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This link will keep 'parishioners-at-large' in touch with current creative liturgy sources and resources that respect a variety of 'traditions' within the Church.

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A 'lay' Catholic weekly publication with an accent on an intelligent analysis and commentary on curent issues, trends and concerns of interest to Catholics.

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A national Catholic lay newspaper covering events not usually covered or presented with a clerical bias in the local diocesan press or but of concern and interest to Catholics.

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A National Network of self-help support groups for people abused by clergy or religious.

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Vital information about the disclosure of sexual abuse and related issues affecting Catholics in the pew and the manner in which Bishops continue to exempt themselves from accountability

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A 'movement' of lay Catholics 'inspired' by the abuse scandal calling for greater accountability of bishops to 'Catholics in the Pew.'

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Daily Scripture

+ Fourth Week of Lent

I am in the heart of God.

Readings: Jeremiah 11:18, 12:19-20 Psalm 7:2-3, 9-12 John 7:40-53

Let us destroy the tree in its vigor; let us cut him off from the land of the living so that his name will be spoken no more. [Jeremiah 12:19]

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees who asked them, “Why did you not bring him in?” The guards answered, ”Never before has anyone spoken like this man.” [John 7:45-46]

Could it be that we don’t get answers because we don’t ask the right questions? I think we spend a great deal of time, perhaps a great portion of our lives in denial about who we are and who we are to become.

I may not ask the right questions because I’m afraid of the answers. I fear the darkness but hide in the darkness in order to avoid the light. Denial becomes a way of life but in reality it is the path to death.

This is a paradox, however, because unless we willingly succumb to the dark night of the soul, we cannot find the light of God’s truth.

Jesus was not exempt from this process that peaked in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he died.

True spiritual freedom is not something that we pursue but something to which we succumb by letting go and letting God. Those who were truly liberated in Christ were not those who simply understood his words but those who were absorbed into his life so that with Paul they could say, “I live no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” Or to put it another way, “Say not that God is in my heart but that I am in the heart of God.”

Quiet Love

Thursday February 21, 2008

This poem in prose was composed by me as my annual Christmas message and greeting but the Spirit did not move my soul until the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. And so my Christmas ‘cards’ did not get to the post office until two weeks ago! I share it now with my website visitors. It is entitled, ‘Quiet Love.’

_______

When I was a child,
I used to think of God as an old man
high in the sky
with a long white beard stretching over the earth,
sweeping silk silver-lined clouds.
A sort of Santa Claus—a gentle soul
but not adverse to “making a list and checking it twice
to find out who’s naughty or nice.”

Such talk among adults is silly isn’t it? —fodder for Gnostics or agnostics and even atheists? Perhaps, but I think God enjoys a bit of banter now and then.
And I suspect that God is often amused
at the attempts of great and small,
of prophets, priests and popes among them
to pin on God a personality
and put words in God’s mouth
as if such were possible
though I do believe artists and poets have come close
in their playful pursuit to depict
the movement of love through the lens of ancient sages
down through the ages—quiet love.

‘The Great Mystery’
is the name our Native American ancestors
gave to God because they knew
God is mysteriously part of everything and everyone—quiet love
penetrating the depths of eternity from one end to the other
birthing us to life
at every moment—day and night.

I believe that Jesus gave birth to God in humanity
uniquely as no one else in human history—as movement, as life, as goodness,
as love.
I think of Jesus as the incarnation of ‘quiet love.’

I think too of all the people confined to silence, not by choice,
in cells of solitude, prisoners of their body
the windows of their minds closed to the familiar faces of yesterday.
Quiet love silenced by the slow deterioration of the mind
or worse, empty souls, searching for someone to love,

And the many who have lost their way on lonely streets
or in caves of dark despair
waiting for quiet love to free them from the isolation of insignificance
or the dysfunction of worthlessness or ironically, iconic vanity.
Waiting for quiet love to touch them.

Meanwhile the pundits preach
from pulpits, of their political superiority
a gospel of narcissism to be sure,
spreading their feathers like pheasants looking for a mate —and a vote.

And what of the evangelical ‘merchants’ with gold rings
in search of fine pearls instead of tending to lost sheep
bruised by wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Stealthy ‘guardians’ of sound doctrine and dogma
stern monitors of stoic rites and rituals
moved more by fear of the unknown than by awe of the Mystery,
assuring firm adherence to rules and rubrics
that harken back to other ages—the dark ages
lest they be quickened by a new movement of the Spirit
God Spirit—quiet love.

Yet quiet love seeps through the cracks and crevices
of ancient times and places
and over time we come to know our origin
and our destiny
in quiet love—
that will not be silenced.
c Kenneth E Lasch 2008