MONDAY OF THE SEVENTEENTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
Feast of St. Samson (536), Bishop of Dol and St. Innocent I (417), Pope, Martyr

Dear Father:

Suffering as been much on my mind lately -- suffering not only of body, but of spirit. I am across a Newsletter of the Abbey of Saint-Joseph de Clairval in France, the November 21, 1996 issue, about the meaning of suffering. I excerpt a small portion below:

Meanwhile, a sister, a Franciscan missionary of Mary, that Jacques had met during a previous visit to Damascus, learned that he was in the hospital. She came to see him regularly. "She spoke to me of Job, who did not curse God. She referred to the words of the Gospel: 'If the seed of wheat doesn't die in the earth, it doesn't bear fruit.'" The sick man feels these truths penetrate into his soul. He starts to pray again and to receive the sacraments. He even accepts Communion twice a week, and then every day. Thus he discovers the love that pushed Jesus, "man of sorrows," to die for us on the Cross. He experiences a mysterious force that brings him near to Christ. Thanks to the vigor of his newly found faith, he sees in his suffering a hidden redeeming value. Then, resting on divine force and not on his own weakness, he makes God the heroic offering of his eyes and of his hands. He decides to no longer "undergo" his tribulation, but to "accept it." Accepting it is a victory. "Before being wounded, I knew laughter, but not joy, true joy. Really, I wept with joy on my hospital bed. I even said to the nurse sister: `I haven't lost anything!'"

Love transforms hearts, and makes suffering meritorious. According to Saint Francis de Sales: "Divine love not only softens what is bitter, but transforms the cross into joy, because God is the God of joy." Jacques Lebreton experienced it. The joy which infuses the heart by grace, even in the middle of suffering, is not a joy of the senses but a peaceful and mysterious contentment in the faith, which made Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus say: "Down here everything tires me, everything burdens me... I only find one joy, that of suffering for Jesus, but this unfelt joy is above all other joy!" (Letter, March 12, 1889).

But when suffering only brings us sadness and weighs us down, let us recall these other words of the "little" Theresa: "Let us suffer, if necessary, with bitterness, without courage. Jesus truly suffered with sadness: without sadness, would the soul suffer? It is really consoling to think that Jesus, divinely Strong, knew all our weaknesses, that He trembled at the sight of the bitter chalice, this chalice that He had once so ardently desired" (Letters, April 26, 1889, December 26, 1896). Also, when we suffer, let us think that Jesus is there, compassionately close to us, to help us carry today's cross.

Oh, Father in heaven, thank you for bringing your Son to us to suffer for us and thus give us the means to offer our suffering to you for your salvific will and for your glory and for the salvation of our own souls.

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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WEDNESDAY OF THE THIRTEENTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
Feast of our Lady of Mt. Carmel, patron of the Order of the Legion of St. Michael

(This is a solemn Holy Day for members of the Order of the Legion of St. Michael)


Dear Father:

This is a great day, a great feast, of a great Lady -- Our Lady of Mt. Carmel; our Lady of the Brown Scapular.

A little history... The first hermits lived on Mt. Carmel in Israel back in the time of St. Elijah the Prophet hundreds of years before Christ. Mt. Carmel is a mountain range which juts out into the Mediterranean Sea near the present city of Haifa, along the southern border of present-day Lebanon.

St. Elijah is our Spiritual Father in the Order of the Legion of St. Michael. We can read about the Prophet Elijah in the First and Second Books of Kings.

During the Crusades when the Crusaders went to the Holy Land to free it from the domination of the Muslims many of them stayed on Mt. Carmel after they achieved their task.

Also on Mt Carmel were Jewish and Moslem Hermits between 1190 and 1206 dedicated to the life of Elijah the Prophet.

The "Carmelites Rule" dates to 1206. The christian Hermits from Mount Carmel went to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, St. Albert, (not of Trappani) and asked for a Rule of Life. That was the official beginning of the Carmelites. In 1245, the Moslems recaptured much of the Holy Land. They massacred most of the Carmelites. Those who escaped returned to their home countries of Italy, France, England and Germany. It is from these 4 countries in Europe that the Order spread throughout the world. Today, there are 5200 Carmelites of all Branches of the Order, male and female, throughout the world.

It was to St. Simon Stock that Our Lady of Mt. Carmel gave the Brown Scapular that was become so famous among devoted Catholics.

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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TUESDAY OF THE FIFTEENTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
Feast of St. Bonaventure, bishop, doctor

Dear Father:

Well here I go. I wrote about being too busy that I was leaving my soul behind and I done and got myself so busy that I have not made a journal entry in a week. Shame on me!

Well, anyway, today I was reflecting on the Mass and offer this reflection by Fr. Francis Fernandez:

At that last Passover Jesus offered himself to his Father as a victim to be immolated, as the most pure Lamb And both that Supper and the Mass constitute one single and perfect sacrifice with the oblation offered on Calvary, because in all three cases the victim offered and the priest who offers is the same, namely, Christ.

