The second reading (Hebrews) is quite different, showing us the glory of what we approach in faith, in Christ.
Humility...
Who among us wants to be humble?
How much of our lives are spent insuring that we rise above the level of the humble?
Do any of us desire to be humbled? by God? by others? by circumstance?
Sometimes, Lord, without my even asking,
you give me your grace and your strength
and you change me:
you do for me
what I've not been able to do for myself,
or by myself...
You draw me closer to yourself
and help me live more faithfully
according to your Word...
I thank you for such grace, freely given,
and I offer you praise
for what you've been doing in my life,
day to day, especially in these last several weeks...
Sometimes I'm so busy,
so preoccupied with myself and my problems,
that I fail to see all the ways you care for me
and all the ways you make of me more fully,
more simply and more beautifully,
the person you created me to be...
Sometimes you surprise me, Lord,
dropping your gifts of grace
in the pockets of my mind and heart
and along the path I walk...
For the quiet, unexpected
and yet-to-be-discovered ways
you help me, Lord,
I offer you thanks and praise...
Make me faithful, Lord,
to what you've given me
and let me not for a moment
take for granted
what you've done, what you're doing
and what you will do in my life...
Teach me to trust
in the ways you come to help me...
When I'm tempted to doubt
that such good gifts come from your hand,
deepen my faith in you
and in your abiding love for me...
Slow me down, Lord,
help me keep the pace you set for me;
help me see how much you're doing,
how much you're giving,
to help me live more faithfully
the life you desire me to live...
You never fail to help me live
as you call me to live:
help me not fail to live
by the help you offer me...
Remind me every day, Lord,
how I need to find time to slow down,
to pause, to wait for your presence,
to listen for your voice,
to reach out for your hand
lifting me up, supporting and guiding me...
Let nothing come between me
and the gifts you offer me, Lord...
And as I become more and more aware
of your strength within me, help me to see
how others might lean on you
by leaning on me...
And when I'm weak and need help,
teach me to lean on others
when their strength is there for me...
This is my prayer this morning, Lord,
this day and all this week...
The name Kathleen Hughes, RSCJ may not be familiar to you unless you have been following the story of post-Conciliar liturgy for the past 30 years. And if you've followed that story you know that Sr. Kathleen is a scholar, teacher, author, speaker and lover of that reality in our lives we call the liturgy.
Last month, Kathleen was a keynote speaker at the annual convention of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, held in Detroit. I highly recommend the text of her address for your study - particularly if you haven't had an opportunity to follow the liturgy's history since the early 1960's.
Her talk is entitled Hope and Harmony and has three parts: The Context; Grounding Hope in Our Recent Context; and The Future. In that last section she offers a new interpretation of full, conscious and active participation in the liturgy and concludes the whole presentation with "nine concrete choices we can make right now, choices within our immediate control, choices in the present which may help us create the future we hope for..."
In that conclusion Sister Hughes offers some nitty-gritty advice for us as we prepare to incorporate the texts of the new Missal into the liturgical life of our parishes. You may be tempted to jump to the end to read those nine points but I assure you that their full content will escape you without having read them in the context of the whole talk.
If you have (or are forming) opinions about the new translation of the Roman Missal, take the time to read and ponder Sr. Kathleen Hughes' wisdom.
WASHINGTON—Cardinal Francis George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has announced that the full text of the English-language translation of the Roman Missal, Third Edition, has been issued for the dioceses of the United States of America.
The text was approved by the Vatican, and the approval was accompanied by a June 23 letter from Cardinal Llovera Antonio Cañizares, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The Congregation also provided guidelines for publication.
In addition, on July 24, the Vatican gave approval for several adaptations, including additional prayers for the Penitential Act at Mass and the Renewal of Baptismal Promises on Easter Sunday. Also approved are texts of prayers for feasts specific to the United States such as Thanksgiving, Independence Day and the observances of feasts for saints such as Damien of Molokai, Katharine Drexel, and Elizabeth Ann Seton. The Vatican also approved the Mass for Giving Thanks to God for the Gift of Human Life, which can be celebrated on January 22.
Cardinal George announced receipt of the documents in an August 20 letter to the U.S. Bishops and issued a decree of proclamation that states that “The use of the third edition of the Roman Missal enters into use in the dioceses of the United States of America as of the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011. From that date forward, no other edition of the Roman Missal may be used in the dioceses of the United States of America.”
For more information, check this page from the USCCB site, a link to which is on the sidebar to the right.
And here's what the Archdiocese of Boston is offering on the same topic.
