Soulful Muse

We pray for them as though their destiny can be changed. We talk about them as the “poor souls in purgatory” when purgatory is the gateway to heaven. (They ain’t “poor,” by any means folks.) Years ago, on this day in grade school we could say an “Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be” inside the church. We then needed to leave the church, and a soul would ascend to Heaven. We could repeat this as often as our little feet or minds could endure this repetitious ritual. It sounds silly today, but back then, it was pretty important work. (Taking the place of God’s judgment is a big job; too bad we feel the urge to take His place!)

Those examples are silly, but their meaning is significant. We kept a connection, in a spiritual way, with those who have died. Those we’ve known or loved and those unknown but still remembered. A connection. Yesterday it was saintly people, and today it’s the regular fare of folks. My personal remembrances today are with the regular fare. We could cynically call them “steerage,” like those traveling in the lower bowels of a ship.

But yesterday and today, I guess it’s more than a connection, it’s a fusing between the living and the deceased. There is a oneness that is heightened these two days. We remember the dead daily during the Mass but especially between the seasons of fall and winter; with a diminishing sun and a rising moon.

A funeral theme that I love to use is the old song, “The Song Has Ended But The Melody Lingers On.” That’s “All Soul’s Day.” A special life has stopped living, but the memories continue to live and breathe within our living lives.

“All Souls Day” can be like Halloween’s “Trick or Treat.” The trick is to embrace and recall someone’s life as best we can each day. The treat is in the remembering – even bad memories may teach us living folks a lesson about someone’s mistakes or misadventures. The good memories are the easiest to keep a hold of.

This holy day is dedicated to those who have gone before us but continue to be a part, even a small part, of our lives. We pray for them, but we don’t need to pray for them. Instead, we should request that they pray for us. Through their prayers with our days ahead, can those days be fruitful, rewarding, satisfying and enlightening for ourselves and for those whose lives we touch?

That’s the union between the living and dead. Their journey of life is complete while ours continues.

Eternal rest be unto them, Oh, Lord. May the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God, “requiescat in pace,” rest in peace.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

Your parent tells you, “Stop pretending!” “Do your homework.” “Take out the garbage.”

So you stop pretending and return to the real world. “The real world,” whatever that is.

Pretending is to be something you are not. Trick or treating as Harry Potter or Spiderman is fun. For a while, you may even believe that you are that character.

Pretending is to imagine, and imagining can lead to this “real world.” When you’re sad, you pretend to be happy again and slowly that happiness returns to your life. You hit your brother or sister, you feel sorrow for doing it and you imagine being friends and then find yourselves playing a game with your sister or brother. Pretending is to believe.

We pray for peace all the time in church. We know it’s not happening right now but that doesn’t stop our praying for peace or harmony. When we pray for peace we are pretending that this “real” world can get a little better. By imagining a peaceful world, we just may be able to make it happen.

I told you already that I pretended to be a priest not thinking it would actually happen. But it did. Like a Halloween costume, I put on my plastic vestments and imagined myself as a priest. Now I place the cloth vestments on myself and smile. My pretending paid off. My imagination made a dream come true for me.

No saint woke up one morning and said, “I want to be a saint!” And presto, changeo, they became saints. They pretended to be good people and then became good people. They pretended to follow Christ, and then they became Christ-like. That’s who the saints are.

St. Paul tells us to “put on Christ,” as though it’s a costume. Pretend to be Jesus Christ and see what happens in your life. Will you be a little kinder, will you be a little nicer and helpful, will you be more considerate of others? “Put on Christ.”

So, stop pretending and take the garbage out and do your homework. But when you return to your room, then continue pretending and imagining because you never know what may happen.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

The Jewish faith has six-hundred and thirteen commandments, Christians narrowed it down to ten and Jesus winnows it further with two by saying loving God above all else and loving your neighbor as yourself. The Jews write a lengthy book on how to live life and Jesus sends us a powerful postcard. Go figure.

