“Friday is the toughest day of the week for me.”

“How could that be, Father; Friday’s your day off?”

“Well that’s just it. I do better with a schedule and a calendar

full of clear expectations.”

“Do you see those sparrows over there?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Not one of them falls to the ground without your Heavenly Father knowing of it.”

The Christian is different. The Christian knows that to die is to live. The Christian is literally dying to live.

We hear it in Christ’s instructions, and see it in His life. He teaches us how to live by showing us how to die.

I remember hearing (or reading) when I was in the seminary that “a Catholic can make an idol even of the Eucharist.” I was turned off by the sound of it, but it was unsettling because I didn’t know what it meant. If Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, and Jesus is God, how then could the Eucharist ever become a kind of false idol?

We ask each other all the time, “How’s it going?” and the answer’s usually the same. “Fine. I’m good, thanks.” Neither are true of course. We’re not fine and God alone is good. But saying we are is easier than answering a much harder question, namely, “Where’s it going?”

Most sincerely held convictions about the good of martyrdom usually include an argument for its being of some help toward the preservation of a people’s unity. Soldiers who die for their country might say so, in any case. It’s all very strange though, how the sacrifice of one man might benefit the life of a whole community. It’s like trying to understand how the Eucharist works.

If the Church is a household, then liturgically we’re in that awkward in-between phase after demolition but before reconstruction; everything looks worse before it looks beautiful again.

Someone recently asked me, “Father, when you pray, do you pray to Jesus? Or to the Father? Or to the Holy Spirit?” I replied, “I ask Jesus to come to me, and then I pray with Him to the Father. At least, that’s how I experience it.” She followed up, “So what about the Holy Spirit?” “Well,” I said, “I suppose He’s the One making it all possible.”