Love Before You Preach

I'm reading a lesson Pere Lataste was teaching to his student brothers.  He was their Novice Master.

The Lord ordered

us to do what he himself did;

he began loving before teaching

about it. He gave us the greatest

proof of his friendship he could by

having died for us. We have to love

each other, because we are brothers.

We have to love each other, because

we are members of the same

body. Brothers in Adam, brothers

in Jesus Christ2, members of one

body, which is humanity, the one

humanity regenerated in Jesus

Christ, our head. We have to love

even more deeply due to the close

bounds that unite us. It is neither

the hazard of birth nor the hazard

of the same country that makes

us brothers, but the choice of God

and our own choice.

Of course you can teach or preach without that love.  That's what 99% of them do.  But it's this empathetic love that makes you one of the best.  Love the people.  Open yourself up to them.  Is that so hard?

Sunday Snippets -- A Catholic Carnival

It's that time again, Sunday Snippets. We are a group of Catholic bloggers, who share our posts with one another, on Sundays.

Why don't you join us?  Follow the links and read some different bloggers.  If you have your own blog, create a post entitled Sunday Snippets -- A Catholic Carnival.  Link your post back to here, and also to RAnn's site, This, That, and the Other Thing.

My favorite posts this week were two: Fairweather Catholics, and The Most Cordial Intimacy Possible.

Contraception and the Coming Violence

Life Site interviews the papal theologian, Fr. Wojciech Giertych, op, on contraception and the coming violence, through the rejection of Humanae Vitae

A Lawyer's Summation

Prison Packages

The readings to the 15th Sunday in Ordinary time, remind me of a lawyer's summation.  The first one, which I am proclaiming, especially.

Deuteronomy 30: 10-14 is pleading to the jury.  If only you would heed the voice of the Lord...and keep His commandments and statutes...For this command that I enjoin...

I'm memorizing the last sentence, so I can look everyone in the eyes, when I say,

No, it is something very near to you,

already in your mouths and in your hearts;

you have only to carry it out.

I know.  I'm such a drama queen.  I don't care.  I'm proclaiming something important, and it's necessary that everyone understands.

Since I can't trust the second reader to be there, I'm also preparing the reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Colossians 1:15-20.  I'll read it as a polemic.  I'll emphasize God and just rattle away very quickly: thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers, because I need to get across the concept that only God is important.  These titles are inferior.  Because

He is before all things...

He is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning...

I'm really slowing down when I say preeminent.  I'll say it slowly and carefully, because it's the context of the verse that must come across.  Jesus is first in history, first in the universe, and I want everyone to realize that He must be first in their hearts.

Then there's the Gospel, which is the story of the Good Samaritan.  I hope certain people are listening to this lesson.  They'll know who they are.  They're my friends who are always worried about "liability."  Listen up!

Fairweather Catholics

My Lay Dominican Study Group is reading Catherine of Siena--the Dialogue, translation by Suzanne Noffke, O.P.  We're at the part where Catherine is talking about the steps to holiness.  We're on the first step, but this step is where quite a few quit.  They don't ascend any further.

This image brought to mind, a friend of mind.  She thought that she would whip her body and soul into shape, by attending daily Mass, and walking to work.  She had her husband drop her off at the church.  She started attending daily Mass.  Afterwards, she walked to work.

She never persevered.  She quit.

When I asked her why, she blamed the priests.  She said the priests were too weird; they got to her.  I asked her what that had to do with the Eucharist. She just gave me a quizzical look, but no verbal reply.   

St. Catherine says the following about people like my friend, But there are many who begin their climb so sluggishly and pay what they owe me (God) in such bits and pieces, so indifferently and ignorantly, that they quickly fall by the way.  The smallest wind makes them hoist their sails and turn back.  They had climbed only imperfectly to the first stair of Christ crucified, and so they never reach the second, which is that of his (Jesus') heart.

The Most Cordial Intimacy Possible

                                                         Vie du pere Lataste

I'm reading pere Laste's Sermon 90 at Cadillac Prison, Septembre 15, 1864.  His words are so poignantly touching.  I so wish I could have known him, personally.

In talking about the Sacrament of Reconciliation to the women prisoners at Cadillac Prison, he tells them that if they wish, he will be their soul mate.  He urges them to call him "father," and he will call them, "my children."  How more loving can you get?  He continues, "If you desire, there will exist between us the most candid, the most sincere, and the most cordial intimacy possible."

Be still my heart!  Does God make spiritual directors and confessors like this, any more?

Another Prayer Group Tale

The pastor, Father Diotrophes thought he had them--the prayer group that is.  They always spooked him with their quiet shuffling around.  They just annoyed him.  Anyway, he told their leader to stop meeting during the summer.  Surprisingly, their leader didn’t say anything but nodded his head in agreement.  He did understand though, because he said, “Before we end for the summer, may we have a procession to crown Mary?”  The pastor readily agreed.

“Hooray!” thought the pastor.  They’ll be gone for the summer.

He forgot about the May procession until he was awaken from his nap by singing.  He looked out the window, and saw many, many people surrounding the statue of Mary, in front of the rectory.  

Good Lord!  They were woke him up with “And the Father Will Dance!” 

“Lord have mercy.”

“That little prayer grew?  This must be a nightmare.”

No, it was still a little, overly pious, overly devotional, group.  But they had somehow managed to gather their friends and family together, for a May crowning of Mary.  They were also elderly and forgetful.  The leader forgot that the pastor said not to meet during the summer.  Things carried on, as before.  And the Father danced fumed.