We have to make the Mass the centre of our whole life. Keep trying, so that the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar really becomes the centre and the root of your interior life, and so your whole day will turn into an act of worship - an extension of the Mass you have attended and a preparation for the next Your whole day will then be an act o worship that overflows in aspirations, visits to the Blessed Sacrament and the o ering up to God of your daily work and your family life.

Let us prepare ourselves for Mass as if Our Lord had invited us personally to that last Passover which He ate with his closest friends. Every day we have to hear in our heart, as if addressed to us, those words of Our Lord: Desiderio desideravi hoc Pascha manducare vobiscum, I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you. Great is Jesus' desire, many are the graces He is preparing for us.

The story is told of Saint John of the Cross that, on receiving the news of the death of a priest who had just been ordained, he asked if he had managed to say Mass at all before he died, and on hearing that he had only been able to do so once, the saint is said to have remarked: 'How much he will have to account to God for.' Let us consider now during this period of prayer how well we
celebrate or take part in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar; and what can we say of our desires, our preparation, our efforts to prevent other matters occupying our mind, our acts of faith and of love, during that all too brief period of time we devote to hearing Mass and to making our thanksgiving after Holy Communion?

If, with the help of grace, we really work at it, the Mass will truly be for us the centre to which we refer all our practices of piety, our family and social duties, our work and our apostolate; it will also become the fountain where we recover our strength to begin again each day; the summit towards which we direct our steps, our works, our apostolic desires and the most intimate longings of our soul; it will also be the heart whence we learn to love others who have defects just Eke our own, and who like ourselves have their own less attractive features. If we manage to love the Mass a little more each day, we will be able to say to Our Lord during the thanksgiving after Holy Communion; I'm leaving you now for a while, Lord Jesus, but I'm not going without you who are my consolation, my joy and all the good of try soul... From now on whatever I do, I will do for you and through you, and nothing will be the object of all my words and actions save you, my love.

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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MONDAY OF THE FOURTEENTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
Feast of Blesseds Ralph Milner & Roger Dickenson (1591), Martyr

Dear Father:

I am haunted by this old Inuit Song. The melody and words (sung in Inuit) are simple and yet strangely profound. That is one reason it haunts. In listening to the song it is as if one is on the verge of a profound thought, but not quite able to grasp it.

This song seems to have that character. It is like I know there is something really profound about this song, but cannot quite grasp it -- I just know it. This is not unusual about many aboriginal folk songs -- a sense of old wisdom not quite grasped.

This comes from a little known movie, Heart of Light.

HEART OF LIGHT tells the story of a family in Greenland torn apart by conflict between past traditions and the modern world. The point of departure is a bloody tragedy when Nisi, the older son, suffers a mental collapse and goes on a killing rampage before pointing the gun at himself.

Grief, disgrace, and shame invade the world of the involved and his father Rasmus, faced with a growing contempt from his younger son Simon, decides to leave the community. He heads for the icy inland on a broken dogsled. He encounters an old hermit who magically takes him into the past. It is a perilous journey between a stark reality and a mystical world in search of an inner compass.

The inner compass is what we all must find.

To hear the song Click Here. The song is sung in native Inuit. The words in English are below:

You, the returner
Bear my greeting
When you come
To our great land
Greet my beloved
Greet my little brother and sister
Greet them all from me

I must go far away
Tell them I must go far away
I shall end up
Somewhere far from here
I do not know
If I shall die on my journey
So tell them all
That I say goodbye


Your miserable servant searching for and finding a compass in Jesus and His Church,

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Feast of St. Maria Goretti (1902), Virgin, Martyr

Dear Father:

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in an essay on Prudence the following:

"Every Violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but a stabb at the health of human society."

This is even more true in the Truth is Jesus Christ. Every violence done to truth, no matter how small or large, is a violence perpetrated upon our Lord Jesus Christ.

If we wish to know why our society is so sick in this age, or why the Internet community is so sick, we need look no further than this quote from Emerson to find the answer.

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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THURSDAY OF THE THIRTEENTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle

Dear Father:

I was thinking today about two scriptures that typifies how we should be as Christians. Yes these two scriptures are among the most ignored by us Christians.

The first is the passage about how we should be careful in treating strangers because we could be entertaining an angel and not know it.

The second is the passage where Jesus says, "As you do to the poor and hungry, you do unto me".

Both these passages remind us that Christ is found in each of us thus we must be careful because as we avoid the unlovable, or turn our backs on the lowly, or treat badly a stranger, we ARE doing that to Christ.

The Hindu's have a great idea to help themselves remember the "god within". The Hindu bow to each other. This is not really a gesture of respect to the person they meet, rather it is the recognition of the god within the soul of the person they meet. Thus they are, in essence, bowing to God.

We as Christians believe that the Holy Spirit indwells us. Thus why do we not bow to each other when we meet. If I meet you and I not only meeting YOU, but the Holy Spirit within you.

Demons certainly understand this. One time, early in my Deliverance Ministry, I was invited to a person's house to secretly "evaluate" a friend of the host. The host thought the friend might be demonized. The friend was not told who I was or what I did. She was not even told that I was a Christian.

