I gave up hope a few weeks back that any new adorers would sign up for adoration.

Over a month ago, I asked our Blessed Mother for just one person to sign up for adoration, but lo, nothing happened. I knew our Blessed Mother had prayed for my intention, and that God wanted people to go to adoration, so I attributed it to people not listening to his inspiration and to my own poor effort in writing the adoration article for the newsletter.

Well, last night the phone rings, and the young woman’s voice on the other end asks for Devin. I tell her that I am he, and then she surprises me by asking if she “can still sign up for an adoration hour”.

Me: “You bet you can! Which hour do you want?!”

Our Blessed Mother came through, and so today I made good on my promise to her and prayed the rosary for these new adorers.

I say adorers in the plural because her whole family is coming to adoration. While talking with her, I heard a baby making holy clamor in the background, and she told me that she and her husband were married in the last year and are already blessed with a baby!

When our conversation ended, I looked at my Immaculate Heart of Mary painting that my mom gave me, thanked her and Jesus, and then the thought came into my mind that even though I had given up on the prayer long ago, Mary and Jesus hadn’t given up, and I wondered how many more of my prayers may be like that–forgotten by me but moving in the Heart of Christ and awaiting his brilliant timing to be answered in unexpected ways.

I just read over on Danielle Bean’s site of a small Catholic school in Taylor, Texas that needs help to get a computer lab donated to it. All you have to do is click on this link and vote for them!

Taylor, Texas is only twenty miles away from my house! They were our town’s rivals in high school football growing up–at some point we kidnapped their duck statue (they’re the Taylor Ducks), and then they spray painted our Eagle statue (we were the Georgetown Eagles).

But this school is Catholic, so I let old biases pass. Spread the word to your friends, as this seems legitimate.

 
…Father Thai hits one out of the park again and nails me in the back of the head!
 
Father Thai is our new associate priest at St. Elizabeth’s in Pflugerville, Texas. (pronounced Flew-gur-vill). Every homily he has given rocks. He nails the gospel, explains the difficult parts, and challenges us to live like Christ. No bones, no punches pulled, no apologies. Whoop!
 
Then we got to the annual Catholic Services Appeal–the diocesan request for donations for seminarian education, retired priest care, outreach ministries, religious education, and many other worthy causes.
 
In past years, I have given a decent amount to this appeal, and in total each year, I give from 10% to 15% to the Church, usually around 13%. The “extra” 3% on top of the 10% “tithe” amount is more attributable to my laziness in not keeping exact count of how much I have given, rather than special generosity on my part. Also, thanks be to God, I make more money than I need, so I have a cushion in giving extra and not going destitute.
 
Soo, Father Thai opened up his talk on the Services Appeal and said, “In the Old Testament, people gave 10% of their income to God.”
I thought: “Ooh, he’s going for the 10% on people–that’s gonna be a big challenge for them! I already give that much anyway, so I’m smooth sailing.”
 
Father Thai: “But I’m not going to ask you for 10%, after all, this is the Catholic Church.”
I thought: “Man, not even Father Thai would go for the 10% challenge on people. He recognizes that this is the Catholic Church, where the average donation amount is 0.5% from what I have read. Well, that’s reality, and I guess he’s gonna go for some lesser amount.”
 
Father Thai: “Yes, this is the Catholic Church, not the Old Testament anymore, and here we receive the very Body and Blood of Christ. So I’m not going to ask for 10%. Instead, we should be giving 15% to 20% to God!”
(Deafening silence–I hear a loud thump and echo as something powerful slams against my hardened heart.)
 
more…

 
“This world, is making me drunk, on, the spirits of fear;
So when He says: “Who will go?”
I am nowhere near…”
 
“And the ‘least of these’ look like criminals to me, so I leave, Christ on the street…”
 
–Caedmon’s Call, “This World”
 
Slam, those lyrics hit home with me! When I see a beggar on the street, a million critical thoughts pop into my mind about them, as well as excuses for not giving them any small token of kindness.
 
“Mother Theresa saw Jesus in all the people she pulled out of the gutters in India, but these beggars are different because they live here in America and could get jobs if they wanted, or at least they are not dying in the street like in India. Yes, it really is different here.”
 
“That dude is my age! I work hard and suffer in doing so–he could get a job. I bet that limp he has is phony. He had the same sign up last week that said he was ’stranded’ and needed money for a bus ticket.”
 
Those a just a sampling of the thoughts that run through my mind, as these ‘least brothers of mine’ really do look like criminals to me, so how can I see Christ in them?
 
I hardly ever can, so instead of feeling guilty about not seeing Jesus, I give them a dollar and a prayer card, or today, I was out of prayer cards, so I gave the man a dollar and the Favorite Prayers to St. Joseph booklet. I remember giving him the Mother Theresa “I Thirst For You” prayer card a few weeks back, as he said the same thing to me, in a most earnest voice: “I will read it. I will.”
 
