Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Sunday ADD Irregulars, Refugees, Phamily. Triggeratti, Dawn Patrol, Day Walkers, Early Birds, Later Dayers, Supporters, Members, Conversants, Lurkers, Fascinating People and Beautiful Bigots! I hope you have a beautiful day ahead of you and your weekend has been a good one.
Today in Cath-O-land we celebrate the Solemn Feast of Corpus Christi. At one point in Catholic history it was celebrated on the Thursday after Pentecost, but has since been transferred to the Sunday after Holy Trinity. Today our parish will celebrate the feast with a procession on our parish grounds. We will visit the cemetery to pray for the dead, the chapel to celebrate the beginnings of our community and finally return to the church with the final Benediction.
As a priest the Eucharist and Reconciliation define my life. The Eucharist is the most amazing thing I do on a daily basis. To honestly believe that bread & wine become the Body & Blood of Jesus Christ is either miraculously amazing and sheer nut-baggery. I obviously tend to favor the amazing side of this binary choice rather than the nutty side, but I can easily see why some outside of Catholicism, Orthodoxy and a few other believers in Presence might think so. Something, Someone so amazing is meant to change our lives, but God does not work magic, He works grace. Grace is like water, it only changes seeds into plants, it can never make a rock spout life. Every soul has that choice to be a seed for grace or a rock of resistance.
The sprouting, growing and blossoming of the soul will all depend upon the recipient's desire, interest and effort to know God through Scripture, prayer and other sources of study and formation. No Christian can proudly proclaim their flawless discipleship in following the Master. We all sadly continue to struggle against sin and often fall on the path of following Jesus. The key is to rise in sincere repentance and follow Him again. The real struggle is the sincere repentance, real change against addictive or repetitive habits is hard. Saying you are sorry, with the Divine or humans and making no effort to address the wrong, remedy the injury or really change your behavior is empty. God is patient with slow change, but has no time for games of deception.
This whole last bit is why I so enjoy celebrating Reconciliation aka Confession. It is not meant to be a rinse and repeat process of habitual sins that never change, but a sincere effort to acknowledge sins, seek repentance and open ones heart to transforming grace. I know many outside of the circus of Catholicism wonder about it. It is never meant to be a do what you want and then be sorry, any god worth His/Her/Its salt ought to see through such games. The God of Israel certainly does, and His Son seems pretty sharp on the upkeep as well. Games of deception do not sit well with Them.
Eucharist is the most amazing thing I celebrate and Reconciliation is the most humbling thing I celebrate. I am after all just another Disciple trying to help others discover the Master. For Catholics, faith is both personal and communal, directly to God and also within the community. I am saved by God within the community of the church. I encounter God personally and in the company of others in worship and other expressions of faith. It is never a either or type of choice, but rather a both and. Well enough rambling about the faith I love, I hope whatever defines your life, faith or otherwise, you love and try your best to follow. (Unless it is Communism, Fascism, Socialism or another flavors of oppressive ideologies, in which case wake the hell up!) Some may think that about Christians, but they are probably just closet commies or sofa king totalitarians who thankfully don't possess any real authority, just opinions. Everyone has a faith in the end, some are just more readily discernible because they have a community and creed. Happy Sunday my friends!
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
Happy Friday, Digital Neighbors!! Slept in a little this morning. Woke up at my ordinary time, hit the hour timer, and wandered back into short, incoherent dreamland. It was a good hour to try and get a little more rest after a long day yesterday. We had a good staff team-building day with personal prayer and then looking at the DISC tool as a way to appreciate our gifts as we work together for the good of our parish family.
Had a meeting in the evening to explore using our auditorium for an Emergency Overnight Shelter in the winter for the homeless and unhoused in our local area. Lots of potential, lots of work if that is to come to fruition. As I mentioned last night, this is where the rubber hits the road on personal charity. People feel comfortable giving money to support charities, but the possibility of hosting and staffing one is way out of the comfort zone for most. Prayer and time will tell.
Off to some “ifferisms” for your Friday cup of Joe.
If you get gloomy, just take an ...
The Beautiful
Said the Disciple to the Lover, “Sir, before I left the world I heard certain men who were held in high esteem and thought to know the will of the Beloved say that those who loved the Beautiful did not love the Beloved but loved idols, yet in the Garden of the Beloved we are ever striving to create beauty for the pleasure of the Beloved. Were they then speaking the truth?”
The Lover answered, “Those who said this had never glimpsed the form of the Beloved nor ever truly sought Him, for all beauty is but the reflection of the beauty of the Beloved, although seen very dimly as in a dark and faulty mirror, even as all goodness is a dim reflection of the goodness of the Beloved. So it is that those who love beauty and goodness recognize dimly in them the form of the Beloved and though often in ignorance those who are seeking the Beautiful and the Good are seeking after the Beloved.”
