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| The young man's first reading assignment. This book will interest him because James Delingpole is politically astute as well as humorous. |
Father kindly suggested calling someone in a nursing home however, not knowing anyone in a nursing home, that wasn't an option. He then suggested that I do any act of mercy. ??? I suggested that perhaps I should make up with a close relative who had decided to stop speaking to me but knew that wouldn't work because they had, well, stopped speaking to me. I can't force them to speak to me. So what was I to do? On the way home I asked God for help, then forgot about it.
The next day a situation presented itself as a definite solution. An 18 year-old young man where I work needed help navigating the computer there to access the paycheck screen and other information. That was not the act of mercy.
After showing him the various screens, he then started telling me about school and his family. Then he talked about the riots and politics and how his teachers ignore him when he has an opinion different from theirs. He asked why they do that so I told him it was because his teachers are all liberals. That was not the act of mercy.
Then it came to me! A brilliant idea manifested itself right in the middle of my brain. So brilliant that of course it was the Holy Spirit: "Instruct the ignorant." And instantly I knew what I was supposed to do for my act of mercy penance. I was to do a SPIRITUAL work of mercy.
Every few years I clean out my library, removing older books to make room for all the new ones lying on the floor. I was to pick out about 6 books and give them to this young man - books that would open his eyes to what liberalism is, how the left works, what it means for society, who the players are.
I then told him what I was going to do and that he may keep all books I give him but he needed to let his mother see them first and give her approval. His answer was, "Yes Miss. Thank you, Miss!" He never calls any of the women at work by their names. It's always "Miss". (In case you're wondering, he's white.) Someone raised this young man right.
And by the time I get through with him he will be a pro-life conservative Republican, and maybe President of the United States one day long after I'm gone.
You can thank me later.
Thanks for a big dose of hope for the future. That is your second (or 5th) act of mercy! Hugs and prayers for you, my dear friend!
ReplyDeleteJust to show how the HOLY SPIRIT works: I thought that the book RADICAL SON by David Horowitz would give him a good background on the Communist infiltration of the US. David Horowitz went from a Sixties radical to a Nineties conservative. He was involved with the Black Panthers, Berkley, 1960s Oakland riots, Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Elaine Brown - he knew them all personally, then "saw the light" of their horrifying evil. Horowitz now runs FRONTPAGE MAG which today has an article about the left wanting a Kristallnacht against Christians.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/call-kristallnacht-against-christians-lloyd-billingsley/
RADICAL SON traces three generations of Horowitz' family's infatuation with the radical left from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 to the collapse of the Marxist Empire six decades later.
I have the book in my library but use it for reference therefore don't want to give it up. However...THERE IT IS! right there among the several books in my garage that I am to drop off at a thrift shop for friends who are selling their rental home. I helped them clean out the rental house and, since they are elderly and not able, I volunteered to take everything to Goodwill (since our parish thrift shop is closed up tight).
They told me to go through the books and keep anything I wanted so there are 10 books sitting in my garage that I picked out OVER A MONTH AGO and RADICAL SON is one of them. Brand new. In perfect shape. Soon to belong to our future President! He's only 18 now so we'll have to wait awhile.
Since it's been over a month that I put those 10 books (picked out from over at least 50) in my garage, I had forgotten that it was there. I kept thinking...where have I seen that book lately? I know I saw it somewhere, but where? Then yesterday I saw that the books were going to possibly fall off the little table they were on so went over and moved the one on top. And underneath it was....RADICAL SON. Thank You, Holy Spirit!
I wish you had Twitter buttons on your blog. I'd like to Tweet this!
ReplyDeleteIf you need any more confirmation, this was the reading from Tuesday in the Magnificat by Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, the patron of young people. He talks about the "apostolate of persuasion:"
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the most beautiful and necessary. Young people, approach your colleagues at work who live their lives away from the Church and spend their free time not in healthy pastimes, but in vices. Persuade those unfortunate people to follow the ways of God, strewn with many thorns, but also many roses. We must sacrifice...our ambitions, indeed our entire selves, for the cause of the faith."
Thanks for the suggestion, acardinal, I'll see if my son-in-law can help me put Titter and Facebook share buttons on the blog. He's my go-to tech guru.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I used to have a priest who would give as a penance, "Go and be a blessing to someone". So I would go home and make dinner for the family and figured that was it. He did not ask for an act of contrition either which bothered me but another priest told me to make mine on my own. Luckily I no longer live in that place.
ReplyDelete