Rest in peace, Ted Kennnedy

I say Amen! to all prayers for Senator Kennedy's soul and those who loved him and offer some of my own.

But this pushes the envelope of reality: He Made Me Proud to Be a Catholic by Sr. Maureen Fiedler in the National Catholic Reporter (not to be confused with the reliable National Catholic Register).

As Inigo Montoya said, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."

Patrick Madrid's interesting response can be read here.

Behind the scenes with blog groupies

Me: (excitedly) I had to call you. I just had a Celebrity Blogger sighting.

Therese: Really? Who?

Me: Fr. Rob Johansen of Thrown Back. I told him that his was the first Catholic blog I ever bookmarked. He promises he'll start blogging again soon.

Therese: Where did you meet him?

Me: At a banquet about the Cardinal Newman Liberal Arts Project. They're trying to start a Catholic liberal arts college in Southwest Michigan.

Therese: You people up there really know how to think big. When we want to do a project, we put on a church picnic. In Michigan, you get together and decide to found a college.

Salve Regina

Jesus wanted his mother with him and took her in the same way he will take all of us - bodily and wholly into heaven to be with him and the Father. Today is the Feast of the Assumption. We can look at it and be sure of what is in store for each of us - mercy and sweetness.

What will not happen when you give yourself to God

From a homily at Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, Massachusetts:

There are two related wounds that all or most of us experience: the fear of abandonment, and the fear of engulfment. In other words, we fear being unseen, lost, not held in our hearts, we want to be existentially embraced by another. Yet, we also desire to be free, not swallowed up by another’s emotional neediness; we fear losing our individuality and freedom, our independence.

Two general truths are helpful in reframing this paradox:

1) There is no created reality that can really give me all that my heart desires, and there is no created reality that can take anything away from me. So I need not be lost in the frenzy of seeking, nor in the despair of protecting myself.

2) in a life of prayer and ongoing conversion of heart one may come to know that it is only God who offers an existential embrace which is also total freedom for me. The Divine embrace is freedom. Love casts out fear.

In other words, relinquishing my will to God does not put me at risk of being at the mercy of a capricious or erratic sovereign, nor does it mean that I, the essential I, will get swallowed up or subsumed and therefore lose who God has created me to be. Nothing that is Not God can do these things, and God will not.