Fr. Ron Franco over at City Father (a recent Link of the Day here) has a well-reasoned, interesting take on the building of a mosque within two blocks of the site of the 9/11 tragedy. Only recently arrived in his new parish setting, Fr. Franco offers this interesting bit of history about the church he now pastors:
When the original Immaculate Conception Church was built in Knoxville, TN, in the mid-1850s – on a prominent hilltop overlooking what were then the northern limits of the city – some local people did object. The March 10, 1855 Knoxville Whig warned that Catholics “are a dangerous population much to be dreaded.” The Knoxville Protestant community, however, did not universally share this view. The Mayor, a Presbyterian, even donated an adjacent plot of land to the new parish. Had there been a more rational basis to the allegation that Catholics posed a danger and should be dreaded, perhaps the outcome might have been different.
For a well reasoned response to this vexed question of building a new mosque, read the complete post at City Father.
I'm sharing today a prayer I wrote about 10 years ago when I volunteered once a month at the Essex County House of Correction in Middleton, MA. One needn't live behind bars to pray these words, we all have prisons, sometimes of our own making...
A Prayer For Freedom In My Heart
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
when I feel locked up, locked in and locked down.
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
when I'm walled in by loneliness.
Give me freedom in my heart , Lord,
when I feel imprisoned by my past.
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
when anxiety holds me a prisoner of fear.
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
when I'm confined by days and nights
that pass too slowly.
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
so that I can accept your word,
your forgiveness, your peace and your love.
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
so that I can share with others
what you've given me.
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
so that I can become the person
you made me to be.
Give me freedom in my heart, Lord,
so that I can thank and praise you
for all you've given me
and for all you promise me.
Does the scene above look familiar? It should. It's the "other side" of the image on my earlier post on the Word for this coming weekend. In this coming Sunday's gospel we'll hear Jesus urge us:
Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.
So, how about that narrow gate? the narrow entrance?
Is my heart focused on negotiating the narrowness of that portal? Do I have an eye on the prize? Or is my path one that meanders, wending without the boundaries I need to keep me on the Lord's path?
When people come from the east and the west and from the north and the south to recline at the table in kingdom of God, will the Master at the door recognize me when I stand outside knocking and saying, "Lord, open the door for me..."
Will the Lord know me and open for me?
You still have time to read, study, ponder, pray over the scriptures for this weekend. The texts, commentary on them and hints to help children prepare to hear the word can all be found here.
This video on using seat belts is as beautiful and graceful as it is gripping and compelling. It makes its point, drawing you into an instructive ballet.
My guess is you'll want to watch it more than once...
They say that if you want to be a better writer you need to write what you know and to write every day.
But perhaps as important as writing every day is the value of reading every day - reading the good writing of others, reading what they know.
I'm faithful to the first rule above, not so faithful to the second.
Vacation offers more time for writing and, more importantly, more time for reading. At the suggestion of a friend I've begun reading Pat Conroy's South of Broad. I have no fantasies about writing a novel but reading an author like Conroy reopens the mind to the mastery over words that some writers command. Just in the first few pages, gems like these...
The novel's first-person narrator describing his father:
A stargazer of the first order, he squealed with pleasure on the moonless nights when the stars winked at him in some mysterious, soul-stirring graffiti of ballet-footed light. He would clap his hands with irresistible joy on a cloudless night when he made every star in the sky a silver dollar in his pocket.
He was more North star than father.
And describing his mother:
Singularly, without artifice or guile, my mother's world seemed disconsolate and tragic before she really knew how tragic life could be. Once she learned that no life could avoid the consequences of tragedy, she softened into an ascetic's acknowledgment of the illusory nature of life. She became a true believer in the rude awakening.
Both descriptions craft an image from everyday words that yield far more about the two characters than any five lines might be expected to offer.
Like a painter at his palette, Conroy's brush deftly dips into simple colors, mixing and applying them to the canvass of a page, leaving us with art: impressionistic and realistic in one stroke.
Exposure to good writing ignites a writer's imagination - just a few chapters of Conroy has done that for me. Simply reading his prose is a sort of writer's workshop: not instruction, not a lesson, but an experience of writing that stirs the imagination and a desire to write, to write what one knows and to write as compellingly as possible.
Thank God for this summer break and for the time to read!
Click on the bible above for links to Sunday's readings and for some commentary on them.
Homily: MAY 24
A prayer for when you're worried, anxious, afraid...
Help for Haiti
Reach out to the people of Haiti with health care, education and community development through Health Equity International (formerly known as the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation).
