Find what you’re looking for
You know what they say: “You can’t win the lottery without buying a ticket.” It seems fairly obvious, right? How could one ever expect to win without actually entering the contest?
One of my favorite features on the television show Sesame Street when I was growing up was a game entitled, “One of These Things Is Not Like the Other.” As the song played in the background, we were challenged to find the one object out of the four that was different: an orange, an apple, a pear and a spoon, for example. Tucked in among the apples-and-oranges books of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible is a spoon!
We see so many dark valleys, so many disasters, so many people dying of hunger, from wars, so many disabled children, so many.
“Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there” (Lk 9:2-5).
Paradise is not found on the beaches of a Caribbean island or in some mythic garden from the book of Genesis. Paradise is where God’s will is done. It is the very reality of our existence with God without the gloss of our own selfish desires, without our own obsessive need for control. It is the location—not so much in time and space, but in experience—where, like God, we live more and more as women and men for others.
To meditate, begin with your physical posture. Sit down (chair, cushion on the floor, or meditation bench). Keep your back straight.
One of the phrases most likely to be associated with Pope Francis is “Who am I to judge?”
Like us, Jesus could be besieged by his emotions. But his example shows us that God is there to comfort and support us.
All the Money in the World
In July 1973, Abigail “Gail ” Getty (Michelle Williams), the divorced mother of 16- year-old John Paul “Paul ” Getty III (Charlie Plummer), receives a call that her son has been kidnapped in Rome. The ransom is $17 million. She thinks it’s a joke because it’s the kind of thing her son would talk about doing. This is no stunt, however.
When the Loyola Chicago men’s basketball team is looking for guidance both on and off the court, this 98-year-old sister provides it.
The 5-foot nun can be seen at every home game for the men’s team. She’s most often decked out in Loyola gear and wearing her trademark maroon Nike tennis shoes with gold laces that have “Sister ” stitched onto the heel of her left shoe and “Jean ” stitched on the right one.
