VIEWS

“Going to church” in the Protestant American South holds a certain amusing lore through which I fondly recall the small Louisiana congregation of my girlhood, although at the time I was embarrassed by some of its quirky traditions at worship services.

So here we are, just two weeks inside of 2015 and already many of us have broken our New Year’s resolutions. Please don’t lose heart!

We sat there in the restaurant, two women who have been friends for more than 30 years, and talked about the nine sons between us. There were times we wondered if we would survive (hello sleep deprivation and teenage shenanigans) or if we’d ever have an uninterrupted conversation again.

“It is after having experienced God’s unconditional love and undeserved mercy that a person can become a messenger of mercy.”

The Seminarian Support component of the “Together Let Us Go Forth ~ Juntos Sigamos Adelante” campaign is particularly exciting to me because it directly affects the men who will serve as our future priests.

You’ll hear Him encourage you to let go, to trust, to forgive, and to sacrifice.

The last few years have been marked by more than a few unexpected tragic incidents involving gunmen lashing out at innocent people. There are things we can do as a society to try to prevent these events in the future or to mitigate the effects of these events. And those can and will be discussed by our talking heads and our policy makers.

The freedom to travel different paths to the same destination is the same freedom God gives us to live our lives.

Most of us will probably never have to risk our lives in order to help someone. The question is, what are we doing with this precious life that we’ve been given? Are we squandering it on trivialities? And what will the Father find when He looks into our heart and searches for compassion?

Night was falling at the end of a gray day. A few dozen silent, shabby figures were sitting at round tables waiting.