090525

 

More apocalyptic nightmares

This morning PROVED that IT'S THE ACV THAT'S DESTROYING ME

miserable, sick, tired, sad, exhausted, distracted, lost, overwhelmed
All from bloody probiotics. I hope they die off fast.

Sobbing on the bike again because I got stuck for 15 MINUTES trying to say the Angelus properly. "I can't ever get it right." "Nothing is ever good enough." Anger surged up in me, like God was doing this for spite or something. But I REJECTED that lie. I NAMED it AS A LIE. And I affirmed in contrast, that I WASN'T mad at God, OR Mary. I did NOT hate them. I LOVED them. But I "hated myself" because I "wasn't loving them well enough."

OCD hell returned today. I almost gave up. I'm so tired.
No matter how I beg in prayer for help, it keeps going. In that same despair as I had on the bike, I said, "maybe this IS mercy. Maybe God WANTS me to suffer like this, every day. Maybe NOT having this hellish compulsion would somehow be harmful to my soul." The black lies added, "I guess I can't expect God to deliver me. Maybe He doesn't want to. He won't help me because I should be strong enough to stop on my own." LIES!!! God is not sadistically just watching me sob and scrub at my skin until it bleeds, praying for help to stop, and refusing to do anything! THAT'S NOT WHAT HE'S LIKE. If He DOESN'T "make it stop," then I HAVE to TRUST beyond all appearances that HE HAS A GENUINELY LOVING REASON to let me keep going so helplessly.
And TODAY, I suddenly realized something. Maybe this is PURGATORY PAYOFF. I "can't stop" the mad scrubbing because when I do, the physical feeling of my body registers as a "sexual sin", and stopping feels like "consenting" to the sin. So I have to scrub the evil feeling away as hard as I can, so that I feel only FIRE and PAIN instead, NOT touching or itching or evil softness. WHAT IF THIS IS "PENANCE" FOR "PINK" SINS???? What if this is legit God giving me the BLESSED OPPORTUNITY to suffer as restitution for the atrocities we committed as a young adult??? The Julie days right up into the Jay days were PLAGUED with tar-black sins, which almost sent us to literal hell MANY times, BOTH spiritually and physically– death was ALWAYS at our door. But God kept it locked. And maybe now God is helping us repair the damage we can't even see, by suffering like He did when He saw us so lost in the past. Maybe this "OCD hell" is actually a key part of keeping us out of the real hell. It's either this temporary burning, or that unending one. If that's so, then God, just give me the grace to suffer better. And thank You.


Speaking of hell, I'm on Animorphs book 6 and SUDDENLY MY ENTIRE CHILDHOOD MIND MAKES SENSE. This isn't just how I used to write and speak. It's ALSO how I used to THINK. The concepts and ideas and horrors in these books LITERALLY COLORED MY VISION OF THE WORLD and I never realized it until now, because I never re-read these formative books until now– and I never realized they were THIS formative!!
Why am I emphasizing this now, already 6 books in?
Because THIS book– spoiler alert– talks about what it feels like to be infested by a Yeerk.
...That was evidently how I learned how to describe what I was suffering with D.I.D. I didn't know that's what it was, but this finally gave me matching words... and my religion gave it the matching label of demonic possession.
I daresay you can already see just how deeply this affected the Irispherae, too.
It's weirdly liberating, like being unshackled after many long years... it feels like waking up from a long dream, or looking back on a long and hard life, and with a stunned quietude, realizing that what I thought I knew was actually not the reality, and that now, in any case, it's finally over. All those ideas I had as a child did NOT come from a vacuum. They all had roots outside of me. I was NOT a child prodigy or imaginative genius like my mom tried to make me feel. No. I was just a regular old kid, writing things based on what I read, and thinking according to what I experienced, either in physical life or in fictional life. I'm NOT special. I'm NOT the exception. I'm NOT different. And I finally feel free. I finally feel like I can breathe, and let go at last. My "ideas" weren't "exclusive unique messages from God" that, if I didn't personally publish them perfectly, would be lost to humanity and I would pay the awful price. (Melody fueled that delusion in me, sadly. I don't think she realized it.) For my entire life I had this horrible feeling of doom and "time is running out" hanging over me like the sword of Damocles, like these "stories" were a divine mission and I had to sacrifice everything to make them known to the world, even if I didn't know how, or where they came from, or what to do with them. But now? Now I know the truth, at last. They came from OTHER stories. They AREN'T the meaning of my life. And, best of all, I DON'T "HAVE TO" BE AN AUTHOR. Please tell my mom that. That's NOT my vocation. Its NOT the "reason I exist." You know what IS?
KNOWING, LOVING, AND SERVING GOD.
That's it. I have TRUE joy and purpose now, and everything and anything else I could possibly have in life I only have TO serve that highest purpose. I'm happy now. THIS is what matters.
Everything I lost, I feel I can finally let it go now. It played its part. If God took it away, then I don't need it anymore. I can trust that.
Besides, I'd rather have what I have now– this growing faith and love and hope, this growing knowledge of God, this new peace and purity and purpose– rather than go back to ANYTHING of my past, no matter how much I used to idealize it.
I will only go forwards. I will only strive upwards. My only goal is Heaven. And that's enough.




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https://email.eteachergroup.com/lt.php?x=4lZy~GE5IIOeDHN60ADFW.hu1q_WuN-gjeY3kXM2IXXN7sB.zUy.2.Ft2Hyoiu~vkecyZHoWInGg95B7yNLKUVGfRH6kjtL3luo1zLd2I0

"The Hebrew word Shema literally means “to hear,” but in the Bible it carries a far deeper sense: to listen, to pay attention, and to obey. In Hebrew thought, true hearing is never passive. When God says Shema, He calls for response, for action that flows from attentive listening... listening to His Voice is the essence of covenant life.

"In our world of constant noise, the call to shema is revolutionary. It’s more than hearing with the ears; it is tuning the whole self, heart, mind, and body, toward God. To shema is to let His words shape your choices, your relationships, your entire life.
When Israel failed, the prophets often cried out that the people had “ears but did not hear.” The tragedy wasn’t deafness, but disobedience. True hearing means living differently because you have received God’s Word."

