“Do not say that those who are killed in God’s cause are dead;
they are alive, though you do not realize it.”
Qur’an 2:154

Long, long ago, a Maryknoll Sister
with a distinguished history of serving
the poorest of the poor on the missions was
beginning graduate studies and set out to purchase a computer.
Having made her selection, she presented a Sisters’ credit card
and the special ID that would allow a religious institute tax break on the sale.
The self-satisfied and arrogant salesclerk made a critical mistake:
He lectured Sister about why she should be wearing a habit.
“Young man, do you know what the habit was?”
Sister queried, stand straight up and confident.
“The habit was nothing more than the day-to-day dress
of a fifteenth century peasant girl.
I may be many things, but I have never been
a Fifteenth Century peasant girl.”

If “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…,” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) David Bowe (1971) was right: We’re living in a world of “ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!”

“So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I’ve just returned from the cemetery, where I’ve confirmed that Mr. Flynn is not – as some might expect – spinning in his grave.

Our father was initiated into the Knights of Columbus on Tuesday, October1, 1946.

Honest-To-God Truth:

There are men and women in prisons in the United States who should never again see the light of day as free people.

“We’re starting to forget 2020 now.
How can we commit to ending the systemic inequalities
that have led to so many deaths in these [1918 and 2020] pandemics?”
Historian Beatrix Hoffman

Despite serving fourteen terms in the Colonial Assembly and representing the colony in the First Continental Congress in 1774, Joseph Galloway was no fan of Pennsylvania’s independence from the crown. He favored England’s continued control of the Colony and, when the Continental Congress rejected the idea, the Assembly accepted his resignation on May 12, 1775.

Galloway wasn’t finished.

Farm worker Javier Diaz suffered three cracked ribs and a broken leg and collarbone. His employer, cattle rancher Juan Cadavid told The Wall Street Journal’s online site “The Wall” he was “tossed… in the air as if he were a ball.” Fisherman Alvaro Molina’s boat was hit in the Magdalena River, forcing him to swim to share.

The culprits?

Two great verbal slap downs.

[We’ll come to the second later, but we admit that after hours of research we’ve been unable to find the details and precise wording.]

At a time when so many members of Congress have bartered away their shame, few living Americans actually heard or saw what may still be the most stinging putdown in Congressional history.

As the lilies of Easter lose their fragrance,
it is time for Christians of all denominations
to consider Tikkun Olam as a living expression
of “Resurrectional Faith.”

It is better to light just one little candle,
Than to stumble in the dark!
Better far that you light just one little candle,
All you need’s a tiny spark!

… if everyone lit just one lite candle,
What a bright world this would be!
What a bright world
This would be!
Joseph Maloy Roach

My friend loved to hate God.

It didn’t matter.

God laughed and had the last word.

Pardon us, please.

Before addressing Easter and the wonder of the Resurrection, we must speak to the Father of the Resurrection, the Son of Courage, and the Spirit of Hope.

“Sometimes, O Lord, you leave us shaking our heads…
At Your joy in playing with our emotions.
At Your timing.”

Way back when Miami was a much smaller city (and I couldn’t get away with anything because no matter where I went someone knew and reported to my folks) and the family home was getting too small, Mr. and Mrs. Flynn spent weeks searching for the “right lot” in the “right location.”

First (and for accuracy). Abraham Lincoln never said “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time.”

“A foolish consistency
is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers
and divines.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let’s get those signs.

I need one of those signs.

Because cowardly politicians are nudging me closer to the brink of hatred.

And I don’t want to go there.

At least I don’t want to go to hating someone.

It was 1970, my second year of seminary (actually “novitiate” – a post-university year of “pledging” for membership and first vows in Roman Catholic orders); we were assigned as parttime chaplains-in-training at Boston City Hospital.

Fine.

Almost - but not quite – great.

If “context is everything,” here’s context.

(This is one of those “strange but true and only in Miami” stories.) Once upon a time, the prelude to Sunday church services included disposing of animal carcasses – usually roosters, hens or pigeons – left at church doors during predawn hours.