“MOVIE BINGO: GOOD, BAD, OR CONDEMNED?”: VICKI QUADE SCORES ANOTHER ONE FOR THE SISTERS

5/21/13

When I first saw “Late Nite Catechism” years ago, I did so reluctantly, at the behest (insistence, really) of some friends.  I thought “Oh, no.  Another one of these addle-brained ‘comedies’ in which the sisters are made the butt of inane jokes about their imagined narrow-mindedness, stupidity, or sadism.”   I, for one, love the Springfield Dominicans who educated me many years ago at St. Walter on the south side of Chicago.  They were terrific educators who followed the Lord and did their best to extend His love and concern to their charges.   They worked us hard and demanded a lot…and we thank them for it.  So I have little tolerance for poseurs and inane cheap shot artists who, having known little of the Catholic education they so ridicule, make these wonderful, holy women the targets of thoughtless, brainless “humor.”  

But “Late Nite Catechism” took me by complete surprise. Ms. Quade’s production was flawless. Yes, it was, to use too weak a word, funny…in fact, it was tears of laughter streaming out of the eyes, nearly falling out of one’s chair hysterical. Yet, at the same time, it was respectful of the work of the sisters and the love they have for God, for the Church, and for their youthful charges. In fact, Ms. Quade donates a portion of the proceeds of each show to religious orders to help the sisters as they struggle with the financial challenges born of lots of older sisters, few younger sisters, and very little coming in to support even their spartan existences.




After “Late Nite Catechism,” my wife and I became huge Vicki Quade fans. We’ve seen “Put the Nuns in Charge,” “Sunday School Cinema,” and “Mother Superior’s Ho-Ho-Holy Night.” So we always eagerly anticipate the next production to emerge from the cauldron of creativity that is Ms. Quade’s mind. We were therefore delighted to learn that “Movie Bingo: Good, Bad, or Condemned?” would be coming to one of our local parishes, St. Thomas the Apostle in Naperville. Our anticipation and excitement were mixed with a touch of concern, however; could Ms. Quade possibly keep up the standard of excellence, hilarity, and poignancy that has been set by her earlier productions?

Our concern was misplaced. “Movie Bingo: Good, Bad, or Condemned?” meets or exceeds the “Quade standard” set by her earlier productions, and especially by “Late Nite Catechism.” The show is hysterical, engaging, thought provoking, and brain challenging. It probably is skewed more toward outright hilarity, and less toward the profundity that always finds it way into her productions. But the increased laughs detract not at all from the show; I suspect most people would find “Movie Bingo’s” heightened emphasis on generating a good belly laugh a plus.




While I wish that Ms. Quade would have worn her usual habit and played a sister in the show, I understand her appearing as a lay person (substituting for the absent priest, of course, just as “Sister” did in her previous productions!). The Church is changing; younger members of the Church, and of Ms. Quade’s audience, probably have never seen a sister in her habit. And we “older” Catholics, who’ve lived “Late Nite Catechism” and its fellow Quade creations lose nothing by Ms. Quade’s appearing as a lay person in “Movie Bingo.” Still…next time, Ms. Quade…PLEASE bring Sister back!



Congratulations to Vicki Quade on another hit that should have them rolling in the aisles…again. And this from someone who literally did roll in the aisles in sixth grade at St. Walter in response to a joke told by my buddy Mike Graber…and incurred the wrath of Sister Agnes for doing so!



And thank you, Ms. Quade, for all you do for the sisters who have done so much for us.





For more information on “Movie Bingo: Good, Bad, or Condemned?”, please go to Nuns4fun.com. One of Ms. Quade’s mottos is “Have nun, will travel;” she puts on these shows in venues across the nation.

HOW THIS CHRISTIAN WOULD FEEL ABOUT HOLDING MY KID’S GRADUATION CEREMONY IN A “JEWISH TEMPLE” OR A “MUSLIM MOSQUE”

5/12/13




The Supreme Court is currently considering a church and state case from the 7th Circuit. The case concerns the Elmbrook School District, which is located just outside Milwaukee. The district has been holding it graduation ceremonies in the evangelical Elmbrook Church for the last decade because the high school gym, in which the ceremonies had previously been held, is small and lacks air conditioning. The Elmbrook Church, on the other hand, is modern, large, bristles with modern amenities, and is therefore physically ideal for a graduation ceremony.



