best I can do

Doggone these Saints anyway


Well, we (that is, us Niner fans) knew today would be a tough game but three interceptions, two in the end zone? AAUUUGGHHH!!!! Oh well, no matter what...my Niners - right or wrong, dumb or smart,winning or losing. I guess I will take heart that they are losing to The Saints - if we have to lose to someone, let it be a team from a city with more Eucharistic Adoration Chapels per square foot than any other city in the United States.

I just finished going over Ryan's geography papers. He has developed into a pretty good college paper writer - the hardest thing for him to learn, I think, is not to 'write like you talk'. He has to be a bit more scholarly in his approach.

Yesterday I found out that Melissa, the bride-to-be, will be a real asset to our family. She is sweet, she is funny, she is pretty and she is smart. What a great combination. She is the oldest of SIX KIDS....so I am hoping that at some point I will get to be a Godmother again. Who knows? Maybe I won't be The Last Catholic Standing - a game show I would not particularly like to win.



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Saturday, September 27, 2008
1:50:53 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
I loves me some Catholics Out Loud


O my God! Source of all mercy! I acknowledge Your sovereign power. While recalling the wasted years that are past, I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain. Miserable as I am, yet I firmly believe that You can do all things. Please restore to me the time lost, giving me Your grace, both now and in the future, that I may appear before You in "wedding garments." Amen.

Saint Teresa of Avila
*******************************************
By the way - I have decided.

I am going to vote for Lee Anne for President, Patty Patrick for VP and then I will volunteer to be the Secretary of Defense, and we will attack Berkeley first.

Ok, so I am in a silly mood. BUT I am so grateful to have people like Lee Anne and Patty and Christine and Faye and Sarah and DJ and blah blah blah in my life. It dawned on me this morning during prayers (and before my meeting) that I have to ask Stacey and Neil to be my medical directive people so I have someone who is really Catholic willing to stand between me and doctors who hear me cough and want to kill me.

I am going to a wedding shower this morning. I am wearing an outfit I bought on a wing and a prayer a month ago but could not button. I am wearing shoes with a heal and my toes do not hurt. I am wearing big girl jewelry and I have put on eye make up.

I am a grown up this morning.

Holy mackeral.....


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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
10:03:27 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
Discouraging Days in Politics

My past, O Lord, to your mercy; my present, to your love; my future, to your Providence!
St. Padre Pio

*****************************************************************

Ok, here's the thing.

I do not like the choices presented to me this year in regards to Presidential candidates.

I do not like Senator Obama's voting record on 'reproductive rights', especially in light of the newest report that states that abortion among WHITE women has fallen 33% but among women of COLOR it has risen.

This is playing right into the hands of the 'only certain people should have children' mindset of Planned Parenthood and other 'pro death' movements and I want to scream.

Only 2 generations ago, my family had been relegated to the group that should not have any more children and if a certain doctor in the Diablo Valley had had his way neither my mother, me, my brother or his three children would be here today.

I am not impressed with Sarah Palin because I think her religious philosophy is goofy, she left the EUCHARIST so she could find some place 'more Biblical' (huh?) and she was the mayor of a small town that charged women for the rape kits they used and now claims she did not know anything about it. That would be like the Mayor of Modesto (which is a bigger place) pretending he knew nothing about a meth lab in the basement of the police station.

Not that there is a meth lab in the basement of the police station but you know what I mean.

Senator McCain is a hothead who backs deregulation which has ruined our economy and should result in mass jailings and executions of all those thieves who ran good companies into the ground and walking away with 40 or 50 million dollars.

However, Senator McCain stands up for LIFE and believes in the protection of the human person from conception to natural death.

I have to vote. As a Catholic, I am required to participate in public life and to vote for the candidate most likely to add to the common good. As our Bishops have said (UCCSB), how can you trust a candidate to work for the common good when that candidate attacks life at its most vulnerable times - and would put more protections in place for the egg of a California Condor than the eggs of a woman?

So, what am I going to do?

Probably throw my vote away but be able to sleep at night. Probably throw my vote away but be able to worthily receive the Eucharist without a twinge. Probably throw my vote away but be able to stand before Jesus Christ and say, "I voted with my Guardian Angel standing next to me, Lord...because I did not want to disappoint YOU".