When I came into the room this person got up from her chair in the middle of the room and positioned herself in the farthest corner of the room OPPOSITE to where I was. She was extremely uncomfortable around me. Although the woman did not know me from Adam, the demons within her sure recognized the Holy Spirit within me and wanted to get as far away as possible.

The living God dwells within us and even the demons take notice. Yet we Christians SHOULD notice this and do not. We can never know if we entertain an angel unawares.

I am usually the type of person who gives freely to people on the street. I know that often these pan-handlers may be "pros" and perhaps make 20K - 30K a year pan-handling. I know that others may use the money for drugs or alcohol. But this does not matter in terms of our Christian responsibility as Good Samaritans. I cannot know "for sure" that the money will be misspent and besides with every quarter I give or dollar I give goes a prayer for them. Charity even toward a person one suspects is a swindler is still charity and our good works could inspire the person to repent.

This one day, however, I was coming out of the grocery store. There was a man in the parking lot asking for money. This was not a place that pan-handlers usually asked for money. In fact this was the first time I had every seen anyone beg for money at this store parking lot.

I did not have much money on me, only some pocket change, but for some reason I did not give the man that pocket change. I got in my car and left.

As I pulled away I saw the man looking at me and as I continued toward the exit of the parking lot it hit me: "take care for you may entertain angels unaware."

BUSTED!

I was just given a test by God and I failed. I walked by His angel and did not extend charity. I knew this before I hit the exit of the parking lot and what's even worse, I did not turn around and go back to give him a few coins.

I do not know whether this man was a man, or if he was an actual angel. It does not matter. This was a man who was God's child, a man in apparent need, and I, with money in my pocket and with very little need in my life at that time, passed him by.

How often do we pass by God's angels and fail to extend that itsy-bitsy charity that costs so little?

I failed that test and ten years later it still haunts me.

Lord help me to be all you want me to be. Help me to never turn away a person in need. Help me to never again pass your angel by. Amen.

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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WEDNESDAY OF THE THIRTEENTH WEEK OF ORDINARY TIME
Feast of St. Barnardino Realino (1616), Priest

Dear Father:

My, it has been a long while since I have talked to you. Shame on me! I really need to get into the discipline of more regular entries to this Journal.

Maybe this is a good time to tell a story. We all get so busy. The 20th and 21th centuries are, I believe, plaqued with "busyness". Perhaps busyness is among the top five sins of our time.

A story is told of a couple of archeologists wanting to go to a dug in the jungles of Central America. The professors hired local native peoples as porters to guide them to the site and carry equipment and supplies.

The caravan of archeologists, porters, and grad students marched quickly through the jungle for most of the day; the professors were anxious to get to the site as quickly as possible. Then, all of a sudden, the porters just stopped and sat down. The professors did not know what to think. They ask the head porter why they has stopped, but the porter refused to answer. The professors asked a couple more times and still the head porter refused to answer.

Finally and suddenly, just as suddenly as they had stopped, the porters got up and bagan to continue the march to the archeological dug site.

One of the professors asked the head porter, "What was all that about? Why did you stop, and why have you now just as suddenly started again?"

The head porter explained, "We were walking so fast that we left our souls behind. We stopped to allow our souls to catch up."

There is a major lesson in that story that we all need to take to heart. Busyness will not bring us happiness or make us more spiritual. It will tear us down. It will "leave our souls behind".

Our Lord tells us, "Be STILL and KNOW that I am God." We cannot do that in the midst of hurry, hurry, hustle, hustle lifestyles. We all need to make a promise to ourselves to be in solitude and silence for a few minutes each day, and to disciple ourselves to be good stewards of the time God has given us.

I joke about asking God to make the day 52 hours instead of 24, but He always denies the prayer. It is frankly a sin for me to be so busy that I cannot make entries in this Journal for two months, or to pray as I ought, to read and study, to mediate and contemplate the glory of God.

There is NO business, NO job, NO project, NO apostolate, NO ministry, NO anything that is worth losing intimacy with God. We cannot have that intimacy on the run. We must stop and "smell the roses" as the old saying goes, we must be "still and know that God is God," we must appropriate the time to "not busy".

We can do it if we want. And if our schedule has us already overcommitted, then work off the schedule and DO NOT RE-SCHEDULE more that would intrude on the time one needs with God (and family), then begin to practice good stewardship of time from then on.

I am resolved to do that for myself. I must do it since my Rule of Life requires me to do it. I challenge others to try it too.

Father, I pray that you will enlighten all God's children the prudence of good stewardship of time. Help them and me to resist the temptation to overbook our schedules that would cause us to be too busy to notice the flower growing in the crack of the sidewalk, or the hummingbirds fluttering near a a honeysuckle rose bush.

This world our God has created is so beautiful and the people He created are so beautiful, help us to not be so busy that we miss just how beautiful they are for lack of time to notice.

Thank you Father Elijah for listening. Amen.

Your miserable servant,
Brother Bubba

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