Sunday Meditation: The Frustration of Lost Items

Today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. My plan was to spend the day re-reading Louis de Wohl's wonderful historical novel, St. Helena and the True Cross. Only one problem. I can't find it. The shelf with Mary Windeatt's saint novels is where it should be, but it isn't. I remember reading it a few years ago so I know I own the book, but where did I put it?

I looked through my alphabetically arranged lives of the saints and it isn't there. Then I went upstairs where I have two shelves of biographies and it wasn't there either. So instead of spending the day following my intended pursuit, I will read the entry on St. Helena in Butler's Lives of the Saints and offer up my frustration for the poor souls in Purgatory. 

Sunday Meditation: It's the Lord's Day; How Will You Keep It?

Every Sunday is a little Christmas and a little Easter. How will we keep it holy?

Do you remember the description of Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol? He was a man who "knew how to keep Christmas," something he learned from the three ghosts. Perhaps we need three ghosts today to help us "keep" Sunday: the Ghost of Sunday Past, the Ghost of Sunday Present, and the Ghost of Sunday Future. If those ghosts visited us today what would those visits look like?

Remembering My Dad with Gratitude

Yesterday was my dad's birthday. He was born in 1917, the first of five children born to Raymond Michael Schneider and Marie Zurlinden Schneider in Cleveland, Ohio. His dad, my grandfather, was an organist who played in vaudeville for the silent movies and later was organist at St. James Catholic Church in Lakewood where his men and boys' choirs became well known. He taught his own children to play and Daddy played the organ later for the Catholic community at the Naval Academy when he was student there and for St. Augustine's in Elkridge, MD after he retired.

In 2009 my brother, Ray Jr. (now deceased), posted this on his blog:

Raymond John Schneider — Dad

Ray's first ship was USS DETROIT, which was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. DETROIT subsequently transported the Philippine Government's gold and silver monetary reserve, which had been removed from Corregidor by submarine, from Honolulu to San Francisco.

Feast of the Epiphany; Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning

St. James Catholic Church, Lakewood, OH - January 2016 - shared on viewbug

My grandfather was the organist at St. James Catholic Church in Lakewood, OH for many years. He had a men and boys' choir that was renowned locally. I wish I had asked him about his history. He played in the days when silent movies had live organ music accompanying the film. How many stories he could have shared if I'd only had the wisdom to ask about them. Young people, quiz your grandparents and parents while you still have them. They are the "wise men and women" of your time. Don't let their stories die with them.

Advent Thoughts

The pine cone wreath made by Laura

This time of year I try hard to block out all the Christmas songs and decorations, so I can live Advent. Visiting family in Austin after Thanksgiving, we missed our usual preparations during the first eight days. Instead, we shared those preparations with our son and his family. But we returned last night so today I began my own welcome for the Divine Messiah. Larry brought up the Advent wreath and I cleaned the family room and set up the creche. What memories are stirred as I add every day to the adornments that fill each room with the spirit of Christmas.

Daddy made the creche and I laugh whenever I put the green branches on the back that are coded to fit into their holders. I never remember my dad without a project. One was painting and crimping little juice cans to make a "building set" of tubes for grandkids. And I know he must have made the little manger for Jesus. There's even a pile of miniature wooden logs that rest beside the stable. St. Joseph would surely have been busy making sure there was plenty of fuel to keep his family toasty warm.

What My Parents Did Right!

I have a book on my bedside table that I am just beginning, Gloria Gaither's What My Parents Did Right. What a thesis! We live in a culture where everyone seems to have the finger of blame pointed at someone else. Most often that "someone" seems to be parents. I confess to having fallen into that pit many times in my younger days and I repent of it. My parents were children during the great depression, suffered through the ravages of World War II with Daddy on active naval duty, and went on to raise ten children. They experienced all the rebellion of the 60s with the younger members of the family, and suffered deeply the ravages to the Church after Vatican II. It was no easy life. I want to say thank you to them every day (I wish they were physically present so they could "hear" it from my lips.) and remember all the things they did right -- beginning with their generous openness to life.