Several non-Christian parents have sued, however, stating that they didn’t want their kids’ graduation ceremonies held in a church that, not surprisingly, prominently displays a Christian cross. The 7th Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs, the school district appealed, and the Supreme Court is considering whether to take the case. How this case will come out is, of course, important for church and state reasons but also, one might argue, as a test for how far our society has traveled down the road of the craziness that ensues when people look for reasons to be publicly offended and therefore aggrieved.



The focus of this post, however, is not on the outcome of the case, but on a statement made by Ayesha Khan, legal director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs. Ms. Khan advised Christians to



“…stop and think about how it would feel if their high school graduation ceremonies were held in a Jewish temple or a Muslim mosque, where diplomas were handed out beneath a looming Star of David or Islamic crescent.”



(A side note…I’m not an expert on Judaism, but wouldn’t it be impossible to hold a graduation ceremony in a “Jewish temple”? Isn’t, or wasn’t, there only one temple, in Jerusalem, which is currently in ruins? Aren’t the modern places of worship in Judaism therefore not temples but synagogues? I might be wrong here; Jewish congregations are often called, for example, “Temple Beth Israel,” so maybe that is what Ms. Khan is referring to. But, technically, are these places really temples? I’m not trying to belittle Ms. Khan here; I’m genuinely curious because I’ve heard both sides of this question. Perhaps those of you with a stronger knowledge of Judaism can enlighten me and my readers.)



I could tell Ms. Khan directly how this Christian would feel if my, or my kids’, “graduation ceremony were held in a Jewish temple or a Muslim mosque, where diplomas were handed out beneath a looming Star of David or Islamic crescent.”…



I would be honored, and so would most Christians.



I would be honored that a Jewish, Muslim (or Buddhist, Hindu, or most any other faith) congregation would share their most sacred space, the place they go to worship God, with me. And I would take the opportunity to say a prayer not only for the graduates but also for the congregation that was so generous and magnanimous as to let us share their holy place.



Further, in the case of a graduation in a synagogue, I would be especially honored and awed. I would feel that my kid’s, or my, graduation was being held in the same setting that Jesus’ graduation would have been held if he indeed had graduated from school. (We don’t know whether Jesus had any formal education; while Mark 6, 2



“When the Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said ‘Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him?’”



and Matthew 13, 54, which is based on it, might be interpreted to mean that Jesus was wholly uneducated, they might merely indicate that he was not trained as a rabbi.)



Honored and grateful…that is how I would feel about a graduation ceremony in a synagogue or a mosque. And I suspect that most Jews and Muslims would, and do, feel the same way about a graduation ceremony held in a Christian church. Further, I suspect that everyone would share my feelings about holding graduation ceremonies in a hot, stuffy, cramped high school gym.

“I WISH YOU HEALTH, AND MORE THAN WEALTH, I WISH YOU (THE HOLY SPIRIT)”?

4/25/13




How many of us don’t feel a little disappointed after reading Luke 11, 9-13?



“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you, then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Emphasis mine)

Reading the first for sentences of this very oft quoted passage, we start to get excited. We start to think something like



“All I have to do is ask, knock, and/or seek and I will get what I want? Wow! Money, fame, a McMansion, a nice car are mine for the asking? Okay, okay, maybe I’ll ask for something more noble: health for me and my family, wisdom, respect, okay, maybe even something really admirable for world peace. Hey, it can’t hurt to ask for something like that if I want to get what I really want, right? But this is great…Jesus says all I have to do is ask! Hand me that Lexus full line brochure!”



Then it hits us



“…how much more will your Father in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?”



The holy Spirit? Is that what the Father will give us if we ask Him? The holy Spirit? This is like the kid who asked for the train set for Christmas and got a football, a few books, and some socks instead. He’s really disappointed because he didn’t get what he wanted, but he acts excited, or at least contented, because he didn’t get what he wanted. So, yeah, the holy Spirit; that’s good, that’s cool. Thanks. But how about that couple million bucks, the nice place downtown, and the Lexus?



