Archive for Spiritual
I am happy to be here to give another personal update!
Not to get too deep into the background which you can find here and here, I just want to report that I had the kidney removed July 7, 2009 at 8:00 am as scheduled. All went according to plan, and in fact, more smoothly than the surgeon expected. That is essentially what he told my wife immediately afterward and told me as well later in recovery, although much of that time is a bit blurred from morphine. As yet we have no report as to whether the tumour was indeed cancerous and whether it has in fact been contained.
I will say this with conviction. I believe that operation’s ease and success are due both to the skill of the surgeon, and he is skilled, and to the prayers of many people, friends and relatives who held me up before God when I was as helpless as a person can ever be, in the hands of another. So thank you all very much. I cannot express how much I appreciate it.
A special thanks to a special man and his wife of our parish, a man who knows suffering in his body each and every waking minute, who turns his own suffering over to Christ for the sake of others, who spends his days interceding for others. “I pray a lot,” he says with a grin. Thank you for the Mass taking place for the intention of a successful surgery, at the very time when the surgeon was at work. No wonder he was surprised at how smoothly it went.
And thank you Lord Jesus Christ, our brother, our King, in whom we are bonded as brothers and sisters.
I was released Saturday the 11th and am whom now, recuperating, happy and thankful to be alive and on the mend. Each and every day looks a little different when we find ourselves close to death at some point in our lives. Thanks be to God, I pray I never forget the lesson.
Prophetic Voice
Cross post from North of the Shire
On the subject of lame arguments…
…here’s another in the great abortion debate. I was reading a discussion in the Catholic Answers Forums and a particular poster was defending a pro-choice position, as a Catholic, and from several different vantage points.
Needless to say she was out-numbered in that discussion but as I read her posts and got to know a little more about her it became apparent that she had had a tough upbringing and in her youth had aborted a baby, for which she was sorry and had confessed to a priest long ago. So, in some sense I sympathized with her and recognized her compassion for women from all sorts of circumstances. And yes, there are many extreme circumstances wherein we must, as Catholics, continue to provide all the support we can to women who are looking at abortion as their only option, and keep trying to persuade them that killing the innocent child is never an answer, regardless of how and when it was conceived. And we must continue to give them real options. That is what we do in the name of our Lord for the sake of both the mother and child, and we ask for the intercession of the mother of our Lord to help us and help those women. »» On the subject of lame arguments…
A Must Listen during Holy Week
I try to listen to this sometime during Holy Week every year. Hard hitting, thought provoking, conscience stirring, and altogether missing in much that happens in many places at this time of year. This is the Gospel.
Recorded on EWTN in 1998 by Fr. John Corapi.
A New Chapter
I waited to post this until I had informed family members directly, so they wouldn’t read it here first.
This week I was informed that I have some form of blood cancer. What it is exactly we will know after further testing later this month. It first showed up in a routine blood screening at my family doctor or we may not have known about it at all for some time. That is because I am not sick. I don’t have the symptoms that they would normally associate with this particular cancer. That could be the case for a couple of reasons. Either it is there and in a “pre” cancer stage, which is known to happen with some types of this disease, or, we caught it so early that it has not yet had a chance to make me sick but soon will. The further tests will tell us the answer to that as well. »» A New Chapter
Pause For Reflection
A couple of years ago I took a period of time to turn down the great volume of input of the world around and while I didn’t totally shut it all out, I made a conscious decision to take back the majority of time available to me.
That involved shutting down the radio, which is a constant companion in my line of work, so much so that I have had Sirius Satellite for some time. In that period of time I preferred the silence and when I did listen it was to recorded programs that were educational or uplifting to my faith. »» Pause For Reflection
Everyone that prays, dies (except the Buddhist)
Big promotion now that 2012 is out on DVD. Father Barron talks about it and doesn’t recommend it. We put it up on Whippleshire Headlines.
http://whippleshire.blogspot.com/2010/03/2012-is-anti-catholic.html
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