Thanks you ADD Irregulars, Curmudgeons and Patrons of Padre's for the thoughtful expressions and well wishes on my birthday. I wrote the following to my parish families and while I don't celebrate Mass with you, I do remember you when I am celebrating. Thank you for being a blessing in my life of community, laughter, thoughtful discussion and grounded reality.
My prayer for you always
Dear parishioners,
Many thanks to all of you for your prayers, well-wishes and notes of kindness and thoughtfulness on my birthday. I thank God everyday for the gift of life and faith in His Son and my greatest joy is to share that with all of you at Mass and the other Sacraments. Celebrating the Eucharist is the greatest joy of my life, praying with you and for you as we remember the great sacrifice of Jesus is the best experience of our lives on this side of Redemption. Jesus not only offers this great gift of love, He actively invites to participate in it and imitate Him in making what we do at Mass the pattern of our lives as His disciples. As the most recent Sunday Gospel’s have reminded us, nothing is more important in our lives than becoming His disciples and living in His grace and love. When we strive to be people of prayer and service, humility finds a home in our hearts and wisdom transforms our souls.
Peace,
Fr. Tom
A Prayer for Autumn
O God, of whose love comes sunshine and flowers, great spreading trees, sunset and dawn, and all the wondrous pageantry of the changing year, we praise Thee that Thou dost come to us through all the beauty of Thy world. We thank Thee for sudden swift glimpses of Thy beauty: a sudden sight of flowers in city streets; raindrops shining in the sun; cobwebs gemmed with dew; stars reflected in a roadside puddle; shadows moving up a grassy slope; leafy trees in the lamplight; green moss on a stone wall; the sun on the bark of a fir tree. For these and all sudden showings of Thy beauty we praise and adore Thee.
Creator of life and light, we bless Thee for the beauty of the world; we thank Thee for physical joy; for the ecstasy of swift motion; for deep water to swim in; for the goodly smell of rain on dry ground; for hills to climb and hard work to do; for music that lifts our hearts in one breath to heaven; for all Thy sacraments of beauty and joy, we thank Thee, Lord.
Short Prayers for the Long Day, Giles & Melville Harcourt
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.
Good morning, digital neighbors! Hey there, all you Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers, PHAM & Misfits, Questioners and Critical Thinkers, ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, Curmudgeons & Curmudgeonessas! Happy Friday!
It has been a broiler of a week down here in the foothills of the Ozarks. I worked one summer for the street department of Elsberry, the little speed-trap town that was my childhood home. It was one of the hottest and most physical jobs I ever worked — mainly laying tar on streets, lots of mowing, and the occasional day in the water treatment plant if there was rain.
MF’er Mike was one of the full-time guys working with us college students, and he prefaced every sentence with profanity (which I have a high tolerance for), but it does get tiresome. I think of him occasionally on these sweltering days because he called it swamp-ass weather. We all knew what he meant by the end of the morning after working outside in the heat. Well, ...
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.”