"The Hebrew Bible never separates listening from doing. In fact, there is no distinct word for “obey” in biblical Hebrew. Instead, the word "shema" carries both senses at once: to hear IS to obey. That’s why the Shema prayer doesn’t stop at “Hear, O Israel,” but flows directly into the command to love God fully. Even Jesus quotes the Shema as the greatest commandment, showing its enduring power..."

"What About You? When was the last time you truly heard, not just with your ears, but with your whole being? Maybe it was in prayer, when God’s word cut through your distractions. Maybe it was in the cry of someone who needed you. To live out Shema is to ask daily: Am I only hearing… or am I listening with a readiness to respond?"


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https://mailchi.mp/95609f1b4f7a/how-a-word-for-the-year-can-change-us-4321281?e=90020a5cfd

‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ "Have you ever been brave enough to be honest with God? Or does that thought terrify you? Do you wonder if your faith can survive your real questions, or do you feel like you have to slap a "Jesus" sticker on your pain and keep moving?
Have you told yourself that holiness means cheerfulness through hardship, looking for silver linings without naming the storm?
That ISN'T faith. That’s PRETENDING."

"Real faith is willing to lament, which in Scripture is weeping and mourning. It’s acknowledging our pain, telling God how we really feel, bringing Him our doubts and questions. It’s worship in raw form— grace poured out through tears."

‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️💔💔💔💔💔 "I remember having coffee with a friend whose dreams had crumbled. But she felt it was wrong to bring her disappointments to God because "He only wanted to hear praise and thanksgiving." So she bottled up her feelings and eventually stopped praying. She didn’t know the way back.
Lament is the way back. It’s wrestling with God but still leaning on His promises—crying out in pain while trusting His goodness."


"Lament is reverent, but it is not tame or quiet. Hebrews 5:7 says, “In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.” The Psalms, which model how to pray, are drenched in lament. The psalmists poured out their complaints and questions to God when they were alone and afraid. Their cries were reverent, and they were seen as worship."

"Lament takes wild trust. It’s believing our honesty matters to God and that He invites it out of love. It’s NOT grumbling. Grumbling is talking about God while lament is talking directly TO Him. Grumbling creates distance. Lament draws us near."

"So don’t hold back in your prayers, feeling you need to "clean up" first. God wants your heart. Don’t walk away believing He doesn’t care. You can trust Him to hear and hold your pain, however messy and muddled it feels."

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https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-man-in-lamentations

"In this lament, an anonymous (young) man complains about his own heavy suffering brought on him by God... the poet contemplates divine providence and the manner in which a person should accept suffering. The contents of the lament can be summarized as follows:"

💔💔💔💔💔💔💔 "1. Suffering and Despair: The man opens his lament with the words: "I am the man who has known affliction under the rod of His wrath." He continues with describing the afflictions meted out on him by God. The afflictions are described in a highly poetic language, full of similes and metaphors... The man’s complaints are very similar to the complaints of Job about his own suffering, as well as to the descriptions of other similar “righteous” (or “pious”) sufferers in Mesopotamian wisdom compositions. Because of the stereotypic and highly poetic style, the exact nature of the man’s sufferings cannot be determined; some passages point to a physical illness, others to captivity and incarceration. Clearly, the author has the feeling that God is angry at him for some unknown (or unspecified) reason, and therefore does not heed his prayers. Consequently, the man has fallen into utter despair, almost losing all hope for divine help."

⭐⭐⭐⭐💜💜💜💜"2. Contemplation and Hope: After contemplation, the man recalls that the LORD’s grace is endless, and regains his trust in Him. He, therefore, has to wait silently, hoping for his salvation. Accordingly, he counsels, in proverbial sayings, any sufferer like him not to despair, but to wait silently for deliverance. Because the Lord is righteous and merciful, He brings suffering on human beings ONLY as punishment for their sins."

⭐⭐⭐‼️‼️‼️"3. Communal Confession and Lament: The man applies his own individual experience to the whole community: He counsels the community to confess their sins, repent, and appeal to God for redemption. Then he utters a brief lament over the disaster that fell upon his people."
(This is so beautifully Christian. Nothing we do or think or feel is ever "just for ourselves." Every experience we have, given or permitted by God, is meant to benefit others... yes, even our suffering, and maybe even especially our suffering. Similarly, nothing that happens "outside" of us is ever truly disconnected from us. "For whom does the bell toll?" It is always for thee, because your neighbor's soul is not isolated from yours. You are both human, both God's creatures, both called to live with Him. Whatever your neighbor suffers, so do you, in some mystical sense. Christ takes this principle and makes it unavoidably literal. Christ, out of sheer love for every soul, ACTUALLY suffers both with and IN every human being on earth, AS God AND as man. To be a Christian is to join Him in this... and when we do, we cannot help but lament. We cry for those who are too blind or lost or hardened to cry. We weep for those who are too hurt or scared or numb to feel anything anymore. We lament as an act of charity, an act of mercy, an act of justice even. By the paradox of grace, our self-knowledge of pain enables us to act selflessly for others in pain... not only by mourning with them, but also by healing and preventing further pain. Our laments, for both ourselves and others, are hollow without the equally fervent cry for repentance, without which we cannot return to God.)

‼️‼️‼️‼️ "4. Supplication for Rescue from Enemies: The man continues to complain about his misery: He is still pursued by foes who wish to kill him for no justified reason. He begs God to rescue him and destroy his enemies."

"Some modern exegetes... positing that the individual who speaks in the first person singular is a “corporate individual,” representing Zion or the people of Israel, and thus the chapter is really, like the rest of the book, a communal lament... “I am the man: [this is meant to say,] ‘I am indeed experienced in sufferings; what pleases You is beneficial to me!’... “The community of Israel said to the Almighty: ‘Master of the World, I am Job, as it is said: “What man is like Job, who drinks scorning like water?”. All that you brought upon Job you wish to bring upon me!’""

