I recently found myself re-reading an old classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, thinking about how I would probably be happy to be locked away for a few years with nothing but C.S. Lewis to read. In this children’s fantasy story (which doubles as an extended allegory about Jesus), we hear an important perspective on the King, Aslan, from his loyal subject, Mr. Beaver, who has an appropriate fear of the Lord. When Lucy asks him if Aslan the lion is safe, the reply comes back “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” This idea of a ruler valuing goodness and strength and uniting them together must be preserved, or else we lose the ability to understand what our relationship with God should be.  Click title for full column   

I am disorganized enough that I am often caught off guard by upcoming events. Just today I realized that I was working diligently in my office at OLR when I should have already been at St. James for adoration and confession (sorry, diligent adorers). With that said, I had the foresight to check the calendar to see how many more bulletins I have before we all know the initial draft plan for Beacons of Light, and it turns out it’s just two. With that in mind, I feel the need to both prepare our parishes spiritually and get a few last words in before I can be accused of speaking with some ulterior motive. So, before we get to the public comment period, we should listen well to the words that St. James offers us in the second reading for this weekend. Click on title for full column.

I do not suffer well. There are those who would disagree and defend me even against myself, but they are wrong. I do not have a high pain tolerance, and my immediate instinct in an alarmingly high percentage of occurrences in my life is to complain. Sometimes I suppress it, most times I do not, at least internally. The one time in recent memory where I can honestly say that I think I suffered well and used pain and inconvenience to my advantage was when a kidney stone made its presence known to me about three minutes into a two-and-a-half-hour flight. Between all the sweating and vomiting that I had to suddenly fit into my schedule, I found that I had no problem offering Divine Mercy chaplets and the unpleasant pain for various and sundry causes and prayer intentions. If any of you felt particularly sanctified at that moment, know we know that my prayers might have worked. Click title for full column.

It is a maxim as old as the hills that “with great power comes great responsibility.” Or maybe it’s from a Spiderman movie. Who can say? Regardless, the fact remains that every gift and blessing in this life comes with the concomitant responsibility to use it in a worthy manner, or at least in accord with the intent in which the giver offered it. I have my grandfather’s shoeshine kit that is older than my parents, and every time I bust it out I think about the responsibility of having something that’s been in the family for such a long time, even if it’s as seemingly insignificant a shoeshine kit. Every gift carries with it a responsibility. Click title for full column.