From the Pastor&

     Erma Bombeck once wrote a column entitled:  "If I Had My Life To Live Over Again".  In it, she wrote:

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.  I would
never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed
to last a lifetime.  When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never had said, "Later. Now
get washed up for dinner."  There would have been more I love yous, more I'm sorrys, but mostly,
given another shot at life, I would seize every minute, look at it and really see it, live it, and never
give it back.
     
     I think Erma Bombeck should be declared a saint by popular demand.  She is writing about really living life - and don't we Christians believe that life is God's gift?  This life is a great life and the world is charged with God's grace.  Yes, there is sin, disease and death in the world, but so too is God's loving presence and power in our world.  We are invited to live, really live, in the presence and power of God. 
     I wonder how people can really live and cope without strong spiritual resources.  Just like you, there has been pain and sorrow in my life.  Without faith in God, I could have chosen a life of bitterness and anger.
     There is a very good writer by the name of Peter DeVries.  In his novel, The Blood of the Lamb, the main character, Don Wanderhope grows up in a religiously fluctuating environment.  The death of Don's older brother pushes Don into atheism at the age of twenty.
     Don married and has a daughter, Carol.  His wife struggles with alcoholism and other problems, and she eventually commits suicide.  Then his beloved daughter Carol comes down with leukemia.  While dealing with the sadness of his daughter's illness, Don makes some tentative steps back toward his faith.
     One day, Don stops at a church and prays in front of a statue of St. Jude, the patron of hopeless cases, that his daughter be allowed at least one more year to live.  In that year, God willing, Don planned to celebrate every single moment that he and Carol would have together.
     That morning at the hospital, Don is told that Carol is in remission.  The next day Don comes back to the hospital with a cake to celebrate with Carol.  But before going to the hospital, Don stops at the church to pray.  On the way out of church, he meets a nurse who informs him that an infection has spread through the leukemia unit.  That afternoon Carol dies. 
    As Don goes home, he passes the church, where he had absent-mindedly left the cake.  Don picks up the cake and takes it outside to where there is a statue of the crucified Christ hanging over the door.  Don throws the cake as hard as he can at the statue.  It hits the statue of Jesus right in the face.  And Don Wanderhope resumes his life of atheism and despair.  And there the story ends.  Although it is only fiction, DeVries wrote it as a parable of the way many people live life.  The name of the main character is a play on words.  The name Wanderhope is taken from the Dutch word "wahhoop," which means "despair."
     How do we feed our souls - the one thing about us that will live forever?  There is absolutely nothing wrong about being rich, about material security.  But what about our spiritual security?  Albert Einstein, after fleeing from Nazi Germany and settling in the U.S., said that he had constantly "to guard against becoming superficial in thought and feeling: it lies in the air here."
     What do you do to breathe different air?  How do you feed your soul?  What spiritual resources do you have to face whatever problems might come your way?  How can the parish help you?

         
     Fr. Bill