I think we need to start encouraging more good men and women to run for public office. And no, I am not one of them - with my background and past the hyenas would have a field day. Alcoholic? Abortions? Drug Use? Lives with her MOTHER?????

To even have to worry about this kind of stuff astonishes me. I cannot believe that people are fooled by the 'we are preserving a woman's right to her own body' argument after all these years. I also think it is sad that an obviously bright man with a good future has fallen for the same line of thinking.....forgetting that if his mother, an unwed woman pregnant with a Black man's baby in the 1960's had done what society had wanted her to do, he would not be here today. Forgetting the courage it took for her and her family to say, "I loved this man and I love this child and I don't care what the neighbors say I am having this baby".

Someone said to me last night, "What about the 75 thousand abortions that happened every year when it was illegal?". I asked her where she had gotten those figures and she said, "Someone told me". "Did you ask them how they were able to come up with figures on something supposedly done in secret, in back alleys, with coat hangers? Are you saying that 75 thousand women DIED every year from illegal abortions?". Well, no...she wasn't saying that, but here was a bright woman being educated at a University and it had never dawned on her to ask the person giving her the information where they had gotten it. I gave her several websites - a few non-Catholic so she can't call me a religious fanatic - and told her to call me anytime.

I have to start getting ready for work.

I love my country - but I am so disappointed.



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Sunday, September 21, 2008
5:26:06 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
What a WEEK that WAS


I got through last week with its strange time schedules and CLEARS meeting...but apparently, my allergies have caused a slight sinus infection. Now, normally this would not mean much except for two thing: a) I have RA, which means I am on immune suppressing drugs and b) the slight sinus back up has caused me to have conjunctivitis in my left eye.

So, after Mass I was at Kaiser (had to get my appointment so it would not interfere with the two important parts of Sunday - Mass and Football) and I am off duty per the doctor for 24 hours. I left my message for V and called into the gang at work to tell them not to worry about me being there tonight. E does not have a working computer at home, apparently, but I am going to send an email to both her accounts anyway. Why?

Because it is the right thing to do.

The Niners are rewarding me for taking care of myself properly by being ahead 21 to 3 before the half.

I got to go to Mass celebrated by Father Larry today. I just love this guy - he is such a practical, grandfatherly type of priest. He is the Chaplain for all the hospitals which is probably why he is such a sweetheart. Anyone who can become my 87 year old mother's 'favorite' priest has to have a solid Catholic practicality about him. He understands what it is like to have to cut onions for 10 cents a bucket in order to earn money for school clothes and yet he also tells the story of his granfather saying to him, "Mijo, do you like this work?"

"Oh, it's ok, Poppy".

"Si? You want to do this for the rest of your life?"

"No, Poppy..I don't think so".

"Good, " he told the future-priest. "Remember, a book is lighter to carry than a bucket of onions".

I laughed. It is important to remember from where I came - from people who were willing to tie bandanas around their heads and chop onions or pick apricots in order to have shoes to wear to school. It is also important for me to remember that they were proud to work, but aware that there is a better way of life available to people willing to open a book and learn something.

I am also grateful for the Gospel message of today. The workers hired by the landowner at the end of the day got the same reward as those who started at the crack of dawn. It reminds me that though I got off the path for many years and was walking towards hell in the name of freedom, I can rejoice in being on the right path now. Oh, I still have to watch my step and I have to be very grateful to those who never waivered - they kept the home fires burning for me to be able to find my way Home - but I do not have to feel 'less than' those who have been doing this Catholic Thing without fail. Instead, I can be grateful that the 'Landowner' sees me as just as important as any of His other workers....that the gift of Faith He bestowed upon me is the same quality as that which He gave to the saints of my time. I do not have to think of myself as the stepchild...I am a fully adopted Child of Light. The Eucharist is for me, too.

And, like the grandfather told Father Larry, the burden I carry today is lighter....it is still something that has to be carried, but sin is the heaviest burden in the world - even if a person spends most of their time denying its weight, it still drags them down.

Thank you, to all those who held up the Light for me to see. Without you I would have never found my way home.

GO NINERS!!!!



