Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Sunday ADD Irregulars, Refugees, Phamily, Free Thinkers, all the rest of ya’s! I hope you have a beautiful day ahead and that your weekend has been a good one. Today in Cath-O-landia we celebrate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. At one point in Catholic history it was celebrated on the Thursday after Pentecost, but it has since been transferred to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday. Today our parish will celebrate the feast with a procession on our parish grounds following the 10:00 AM Mass.
As a priest, Jesus Christ defines my life and my life with Him, especially in the Eucharist and Reconciliation. The Eucharist is the most amazing thing I do on a daily basis. To honestly believe that bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ is either miraculously amazing or sheer nuttery. 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 traditions that believe in the Real 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 the choice to be a seed for grace or a rock of resistance. We bring nothing to the table at the beginning of our life of faith but our contrition and surrender to the One who has given all for us. The rest of our life is a mere response and act of gratitude for this amazing gift.
The sprouting, growing, and blossoming of the soul 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 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 again in sincere repentance and follow Him once more. The real struggle is sincere discipleship, not perfect discipleship. Real change — especially against addictive or repetitive habits — is hard. Saying you are sorry to God or to others, while making no effort to address the wrong, remedy the injury, or change your behavior, is empty. God is patient with slow growth, but He has no time for games of deception.
This 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 our sins, express true repentance, and open our hearts to transforming grace. I know many outside the circus of Catholicism wonder about it. It is never meant to be “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. I have witnessed powerful change and the birth of palpable hope and joy in the moment when individuals come to Christ and His mercy.
The Eucharist is the most amazing thing I celebrate, and Reconciliation is the most humbling. After all, I am just another disciple trying to help others discover the Master, love Him, and follow Him. For Catholics, faith is both personal and communal — directly to God and also within the community. I am saved by Christ within the community of the Church. I encounter God both personally and in the company of others in worship and other expressions of faith. It is never an either-or choice, but a both-and for Catholics.
Well, enough rambling about the God I love and the faith He has given me. I hope that whatever defines your life — God and faith or otherwise — you love it and try your best to follow it. (Unless it is Communism, Fascism, Socialism, or another flavor of oppressive ideology — in which case, wake the hell up!) Some may think that about Christians, but they are probably just closet commies 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 a creed. Happy Sunday, my friends, known or unknown, I pray for you often.
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 ...
At Padre's TEAMS CHAT. Join your Digital Neighbors for some informal and unscripted conversation. No set subjects—just don’t be a jerk. Always invited, never expected. They usually run an hour, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Hope you can join us! Please note: This is not sponsored by The Rubin Report, Phetasy, or Outspoken. Those are all communities in which Padre (Fr. Tom Miller) participates. There has been some confusion in the past when sharing these invites. Have a great Friday!
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2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
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Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
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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.”
