20140113 The Church persecuted its greatest saints: Padre Pio, St. Joan, Jesus.
20140112 The answer is not necessarily the solution.
20140114
Not I but Jesus brought you [me?] to Jesus.
It is [would be?] easier – though still difficult – for me to to be Setsuka Hara than to be Jesus to you.
“Whatever is worth doing is worth doing badly.” This applies to some things, like prayer, but not to [some] other things, like mountain climbing.
Better to be a saint than talk about sanctity.
If the Mass is the greatest prayer, what is the Mass badly done? Shall we agree with Fr. Jaki that the Mass is often an invitation to suffer?
Many people speak and read aloud so badly that it is better if they spoke and read in a language we do not know, so we would be unaware of how badly they sound.
If Setsuko Hara (in Ozu’s films) is less sinful than any other person I know, then it is wise for me to pray to Jesus that I be more like Setsuko Hara. For for me to be more like Jesus in the Gospels is out of the question and for me to be more like Jesus in books would not be to be more like Jesus but to be more like [what] authors say is Jesus. Better for me to smile and cry and be quiet and be nobody that anybody takes too seriously. Besides, I know Noriko, whereas I only know about Jesus. To say that I know Jesus would only make an author, and an author I am not.
I have never met a person who reminded me of Jesus. Is this not proof that I don’t know Jesus? True, I have never met a person that reminded me of Noriko, but I have seen Noriko.
The first commandment first.
Beauty that does not wish to impress.
How much better it is to say φίλο or amo and not have to say I
Guard against self-improvement.
We are commanded to ask. We are not commanded to meditate or contemplate.
20140110 Not that dog loved me, but that I loved dog.
At the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah, not Pharaoh and Ahab.
20140109 If I knew my sins I would confess them.
Resolve – and prepare – to go to Confession at [before?] Easter.
20140108
“The more guilty we are, the less guilty we feel.” Caryll Houselander, Guilt, 1951, 2.
‘Man cannot love himself as he really is, … self-love compels him to love the self that is not real." Houselander, 51
This is why loving one’s neighbor as oneself is the 2nd commandment, out of the knowledge that the God whom we must love first made both us and our neighbor.
The Church needs priests who call a sin a sin.
20140108 The more guilty we are, the less guilty we feel." Caryll Houselander, Guilt, 1951, 2.
20140107 After a certain point the task is not to get better but to not get worse.
If you want appreciation, pray for the dead.
20140106 Pray for what makes you pray.
20140105 I hope the good I do to my dog I do to my God.
20130104
Whenever you want to save money, do something that doesn’t.
I don’t want to make you happy. I want you do be happy.
“All of Tocqueville’s books were read and respected by educated and influential people, in England and on the Continent. But, in the estimation of one historian, ‘Their practical effects in their own times were almost nil.'” Chilton Williamson, Jr., After Tocqueville, 2013, 35. A yet an erroneous spreadsheet, seen by only a few had enormous practical effects.
I don’t suppose God has to budget miracles.
20140102 Be ready to go when he says come.
20131229 Do always the good that you fell occasionally.
20130102 Be ready to go when he says come.
20131226 Since I can’t count on myself, why should I count on another? [Much too pessimistic.]
20131212 Perhaps I should have an Our Lady of Guadalupe blotter to press on my first use of Noodler’s Heart of Darkness ink.
20131207 Do God’s will whatever the reason.
20131206 I believe in experience, including others' experience. I can know what I haven’t experienced, by faith [and from others].
20131205
Adam & Eve were not Jews. Civilization is not necessary for salvation. One can be a great ______ without entering the kingdom of heaven.
J[esus] enjoyed the fruits – the bread and wine, the clothing, the language of civilization – without trying to make them better [maybe His wine was better]. Was he a carpenter or just the son of a carpenter? He fed thousands without teaching people how to fish. He never taught wisdom, only truth. Or if not truth, then folly.
What about talents not to be buried? Let not the world judge. Was God put out when S[etsuko] H[ara] retired in 1963? What [public work] did Mary do? Hoc est opus Dei ut credatis in eum quem misit ille.