Mass and Healing Service

Father Aniello Salicone, s.x.

My prayer group was blessed tonight.  We went to see an old friend and mentor, spiritual advisor and priest.  Father Aniello Salicone celebrated Mass tonight and had a healing service afterwards.  I don't think he's changed at all.  His hair is thinner and whiter, but so is mine.  He's still the gentle, prayerful priest, I remember.

His teachings tonight were of God's love (of course).  That's his thing.  But he solved a problem that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile. You see one time when I was praying the thought occurred to me that I was kind of wasting my time because what I was praying for was something that God wants, too.  Father Aniello proved statistically that God answers prayers and either gives us what we want or something better.  I don't remember the exact figures, but I remember that we get what we ask for 4% of the time.  Yet 50 % of the time we get something better.  We also don't see immediate results.  Father Aniello quoted St. Theresa of Avila saying,  "Thank God, He didn't give me what I was asking for two days ago.  Because now I don't need it."

Father Aniello also talked of the evil one.  He's the one that causes pain, sickness, division, etc..  So don't blame God.  God only wants good things for His children.

The Holy Spirit was palpable, too.  I could feel Him.  The praising was uplifting.  I also saw some old friends.  God is good--all the time.

Satan

The other night, in Dominican Study Group, we were discussing God's mercy. One of my "cloistered brothers" said that sometimes, when talking with others they'll confess that they feel too unworthy to ever be forgiven. The things that they've done are just too evil to be be forgiven. So he said that he tells them about God's mercy and stresses the point that if Satan, himself, were to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness, that God would forgive him.

This just didn't sit right with me. I recalled that Fr. Aniello once told my prayer group not to waste their time thinking about Satan. He chose to be lost forever.

Fr. Aniello is only an email away. I wrote and he responded: "The biggest difference between human beings and Satan (and his devils) is this: we are still on the way and we are free to say, yes or no; instead the evil spirits made their final choice long ago.

Any human being can repent till he/she lives on this earth. There is no sin that God does not forgive to a human being who repents! God gives us time on this earth so that we can repent...He is very happy when we repent...he makes a feast for a repentant sinner!"

I also wrote to my Chapter's Spiritual Promoter, Fr. Wayne, who responded: "One of the issues is that Satan was never human(mortal). He was an angel who rebelled against God. I think you are thinking where the rich man repents only after he has been judged, too late to help Lazarus, and so too late to change his judgement. Angels don't have mortal lives and therefore can't lose them. It's not clear what the nature of their lives are or how judgement applies to them. It would seem that by analogy, Satan would be in the same boat as the rich man. However, what can we really say with certainty about the lives of angels? Still, I think our "cloistered brother's" basic insight is correct: there is no limit to God's mercy...only the limits we put on receiving it. It would seem unnecessary to correct his hyperbole as long as the point he was trying to make remains the focus, as it should do."

Both responses are food for thought.

Fr. Aniello would say I was wasting my time--thinking about Satan. Since I don't know what to think, I'll take the easiest road.

Forget about Satan. He is a waste.

Dinner with Friends

My friends and I had our annual birthday dinner. My birthday is the end of Nov., Merrell's next Sat., and Chris' is near the end of the month. Judy is included but excluded. Her birthday isn't even close to ours, but we let her tag along.
It was a good time. We talked a lot. I brought grilled chicken salad. We talked a lot. Chris brought junk food. We talked a lot.
Oooppss!!! I just realized that we forgot to sing Happy Birthday. But we ate the cake; it was oreo cake. We also talked a lot.
Merrell and Judy were our hostesses. Chris gave me a beautiful wreath to hang on my front door. She made it herself. Know what she gave me for Christmas? She gave me another beautiful handmade wreath. I have two side-by-side front doors. Don't forget; we talked a lot.
And I gave Chris something that I've wanted to give her since September. Between talking a lot, I explained to her that I entered a poetry contest. The poem I entered was about her and our relationship. Our relationship involves a lot of talking--a lot! But I won first prize with that poem! I've been waiting for the moment to give her the poetry book. I explained that she was the inspiration and well.......the poem explains it better.

Missing Chris

Happy is he who find a friend and he who speaks to attentive ears. Sirach 25:9

My soul mate, Chris would help with my mess,

over spinach artichoke dip, nachos,

ice tea, girl-talk, dope slaps, and laughter;

deftly would your perspective fix my problem;

snap smooth wrinkled excuses and cobwebbed thoughts,

as we share late night secrets and pray for grace.

__________________________________

Before I went to the birthday dinner, I was at Chapter. One of my brothers, out of the blue, asked me who Chris was in my poem, that won first prize. I was very surprised! That poetry book has been hanging around since September. What made him read it now? What made him pick out that poem? What made him ask "Who's Chris in your poem?" So I explained that Chris and I were on parallel faith journeys and use to "talk a lot" together, and I mean "talk a lot." We had fallen in love with Jesus, somehow. We're both cradle Catholics but in 2000 the Holy Spirit dope slapped us in a Life in the Spirit Seminar that our prayer group conducted. We were born in the Holy Spirit. All we could talk about was Jesus. All we could think about was Jesus. All we wanted to do was do things involved with talking and thinking about Jesus. We became very close friends with the spiritual director of the prayer group--Our Lady of Hope Charismatic Prayer Group. He, Father Aniello Salicone, Chris and I would go out to eat, after prayer group. We talked a lot. We talked and talked so long that the restaurants would ask us to leave. We'd stay and the employees would be cleaning up and there we were talking, talking, and talking.

That's what the poem is about. That's the story I told my brother. For some reason, my little story about our friendship touched him. My brother told me that he was going to relate my story to his support group, read my poem, and ask for prayers for Chris and for everyone to have one good friend.

Did I mention that we talked a lot?