Good morning on this Mardi Gras as we prepare to enter the season of Lent in Cath-O-landia! To any of my other brothers and sisters in Christ who honor the season, I pray it is a time of deepening prayer and spiritual fruitfulness. The Gospel of Ash Wednesday is the same one every year, with Jesus’ admonition to grow in prayer, practice generosity to the needy, and to fast and abstain in such a way that those practices glorify God and draw as little attention to ourselves as possible. The real invitation for me during Lent—in growing as a disciple of Jesus—is to embrace new practices and habits that endure past the season. There is no abundant discipleship without discipline.
While I am away from social media and most of the internet during Lent, I will be praying for all of you—neighbors known and unknown to me—that I have met in this wonderful medium of technology. I am so grateful for Locals and Substack and all of you I have met because of these communities. There is plenty to be black-pilled about in the current situation and how fragile our comfort and relative prosperity are if things go south, but knowing good people, wherever you find them, is a blessing.
With all the anxieties of modern life, we do live in amazing times, and technology can open the door to personal relationships and friendships. You don’t need many friends, but to have none and be content with it is to be sentenced to your own thoughts and attitudes, which will eventually become disconnected and more than likely delusional. Good friends can lovingly ground us and call us back from the excesses of emotional derangement and fixation on the stupid ideas we have mistakenly thought of as insightful. With love and a little laughter, a good friend can help us reexamine things and avoid the pitfalls of our own echo chamber. They can love us as we are and help us become more than we are without them. Good spouses know and experience this. Disciples of the Master know this: there is a love and friendship with Him that is a unique fellowship if we allow Him to call us to deepening conversion and spiritual/emotional maturity. I don’t claim to be very far along my own climb, but I am striving to hear His voice and follow His lead. Happy Mardi Gras, my friends, and Blessed Lent tomorrow! Peace & Prayers, your friendly digital neighborhood Padre. See you at Easter!
OUR MASTER
Our Master is a worker and we work with Him.
Boisterous is His mirth and we laugh with His laughter.
He beats His drum and we march.
He sings and we dance in its tune.
His play is of life and death.
We stake our joys and sorrows and play with Him.
His call comes like the rumbling of clouds;
we set out to cross oceans and hills.
Tagore, Rabindranath. Heart of God: Prayers of Rabindranath Tagore
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.
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.”
