Unbelieavable

Let us hold it together as if it is our life  because it is.

Assasination seldom solves the problem. Generally it degrades the situation, and people suffer more. Our people are already suffering enough; they don't need any more. 

Hurricane season is upon us, and already snowfall is predicted in the near future on the East Coast of the US.

There is much that needs to be preserved. The tradition of selecting our leaders and representivitves is a cherished one. Deneratiing that tradition and throwing out the Constitution and government is not desirable, and neither are the perpetrators of treason.

Need I remind people of the price we have always paid to preserve our government and ideals? The price was human life, human blood and grave sufering and death. We have not fought as we did to preserve what we deemed good and splandid.

Now is not the time to disencfranchise citizens or overthrow our government, its Constituion or its traditions. The people who seem to dream of such nightmares have nothing to offer the citizens of this country but hatred and violence.

Citizens do not hunt each other down; we do not need to, although the eagle which has always been a national symbol, has to struggle to find something to eat in the vastness of the nature in which is belongs.

The people who will not allow the people their say at the ballot box have nothing to offer. 

I hope I have given you some things to think about that are worth your attention and intelligence.

Prophecies

After watching a video concerning the prophecy of St. Padre Pio  of Pietrelcina of the Three Days of Darkness, I reiterate my caution concerning prophcies. Scripture itself cautions us to be careful in approaching prophecies since they can be imitated by the evil one and lack the light of God or any motion of the heart toward love.

It does not require much imagination to realize that events in our lives are approaching terrifying depths. Every day, anymore, it seems someone is dropping rocks onto cars passing overpasses, people are being shot and stabbed in buses and mass transit vehicles, and children obtain automatic weapons to take to class to use in the mass killing of their classmates.

To me, such events are a kind of darkness as real as any obscuration of the sun. It is already sufficient to realize that prayer brings spiritual strength and reassurance and even protection, as well as offering the promise of God to take care of those He loves.

As far back as 1917, the Blessed Mother warned humanity of the tide of darkness that was overtaking humanity and the planet itself. 

I wonder, as well, what apartment dwellers in the heart of cities are supposed to do who live where candles are forbidden as a fire hazard? While it is possible to gather non-perishable items for meals, there likely wont be electricity and therefore communications will be down.

Accompanying or preceding the three days, storms and earthquakes and strange and violent phenomena are prophecied. These things are already known to be imminent, and in recent years, weather patterns have abruptly shifted from more benign patterns to sudden unpredictable violence of unprecedented strength and power. Youtube is full of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and vast wildfires. Whether these are part of the prophecy I don't know. Some things mentioned point to very strange occurrences that have not been seen or experienced before. People are urged to approach God asking for forgiveness of sins. That will be difficult to obtain if priests are not available or are not disposed to make the sacraments available. Nevertheless, we can ask to be forgiven because He can hear us even if priests are not listening or are ignoring their ministry. Besides that, we can pray for the forgiveness of the sins of OTHERS. We can even unite our suffering to that of Jesus as St. Padre Pio did, accepting even 50 years of their pain and suffering for the good of the souls for which he prayed and which he enjoined to the cross of Christ.

A return to the sacraments is requested by Our Lord, and that necessarilly means someone must make the sacrments available.

In any event, we are urged to turn away from habitual sins and to seek communion with God personally. Keep in mind, that people have ignored the sacraments and spiritual readings and penitential acts, consecrations or dedication to God. This has directly caused changes in wide spread weather patterns and the threat of great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in places known to be threatened by such events.

We can offer our sufferings for atonment of sins to satisfy the justice of God, by making mercy and love available where they would not be othersise.

By reading holy books and the Scriptures, we can be reminded of the mercy God has already shown, and promises to make available for those who turn to Him.

God promises to take care of the needs of His people, forgiveness of  sins, and mercy on judgement day.

As much as I may fear death as a human being, I fear more, falling short of the mercy of God and losing my soul forever. Our prayers can quell the tide of unpredictable random violence, making our cities safe again.

I relate these things again in order to urge people of the necessity to seek God while He may be found and while we still draw the breath of life. I urge people to offer their suffeings however small, for the reparation of sin, and to obtain the promises God has made regarding the three days of darkness. 

I repeat that God answers and pays attention to our prayers and is glad to grant what we need when we ask becauuse of His love. He blesses people who pray for the relief of others, with provision of what is needed to sustain life, including reasurrance of final salvation. There is no reason to live afraid of God to the point we despair of any good coming from approaching Him. He listens to our prayer and is aware of unspoken cries.

