“Oh yeah, the ‘C’ is silent.”
 
(That one’s for your Robert.)

 
It’s one of those worlds where you look at children with contempt because you have become so selfish and twisted by a malignant demon and then instead of being sent to hell along with him are brought to your knees and given the choice to believe in a good God, and when you do, He sends you a little princess who loves you for no other reason than that’s the way God made her.
 

 
Yeah, it’s one of those kinds of worlds, where faithless, heartless men change and become men after God’s own heart.
It’s one of those worlds where a Holy Family lives in Heaven and rains down grace upon the world, and where some Church dedicates a day each year to them.
 
It’s one of those really good worlds like that.

 
…It’s one of those worlds where you pray to a good God, receive a ton of grace, are transformed from something wicked into something wonderful, fight like hell against your hellish tendencies, are forgiven when you fall by incredible, humble mercy, and then go to Heaven forever.
 
That sounds good to me! Where do I sign up?

 
But I am almost sick of eating chocolate and candy.
 
I ate a TON of good food with my beloved family in Pearland and that included healthy food as well as about five pounds of chocolate and candy!
 
There’s too much to tell, so I’ll just put up some pictures.
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I’m headed to Pearland for the rest of the week with my mom to visit family, so I probably won’t be writing any entries. My mom and I lived in Pearland for a time, but it has been many years since I’ve been back there.
 
Fortunately I found a Catholic parish there, St. Helen’s, that has daily Mass and adoration on Tuesdays! I surely need some Christmas grace in the Eucharist, so I hope to meet Jesus there. Neither my mom nor I were Catholic when we lived there, so we never realized that He was right down the road from us all those years…
 
“To find You in,
the place Your glory dwells…”

 
Christ our Savior is born!
 
Merry Christmas to you and your family. My mom and I went to Mass early this morning with a dear old priest named Father Elmer who is a spiritual advisor at the seminary where the Austin diocese sends its seminarians.
 
We picked up Marjorie on the way, and when we entered St. Louis, the parish looked beautiful with huge Christmas trees lit up, a large nativity scene, and very festive decorations all around. Father Larry and the staff at the parish really do a great job making Christmas reverent and joyful.
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My beloved and far-off sister sent me a big package of stuff–some for me, some for my mom, some to be kept for her when she returns one day.
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…is it?
 
Remember when Jesus said, “Whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me”?
 
We all believe that with some degree of faith, but if you’re like me, that faith is pretty small. Consider: A man is new to your parish and wants to go to Adoration, but he is handicapped in a way that causes him to have to ask for someone to take him there? Would you take him?
 
If this situation doesn’t exactly fit Jesus’ words, I don’t know one that would, and it just so happens this hypothetical situation is real and is at the parish where I am the adoration scheduler.
 
I sent out an email to all the adorers describing this man’s humble request for someone to take him to and from adoration. He even said that he would go at anytime, stay for any length, and leave at any time to be as little a burden as possible, bless his heart.
 
No one responded to the email.
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In Mary’s womb, 2 days before his birth, Jesus was waiting…
 
Waiting to open up his human eyes on the world he created,
Waiting to gaze lovingly into the faces of his mother and foster-father,
Waiting to be held so tenderly by them and to be adored by them,
Waiting to feel the cold air in the little stable,
Waiting to set foot in the world that had turned against him,
Waiting to be a helpless, vulnerable little baby in a violent world,
Waiting to live with us,
Waiting to love us with his little, chubby arms and his Infinite, Sacred Heart,
Waiting to grow into a man,
Waiting to face Satan and overcome him through pure love,
Waiting to carry us all through this world to his Father forever.
 

“Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen, come Lord Jesus.

 
The G gave me a set of Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries, and the first one I read last night was awesome!
 
Fr. Brown is a dumpy-looking but shrewd little priest who always solves the crimes. This one involved two men who had a duel, and everyone thought that Man A killed Man B for known reasons. The anti-Catholic “friends” in the story all sided with Man A, the killer, because they felt his reasons in some way justified the murder, even though they did not.
 
So these friends attack the Church and the priesthood and accuse them of making Man A live in guilt his whole life and driving him to seclusion. They also call for mercy and pardon for Man A. But Father Brown discovers and reveals to them that in fact, it was Man B who killed Man A and then impersonated Man A the rest of his life, so that he (Man B) could never be found out as the real killer.
 
The anti-Catholic friends start singing a different tune then:
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