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I just finished reading a book called âAll That Remainsâ for my book club. Itâs written by a forensic anthropologist from Scotland. The book was a bit disappointing for reasons I donât have time to go into, but much of the book was centered on the author talking about death. There was one point in the book where she was describing different family members that had died. Commenting on the day of her uncleâs funeral, she said, âI realised that day that when the animation of the person we were is stripped out of the vessel we have used to pilot our way through life, it leaves little more than an echo or a shadow in the physical world.â Later, she commented on how when someone is sleeping, they are still animated. We know the difference between someone asleep and someone who is dead. The reason we can tell the difference is because the soul has gone in death. Weâve all experienced this at funerals. We see our loved one lying there and we know itâs no longer them. As humans, we are both body and soul, but itâs the soul that truly makes us who we are. Twins essentially have the exact same body, but they are two distinct persons because of their souls. Why do I mention all this? Well, today is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila. I read her book âThe Interior Castleâ for my podcast last year and I grew to love her. She once wrote, âBecause we have heard and faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value. Consequently, little effort is made to preserve its beauty.â The more we care for our souls, Catholic Pilgrims, and the more we make them an acceptable place for God to dwell, the more we will transform into who God envisioned us to be at the moment our soul was created by Him. Take care of your body, take care of your soul. Have a beautiful day. St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
Continue ReadingI was teaching my son about purgatory the other day during school. Heâs learned about it before but we were talking about how the stains of even forgiven sin have to be cleaned from our souls. He said, âItâs like tomato sauce.â I asked, âWhat?â âWhen you get tomato sauce on your white shirts, you always get mad and run away to clean it because you say it stains really bad. But, I can still see the tomato sauce on your shirt after you clean it. Like itâs still there just a teeny bit. So, stains of sin are like that. You might be able to clean it off here on earth, but if you donât youâre still going to need to be cleaned in purgatory before Heaven.â âSo, you can still see the tomato sauce on my shirt after I clean it?â âYeah, a little bit.â âYou didnât want to tell me?â âI donât know, you seemed happy about it.â (Sigh) âWell, yes, you are right. The stains of sin are like tomato sauce on a white shirt thatâs been cleaned.â Guess I need some new white shirts, Catholic Pilgrims. đđ Have a beautiful Monday!
Continue ReadingBecause Iâm a public presence, I definitely draw the ire of people who are extremely opposed to my views. This is fine. It exhausts me sometimes, but some peopleâs arguments are so bad that it really takes asking one question and they go silent and delete their initial comment to me. This past week, two people didnât like a comment I made on a video and one told me âI wasnât too brightâ and the other told me that âperhaps your college owes you your money back.â Now, none of these comments bother me. They come from people who have no real argument and they are just trying to make me mad, which they donât. It used to bother me, it doesnât anymore. What bothers me is the glaring lack of wisdom. We have nearly all the information in the world at our fingertips. We have more people with college degrees than ever before. Most kids in first world countries get nearly year-round education, but we are not the wiser for it. You can have all the education in the world, but if that knowledge is not married to the wisdom of God, our ethics will suffer and all our degrees will essentially amount to not much. The Book of Wisdom is my favorite OT book and that is where we get our first reading today. âI prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throneâŚâ Wisdom 7:7 We will not seem too bright, Catholic Pilgrims, if our intellect is not led by the wisdom of God. So, we must plead and pray for it daily. Have a beautiful Sunday. *Picture is from Sequoia National Park. Iâm sitting in The Senate.
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