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Relative Trivia

11/29/2018

You may wonder why I am writing about relative trivia in the midst of the awful crisis in the Church. This is because I refer everyone on this subject to Raymond Arroyo’s fantastic programs on The World Over where he and Robert Royal and Fr. Murray help us through and tell us how to support the good priests and bishops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JIft9ZsGlc

A precedent?
I am thinking of how Padre Pio was so persecuted by the Vatican in his day – imagine the priest who would be one of the most famous saints of the 20th century forbidden to celebrate Mass publicly for years and years!

And how the miracles, on-going, of Padre Pio are, in certain ways, over-arching our Church in crisis to give us hope. For a web-site with some of these miracle google Cindy Russo
Padre Pio Prayer Group Cleveland, Ohio. https://www.padrepiocleveland.org/

15 people came to our Thanksgiving Mass at 8 AM!

How convenient – on both “sides” of the Church we often hate the things we think are sins that we have no temptation to commit and make excuses for the ones we are tempted to and fall into!!!!
As in on one side all the hate is against Trump’s immigration policies, which we think are in themselves good in the main. I mean how many left-wingers are having daily temptations to send back illegal immigrants, but many excuse so many sexual sins and we, many of whom have no temptation to same-sex sins, excuse your prideful self-righteous rage against them!
So, we think rage against same-sex sins is simply righteous anger...what makes it self-righteous is this feeling of superiority some of us get ridiculing them vs. Kierkegaard saying the sins of others should make us weep vs. gossip and ridicule. Righteous anger would hate the sin but not ridicule the sinner.

Here are some wonderful experiences
of a new friend of mine here, Tabitha:

I feel like sharing 3 of my favorite Eucharistic experiences.

My latest experience just happened a few days ago. I'm going to tell them in chronological order. The first 2 are incredible for me because I did not know the Eucharist was near me. The most recent one the Eucharist wasn't near me, but it was "there".
The first one happened almost 7 years ago. The first weekend in December. We were invited to go to a weekend marriage retreat. This is when I first started giving myself more fully to Jesus by getting rid of my sinful habits, going to daily Mass, and regular Eucharistic Adoration. I started to develop a closeness to God that was different than before. I had times that I felt Jesus wanting me to visit Him. The marriage retreat was 3 hours from home and held at a lodge. I'm there for less than 5 minutes and I'm anxious. I strongly feel like I need to be with Jesus in His Eucharistic Presence. I told my husband and he's says, "what do you want me to do about it, I don't know where a chapel is and we're 3 hours from home." I said, "I don't know, I just feel like He wants me to be with Him" I then tried putting it out of my mind and continued waiting for our retreat leaders. I then have this really strong physical feeling all through my body. It felt like menthol...a burning/cooling feeling. It felt like a liquid muscle ointment going through my veins. I had no clue what this was and I even thought maybe I was having a stroke or heart attack and had medical staff check my vitals. This burning/cooling sensation went on for the rest of the weekend, starting Friday night. The day hours felt stronger than the evening hours. Sunday morning is when they announced, "we have a surprise for you, we set up a chapel in that room right there with the blessed Sacrament and the leaders have been taking turns praying for you in front of Jesus and His real Presence!!!" My eyeballs just about jumped out of their sockets and my jaw hit the floor. I knew then what the feeling was about and why. He was there in His Eucharistic Presence all along and I didn't know.
A few years later, I'm in the hospital with my newborn baby. I'm fearing I'm going to lose her. I start requesting a Catholic chaplain and was told that a Catholic chaplain was not available. After a few days of this, I finally said, "just send anyone then". Later on, a man in a suit comes to my room. As soon as he gets there, I feel Jesus, just as I did at the lodge. I said to Jesus, "ok Jesus, I feel you, but what are you telling me? Am I supposed to listen to this guy intently?" So I listen very carefully to this guy. I had no idea what I'm supposed to listen for and nothing he says is significant, except..."would you like to receive Communion?" I almost fell over. I said, "are you Catholic" He said, "yes. They said you requested a Catholic chaplain" I said, "yes, but I was told a Catholic chaplain was not available, so I thought they sent me a Protestant chaplain, and you have had the Sacred Hosts on you this whole time?" "Yes, would you like to receive Communion?" :)
This week. I believe it was Wednesday. My husband and I were at home getting ready to say prayers for someone who just died. I decide to turn on a live video feed of the Host. Shot live at a Perpetual Adoration Chapel. There's several on YouTube. Soon after I turned it on I began to feel Him. I started playing the feed too early, I wasn't ready. I still had to get the prayers set up on my husband's phone. Something that should have taken a minute or 2 is now taking several minutes. I was so distracted because the burning/cooling feeling was getting stronger and stronger. I left the room and went to the kitchen. Just then my 15 yr old son comes home from school and he barely walks passed the door, stops, has a confused look on his face and says, "why does it feel like church in here? Smells like it too." I said, "it feels like church in here? Go in the living room around the corner and look at the screen!!!" He looks and with a big smile he says, "Oh, WOW!!!"
The Eucharist is real!!! It's really, Truly Jesus!!! I will believe that forever. It's always been the Summit of Christian faith. Only in the last 500 years has it been taught as an insignificant symbol.