There are plenty of people out there, maybe some of you, who would say something like



“ I am overjoyed to receive the holy Spirit. That was, after all, Jesus’ promise to His disciples at the Last Supper and, ultimately, it was all that they needed and more than they could ask for. So how could I possibly ask for more? Thanks, God, for sending me your Spirit.”



If indeed that is your attitude, congratulations. You are a close follower of Christ and an exemplary Christian. Seriously; I’m not being sarcastic here. If you were given the chance to ask for anything in the world and genuinely and honestly would ask for the holy Spirit in response, you have genuinely opened your heart to Jesus.



Yours truly, on the other hand, would like to think that I would ask for the holy Spirit rather than money, power, or something more noble, like health and prosperity for my children. But, even though I’m working on it, I’m not there yet.

“(OUR NEW AND WONDERFUL PAPA) HAS POWERFUL ENEMIES”

3/31/13, Easter Sunday




The Jesuit Pope Francis assumed the chair of St. Peter to the delight and enthusiasm of multitudes (See my 3/13/13 piece POPE FRANCIS: THIS IS STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A MIRACLE!) of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and the new pontiff continues to enthrall and surprise most…and unsettle, even frighten, many.



The Pope has tossed aside customs and set precedents on almost a daily basis:



--He has refused to live in the very comfortable, if not posh, Vatican apartments, choosing instead to live in two room quarters in the guest house he occupied during the conclave. When he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he refused to live in the archbishop’s palace, favoring a simple apartment, so this perhaps should not have come as a surprise.



--Francis refuses the gold cross, the ornate head gear, and the fancy designer shoes traditionally worn by the pope, the last of which were a special favorite of the Pope Emeritus.



--He included in the traditional Holy Thursday washing of the feet women and Muslims, making Francis the first pope to wash the feet of either Muslim or a woman. That he celebrated in a juvenile detention facility, rather than the Vatican, the Holy Thursday Mass at which this precedent was set itself broke precedent.



--Francis has called for priests to get out of the rectories and to get out among the people, to be true shepherds among the sheep.



--He has called for a “poorer Church.”

Even without making any changes in doctrine, and few think he will, the Pope has already sent shivers, with both connotations, down people’s spines. While most of us are delighted in what the Pope has done so far, many aren’t. As the Wall Street Journal reports this Easter weekend (March 30-31, page A8), a Father Joseph Kramer, a traditionalist in Rome who says Mass in Latin, says,



“We’re stretching tradition. Things are mutating.”



One suspects that Father Kramer is not overflowing with joy when making that statement; note the choice of the verb in the second sentence.



To go a step further, the a “traditionalist” Catholic website Rorate Caeli  Caeli (“drop down the dew, you heavens,” from Isaiah 45, 8, and used in the Divine Office during Advent) published its version of the Holy Thursday foot washing story with the headline “The Official End of the Reform of the Reform-by example.” The Reform of the Reform is the backlash against much of Vatican II by those who seem to wish it never happened.



Why the consternation in some quarters over Pope Francis? As we have been made painfully aware over the last thirty years or so, the Church is not composed entirely of good people, and ordination, or the desire for ordination, does not necessarily make one holy…or even good and decent. There are plenty of people, some powerful, some less so, in the Church who are in it primarily for its gaudier and showier aspects that the Pope eschews. These people like to dress up like priests and bishops, to lord it over people, to wear the expensive finery and the gold. They like the pomp and circumstance and crave the respect, the awe, that they feel their offices bequeath them. They have little desire to get out among the people; rather, they prefer to be placed above the people. They have even less desire for a “poorer Church;” the very notion offends their skewed sense of piety and reverence.



