November 26, 2022 

Reflection

COMPLAINTS   BEGET  COMPLAINTS

Yesterday was June 19, 2008.

We were a parish get together.

A lady read a section from the book The Marian Movement for Priests.  It was by a priest named Father Gobbi. Thousands and thousands were sent through the mail.  

It was fine - in my opinion - till he started to complain about sacrilegious communions.

The reader  finished.

Someone asked, "Any comments?"

A series of comments - complaints were voiced by different ladies at this meeting of this Parish Group. 

We were at Hank and Mary Lee's place.

First comment: "There are people who go to communion who are not Catholics."

Next comment: "There are people who go to communion who have no clue where they are."

"There is a priest in Georgetown who invites everyone to communion."

"There was a little kid who received communion - or went up and took communion and was walking away with the communion in the palm of his hand - and someone said to him, 'You have to eat it.'"

After a series of comments and complaints they asked  my thoughts about all this.

I paused and thought inwardly, "I'm not going here or there."

I said, "There are rules and regulations - guidelines - in the Missalette."

Afterwards - I'm an afterwards thinker - I got thinking, "This is not my experience in giving out communion."

There are pickers - picking communion right out of your hand - definitely different than those who receive Jesus in the palm of their hand - as if in a throne.

There are those who we joke about behind their back: "A few people who made their First Communion today. That might be at a wedding or a funeral."

Sorry to those who want rules announced right before communion!

It's my experience and desire to show respect, sacredness, calm - when receiving the Body of Christ - and I like to pray to and at every person receiving, "The Body of Christ!"

It hit me driving home from that meeting yesterday: Complaints beget complaints. Gripes beget gripes. Negativity brings forth negativity. Niceness begets niceness.

I'm glad I went where I went when I went there.

 November 26,  2022

Saturday Thought for Today

"When you send a clerk on business to  a distant  province, a man of rigid morals is not your best choice."

Ihara Saikaku  (1642-1693)

The Japanese Family Storehouse;

or Millionaires' Gospel, bk. II, chapter 5

 November 25, 2022

Reflection

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

I have been asked at various times about "Speaking in Tongues."

I usually pause when I hear this question.

I hesitate.

I don't use my tongue in answering some questions too quickly.

I wonder if the person asking about speaking in tongues is puzzled about this phenomenon - or whether they think it's funny - weird - crazy - or what have you.

Or maybe the person asking this thinks they have the gift or want this gift or someone they know has this gift.

Maybe they want me to try to praise God for what has happened.

Keep still my tongue.

When I hear about speaking in tongues - two personal experiences- show up in my memory.

The first happened years ago in a Bible Study Week in Mundelein Seminary - that I was at just outside of Chicago. One of the main speakers was Father Joseph Fitzmyer, a world famous expert on the Bible.  He was asked in a Q. and A. session about speaking and praying in tongues.

I didn't tape him - or what have you - but he didn't think what was going on here and there in the church back then - was what was happening today. He was that direct.  He simply said he didn't see what was happening in the Acts of the Apostles to be the same as what was happening in different charismatic groups and individuals today

He was not loud, but to me he was definitive.

The second experience happened in Long Island. Someone invited two of us to a prayer experience.  Someone started speaking in a language that I didn't get.  It was taped.  Then there was a short break. 

Then a man with a tape recorder played that speaking in tongues. He hit the stop button. Then he said, "The Holy Spirit is saying, 'So and so should break up with his wife and move on.'"

I thought to myself, "No way! Let's get out of here!"

We said nothing - but left as soon as this was over.

Surprise.

This morning I'm reading in the Prayer of Christians something from a sermon by St. Anthony of Padua. It went this way, "The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages. These different  languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty,  patience and obedience;  we speak in those languages  when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words - let you words teach and your actions speak.[Page 1470, Volume III.]

 November 25, 2022

Friday  Thought for Today

"How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist?  You need God in order to be. and God needs you - for that is the meaning of your life."

Martin Buber

I and Thou [1923]

HAPPY

THANKSGIVING

FROM

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

November 24, 2022

Reflection 

"Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise.  A sentence should contain no unnecessary words; a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.  This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or  that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

William Strunk, Jr.

The Elements of Style [19180,

chapter 2, sec. 13.

 November 24, 2022

Thursday - Thanksgiving Thought for Today

"Beggar  that I am, I am even poor in thanks."

Shakespeare

Hamlet Act II, ii, 286