Zoom is Better for Community

 It occurred to me at a recent TOPS meeting that zoom has brought us closer together. Usually, when we meet for real, we are 10-12 people.  I sit where there's an available seat and talk to the people to my right and left.  

Yesterday, there were 18 of us.  When you zoom, people's names are in their box.  So I finally learned everyone's name.  I couldn't remember the names of many newcomers, before, but after seeing their names and faces for an hour, I got it. 

Also, I heard people whom I don't usually talk to, express themselves, i.e., I got to know them. I realized at the end of the meeting that I am now good friends with everybody.  This doesn't happen at meetings--any kind of meeting, especially regional meetings where you don't know the majority of people.  Even if you told people to mingle, they physically couldn't get around to meeting and speaking to everyone.

Instead of meeting for real all the time and zooming only in inclement weather, maybe we should zoom all the time and meet for real for holiday occasions and award ceremonies.

Trisagion

 Trisagion is my word for today.  As you may guess, the "tri" in Trisagion means three.  It is a phrase describing God that is used three times in our Eucharistic Prayer, the Sanctus: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty...

It has been used since the early centuries.  Sometimes it is called by the Greek, Agios O Theos.  This is a standard hymn at Eastern Orthodox's Masses.

The Blessing and Burden of Family

 "Her Family's Secrets" by Joanne C. Parsons is an easy read. It has a happy ending and is a modern story about a woman whose marriage is falling apart. She inherited a cottage on the Cape. Once she sees the place she envisions just the house she always wanted, but her loser husband resists. This pushback was the impetus for her to break out of the marriage.

Andrea, the major protagonist, throws herself into renovating the cottage. Accidentally, she finds some hidden diaries in the house and lives in the stories of her ancestors. She falls in love again, with another loser but she moves on. She moves on because she finds out she's pregnant. She had been trying to get pregnant for years, so finally when it happens, she just rejoices.

Once again, she restarts her life, and this time it is a keeper. She takes a regular job and makes a new home and a new life by making her own family.

There were a couple of unbelievable exploits that bothered me. The big one was that the author has Andrea reading a local priest's diary. In it, he writes about a confession he heard from one of his penitents. That could never happen. The other boo-boo was that the author mentions that Andrea googled a man who asked her out on a date. She found him and she didn't notice that he was married. He turned out to be the other loser in her life besides her ex-husband. Although he does father her child, so there's that; she desperately wanted to get pregnant. It does have a happy ending and everyone likes that.

Living in a Different Time Zone

Two families and the communion of saints: is a story you will remember.  The Ulma family lived in Poland.  They were a family of eight and 8/9.  The oldest child was eight and the youngest was born and died as his mother, along with the rest of the family, were shot by the Nazis for hiding Jews. Read the story.

Men, women and children are seen behind barbed wire after the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945 in Oswiecim, Poland. CNS photo/Yad Vashem Archives via Reuters

An Occasion for Reparation and Rectification for Sexual Abuse

Will it ever be over?  This article by Father Roger Landry tackles that question. An occasion for reparation and rectification: As we mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the toxic avalanche of revelations about decades of clergy sexual abuse of minors in Boston and beyond, the two headlines are clear. The trauma doesn't surface for maybe decades. But rectification has to continue.  Reparation must be made.

Picture Credit: Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d'Arcy James, Michael Keaton and John Slattery star in a scene from the movie "Spotlight," which chronicles the Boston Globe's uncovering of the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002. U.S. CNS photo/Open Road Films

Significant Calling

 Emmaus Journey is a bible study I follow.  Each week they produce a commentary with questions on Sunday's readings.  This week we have the theme of "being called".  The first reading was about Isaiah's calling, Isaiah 6: 1-8. The second reading is about Paul's calling, 1 Cor 15: 1-11.  Finally, the Gospel is about calling the first apostles, Lk 5: 1-11. 

One of the commentary's questions gave me pause: "What is the most significant thing God ever asked you to do?"  I kept replacing the word significant with synonyms and I would answer differently with each synonym.

If significant is understood as "life-changing", then being professed as a Lay Dominican would be my answer.  I would not be where I am today, were it not for my vocation as a Lay Dominican.  I am not only thinking spiritually, either.  I would never have become a lector, joined Toastmasters, volunteered in a prison, and maybe not undertaken the faith formation of my grandchildren if I didn't feel "called."   

One of my "cloistered brothers" thanks God for being incarcerated.  He would never have become where he is spiritually if he weren't in prison.  I understand because I, also, see how close to God he is.  Maybe cloistered monks reach that level of sanctity but not the average person.

What is the most significant thing God has ever asked of you?

Lord, Give Us Discerning Minds

Who am I to correct a moral theologian?  So I'm offering a differing opinion, not a correction, to this article by Father Ezra Sullivan, op, on the morality of vaccine mandates.  

I can see just by googling the morality of the COVID vaccine that there are differing opinions.  The USCCB tackles the question of morality in vaccines,  in its committees on doctrine and pro-life activities: 

 At present, there is no available alternative vaccine that has absolutely no connection to abortion. Second, the risk to public health is very serious, as evidenced by the millions of infections worldwide and hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States of America alone. Third, in many cases the most important effect of vaccination may not be the protection it offers to the person who receives the vaccination, who may be of relatively robust health and unlikely to be seriously affected by the disease. Rather, the more important effect may be the protection it offers to those who are much more likely to be seriously stricken by the disease if they were to contract it through exposure to those infected. 

The spiritual advisor to my fraternity, Father Nicanor Austriaco, op, concurs with the USCCB regarding vaccination against COVID.  Getting vaccinated is not intrinsically evil.  He has been vaccinated.  Pope Francis has been vaccinated and has urged the faithful to do likewise.

As a simple, old woman, I'll follow the advice of the Vicar of Christ.