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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
9:27:40 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
Fathers and Life


Sweet Lord, you are meek and merciful. Who would not give himself wholeheartedly to your service, if he began to taste even a little of your fatherly rule? - Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621)

Last night, at RCIA, I taught on the Catholic doctrines of Justification and Merit. We have a HUGE class right now, and most of those in the class come to us from a Protestant or Evangelical background. It is refreshing to teach these people. They are hungry. They have the gift of Faith and they treasure it, guard it, nuture it. I have been able to teach much but learn more because they come in with eyes wide in anticipation - they have been taught well, but not in a complete way, and to see them start to just come alive with ideas and attitudes and, well....JOY.

I do not mean to imply that they were unhappy before - many of them are simply building on the joy that was theirs when they walked through the doors of St Joseph's. In fact, we have to remind them that The Church is perfect, Her members are not and to be wary of that 'pink cloud' many people early in substance abuse recovery experience. Everyone in their 12 Step program is wonderful - honest, hardworking, relying solely upon a Higher Power to get them through the day - and then the first time someone steals their wallet during a meeting they are crushed. If they have been given a strong foundation, they get angry, sad, laugh it off and stay sober and active. If their spiritual house has been built on sand, they go for a bottle.

The same holds true for Catholics. If someone new sticks only to Catholic Radio (Immaculate Heart Radio - 1230 on the AM dial!) or EWTN they will get the idea that we are all skipping merrily on the path to heaven; accepting our sufferings, confessing our sins and never wanting to stop our cars in the middle of the freeway, get out and yell "BUT WHAT ABOUT ME???" at the top of our lungs. Then the first time we run into a Kerry Kennedy, a Nancy Pelosi or that mean secretary down at the Parish Office, we want to chuck it all and run down the street to the Big Giant Grace Cathedral of The Wonderkids, embrace the health and wealth gospel and enjoy the better music.

I recently told Ryan ('my' eldest) that it was time for him to start developing a deeper prayer life. He wants to go into Law Enforcement so he has a wonderful Patron Saint to call upon - the Prince of the Heavenly Host himself; St Michael the Archangel. I reminded him that his father has done much to improve himself over the years; however, the bottom line is that he left his Catholic Faith and has been floundering morally ever since, unsure and defensive and convinced that if he just keeps trying harder he can 'do it' (whatever 'it' might be).

The love of a Father for a child is unique. For girls it gives us a compass to use for future relationships with me. For boys, that love can demonstrate to them true strength - the kind of strength that does not bend in times of stress and does not give into the prevailing fashion in an effort to be considered 'cool'. A real father does not mind being told, occasionally, that they are hated by their offspring, or that they are unfair or unfeeling or uncaring or 'un' -whatever, because they know that ultimately the fruits of holding fast to objective, moral Truth will come to fruition.

God's time is not my time. I know that I would love to see my brother fully reconciled with God before our mother leaves this earth. I also know that what I want is not always what is best for the world...and so, if God's plan is perfect then I must be willing to trust in Him.





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Saturday, September 13, 2008
11:56:44 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
St Therese and St Cecilia - Tough Church Cookies


My patron saint is St Cecilia. I picked her when I was to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation because she is the patron saint of music. However, once you learn her story you realize she should be the patron saint of very tough cookies.

Tortured at the hands of the Romans, she hung on for 3 days after being struck a horrible blow to her neck. During that time, she willed her beautiful home to The Church, forgave her murderers, received the Eucharist for the last time and then 'died'. However, her body was discovered during excavations of the Catacombs outside Rome and it was, because of the volcanic rock and conditions of the soil, perfectly preserved. The evidence suggests that she was buried alive...because she managed to hold her fingers in a sign that would indicate her devotion to the Holy Trinity. A plaster cast was made of her body before it could deteriorate and that is now in The Church of St Cecilia, under the altar, located in Rome.

St Therese, the Little Flower, was no push over either. She believed that every act we do, no matter how small, could be a perfect offering for Jesus. She also wrote that, if Jesus asked her to, she would be willing to spend eternity in Hell if it meant souls would be saved.

