Inspired by Scholastica

You may have suffered trauma, abuse, neglect, a thousand bitter tragedies in your life. You may have taken countless wrong turns, sunk into despair, endured rejection, unrequited love. But you have survived, surmounted the jagged mountains of sorrow, learned to stretch, to be resilient to grow beyond the narrow confines of pity and resentment. Your cracks and crevises have been filled with the mortar of healing, your heart softened by tears of compassion. You are no longer damaged goods but richer than those who travel roads paved with gold, who roam honey-laden gardens. Your wounds have become tender mercies, your scars badges of courage emblazoned like stars.

As we grow older, our world sometimes becomes smaller. We don't interact with people as much, we don't stay abreast of current issues, we might be fighting sickness and pain. Our outside contacts tend to be doctors, grocery stores, friends, and maybe libraries. Our energy and alertness diminishes, but we need to make an effort to stay involved. A big challenge is to keep informed about the environment crisis and do what we can to preserve our planet for future generations. It is important to search out the truth about issues and candidates running for public office so that we can vote intelligently. We  need to support issues we believe in by writing or calling our congresspersons and urging them to promote the common good rather than special interests. We  also ought to reach out to persons in need such as the homeless, the immigrants, the marginalized, and the imprisoned. One of my heroes is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who continues to serve on the Supreme Court with...

In a recent homily Pope Francis gave on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, he made a crucial point:  "The starting point of the Christian life is not our worthiness; in fact, the Lord was able to accomplish little with those who thought they were good and decent. Whenever we consider ourselves smarter or better than others, that is the beginning of the end. The Lord does not work miracles with those who consider them-selves righteous, but with those who know themselves needy. He is not attracted by our goodness; that is not why he loves us. He loves us just as we are; he is looking for people who are not self-sufficient, but ready to open their hearts to him. People who, like Peter and Paul, are transparent before God." Sometimes we have a tendency to look at those who are poor, or uneducated, or suffer from addictions, as somehow not as good as we are. The pope reminds us that Jesus did not work miracles for those who considered themselves righteous, but for those who begge...

In January 2015, 21 poor migrant workers clad in orange jumpsuits were abducted and beheaded by Daesh in Libya. All were Christian: 20 Coptic Christians from Egypt and one Christian from Ghana. They died with the words "Jesus" or "Lord Jesus Christ" on their lips. Within a week after the crime, they were acclaimed martyrs by the Coptic pope with their names listed in their martyrology with a feast day on February 15. Their remains were taken to Egypt and a church was built in their honor. I wondered how many more  martyrs have given their lives for their faith in our lifetime. It is hard to believe such cruel treatment still persists in our modern times. This sounds more like the 1st century when the Roman kings sent Christians into an arena to be slaughtered by soldiers or torn apart by lions. I am reminded of Sister Dorothy Stang who was murdered in Brazil in 2005 for helping poor farmers keep their land and preserve the Amazon rain forest. When ranchers,...

Anthony Ray Hinton I am reading a book entitled The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton, a man who spent 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. I can hardly imagine spending one day in prison, much less 30 years in solitary confinement. Hinton grew up poor and black in rural Alabama. When he was 29 years old, he was convicted of two murders as a result of prejudice, incompetence, and injustice in Alabama's prison system. Racial bias pervaded his trial from his arrest to the jury to the judge. What helped him survive was the love of his mother, the faithfulness of a friend, and a strong religious faith. What is most amazing about Hinton is his ability to forgive. Most people would have become hardened and angry about this travesty of justice. Yet this man was able to maintain his trust in God, his sense of humor, and his belief in the goodness of people. That kind of strength and courage is  remarkable after such an agonizing experience. After numerous appe...

The original psalms were written in Hebrew and sometimes the translations are not as accurate as they could be. In Psalm 23 we pray “goodness and mercy ‘follow’ us all the days of our lives.” But Chad Bird, an Old Testament scripture scholar, claims that the verb radaph in Hebrew is more accurately translated “chase after or pursue.” Thus, Bird says, “The goodness and mercy of God don’t follow us like a good little puppy dog. They gallop after us like a celestial stallion. They chase us down labyrinthine paths like the hound of heaven.” The image of God pursuing us “like a celestial stallion” is an intriguing one. It is not we who take the initiative, but rather God. We have all these thoughts about being unworthy or feeling that God will take away our freedom if we are caught. Yet all God wants is to shower us with His goodness and mercy.   “Who are we that you care for us?” the psalmist asks in another psalm. We just can’t believe that God is so enamored with ins...

When I was growing up, I got the message that I had to be perfect to be lovable. When I realized this was an unobtainable goal, I became discouraged and felt unlovable. As I matured, I learned to accept my imperfections better, but still struggled with feeling lovable. It took some counseling and several friendships to begin to see that people loved me in spite of my weaknesses and sometimes even because of them. They loved my hesitant speech, my extra poundage, my forgetfulness, my disorgani-zation, my tearfulness, my math deficiency. They told me just to be who I am, warts and all. I also began to understand that I was more attracted to people who were less than perfect. If they were too self-assured, too physically attractive, too intelligent, too superior, I could not relate to them very easily. If they had no flaws, they didn't seem real. Real people have wounds and scars and unique shapes. They have suffered and grown stronger through their pain. One of my friends h...