As far as Heaven is from us, Jesus knelt in prayer in agony of the anticipation of His crucifixion, keenly aware of the same distance. There were saintly people in history who comforted Him in  His passion the night He was betrayed and carted off to those who wished to kill Him. Jesus knows what that distance feels like, and it is like a three days of darkness. All of us experience darkness in our lives when hope seems to have abandoned us and solutions to our problems seems very distant. We are asked to keep the candle of hope burning in our hearts, to reassure the Lord of our love even if we are in the blindness of darkness. He can see us whether we see His light or not, and His love persists around us whether the light of day falls on us or not. 

Do not give up. Keep on trying and do not give up. Always apologize for your sins and ask for forgiveness so that you may have it, and succeed when it seems impossible.

If you read the lives of the saints or the Scriptures, you will find God making His promises to you as one of His children. In the lives of the saints, you can be inspired to benefit the children of God by providing grace and divine light through your faith in Him.

Do not believe that your prayers have no power; that is not a thought from God, ut from the evil one. I prayed for my brother and sister to have a place to lvie and to find what they needed when it really seenmed hopeless, but He heard my prayer. In my own case, He heard my own prayers for the same thing, and I am living in the answer to my prayers. It seemed impossible, and my sins to grave to have any chance that my prayers would be heard. The light of day reveals a brighter and more penetrating light than the sun. We all have access to the same God to whom I prayed and from whom I obtained what was needed on behalf of others. I may not have the wounds that Padre Pio did even as much as I desire them, but that does not mean that Padre Pio or some unknown saint in the world today does noot bear those wounds so  I may join my prayers to them for other people. We must try.

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Sometimes it happens, that something which moved us profoundly over times

 succumbs to the weariness of time, and it seems no longer to be as important as it did. It is the same as having forgotten to change the dreassing on a wound. Every wound needs a dressing to keep it free of infection or worse.

In the case of the Heart of the Lord, His wound is permanent. The remedy for our lack of enthusiasm is to turn again to Him and ask His Heart to enkindle our love again so that we might apply the dressing of our love to His Sacred Heart, even knowing it will never go away, nor will it ever suffer infection; we suffer infection and soreness and pain and weariness and weakness, and He is always dressing the wound of our love, so that it may be cleansed and made well again. The greatest joy lies in the love of that Heart wound in which we rest in our weary moments.

Adversity

 Mercifully, the weather is cooler this morning, and the air is somewhat cleaner than it was yesterday.

The striations on the face of the sun is a cloud of wild fire smoke. No, Jupiter has not moved in close to us, though one might be tempted to believe so.

Marine air is moving in to shove a heat dome away from us so the temperatures may drop to more normal rates. While the heat is bad, I do have a little box fan that sits on a cart for office suppplies that I can turn on to get a little relief from the heat. however, the fire smoke is at the mercy of the currents in the air, and fires in northern Califronia and Oregon can entrain smoke in the upper atmosphere or at ground level, and only a sufficiently strong wind current can change the conposition of the atmosphere to clear the air of pollutants. I pray for the change to set in soon, and a little rain to follow.

It does not need to be thaat way it is, and no doubt, a large scale change in the hearts of men might rescue us all from things like wildfire smoke. Unfortuantely, only turning off internal combustion engines can clear out the air. The pollution can clear ut when more normal atmospheric parameters are in sway. Winds off the ocean are the norm around here, or at least was the norm until recent years. If you watch Youtube videos it is easy to get discouraged about the condition of the atmosphere. Nevertheless, by the same token, it is easy to see catastrophic violence in the atmosphere brought about by excesses in patterns of disruption cuased by increasing warming and consequent displacement of airmasses. 

The overall normal pattern has always been the weather coming off the pacific ocean and travelling in large waves of the jet stream steering air masses from northwest to southeast. In recent years, winds have been shifted to the east where the atmosphere is overheated by unmoving high pressure causing inordinate heating of the atmosphere and a lack of rain. The result has been desert-like conditions in parts of the country usually bathed in clement cool moist airmasses.

Besides being unbearably warm, the air has been unusually hot and dry as well, similarly to a desert environment.

But lately scientists have noticed the development of rainy weather beginning in the Saharan desert. This has disrupted the hurricane season by helping prevent hurricanes from forming in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico . The hot dry air is being rerouted. Changes in the weather, climate, means more violent weather in the United Kingdom and Europe, with violent heavy rain and hail have moved in stalled in various places not used to such excesses. The excesses of inordinate heat and drought or massive rainfall has led to very  unusually strong winds and heavy hail falls as well as flash floods and large urban flooding to which the inhabitants are not accustomed.

