Bethune Catholic

I usually don't visit Inside Catholic too much, but did yesterday, and read this from Eric Pavlat:

Have you ever had those moments where you feel like God has blessed you with an incredible word of knowledge, only to realize (sometimes only seconds later) that people have been telling you this for years?

I had one today during adoration. Deep in meditation, I came to the sudden realization that we should be good in order to please God, whom we love as children love a Father. This was a huge insight to me ... for about seven seconds. "Well, duh," I said to myself.

It remained huge for me the rest of the day and hopefully the rest of my life. I clearly remember as a child saying an extra rosary on the bus on the way to school or walking to St. Tim's during summer vacation for a visit or for Mass-because I wanted to please God.

I think what happens is that we grow up and think we aren't children anymore-but we must be. Christ said we must become like children...maybe this is what it means.

Being too intellectual about God has always been my downfall. I thought you could get to God by your head, but really your heart has to lead the way. So we grow up and realize that God doesn't have emotions, we can't make Him happy by our extra prayers, so things become an intellectual obligation, and our heart goes out of it.

Here I was a year or so ago trying to write a book on how fathers could/should copy the attributes of God, but I forgot about the fundamentals. When I do wrong, I seek God's mercy....not his justice. I wonder now whether I give more justice or more mercy to my children when they do wrong. (More frequent confession will help on this one.)

I spent the day in the car meditating on this point-God as our Father. A whole lot more than what I have written came out. Just when you think you know it all, you remember what you forgot.....

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One failure of our Christmas season (not having ended completely for us. The tree will remain til at least the Baptism of the Lord and likely til the Presentation) is that we didn't send out a single Christmas Card. Mrs. Curley and I are contemplating doing a "new year's letter" for all the family and friends we need to catch up with.

And of note, when I got home from the city last night, the family had postponed dinner for me as it was the Feast of the Epiphany. I suddenly noticed Mrs. Curley was wearing camo socks! Hmmm. Something to keep my eye on.

Oremus pro invicem!