This is a must-read. Beautifully said from a person whose sensibility and sense I admire.
The rolling phrases of Pope St. Clement I
from The Letter to the Corinthians
Pope St. Clement IHelper of those in peril, Savior of those in despair, you created and still kepp watch over all that draws breath. You cause the peoples on Earth to multiply, and from them all choose those who love you through Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. Through Him you have instructed us, sanctified us, honored us.
I think in reading this of the threefold mission--priest, prophet, and king that was announced as of His Baptism. I don't know why, perhaps it is simply the way things are phrased and particularly the trifold "instructed us, sanctified us, honored us."
The rhythm of this thought and its delicacy are pursued until the end of the passage and we culminate with being honored by God. I have to wonder how many have thought of it in that way--being honored by Him. Too often we are busy being cowed or bowed or cozzened or otherwise perturbed in our path. but no--instructed, sanctified, and honored. Honored as children, honored as sons and daughters.
Written and posted at A Momentary Taste of Being. (Blogging at this site is going very slowly this morning, otherwise I would have posted here. My apologies.)
May this be a year of deep spiritual growth and fulfillment for all. May it be a time of closeness with God and an opportunity to follow Him ever more closely.
A friend of mine took a trip to Paris to visit her daughter. This friend's mother was flying in from Romania so that the whole family could be together. The friend is not in terrible health, but she has a heart condition that can be troublesome and other physical problems that make standing for long periods a problem.
She flew to Amsterdam where she was to catch a plane to Paris. Because of the weather, many flights, including her own, were canceled. It took them a long time to find her a place to stay and nothing was offered by way of compensation. The next day she stood for seven hours in line to rebook. While standing in line she tried to explain to someone who was patrolling the lines that she had a heart condition and other complicating factors and this wait was difficult as it was staged. The response, "I don't have any time for this."
My response, what can one expect from that haven of liberal values in which prostitution and marajuana sales thrive and laws allow for a kind of involuntary euthanasia to be administered to those who are not able to stand in line for seven hours.
I have to say that while I was very impressed with some aspects of European society, courtesy, thoughtfulness, and kindness never did seem to loom large in the spectrum. This merely confirms some preliminary impressions. While hardly an indictment of the society as a whole, it is symptomatic of the illness that lay at the heart.
From Present Moment, Wonderful Moment
Thich Nhat Hanh
Sometimes when we are on the computer, it is as if we have turned off our mind and are absorbed into the computer for hours. Mind is consciousness. The two aspects of consciousness, subject and object, depend on each other in order to exist. When our mind is conscious of something, we are that thing. When we contemplate a snow-covered mountain, we are that mountain. When we watch a noisy film, we are that noisy film. And when we turn on the blue light of the computer, we become that computer.
I tend to read such things in a very metaphorical sense, and I must preface any further comments by saying that it may not be the intent of the author to be metaphorical. There may be some elusive sense in which he is being quite literal. Not being Buddhist, and reading this passage from a strictly Catholic point of view, I see exposed (metaphorically) a fundamental truth. Neuroscience has pretty clearly demonstrated that so called multitasking is no more multitasking than it was (or perhaps still is) on previous generations of Pentium chips. It simply isn't biologically possible to truly multitask--take the incidence of traffic accidents while using cell phones as an exemplar.
We become, not physically, but in some sense mentally, what we engage with. When we shoose to be a part of something, we give a part of ourselves to that something. This is a difficult truth and it is the truth that lay behind custody of the sense. When we give ourselves over to indulgence in the sense, we cannot rise above them and we find ourselves driven by them. This can be an ugly and fearsome thing. Thus, the investment of energy is a profound investment of a part of ourselves. In investing that energy, we become in some sense part of what we are investing in. We betray ourselves when the object is not worth the investment.
To paraphrase George Harrison, "You know that what you do, you are." And this is true in a very substantial way--do worthy and worthwhile things, you tend toward doing more of the same. Do less worthy things, the tendency towards less worthy becomes more pronounced.
Which goes to support a long-held contention that we MUST not judge a person by an action or even multiple actions, but we have a moral, religious obligation to condemn every evil action in the strongest possible terms.
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