Please pray for me and my brother priests!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

A Little Shakespeare For Christmas

I stumbled across this sonnet today, Shakespeare's 29th, and if I have any readers at all left, thought I would offer it for reflection.    

To paraphrase the scriptures, we are children of God, and if children, then heirs.  To often in our misery we fail to remember this simple, most basic truth of our faith.  From ignoble beginnings rose the king of kings, born not to live but to die in order to save those who would crucify Him.

It is not that we have loved Him, but that He has loved us, as St. John writes so beautifully.  Let us never forget that in this Christmas season, when a Savior was born for us, that by virtue of our baptism we share in the Sonship of that child.  If children, then heirs.  Like Him, it is only for us to love, because He has loved us first.  This Truth will strengthen us and offer hope and light no matter where we find ourselves.   

A merry Christmas to all!

God love you,
Father V.
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When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate, 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
With what I most enjoy contented least; 
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, 
Like to the lark at break of day arising 
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


Sunday, July 1, 2012

Rise Again




Occasionally I write poetry.  I am not a poet, anymore than the man who paints his bathroom is an artist, or the woman who sews a button is a seamstress.  However, I am a sinner, and truth be told a rather successful one at that.  I know what it means to fall, and I know how much easier it seems, at least for a while, to simply stay down.  Staying down is a surrender to evil, and as such it is a vice.  And as with all vice, the longer one wallows in it, the harder it is to break free of.  Sometimes we not only need someones help to move forward, but we need them to push us, taking us by the hand and pulling us from the depths that lead to death.


Fully aware of my limitations, myriad that they are, I write anyway.  Every so often I write something that I like, and this is one of them.  Your comments are appreciated, and your prayers appreciated even more so.  


Happy Sunday, and God love you, 
Father V. 
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  The old man asked the crying boy, "Why do we fall down?"
  The boy looked up through teary eyes, unsure of what to say.
  "So that we may rise again, my son...that we may rise again."
  Stooping down, he took the boy's small scraped and fragile hand  
  and standing tall, he pulled the boy and helped him again to stand.  
  "Now throughout life, when you look down and see a fallen man,  
   you must do as I have done, that he too may rise again."

Our Lady's Goodness...



I receive a daily email called "Holy Quotes."  It is a great source of inspiration and guidance.  There is a small  apologetic segment, a small catechetical segment, then a quote from a Church Father, a Pope, and a quote about Our Blessed Mother.  Yesterday, the quote on Our Lady was given from the writings of St. John Vianney:  


The greater sinners we are, the more tenderness and compassion Mary has for us. The child who has cost the Mother the most tears is closest to her heart! 


I hope it brings you the consolation it brings me  Even when prayer my own prayer is difficult, turning to Our Lady usually isn't.  By virtue of baptism, in which we become members of Christ's very body, we share the joy of her maternal devotion and love.  When we see an image of her holding close her Beloved Son, we should know, we must know, that we, as members of His Body, are held there, within Him, close to her heart too.  She is so good to me, as she is to all her children.  


Our Lady, refuge of sinners, comfort of the afflicted, mother of the rejected,
Pray for us.  


God love you!
Father V.
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