Dear Clyde, So you\u2019re bored at Mass and you\u2019re distracted in prayer.\u00a0 Welcome to the human race.\u00a0 If being holy were fun and easy, sinners would be saints.\u00a0 Get humble, accept your imperfections, and work to improve them instead of complaining about them.\u00a0 The only worrisome thing in your note, in all honesty, was the tone.\u00a0 It was kind of blas\u00e9, as if you didn\u2019t think these spiritual questions were really that important, as if you were merely going through the motions of a routine instead of trying to put your heart into things.\u00a0 That made some yellow lights go off over on this end.\u00a0 Have you forgotten about sin, my up-and-coming nephew?\u00a0 It is real, it is evil, it is killing souls, and conquering it was the reason Jesus Christ came to earth and established his Church.\u00a0 Christ\u2019s Kingdom is the anti-sin Kingdom \u2013 and therefore the anti-death, anti-evil, anti-meaninglessness Kingdom (i.e. pro-life, pro-good, pro-meaning and purpose).\u00a0 We have to keep a vibrant awareness of sin (as unpleasant as that may sound) if we want to keep a vibrant awareness of the value of grace and salvation.\u00a0 When the latter wanes, it could be because the former has waned, which often leads to dangerous consequences. It\u2019s funny how all the saints constantly referred to themselves as great sinners.\u00a0 We might think they were being modest, but their words go too deep for that.\u00a0 Take today\u2019s saint, for example.\u00a0 Peter Claver was a Spanish Jesuit who came to America during the colonial days (he lived in Columbia) for the sole purpose of ministering to the African slaves \u2013 the thousands upon thousands of them that were inhumanly dumped into the colonies every year.\u00a0 His base of operations was the port city of Cartagena, one of the major unloading spots for the slave ships.\u00a0 He spent his entire life serving these people who were gathered into indescribably filthy corrals after being shoveled out of rat-infested holds where they had been packed like cattle for the long sea voyage from Angola and the Congo.\u00a0 He treated the sick, fed the hungry, baptized and instructed as many as he could (which was especially difficult since he didn\u2019t know their languages), and then made pastoral visits to them in the neighboring plantations every spring.\u00a0 He also continuously appealed to the slave owners to follow the Pope\u2019s exhortations to put an end to the \u201csupreme villainy,\u201d or at least treat the slaves humanely.\u00a0 Few people helped him \u2013 few could tolerate the horrendous conditions.\u00a0 When he himself became so sick and frail that he could no longer even move himself out of his room, he was forgotten and left to waste away.\u00a0 Only when word spread that he was in his death throes did people remember how much he had done, and then they flocked to kiss his hand and steal things from his cell as relics.\u00a0 It is estimated that in 40 years he baptized 300,000 slaves.\u00a0 If anyone shared the burning love of Christ, it was St Peter Claver. And yet, he never congratulated himself.\u00a0 Once when he was praised for his zeal, he responded, \u201cIt ought to be so, but there is nothing but self-indulgence in it; it is the result of my enthusiastic and impetuous temperament.\u00a0 If it were not for this work, I should be a nuisance to myself and to everybody else.\u201d\u00a0 And when complemented for being able to handle the most disgusting cases of disease, he replied, \u201cIf being a saint consists in having no taste and having a strong stomach, I admit that I may be one.\u201d\u00a0 False humility?\u00a0 Perhaps, but an aura of something more surrounds those words. I would say it is a sincere awareness of his own sinfulness and weakness.\u00a0 To his credit, he never let it impede his work for the Kingdom, and most likely it spurred him on to do more and more, knowing that he would never be able to do enough.\u00a0 Only if we have a healthy awareness of the reality of sin will we be able to throw ourselves fully into the work of salvation.\u00a0 Keep that in mind, my young nephew, and count on my prayers. God bless, Uncle Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Clyde, So you\u2019re bored at Mass and you\u2019re distracted in prayer.\u00a0 Welcome to the human race.\u00a0 If being holy were fun and easy, sinners would be saints.\u00a0 Get humble, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n