Religion

"Holiness means the eager acceptance of every trial sent them by God. . . It is the philosophers' stone that changes into gold all their worries, their troubles, all their sufferings." de Caussade, Abandonment. Whenever I fear that I'm getting too holy for my own good (chuckle)

"[W]e cannot be really fed, strengthened, purified, enriched and made holy unless we fulfill the duties of the present moment." de Caussade. Abandonment

Words and Aprons "It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is." That's Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony during Monicagate. He has now come a long way, though: "What we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should

"In the face of the apparent failure of so many of our attempts, we should remember that God asks not so much for success as for the humility to begin again without allowing ourselves to get discouraged and pessimistic. . . ". Francis Fernandez

Nyssa, Tolkien, and Gibson By killing Jesus, Satan had swallowed God's bait. He didn't know he had swallowed the Godhead, thereby inviting Full Being into his fortress of nothingness and bringing about the ontological fall of his nothingness. In the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa:

“The story of each man is the story of God's continual watchfulness over him. Each man is the object of the Lord's special love. Jesus was ready to do everything for Jerusalem, but the city was not willing to open up her gates to his mercy.

"In dealings with one's neighbor, self-love makes us hyper-sensitive, inflexible, proud, impatient; it causes us to exaggerate our ego and our rights, to be cold, indifferent, unjust in our judgments and in word. One delights in speaking about one's actions, of one'

"Holiness . . . is not produced by intellectual speculation about it." de Caussade, Abandonmnent

"The greatest obstacles to the soul's trying to follow Christ and to help others have their origin in a disordered love of self. At times this leads us to overestimate our strength. At other times, it brings discouragement and despondency as a result of our own weaknesses

The Oath of Humility I will make an effort not to be too preoccupied with my own concerns: my health, my rest, whether people think well of me and take me sufficiently into account. I will try to speak as little as possible about myself, abouy my affairs, or about