Lots of history this month. The reason is that I’d been asked to do a presentation for our Cathedral adult education program on the Church in the Deep South, so why not share the wealth?
So to live in the present, respectful of the past but not burdened by it? How?
That seems to me a key to spiritual wholeness, and how we treat the objects we inherit can be expressive of our inner disposition. The healthy place is neither casual dismissal or mournful clinging. The healthy place prioritizes the present, informed by, but not controlled by the past.
And when you shake loose, you might be surprised to find how faulty your understanding was all along.
I have a very hard time seeing how a persona-centered “outreach” can be squared with the Gospel call to humility.
The saints are a varied lot. They are extroverts. Introverts. rich, poor, young, old. artists, queens. beggars. scholars, and doorkeepers. But all of them, Catherine included, embody authentic humility. Their sense of a life well-lived challenges mine. Success? Achievement? Opportunity? Talents? I some-times wonder how to navigate all of those values, especially as a disciple of Jesus. I’m here on earth right now. I’m willing and able. What am I supposed to do and how am I supposed to figure it out? In Catherine. I get a glimpse of another landscape, one not that far away after all, one peopled by those who know the truth of who they are, how precious and yet how small; who know their own weaknesses; and who know that God’s infinite strength is as close as their own fiat.
Drawn from the Cathedral presentation:
November and December 2022 Highlights
Charlotte was Both 