"Other modern scholars explain the insertion of the communal confession and lament in the two individual laments in this poem using the concept of “fluid personality,” in which the author identifies his own tragedy with that of the people, and the two entities– the private and the public– merge into one entity... Thus [he] is both the man individually as well as a stand-in for Israel as a whole."
(JESUS DOES THIS LITERALLY TOO)

"The medieval Jewish exegetes, who... attribute the authorship of the book to Jeremiah, assume that the prophet is simultaneously lamenting his personal sufferings alongside the destruction which took place in his time... “I am the man who has known affliction’ ­– who has known affliction more than all the prophets who prophesied about the destruction of the Temple; for the Temple was not destroyed in their time, but in my time!”"

"Most modern exegetes reject these corporate interpretations [mainly because] In the other laments in the book, the individual who speaks in the name of the community in the first person singular is a female figure, “The Daughter (of) Zion” and variants, whereas the “man” of our lament is clearly male. Ṭhe majority of scholars therefore, understand the speaker as an individual who encountered, in the past, a tragedy similar to that of the people who experienced the destruction of the Temple [as punishment for sin], and he saw his personal tragedy as a punishment for his sins. This man now tells his people how he COPED with his suffering through REPENTANCE and FAITH in divine redemption. The editor of Lamentations included the lament of this individual in the book in order to teach people how to cope with the national tragedy that they experienced so that they do not despair and lose faith in future redemption... The aim of the author was to teach the people who experienced the tragedy of the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple how to cope with their suffering and overcome despair, through the example of a person who underwent similar tribulations... some anonymous person who suffered."

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "...the sufferings depicted here are expressed in very general, stereotypic and highly poetic terms, characteristic of the individual laments in the book of Psalms, and are not meant to be identified with the suffering of any historical figure. Instead, the author wished to depict a typical righteous sufferer, who was afflicted by God, such as Job. This personality was intended to serve as an ideal example for each person in the community, who experienced the horrors of the destruction and the exile. From him they would learn how to overcome their despair and skepticism caused by the national disaster."

"Similarly, Mesopotamian wisdom compositions dealing with the problem of the “righteous (or god-fearing) sufferer,” tend to designate the anonymous sufferer as “the (young) man”. For example, the opening lines of the Akkadian poem Dialogue Between a Man and His God read:
“The (young) man was imploring his god as a friend,
He was constantly supplicating, he was praying to him."
Likewise, expressions like “I am the man”, and “I am the young man” recur several times... The author of the Sumerian poem, just like of the author of our lament, preaches the dogma of didactic wisdom that suffering is always a punishment for one’s sins, and therefore the sufferer HAS to keep PRAISING his god and supplicating him, HOPING for divine mercy and forgiveness, and thus he can be ASSURED of ultimate salvation."

"These parallels from the book of Job and Mesopotamian wisdom literature strengthen the hypothesis that “the man” of our lament is a typical figure of a righteous sufferer. However, this man, contrary to Job, does not complain bitterly about his suffering, but accepts it as a just divine verdict, hoping for divine forgiveness and mercy. As such, he serves as a more traditional model than Job, an ideal example and a source of comfort to the people who experienced destruction and exile."
(...I want my life to serve this purpose for others. God please give me the grace, if it be Your Will.)

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https://www.catholiccompany.com/saint-mother-teresa-of-calcutta

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity, and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed, you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint, you will not put yourself on a pedestal.” 
As we can see from this thought-provoking quote, Mother Teresa doesn't see humility as the world sees it. The world sees it as blind self-neglect or a degrading regard for oneself. In contrast, her life shows us that she was a champion for the precious, God-given dignity of every single person. Her definition of humility stresses the down-to-earth, unattached nature of true humility. In practicing it, we have a clarity of sight that allows us to not be consumed by the standards and judgments of the world, whether those judgments place us in a positive or negative light. 

Mother Teresa's Humility List:

1. Speak as little as possible about yourself.

2. Keep busy with your own affairs and not those of others.

3. Avoid curiosity.

4. Do not interfere in the affairs of others.

5. Accept small irritations with good humor.

6. Do not dwell on the faults of others.

7. Accept censures even if unmerited.

8. Give in to the will of others.

9. Accept insults and injuries.

10. Accept contempt, being forgotten, and disregarded.

11. Be courteous and delicate even when provoked by someone.

12. Do not seek to be admired and loved.

13. Do not protect yourself behind your own dignity.

14. Give in, in discussions, even when you are right.

15. Choose always the more difficult task.

At first glance, Mother Teresa's "Humility List" appears to be a startling and even extreme guide to living the virtue of humility. However, if we look at the list with eyes of faith and thoughtful discernment, we'll see that it is not "extreme"—it simply requires just those two things: faith and discernment. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ FAITH – These guidelines are NOT for the faint of heart or the weak-willed! They ARE challenging, and REQUIRE the grace of God to sustain us and increase our stamina when we wish to fall back into our deep-rooted, prideful ways. So take heart—if God wishes us to live the virtues (which He DOES, of course) then we must trust that He WILL provide us with the means TO fulfill His will. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ DISCERNMENT– Some of the points on the list can be taken to an unhealthy extreme: "Accept insults and injuries..." "Do not interfere in the affairs of others..." In some serious cases, it may end up being the case that the virtuous response is to do the opposite of what she's saying! But Mother Teresa's list is NOT meant to be applied to situations in which we encounter immoral or unlawful behavior. Here is another clarification: when she says "Avoid curiosity," she is not saying "Don't be interested in others." She wants us to avoid idle curiosity, which can lead us to sin. This list is for our daily sanctification."

"We invite you to take this list to prayer, and ask Our Lord and Saint Mother Teresa to help you see HOW to make these important points a part of your daily growth in virtue!"

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https://reconquest.heralds.org/?vgo_ee=PfIDJMSlud6iEplVyp0x9RD0aoX4BD9M2%2FgER7ifZRV63XLEIdeQ4ZY%3D%3ANcMMtdxw%2FYKsdGVD8HE7tVvROBgdZN8o

Dona Lucilia, the mother of Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, was remarkable for her serenity in suffering, but also for her magnanimity. At ninety-two years of age, she was concerned about the people who came to visit her son, because they often had to wait to be seen. She would invite them into the living room and keep them company, so as to make their wait more pleasant. 
On certain days, Dona Lucilia may have felt ill or may not have slept at night and would have liked to remain in repose; but she made an effort to give herself completely to others, because she loved them as herself.
This was a small way in which she embraced the cross, rather than prioritizing her own comfort and ease. But we are all aware of how difficult these crosses of every day can be.

