Happy Thanksgiving Digital Neighbors and ADD Irregulars! Thank you all for making Padre’s a place of fellowship and laughter, a place where we can boldly support, graciously disagree and curiously question one another as loving neighbors. I am so thankful this morning to God for bringing all of you into my life. I am ever so thankful for our morning chats; they so often send me out the door with a chuckle and gratitude as I get ready for Mass.
I can't say that I live everyday grounded in gratitude, but many of them are awash with an abundance of gratitude and reasons to be thankful. Even on the days that test me, I know my greater reality is unmerited blessings and gifts in living that have come my way. Since I believe in a Giver, it prompts me easily enough to respond in either personal prayer, communal worship or service to neighbor or stranger.
Gratitude does not mean that I ignore the realities of life like hardship, suffering and death, but rather that I return to the greater cause for gratitude after the episode of sorrow and stretching has passed. Sometimes we have to choose gratitude in the middle of the trial to keep us grounded in the truths that are larger than suffering. I believe in a God who is not a stranger to suffering but has entered it in the most personal of ways. While I have often prayed for deliverance for myself and others, I am thankful for perseverance and its humble invitation of trust.
While I am tempted to go through a Romper Room reading of names, I would not want to accidentally forget someone. Thank you to all our daily participants, especially our Coffee Talkers and those who drop by for the afternoon chats. It is about a close as we can get to being in each other’s company. And what an awesome company it is! Thank you to those who visit Padre’s offering you likes and commenting on what your digital neighbors share. To those who are infrequent or absent know you are missed, and I pray you are well. I think of you often. As Sept would say, BIG HUGS to all of you. A few quotes that I have shared before, but they capture our vibe and they are worth repeating again. Thank you all for helping my soul to blossom.
Live a life full of humility, gratitude, intellectual curiosity, and never stop learning. - Gza
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. - Tescumseh
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. - Marcel Proust
Lord,
make the old tolerant,
the young sympathetic,
the great humble,
the busy patient.
Make rich people understanding,
strong people gentle,
those who are weak prayerful;
make the religious lovable,
happy folk thoughtful,
the clever kindly,
the bad good,
the good pleasant
and, dear Lord, make me what I ought to be.
Short Prayers for the Long Day
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.
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