My mother would tell me that “I’m getting too big for my britches,” when I thought too much of myself. I’ve never owned a pair of britches. Jesus questions us by saying, “If you cannot love yourself then how can you extend love to another?” The Church would surely tell us, “Love yourself? Are you kidding?” Perhaps, “‘Kinda like’ yourself would be okay but never love yourself.” Or the Church may say, “Try ‘sort of’ like yourself, try that on for size but never, ever think of loving yourself.” That’s the Church talking to us, not me. If I took a poll here in church of how many of you, “Love yourselves,” 80% of you would say, “No” in deference to the teachings of the Catholic Church. But that’s not what Jesus is asking of us.

But back to my small britches. If I was clever enough at that young age, I might have replied to my mother, “Then why don’t you buy me some larger britches to fit me.” By that time, the soap would have appeared. It was either Dove or Ivory, I’m not sure.

That’s what thinking “highly of yourself” costs. A bar of soap firmly inserted into a youngster’s mouth by a frustrated mom. If my britches are getting too big, then that means I have more love within myself to share with others – that new commandment that Jesus gave us. So to all of us – keep your britches tight with God’s love for you and the love for yourself in order to share that love with others.

But wait! Jesus gave us an existing commandment plus a new one. “Love your neighbor at yourself” is not among the Christian’s 10. That would make then make the Jewish commandments 614, Christians 11 and Jesus 1 plus l. (And you thought Packers scores were hard to remember!)

If you’re still with me on this then you’re better at math than I am. The question asked of Jesus is to tell which one, of the many 613 is the greatest commandment and Jesus gives him two. And the second one remains a doozy. (You don’t hear the word “doozy” very much. I’ve had a cold these past two weeks, and I tell people, “It’s a doozy of a cold.” Meaning it’s big. I guess that’s what Jesus means by the second command, “It’s a doozy folks.”)

The Good Lord could have chosen other scripture passages to make his point. Consider Jesus saying, “Love one another as I have loved you.” We get that. Or, Jesus could have shortened the second by saying, “Love one another.” We get that one too. But, no, Jesus didn’t get it. He begins with ourselves and then extends that love to others. Not the reverse, which we all so dearly believe. Jesus is simply saying that, “You can’t give what you do not have.” If there is minimal self-love living within you, then you only have minimal love to share with some one else.

Jesus added this new commandment to equal or surpass all of our shortening britches.

—Love one another more than we do not love ourselves and see what happens.
—Love one another the way we wished to be loved and see what happens.
—Love one another in spite of ourselves and watch what happens to loving ourselves.
—Love one another as much as we can and some of that love may come back to fill up
our voids.
—Love one another so much so that we return home and recover the unending love that
God has for each of us.

Sorry, Mom, you were wrong. Wearing my tightening britches and those I touch, influence and affect through my thoughts, words and deeds fits me just fine.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

“God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

All right, I have something important to tell you. It’s not easy to talk about it but my therapist said that, “Talking about it will make a difference in my life.”

I have a condition. Oh wait. It’s not a condition and it’s not a disease. I have a syndrome. (It could be a disease with even more sympathy but, alas I only have a syndrome.) It’s suffer (note the verb) from FTS. So, okay, so you don’t know what it is but it still plagues me. It’s defined as “Fat Thigh Syndrome.” FTS. It started years ago and seems to expand as my age expands.

My therapist tells me that Pfizer is working on a medication but I can only imagine its side effects: dizziness, memory loss, weight loss. All of the things I already experience. My therapist concludes each session by singing the Billy Joel song, “I Want You Just the Way You Are” but it doesn’t help me much.

Well, that’s my story, I mean that’s my worry. What’s yours? What worries you during the day or awakens you at night? What worries you? I’m waiting for a support group to begin for us FTS sufferers but it appears I’m the only one with this malady.

Oh well. I have no control over my FTS but I like worrying about it. I can’t do anything about it but thinking and praying about it keeps me focused on my FTS, along with my lack of medication, support groups and a Billy Joel musical refrain. I can change nothing about my FTS except keep dwelling on it… constantly.

courage to change the things I can,

I guess I could reconsider my racial views or those unemployed folks that I dismiss or those foreign folks who want to live here or my neighbor’s crusty behavior or my unmarried daughter living with her boyfriend. In the age of our quick, rapid news – perhaps discovering the difference between opinions and facts and then assimilating both opinion and facts to uncover a kernel of truth.

