Ice Cream 2.0!

 

 

 

Ice cream
(Author Unknown)

 

 

Last week I took my children to a restaurant.  My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace.  As we bowed our heads he said, “God is good. God is great.  Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Mom gets us ice cream for dessert.  And with Liberty and justice for all!  Amen!"

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby I heard a woman remark, “That's what's wrong with this country.  Kids today don't even know how to pray.  Asking God for ice-cream! Why I never!"

Hearing this, my son burst into tears and asked me, “Did I do it wrong? Is God mad at me?"

As I held him and assured him that he had done a terrific job and God was certainly not mad at him, an elderly gentleman approached the table.  He winked at my son and said,  "I happen to know that God thought that was a great prayer."

"Really?" my son asked.

 "Cross my heart," the man replied.
Then in a theatrical whisper he added (indicating the woman whose remark had started this whole thing) - "Too bad she never asks God for ice cream.  A little ice cream is good for the soul sometimes."

Naturally, I bought my kids ice cream at the end of the meal.  My son stared at his for a moment and then did something I will remember the rest of my life. He picked up his sundae and without a word, walked over and placed it in front of the woman. With a big smile he told her,

 "Here, this is for you. Ice cream is good for the soul sometimes; and my soul is good already." 

Giving all . . .

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

“How much is an ice cream sundae?”

“50 cents,” replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it.

“How much is a dish of plain ice cream?” he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient.

“35 cents,” she said brusquely.

The little boy again counted the coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said.

The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed.

When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw.

There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were 15 cents – her tip.

Author Unknown

Kelly Miguens Preaches for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Longing and hungering for the Holy . . .

 

 Photo by Doris Klein, CSA- “Whisper of Light”

http://doriskleincsa.com/

God comes to us not as food but as hunger,
not as presence but as distance felt,
not as fulfillment but as longing,
not as love consummated but as desire enkindled.

God does not take away our loneliness but intensifies it.
God does not answer our questions
but floods our souls with ever-expanding mystery.

God does not soothe that “old ache” but deepens it.
God does not open the door but prompts us to go on knocking.

For our hunger is a joyful longing.
Our hunger is God made present.

LET US PRAY:
Do not take away the hunger of my soul or let me fill it with spiritual trifles,
ready to hand, sweet to the taste, but good for only a moment’s satisfaction.
Deepen my hunger.  Enkindle my desire.  Come to me in the longing in my heart, for in my emptiness you are present.

God Hunger – Discovering the Mystic in All of Us -  by John Kirvan -
https://www.avemariapress.com/news/2012/3/1/memory-john-kirvan-1932-2012-renowned-author/

Sitting . . .

Just in the act
of sitting
receptive and still –
just in the desiring
to pray –
is the moment
of grace.
         
Just in the small attention
given to letting go
is the dying itself.       
For God delights
in my desiring
and is content
with my restlessness.

God sits
with my nothing,    
gently loving me
in it all.

-Edwina Gateley
         Growing Into God-http://www.edwinagateley.com/

A Tree Can Be Our Teacher . . .

 

 

Lessons on Life

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.

Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.
Don't judge life by one difficult season.
Persevere through the difficult patches
and better times are sure to come some time or later.   
Author Unknown

 

Saints Day and beyond . . .

Photo by: Doris Klein, CSA

During World War II a German widow hid Jewish refugees in her home.       
As her friends discovered the situation, they became extremely alarmed.
“You are risking your own well-being,” they told her.
I know that,” she said.
“Then why,” they demanded, “do you persist in this foolishness?”
Her answer was stark and to the point.
“I am doing it,” she said, “because the time is now and I am here.”                  (Source Unknown)

Today we celebrate the feast of all Saints - those known and unknown women and men, and even children - who are called holy because their lives manifested the very holiness of God.  And we do this today because the time is now and we are here. These women and men are those who form “the great multitude of which no one can count, from every nation, race, people and tongue.”