I have always enjoyed the surprise thunderstorms and winter snow. Several years ago, we had very cold weather so that the ground was dry and freezing cold, and moisture overriding the area brought heavy blowing snow - it was amazing to see, but has not been repeated since. Conditions that might have set in, did not, and the cold was insufficient to cause much snow, or even much rain. The cold air masses don't carry much moisture, which has led to large regions of unsual drought.

All of these things can be the topic of prayer. It is a charitable thing to remember those who have nothing, losing even the rain to grow their crops. While great floods wipe out large regions, other areas become inhospitable.

All these conditions as well as wars and violence or health crises are amenable to prayer, and those suffering under adversity will welcome our prayers. If we pray often and with intensity, they will come to know of it and God's blessings may be seen visibly.

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I obtained thethings I wanted which were for others, but it cost me - a great deal.

Fulfilled

 It could be said that if a person lives in seclusion, he does not need a habit. But then what is the purpose of wearing a habit? They will keep you warmer in the cold, but hotter in the heat. But then, the more the habit is worn, the more it deteriorates. and in the case of some orders who espouse poverty in their solitude, one habit is the usual quota for a solitary. 

But regardless of these things, it is the Lord who gives us our habit,  to wear. To say it is not necessary for a solitary to wear a habit is to say, Jesus doesn't care, and disregards who sees the habit or the monk.

In the matter of anything the Lord might insist on, the solitary is seen by the Lord, and his attitude is known, and if the monk disdains his habit, is he not also disdaining the Will of the Lord? It should be sufficient that He has spoken; all that is necessary is obedience. It may not be necessary to wear the habit in order to carry out one's mission, but in carrying it out, the Lord also regards the depth of our obedience. The habit may make secular people uncomfortable, and some religious cite that discomfort as a reason not to wear their habit; we must not discomfort others; the Lord wore poverty on the cross, and He intends that we should experience that empty poverty with Him, and to the extent we make an effort to carry out His Will as faithfully as we can, we will also experience His joy, for in union with Him, it will be possible to feel what He feels.

Then there is the case where a secular person wishes to live his life religiously, for Jesus and in accordance with His Will. It may come to pass that a secular person feels such identification with Jesus, that he wishes to be seen as being such an obedient person, that his own will is submerged in Christ. If He states He wishes a person to wear a habit, why not permit him to fulfill the Will of the Lord? Some will say not to wear the habit because it will confuse the secular people, but if a person wears a habit out of obedience to God, it will not confuse anyone. 

If a life is lived in exemplary virtue, it will not confuse anyone, but clarify the simple mandate that we should obey God, because obdience is of God. and if authorities refuse to permit a person to wear a habit simply because they can say a person ought not to, then there is a conflict which ought not to have arisen, and indeed, if a person was seen to be fitting in wearing the habit, then there is no reason to oppose it, unless there be some personal moral problem.

Indeed, obedience may cause conflict with those whom it should evoke conversion, in the life of one in authority and in the life of one dedicated to God out of love for embracing His Will.

Indeed, during the disorders in France, many religious were beheaded because they proclaimed their committment to God by wearing their habit instead of repudiating their committment to God's Will  by taking off the  habit. Indeed, it might have been preferable to  renounce one's convictions and live, but to those for whom it mattered, that was not possible.

In these days, it is fashionable to renounce religious life and discard religious garb, in order to give allegiance to something that hates Christianity altogether.

If a lay person (secular) wishes to live in accordance with virtues of a religious life, why prevent him from wearing his habit it he feels the conviction? The people themselves will repudiate that person if they do not live up to the virtues of religious. Phonineness and selfishness are not the signs of religious virtue.

One ought not to overlook the desires of God. It is the desire that all people should love God, and He goes to great lengths to provide grace so there might be virtue, and love so that we may know love and thus know the love of God. He goes to extraordinary lengths to reach out to people to heal their sicknesses and forgive their sins so they might be fit to live with Him in eternal happiness. He sends lay people to convert to religious for sake of making it obvious what virtue is and what its existence accomplishes in human lives. 

A priest who is the pastor of a parish ought not to cancel confessions without reason. He is placed where he is so that God may dispense His mercy by forgiving their sins and restoring them to grace so they can carry out their vocations to please God and be happy. The secularisation of religious life has sterilised Christianity and rendered it infertile, and it displeases the Lord. He created us as we are but not without the invisible aid He provides that explains all things to people so they might discover the joy of loving God.

