Carla Mae's Blog

  What makes it possible, when all is chaos around us, when war is present, when the virus persists, when corruption abounds…to cling firmly in faith? We are told we are to trust. What makes it possible for us to do this? The sacred texts this month will speak of perseverance to the very end. We will be remembering our loved ones who have gone on into a type of life beyond our present experience. In the face of the losses that death inflicts upon us, what will prevent us from scattering like a flock of frightened sheep? One thing only…the assurance given us by the enduring presence of the Word. We are told to grab hold of him, to hide our frightened faces in his tunic, near to his heart. We are told to take refuge in the reality of a mystery many of us spend a good part of our lives trying to absorb. He will be with us, he says, until the end of the age. “You in me, and I in you,” he says. What would happen in my life if this day, this week, this month, I took that ...

We all know the intoxicating smell of autumn leaves. Pope Francis uses fragrance to tell us that hope too has a tell-tale ‘breath.’ Where the Spirit is, there is delightful fragrance, and the Holy Spirit, says Francis, is hope’s breath. How is this so? The Holy Spirit, like some lingering fragrance in the air, keeps before us the steady content of our hope. Without this presence, it would be dark indeed, and the stench of our sin would overwhelm us. But the Spirit promises new life.  We don’t have to look far to see the effects of our sinfulness. In our selfish woundedness, we pollute the very land and water we have been given as gift. Yet, like the oil and wine poured into the wounds of the robbers’ victim, the Holy Spirit comes to save us from ourselves. We groan, but our groaning is that of a woman in labor, for the Spirit draws new life from our groaning. The Spirit makes sure we see beyond our sinfulness. From our destructive greed the Spirit draws new life. Death and d...

 As women and men of the Word we have been reflecting on what Pope Francis has said about hope in our lives. What faces us in the coming weeks is no exception. The stakes are high, and at such times, Satan often struts around as an angel of light. Dominicans above all cannot allow themselves to be duped at a time like this.  It seems the media is presenting us with the news that some priests are telling their people that Catholics will sin mortally if they vote for pro-choice candidates. Sadly, these misinformed clergy are using their influence to misguide, and have not read or heeded the directives of their own bishops. These directives are found on the USCCB website. If you don’t have time to read the entire Voter’s Guide, check out #7 and #35. The latter was drawn from a principle given by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (formerly Pope Benedict XVI) which is important enough to quote in full: A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present...

We’re into the seventh month with no end in sight. It’s hard to believe we’ve been living with this virus for six months. But those are the facts. We wonder when it’s going to end. Liturgically we are at that mid - point between the events of the Great Paschal Mystery and Advent. It’s the time of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and right alongside, several feasts of Mary, the Mother of God: her Birthday on September 8; her name’s day on the 12 th , her sorrows on the 15 th and that ancient feast of Our Lady of Ransom on the 24th .  What is this Great Mother we call the Church thinking? First of all, who on earth wants to exalt the cross, that instrum ent of torture? And then, what does this humble woman have to do with the cross? I think a lot. Mary is always ourselves – fast forwarded. Yes, she is what we shall be after struggling through the agony and darkness of faith. She is us...come to fullness aft er hanging on for dear life by our fingernails. She stands there......

  Sometimes what surrounds us in the News gets so heavy we are seriously tempted to despair of things ever getting any better. We all know this space. Yet Pope Francis stands there with us, but calls us to look elsewhere. All of us live in this present world, and it is broken, wounded, corrupted, abused, and blind. Not a happy picture. This is real. But something else is real too. The more permanent reality is the content of our hope. We are talking about real stuff here, not just pie-in-the-sky. By stuff I mean tangible realities all around us that give substance to our hope. Deepest of all are the promises of our God, that life comes out of death, and that there will be a new creation. God does not lie. Yet we say, we must wait for the future for these to be fulfilled, right? Right maybe that they be fulfilled in their fullness, but in the meantime, we simply need to open our eyes. What are the signs of the content of our hope already at work right now? Let’s sta...

We all know we aren’t supposed to boast. Pope Francis reminds us that boasting usually makes us quite obnoxious to those around us. Yet there is one exception: we can boast all we want about the steadfastness of our hope. In fact, sometimes we need to do this when things look pretty grim.  Without blinking an eye we can boast about how every corner of our life is permeated with grace…no matter how we feel. This realization can fill us with gratitude and quiet joy. This can bring us deep peace and with that peace comes freedom. Why so? The steadfastness of hope gives us an assurance that nothing can take away. This gives us a wonderful freedom. Nothing we do or don’t do can change this steady hope. It doesn’t come from us and we can’t turn it off. It is God’s assurance, and it is as steady as a rock. So we smile a little knowing smile, and whistle as we pass the cemetery.  A sure and fast way to remind ourselves of this faith-fact is to ask ourselves: “Does God love me...

August comes, the August of the 2020 Pandemic. Liturgically, wise Mother-Church keeps before us during this month the brilliance of the Paschal promise: as your Lord and Lady have been transformed and shine now as the sun, so shall it be with you. In the Word, fused forever to our humble flesh, we have that pledge.  The feasts of the Transfiguration and Assumption of Mary bring this pledge before our eyes. The brilliance of the transformed Jesus stuns Peter, James, and John. They don’t know what to make of it. They only know they don’t want it to end. But it does end. There is the agony of the Passion to go through, but they don’t understand that either. Nor do we. Yet the pledge is the same. It is an assured hope given us by God, and where the Head went the Body will follow. That’s us.  Then, as if to underline the pledge, we watch it happen to one of our own. Mary has no burial place, because there is nothing in the tomb where they placed her. The body that held the Wo...