The Stoneing Of St Stephen

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December 26 commemerates the first martyr of the Church, the Apostle St Stephen. The following is an excerpt from my novel: Daybreak from on High.

            This was to be a carefree day, and I felt lighthearted as we left my dwelling. We needed a respite to enjoy each other’s company. Walking toward the Sheep Gate, we passed the Bethesda bathes, where many unfortunate souls still awaited the stirring of waters, hoping for a cure.

            We heard shouting and commotion and saw a crowd rushing toward the gate. It appeared an angry mob approached from within the city walls and emerged through the Sheep Gate. First came two men grasping a young man between them and shoving him some yards ahead. We stopped, watching as the rest followed and surrounded him.

            “Blasphemer! Heretic! You are a disgrace to Moses and all Jews,” they chanted one after the other.

            The mob included scribes and others known to be members of the Synagogue of Freedmen, as well as Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and foreigners from Asia. We were familiar with the features and garb of each group. The level of anger reached a peak and suddenly the people began picking up stones.

            Josephus said, “I know that man. He’s Stephen, a disciple of Peter. He has spoken in the Portico, a man filled with faith. They are about to kill him.”

            We stood there frozen as the stones flew at Stephen. He did not wail or try to escape, but looked up to the heavens. When the blows struck, we heard his voice above the angry screams of his accusers.

            “Lord… receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59 NAB)! The stones kept crushing his body. He crumbled in a bloody heap, falling to the ground. As he fell, he pleaded, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60 NAB).

            Those who took part in his murder continued to scream insults. Stephen lay motionless, no longer in this world, for his soul had escaped the fury of men.

            “They cannot harm him, Jon. He lives in a totally safe place now,” Josephus said, staring at the crushed body.

            I heard another voice in my head: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34 NAB). An echo from Golgotha from the person Stephen died for.

            Josephus took me by the arm and whispered, “We must leave here without notice. The Evil One has grasped onto the hearts of the persecutors. You and I could be their next victims.”

Thanksgiving:Remembering our Roots

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A friend of mine from ‘up home’ reccomened a book about anthracite coal mning in NE Pa where I grew up. Because of those mines people from all over Europe game to find a better life than the ones they led working in mines in Wales, Polland, Italy, Ireland etc. The conditions were horrible here but better than they had been in their native countries.

My paternal Grandfather worked many years in the mines around and above Scranton. The book “Dirty Miners” written in 2015 is a fact based novel of the miners and their families, as well as, a history of mining in that area. My oldest uncle and father also worked as coal miners for a period of time. However, we never asked about their experiences those hundreds of feet undergound. The the father of the narrator of the book worked his whole life in those dark places and yet Damien never talked with him until he brought Damiano to live with his family in the last years of his dad’s life.

Damiano went to work in the mines at nine years old because his dad was killed in a cave in. The author, John Fitzgerald, described in great detail what this young boy endured. I had no idea what my grandfather faced each day–constantly aware of impending danger. However, unjust, unbearable, and unacclaimed the work of our ancestors was, there remains in us a great and powerful force–a dignity of forebearance in providing for one’s family with the hope of a better life for their children and grandchildren.

This book is a wake-up call for thanksgivng and the realization of our true worth eminating from those dirt and coal dust covered men and the women who supported them. Happy Thanksgiving!

“Trying to get to Heaven”

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One night last week, I couldn’t sleep and went outside on the deck. Looking up at the clear night sky, a familiar feeling came over me. I thought, Here I am like an ant or smaller–just a tiny ‘speck’. Millions of stars above and beyond lit the darkness of the great unknown.

Who cannot believe in God and know he is in everything? The stars and moon, distant planets, all like a grand ballet, everything in place for a purpose. Me here, knowing my life as ‘a speck’ will pass. The wondering, the not knowing the plan of the grand design, yet knowing it is awesome and this ‘speck’ is ever seeking the One who made it all.

I’ve heard recently that President Trump said he is “…trying to get to heaven”. Aren’t we all looking for that which never ends and never ceases to amaze?

About the Rosary

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Some years ago, I read book by Fr. Donald Calloway called No Turning Back about his conversion to Catholicism. When our parish priest asked me to write an article about the Rosary, I found a recent book by Fr. Calloway: Champions of the Rosary: The History and Heroes of a Spiritual Weapon.  I found the following information in this most thoroughly researched and all-inclusive book.

