Pascal's Wisdom

As is typical for me, I have about a zillion books "in progress" at any given time... So what generally happens is that I switch back and forth between books, reading only a few snippets or pages at a crack. At some point, for most books, I reach a stage where I suddenly make it a priority and finish it swiftly -- for others, they linger on for years.

Blaise Pascal's Pensées is one of the latter category - and I am at a loss to explain why! It may be because every time I pick it up I am swept away in ponderings with the very first section I read, and then have no time to read any more.

For example - this section that I just read:

47. We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is that the present usually hurts. We thrust it out of sight because it distresses us, and if we find it enjoyable, we are sorry to see it slip away. We try to give it the support of the future, and think how we are going to arrange things over which we have no control for a time we can never be sure of reaching.

Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so. (172)

Always remember - the present is a present!

"Gone Fishing"

One of the finest blogging priests around, Fr. Jay at Young Fogeys, has fished out a marvelous excerpt from one of Fr. Cantalamess'a recent reflections on the Gospel (from yesterday's Mass - Luke 5:1-11). This time, the Papal Preacher examines the relationship between the fisherman and the fish, the shepherd and the sheep, and how we are to follow Christ by living at turns all of them - shepherd, sheep, fisherman and fish - throughout our lives.

This, as Fr. Jay likewise noted, is a unique approach to this passage. Typically (and with good reason) this Gospel reading inspires homilies on vocations, particularly vocations to the priesthood - "I will make you fishers of men." Oftentimes this does develop further into a reflection on the meaning of vocation in general, but still, it tends to stay in the vague realm of "holiness" and "following the Lord's will" and such. Great things, but usually not fleshed out in quite the way that Fr. Cantalamessa has done this week. What consequences it should have for us in our Catholic life - they are beyond number!

As Fr. Cantalamessa points out, the priests and bishops' vocations lean more towards shepherds: their primary responsibility is for care of their sheep, not to go out and get more sheep (yes, they are to go after the one that is lost, but 99% of the time, what are they doing? Watching their own flock). For the laity, on the other hand, our vocation is more closely aligned with that of the fisherman, the hunter - we exist in a more fluid environment, where the "fish" are plentiful, and we are in a position out in deep water to catch them by the net of God's grace!

Wherever we are, whatever job or situation we are in - we need to remember how to fish! Every moment, ever encounter, is an opportunity sent by God to help us help each other to heaven - are we using these moments as we should? Are we encouraging each other in holiness? Are we taking the time to deepen our friendships, or are we thinking instead of the next task on our list, or even just the next sentence that we want to say? A good fisherman is patient, is attentive, and is well-prepared to fish by gaining knowledge about the fish and the area - we too, need to do likewise to be good fishermen for Christ. We need to be both patient and smart, we need to know our limits and know who it is that we are talking with.

Then again, we need to remember that we're not only the fisherman, but we're also oftentimes the fish! We can't catch ourselves, we need to be caught in Christ's net too! Do we allow ourselves to be the fish, or do we insist on being the leader and having our way? Are we humble before others, before the fishermen in our lives that Christ has sent to get us? Do we fight the hook and line of our sufferings, trying to go our own way and driving the hook in more deeply than it needs to be?

Shifting focus a little bit, another angle that Fr. Cantalamessa uses is comes from the reference to the "other boat" in Scripture - the future Pope and James and John needed help, so they called out to the other boat for help to bring in the catch. The priests and bishops - or, on the other hand, the laity - cannot work alone, we need help from one another to fulfill the task laid out for us. Priests need the laity to help evangelize the world, but the laity need the priests to bring the catch - including themselves - in to Christ.

Go read Fr. Jay's full post and his insights at "Fr. Raniero on Sheep & Fish"!

You know it's cold when...

FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE A WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 12 PM CST MONDAY.