I am able to change my perspective on those things and many more attitudes like that. But, well, that would take work and effort on my part. It would require reflection and prayer. It would demand examining my life against God’s life. It would require to uncover where the two meet and where those two often fail to meet. God and me, Church and me. To that I say, another syndrome, TMW – “too much work.”

I like suffering with my FTS. It’s comfortable to worry about because there is no solution. I can worry forever about those two appendages hanging on both sides of me. Is this the time for a call of conversion on my part or as Scriptures calls it “A change of heart?”

However, I would appreciate a card from each of you telling me about your sympathy for my chronic, suffering, ego-centric, self absorbing, and “All about me” disease, I mean syndrome.

Will I die from this syndrome? I suppose not but I believe that my heart may still be beating but not in sync with my soul. With that lost unity between God and me, then what’s the point of life? And that’s a loss for all of us, especially me.

Sorry folks. I choose FTS over TMW. After all, it may not be Christlike or Catholic but it’s truly the American way.

and wisdom to know the difference.”

“God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the
Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did, This sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

God of all seasons,

We are caught up now in “in between” seasons again. The summer and fall provided by You were glorious. Thank you. Winter awaits us with Wisconsinites all asking the piercing question, “What kind of winter will we get this year,” as though the listener has a cogent answer.

“In between” is how You created us – Father and Mother, life and death, nows and thens, more of yesterdays with fewer tomorrows.  But You made us to be Your people in this moment and the moment after that.

May each moment of our lives reflect Your seasons:

God of all seasons and God of all moments, We end this prayer the way we begin all prayers, “Thank You.”

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

St. Paul writes, “Brothers and sisters,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure…”

Someone says, “Life is so complicated,” which it is not. Another declares, “Life is overwhelming,” turn off your cell phone and TV and see what happens. A third person sighs, “Life escapes me,” it probably has because you’ve haven’t embraced it. (Still living in your parent’s house at thirty-years-old is your first clue.)

Life. Decisions. Directions. Re-directions along with rewinds (that’s called “Confession”) and fast-forwards (which is called planning ahead and living God’s mission for you.)

St. Paul continues, “Whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise…”

None of us own a vineyard unless you live on Pasadena Blvd, but all of us have a growing vine that begins with God, grows into friendships, develops into jobs and careers and then cements itself into a lifelong commitment – lived out as best we can as people of God.

It’s that easy, and it’s that complete. Dwelling too much of only one part of the vine is to deny ourselves of the immense divinity that touches every part of our humanity.

This is not brain surgery folks. If it were, then I’d not be one telling you about it. It is a fragile, growing vine that needs water, attention, sunlight and God’s smiling face to produce whatever it is that you build.

Go ahead and see your life connected to a vine. But remember that you are not the vine. You are a part of the vine. Your mother may have told you that you are the vine, but believe me, you are not the beginning and end of “vineness.” Those people who hold you back – name them in your hearts; don’t prune or hoe them, they will slowly die off by themselves. To those who support you in genuine goodness and sincere honesty – water those folks at least once a week and thank them in prayer or in person.

St. Paul then says, “Think about these things.
Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.”

My six months of unemployment caused me great personal reflection and prayer. In February, I drove to Holy Hill to visit the basilica. It was a warm day, driving there with the top down. I walked into the church, knelt down and only said, “Well, God?” I got up and walked out. In June, I returned to the basilica on a beautiful “top-down” day. After hearing about my future assignment at Christ King and St. Bernard parishes, I again knelt down and said, “Thank you.” Got up and left. Now, I’m not that spiritual a person. Both visits were unscripted and unplanned. It just felt genuine and right. Only those four words kept me connected to this amazing and mysterious and surprising vine that we call faith.

Turn all your doubts and anxieties into a profound offering to God. And, that’s all right because the vine is God’s strength. God is the vine, and we’re but a mere piece of fruit waiting to ripen. We ripen and re-ripen again at every age. And mature we will, with all the grace and support of our strong vine and our vine owner, a loving God.

St. Paul concludes by saying,
“Then the God of peace will be with you.”

So says St. Paul. So says all of us at Christ King parish.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. Great Gift Ideas.
All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

“When did Jesus know he was God?” asked the twelve-year-old. I thought to myself, “A developmental question” from someone developing herself. I quickly needed to answer because, as you know, priests have all the answers on the cuffs of their shirts without thinking about it. (If it’s French cuffs then you aspire higher than the mere priesthood.)

