Turibius of Mogrovejo

One of my "cloistered brothers" was received today in the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic.  He St. Turibius.
chose to have the religious name of

He was Spanish priest and sent to Peru as Archbishop of Lima.  He baptized both St. Rose of Lima and St. Martin de Porres. 

Be Patient

Lectio
1 PT 2:20B-25

Beloved:
If you are patient when you suffer for doing what is good,
this is a grace before God.
For to this you have been called,
because Christ also suffered for you,
leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.

He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.

When he was insulted, he returned no insult;
when he suffered, he did not threaten;
instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.
He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross,
so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness.
By his wounds you have been healed.
For you had gone astray like sheep,
but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

Studium

Peter is addressing the people's sufferings.  He urges them to imitate Jesus, Who suffered.  Recall Isaiah's Suffering Servant.  Jesus brings healing with God, through his life-giving death.

Meditatio

My sufferings are nothing compared to what Jesus endured.  Life is too short to wallow in self-pity.  I must keep the heavenly promise in view when I feel despair.

Oratio

Lord, I hand myself over, as Jesus taught me.

Contemplatio

Your will be done.

Beaver Destruction

You had to be there.  The area looked like a bomb hit it.  The trees were fell all over the ground. We were hiking Rocky Woods.

Worse!  The beavers had made a dam which caused the water to pool on one side of it and rise.  This wiped out our bridge to cross Chickering Pond.  See how one end is under water.  The entire bridge is under water due to the high water level caused by the damn beavers' dam.

They really did some damage

Look over to the left.  The bridge ends.  It has collapsed.  The bridge itself is under water.  You are looking at the top .

.

Noli Simul Flare Sorbereque

At the bottom of by the page of a magazine I was reading was an ad for a book, The Devil Hates Latin by Katharine Galgano.  It sounded interesting so I bought it.  I was immediately hooked because the hero was a Dominican and although the setting was in Italy, there were many references to Boston.  Add to that, one of the main characters is an ex-con.

What more could I want?  How about action?  Thrills?  Romance?  Catholicism?

The Devil Hates Latin has them all.  It's a very good story.  I'd qualify it as an adventure story.  Two families are strangely united by a common interest.  They go through some scary stuff together.  A rogue religious community tries to eliminate the entire families.  That's the story.  But you find yourself rooting for the ordinary people.  The priests, you have to sort out the good ones from the bad ones.  The bad ones have the money and are trying to protect their power.  An exorcist does the trick.
Another interesting observation was the description of modern Italy.  We in the USA are becoming like that. We're a consumer society, good careers are impossible to find, people aren't getting married, people aren't having children.

The exorcist saves the day.

Product details Paperback: 308 pages Publisher: REGINA Magazine LLC; 1 edition (December 29, 2016) Language: English ISBN-10: 0996647902 ISBN-13: 978-0996647908 Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Buy it here.

God Judges Justly

Oo-o-h. I finally get it.  A scripture phrase has been bothering me ever since I read it, Monday.  It is 1Peter 2: 23.

It says "he handed himself over to the one who judges justly."

I was thinking, Pilate judges justly?

Well I finally figured out that the verse is talking about God--Jesus handed Himself over to the Father by His death.

I would have understood immediately if capitalization was used to refer to God.

He handed Himself over to the One Who judges justly.

See?

No question that One is God.

Pride, Humility, and Social Media

Pride, Humility, and Social Media: On a recent trip to Sacramento, from my home base in the LA area, I flew Southwest Airlines. In an idle moment, I reached for the magazine in the seatback pocket and commenced to leaf through it.

The irony of posting this on a blog is not lost on me.

Facial Expressions

There has always been something about this photo that has bothered me.  I think it's the expressions on the girls' faces.  It's not the suspicious unsmiling expressions on the girls, primarily.  It's the fact that the boy's expression is well, expressionless.  Why?

When my son was that age he would have been wearing the same expression as the girls.  He didn't like having his picture taken and would have been grouchy about it.  He was being forced to do something he didn't want to do, which is what the girls expressions tell me.

So the girls seem like normal kids, to me.  It's Francisco.  What was he thinking?