Catholic Dads

This morning, I read about 6 young women & their quest to serve God in

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/01/21/DI2009012102496.html

Back in 1993, Albert Herbert lists more than 20 visionaries & stigmatists in the book “The Visionaries –USA- Today”. And you have probably seen the video “Marian Apparitions of the 20th Century” that documents our Lady’s “recent” supposed apparitions in Zeitun, Medugorje, Kibeho, Garabandal & Akita. Then there’s the 200+ who were canonized by the late John Paul II. If you check out: http://www.usccb.org/pope/canon.htm , you’ll see quite a diverse population.

I ‘ve heard of a family whose teenage daughter would go into a prayerful trance neither eating, sleeping nor doing anything else for hours, even days. The family is keeping it quiet & understandably so. And I’ve met people whom I or others consider saintly: a pastor – Fr. McGreedy, a novice master – Fr. Cogliandro, a CEO of Fiat & a Carmelite nun. There’s an aura, a refreshing joy, a deep & constant serenity about them. It must be the transforming union with God referred to in spiritual theology.

What’s cool about it is that everyone is meant to be filled with God – maybe in that way or another. When I sought how, Fr. Cogliandro, shared with me what the Lord told a perturbed Salesian sister in a vision. “Live the present moment with love” was the Lord’s counsel to her. And since I tend to pick up on the weird stuff (like St. Francis stripping), he suggested that I be “extraordinarily ordinary.” It does not mean to be mediocre but rather, to be holy in an unnoticeable way by fulfilling my duties with great diligence.

I think this still holds true even now. If I can be so united with Jesus, then that will be the best thing that I can be & do for my wife & kids as is written in John 17:19 “And for them I make myself holy, so that they may be made truly holy. “

May the Queen of all saints pray for the graces that we need to be saints today.