Friday, December 11, 2015

December 2015

FOR OUR REFLECTION



Illusions are soft comfortable things usually.  They are cushions against reality.  Whoever thinks that faith is a flight from reality must never have read the psalms or the New Testament.  What we see there is an overwhelming realism.  There are few of us, probably, who wouldn’t describe ourselves as realists; but you could have realism coupled with self-indulgence, or with heroic pessimism, or with cynicism…. In the Scriptures realism is coupled with faith in God.  “They will make the Son of Man suffer.”  
      
Jesus predicted his suffering, to prepare his disciples for the shock.  But otherwise he never talked or complained about it.  When you talk about your suffering you are creating a distance between it and you; you are not ‘suffering’ your suffering (‘to suffer’ originally meant ‘to allow’).  It cannot work its chemistry in you if you don’t let it come near – in fact, nearer than near: you have to become one with it.  When you are one with it, there is no distance and therefore no talk.  
      
When you talk about your suffering, people are usually too polite to change the subject.  How awkward a subject it can be!  People have too much suffering of their own, they don’t know what to do with yours.  If you said you had a leaking roof they could offer to fix it for you, but what can they do about your suffering if all you can do about it yourself is talk?  And behind the talk they can often sense a plea for pity and sympathy; they sense that you are trying to make capital out of it.  Instead we have to make a life out of it. 



4th Anniversary Block Rosary in Ofunato










Iwate Ken Ichinoseki  Catholic Church Mass with Fr. Edgar





Fukushima Iwaki Catholic Church Mass with Fr. Edgar



Aomori Ken Hirosaki Catholic Church Mass with Fr. Garry