"In fact, we may ask ourselves why suffering is necessary at all... One reason that suffering— whether large or small— is necessary, is that, without it, we easily forget our dependence on God. Many, many people who enjoy a life full of satisfaction and ease become accustomed to the idea that "everything is going as well as possible" and that they have no need of God at all. 
Another reason for Providence to allow us to undergo tribulations is so that we do not fall into relativism and negligence through lack of vigilance. We must practise the virtues through effort. God desires that we become strong warriors, in order to give us more merit. And in this regard He gives us the exercises He deems best to strengthen us in that moment."

In the Gospels we find some episodes that serve as a lesson in this regard. Consider the woman with the haemorrhage who obtained an instantaneous cure from Our Lord. Would she have made any effort to approach Our Lord at all if it had not been for her affliction? Here we find yet another reason that explains why God sends us tribulations: it provides us with an opportunity to show Him, through concrete acts and gestures, that we truly love Him."

"Love is above all else; it is stronger than pain. 
Our love must be such that all the difficulties that are sent to us by the hand of Providence should be received willingly, with courage and magnanimity of spirit. This is the mainstay of our interior life: a complete renunciation, full of joy; tragedy and adventure intertwined, enlivening each other instead of excluding each other! If we have love, we will lack nothing, and we will gain glory."

"On the Cross, Our Lord gave us Mary as Mother. Let us hold fast to Our Lady in order to suffer with joy and to quickly reach the supernatural riches and wonders, where we will come to know “the breadth and length and height and depth” of Jesus’ love."

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https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/dragons-and-a-courageous-catholic-imagination

"...there’s something beautiful, too, about a boy named Hiccup... who refuses to fight the monster he’s been told to fear and instead chooses to befriend it."

".. Hiccup [is] an outlier in a Viking culture that values brawn over brains and conformity over conscience. Hiccup is a dreamer who doesn’t see the world like everyone else and notices the quirks and details that others overlook. His father, Stoick, is the village chief and the image of traditional masculine idealism—fearless and convinced that dragons are the enemy. His name fits: Stoick is stoic in the classical sense—emotionally guarded, restrained, and proud.
But when Hiccup wounds one of the most feared dragons (Toothless)—and then finds himself unable to kill it because of his nagging conscience— everything begins to change in the village. That change doesn’t start with a bold plan or a grand speech. It begins with a single decision: one act of mercy in place of fear."

"Hiccup is set apart, marked by gentleness in a culture that prizes might, and destined— despite his awkwardness— for Viking kingship. As a mother trying to raise my son in the image of Christ the King, I saw something familiar in Hiccup’s journey..."

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 "What I see as the most pivotal moment of the movie comes when Hiccup stares into the large, green eyes of Toothless— that creature he’s been taught to fear and hate— and loosens the ropes that bind his captive. He gives the dragon a choice, even if it means risking his own life. By all accounts, Toothless could have killed Hiccup. And earlier, Hiccup could have done the same when he had the upper hand. But neither acts on instinct or inherited fear. Instead, conscience, mercy, and a clear-sighted refusal to be ruled by violence or clouded judgment prevail."

Later, when trying to explain his choice to his friend, Astrid, Hiccup offers a line that captures the soul of the film: “I wouldn’t kill him... Because he looked as frightened as I was. I looked at him... and I saw myself.” ...it’s one of the most profoundly Catholic lines I’ve heard in a children’s film recently. It echoes what Pope Francis calls a moment of encounter, not just recognition of the other but recognition of the self IN the other. As he writes in Evangelii Gaudium: "Thanks solely to... encounter—or renewed encounter—with God’s love, which blossoms into an enriching friendship, we are liberated from our narrowness and self-absorption. We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves in order to attain the fullest truth of our being."

🖤🖤🖤🖤 "Hiccup and Toothless also imagine something braver than the rest of the Viking world. They imagine differently. They see each other. They encounter each other."

"How often do we assume we already know how someone will respond? ...moments where [we have] shut down the possibility of encounter before it even began. That’s not just impatience. That’s a failure of [loving] imagination, and it’s something [we should] bring to confession. Children, on the other hand, are primed to imagine because they lack the baggage we have as adults—and we as their elders should not foist our narrowness on them. They can still believe in dragons—and in mercy—without the inherited cynicism we so easily pass along.
Hiccup reminds us what it means to live that way, not in delusion but in hopeful vision. He reminds us how we ought to live and how we ought to encounter one another– even those we disagree with, even those we fear. And we ought to form our children—especially our boys, who are often taught to curtail their imaginations—and instead train them toward mercy, and their lives to follow. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls this work of formation “the education of the moral conscience,” a duty entrusted to parents, and one that “guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart” (CCC 1784). That is the very heart of the Catholic imagination. It isn’t just about seeing what is. It’s about seeing what could be— when fear is beautified by love. It means looking past the surface, past the roles we’ve inherited from society’s scripts, and into the deeper truths written into creation by the hand of God."

"Near the end of the film, Astrid turns to Hiccup and asks, “Are you actually insane? Or do you just act that way?” He grins: “Is there a third option?” Yes, there is a third option, one that transcends fear, violence, and the limitations of the secular world’s imagined rules. I suggest, radically even, that that third option is sainthood.
After all, the saints, too, looked “insane” to their cultures. St. Francis talked to birds. St. Joan rode into battle. St. Joseph followed dreams. Each of them saw something more. And each had to decide whether to fit into the world as it is or help shape it into what it was meant to be.
Of course, that’s precisely what Hiccup does in the film. And it’s what I hope to nurture in my own son as I raise him toward the universal call we all share as Catholics: sainthood. It’s also what we should strive to encourage in every child entrusted to our care, whether in our families, classrooms, or parishes. Some of these children dream a little differently, see the world a bit sideways, or imagine possibilities others overlook. (And really, isn’t that true of all children, in their own way?) Each of those imaginations is worth nurturing—because every one of them is called to become a saint, to imagine themselves as such. And WE are to imagine them in this way, too."