NORTHWEST WINDS BETWEEN 10 AND 15 MPH WILL COMBINE WITH TEMPERATURES FROM 10 TO 25 BELOW ZERO AND DRIVE WIND CHILLS INTO THE 20 TO 40 BELOW ZERO RANGE THIS MORNING. WITH TEMPERATURES TODAY ONLY CLIMBING INTO THE SINGLE DIGITS BELOW ZERO...WIND CHILLS WILL REMAIN FROM 20 TO 30 BELOW ZERO AS WINDS CONTINUE BETWEEN 10 AND 15 MPH. NORTHWEST WINDS WILL CONTINUE TO PRODUCE WIND CHILLS OF 25 TO 35 DEGREES BELOW ZERO INTO MONDAY MORNING ACROSS EAST CENTRAL MINNESOTA AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN.

A WIND CHILL ADVISORY MEANS THAT VERY COLD AIR COMBINED WITH PROJECTED WIND SPEED WILL GENERATE DANGEROUSLY LOW WIND CHILLS. THIS WILL RESULT IN FROST BITE AND MAY LEAD TO HYPOTHERMIA IF PRECAUTIONS ARE NOT TAKEN. IF YOU MUST VENTURE OUTDOORS...MAKE SURE YOU WEAR A HAT AND GLOVES. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... BE SURE YOUR CAR IS EQUIPPED WITH A WINTER SAFETY KIT IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

You know it's cold when... (this is only half-meant to be funny... sadly.)

* Coming home to an apartment where the thermometer reads 58 degrees is like heaven on earth.
* Instead of your breath waiting until it gets outside your mouth to freeze, it just goes ahead and freezes over right where it's at.
* You wish God would have mades noses detachable.
* You can't see out the car windows because of 3 inches of road salt that accumulates each morning on them...
* ...and when you get out and clean them off, you still can't see out them because now your eyeglasses are not simply fogged over, but still so cold from the outside air that the fog instantly freezes on them and you need to use your fingernail as an ice scraper to get it off.
* 14 layers of clothes... and it feels like you're naked in the wind.
* The sound of your shoes always surprises you, because the rubber/soft soles instantly freeze and turn into a hard rock-like substance.
* You have to switch rosaries, going for the big-bead variety that you can feel through a mitten.
* You spent $$$$ on your car so that it would have heated front seats, but you can't even feel them... and they're working fine.
* The sky is so clear you can not only see Orion's belt, but his belt buckle!
* You can't read Dante anymore, because it's too disturbing to think that the icy center of hell might in fact be Minnesota in February.
* Even you touching your own fingernail is enough to give you goosebumps... so, for fun, why not brush it up against your co-worker's arm and give them goosebumps too? (What Minnesotans do for fun in the winter.)
* Flannel is sexy. Add wool socks and a fleece robe and...
* The thermometer says its -18 degrees outside... and you think that's being too optimistic.
* You have to do laundry every three days because you need to wear almost everything in your closet at once in order to stay alive.
* If you're the impatient type, the best penance you can impose on yourself is to say the Liturgy of the Hours... the only way to stand the cold is to do it with gloves on, but then the translucently-thin pages are dang near impossible to turn! Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!
* The car begins to whimper in pain, before you even turn the key. Sometimes it will even set its own car alarm off after being left outside too long - out of rage at being denied a garage space, I imagine.
* You wake up in the morning to find icicles on the inside of your window frame - and when you come home from work there's no sign of melting.
* Every bodily fluid (from earwax to snot to the vitreous fluid of your eyeballs to your lifeblood itself) suddenly staggers in midstride and turns to sludge as you leave the building.
* The weatherguy predicts a "warm-up" by the end of the week to -10 degrees... and when it's still -18 at the end of the week you are really disappointed.
* Every single person at Mass is wearing full-length coat, scarf, and mittens... including Father ("It's a stole! Really!")
* You can't wear a watch, earrings, necklace, anything metal against the skin, because they get "ice-hot" to touch within 35 seconds of exposure to the outside air.
* Only a fool goes outside after taking a shower without blow-drying. Guy or girl.
* Everybody does the 4-step Snow Scurry!! We scurry from our home to our car, from our car to our office, from the office to the car, and from the car to our home. Ideally, we dance it in double-time.
* You can't find your car in the parking lot anymore without setting off the alarm... because all the cars are the same color now - Road Salt Gray.
* When you finish saying your rosary and piously kiss the cross... it sticks.

For the record, my local 10-day forecast says... there may be hope ahead!

Keep warm! :)