Wise Old Monk ~

He said that I should realize that everything in my life fits in to the great inscrutable plan of God. There is nothing that is not as it should have been.

Hours ~

The fastest hour of the day is the one spent at the piano from nine until ten in the morning.

Living ~

No man is an island,
Entire of itself. . .

John Donne

No, it's the other way around: every man is an island, alone, and his life's labor is to cope with that.

Soccer ~

The first qualification games for the World Soccor Championships are being held now. Germany looking very strong. The Germans will play two friendly matches in US, one in Boca Raton, Florida, the other in Washington, D.C. in May and June.

Thinking about the First Graders ~

Newtown, Connecticut

14 December 2012 

Angel of evil do not descend on this sunlit town in early morning, 

First grade still unaccustomed to the day, 

In corridors the shuffling of boots 

Coats crowded on hooks, busy hands adjusting at desks. 

The bell has rung, their teacher, she greets them, hovering. 

Toward the windowsill a sidelong glance, the candle the wreath. 

Their Christmas nearing. Still so new when six. 

Be merciful angel, do not alight. Stay winged, pass on over.

Source

Francis of Assisi ~ Pope Francis

If he just carries the name of Francis honorably, his contrubution will be great.

Papal Elections ~

They say there is a power struggle going on in the Vatican. Others say the Holy Ghost is at work descending on the cardinals with inspiration from on high . . . ?

Piano Pleasure ~

In those last years, when I would play the piano Mother would come into the living room in her wheel-chair and listen.

One of the greatest pleasures I can think of now would be to play, knowing that she was sitting there listening.

De Diligendo Deo ~

Why all the unsurety involved in upholding "I believe" which falls away with the surety of "I know"?

Tribute in Smallness ~

The Amish

Facets of Love ~

We were talking about love when he said: The novice and the 80 year old monk both love God but in quite different ways. You will never be able to keep on loving like the novice does.

To Alleviate Suffering ~

He looked at me and said: Most men do everything they can to alleviate spiritual suffering, to rid themselves of it. But you must learn to suffer, to make peace with it and accept what it brings about.

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.

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."

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.

Winter ~

The gradual transition . . .

Brahms Requiem ~

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

What Is It All About? ~

I ask myself why I love God.

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

Source

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.

De diligendo Deo ~

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

Wise Old Monk

He said that if I change, my whole world changes with me.

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

Praying Problem ~

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

Who He is Not ~

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

St. Therese Taught us How to Pray ~

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.

Lawn ~

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

Constancy ~

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

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.

De diligendo Deo ~

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

On Waking ~

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

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".

Open Mine Eyes ~

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

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.

Earthbound ~

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

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."

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.

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.

Christmas Thought ~

Arlington National Cemetery

He was born, they fought and died.

Those Who Sacrificed ~

Was I reading correctly, that the remains of hundreds of Air Force personnel had been dumped into a Virginia landfill?

Remnants of WW II ~

Forty-five thousand people evacuated today in the city of Koblenz on the Rhine.
In the shallow water of the river [no rain in months] bombs have been uncovered from World War II. They are hoping to defuse them today.

22 November 1963 ~

There were these special few who consoled me that day forty-eight years ago when the President was shot.

Siege of Leningrad ~ 1941 - 1944

When the German Wehrmacht blockaded the city for two and a half years thousands of people starved to death.

Scenerio: I was out on the street today and picked something up that looked like sugar. I sucked on its sweetness the whole way home. On arriving there I took it out and saw it was just a pebble.

Grande Chartreuse ~

Possible scenario:

After 45 years in this Carthusian monastery spent in contemplation and loving piety, Alzheimer's disease sets in and he changes. He begins to hate the habit he wears and refuses to don it, he stops singing the office and going to chapter and remains pouting in his cell, and the last thing he wants is to bother himself with the things of God.

Know Thyself ~

Often times I put my head in my hand and ask myself how You could put up with my wavering for all theses years.

Up To Date ~

I try to imagine Jesus jumping into a Toyota van and winging down to the Lake of Genesereth for a happening.

House of God ~

While visiting a church last week somebody stole our digital camera.

Seen on a Tombstone ~

"You are no longer where you were, but everywhere where we are."

Now That is Service! ~

Here in Germany they deliver the morning paper right into the mail box.