I thought of these two gals today as I ran after 7 year old Jillian at the Parish Festival. My back hurt, my knee is giving me trouble (I think some scar tissue has pulled lose and man it is bugging me - first time since the replacement, so I really cannot complain), I am stuffed up and I am exhausted (again) from working the Festival dinner last night, speaking in Lodi this morning and hitting the Festival again this afternoon. The first time I got to just sit and be quiet was before Vigil Mass this evening. Accompanying me to the Mass was Jillian and the fish she had 'won' at one of the carnival booths. After she had used up approximately 15.00 worth of ping pong balls to try and win a 35 cent fish, she had burst into tears because she couldn't get the ball into the cup.....and the lady in the booth gave her a fish.

Jillian named the fish Dinkleman (no, I do not know why) and then asked Father to Bless her fish after Mass.

The thought came to me that I have powerful allies in these two wonderful saints - tough cookies, both of them. St Therese send me roses all the time through other people and St Cecilia always has my back. We ended the festival with a final ride on the ferris wheel - the sun was going down and a full moon was coming up....and it was beautiful. All the lights on the other rides were being turned on, the wonderful sounds of the Mexican Music was wafting over the grounds and Jillian and I sang "Take me out to the Ball Park" for no apparent reason other than we both knew the words.

It was so much fun today.

Thank you, St Cecilia for encouraging me to trust that I have the physical strength to do the things I want to do.

Thank you, St Therese, for the gift of noticing the little fun things in life.

Thank you, Jesus, for another perfect day.



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Thursday, September 4, 2008
5:52:09 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
Passing of a Legend


I received this today from my friend, Jeff, in Turlock:

With sorrow at his passing but filled with joy at having known this grand man, I regretfully report to you that Muir “Easy” Edney of Montgomery, Alabama, completed his journey of 95 years peacefully this morning and left for the Big Meeting.



For the past few years, Easy Edney was the longest sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Easy got sober Nov. 15, 1942, in Jacksonville FL , and then moved back to his home of Montgomery where he helped start AA there. He knew Bill Wilson. Easy was in remarkably good shape to the end. He still attended meetings and sponsored a number of men until the last. I last saw him in April at the Alabama/NW Florida Area Assembly, which he faithfully attended over the years. Less well known is that Edney got his nickname “Easy” from his hobby as a pool shark. Easy was one of the 20th Century's greatest pool players, who successfully competed (sober!) against such legends as Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats. One of the great rewards of AA has been the opportunity to know individuals such as Easy. We shall miss him.



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Sunday, August 31, 2008
2:08:56 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
DUPED AGAIN!


Reading 1
Jer 20:7-9

You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped;
you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.
All the day I am an object of laughter;
everyone mocks me.

Whenever I speak, I must cry out,
violence and outrage is my message;
the word of the LORD has brought me
derision and reproach all the day.

I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.
***********************************************

I know what Jeremiah felt like, all those years ago.

Once someone has made the committment to no longer slink in the shadows or be quiet out of a misguided sense of polite decorum, the Lord works in ways that are wonderous and tough to handle. Making the committment ten years ago to return to worshipping Christ as the first Christians did it was difficult on a well-educated, Liberal-minded, Conservative Anarchist from Berkeley. Shoot, I'll take living in a tree to keep a stadium from being built any day (not really - frankly, I hate camping). Making the committment to be a Catholic Out Loud was even tougher, because people can get a little ticked off at generic Christians but they get downright nasty and insulting when someone says, "I am Catholic. I am proud to be Catholic. I now have a different way of viewing myself, my body, my mind and my heart because everything is about one thing - The Eucharist".

Oh the horror of being 'one of those'!

However, whenever I feel as though I am unable to carry the burden any longer, something happens to lift the load. Every time I think it would simply be so much easier to get along with some of the snarkier people in my life by agreeing and hanging my head in shame over the sinful actions of less than 10% of over 1 billion Catholics WORLDWIDE, someone taps me on the shoulder out of the blue and says, "Thank you for doing what I do not have the courage to do".

Today's readings from the Liturgy exposes the very struggles Catholics have with standing up for The Eucharist and proclaiming "Nothing - not discipline nor politics, scandal or heartache, is worth keeping me from Him who created me" face every day. From my friends who just had their 8th child getting ridiculed during delivery for having 'so many kids' by the very medical professionals hired to facilitate a healthy birth to the 80 year old woman who was told by a grocery clerk taking her food to her car that having a Rosary hanging from her rear view mirror 'proved' she was a 'pagan idol worshiper', Catholics are told to be quiet, to sit down, that their Church is horrible because of the actions of a few, that they are stupid and that they are not real Christians.