In the early Christian Church the first saints were martyrs, virgins, hermits and monks who were declared holy by popular acclaim.  Since the 16th century, when the modern saint-making process began, canonization was in the control of the popes and became a judicial process complete with evidence and cross-examination.

The person had to pass through a scrutiny of investigations and many proofs of miracles. Once proven, then an elaborate ceremony of canonization occurred.  A feast day assigned, a Church and shrines were dedicated to the saint.

The person would be declared patron saint of a country, a diocese or other religious institutions.  Statues and images would be struck, along with public prayers, relics venerated and possibly a Mass would be composed in the Saint’s honor.

In the times from these early centuries until now, those declared saints have contributed to God’s reign as artists, authors, founders/foundresses of religious orders, monks, martyrs, missionaries and mystics, bishops, popes, poets, peasants, and prophets, women and men religious, kings, queens, historians, and hermits, wives, husbands, reformers, scientists, theologians, teachers, virgins, children, widows, carpenters, shepherdesses and a thousand more paths in which these holy ones gave themselves as self gift.

They lived in times of turmoil and times of tranquility; they endured persecutions, wars, church councils, crusades, The Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the Black Death, enemy occupation of their countries, and struggled with unjust government, church, and social systems.

We may tend today to think of Saints as holy and pious people, sometimes irrelevant to our experience and often shown in pictures with halos above their heads with ecstatic gazes or surrounded by angels or holding a symbol particular to their story.

But today – saints are men and women like us who live ordinary lives and struggle with the ordinary and extraordinary problems of life.  What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God’s people.  And so we may ask, who are the holy ones for us today?  And what does holiness look like in our time and place?
Are we not all called to holiness by our very Baptism?
The time is now and we are here.

It can be said that holiness is conditioned by socio-cultural and religious factors. In the early centuries, the martyr paradigm certainly was a manifestation of God’s holiness.  As one author remarks:  "For centuries the church has presented the human community with role models of greatness. We call them saints when what we really often mean to say is 'icon,' 'star,' 'hero,' ones so possessed by an internal vision of divine goodness that they give us a glimpse of the face of God in the center of the human. They give us a taste of the possibilities of greatness in  ourselves."- Joan D. Chittister in A Passion for Life

And so in our age, when there is renewed awareness of the suffering of innocent people through human trafficking, or through the exploitation of third world countries, or through the tragic systematic death of peoples by means of torture, famine, and genocide, or by results of violent rhetoric - then we can be sure that the saints will be those who lives are spent working tirelessly to alleviate the suffering.
Because the time is now and they are here.

In an age when Christians are often confronted to choose between life and death for the sake of the Gospel, the saints will boldly choose life through the cost of death.  Because the time is now and they are here.

In an age when there is a clash between human dignity of all and the restrictive power of a few over all, the saints will name the injustice and call it social sin. Because the time is now and they are here.

In an age when there is an ecclesial restriction of gifts of the Spirit to some groups but not to others, the saints will witness to the freedom of the Spirit to give gifts as the Spirit chooses, regardless of restrictive laws about use of the gifts. Because the time is now and they are here.

In an  age when discrimination, elitism, and oppression operate in society, in governments and in our Churches, the saints will again proclaim the reign of God and be "voice and heart, call and sign of the God whose design for this world is justice and mercy for all." (JD)  Because the time is now and they are here.

Because the nature of sainthood is an incarnational reality, the shape and form of holiness may change from age to age and culture to culture.  But the Spirit of the Holy will continue to call people like all of us who are here and those beyond our faith community –
to witness to the freedom of the Spirit;
to run, to risk, and wonder at our daring;
to boldly choose life through the cost of death; to confront the oppressors and marvel at our courage; and work tirelessly for the people of God as we proclaim God’s reign.

For it is God’s caring we witness and
God’s love we share because the time is now and we are here.

Previously posted