From age fifteen, Donald fell into severe addiction to drugs and at twenty was close to ending his life. His parents became Catholics at some point and in 1992 their son picked up a book lying on their bookcase. At the time, he had no idea who Mary was or anything about the lady who came down from heaven with a message of love, mercy, and conversion in what was called a Marian apparition. He stayed up all night reading it and wrote that “the contents of that book hit me like a divine two by four.”

The next day, looking for a priest, Donald stepped inside a Catholic church for the first time and witnessed five Filipino women praying in the front pew. The priest he met that day told him it was the Rosary and those women prayed it every day after Mass. The book he read had a diagram and the prayers of the Rosary and he began to pray with them.  Fr. Donald Calloway credits those women and the Rosary with his conversion.

In my own experience of the Rosary, I credit several women for including me in praying with them in what I had considered a repetitive and boring way to pray. I would call the Rosary my second conversion to Catholicism.  Like Donald Calloway I was seeking peace and the finding is ongoing. The format first makes me stop and concentrate on the life of Jesus with the help of His and our most loving Mother.

A I The New Age : God Help Us

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Am I the only one who has a problem with artificial intelligence? And exactly what are we talking about here? First let’s take a look at the definition for artificial: theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision making, and translation between languages. Quite impressive!

Now let’s just take the meaning of the individual words. First, artificial: man made or produced by humans especially to seem like something natural. Second, intelligence: the ability to acquire and apply knowledge. This is the simple definition but the list goes on. It’s just not easy to define intelligence. In fact if you look up synonyms for the word there are perhaps hundreds. On the other hand the synonyms for artificial are fewer and the ones I personally prefer are: false and contrived.

Now what brought all this on today? Well, I have an AI program for writing and had to sign up for anther year. I paid the fee and alas, I got a message that said:’ ‘Whoops! Something went wrong’. That was days ago and emails and chats later as well. I searched for a phone number without success, even checking to see if visa had one. So I decided to file a claim with visa to stop payment.

If only I could talk with someone, a real person of intelligence! Plus the fact that I got used to the AI and now rely on my own knowledge. If I ever find the reason for the whoops, I’d pay for it again if they tell me their phone number.

They call it writers’ block!

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That’s what they call it! It’s happened to me before when half way through my first novel, Daybreak, I hit a brick wall. Nothing for weeks, a month, two months. But the wheels of creativity turned unbeknownst to me, and one early morning the idea took hold and I went with it. That was ten years ago, a number of rejections, hopes, let-downs, revisions later…

However, that novel led to a sequel, Hadar’s Son, the first draft complete, and a third, Growing Pains set in the 60’s. And that’s where once again serious writers’ block plagued me, not only with the novel but my blog, poetry, etc. So its been about three months this time, but finally, I completed one more chapter of Growing Pains, now 61,000 words and this short blog post.

I missed writing and hope to be all the more creative for the pause. Thanks to anyone who reads this. Watch for another post soon.

“Remember Where you came from.” Reflection

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You learn a lot from attending funerals, especially those that bring you back to where you grew up and in my case, to the church I attended as a child. It was not the same building, typical of the thousands of small-town country churches from my youth. Several years ago, three protestant churches in the area combined in order to survive, and built one large modern, structure with a view of Bald Mountain, the tallest peak in the area, and the farms in the valley below.

A number of mostly relatives greeted me with hugs and handshakes. A favorite cousin saved seats for my husband and me. I recognized a good number of older folks like myself and many others of all ages, some of whom I knew. The church was packed. Two screens in front scrolled photos of my Aunt Wilma’s life. You might say, her life of family and friends over nine decades. Sadly, she was the last of her generation: all my aunts and uncles and my parents.

Although I became a Catholic when I married, this church felt like home. The service consisted of many familiar hymns with words projected on the screens interspersed with short Bible passages, several eulogies by friends and family, and a short sermon, unlike the structure I remembered that was much like the Liturgy of the Word at my Catholic parish. The hymns were the same, the message of eternal life, etc.