By the same token, we were not made for debauchery and immoral and lascivious living. We were not created to live an entire life for the purpose of gathering wealth, possessions and power, and souls who are dedicated to such things are destined for suffering, sadness, despair and emptiness. 

Ordinary people who are filled with love are occasions of God's mercy toward us. Questioning His motives for allowing misfortune in lives overlooks the fact that it is precisely in suffering and pain and death that we are freed of sin and all things that prevent our happiness, contrary to what people think. The natural way of thinking sees suffering and pain as something to be avoided because it is so unpleasant. But Jesus Himself deliberately appeared in our midst and healed us, fed us, and provided spiritual nourishment in His words and deeds, so all people might look on His life and realize where happiness actually lies.

Certainly, from a human perspective, the scourging He endured ought to have been sufficient, yet we see that it was not, because the desire to kill Jesus was so strong that it went to extra lengths to carry out torture to the nth degree, in a futile attempt to oblitterate Jesus altogther. Many a saint has realizes this and has embrace the unthinkable in participating in the life of Jesus, in the scourging, the coronation with thorns and in the nailing of His Body to the cross in crucifixion, so that the nails might fulfill their destiny and fasten us all to Him to be purified and made wothy of His love. It certainly seems that was His motive in undergoing such an eradication. Those who through exemplary love enter into such a conformity to His divine love, even fpr a brief time every day, will find the truth made manifest to them in unmistakable terms. The proud scoff at Him that He does not make things more obvious, but they lack spiritual insight and in its place is sheer empty desocation in which there is no love, no kindness and no regard for other people.

There is one Good above all others that ought attract  our hearts and minds, and it is the unflinching love of Jesus for us all in every circumstance, diminishing our our sorrows by replacing them with His love.

Be still for a few moments. In every hour, be still long enough to hear His whispering "I love you". One day a trasnformation begins and a person is fulfilled in all  possible ways.

Retribution

 

Sometimes I wonder how anything can get so tangled up as my life. It is partly my own doing because I am determined and persistent, and the rest of the world around me is not; it keeps slogging ahead in its own pace regardless of what needs to happen.

It is strange to see how tangled up the world is, as if caught in a fishing net up to the knees, and no matter how fast they move, they can't escape the net, and the result is weariness , frustration and sometimes despair.

I have slept on the bed I have now, for twenty years, by my calculation. I was my mother's live-in caregiver for three years before she died. One day part of my bed came disconnected, and I thought I might be able to tie things together, but mom decided to buy a brand new bed and would not be dissuaded. The people came and delivered the new bed. unboxed and assembled it for free, and took away the old bed, though I don't know if they charged her for that.

Fast forward to now; I looked online at Amazon.com and found a bed that looked like it might serve my need. It has a simple metal frame and metal slats and wheels beneath, with a mattress. Delivery was free, and I will have to assemble it, but the company that runs the apartment complex charges for removing the bed, the frame and the box springs. That might not be so bad, but the new bed cost $54, and the removal will cost me $105. I tried to cancel the order, but since it was to be delivered today, it was not possible to cancel the order. I will have to wait until the delivery person arrives with the new bed so I can talk to him (IF I can talk to him; he might not bring the bed up to my apartment  but might leave it in the package area off the lobby).

It seems the solution I need is to return the new bed, then I don't need to pay for the removal of the old bed. But that ignores the fact that my back has been demanding a change for some time now, and often the result has been a muscle spasm that was so ferocious that I could not stand up straight for several days.

Besides that, I fail to see how the managers of this place think it is fair to charge so much to remove  an old bed. The elderly people who live here are at their mercy and the mercy of anybody else that is looking for victims to victimize. To me, they are fellow residents and friends. 

On the other hand, there was one manager who is no longer here, who thought it was funny when one resident, called "Dottie", who gets around on an electric wheelchair, ran afoul of the door somehow, and cut herself seriously. She had managed to get into the "Bistro", a little cafe the runs a catering service on the side, and left an alarming trail of blood to the point where she ended up stopping and was bleeding profusely. That manager came by and was laughing at Dottie. I was appalled; I called 911, and several other people did so as well, but the manager was not concerned.

Dottie scoots around pretty fast in her electric wheel chair and didn't clear the door very well. She required surgery to repair her injury but made a full recovery. The manager is no longer here and I hope she one day discovers for her self, how it feels to have had a accident and been injured as seriously as Dottie and to sit in the wheel chair passed out from loss of blood.

