more miscellaneous

It's been a good week.  Busy, but not too busy.  Just nothing very interesting to blog about.

School.  Mass.  Prayer. Laundry.  A work-out here and there.  Emails.  Altar serving replacements. 

Did the work-out thing this morning.  I joined an exercise facility about a year ago.  Haven't seen a whole lot of change (for the better) in weight or appearance, but I can get up the stairs at the library without feeling like I hiked up Mt. Everest.  So perhaps the change has been on the inside.  Yeah, that's it!  I have a check-up next week.  Curious to see if it's affected my blood pressure any.  There is a computerized "chip" that you can insert in each machine to customize your workout.  At the end of the workout, you put the chip in a computer and on each muscle group it shows a colored dot that tells you how you did.  Green is good.  Today all my dots were green.  That very rarely happens.  Go me!

My BFF is going to Bolivia next week for two weeks.  Say a prayer that no mountains jump in front of her plane and that she doesn't encounter any terrorists in need of conversion.  She has traveled many places in this world, but I sense apprehension this time. 

I inquired about how things are going for my "breakfast club".  "Doing well," was the reply.  I'm glad.

Mass.  Mass is always, always good.  Though sometimes long, repetitious homilies put a damper on it.  But I don't run into those too often.  :-)  Thursday the Gospel (Luke 12) was about how Jesus came to bring division, not peace.  This sounds a little out of whack.  Father explained that the peace that Jesus came to bring can not exist apart from truth and love.  That explains it a little, I guess.  I saw another explanation that the people in Luke's time very often suffered alienation from their families as a result of believing in Jesus. 

Friday the Gospel (also from Luke 12) was about "interpreting the signs of the present time".  The homily said that we need to interpret the signs of our times.  We have grown so much in technology and science, but grown so little in the spiritual realm.  He said that he hadn't slept much the night before because of "commotion at the car wash".  There is a small car wash across the street from the church and apparently law enforcement was called for some reason.  And he'd heard what sounded like 4 gun shots a little further away.  Yeah, we're in a good area.  But that the need for conversion doesn't start in the world around us, it starts with us.  Each of us is in need of conversion. 

We went to Mass this evening.  My boys were serving.  It was a 4 minute homily.  The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds, it does not rest until it reaches its goal... (Sirach 35).  ...whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.  (Luke 18:14)  God hears the prayers of the lowly; they pierce His heart of mercy.  If we are honest, we will have to admit that we are more like the Pharisee than the tax collector.  But the only thing that we truly have that is all ours that we can offer to God is our sinfulness and brokenness.  Anything else we have comes from God.  Most people "believe" in God, he says.  But many people believe that they don't need God.  They can make it on their own.  It is when we realize how dependent we are on God, that we can pray like the tax collector, "O God, be merciful to me a sinner." 

At the end of Mass, Father did ask the folks to be aware of how much fragrance they are using "to be pleasing to the Lord."  That he (and others) suffer from asthma, and that on occasion, someone smelling a little "too good" had triggered an asthma attack. 

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.