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TWINS

11/22/2018

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My twin sister, Carla De Sola, a sacred dance leader, is compiling a book about Kairos moments of dancers where the felt the presence of God. Even though I am not a sacred dancer, or a dancer, at all, out of charity she asked me to contribute a piece about this type of dance I do. She thought it very funny!

Confessions of a Klutz
by Ronda De Sola Chervin
One of the most life-changing lines I ever read was this one from G.K. Chesterton: “Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly.”
Imagine being a unidentical twin-sister to a dancer as sublimely graceful as Carla De Sola!
When we were teens, we used to go to Square Dances at a Unitarian Church in New York City. My twin, Carla, was always selected among the first five girls as a partner in the dances. When un-chosen even at the very end of the selection process, I would hide in the Ladies’ Room so as not to be a wall-flower!
Just the same, I loved to dance! So, years later when I became a speaker about spirituality at Catholic conferences, I had my big moment.
A writer of many books about the saints, I would lay a pretty heavy trip on my audiences with confrontations about becoming holy such as:
“How come if you asked all the people who know you from the family, the workplace, and the Church, what is your worst fault, they would all agree and you would be surprised?”
Or, just as challenging:
“If you were going to Wal-Mart to buy 6 T-shirts and you saw a starving woman sitting outside, with a baby at her breast and no milk in it to feed her, wouldn’t you buy 1 T-shirt and give the rest of the money to her? Of course? But, then, you think, who knows, donations to the poor usually are used by the charity’s administrators, not really for the poor. But Mother Teresa’s Sisters in India don’t even have toilet paper, so give to them. Here’s the address of the Missionaries of Charity in the Bronx, New York City.”
So, by the end of the talk, the group listening can feel kind of overwhelmed.
At that point I gesture to the music ministers and they start playing “When the Saints go Marching in,” and I lead them into a circle dance around the hall. By the time we get to “O Lord, I want ta be in that number,” they are refreshed and full of hope for themselves and for the whole world.
Not exactly sacred dance but, heh, “anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”
Ronda Chervin is a retired professor of philosophy and the author of numerous Catholic books. (www.rondachervin.com)

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Mentally Dentally

11/20/2018

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I keep reading things about how we need to reach out to people without having a stereo-type in between. Here is a sweet example. At a Mass at the local Catholic Hospital, an attendant brings in a 94 year old woman with a walker. She sits in the first row of seats so I don’t see her face from the 2nd row. She is bent over with very short white hair. She also has an ugly black patch over one eye.
This week, she was sitting right in front of me. I noticed with amusement that at the end of the straps trying back the patch there were 2 little pieces of black lace! I thought, isn’t it wonderful that whoever made the patches realized that a woman wearing one might like something a little fancy to overset the look of the patch. At the hand shake of peace part of the Mass, I walked around and looked her the uncovered eye and said hello. She suddenly beamed with joy and grabbed my hand and kissed my little finger and said “God bless you.”

I was moved by some spiritual reading to make a general confession of gossip throughout my life. Now, usually, with my swift mind, I can figure out an excuse for any gossip on the basis that I have a “pastoral reason” to share the story, but I felt moved to admit that this is often just an excuse and the real reason is to enjoy the attention that comes with witty, often ridiculing, anecdotes.
If the shoe fits!