There are, to put it bluntly, sinister forces in the Church, and there always have been. The continuing existence of these forces in the Church is one of the conditions Jesus was addressing in His parable of the weeds among the wheat (Matthew 13, 24-31). These forces are doubtless displeased with the direction Pope Francis would like to take the Church. Most of these priests, bishops, and their lay henchmen are not, or at least not yet, expressing their displeasure in the open, but these are not courageous people; they prefer to work in the shadows, to talk behind people’s backs, and blindside their targets. But they didn’t take their jobs to work among the people or to be “poorer.” And many of them would just love to live in the luxurious Vatican apartments and wear fancy red designer shoes. These people will do all they can to make life difficult for Pope Francis. They simply cannot fathom even the possibility of another John XXIII (Again, see my 3/13/13 piece.); such a shake-up would spoil their very comfortable lives.



While there is much wisdom in the old expression that you’re not paranoid when they ARE out to get you, I’m not being paranoid here I am just counseling our good Papa to be very careful. To quote Michael Corleone in the much, and overly, derided Godfather Part III, “This Pope has powerful enemies.”



Blessed Easter to our new and wonderful Papa and to all of you.

FOLLOW THE RULES…OR SEEK WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT?

3/29/13, Good Friday




Something to think about as we read the accounts of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection on this Good Friday…



Luke tells us that, after Jesus was crucified



“The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” (Emphasis mine) (Luke 23, 55-56)

Luke begins Chapter 24 with



“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but, when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” (Luke 24, 1-2)



Note that the women had missed the resurrection. By the time they got there, Jesus was already risen and gone. Indeed, the resurrection itself is not recounted in any of the canonical gospels and, as far as we know, there were no witnesses to the actual resurrection.



This is a shame, but…



what if the women, instead of “rest(ing) on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment,” had instead gone right to the tomb as soon as they prepared the spices and perfumes? Did they miss the resurrection because they were being attentive to the commandment? Does therein lie one of the many “sub-lessons,” if you will, of the passion, death, and resurrection stories? How often do we miss what’s really important because we are too narrowly focused on following the rules, on adhering to what are construed as the commands of the church to which we belong?



Blessed Easter, all year, to all of you!

HOLY THURSDAY AND GOOD FRIDAY: THE APOSTLES STAMPEDE FOR THE EXITS

3/27/13




In my last post, 3/19/13’s WERE THE APOSTLES COWARDLY, AVARICIOUS, SLOW…OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?, I wrote about the weaknesses of two of the apostles, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. In an earlier post, 11/21/12’s WAS ST. PETER AN ALCOHOLIC?, I discussed the shortcomings of the most prominent of the Apostles. Holy Week, besides its obvious lessons and implications, gives us an opportunity to indict, and ultimately exonerate, just about all the apostles on similar lines.

We all know that one of the apostles, Judas Iscariot, betrayed Jesus. (Matthew, 26, 14-16, et. al.) The first among equals, if you will, of the apostles, Peter, denied Jesus three times when the chips were down. (Luke, 22, 54-62, et. al.) At His point of greatest danger, all of the apostles abandoned Jesus liked terrified children; one was in such a hurry that he left all his clothes behind and ran off into the night naked. (Mark 14, 50-52). This was a pretty sorry lot.

The only apostle who came off looking even remotely brave during the events of Holy Thursday night and Good Friday was John. John was not afraid to enter the high priest’s courtyard during Jesus’ first trial and even used his pull with the high priest to get Peter into the courtyard (John 18, 15), after which Peter denied even knowing Jesus when things got hot, literally and figuratively. John also was the only male disciple at the foot of the cross. (John 19, 26-27). Not to take anything away from John, but one could argue that he was able to be so brave, at least in a relative sense, and even to be at the foot of the cross, because he was so young that both the Roman and the local authorities were willing to cut him some slack. But, all in all, the Apostles look like a petrified, pathetic lot. The women disciples…Jesus’ mother, Mary, Mary Magdalene, the mother of the aforementioned James and John, Salome, and possibly others…look a lot stronger in the accounts of the passion and death of Jesus than do the men. Again, this may have been because the authorities were willing to be even more lenient with women than they were with young men like John but, nevertheless, the women look great here, the men look like abject cowards.

