Saturday, April 18, 2020

WILL THIS DAMNED PANDEMIC EVER END?

PATIENCE


YOU DON'T KNOW IF YOU HAVE IT UNTIL IT IS TESTED


People patiently waiting in line, spaced six feet apart, to get into my Kroger Store. 

Patience or forbearance is the ability to endure difficult circumstances such as perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in annoyance/anger; or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can have before negativity. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.

In psychology, patience is studied as a decision-making problem, involving the choice of either a small reward in the short-term, versus a more valuable reward in the long-term. When given a choice, all animals, humans included, are inclined to favor short-term rewards over long-term rewards. This is despite the often greater benefits associated with long-term rewards.
  

The habit of being able to wait for something better without frustration and losing one's focus.  








Thursday, April 16, 2020

AN INTROVERT'S THOUGHTS FROM SOLITARY CONFINEMENT


THE WEAR AND TEAR OF SOCIAL DISTANCING



I know the world is "out there," but I do not feel as much a part of as I used to feel. I can see it from my windows, but it seems alien now, not as friendly, even menacing.  I have not really been "out there" for three or four weeks, expect for a few moments when I did almost stealthily go out - running out and then running back into my hole...uh...I mean home.  The safety of my bunker is getting on my nerves. 
As a true "introvert," I know I can handle "solitary confinement" more than a lot of "extroverts," but this is beginning to wear even on me! 

My condo doesn't look like this, but it is beginning to feel like this!


THE BIGGEST BENEFIT OF ALL THIS IS....

















USELESS QUESTIONS RUNNING THROUGH MY MIND


1. How am I going to renew my driver's license which is due this month when all the branch offices are "closed until further notice?" Will I end up having to re-take the drivers test? Will it be worse than when I flunked three times the first time?

2. How long will my hair grow if I can't get to a barber shop in the next couple of months? Should I try to give myself a haircut, try to find a barber who makes "house calls," or just shave it all off? 

3. What if I have to go to the hospital for something other than the carona virus? Would an ambulance even come? Could I get into the hospital? If I did, would I end up exposing myself to the virus even more? 

4. What if the stock market crashes and I end up losing all my retirement savings? What if the insurance company who sold me my "in home health care policy" ends up going belly up? 

5. What if a family member gets the virus and dies? Will I be able to go see them before they go and would I even be able to celebrate a funeral Mass for them? 

6. If a lot of people die at one time in this area of the country, would Saint Meinrad Archabbey still be able to give me my "free casket?"

7. Will my "tax lady" get my tax returns done before the deadline? (she barely did!) I am sure the deadline has been extended, but I want to get that off my mind! I wonder if I will owe some (yes, I did!), get a refund (no way!) or just break even (I wish!)? Will I get one of those government "stimulus relief checks" (not yet!) that I have been hearing about? If I do, will it go to what I owe in taxes (yes it will!)? 

8. How much longer should I wait to cancel the 50th anniversary celebration of my ordination on May 17 (in Louisville) and May 24 (in Rhodelia)?  I will celebrate it this year sometime, but how far out? I have no idea right now! 
__________________________


???  LOSING IT  ???

You know you are losing it when you start dancing alone like I have done a couple of times lately! I just crank up the music and it let rip!


To prove it, I have included a video of me dancing. Yes, it's me! Honestly! I don't think I am being delusional, am I?

Just click on the link below if you don't believe me!
https://t.co/8IJ9gepNYP 

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

FROM ONE OF OUR 2019 PARISH MISSIONS - APPROPRIATE AGAIN

"Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
A Parish Mission
Rev. Ronald Knott 
Holy Family Church, Louisville, Kentucky
March 2019


Our Gospel Music Group
 REFLECTIONS

We presented several of these Parish Missions in 2019.
Click on the link below for a Gaither version of one particular gospel song that we used that seems so appropriate this year. 

GOD ON THE MOUNTAIN
click here


Life is easy, when you're up on the mountain
And you've got peace of mind, like you've never known
But things change, when you're down in the valley
Don't lose faith, for you're never alone


For the God on the mountain, is still God in the valley
When things go wrong, He'll make them right
And the God of the good times, is still God in the bad times
The God of the day, is still God in the night


You talk of faith when you're up on the mountain
But talk comes so easy, when life's at its best
Now it's down in the valley of trials and temptations
That's where your faith is really put to the test


For the God on the mountain, is still God in the valley
When things go wrong, He'll make them right
And the God of the good times, is still God in the bad times
The God of the day, is still God in the night
The God of the day, is still God in the night


Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Tracy Dartt
God on the Mountain lyrics © Manna Music, Inc., 
Gaviota Music Inc

_______________________________

HAPPY EASTER
AT
SAINT BENEDICT HOME FOR CHILDREN
in 
SAINT VINCENT




These are photos of some of the 22 children (some are off camera in wheelchairs) that we sent Easter Bags to at the Saint Benedict Home for Children. 
They are holding up the Easter Bunnies. They also got candy, small toys and some school supplies in their colorful Easter bags. Bags are easier to ship than baskets. 
The other seventy-five Easter baskets went to kids in the four parishes on the outer islands of Bequia, Canouan, Mayreau and Union. 