"Importantly, choosing a “third option” like Hiccup isn’t daydreaming for its own sake, or rebellion disguised as virtue. It’s the ability to imagine rightly! To stay rooted in virtue and still reach for the sky. The dragons may be fictional in the case of this particular movie, but the courage to face a broken world with wonder and mercy: that’s real. That’s the stuff of saints. That’s the mark of a Catholic imagination fully embodied and sprung alive.
And when we share stories like this with our children, we’re not just passing the time. We’re forming their imaginations, priming them for virtue that might surpass even our own sometimes, especially if we talk to them afterward about what the story means. We’re reminding them that they are not bound by fear or by the secular world’s narrow vision of who they might become. Our Catholic children have loftier goals!"

"At the end... the entire village is transformed. The people who once feared dragons now ride them. The skies are full. Children and dragons soar together. The world is not destroyed or replaced; it is renewed. A dragon once feared has become a companion. The virtues the Vikings once clung to so tightly— courage, honor, loyalty— had been warped by fear and, in the process, had placed the whole community in danger. But now, those same virtues are transfigured by love: father and son, parent and child, learning, healing, and growing together.
Ultimately, THIS is the gift of the Catholic imagination writ large. It is not an escape from the world but a deeper understanding of it. A world where dragons soar, would-be saints surprise us, and even the most unlikely child might help the rest of us take flight on a starry night— into the spiritual realms we are called to seek and to encounter together."

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https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/06/11/church-community-nones-247904/

Do you have to believe in God to go to church? I used to think so.

Americans are less likely than ever to attend religious services... This rapid secularization has resulted in serious consequences for American community-building. As it turns out, when Americans left their churches, synagogues and mosques, they didn’t replace time spent in religious observance by joining a secular community organization. Instead, we’re spending more time alone than ever.

“Young people, who are fleeing religion faster than older Americans, have also seen the largest decline in socializing...There is no statistical record of any period in U.S. history where young people were less likely to attend religious services, and also no period when young people have spent more time on their own.”

For a long time, this described me.
While I grew up regularly attending religious services—ranging from my grandparents’ Southern Baptist church to the progressive home church my parents attended to the occasional Catholic Mass with my mother—I stopped attending by the time I was in high school. I simply lost—or rather, never developed—the strong spiritual faith I thought was necessary to participate in a religious community. For much of my young adulthood, I was a strident atheist. I appreciated the Christian ethical values I was raised with, but I couldn’t believe that any God, let alone an omnipotent, all-loving one, was real. I wanted to have faith, but I simply couldn’t find it. While I could entertain agnosticism, a full-blown spiritual certainty seemed impossible, and so did the idea that I belonged in a Christian community.

'Over my senior year of college, that began to change. Not surprisingly for an English major, it started with a class on medieval mysticism that exposed me to works by Augustine and Aquinas and—my favorite—Julian of Norwich’s stirring, beautiful Revelations of Divine Love."

"I could feel myself being sucked into self-obsessed despair, and I wanted out. Impulsively, I tried praying, using the simple, conversational style I had learned in my childhood churchgoing.
Forcing myself to pray—especially for the people saying the most uncharitable things about me—turned out to be extraordinarily grounding. At a moment of psychological vulnerability, it provided a crucial internal peace.
...the experience helped me realize that I no longer cared whether God was real or not. That question had ceased to be interesting.

...I started attending an Anglo-Catholic parish. I was first drawn to it out of a desire for ritual—especially the traditions and “smells and bells” of Anglo-Catholicism. But I was hooked by a totally unexpected reason: the community... It was almost an instant gang of friends—one formed around shared values (and a shared interest in Gregorian chants).

At a time when Americans—especially young Americans—are more atomized than ever, having not just individual friends but a real community is increasingly difficult... individual social interaction can be worthwhile, but it can’t replicate the interconnectedness provided by formalized community groups.

Becoming part of a religious institution also allows members to get outside of their own age-segregated bubbles.

A religious community forces you to become the kind of person who shows up. Your life gains a new rhythm, with new obligations.

And while there are plenty of secular alternatives to religious community... nonreligious groups cannot provide the sense of shared moral priorities and explicit moral instruction that religious communities impart.
For me, this moral element is one of the biggest reasons I joined a church... I want to feel accountable to something other than my own conscience, and the hour and a half of weekly contemplation provided in church is difficult to replicate anywhere else.

But despite my regular church attendance for almost two years now, I still haven’t developed a rock-solid faith. I’ve joked... that "I only believe in God about 30 percent of the time on a good day." My ambivalence does set me apart from most of my friends from church... But it doesn’t keep me from coming back.
How common is the path I’ve taken? It’s unclear, but it seems fairly rare. While a growing number of Americans identify as “spiritual but not religious,” being religious but not spiritual is far more unusual. According to one Gallup poll, just 3 percent of Americans who identify as atheists or agnostics attend church weekly or nearly weekly...

As church attendance has declined, so has our connectedness to one another. But for the increasing numbers of spiritually ambivalent Americans, there may be an unusual solution to the loss of community. As counterintuitive as it might seem, more agnostics should give religion a try.

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https://www.thetorah.com/article/evolutionary-ethics-contextualizing-the-biblical-laws-of-war-and-herem

"First, the Israelites must offer the city the option to surrender, which, if accepted, will prevent any bloodshed. If this appeal is rejected, however, the soldiers are to kill all the adult males... While it is understandably disturbing for modern readers of the Hebrew Bible to find explicit commands to annihilate foreign peoples and take their women and children as spoils, pre-modern societies worked with a different notion of morality.

"The common-sense understanding of "morality"... is to determine "morality" in terms of prosocial behavior such as altruism, cooperation, etc. However, evolutionary approaches to morality recognized long ago that just 'being nice' doesn't cut it in natural conditions where only the strong survive. As such, the survival of a group dictates that individuals cultivate two opposing (but complementary) tendencies: just as it requires cooperation and self-sacrifice (altruism) for the benefit of the in-group, so too it often requires hostility and self-sacrifice (heroism) in defense against hostile out-groups.

"To be clear, I am discussing "morality" from a descriptive perspective, i.e., identifying the CRITERIA by which human beings DISTINGUISH a given behavior as right or wrong. It does NOT advance a prescriptive conclusion, which would involve proposing what SHOULD constitute right or wrong behavior."

