Father Giuse Trần Ngọc Thanh, O.P., was fatally stabbed while hearing confessions.
Father might be a martyr. Think about this. He died dispensing God's forgiveness--in persona Christi. In this horrific act of violence, we see the nobility and grace of being a priest.
Eternal rest grant unto his soul my God & let Your Perpetual Light shine upon him! May he rest in peace! Amen.
We are in the midst of a blizzard. I've spent the day Facetiming with two of my oldest friends. This was a first time.
Judee and I have been friends since high school. We roomed together in Boston. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding. Then we more or less drifted apart. We exchanged Christmas cards and friended each other on Facebook. Today since I had nothing pressing to do, on a whim, I messaged her on a video camera. She came on. She had never done that before and couldn't stop exclaiming over the novelty. It was wonderful to see her in person. It was from Judee that I learned that another high school friend had a death.
Monica and I were so close in high school that people called us the Bobbsey Twins. I was kind of angry with her because I asked her to friend me on Facebook and she ignored me. But when Judee told me that her husband died, I tried to friend her, again. She did immediately, which meant she was currently on Facebook. So I video messaged her. Again, like Judee, Monica had never done that before and was surprised.
We had a long chat. It sounded like her life revolved around her husband, so now she doesn't know what to do with herself. I think she was happy to connect with me. Maybe I lessen her sorrow, a little.
Since today, January 28 is the memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, here is a teaching from one of his conferences. Jesus' suffering gave us examples:
Circa 60 AD: before Rome burned down, before Jerusalem was destroyed, as the early believers who knew that Jesus was the Messiah were making their way across the eastern Mediterranean lands spreading the good news, there was a distinction between the Gentile and Jewish believers.
About 300 miles north of Jerusalem, in the city of Antioch, in today's Turkey, Barnabas and Saul were teaching. For at least a year they remained in Antioch and worshipped with a great number of people.
Seeing so many people following the way that Jesus taught, they were given the name Christians, probably by the Bishop of Antioch to incorporate the Gentiles and the Jews into one church.
In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware is a crime novel. I guess the setting is a hen party in England. I say that because I never heard of a hen party. It's a party for the bride-to-be. Also, the things the girls did at the hen party weren't things girls do around here.
I have two daughters who went places with friends before their weddings, i.e., manicures, facials, massages, parties on schooners, and other various sundry places. This was a vicious vulture venue. What a bunch of mean-spirited floozies.
Their high school sex adventures would make a prostitute blush. I don't think the average teen is into sex like these tarts were.
Outside of the portrayal of their teen sex lives, the crime itself was riveting. There are quite a few red herrings. At one time, I thought the entire hen party was "gaslighting." Ruth Ware spins a good yarn. It is scary and a page-turner. I'd recommend it.
I just came across this old post from Father Nicanor Austriaco, op. It's at least a year old. He's answering the question of why is God sending this COVID pandemic. It still gives me pause for contemplation.
There are numerous stories in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that reveal that there is theological meaning behind plagues and pestilence and pandemic.
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is contemporary fiction about current situations. In fact, the criticism of the novel is that the author isn't "brown" enough, or "Hispanic" enough, or too middle class and has used the current issues to make money on a story.
All of which sounds like jealousy. I also get asked after I've read one of my stories, "Did that really happen?", or "How did you react?", or "What did you do?" ? And when I respond that the story is a story, IOW, fiction, everyone is disappointed or dismisses my work as unworthy of consideration.
Some of our best stories were written by people who weren't part of the story but were around when the events happened. I'm thinking of Leo Tolstoy's, War and Peace, and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Tolstoy was not a soldier and Harriet Beecher Stowe was not a slave nor a slave owner.
This novel took me by surprise. If you had told me that it was about immigration, I wouldn't have been interested. But American Dirt is this month's selection in one of my book clubs. From the first sentence, I was interested. Let me correct myself. I was riveted. I stayed up too late, reading it. I thought about it all day and couldn't wait to get back home. It is a page-turner.
I learned a lot about politics, human nature, Isaac Newton's Fourth Law of Motion, immigration, geography, morality, and hope. I am not going to give you a book summary because I was given a story summary and was not interested in that type of book. The only reason I picked up the book, was because it was next on the list for my book club. It is mesmerizing. I challenge you to read ten pages. If you are human, you will continue to read until you complete the book--with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.
My sister died a month ago. A sibling dying is not an inconsequential event, for anyone. For me, it was deep. You see, she was ten years...