The repast afterward, with home-cooked food, meeting people from ‘up home’ including my cousin Howard, who coined the term, the desire to stay there, and talk, was an experience for reflection. One of the last people I spoke with was Johnny, the younger brother of my cousin, who saved seats for us. I didn’t get to know him because I left home after college. He looked a lot like his mom, my aunt. As we parted he said, “Don’t forget where you came from.” He lives in New Mexico now.

“Remember where you came from.”

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Donald Rumsfeld

Lately, we’ve been attending a number of funerals ‘up home’, as my older cousin Howard calls the place we grew up. At the recent repast of my 97-year-old aunt, one long-lost younger cousin said something as we parted, that stuck in my mind—Remember where you came from. 

You know how something pops up repeatedly and grabs your attention? Well, in my busy world of lists between meditation, checking and mostly deleting emails, this statement kept ‘calling’ me; so I did my usual way of researching and googled. This led me to Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of state under US presidents, Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, along with fifty-some other quotes from him. I recognized his name, but nothing else about him. Embarrassing fact, I admit. But that remains a subject for another blog—his wisdom for then and now.  However, in my next blog I want to elaborate on the subject I’ve deviated from, this one five-word quote.

The Impossible Dream

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One downside of growing older is the limitation of taking cholesterol medication. This is a ‘biggy’ for us and one of the limitations we face in ‘oldish age’. (That’s a term our GP used after my rant of can’t dos.) For me it had been a ‘won’t do’ because grapefruit was our ‘honeymoon fruit’ (in Florida), and my husband began taking a statin some years ago. We broke the rule once a year on our anniversary.

However, this year, we rationalized the situation, and he decided to eat grapefruit in season, when it is abundant and more affordable, than say, eggs. And what a season it has been and still is. Easing our consciences that we will stop this dalliance when the grapefruit season ends, we solved one impossible dream. This made me think of other impossible situations all of us experience in our life. In fact, one that stares at me through all the many large windows of our house this morning.

The sorry facts: It snowed 4 inches, my husband snow-blowed our gravel driveway. It snowed again, 4 inches; he repeated the process. It snowed 2 inches, too little to blow so we drove over it. It rained. It snowed and left inches of solid ice. He scattered gravel so we could slide our car down the driveway to take out the garbage Sat. and get to Mass on Sat. night. And 4 inches of snow fell during night covering the ice. The forecast next week is more frigid weather and perhaps. more snow.

We are facing an impossible dream. I fear the ice and the man behind the machine falling. Being the hardy folks we are, our dream is ‘just drive over it all in our four-door sedan and hope for an early spring; fortified with grapefruit.

A dear friend revealed she had not experienced a winter in the NE for twenty years–one of those immigrants who pass the border into grapefruit country even before Thanksgiving.

I used to love snow.

On the Way: thoughts for pilgrims Cont.

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Russell G. Terra began his earthly pilgrimage in Sacramento California on Feb. 26, 1936. The first indication he might have a religious calling came when six-year-old Russ went into his house crying. He told his mother God spoke to him as he played outside, and said He had much work for him to do. He was crying because he didn’t want to work, he wanted to play. His mother later reminded her son about this incident, but he did not remember it himself.

Russell had no interested in church, although he attended Catholic school and was brought up in the faith. He loved baseball, fishing and hunting. He tried to skip his catechism class whenever possible. However, in 1945 at age nine, his public school friends persuaded him to attend a two week summer program with them offered to both Catholic and public school students. The seminarian who taught the course impressed Russ with the methods he used, his kindness and consideration, but most of all the fact he could hit a softball over the gymnasium. This man, Roy Peters led Russ to seek out what the priesthood was all about.

The six year old who cried because God told him He had work for him to do, became ordained a priest in 1962 and certainly did work: as a teacher, pastor, speaker, author, founder of innovative social groups, homilist, etc. His last position was pastor of St Joseph’s Church in Redding for 23 years. He enjoyed hunting and fishing until he turned 80, was a private pilot for10 years, and flew over many areas of California for the ‘pure pleasure’ of it.

Mngr. Terra retired from the parish at 67 and wrote and published homilies. He lived in Redding across from Benton Airpark where he passed on at 88 years old. A pilgrim worth noting.

(Check out his biography by Fr. John E. Boll on-line in the archives of the Sacramento Diocese.)