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“I will never take back my love,” is a message from God in Psalm 89. The words struck me as I was praying the Office of Readings. They are appropriate for Valentine’s Day and for reflection during Lent.
I went through Italy last summer. Franciscan Pilgrimage Programs took our group to places associated with Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio), Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi, Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Pope John XXIII.
Graduation ceremonies, the hallowed traditions of colleges and universities around the country, are as upended — but also marked with creativity — as school lectures and seminars have been since mid-March.
Years ago, as Lent approached, I asked a trusted spiritual counselor what he was going to give up. He gave me a sly grin and said, “I’m giving up giving things up for Lent.”
Around 1950, in Zanesville, Ohio, a young Patrick Flood’s Catholic grade school class watched a movie about persecuted Christians in the newly Communist countries of Eastern Europe. One, he remembers, was Cardinal Mindszenty, then the bishop of Esztergom, Hungary, and today a candidate for sainthood.
Kyle and Cyndi Kramer live with their three small children 8-year-old twins Eva and Clare and 5-year-old Eli in a home Kyle built largely by himself. They use solar power, a cistern and firewood they harvest from their woods. The Kramers grind their own grains, buying them in bulk.
Older churches most always count Saint Anthony among their pantheon of statues.
When I look at the unfair judgments endured by Jesus for our salvation, I think of the judgments I have made in my lifetime.
Sister Holda, my Franciscan sixth-grade teacher at St. Peter’s in Skokie, Illinois, made all of us memorize Anima Christi.
People often telephone Sister Maria Elena Romero, a Capuchin Franciscan Poor Clare in Wilmington, Delaware, to ask for her to pray for a personal intention, to sound out a problem, sometimes just to cry.