It is strange to contemplate the way managers of businesses will nickle and dime people for trivial things; the light went out in my bathroom and I reported the fact to maintenance who came by and replace the bulb, a special fluorescent thing. Next day, it died as well. It seems the maintenance buy got a used bulb from elsewhere to replace the light rather than getting a new one, and then I was charged money for the "new" bulb that was not new in the first place. I reported it to management and was reimbursed, but it was pretty puny in my estimation that they thought charging for bulbs was a bright thing to do in the first place since the bulb is part of the apartment and not my property to dispose as I please; it is policy that residents do not replace bulbs or repair other infrastructure, so why should they pay for a new light bulb in the first place?

We are in a time in which victimizing helpless people is the order of the day. Besides incurring the wrath of God, they do not consider that taking advantage of people causes victims to become angry and retaliate when an opportunity arises. 

Some of those victims, instead of retaliating, raise up prayers in defense of the helpless, because they see Christ in the helplessness. Nailed to a cross, scourged nearly to death, and crowned with thorns, Jesus took on all helplessness, victimhood and despair and put it to death for good, for all time, for all people, so that He may shine forth in great glory, His love for all people.

Those who are the opposite, are in a precarious situation, because God sees, and acts in due course to restore what He created because He created it out of His own limitless, divine love. 

It is a terrifying thing to be in the hands of the Living God, so be warned; cease wrongdoing and sin, because they bring retribution.

Confession

He knew people's hearts
and knew where they were
in Christ. 

Padre Pio's stigmata are an outward manifestation of the spiritual life of a man found suitable for Christ to impart life and suffering - His life and His suffering, and I can tell you, that if you desire to be anything consequential in the spiritual realm, there are parameters that must define your life and being, for the man into whom Christ imparted His wounds in a visible, painful and humiliatingly obvious way was  making him one with His Spirit and His Body in a consequnetial union of Body and Spiirt.

A writer who dedicated himself to presenting Padre Pio spoke of the stigmata as something he wore like a coat, yet it was more; as I said, he was united to Christ. On Golgotha, where He was nailed to the cross, and where His side was lanced open in a brutal effort to kill him; if He were already dead, He certainly had been rendered incapable of returning, and if He were not already dead, then He had to embrace yet one more agony before it was enough, and was finished.

And yet, Padre Pio's life was testimony that it was not enough and could never be enough, except and only because Jesus extended Padre to be more than what ordinary human eyes could see.

It is said he could be in two different places simultaneously through "an extension of the personality" as Padre Pio once explained to someone who asked how he could be in two places at once. The simplest and most direct answer is because God wanted Padre Pio to be in two places at the same time, and we might wonder if he could be in different times as well.

If we try to form our soul into what He wants us to be, we may find ourselves confronted with our own weakness and inability to live up to the reality of what He desires.  

He must cause us to grow, and deepen our spirit to match His own being. 

The world and the depths of our own heart will challenge us to forsake our desires in order to thirst as Jesus thirsted. There were many times He said that He was thirsty or used our thirst in speaking allegories capable to illustrating His meaning to those around Him. Certainly He must have reached out to take the drink offered Him when those around found out He needed a drink. Certainly, y the end of the day, those who had heard Him also knew the depth of what He really meant, the unquenchable drought in the soul that longs well beyonf thirst for our selves and our lives, given in the most sacred love imaginable.

And yet, people yearn to participate in His cross all the time, but they do not participate in that manifestation He wills.

A few, like Padre Pio were spiritually and physically capable and disposed by love to desire nothing more than His love. One arrives at such a sublime moment by His sheer grace, and in an incomparable moment, suddenly find their soul and bdoy united to Christ and the wounds of His crucifixion, and so it comes to pass, that the conditions necessary for stigmatization are fulfilled, and from the wounds imparted, blood flows for as long as He wants, and until the souls for whom He longs to be united are indeed made one by an irresisitible impetus of wounds and bleeding and a disposition to be satsified only with Him, His love and His Will, crucified and made holy for our sake and to be spared rejection and eternal suffering resulting form sin.

Padre Pio scarcely thought nothing of the condition of His being, united to Christ and marked with shocking manifestations of the britality inflicted Jesus and His children.

Padre Pio particiapted in what Jesus was doing while He was alive - calling souls to Himself to be transformed to belong to Him forever configured in being and mind to be useful to Him in a saving act.

All of us are made useful to him; that is His gift to us in prayer. He wants to lift us up to Him matured and made more profound, so that whatever we might be engaged in expands us into greater potentialities.

