Life is full of small sufferings, the kind we don’t even dare mention, and that can be offered up to God as a token of our participation in His Son’s trial and agony.  It is such actions that must have propelled St. Therese, the Little Flower, to sainthood, living as she did in a convent.

No great deeds for us, but good intentions all the way.  From what Jesus says in the New Testament, good intentions are enough to gain you the kingdom of heaven after death.

So stick with it.  You have chosen the right way, approved by centuries of saints, the leaders in our path to eternal life.

It hangs on the wall in front of my desk, the quilt my niece gave us about fifteen years ago.  It has the theme of a running stream, with bubbles and underwater valisneria and other plants.  There is a golden reflection of sunlight and some dark streaks caused by a bear stirring up mud.  I love it.

It’s amazing how God’s decoration of our planet has been copied by human artists, from the caves of Lascaux to the Gothic spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.  Let us keep this world free from war and violence and squelch the tyrants.

Sometimes we act out of pure selfishness, and are later dismayed.  For example, Switzerland cut off access to all refugees from Nazi Germany in 1943 (an immoral act, in my view), and the following year was D-Day.  It was just about over.

Of course I rendered my judgment from the safety of USA shores.  Only God can render a just judgment in cases like that.

It is part of life that every human being will experience sorrow, even some of those who die young.  It is almost a necessity.  Certain is it that it helps to shape our character, for we have seen the kind of people who grow up without it.  We need sorrow, even if it is only through vicarious participation in the cross of Christ.

An appreciation of the sorrows of Jesus brings a certain maturation to the human spirit, a certain toughness to our tenderness and immaturity.  Life ages with our experiences, and sorrows are part of that ferment.  If a wine is well aged, it too has gone through a process that may be compared to our engagement of sorrow.  Here’s to life, and the fullness of it promised by Jesus.

The good Lord allows each person a little fooling-around time.  Mine was when I was six or seven.  Construction was going on at the watch factory and in imitation I had fashioned a pulley with which to haul strawberries up to my mother’s third floor apartment.  I had done it once or twice when my grandmother’s day care nurse intercepted the basket on its way up and emptied it to serve my grandmother in the second story apartment.

I was a six-year-old, chagrined.  So I hitched a tricycle to the pulley and pulled it up to the second floor window.  Nobody was happy with that, not even my mother.  Luckily I was only six, and easily forgiven.  I understand adults are not so easily forgiven.