Note from the Desert

What have I been up to? I’ve been fairly busy with family, work and school. The kids are getting more demanding, there are lots of big projects going on at work, and the math class I’m taking the semester meets every day and has lots of homework.

I’ve also been avoiding blogs and other things that “get my Irish up”, and it’s been hard. Between NPR’s story about Massachusetts Catholics voting democrat (including a priest deftly avoiding agreement with Church doctrine), other political developments in South America and Russia, and Ret. Bp. Gumbleton’s continued brayings, I have been chewing my figurative tongue.

Early in my Lenten meditations, while at Stations of the Cross, I was reminded of something I often lose sight of. From the Stations of the Cross, by St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Third Station, Jesus Falls the First Time:

My beloved Jesus, / it was not the weight of the cross / but the weight of my sins which made You suffer so much. / By the merits of this first fall, / save me from falling into mortal sin. / I love You, O my Jesus, with all my heart; / I am sorry that I have offended You. / May I never offend You again. / Grant that I may love You always; and then do with me as You will.

The weight of MY sins. Not the weight of Cdl. Bernard Law’s sins, nor the weight of Fr. Richard McBrien’s sins, nor the weight of the USCCB’s collective ineptitude, and neither the sins of the careless American Consumer. The weight of those sins is inconsequential. It is the weight of MY sins which made the Cross necessary. This is what I have been meditating on, and it is largely why I have been silent.

In two months, I am expecting our next child, a little girl, to arrive. Between family, work, and school, I’m not really sure what time I’ll have to continue blogging. Maybe that’s a good thing. Time will tell, and I will wait and listen for the Lord to see what’s next.

May God bless you all.