There is no way to shrug off the "coat" we have worn; we wear our beign at His Will, and the conformity of our beings to His Will determines what He can do to us. The deeper our maturity the deeper we can enter in to Him on the cross. Some of us may suffer very little on that account and He knows it so that we accomplish more modest things. Some may suffer deep aridity and longing, to the point of being spiritually crucified, participating in that salvific thirst which penetrated the Father's Heart.

Blessed are all people who suffer and participate in His suffering in addition to their own. We owe them more than we are aware. I cannot help but wonder at this late hour of existence, if there will ever be another Padre Pio. Such men come in atraordianry times, to save countless souls who would otherwise be lost. They come to help us realize our responsibility, because he cannot save everyone he might want to because so many foolishly dismiss him and the Lord He served.

Those who enter into His passion are aware of His deepest longings because our participation contains the reason why made plainly painful beyond the ordinary.

In my humanity, I am capable of desiring many things, and of seeing much fulfilled because I look for any sign of Him. Little wonder then, that, in my own selfishness, I somehow thought it possible that the Lord could let my hands and feet and side bleed, but at that time, I was unaware how silly it might be considering the person I was then. Perhaps out of my embrassment I might be saved by being closer to Him and to His will so that I have become equipped to do things I could scarcely imagine. The stigmara of St. Padre Pio happened in time at a certain point; certainly I am closer to my own point of configuration in which His wish and my own might be fuffilled to His joy and mine when I can respond in an ordinary way with tears and hope to being closer to Him for a moment before the hdarkness descends again. Without the sublime uplifting of my soul, I can respond to the cries of the forgotten and forsaken who in despair and agony stand a chance of being lifted up to His presence to be with Him forever. Padre Pio was filled with deep joy and love that was constant and unwavering, and which were the unction Christ imparts to those He makes worthy as He made Padre Pio worthy and makes all of US WORTHY. May we bless His Name when that worthiness becomes union with Him, on the cross or otherwise.

Remember

Tranquility.

I'm sure God is aware of my  pain as much as I am; it is such a common circumstance that I forget to make my offering, but then, it is part of aging. The young have no conception of little pains being so pervasive and all encompassing. In any case, I can mention it because it is not that intense, and you brace yourself for the next wave when you try to stand up to go do something. Other than mentioning it, and chiding myself for not making a conscious offering,  it blends into the continuum of awareness.

Then there are the times when I have to turn down a friend; not because I couldn't do it, but because I am not disposed to acquiesce. There is someone else available to water his plants in his absence, and I was not that happy the last time I did it and he complained that one of the plants died because i did not give it  enough water.

He has a habit of ignoring people or taking them for granted, and this is my way of combatting that a little.
On the other hand, I have made a point of checking on him and offering treatment advice when he has been sick or indisposed because of a side effect of a new medication.

Even cats and dogs will correct misbehavior. 

There are others in the bright light of public life that I would love to correct, but they are insulated from the harsh realities of life and are never touched with the moments ordinary people encounter. I am sure that the Lord disappoints them as He does the rest of us. Too bad the evil they do so blithely can't be held against them. Time and circumstance  put things into perspective for all.

It was more than just a bad day when Jesus tortured and beaten with Roman scourges and crowned with thorns as a wry statement to the Jews, though I wonder if they caught the innuendo. Jesus was unmercifully tormented until the moment He died. He underwent that final moment and did not beg off.

Perhaps we can remember that when we see people around us. We do not know what they are feeling or just how deeply they are tried by sickness and suffering they can't even mention because it hurts too much and they are too weary with it all.

There are times I wish I could mention them to the Lord and be sure my friends the suffering  ones could be instantly freed of the pain and weariness, but that isn't how it works, and often times, in order to obtain a favor for a friend, a lot must be borne. If you are free of pain and weariness, do not forget those who are not. Those who will take the time to remember are the ones who comfort Christ on His journey up Golgotha's hill.

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You might ask what penance I do. Modified fasting is the one thing I can do on my own that is truly penitential. I take medication for diabetes that curbs the appetite, but still, does not take it away altogether, and if I get too carried away fasting, I suffer the consequences. 

Not so  much in my control is sleep. Typically I go to bed around 5pm unless I am not feeling really sleepy. I may then wake up around midnite. Some nights i get up then, and other times just get up because I can't sleep. It is difficult doing without sleep. Then reading come to mind and after a while go to bed again.

Either way, I am in God's hands to control.