First, the cold. I have a small complaint for Dave Phillips,
Senior Climatologist at Environment Canada. Here is what he said (CTV News) on
Dec 1, 2014:
“Not as long and as brutal a
winter as we had last year … for all Canadians,” said Phillips. “We won’t have
to be migrating and hibernating like we did last year.” Phillips
says Canadians can thank the phenomenon called El Nino. Dave, my complaint is in the form of a question: it is -14C
here in Kingston as I write, with same temps forecast for the next several
days. How is that milder, shorter, El Nino thing working for ya?
On a much happier note, I became aware as I was preaching at
our 5 Masses this past weekend - there are a LOT of 20 and 30-somethings here!
Young parents with their kids, as well as singles and other young couples. I am
moved by that, in a world that touts its no-need-for-religion philosophy. I am
humbled as well, because we who lead the liturgies could so easily drive them
away. Is it ever nice to know that a significant group of our younger
population want to be nurtured in a faith community at prayer. Pray for them,
pray for us!
Finally, a note on Ste. Therese of Lisieux. I talked about
her in my last posting, and how she inspires with her faith and her devotion to
Jesus. No wonder she has the world-wide following she does. Before she died her
agonizing death at age 24 (suffocating from the effects of tuberculosis -same
disease my Dad got in 1954, and was cured of with the new drugs), she said
this:
"My mission - to make God loved - will begin after my
death...." "I will spend my
heaven doing good on earth. I will let fall a shower of roses." Roses have
been described and experienced as Saint Therese's signature. (Website, Society
of the Little Flower)
There are thousands of people who have trusted her a lot
longer than I have. I am new to this devotion, and she has come through very
large in two circumstances I have prayed for. Not only that, the confirmation
of the roses was present in each case.
Here is the thing I have discovered about the roses. You
can't go around looking for them or doing something like putting a picture of a
rose on your desktop. I have seen lots of roses and pictures of roses, and have
had no reaction to them. The ones that are convincing following a prayer or
novena, are the ones that you did not expect and did not see coming, but hit
you in a way that you know immediately what it is. And on the two occasions I
refer to, Therese was very creative. In the first, I was asked to meet a young
girl who was ill. Her name was a variation on the word 'rose.' That did not
evoke anything in me until I met her and saw that she was a red-head! I knew, and
I just smiled. The second was actually in a dream. In the dream I was walking
through our kitchen and there was a vase with two roses in it, on our island. I
turned and looked at them, and said, 'How did they get here?', and kept
walking. When I woke up later, the image was clear as a bell, though I could
not remember anything else about the dream.
Both of these came after particular prayers. The whole
business is a matter of personal faith, and the Church teaches that my
experience imposes no obligation on anyone. Indeed, there are all kinds of
alternate explanations, starting with the one of sheer coincidence. I used that
one for years. Not any more.
