When Are You Alone?

It's the closest thing to being in monastery that I can think of - it's my hole-in-the-wall coffee shop.  Music drizzles over the walls and blends magnificently alongside the coffee-machine-purr.  The window opens onto a vista of the street - the bustle of downtown Fredericton on a clear Wednesday night...before the rain starts to pound down.  I'll fall asleep to the drone of my 'white-noise' oscillating fan that my grandmother K bought for me 10 years ago when I was off to Mexico for two weeks - helps me each night to unwind and rest.  It was a trip to Mexico - off to experience working in the Third world.  At the time I was smitten with a gal from Nova Scotia.  When I got back from the trip I asked her on our first date.  She is married with children now - met her husband in a chemistry lab at university.  "I'm such a nerd!" she would later remark with a poke-fun-at-me laugh.  


Back to my hole-in-the-wall coffee shop...my monastery.  There are distractions.  I gawk at the interesting people that unfold before me - their stories.  I'm particularly drawn by the love stories and friendships I see.  I think of the friends and family I am missing.  I purpose to feel this without dulling the pain...it is difficult.  


I rush to the next 'fix' - scramble to the next conversation, checkup on my Twitter and Facebook - see if anyone is reacting to my presence on the digital biosphere.  I see the 'in-love' couple a few tables over.  Touch.  They hold hands in an un-selfconscious way.  Relaxed.  


I glance over to the other couple - they are stumbling toward a strand of conversation that will get them through the next half hour...


And the guy from my hometown who just pulled up a seat on the cold concrete outside.  


The music pulses on, the coffee machines whirr, the people smile, they walk, they sit, they touch, they sing...


And an agony writhes in the city, in the heart of us all...we long for togetherness and harmony.  And we taste the pain of missing it.  


I guess every good thing comes to an end.  My monastery time is over.  I can't bear to go back to the ordinary - but I must.  Laundry must be done.  It is melodramatic perhaps, but I need to speak with gusto - laundry makes the world go round.  


For rare is it to find one who prefers wearing soiled clothes to clean ones. 

...is procrastination.



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13 Ways of a Shepherd

1.  Do the best you can at your job each day.  Do not put things off.

2.  Be competent.  Strive to learn what you do not know.

3.  Bring a zealous drive to your work

4.  Be conscientious and take due care of the brothers.

5.  Learn from mistakes and apologize when necessary.

6.  Effect change by being able to identify, study and confront problems.

7.  Do not deny problems.

8.  Be Catholic without compromise.

9.  Beware elitism and cliques. 

10.  Do not be afraid of offending someone.  Refer to #5.

11.  Be polite: return phone calls, emails, letters.

12.  Actively work toward identifying and accomplishing your goals.

13.  Forward ho!  Once your gait is set, do not look back.  That is, do not rehash decisions unnecessarily 

       especially when they involve others!

blessings,

AK

Repentance Reloaded

The powers of hell continue to rail against the Church.  She is attacked from outside but increasingly from within.  The Churches greatest treacheries are often carried out from her own members. Increasingly, we see dissent within our own Church with Peter (the Pope and the institutional Church).  The false notion is that we can continue to be ‘good Catholics’ without believing everything the Church teaches officially in faith and morals.  Nowhere is this rejection of Church teaching more obvious than in the abandonment of the sacrament of reconciliation.  Seeing no sin and having little from their pastors by way of holy example and encouragement, they drift.  The Church hemorrhages for lack of humility and grace.  Jesus’ first words of his ministry were an echo of John the Baptist, “Repent, and believe the Good News.”  As people responded to this call, Jesus healed and moved in a great way among them.  However, today there has been a rejection of the sacrament of reconciliation.  This is the most damaging scourge of the Church.  It lies at the root of disunity and is the cause of some of the rut we find ourselves in.  If only someone would find a way to speak Truth to unbelieving, cold hearts!  I am afraid the Gospel has never been preached!  “Repent, and believe the Good News.”  NOTE: the word ‘repent’ comes first.  Repent! and believe the good news - the fact is that repentance precedes believing!  In other words, ‘repent’ so that you can believe the Good News!  ‘Repent’ or else you shall be deaf and blind to the News which is Goodness itself because it is Jesus himself!”

Gotta Keep Moving

Sometimes you blog because you love writing.  Sorry, sometimes I blog because I enjoy writing.  Other times, however, you just do it to keep momentum up.  It's been a hot few days in July - I've been sticking close to the cave - the cave with air conditioning.  As the days begin to grow shorter lets remember to take advantage of the gift of summer!   God bless you all.

Fireball

“Then there seemed to be a fire in my heart...” - Jeremiah 21:9

The prophet Jeremiah here is a figure for Christ.  Jesus is the ‘man afire with love’.  His Sacred Heart is depicted afire.  Aflame. 

This is the eve of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Every year it is celebrated the second Friday after Pentecost.  This year it happens to fall on Friday, July 1st . Its feast is very special to me.  First, it acts as a reminder of our Bishop (Most Rev. Robert Harris) - as he was installed on this feast as the Bishop of Saint John on June 15, 2007.  Secondly, it is a reminder of my own ordination - since it was May 30th, 2008 on the Feast of the Sacred Heart that I became 'a priest forever.'

Fire.  It is the symbol that Catholic art depicts engulfing the heart of Christ.  The heart of Christ is not only alive...it is aflame.  And, like flame, whatever gets close to it is changed.  May His heart be given permission by you to draw close to yours. 

60th Anniversary

As the world turns, today is Father Joseph Ratzinger's 60th anniversary of priesthood.

He says the following, on this special day:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
“Non iam dicam servos, sed amicos”  - “I no longer call you servants, but friends” (cf. Jn 15:15).
Sixty years on from the day of my priestly ordination, I hear once again deep within me these words of Jesus that were addressed to us new priests at the end of the ordination ceremony by the Archbishop, Cardinal Faulhaber, in his slightly frail yet firm voice.  According to the liturgical practice of that time, these words conferred on the newly-ordained priests the authority to forgive sins. “No longer servants, but friends”: at that moment I knew deep down that these words were no mere formality, nor were they simply a quotation from Scripture.  I knew that, at that moment, the Lord himself was speaking to me in a very personal way.  In baptism and confirmation he had already drawn us close to him, he had already received us into God’s family.  But what was taking place now was something greater still.  He calls me his friend.