Our Awesome God and Space Travel
NASA announced that after 36 years (!) the spacecraft Voyager has left our solar system and entered interstellar space. It is now 12 billion (!) miles from the sun. Isn’t that incredible? Our universe so so vast and mysterious—a good metaphor for God. Here we are, attempting to plumb its secrets, yearning to know more about it. I recall that a teacher once asked, “What’s at the end of the universe?” Now that is a mind-boggling question. We usually don’t think about space and what it contains until we venture out to view a meteor shower or a harvest moon like the one last week. Or until an asteroid is approaching for a close encounter! Usually we are like fish in a bowl, who are busy swimming in circles in their own little world, oblivious to the immense world around them. (more…)
The Power of Peer Pressure
The other day at Mass a woman in the front pew stood at the wrong time. The two women next to her joined her. Soon everyone in the church was standing. I stood too, even though I knew it was a mistake! I could hear my mother’s words echoing in my head, “If everyone jumps in Lake Erie, are you going to jump too?” We humans are so closely bound that we exert a powerful influence on one another. If a group of people are standing together and one person folds his or her arms, soon the others do too. Our emotions are also contagious. Someone in a good mood puts others in a good mood. Likewise a gloomy person soon soon has others downcast. There must be some stray lemming cells in us! (more…)
Perseverance and Determination
The world was awed last week when 64-year-old Diana Nyad swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida. What awed me was that this woman never gave up. This swim was her fifth attempt. A person with less gumption would have said after the fourth try, Why bother? or It’s impossible. Now Diana serves as a model in perseverance. She shows that human beings are capable of performing remarkable feats if they only keep at it. Discouragement and lack of self-confidence can extinguish our dreams if we let them. (more…)
A Personal Bible Verse
One day our novice director told us that the Scripture readings for the Mass on our birthday hold a gift for us: a special message from God. My heart sank. My birthday is the feast of St. Martha, so I assumed that each year God would scold, “Stop working so hard, Kathleen, and pay more attention to me.” Only later at Mass on my birthday did I discover that the first reading was “When I found your words, I devoured them. They became my joy and the happiness of my heart.” (Jeremiah) A nice surprise! This is the verse I always used to begin my talks on Scripture. In addition it sums up my life as I speak and write on the word of God. (more…)
The Bible by Heart
Did you ever hear a reader proclaim Scripture by heart? Or an actor present a whole Gospel? We may not be capable of such a feat, but we can always memorize a Scripture verse or two. Janaan Manternach calls this “banking prayers.” The verses will surface when we need them. For example, St. Teresa of Avila got through months of pain by continually praying, “We receive good from God’s hand, should we not also receive evil?” (Job 2:9) When a heart attack put my dad in the hospital, repeating “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23:1) gave me comfort. Jesus knew Scripture by heart, for he quoted it and prayed it. We recite slogans and sing jingles from commercials even when we don’t want to. Mastering a few Bible verses then shouldn’t be that difficult. (more…)
