When my sister and I were little, our mother would show us a video about Medjugorje. “Look at these children,” she would say to us. “They’re seeing the Blessed Mother. She’s appearing to them from heaven.”

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how grace breaks in - how grace just shows up.

Have you ever heard of the town in Pennsylvania called, Centralia? Neither had I, but I learned of it this week. The YouTube algorithm gods deigned to reveal to me the little known story of this mysterious place, and I’m glad they did. It is amazing.

“Father, will we ever have a Youth Group here at the parish?”

Yes! In fact, next Sunday, the 25th, Natalie Niemann and I will be hosting a Meet & Greet in the Siena Room following the 12 PM Mass for young adults who are interested in belonging to a team of youth ministers for the teens of the parish.

I know that Mother Teresa famously said that God wasn’t calling her to be successful, but to be faithful. But it is nice to know that sometimes God gives us the grace to be successful too! This past week, our annual parish summer camp was a great success!

I know my parents are not perfect. That might be self-evident to others, but I need to admit that. I need to permit that, and even to love that. Because it seems to me that the perfect love of God can come to us when we allow ourselves to be loved imperfectly by others, and that the fear of being ashamed of the imperfection of our family is not from God.

As I’ve been preparing to take some time to rest for the month of July, I’ve been thinking about two or three books I’d like to read. Throughout the year I’m usually “reading a bookshelf,” as a friend of mine once put it. That is, I’m always reading a few pages at a time from a few books at a time. It’s a little utilitarian. Those books help me to stay recollected and connected, which helps my preaching. But the summer months are for reading a book solely for the duty of delight.

So while the physical senses of the body are incapable of sensing God’s presence directly, the soul and the spirit nevertheless remain capax Dei, capable of God. In the intellect this perception of God can happen. In the Christian tradition, we call this “prayer.”