"...in human warfare... rival males are often targeted to neutralize threats, and women are captured as reproductive resources.
Yet some conflicts aim at complete annihilation, including women. This can happen when enemy groups are culturally similar and closely connected, where the killing of women prevents the continuation of the enemy’s culture and identity.

Richard Dawkins, famous for his "selfish gene" theory, introduced the concept of “memes”— units of culture like songs, fashions, or ideas— that spread by imitation, much like genes spread biologically. Later thinkers built on Dawkins’ theory, highlighting how culture evolves in flexible, diverse ways. For example, dual inheritance or gene-culture coevolution theory suggests that human behavior results from a continuous interaction between our genes and our culture, with each influencing the other. By factoring in the cultural aspects, it becomes clear why the tendency in ancient warfare was to be especially brutal with societies that were contiguous and shared the land. The continuation of the laws of war in Deuteronomy illustrates this point.
The requirement to first offer surrender and the limiting of killing to males applies only to fighting a war outside Israelite territory against enemies that are not Canaanites. For the local peoples, no surrender is permitted, nor are the Israelites permitted to allow any to live. It must be total annihilation. Requiring the elimination of the Canaanite peoples here is not only for the biological survival of the in-group but for the exclusivity of its cultural values. The law of the neighboring nations does not result from ethnic motivations, but fear of that the Israelites may be influenced by the forms of worship practiced by the natives, including their gods. This is stated clearly earlier in Deuteronomy, as part of the Moses’ introductory speech.
This passage leaves behind a purely materialistic, naturalistic motive of biological survival, requiring the killing of the Canaanites for the “higher” purpose of eliminating their cultural threat. 

...the underlying rationale for the brutality of ancient warfare, namely the fear of retribution. Without external international peace-brokers, the only reliable way to escape being at the losing end of the escalating cycle of attacks and reprisals is to either completely decimate one's rivals or deter them from any future conflict.

these passages seem to rework older biblical traditions to present an idealized version of Israel’s past—one in which the people are commanded to fully separate themselves from foreign nations and their religions and they do so. We already noted how the addition of the requirement to slaughter all the inhabitants of local cities reworked an older law that was about conquest and allowed for surrender. Similarly, Deuteronomy 7 reshapes an earlier passage in Exodus that describes God sending an angel to drive out the Canaanites. In Deuteronomy, this task of eliminating the native populations is given directly to the Israelites!

Unlike the focus of Ezra and Nehemiah on ethnic purity, these texts in Exodus and Deuteronomy focus on religious purity, exclusive cultic devotion to YHWH and destruction not of the Canaanite cultural markers but of the people themselves.
The rhetorical purpose of these passages about annihilating the local Canaanite population is to emphasize the importance of maintaining a certain type of national identity. These texts promote a total war against foreign cults, aiming to solidify allegiance to the national God.

At the end of the day, however, readers must confront the fact that parts of the Hebrew Bible espouse a program of violent jihad.
...in their ancient context, they were expressions of the realities of primitive warfare. They are rooted not in what we would call ethics, but as part of a calculus dictated by evolutionary (survival) pressures, which seeks to negotiate between empathy and self-preservation in hostile circumstances. Keeping these things in mind allows ancient texts to speak for themselves without insisting they dictate contemporary moral norms.

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https://www.thetorah.com/article/deuteronomys-herem-law-protecting-israel-at-the-cost-of-its-humanity

The basic meaning of the root "h-r-m" in Hebrew and cognate Semitic languages is “separate, set aside, remove something from profane use.” Items that are declared ḥerem are dedicated to the deity and enter the category of “holy.” Such an act of sanctification is clearest in the declaration by the individual Israelite of personal items dedicated to YHWH. This sanctification also emerges from the rule that all items declared ḥerem fall in the category of priestly perquisites. While the Priestly texts concentrate on voluntary gifts to the sacred precinct, other biblical texts speak of ḥerem in a martial context, but still with the concept of gift/donation. [But] applied to war [it] is semantically distant from the cultic usage.The conceptual link between ḥerem as setting aside for God and ḥerem as total destruction of a city can be seen in the short report of the engagement between Israel and the Canaanite king of Arad... Israel responds militarily and makes a theurgic ḥerem vow, i.e., an act designed to ensure divine aid... In the ensuing battle, Israel overcame the Canaanites of Arad, and followed through with their vow of forfeiting the spoils of war [to God], and renamed the now destroyed site Hormah, “destruction,” a memorial to their vow."

"Deuteronomy’s herem differs from all [other nations] in that it sees the total destruction of all the inhabitants of Canaan as a fulfillment of a divine command. This conception is unique in the ancient world and requires explanation. Deuteronomy’s rationale for this extreme behavior was that leaving Canaanites within the land would lead Israel to adopt their abominable ways, and thus lead to Israel’s destruction... The ideal king centralized all worship of YHWH in the God-chosen Temple of Jerusalem, cleansing the Land of Israel of idolatry. In this way, Josiah saved Judah the fate of the kingdom of Israel that was sent into exile a century earlier because it had "followed the customs of the nations which YHWH had dispossessed before the Israelites"... the law was meant to send a clear message: Idolatry was completely and totally foreign to the land of Israel, allotted by YHWH to the nations; Israel’s lot was solely with YHWH."

"Israelites who followed the ways of Canaan would suffer the same fate as their Canaanite predecessors. Here was the Canaanite ḥerem turned inward towards Israel itself. The central theme of Deuteronomic teaching—singular allegiance to YHWH in accordance with the covenant of Sinai—was buttressed by the ḥerem law. Not only was the source of idolatry to be eliminated, but even those persons within Israel who were incapable of maintaining their uniqueness in the face of the constant allure of attractive foreign ways were to be uprooted. It certainly seems that the Deuteronomic lawgiver saw Israel as inherently weak; thus he conceived the ḥerem—a two-edged saw, cutting down Canaanites and Canaanized Israelites alike—in order to protect Israel from itself.