My first response was incorrect (I don’t have French cuffs) but I corrected myself later. I first said, “His resurrection” with all the confidence of being the older guy in front of these young, growing minds. They bought it. But I didn’t.

Thinking about my answer while answering another piercing question, I thought the “resurrection” is more about completion than an emerging knowledge. When you see the pay raise in your paycheck, you realize it’s because of the work you’ve done. That’s the resurrection to me. Jesus got a pay raise, but it was earned before his New-Easter-Being.

I interrupted the Q&A to backtrack and take back my first impulsive answer. I told the growing girl and her classmates that Jesus realized “Who he was” in the garden scene, after the Last Supper, alone with his sleepy followers. They slept while Jesus struggled and bargained with a God who does not bargain. “If this cup could pass,” Jesus tries but unsuccessfully. “I could do something else,” Jesus might have said next except he finally realized what his mission was to achieve and to whom it was dedicated.

It’s a God-like moment. I don’t know if  Jesus knew then he was God or if he ever knew. My new answer satisfied my little friend as much as my first. We all have divinity living within us. We all have “God-like” times in our conversations with family and friends when the best of us shine, and we’re not always sure of its origin.

Explaining to second graders the elements of Baptism, I was reminded of the potentcy of the sacraments that I too often take for granted. The youngsters all marveled at my knowledge but were more concerned with how old I am and how tall I am. Oh well. Developing minds trying to wrap minds around the great mysteries of our Christian faith.

And all explained by a priest who isn’t so sure of his second answer. “Oh, well.”

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

Eckhart von Hochheim O.P. (commonly called “Meister Eckhart”), 1260 – 1328

Monday’s Message
—Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
—Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.

Tuesday’s Treat
—Treat all things as if they were loaned to you without any ownership – whether body or soul, sense or strength, external goods or honors, house or hall . . . everything.
—There exists only the present instant …
There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now.

Wednesday’s Widget
—The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.
—Wisdom consists in doing the next thing you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it.
—Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow,
then this light is nearest of all to us.

Thursday’s Take-Out
—What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.
—Only the hand that erases can do the true thing.
—The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out,
for if you want the kernel you must break the shell.

Friday’s Feast
—The more deeply we are our true selves, the less self is in us.
—One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us, but we must ennoble our works.

Saturday’s Surprise
—Compassion is where peace and justice kiss
—Become aware of what is in you. Announce it, pronounce it,
produce it, and give birth to it.

Sunday’s Sunset
—Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God.
—You need seek God neither below or above.
He is no farther away than the door of the heart.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

Of course, things and events have different meanings for us as we age. Youngsters absorb like a sponge and oldsters squeeze out what life’s either given or what we’ve contributed to it. Where do the fruits of grace fit into life’s picture?

Leave it to the Catholics to divide up a good thing instead of keeping it mysteriously whole. The Church has “actual” and “sanctifying” types of grace. Sanctifying is received through the seven sacraments, and actual comes out of living a worthwhile life (or attempting to live a worthy life). Both emanate from our Creator like the “dewfall” which the priest says during Mass. Dewfall is an apt word for this mysterious substance that fills us up when life is affirmative and carries us through life’s doubtful or dark episodes.

Who created the concept of grace? Grace’s founder doesn’t matter to me, only that grace as matter, matters. It matters because it is another indication that God is present in our world. This invisible and omnipotent presence is present among us even if through the mystery. The same is true about angels. Perhaps it’s the angels that drop the dewfalls of grace upon us throughout our lives?

A ninety-three-year-old friend of mine told me how grace becomes more remarkable as we age. Grace-filled oldsters never lose the imagination of youngsters. We just sometimes forget. Possibly oldsters senses can be heightened through grace’s power. One author said it’s a deliberate activity as we age to become more observing and inquisitive. What came naturally in youth needs to be sharpened and reminded to the rest of us. “Been there, done that” has no room in an older adult disposition. You can exclude, “It is what it is” as well.

Instead, a heightened sense of sense emerges. The next time you return from a mall try to recall as many people as you can. Where were they when you spotted them? What color blouse was she wearing? Did his shoes match his suit? Where was outside light the brightest in the mall? What odors did you sense walking past the cosmetic counters? Who looked at you while walking and who ignored you?

