I always wondered why the Virgin of Fatima, known as Our Lady, asked those three little children to do penance (give up candy, do an extra chore for Dad) and now I know why.  We have so many CINOs (Christians in name only) walking about.  The secular world thinks it’s all right to have sex with anybody they like, married or not.  I don’t think they know what adultery means.

We live in a free-wheeling secular society, where people like Joe Biden and Andrew Cuomo can butter up the Catholics before  the inauguration with prayer meetings, but be definitely pro-abortion.  They may not know the meaning of Thou Shalt Not Kill, but I KNOW the meaning of hypocrite.

I like to enjoy the joys of life, but when war comes, the people who win are the hard and fast.  Too many joys can make you soft.  I’ll do penance this Lent.

The army tank is no good in mountainous country.  I once had a friend from Belgium, and I used to chide him for the Belgian capitulation to the German invasion in World War II.  Belgium is flat country, facilitating the movement of troops and tanks.  Switzerland, on the other hand, has the Alps, plus a warrior mindset since the time of Caesar.

Yes, the Alps.  They are still uncovering the airplane hangars, the hospitals, the barracks the Swiss had built into those formidable peaks, in preparation for a German invasion.  Airplane hangars?  Yes, the Swiss Messerschmidts (they bought those from their potential enemy) took off from mountain roads to shoot down enemy planes (though the Alpine fortress was almost immune).

Have you ever noticed how the Lord provides defensive abilities to Nature’s vulnerable?  The rabbit and the deer are known for their swiftness.  And so the Swiss, with no numerically superior force, have still that brazen sense of military bravado, which you see in action in the Holy Land. (The IDF is modeled on the Swiss army.)

The natural man, the supernatural man.  Many of the characters of history present the natural man—Casanova, Don Juan—but at least one presents the supernatural man—Jesus Christ. The supernatural man takes supposed risks with his sanity; he sacrifices some natural pleasures to gain a greater good.  That good may be for others or himself.

By way of example, a man who follows Christ’s teaching gives up the mistress for the unity of a family and the rewarding of a good woman, who has borne and raised children.  That’s not always easy.  Or he may refrain from taking advantage of a vulnerable woman.

You only live once, and you get a lifetime to earn an eternal reward.  But nobody says that lifetime will be long.

Listen, if physicists are free to conjecture about the material universe (multiple universes), then I am free, as a literary maven (English teacher), to conjecture about immaterial things.  It seems to me that if the creator of the universe existed before time (time is one of his inventions), then, since the Big Bang, we are on a great adventure.

The creator of this adventure wouldn’t stop until he had made a conscious being who could appreciate what he’d done, and who could create with him, too.  Not only that, he’d reward him for all his sufferings with a happy eternal life.  This reward is granted for a few, simple demands, the chief of which is belief.  Sounds interesting to me.

I am happy with my lot in this scheme.  I won’t worry about my long-gone friends and cherished ones, because I know life, at least for some of the created, for those who understand and believe, is forever.

There have been many men who told people what to think.  This is sort of risky, because our minds are where we go insane.  Karl Marx taught us how to think, and look at the insanity that produced – Communism.  One man had tremendous success in teaching us what to think.  It resulted in Western Civilization.  That man was Jesus Christ.

He even risked more; he taught us what not to think.  That is harder, because the mind goes where it lists.  Only He could do this safely.  He told married men not to think of the other woman.  That was too close to committing adultery.  And adultery is the sin that messes up innocents’ lives and the lives of those involved.

He also taught us to give.  Giving the other woman eternal happiness (salvation) is far greater than giving her a night on the town.  It is worth some sacrifice on the man’s part.