I am blessed. I live in a country where the people who do this sort of thing are recognized as having the right to do it but not the right to physically hurt me or prevent me from knowing Truth in the fullness in which it was meant to be known. In other parts of the world, people are murdered because they have the strength to say, "No, I will not leave Him, I will not leave His Sacraments, I will not leave His Magisterium, I will not leave His Church".

Persecutions of all Christians and Catholics in particular are on the rise in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and in Africa. The places where no one wanted to go and help those under the last of civil war, disease, starvation and brutality except Christians are now the most dangerous places for them to be living - and so, of course, they keep coming. Tiny little women in religious habits, men of true strength and character in clerical collars, the layity with only their malaria pills and their gentle hands prayers battle plague and despair while I get to sit at home and offer them only my love and my support.

I know that being a good steward for Christ means to properly use my time, my talent and my treasure only for the glory and the Kingdom of God. I also know that sometimes the best I can do is give the treasure of my time and talent, my prayers and my tears and pray that all those who see anger and mean spirited behavior as proper ways to change someone's opinion be healed by the Holy Spirit - and because God can work outside of time and space (afterall, those are His creations), I pray in the Name of Jesus Christ that people are healed of their spiritual wounds at the exact moment those wounds were created. Perhaps, if we each pray that for the other, we will no longer be at the acid-tongue mercy of a 62 year old man who was ridiculed by a bad parent when he was 6 years old. Maybe, if we each pray that for the other, a 53 year old woman abandoned by parents when she was 4 will not find it necessary to use humiliation as a communication tool.

Maybe, we might all find ourselves on the path to Truth - and be able, someday, to receive His Body and Blood together....united, as Jesus really wanted, in One Holy Universal and Apostolic Church.

In His Name, I pray.







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Friday, August 29, 2008
10:06:16 PM EDT Edit Entry Delete Entry
Friday's Rantings and The Near Occasion of Sin


I admit it - there are people in this world who simply get under my skin. Another one has shown up on The Hive. He is arrogant, self-serving, insulting to Catholics in general and me in particular. He goes under the name of Truthseeker, and he is anything BUT a seeker of truth.

There was an interesting discussion going on with one of the blogs (started by a devout Christian who left The Church but for whom I have very high hopes) about people who, if they disagree with a doctrine or dogma of Catholicism should go somewhere else rather than try and insist The Church change Her teachings. One of the posters asked me to explain the way Catholics view the Eucharist and I tried my best (go ahead, I dare you to try to explain a Divine Mystery).

His response to me?

"Let's call Bernie Ward and get his opinion".

Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Mr. Ward - he is an ex-priest who married and had four or five children. He was a talk radio show host who billed himself as The Lion of the Left. He railed against pedophile priests (as anyone rightly should) declaring that the people in the pews should punish Church officials who behaved badly by withholding contributions. He was exceedingly rude to me when I was asked to do a 10 minute spiel on that subject about 5 years ago - so much so that I hung up on him. His producers called me back asking if the connection had been lost. I told them it had - on purpose, as Mr. Ward was being verbally abusive to me rather than engaging in a civilized discussion.

Today Mr Ward was sentenced to 7 years in the slammer, guilty of distributing child porn.

So, it appears to me that Truthseeker brought Mr Ward into the discussion as a means to embarass me and other Catholics.

I did not take the bait; rather I replied that Mr. Ward is hardly a great example of a scholar on Early Church History. I also posted that my heart goes out to him, as it does to the protestant minister featured in the movie "Jesus Camp' who railed against homosexual sex the entire time he was paying for male prostitutes and doing meth. Truthseeker then accused ME of taking swipes at protestants.

Anyway, this man is seriously angry. And I have been through this before so it is kind of silly but familiar. The trick is to keep an even tone, stick to topics no matter how much buck shot the stalker throws at youand then eventually they get tired that they cannot get a rise out of you or get you to respond in an angry fashion.

Still, just for the record, I would like to kick his butt.

We had a good night last night. I think we are going to have a good team on shift and graveyard swings. It was nice to be home by 10:30am rather than 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I have a three day holiday ahead of me. I get to go to a meeting tomorrow and then listen to a fifth step.

I have missed you all.





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