Good morning, Digital Neighbors! Blessed Feast of the Sacred Heart from the wonderful world of Cath-o-landia! Today’s feast in the Church is a celebration of God’s great mercy. The Heart of the Redeemer is the symbol of His immense love for us and His desire to reconcile us to the Father and to one another.
I frequently remind my flock that forgiveness, contrition, and reconciliation are related realities, but they are not the same. The recipient of an offense can choose to be merciful no matter the attitude of the offender. I can choose to forgive someone even if they are never sorry for their offense or don’t possess a single bone of contrition in their body.
I don’t necessarily have to welcome people I forgive back into my life, and forgiveness is certainly not just ignoring the offense or injury and pretending it didn’t happen. Someone still embracing their offense, still feeding their addiction, or justifying their evil cannot be welcomed back into your life. Insulating and isolating ourselves is often the most sane and safe path with toxic individuals. You can forgive someone and still expect them to face justice in this life. Mercy does not erase the act — it heals the injury. Many seem to fail to grasp that forgiveness is about the heart of the offended or injured, not the offender.
Contrition is my sorrow for the offense I have committed — an awareness of the evil of my acts and a willingness to take responsibility for them. I can be sorry for my offenses and seek to make amends for the wrongs done to my neighbor. In the case of the Divine, I realize that I can never sufficiently make a return for all that God has forgiven me. The people we have offended or injured may choose never to forgive us, but we can still have sorrow for our offenses and the desire to make amends.
Disciples believe that the Master has paid that bill in full by the blood of His cross. We have no merit in life that is our own; whatever merit we might experience comes from the activity of God’s grace in our hearts. Grace is a transformative and restorative reality — it is His love for us. The wound of the Tree-pickers and their foul fruit of disobedience is healed by the Wounded One on a Tree and His complete obedience to the Father.
Reconciliation is the highest fruit of mercy. It occurs when the offender is truly sorry and the offended grants forgiveness. The Master comes not only to offer us God’s mercy, but to bring about actual reconciliation with the Father and with one another. Some wounds are too deep in this life for full reconciliation. I think especially of the wounds of murder, slavery, rape, and abuse — atrocities where reconciliation is least likely and most difficult. For those, only in Heaven can victim and perpetrator be fully healed and reconciled in the Heart of the Master.
Reconciliation can never be forced; it must be accepted in the mutual awareness of forgiveness and contrition. It can be one of the most challenging experiences in life. Yet to live without forgiveness is to remain frozen in the past, held hostage by injury or the anger that encases it. To live without contrition is to fail to take accountability for one’s past and to refuse to face the truth of your life. You will live in fear of retribution and haunted by the past. Better to face the truth of your story than to live with the lies that will consume you — in the next life, if not in this one.
Well, if you’ve lasted this long, thank you for your time and interest. Here’s a little scriptural reflection on mercy from a murderous Pharisee turned Apostle. It’s a great story of reconciliation. Few understand the relationship between Disciple and Master better than St. Paul.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them. St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 2:4-10
“In the Sacred Heart, every treasure of wisdom and knowledge is hidden. In that divine heart beats God’s infinite love for everyone and for each of us as individuals.” Saint John Paul II
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.
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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
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! Blessed Sabbath to all my neighbors in Judaism and happy Saturday to all the rest of us! How about a few quotes on autumn for this fine autumn morning and a trip down memory lane for some of us? Have a great day, my friends!
"Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, / We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!" – Humbert Wolfe, "Autumn (Resignation)" (1926)
"Again the wind / flakes gold-leaf from the trees and the painting darkens— / as if a thousand penitents kissed an icon / till it thinned back to bare wood, / without diminishment." – Jane Hirshfield, "Autumn" (The Paris Review, 1988)
"Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits." – Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903)
When I think of autumn and childhood, I always think of this old Disney cartoon. I probably watch it every autumn in the days leading up to Halloween. Enjoy!
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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.”
