A Positively Poetic Priest

 At the end of a ecumenical trip to Sweden in 2016, Pope Francis offered six new Beatitudes: ""Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart. "Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness. "Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him. "Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home. "Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others. "Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians." "All these are messengers of God's mercy and tenderness," Pope Francis said.  "Surely they will receive from him their merited reward." The Beatitudes are so well known that even people in secular situations will occasionally use the format to offer their own blessings or to make their own poetic commentar...

11/17/17 "Bless, O Lord, this food to our use and us to thy service. Keep us ever mindful of the needs of others, in Jesus' Name we pray. Amen." Growing up as a child, this was the grace I learned to say before every meal. At first, each of us, my brothers and I, would rotate as to who was sitting in the 'grace chair' and had to say grace before the meal. It was always interesting to see how each of us said the same thing slightly differently. One of my brothers was a speed demon and said the words so fast we couldn't always understand what he was saying. Because of this, our family started a tradition of being mindful of the knees of others, not necessarily their needs... though as my Dad, a man with reoccurring knee problems, likes to say, everyone's knees do need the prayers and help. As we near the Thanksgiving holiday and think about all the things we are thankful for in this world, we have to give thanks for the food we eat on a daily b...