Even the appearance of the resurrected Jesus does not do much to man up the Apostles. If one reads the story of “doubting Thomas” (John 20, 24-29) carefully, there is an interesting sub-plot concerning the lack of transformation of the Apostles in the wake of the visit of their newly risen Lord and Savior. That is grist for another mill.

So what caused these lily-livered lilliputians to become the great, strong, and brave men who went on to suffer deprivation, torture, and, with one exception, martyrdom so that we might hear the Good News of Jesus Christ? Clearly, it was the visit of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost that got these guys out of the upper room in which they had been cowering and into the business of facing down fearsome opponents to spread the word of God. If one ever needs testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit, one need only compare the pathetic state of this band of very limited men before the Spirit’s arrival with their near superhuman strength and courage after the Spirit paid them a permanent visit. No wonder Jesus spent so much time at the Last Supper discussing the Advocate (i.e., the Holy Spirit) that the Father was about to send to the disciples (John 14, 15-31).

The Holy Spirit, far and away, and, sadly, the most underrated of the three Persons of the Trinity, has continued to work until this very day. An example of the work of the Spirit can be found in today’s headlines: in the midst of the financial troubles in Cyprus, it is the Cypriot Orthodox Church, doubtless inspired by the Spirit, that is handing out food and other essentials to those who are suffering and offering to put up its own assets to aid in that island nation’s financial recovery. (See my posts on the Cyprus situation in my political/financial blog, Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money. Today’s is entitled JEROEN DIJSSELBLOEM’S COMMENTS ON CYPRUS: “THE DUTCHMAN’S NOT THE KIND OF MAN WHO KEEPS HIS THUMB JAMMED IN THE DAM THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH”; it will direct you to the others.)

The Holy Spirit, despite being the Person of the Trinity that is hardest to comprehend, is not something abstract or far removed from us. The Spirit is alive and active in us on a day to day basis and is available to each of us. The Spirit is especially close, or at least would like to be especially close, when we most need the Spirit, when we are feeling weak in our faith…or just plain weak, ordinary, and uninspired.

The Pentecostal churches seem to have the firmest handle on the power of the Spirit and have the fewest qualms about invoking the Spirit and the aid, comfort, and power that Spirit provides. I am again reminded of the Blues Brothers (See my 3/9/13 post, THE PHARISEES TELL JESUS TO FIX THE CIGARET LIGHTER), specifically the scene in the Reverend Cleophas James’ church in which Jake Blues realizes he is getting a message from God, when I think of the power of the Spirit. While that most entertaining scene is over the top, and most of us, and certainly not yours truly, are going to be dancing and somersaulting around the church and tossing our colleagues to the rafters, the Spirit does manifest Itself in many different ways to many different people.



The Spirit made the apostles, a pack of rather slow weaklings, wise and strong. The Spirit can do the same for us, especially when we are feeling neither wise nor strong or especially inspired. We just have to ask and perhaps, and only perhaps, be patient. Miracles don’t have to happen quickly to be miracles.

WERE THE APOSTLES COWARDLY, AVARICIOUS, SLOW…OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?

3/19/13




It’s often said that Jesus chose very ordinary men for His apostles. Their ultimate greatness, manifested in their spreading the gospel and, with two exceptions, giving up their lives for the sake of their Lord and Savior, was therefore not attributable to any innate abilities of the men involved but, rather, to the grace of God. The message is clear: we can do little on our own. The type of greatness that Jesus demands can be achieved only through His grace and therefore is available to anyone, even the simplest of us. Legions of saints, in addition to the apostles, were very, er, ordinary people.

One might easily take the argument about the ordinariness of the apostles a step further and contend that, in almost all cases, to call these guys ordinary would be giving them too much credit. See my 11/21/12 post WAS ST. PETER AN ALCOHOLIC? for an expostulation on the weaknesses of perhaps the greatest of the apostles. Another example of the shortcomings of the apostles can be found in one of my favorite gospel stories, Matthew 20, 20-27. In this story, the mother of James and John comes to Jesus and asks



“Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Matthew 20, 21



Jesus goes on to pull the old switcheroo, and asks



“Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” Matthew 20, 22



James and John, of course, say that they can. Then Jesus tells them, effectively, okay



“My cup you will indeed drink…” Matthew 20, 23



and we all know what He meant by that…these guys were in for some major league trials and suffering. But then He turns around and says



“…but to sit at my right and at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” Matthew 20, 23



So He tells James and John that they’ll pay the cost but won’t get the reward. This would have either made them angry or bewildered them. If the latter, one can almost hear them saying to each other “Wait a minute; what did He just do there?” They probably wished they’d never asked the question, though, in all likelihood, they didn’t fully understand at that stage what “my cup” entailed.