ON AN OTHERWISE SAD EASTER SUNDAY, IT MADE ME HAPPY TO SEE THAT THE SUPPORTERS OF OUR Catholic Second Wind Guild WERE ABLE TO BRING A BIT OF HAPPINESS TO SOME UNFORTUNATE KIDS WITHOUT PARENTS. 

ALLELUIA!




Sunday, April 12, 2020

A BREAKTHROUGH AFTER A BREAKDOWN


They did not yet understand that he had to die first in order
 to rise from the dead.
John

Easter reminds us, in a most dramatic way, that sometimes events that seem so tragic one minute, can in fact, turn out quite differently the next! First, let me quickly tell you my own best personal Easter story. Then, I will tell you a couple of Easter stories from my years as a priest.  Hopefully, these short stories will remind you of some of your own.

2002 was the worst year of my priesthood. It was the year the sexual abuse scandal broke across the country. I never felt more powerless and more demoralized than I did back then. For the first time in my life, I seriously wanted to quit.

Things got especially bad in June of that year. I was sinking further and further into a depression. By the time Fall rolled around, I asked to resign from my job as vocation director and to take six months off to go somewhere and get myself together. 

Well, the short it is this: I went from the lowest point of my priesthood to one of the highest points. Some amazing things have happened in my life since then, things that I could never have imagined in 2002.  I am certainly not bragging, because I know it was not my doing. However, I am amazed!  Looking back, I believe that God was actually preparing me to do the work I have been doing, and am still doing today, even when I was at my lowest point! My old "dream" of what was supposed to happen had to die before this new "dream" that I could never have imagined could be born!  

Over the last fifty years, I have ministered to hundreds and hundreds of people who have lost jobs, homes, spouses and relationships. At their darkest hours, they thought the could not go on or could  never be happy again. Many of them have contacted me, years later, to tell me about getting the best job they ever had, about building the new home of their dreams, about finding love again with an even more loving spouse or new best friend. In all those cases, an idea about how life should be had to die before something even better could be born.

Even the sexual abuse scandal is a case in point. I am convinced that we will look back on all this shame someday and see that it paved the way for a more safe environment for all children, whether in churches, schools or homes, that it paved the way for an more open and honest church than we have known for many, many years!        

They did not yet understand that he had to die first in order to rise from the dead.

Ever since Jesus had been laid in the tomb that first Good Friday, his disciples had been sinking into a deeper and deeper depression. Most had taken refuge behind locked doors and some even headed out of town to hide away in places like Emmaus.  It was some of his women followers, always the brave ones in these kinds of situations, who went to the tomb that first Easter morning.

Jesus had been taken down from the cross and put in a tomb in a hurry. Work, even properly burying the dead, was not allowed from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown because it violated the Jewish Sabbath. Mary had to wait till the Sabbath was over, but she got there as soon as she could. In fact, it was still dark that Sunday morning when she arrived at the tomb.

Mary did not get up early so as to get a good seat to watch the resurrection. Like everybody else, she thought Jesus was dead and that was that! She merely wanted to finish giving Jesus a proper Jewish funeral. She brought the traditional bags of spices to help keep the smell down, something she did not have time to finish on Friday. She, no doubt, expected to return to the tomb after a year to collect Jesus’ bones and put them in a stone box, called an ossuary, so as to make room for more burials in the future. After all, the tomb where Jesus was buried was merely on loan from a sympathetic man named Joseph.

Neither Mary nor the other followers of Jesus expected a resurrection that morning!  What they really thought was: “It’s all over!” Their lives, once full of hope, had been thrown into chaos and confusion. They were so deep in their loss that they had no way of knowing that morning that the lowest point in their faith was about to turn into the highest point of their faith.  They had no way of knowing that what they discovered that morning would become the basis of a faith that would spread all over the world and eventually be shared by us here in Louisville, Kentucky, two thousand years later!

The message of Easter is simple and profound.  Today’s breakdowns could possibly be tomorrow’s breakthroughs. It almost sounds corny, but I have seen it so many times as a priest, both in my own experiences and in the experiences that I have witnessed in the lives of the people I have served.  Fidelity to God, and to the path he has called us to walk, will always be a matter of death and resurrection. The grain of wheat must always be buried in the soil before it can sprout and rise out of the ground to produce many grains of wheat.

Death and resurrection, then, is not merely an historic event. It is even more so, a template for living. After a lifetime of little “dyings and risings,” all of us will be invited to let go of all of this so that we can experience all of that – and that that is eternal happiness with the risen Christ.

They did not yet understand that he had to die first in order to
rise from the dead.