Winter Overnight

Usually the weather cooperates--cold, dark, snowy--great for reflection and personal time.  But it is only 30 some degrees and rain is in the forecast.
Still we will meet, talk, pray, eat, and pray through the night before Jesus.

I ask for your prayers for the youth and young adults retreating at the 'second' annual winter overnight.

This evening at the communal dinner some collegians will be arriving--their purpose? Not only a reunion of sorts but some faith sharing.  In addition they are planning their first pilgrimage to Medugorje (for more info on this trip--check out the link at the top of the page).
I hope their excitement about the faith and their future will ignite and enflame the younger youth present.

Does Mary Have a Sense of Humor?

For the past few years I have been writing a book--A Lost Shepherd; an ex-priest's journey from sin to salvation

Of course I'm not going to tell you about it right now.  It will soon be available.

---what I want to share (at the urging of my lovely wife) are just two of the many coincidences--or God Incidents--which have marked the endeavor throughout the years.  Actually they might be considered the 'book ends' of the project.

In 1989 someone gave me a book entitled--Medjugorje The Message  by Wayne Weible.
---I didn't read it.  I threw it away.

I spent most of 2009 and 2010 sending the manuscript out to a variety of publishers.
--The story was eventually accepted by a new publishing company that didn't even exist when I began writing the manuscript six years ago.
The name of the company that finally accepted the manuscript?--New Hope Press Publishing Company
which is owned by--you got it...Wayne Weible.

I wonder if Mary laughed at that.

A Gift

Something lite....

My lovely wife gave me a clock this Christmas.  It took a couple days to regulate the chimes with the correct hour so time was a bit confused for the first 24 hours.
It's a great clock.  It fits the house perfect.

Here is what's weird....from the moment my brother helped me hang the clock...
time began to move faster
Seriously.

Every hour a chime goes--my wife or son will say "Well, there's another hour"

Now, I know that, in the land of cause and effect what I am suggesting is impossible.
Though we joked about it, I couldn't help but conduct a little experiment (I am after all a bit Narnian in my approach to the physical and spiritual and metaphysical world)

So I looked at the other clocks in the house when I heard a chime.
The microwave was flashing a :10 which meant I forgot to clear it from reheating the risotto (so I couldn't use it as a verifiable source)
The oven clock read within one minute.
My father's clock read within one half hour.
My phone was off.
My wife's phone was off.
My son didn't know where his phone was.

I suppose the new clock was correct.
Still, time is moving faster.  And my gut tells me it's the new clock.

Time.
God entered into our time (which is ultimately God's time).
He enters into our living, suffering, loving and dying.
So we can enter into His Eternal Time.

On another lite note...
My wife also gave me the new Roman Missal as a gift.
I'm not sure too many other husbands received such a gift on Christmas morn.
"Once a priest, always a priest." She said with a smile.

So on Christmas nite, after everyone retired,  I turned on my new book light (from the best son in the world) and cracked open the binding...
an hour later I closed it--(or at least I thought it was an hour...it could have been more..or even less)

Not that it matters--but my take on the whole thing?
I loved it.