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Tuesday, December 25, 2012


Sunrise on Christmas morning. 

All was quiet and as the sun came up behind the hills it was as if some magnificent music was being played.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

De Diligendo Deo ~

During our talk he looked at me and said: "Maybe it's a matter of age, but later in life one seems to shift the emphasis away from the Son over to the Father."

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Mother ~


They were at a wedding and Mary said to Jesus: They have no wine. Jesus turned to her and said: "Woman, what have I do do with thee?"

Shame on you, Jesus, for offending your mother.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Brahms Requiem ~

After the Requiem was sung, and before the audience started to clap, there were two and a half minutes of complete silence.

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Thérèse of Lisieux ~ Feast Day

There were ways to You she taught us,
Ways we never knew about or thought possible:
Like being a simple ball of no value, she said,
that You "could play with,
one You could throw on the ground
toss about, pierce, leave in a corner
or press to Your heart
just as it might please You".
from Therese's Writings

Monday, September 10, 2012

Good Shepherd ~

It was a struggle between calculation and trust: At night on the stairway in total darkness, instead of mobilizing all his sense perception he learned to trust his feet to find the steps.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

De diligendo Deo ~

No one knows how many people offer up a prayer when the church bells ring at noon and evenings at six.

Saturday, August 04, 2012

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Tony Blair on Americans and America ~


Americans can be all that the rest of the world sometimes accuses them of: brash, loud, insular, obsessive and heavy-handed. But America is great for a reason. It is looked up to, despite all the criticism, for a reason. There is a nobility in the American character that has been developed over the centuries, derived in part, no doubt, from the frontier spirit, from the waves of migration that form the stock, from the circumstance of independence, from the Civil war, from a myriad of historical facts and coincidences. But it is there.

That nobility isn't about being nicer, better or more successful than anyone else. It is a feeling about the country. It is a devotion to the American ideal that at a certain point transcends class, race, religion or upbringing. That ideal is about values: freedom, the rule of law, democracy. It is also about the way you achieve it: on merit, by your own efforts and hard work. but it is most of all that in striving for and protecting that ideal, you as an individual take second place to the interests of the nation as a whole. it is what makes its soldiers give their lives in sacrifice. It is what brings every variety of American, from the lowest to the highest, to their feet when "The Star Spangled Banner" is played. Of course the ideal is not always met—that is obvious. But it is always striven for.

Time Magazine— September 13, 2010

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Praying Problem ~






Why not consciously make a prayer out of all those pieces I practice on the piano?

Friday, June 08, 2012

Who He is Not ~

That is not my God who looks after a Chosen People and has no concern for the rest of mankind.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

May Altar ~

Come to think of it: Back in the 3rd grade I used to steal flowers from people's front gardens on the way to school to put them on the classroom May Altar . . . and never gave it a thought.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Lawn ~

Decided not to cut the first grass and look what happened . . .

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Constancy ~

. . . and even if I would betray You, You know that I still love You.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Thomas Merton ~


Last night I had this funny dream: I was beside Merton in a choir stall and he was bent down low over a tape recorder and started to play a tape of a hundred children voices laughing lightheartedly. All the other monks started laughing, too. Merton looked up at me with a knavish smile on his face. Someone said: That's Merton again, up to another one of his tricks.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

De diligendo Deo ~

At every corner of the day I am waylaid by things that distract me from You.

Friday, April 06, 2012

On Waking ~

6:30 a.m.: It is dark outside. I lie in bed listening to the birds singing the Divine Office outside: Lauds.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Meaning ~

The Wise Old Monk said: "He will get at you with things that make you struggle: an insuperable problem, a divorce, cancer, a loss . . . That will make you return to Him, where you belong".

Friday, March 16, 2012

Open Mine Eyes ~







Despite all my neglect, He lets spring come again to greet me at my window.

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Morning News Report ~

In North Carolina Edward Cantrell, 36, a soldier, wrapped a blanket around himself and ran into the burning house to save his two daughters, 4 and 6.

He and his daughters perished in the flames.

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Earthbound ~

Even when in complete solitude the banal concerns of each passing hour keep me from rising aloft to You.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Thérèse of Lisieux


When she found out about a lady lavishing little attentions on her husband she wrote:

"Let it never be said that a woman in the world did more for her husband than I for my Beloved."

Friday, January 20, 2012

Wannsee Conference ~ January 20, 1942


As if for a routine business meeting 15 high ranking Nazis met in this house to finalize plans for the "Endlösung", the deportation and extermination of all European Jews, the monstrous crime that anticipated the murder of 11 million human beings.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Winter Darkness ~

Jupiter hangs over the neighbor's roof and the oncoming planes on their approach to the Zurich's airport skirt around it like winter fireflies.