Random Thoughts

If you are lucky then the theme song from The Greatest American Hero is now playing in your mind. If you are an Earl fan, you might even be hearing Randy’s version right now. But I am actually still talking about faith. Before you send for the Men in Black, let me just say, I have not been abducted by aliens. I still have plenty whining, complaining and snarkiness left in me. I just thought since we were on the subject of religion and while I am already out on this limb, you might permit me one more chance to share a few things I left off of Monday’s post.

First I wanted to share with you a rather neat idea one of the speakers at Sunday’s event had. She and her family look forward to New Year’s Day every year, but not just for the typical reasons. They have a custom in which each member of the household selects a saint who they then read about, study, and pray for the intercession of for that year. From her description she chooses several saints and they place the names in a hat and each person draws one out. This way the family can pick their own saint to be their patron. I am thinking of incorporating this idea into my life, but I am not sure I have the patience to wait for a whole year to get a new saint. There are so many and so much I could learn. I have decided to pick a new saint at the beginning of each month. This way I can put all my holy cards to use, and at the same time learn more about the people behind the prayers. I am always surprised when my non Catholic friends ask me about the saints. Apparently we Catholics give off this notion that saints are somehow perfect. Only Jesus is perfect. Saints are human just like you and me; they are flawed, in many cases quick to anger and certainly experienced periods of confusion and doubt, many of them were even teetering on the brink of insanity, some of them were really big sinners before their change of heart and all most all of them were misunderstood. Yet they are our examples, their lives teach us something and their witness gives us hope. Thankfully, we don’t all have to die a martyr’s death, but we dishonor those who have if we don’t remember their message and try to learn from it. And just to clarify so I don’t get taken to task later, certainly not all saints were martyrs, many of them did not even experience a heroic death, and still more were graced with a peaceful death at an old age. Many saints have yet to be recognized or in some cases it took hundreds of years before anyone thought of them as saintly, but the miracles they inspire and their intercession and example can not be denied by those who simply have the courage to believe.

Monday was the Feast of St. Joseph and also at my church the continuation of our Miraculous Medal Novena. After Mass, several of us remained behind and Father led us in the necessary prayers. He is one of my favorite priests. He is very reverent and holy and a straight shooter. He also looks a little like an altar boy all grown up and he has a curious ocular tick. At any rate, at the conclusion of the novena to Our Lady, he led us all in a spirited a cappella rendition of Immaculate Mary. For some reason, in my head as I was singing all I could hear was his voice riddled with a cold, trying hard to stay on key and faithfully guiding us through the melody we’d all heard hundreds of times. I suddenly thought of Our Lady and how she must be smiling at this incredibly feeble attempt to pay her homage; Father singing with his cold, the raspy voices of the elderly trying to keep up and then me. We wouldn’t win any awards I’ll tell you that, but it was beautiful. I could almost see the children in us, unafraid of what others would say just blindly singing our hearts out. It made me happy and I know it made Mary happy as well. I wish you could all see what I see.

Now on to the crux of the matter…I have decided to send a copy of Monday’s post and the holy cards I received unsolicited to my brothers and sisters and my older nieces and nephews. I first thought of it as soon as the organizer mentioned we were allowed to take extras for our families and even our parishes. Admittedly, I was a little afraid. You never know how people are going to react if they think you are pushing religion on them. Certainly it is a very personal decision. Then I thought if I can put it all out here online for the world to see, why not share my experience with my family as well? So what if they think I am a weirdo, what else is new? I still wasn’t convinced I should do it, and I had lots of errands to run, but as you know I am trying to work up to that 3 hours a day of prayer thing. So I decided to take a break and read the Bible for a while. Last year during Lent I decided to read the entire Bible cover to cover. It didn’t work out the way I expected. I started with Genesis, which I think I have done many times in my life. Then just before I started to get to the important or at the very least the less known parts, I gave up. This time I decided to take a page from a woman I met who runs a religious gift shop. She had the idea to open the store, but wasn’t sure if she was really being called to do it or even where to go about building it. So she opened the Bible to a random page and pointed. Her finger landed on a passage. I forget the exact quote, but I do know it mentioned the town of Berea. Coincidentally, there is a Berea here in northeastern Ohio, so take a guess where her store is. Did I mention I don’t believe in coincidence? Anyway, I opened my Bible and it fell to Ezekiel chapter 33 to answer me. Skeptics among us will say I interpreted the passage the way I wanted to hear it. I will let you decide. At any rate, I had my answer and I was no longer afraid. Is anyone else hearing Mister Miyagi in their head right now? “Courage, Daniel-san.” Nevermind. The letters go out tomorrow hopefully; however, the jury on the town weirdo is still deliberating.

Lastly, I promise to be back tomorrow with secular snark most likely pertaining to the newest episode of Veronica Mars. Thanks again for bearing with me. Until next time…Cheers!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 4:58 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.