But it is not this latest manifestation of the wisdom of the adage “Be careful what you wish for” that illustrates the shortcomings of James and John. Note who it was who asked Jesus that they get the best seats in the throne room…yes, it was their mother! This may have been just a case of a stereotypical Jewish mother working too hard for the best for her children. But one gets the impression this was a case of a couple of guys who were too timid, to put it nicely, to ask Jesus such an important, and potentially embarrassing, question and instead hid behind their mommy’s apron strings, or whatever the impression is, and had her ask the big question.



Not only does this indicate a shortfall in the manliness quotient for James and John, it shows a lack of faith and understanding of who Jesus was and what Jesus wanted. Yes, it was natural to fear a guy who had calmed the seas, walked on water, healed paralytics, expelled demons, been transfigured before their eyes, and told the religious leaders of the day to effectively stick it in their ears, if not somewhere else. But Jesus was the same guy who said



“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” Matthew 11, 28-30



and whose favorite admonition, if one goes by the number of times He is recorded saying it in the gospels, was



“Be not afraid.” (too many citations to list)



Yet James and John were so afraid of Jesus that they had to ask their mother to ask Him for the big prize. This would perhaps be attributable to their embarrassment at asking Jesus for such aggrandizement when He repeatedly preached the virtues of meekness. Either way, they were missing Jesus’ message.



Perhaps I’m being too hard on James and John; Mark’s account of the same incident (Mark 10, 35-45) has them, rather than their mother, asking Jesus to give him the most prominent places in the kingdom to come. But even if I am being too hard on James and John (I’m probably not; Matthew’s reason for including the mom in the story probably transcended the allusions to Bathsheba and Solomon, but I digress.), the story gets better.



After James and John ask and receive not what they had been asking for but, rather, the downside of what they had been asking for, Matthew tells us



“When the ten heard of this (request), they became indignant at the two brothers.” Matthew 20, 24



Maybe I’m slow on the uptake, but for years I thought the other guys were upset that James and John had made such an outrageous, self-serving request. Hadn’t they learned anything?



But then it hit me about fifteen months ago (My note in my Bible says 12/12/10) that the other apostles were not upset because James and John had been so vain. No, the other guys were upset because they wished they had asked first; James and John were asking for something the other apostles felt they deserved! It wasn’t that James and John had made a request that ran counter to everything Jesus was trying to teach them; what angered the others was that they wanted those coveted places for themselves. After all, who were James and John to request the really good seats? Those seats, in the eyes of probably each of the apostles, belonged to him, not to those two guys who were still hiding behind their mommy’s skirt, or whatever that expression is.



Ordinary guys? Ordinary would have been a big promotion for this crowd. These guys were not all that courageous or all that smart and, one suspects but can’t know, probably not all that charming or good looking at that. Yet they went on to do the work that Jesus had in mind for them, and, believe me, it wasn’t those guys who achieved the transformation. It was the strengthening, transforming power and love of the Holy Spirit, manifested most clearly, but not only, at Pentecost, that changed these guys from a pack of cowering, and not all that bright, cowards into heroes of our faith, men capable of holding up under torture and death to proclaim the very Good News that they formerly had such a hard time grasping.



More good news is that we will, in all likelihood, never be asked to endure torture, derision, and death for our faith. But better news is that, despite less being asked of us, that same Spirit that infused these ordinary, at best, apostles with the power and strength to accomplish their herculean missions is available to each of us…and all we have to do is ask.



Being a little more mentally agile than the apostles might seem to help, but won’t; this grace stuff doesn’t depend on the strength of our more human attributes…thank God!