When you’re young, it is a big irritant when people you know go against your will, but when you are old, your own body does that.  Having just finished the season of Lent, I am now accustomed to the small sufferings that we can offer to Christ as compensation for past sins, and I try to take them with fortitude.

As a matter of fact, I’ll go further, and offer them for the benefit of others.  Putin is the first one who comes to mind whose behavior could profit from small sacrifices.  You may think his behavior is beyond small improvements, but I do believe in praying for my enemies.

Why doesn’t someone answer George Weigel’s big question, “Why didn’t the nations stop their involvement in the beginning of World War I which led to the mess we’re in now?”  (The Fragility of Order by George Weigel)

At that time, in an inconspicuous village of Portugal, three innocent shepherd children sustained the visions of Fatima which offered the relief of prayer.  That means especially the rosary, a formal prayer.  Humankind only partially lived up to the challenge.

The Soviet Union arose, and was mercifully dissolved, but its aftermath is still here.  If you never prayed, learn now.

Where can I find truth?  Some people have an agenda, and they boast that I will find truth with them.  I have followed humble people, not necessarily wealthy people (as a matter of fact, they have renounced wealth and fame.)  And through them I came upon the great thinkers of the past, most of whom can only point.  They point to a man who lived up to the prophecies of the Jewish bible, what we call the Old Testament.

Some say he was crazy to do that.  It is too impossible.  And it involves death.   Yet he rose from the dead as he predicted.  Now if anyone did that, you’d know about it.  I mean, word would get around.  And it did.  The result is that all of Europe came to believe it, and we had the gradual changing of Western Civilization to what we have today.

I’m kind of impressed with a story like that.  I believe in a Creator, God, and he called himself the Son of God.  And his followers usually stick to the truth that I can verify.  That’s what science usually does.  I follow science as much as I can, at least until the scientists get confused—and that can happen.  But I, too, am human, I make my decisions, and consider myself a brother to the Son of God.

Steve Jobs believed that his ultimate goal was to find enlightenment, a search he conducted after acquiring his first million.  He went to India to find a guru named Baba, who had just died before he arrived.  He lived in a cement hut in the Himalayas to find what he was looking for.  And he finally settled for Buddhism.  Buddhism?

He had lived in the most advanced civilization this world has known.  He even upbraided Bill Gates for being too materialistic.  And he couldn’t find what I never had to search for—it was handed to me in elementary school—the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ.  Talk about an ill-fated search for Steve Jobs.

I think he could have found earthly bliss with ChrisAnn, whom he tried so hard to persuade not to have an abortion, and who gave him his daughter, Lisa.  But perhaps he found earthy solace with his wife, Lauren.  Anyway, we all have a quest, big or little, and sometimes we find, and sometimes we don’t.

I don’t think I ever stopped loving a person I loved in a previous chapter of my life.  This was brought home to me at my brother Rudy’s funeral.  I met relatives whom I hadn’t seen in years, or talked to in years.  But when I saw them again, I realized I still loved them.

Today is Holy Thursday, when Jesus had his Last Supper, and at that time He said a prayer in which he renewed his love for all the people He had loved in life except one, and knowing Jesus, I’m sure his love and pity went out to that one too.  He lived up to the act of being God even before we said it.