My grand-son-in-law who I live with likes to tease me a bit about my excessive anxiety about senior moments. Here is the latest tease: I was in a tizzy forgetting about Day Light Savings Time and thinking I was an hour too late for leaving for Mass, etc. Sean motioned me to stop talking because he wanted to make a call. Then I heard him saying into the phone “Is this the Convalescent Home? We have this old woman who has lost her mind, can we bring her right away?” All with a straight face!

Another story about wonderful Arkansas. I had to go to the dentist to have 2 of my remaining bottom teeth pulled because they were so loose. On the top I have dentures. Anyhow, this is the first time any dentist ever actually apologized as he plunged in the novacaine needly. “I am sorry for the pain I am causing you.” I was stunned!

A “have you ever noticed” story. Whenever you hear a homily about helping the poor, there is a tacit assumption that none of us are ourselves poor! Interesting. Of course, we understand that in mostly middle class parishes, most of us are not really poor in the sense of destitution, only maybe poorer than some others, but still?????? Shouldn’t we exult in being ourselves poor since Jesus said we are blessed?
Now, of course, most people take “poor in spirit” to mean not literally poor in worldly goods, but detached, however, some spiritual writers, besides me, teach that being poor in spirit can’t mean having so many things we can’t even find what we need in our closets!

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Timely Return

11/5/2018

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Dear Readers,
I was away for a week and then catch up, so this is a long time from the last Blog.

Lots of various things to ruminate about:
A visitor who had not been to Arkansas where I now live was upset to see Confederate flags. Someone said, well just because someone was for the South in the Civil War doesn’t mean that he/she is for slavery of blacks!

An analogy occurred to me about this. We deplore that Jews in some places in Europe used to be subjected to looting and worse on Good Friday by Catholics who thought – the Jews killed Jesus, so we should take revenge.

Even though the issues are different I think the principle of blaming members of a group for something done centuries ago by some members of their group for terrible reasons,
is awful in itself.

On my present living situation with my wonderful granddaughter and family, because Sean is a convert and Jen a revert they are big into penance for their sins of the past. (See the booklet by Sean Hurt in the series of goodbooksmedia here, to check out their spectacular story.)

My little joke is that whenever I am asking for a pesky favor I say “Heh, Jen or Sean, I have a cool penance for you to do!”

Heh, Arkansas feels like such a safe place that being in the boarding area for a small flight on a small plane of Southern Airways with only 5 passengers awaiting boarding, they all were so friendly I felt safe leaving my purse on the seat while sallying over to the Ladies’ Room.

The talks I gave were at a conference run by the Marianist Brothers in Long Island, New York – they have a Jr. High and High School which has 2,700 young people all getting Magisterial teaching! I told them I thought their name should be changed from Kellenberg High to “The Gates of Hell will not Prevail School.”
What a sign of hope.

I had the same feeling seeing again Holy Apostles College and Seminary where I taught last for 8 years! It is full of Vietnamese seminarians, priests, and Sisters. I was visiting just to see old friends from the past, but at the end of my little visit I asked to speak for 3 minutes at the end of Evening prayer.
Here is what I said:
I am the daughter of Communist parents who left the party when they saw how evil it was. How could I ever think that one day I could be teaching Vietnamese victims of Communism! Now Communists tell people that the Church is evil with rich priests and poor lay people. I became a Catholic at 21 and I think that we don’t think of the Church as belonging to the priests – we see it as our heavenly living room with Father priests who lay down their lives to give us our heavenly bread.
Thank you, Fr. Mosey, for your vision and your heart!”

A lovely little “miracle.” I was so tired after the 12 hour trip with a 4 hour lay over in the middle to get from Hartford back to Hot Springs, Arkansas, I was feeling like “death warmed over.” I happened to look out a big picture window in the airport at Dallas and there was the same sun phenomena that I saw at Medjugorje where the sun seems to turn into a huge Eucharistic host and throb with purple clouds around it. Sometimes I see this here in the US. Sometimes others see it also, but usually they don’t. So I asked a young man what he saw out the window with the sun and he didn’t see anything, so I think that Mary wanted to cheer me up!

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Relative Trivia

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