Religion

The Christmas season still plows forward, but the real world returns in earnest. I kinda feel like I'm waking from a dream, and the nightmare Rose Bowl loss to USC yesterday doesn't help. It's the Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen.

> Secular things can be adapted to holy ends. New Year's resolutions are a great example. Anonymous

Christmas Day is gone, and I feel like a ran a marathon. I thoroughly enjoy the Day, but it wears me out. I slept over nine hours last night, and I felt like I could've slept another couple. It was a very good Christmas. We generally don'

Jesus does not expect us to be strong but weak. In our weakness His power reaches perfection (2 Cor 12:9). He does not expect us to be independent and self-sufficient, but rather childlike (Mt 18:3). We don't need will-power, just willingness. He'll

> We must guard against that attitude of spiritual pride that makes us say, "What I do not feel I do not need." We must allow for the possibility that our feelings may be unreliable and therefore we must honestly strive to correct them. Yearning for God is

> Humility is the safeguard of chastity. In the matter of purity, there is no greater danger than not fearing danger. When a person puts himself in an occasion of sin, saying, "I shall not fall," it is almost an infallible sign that he will fall, and with

Happy holidays! Today kicks off the holiday season, at least in Michigan. Working backwards: New Years, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Opening Day. Yup: Today is opening day of deer season in Michigan. Some factories shut down; workers take vacation days; union workers take sick days; Michigan Kennedies call in drunk. It&

> No sooner has [a person] started to pray than, conjured up by his inner unrest, all sorts of other things clamor for attention: a task at work, a conversation, an errand, a newspaper, a book. All these suddenly appear most important, and prayer seems a sheer waste of time.

"Everything depends on [the] state of recollectedness. No effort to obtain it is ever wasted. And even if the whole duration of our prayer should be applied to this end only, the time thus used would have been well employed. For recollectedness itself is prayer." Romano Guardini, from

All Saints Day is here. Rejoice! There's hope for all of us. Sainthood isn't just for those canonized. The Francises, Theresas, and other show-offs. Today, we celebrate all those saints we don't know about: everyone in heaven that isn't canonized. Go