Inspired by Scholastica

    “Wonderfully Made” When I took a college English course, our first assignment was to write an essay about whether we would rather lose our sight or lose our legs. It was a thought-provoking choice. If we became blind, we would miss seeing our loved ones and all the beauty of our world. If we could not walk, we would be hindered from traveling and moving around without help. I chose to keep my eyesight since I love to read and write and enjoy the variety and beauty that surrounds us.   Of course, I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice in real life, but it was a thought-provoking assignment. It made me think about how much we take our bodies for granted. I began to think about all the organs, veins, arteries, canals, nerves, and bones we have in our bodies and how they all work together to keep us alive and healthy. It is not until we lose one of them that we realize how magnificent we are, created in the “image and likeness of God.” God loves each and every o...

Becoming a Cheerful Giver In a reflection on the gospel for August 10 (John 12, 24-25), our chaplain offered some suggestions on how to be a cheerful giver like St. Lawrence. According to a legend about this saint, when his persecutors placed him on a fiery grate, he said, “I am done on this side; turn me over and roast the other.”   The homilist suggested that we become like a mop to clean up the spills of others or a pencil, which when sharpened, can be used to help others. These don’t sound very heroic, but they can be a way to be instruments of God’s love. o be used to show how much God loves us.   A mop is such a lowly, mundane thing but useful to clean up messes. Are we willing to be used by God to clean up the messiness around us? To become a pencil willing to be sharpened, to suffer pain for others is another way God can use us. Can you imagine allowing yourself to be like a pencil in God’s hands? I thought of another image to show how God can use us – a piece of...

  Overcoming Discouragement Sometimes discouragement and failure take over our lives, and we cannot seem to crawl out of our hole. Even if in reality they are not a true picture, we can be blinded by the seeming darkness.  It often takes another person to uncover what is hidden from us and to see through the cloudy picture.  I am reminded of a story about Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He tells of how he felt his dream of starting a group for people with drinking problems was not going anywhere. Then unexpectedly Father Dowling, a disheveled priest, came to his door in the middle of a snowstorm. Bill’s caretaker told him that a “damn bum” was at the door. Bill was tired but agreed to see him and in doing so had his “second conversion experience.” Bil and Father Dowling talked way into the night, and Bill told of his “high hopes and plans, and spoke about his anger, despair and mounting frustrations.”  It turned out that the elderly priest h...