I am blind to Jesus most of the time, I realize, so I am just going to DO things as if I could see him in people, and hope that he will make my desire a reality one day by opening up the eyes of my heart to his loving presence in all people. He may not dwell in them as fully as he does in me, but I must disabuse myself of the notion that in my own goodness he has chosen to make his home in me. Rather, he humbles himself to come into me, a poor sinner, and he longs to make his home in these beggars as well, if he has not already.
 
His Kingdom come! And may he melt my iron heart with love for his children.

Linux software development tools stink.

In particular, the debuggers are horrible. They are horrible because they ALL use gdb under the hood, and gdb can’t even stop on a simple breakpoint a good bit of the time.

Random rants:
1. Call dlclose() on a dynamic library’s handle that is already closed, and memory corruption can occur.
2. Set a breakpoint in code–sometimes it hits that code and just walks right on by without stopping.
3. Drilling down into a complex object or struct is very difficult, if not impossible.

Microsoft’s Visual Studio is three orders of magnitude better for debugging programs. The Linux tools are free, but the time you lose in using these inferior tools costs much more money than the cost of Visual Studio.

Linux advocates could help their cause tremendously by working on the basic developer tools which would then foster more and better development on their platform.

Disclaimer: I hope that Linux spreads and becomes more widely adopted as an alternative to Windows. I’m not against it, just critical of the sorry dev tools.

…There is no limit.
There is no failure here, sweetheart,
Just when you quit.
(U2, “Miracle Drug”)

At the U2 concert, it was really cool because Bono praised President Bush for the tremendous help he gave to African nations with AIDS drugs.

He also lauded the American military for their heroic work and sacrifice.

Then he praised all Americans for being so generous to other countries struck by disasters (tsunami, flood, earthquake, etc.), even though here at home we faced such disasters.

I think that he realizes that for all of America’s faults and problems, our country has incredible capacity to do good and to help others, and so he wants to appeal to that heroic spirit that America stands for in order to help the causes he feels so strongly about (notably African countries’ debts and the AIDS pandemic).

One last thing: He sang Miss Sarajevo, even doing the Pavarotti Latin opera vocals himself, and when he sang the lyrics, “Is there a time, for first communion”, we all did an Aggie Whoop as if to say “Heavens yes there’s time for First Communion!”.

 
I have been loosely following the Loretto High School story, which I am sure many of you have heard about. Today I learned that the young girl was expelled from the school on charges that sound bogus.
 
I don’t feel informed enough about what all has gone on to send an email to the school principal and the Bishop, but hopefully I can learn more about it and help out in that small way, if appropriate. Pray for this girl and her family especially and for the people who need deep conversion of heart involved in the situation.
 
Check out the Curt Jester’s site for links.

It’s so cool–in the National Catholic Register this week, they featured an article on Our Lady of the Rosary cemetery in Georgetown, Texas, started by the Brumder family.

The Brumders were the family who met with me to discuss designing a special tabernacle for our new perpetual adoration chapel. It’s neat seeing them in the Register.

And to top it all off, their article shares a page with none other than Danielle Bean, coming through in a clutch move with another winner about her and her husband’s miscommunications. It was a comedy of errors, but you’ll just have to check it out for yourself if she posts the article on her site someday.

If not, it will probably go in her next book, which I think should be called “My Cup of Tea, Part II, Further Adventures in Catholic Mommyhood”.

Way back in junior high school I heard some P.M. Dawn songs on the radio as they had just hit it big where their song “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss”.

They were kind of funky because they were two black guys–one big, one not-so-big, with soulful voices and cool, often strange lyrics. A few years back I bought their “Best Of” CD and listened to them more.

So today I was at work after going to an early All Saints Day Mass, and I started listening to their song, “Faith in You”. I thought they must be singing it as a love song to a girl, but the lyrics could also appropriately be applied to Jesus!

So if no one else believes in you
I’m completely yours, and I’ve got so much faith in you
No matter what this life puts in front of you
You can save this world
I’ve got so much faith in you

And then I had a kind of rush of adrenal-faith, where I feel real pumped up with a desire to be a saint and do heroic deeds, and I began saying a prayer that was like:
Jesus! I got so much faith in you.
And in your prayers my Blessed Mother–I got so much faith in you.
And in yours, too, holy Joseph,
And in yours St. Therese and in yours St. Maria Goretti,
for purity,
Today,
Forever,
I got so much faith in you!

You really “had to be there (inside my mind)” to feel it, but it was great! Thanks be to the Holy Spirit, for every good thought, inspiration, and even the desire to pray and to be a saint are gifts of grace from Him.