Twilight Twitches

Dear Family,
I have stolen the following powerful thoughts from Irish Dominican, Father Donagh O’Shea. They appear in <http://www.goodnews.ie>
“The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church. The feast of Pentecost is an annual invitation to the Church to consider itself and discover its soul. It is tempted, like all of us, to keep looking the other way.

In one sense, it is more natural to forget about one’s inner life and to get on with one’s work. If you are always worrying about your heart or your liver, etc., you will not take risks or do a lot of work. A healthy person just goes to it. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, and there is a sense in which that Spirit likes to work unseen, undeclared.

Dear Family,
I found the following prayer on the website of the Archdiocese of Detroit.

Heavenly Father,
On this Meorial Day, we pray for those who courageously laid down their lives for the cause of freedom.
May the example of their sacrifice inspire in us the selfless love of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Bless the families of our fallen troops, and fill their homes and their lives with your strength and peace.
In union with people of goodwill of every nation, embolden us to answer the call to work for peace and justice, and thus, seek an end to violence and conflict around the globe.
We pray through Christ our Lord.
Amen

Dear Family,
This is my second attempt at writing this week’s Twitch. The first was half-written when a virus of some sort attacked. I immediately called our trusty tech, Gary Thani, and he calmed my nerves and said, “Just shut it off and it will go somewhere else.” This was a hi-tech solution. Of course, if I had been saving my stuff you would still have the superlative prose that had flowed off my fingers. Instead, you’re stuck with this prosaic rewrite.

Do you ever just stop and murmur a prayer of thanks for some of the technology we have? Still, like so many things, it isn’t the product; it’s how you use it.

Dear Family,
I may have told you this story before and if so, enjoy going down memory lane with me again.

When I was a kid growing up in Holy Family parish in North Miami, our pastor was Msgr. Rowan T Rastatter. He was a great priest, a cigar smoker, a kind of ‘captain of the ship’ and you always knew he was in charge. So the last thing anyone ever expected was to see Monsignor cry. But every year, it happened twice. The first was on Catholic Charities Sunday, when he made the appeal on behalf of the charities of the diocese. Maybe it could be compared to our ABCD.

Monsignor was in charge of Catholic Charities. When I was a kid that included nearly the whole state of Florida. It was under that hat that he built Mercy Hospital and Holy Cross hospital. He also saw the needs all over the place and his reaction was genuine. He was a truth-teller about genuine need. (I suspect we were generous on that day.)