You know you need a brain dump when your co-retreatant starts asking how you’re doing. 😀

The last couple of days were really crazy. I jotted down thoughts on and off during the day, but didn’t have the energy to put them together into a cohesive whole by evening, both days. So here I am brain-dumping, and I hope I don’t drive anyone crazy by my disjointed musings. Perhaps one day when we’re back in Ordinary Time I can reread this post and gather some nuggets to keep me going on the journey. Here we go…


page 62

Uh-oh. Relevance. Warning bells. Bad Catholic. 🙂


Rather we now envision a lack of moral perception in people who would shrink from serious crimes, but do not see anything wrong with idle talk or acting with mixed motivation in lesser matters.

I bet my friend is happy now. Fr. Thomas Dubay just referred to The Closing of the American Mind. 😀

Wow. I am just disgusted at the statistics he quotes: $49B on makeup, cosmetic surgeries, etc!

on bodies that are soon to age and then disappear. Can one imagine what these huge sums could do for the emaciated bodies of the poorest of the poor still living in Haiti, Calcutta and elsewhere?

Having been involved with the pro-life movement for several years I find this to be such a depressing statement. And though I hardly ever spend money on beauty products, I know there are things in my life I should have thought twice before purchasing. It would be nice to be able to put all the blame on anti-life organizations for the continued march towards death, but the fact is, I am blameworthy as well.


Lukewarmness… some thoughts. I have taken comfort in knowing that I have grown spiritually, and quite steadily, since I started owning my faith. AND YET. Now that Fr. Dubay brings these scripture readings to my attention, it’s clear that lukewarmness isn’t just one point in the journey. Lukewarmness can come at anytime that we start thinking we’ve already arrived at our destination. As Christians/Catholics we are constantly, continuously challenged to move on to the next step, further up and further in, as C.S. Lewis would say. We find ourselves on dangerous ground any time that we stop and think the journey over, or postpone moving forward because it’s actually comfortable here… or because we think we’re on a higher plane than others, and can therefore afford to take it easy for a bit.


Rereading CCC 388-421:

If an angel can become a bad angel, even more so I, who am mere mortal.

The rest of today’s reading saddens me no end. In the past couple of years I’ve been made aware that many are suffering in their own family lives, relationships and marriages.

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I’ll come back to this page/thought after I reread and digest better the last 30 pages.


When Lent began, there were behaviors I was SURE I couldn’t possibly give up, just from knowing myself, from previous years and previous failures. But God has been really gracious to me this Lent, and with constant prayer, grace, and perseverance, I find that my 2nd week into giving up those behaviors aren’t too bad. I am not suffering withdrawal symptoms (yet?) . (And having said that, watch as I now get hit by 10x the temptation. :D)

Twelve days of stretching spiritual muscles is doing me a lot of good. Just like a fitness program where I doubt the results before I get started, where I really don’t feel like pushing through because I anticipate that the results will be less than satisfying, Lent is the same way.


The beauty of aspiring to be a saint is that I don’t have to be like anyone else. I sometimes think, well, if only we had early on learned to be pro-life like so-and-so, we’d have 8 kids now instead of 5. I’d be closer to heaven. The reality is, of course, that I am called to sainthood WHERE I AM RIGHT NOW.

We each of us are called where we are. We each have our own unique set of circumstances that keep us from heaven. Both rich and poor may have a materialism problem — one because he has too much, the other because he has too little. The challenge remains the same: to take our eyes off the material, and fix them instead on the spiritual.