The inclusion of the ḥerem law in the Deuteronomic Code led to an inner contradiction within Deuteronomic teaching, for in many social matters the Deuteronomic laws espoused a near universal humanity... Biblical scholars have long recognized the moral and humanistic character of Deuteronomy. The book contains many ethical laws... [with] more humanistic overtones [than laws listed elsewhere]. But these laudable humanistic values did not pertain to the native population of Canaan. Owing to this lack of humanity, later Rabbinic interpreters found the ḥerem offensive, leading them to mitigate its terms by creative midrashic exegesis. But in the end, they were unable to overcome the unambiguous letter of the law: “You shall not let a soul remain alive” (Deut 20:16). After all, a divine command could not be nullified or modified, even when the subject of YHWH’s humanity was on the line."


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https://www.thetorah.com/article/obliterating-cherem

Declaring cherem in the ancient world was serious business. Any person or living thing subject to cherem was irredeemably doomed to utter annihilation. Any object declared cherem was the property of God and could never be redeemed.

cherem in the ancient Levant meant the slaughter of enemies (including their wives, children, slaves, and animals), who were deemed “opponents” of a god. This was perpetrated on behalf of that god (e.g. Yhwh or Kemosh), and therefore what was killed or associated with those cheremed was dedicated to that god.

"What sustained cherem was the belief system underpinning it... the effects of cherem were believed to be inescapable... ‘purging the cherem’ did not involve merely retrieving the stolen [booty], nor the thief [sentenced] alone. Instead, the ‘purge’ extended to his animals and to his guiltless children–obviously not as punishment for wrongdoing, but as the inexorable result of a quality inherent in cherem that had nothing to do with culpability or innocence. Woe betide anyone who fell intocherem’s pitiless grasp!"

"[Leviticus 27:29] is quite stunning. Although it is written in the same matter-of-fact style as the rest of the chapter, it essentially states that a human being may be declared cherem, and that said human cannot be redeemed but must be executed. The verse does not clarify when such a person can be declared cherem or by whom. Can a parent declare it about a child? A master about a slave? Does it apply to Israelites or maybe only to captives? ...[it] seems to actually prescribe the killing of innocent persons merely because they were ‘hexed’ by a third party...
Be that as it may, the verse takes for granted that some people can be dedicated through cherem, and that such people must be killed to fulfill that vow. Although this is not exactly human sacrifice, such fine distinctions would hardly be a consolation to the victim! Knowing that such a law existed, at least on the books, stories such as the binding of Isaac (Gen 22), Samuel’s hacking of Agag before the Lord in Gilgal (1 Sam 15), or the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter (Judg 11) suddenly gain context."


"The rabbis had no use for a supernal power that was both amoral and at some tension with strict monotheism— cherem seems to carry its own power or potency, [and] superstition is surely ipso facto irreconcilable with true monotheism; the concept of “cannot be redeemed", while not as extreme as the "not be able to" of Joshua... is still a relic of monolatry (the worship of one god without denial of the existence of other gods)— so they set out to invest biblical cherem with a moral dimension. The rabbis search for a moral explanation for why Achan was executed, implying that the stated reasons in the Bible are insufficient... In short, according to the rabbis, if Achan was put to death he must have perpetrated a mortal sin, not merely the felony of pinching a gold nugget and a dressing gown– and certainly not because someone had decided to pronounce him cherem. In addition, the rabbis could not accept that his entire family was executed. Instead, they reinterpret the verse to mean that the family was brought to watch and learn, not that they were killed."

"We find that those who are liable to death at the hands of Heaven can have their sentence commuted by paying a ransom… Could a person sentenced at the hands of a human tribunal similarly buy himself off? No; because it says (Lev 27:29) ‘cherem [i.e. sentenced to death for a capital crime] shall not be redeemed [but shall surely die]’."

"...The Rabbis were hardly post-modernists for whom literature has no authoritative ‘original’ meaning. Instead, I believe it was their conviction that drove them to divert texts away from their literal sense when they believed a higher Torah value dictated it. The rabbis understood the Torah to have hierarchized its laws, making some less negotiable than others.
Once upon a time, cherem posed a threat as real as a force of nature; it could not be trifled with but was feared like fire or earthquakes or planetary eclipses. To ignore cherem would allegedly endanger the entire community.
But by the time of the rabbis, cherem lost its hold. Henceforth, killing people on its behalf would involve superstition and murder. So in order to uphold the Torah’s own value system—that condoned neither paganism nor murder—the rabbis deconstructed cherem. A similar pattern is discernible in their treatment of other problematic texts – all of which they could no more scrap than they could leave untamed."


"Rabbi Akiva’s parable sums it up. A Roman called Turnos Rufos had challenged R. Akiva on the propriety of helping those whom God had chosen to afflict. If a king locked someone up in jail and another of his subjects went and freed that prisoner, would such flouting of the king’s words not constitute treason, argued the Roman official? But R. Akiva responded with his audacious counter parable. A king was angry with his son and ordered him to be jailed and deprived of food and drink. One of his subjects disobeyed and took food and drink to the prince. “When the king heard, don’t you think he would lavish gifts on the fellow who came to his son’s rescue?”
The parable’s king stands for God, and R. Akiva’s point is presumably that once God revealed the thirteen divine attributes to Moses, God’s higher purpose became clear. Thereafter, humans must think twice before going along too literally with angry utterances– even IF those utterances derive from the most kingly of kings."


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The Lord says this:
Now I will restore the tents of Jacob,
and take pity on his dwellings:
the city shall be rebuilt on its ruins,
the citadel restored on its site.
From them will come thanksgiving
and shouts of joy.
I will make them increase, and not diminish them,
make them honoured, and not disdained.



The Lord says this:
They have found pardon in the wilderness,
those who have survived the sword.
Israel is marching to his rest.
The Lord has appeared to him from afar:
I have loved you with an everlasting love,
so I am constant in my affection for you.
I build you once more; you shall be rebuilt,
virgin of Israel.


Loving Trust and Total Surrender made Our Lady say “Yes” to the message of the angel, and Cheerfulness made her to run in haste to serve her cousin Elizabeth. That is so much our life – saying “Yes” to Jesus and running in haste to serve Him in the poorest of the poor.


Let us keep close to Our Lady and she will make that same spirit grow in each one of us. September 10th is coming very close. That is another beautiful chance for us to stand near Our Lady, to listen to the Thirst of Jesus and to answer with our whole heart. It is only with Our Lady that we can hear Jesus cry, “I Thirst”,


We will never come to the end of the gift that came to Mother for the Society on that day, and so we must never stop thanking for it. Let our gratitude be our strong resolution to quench the Thirst of Jesus by lives of real charity – love for Jesus in prayer, love for Jesus in our Sisters, love for Jesus in the poorest of the poor – nothing else.


