Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Confession

“In a sacramental confession, the penitent names his offenses because it is a way of taking responsibility for them before God and before man. He says, I am a sinner. This is what I have done. I blame no one but myself. I ask to be pardoned and healed. I need a Savior.”

“Hmmmm. I have always suspected that it was intended more to shame the penitent into never repeating his folly.”

Elijah shook his head. “That is what so many misunderstand. A priest of Christ knows that he is a man like other men. He too could commit the sins told to him through that screen. He stands there as a sign of contradiction set down in creation. A sign of mercy and truth. The truth sets us free, and mercy heals us. He stands as a living presence of Christ before men, and in the place of men before Christ.”

- Father Elijah by Michael O’Brian

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Saintliness

“You want to be a saint [insert your own name here, or better yet insert my own name], but you want to be a saint on your own terms. You want glorious victories with your sword, most of all, you want victories over your personal weaknesses and faults.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It is a good desire, but it can also be a kind of idealism masking pride… Who is the saint? The one who obeys God in his weakness, or the one who demands to have every admirable quality before he sets forth on his quest?”

                                           -Father Elijah  by Michael O’Brian

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Thursday, March 6, 2008

Defeating Satan


” The Cross isn’t right.  But our Lord took it and turned it into the great sign that the devil hates above all other signs.  Each time we accept to bear that cross nad be nailed to it, believing against all believing - when it’s impossible any longer to believe because of our pain - that’s when we defeat him [Satan].  By the blood of the Lamb.”
                                       
                       - Father Elijah by Michael O’Brian
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Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Legacy

I’ve been musing lately about my own spiritual life and what I have passed on to my children.  What have they learned from me?  Have they learned to pray and to trust in God, or have they learned to worry?  Have they learned contentment in all situations, or have they learned to complain and to want what they can’t have?  Have they learned to be still and listen to God, or have they learned to drown Him out with their own musings?  Have they learned to love God, or to merely put up with the knowledge that He exists and feel they might need to pacify Him at some point in their lives? 

I just read the book Father Elijah by Michael O’Brian (if you don’t have it run, don’t walk, to Amazon or HalfPrice Books, or whereever and buy it!).  There is a quote near the beginning that sums up exactly what I should have passed on to my children, and it brought me to tears with the knowledge that I haven’t done this…

“I have walked behind you on this ascent of Mt. Carmel.  You have taught me everything that a father could teach a son.” 

“If I have taught you to carry the cross and to die on it, then I have taught  you everything.  Have I taught  you this?”

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Flannery O’Connor

Well, it’s happened.  I’m in love.  I didn’t mean for it to happen.  I didn’t go looking for it.  It just happened, and I think it’s for life.

My younger son has a tutoring session near a Barnes and Noble.  So while he is working on reading comprehension dilemmas with Emma, I go to the bookstore.  I’m usually very good and merely go in and sit down and read whatever book I’m currently reading for class (I’m taking a class on Classic Children’s Literature).  But last night when I went in, all the chairs were taken.  I rambled aimlessly down a few aisles while I tried to figure out what I was going to do for the next two hours.  I decided to look and see if they had a certain book I’ve been wanting for awhile.  I wasn’t going to buy it, understand, just look at it.  It wasn’t where I thought it should be, so I looked where it probably shouldn’t be.  It wasn’t there either, but what I found was a complete book of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories.  I picked it up and flipped through it, I wasn’t going to buy it, understand, just look at it.  Just then, the person occupying my favorite chair got up and left.  That seemed too convienent, so I ambled over to the coffee counter and bought a decaf (that was my first mistake - once I bought something it would only be easier to buy something else).  The chair was still empty.  I sat down and began reading.  I was almost in tears by page three.  By the end of the second story I would have bought the book if it had cost $1000.
How did this woman know about me?  She obviously did because her story, The Barber, is about me!  I know that I wasn’t born yet when she wrote it, and I know that the protagonist is a man from Georgia, but that’s just cover.  That story is about me!  
And I haven’t even gotten to her “good” stuff yet…
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