Your visit to the mall now becomes a grace-filled experience. Don’t restrict grace to only “churchy” stuff but all of the stuff of life. The Blessed Mother Mary was full of it, and we can fill ourselves with it as well. A mall’s visit can be as spiritual as a church’s religion. Both contain the absence and abundance of this mysterious substance that fills our entire lives with optimism and hope. It is grace in all its graceful displays.

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com
“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up

“No, no, no.” The “no” is always said in threes and sounding much like Hamlet’s mother saying, “She protests too much, me thinks.“

“You must be thinking of someone else but not me,” says the person to the priest who considered him/her for a volunteer position in the parish or a commitment to Jesus Christ.

“I’m much too busy, I have three kids, what more do you want from me?” Yeah, right. Best Buys announces free 72-inch flat screens to the first 100 people, and suddenly your calendar frees up and you’re the first at line…at 5:00 a.m. You’re given two free Packer tickets, and you say, “Do I have three kids?”

Jesus chose twelve guys who had no qualifications except something that Jesus saw in them. None were trained for the work he needed to be done, and many died a sad death because of him.

Listen to this from 1941,

(musical insert) “Your lips tell me ‘No, no’ but there’s ‘Yes, yes in your eyes, I’ve been missing your kissing just because I wasn’t wise….”

Your boyfriend finally gets up the courage to go to Kessler’s Jewelers and makes a down payment and presents you a ring at Pizza Hut. (It had to be Pizza Hut because of the cost of the ring.) He sees “no, no” in your eyes but asks anyway for your hand and for your life to be with him. You smile at him because you expected the question to be asked two weeks ago. (Why does it take guys so long to pop?) You say, “Yes,” to all his apprehensive and multiple “No’s” that he’d said to himself in his thin-skulled head for the past two weeks.

(musical insert) “Your lips tell me ‘No, no’ but there’s ‘Yes, yes in your eyes.”

But now a bit about me to make my point. The Salvatorians, my religious order, had me pegged as a TV star. I’m attractive and smart…I’ve been on television many times and over twenty-five years in radio. I was to be a hit. I kept saying, “Yes” to that but there was no reply to my grand future stardom. I’m am attractive and smart (I think I said that already) but life led me to say “Yes” to over twenty-years with older adults that I will forever cherish. My “Yes” led me to be here with you to haunt and challenge you; as much as I challenge and haunt myself. And, believe me, I haunt and challenge myself a lot.

Jesus tells us to say one “Yes” after our numerous “No’s.” “Oh, but Father if you only knew my situation, my circumstances…” Father says, “It’s one meeting a month.” “Oh, says the ’no-no-no’ person” but then says:

“I get tired easily after work”
“I don’t know that many people in the parish”
“Is there a stipend involved for being a volunteer”
“There’s a rerun of ”Gunsmoke” that night”
“I have to check with my wife.” (Always a good cop-out – blame the wife)
“My psychiatrist, Dr. Nutt, said that I should cut back on activities…”
and my favorite one of all is
“6-8 p.m. is my cocktail time”

This “No-No-No-I Don’t Want To” leads you to an invitation (or acknowledgment) of something inside yourself that someone else has identified in you that you didn’t know about yourself. Do you want to hear that scaringly true sentence again? (It happens often, folks.)

Please don’t dismiss the invitation. Ponder it. Prayer it. Hell, you’ll get to work with two attractive and smart priests. Talk to your friends about it to get them involved.

Tell Father or your friend, “No-no-no three times the same as Peter said in the garden but then, in faith, in reflection, and with good luck, say what the Blessed Mother and Peter only needed to say once, “Yes, Lord.”

(musical insert) “Your lips tell me ‘No, no’ but there’s ‘Yes, yes in your eyes.”

Books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS. All available on Amazon.com

“Soulful Muse,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Living Faith’s Mysteries,”
inspirational reflections on the Christian seasons
of Advent/Christmas & Lent/Easter
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings,”
inspirational reflections on the Catholic Church and U.S. culture
“Letters From My Cats,”
a collection of letters written by my cats over twenty years
“Bowling Through Life’s Stages with a Christian perspective,”
Bowling as a metaphor for religion and growing up