A Senior (Maria, right) and a Sophomore (Catherine)
“The soul is healed by being with children.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky
[Written on 8.17.17]
This morning, the first day of a new school year, I made breakfast for my daughters while Patti made their lunches. They skipped downstairs at 6:00 a.m., which stands next to the parting of the Red Sea in terms of miracle categories.
Catherine, armed with her new driver’s permit, drove us to school. Slow down. Watch out. Put your blinker on. Hurry! Not that lane. Too late. Dad, I can do it! Well done. Whew.
When I came home from work that night, Maria was sporting her new senior sweater. The joy in her face. Dear God. Dismantled me. Resistance is futile. Lost in her joie de vivre. My heart hurt, broke, bled.
“Making the decision to have a child — it is momentous.
It is to decide forever to have your heart
go walking around outside your body.” ― Elizabeth Stone
Then Catherine impetuously pulled me down into a chair so she could tell me all the details of her day. I listened, wishing I could communicate the love she drew out of me, slaying in me all resistance to fatherhood.
In the end it’s not the harshness of self-denial or steely-willed determination that sets you running, it’s the other whom you love who draws you out of yourself after them; after Him.
Ek-stasis. Ruth 1:16-17.
As Fr. Stan says this so succinctly with his acronym, FAMILY = forget about me I love you. A life could, should be built on this.
See how love is strong.
Life, do not trouble me.
See how all that remains
Is in losing you to gain.
Come now, sweet death,
Come, dying, swiftly.
I die because I do not die. — St. Teresa of Jesus
In a culture that centers fulfillment on the self, others must die. In a culture that centers fulfillment on the other, I must die.
I’ve shared this here before. My grandfather wrote me in a letter soon after the birth of our first son,
Tommy, people who tell you that you become a father when your children are born don’t know what they’re talking about. You don’t become a father when your children are born. Your children will rip fatherhood out of you. In the joys and in the sorrows. With every smile and cry, every success and failure, with tragedies and triumphs. They will make you into what it means to be a father. Let them do it.
Today was a rip of joy.
“I die because I do not die,” as I have yet so long to journey.
My boys, so differently, rip fatherhood from me. But due to an apodictic gag order from both of them I have almost always refrained here from ever mentioning any details. But let me say, using a metaphor that comes to mind, that whereas the girls fatherfy me in a dance, the boys do so in a brawl.
Every day, as I pray my morning offering of the laity, I gather all these “little things” up, lifting them into the immense glory of His immortal Kingdom where the lowly are magnified and where time flows gently into eternity.
Lord Jesus, at the dawn of this day make of my life a living sacrifice acceptable to you. May my life be at each moment your Fire cast out into the world, consecrating all to the service of your Kingdom. Through my life, joined to your Cross, gather the good and the wicked into your merciful Heart. Through my life, joined to your Cross, transfigure all creation into that new creation where, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, all the lost are found and you are all in all. Amen.
Neal Obstat Theological Opining 
Wait. Wait .Wait. wasn’t it just yesterday that they were daddies little girls… Thomas it gets even better oh and when the boys get older and wish you had written more about them you can whip out the old journal w with a ” funny you say that boys I just happen to have something you might get a kick out of…” simply beautiful Thomas simply beautiful.! ! ! ! ! ! ! . . . WELL DONE FAITHFUL SERVANT WELL DONE . . .
Thank you Dr. TJN for the wonderful spiritual fodder that is serving as an afternoon meditative snack. Munching on your words:
“In the end it’s not the harshness of self-denial or steely-willed determination that sets you running, it’s the other whom you love who draws you out of yourself after them; after Him”
Those words are helping to further weave the spiritual tapestry that the Lord is creating. It was given to me to always pray the following after receiving Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist: “That I may be demagnetized to all that is not of the Lord”. Over the course of several years, the Holy Spirit have given me about a dozen or so “ACP’s (After Communion Pleas) to pray from the heart. To tie loose ends together, it is clear to see that an easy way to “get out my myself” in order to will what God wills, as He wills, and how He wills, is to allow the magnet of love to draw me out of myself. On the lookout, kind of like a witch hunt, to now identify all that can operate in a manner similar to the “harshness of self-denial and steely-willed determination”, to create a spiritual magnetic field that repels rather than attracts the graces necessary to allow God’s will to be done always and in all ways.
✝Find yourself going 2 the left, then going right
Always up to taking any old path in sight
That should be a cause for experiencing spiritual fright
For the straight & narrow is the only way of the wise
To foolishness, they have no regrets just goodbyes
Being Holy Spirit led is to not even fall for the perfect disguise image1.GIF
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