So let us keep very small and follow Little Flower’s way of trust and love and joy, and we will fulfil Mother’s promise to give saints to mother Church.

Paul’s letters always begin with a prayer of thanksgiving for the faith of the members of the Church addressed, and a prayer that their faith may blossom more and more. Here the accent seems to be chiefly on the aspect of knowledge of God, which will lead to all the other virtues mentioned, such as perseverance, strength and endurance. Indeed, the next paragraph (tomorrow’s reading) provides just such knowledge, since it leads on to the wonderful hymn to Christ, which is itself based on Christ as the Wisdom of God, drawing on images of the Wisdom Literature of Judaism. The Greek word epignosis, which occurs twice in today’s passage, is highly significant: it means not simply ‘knowledge’ but ‘intimate knowledge’, more than gnosis, in some way more than knowledge itself. This is really the sort of knowledge of God which is gained only by lengthy familiarity in trusting and intimate prayer and meditation.
    This is backed up by the image of light. Believers are transferred from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom of the Son that God loves – or as the Nicene Creed says of Jesus, ‘God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God’. In the early Church baptism was often known as ‘enlightenment’, since it brings enlightenment from the powers of darkness, and leads to ‘the inheritance of God’s saints in light’.


Luke often teaches us that no one can be a disciple of Jesus without first admitting their sinfulness: Zacchaeus the tax-collector, and the woman who wept at Jesus’ feet (Luke 7.36-50) are other examples.


As first-born in creation he is the image of the invisible God, in whom all is created, just as, in the Book of Wisdom, Wisdom is called the image of God, the reflection of the eternal light and the mirror of God’s active power. In Wisdom, in Christ, God can be seen. In the second stanza, as first-born from the dead, Christ brings all things to perfection and completion. The hymn is a sort of parabola, starting with God in creation, descending to Christ as Lord of the Church, and returning with Christ to completion in God.


The development of this question of fasting like the disciples of John and the Pharisees is fascinating. In Mark, the earliest gospel, the question is about ritual observance, whether this symbolic practice still has value. The answer is No, for we are in the situation of the wedding-feast; grafting the new onto the old will not rescue the old but will rather make matters worse. The emphasis is on the practices of Judaism and whether they can usefully remain in the new dispensation. They cannot, though fasting will soon have its own symbolism, a sharing in the suffering of the bridegroom when it occurs.
    Matthew on the other hand is concerned also about the old skins and forbids pouring the new wine into old skins because he wants to conserve also the old skins. Put the new wine into new skins so that ‘both are preserved’ (Matthew 9.17). So for Matthew Judaism as it is retains some value which is worth preserving. Luke’s point of view is different again: his interest is in the new situation. You can’t make the wedding-guests fast; there is no point in cutting and so spoiling the new cloth, for the new and the old simply do not fit together, and those who drink the old wine do not even want the new wine.
    The question had arisen from a real situation of whether the disciples of Jesus should adopt accepted practices of religious observance. By the time Luke comes to write the boot is really on the other foot. There is no point in even attempting to join together the two incompatible dispensations, for – as Luke shows in the Acts of the Apostles – Judaism as a whole has rejected the novelty of the wedding-feast and keeps to the ‘good wine’ of the old dispensation.


Not long ago, you were foreigners and enemies, in the way that you used to think and the evil things that you did; but now he has reconciled you, by his death and in that mortal body. Now you are able to appear before him holy, pure and blameless – as long as you persevere and stand firm on the solid base of the faith, never letting yourselves drift away from the hope promised by the Good News, which you have heard, which has been preached to the whole human race, and of which I, Paul, have become the servant.
    It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church. I became the servant of the Church when God made me responsible for delivering God’s message to you, the message which was a mystery hidden for generations and centuries and has now been revealed to his saints. It was God’s purpose to reveal it to them and to show all the rich glory of this mystery to pagans. The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory: this is the Christ we proclaim, this is the wisdom in which we thoroughly train everyone and instruct everyone, to make them all perfect in Christ. It is for this I struggle wearily on, helped only by his power driving me irresistibly.


Yes, I want you to know that I do have to struggle hard for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for so many others who have never seen me face to face. It is all to bind you together in love and to stir your minds, so that your understanding may come to full development, until you really know God’s secret in which all the jewels of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.


very many rich people find that their wealth does not swell them up with pride: rather, they do good and benevolent things with it. For these people the greatest treasure is what they spend in relieving the distress and hardship of others.
    In the virtue of humility men of every kind and every standing meet together, because though they differ in their means they share a common purpose. Their inequality of wealth makes no difference if they are equal in spiritual blessings.
    What kind of poverty, then, is blessed? The kind that is not in love with earthly things and does not seek worldly riches: the kind that longs to be filled with the blessings of heaven.
    After our Lord himself, the Apostles have given us the best example of this greatness of heart in poverty. When their Master called, they instantly left behind all that they possessed, and from catching fish they turned swiftly to fishing for men. Their example inspired many to emulate their faith and so become like them: it was at this time that these first sons of the Church were of one heart and there was one spirit among believers. With all their possessions stripped away they received the riches of eternal blessings, and through the Apostles’ preaching they rejoiced at having nothing that the world could give and possessing all things with Christ.


So it was that when the blessed apostle Peter was going up into the Temple and the cripple begged him for alms, he replied I have neither silver nor gold, but I will give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk! What could be higher than this lowliness? What could be richer than this poverty? He cannot give the support of money but he can give the gift of a restored nature. From the womb his mother brought him forth a cripple; by a word Peter raises him up to health. He did not give the image of Caesar stamped on a coin but he restored the image of Christ in the man himself.
    The man who was given the power to walk was not the only one to receive help from this rich treasure. From the same act of miraculous healing five thousand men received the gift of faith in the Apostle’s teaching. The poor man who could give nothing of what he was asked for restored one lame man to his feet but also healed the hearts of thousands: he found them lame and brought them to be lithe and agile in Christ.