Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!… All rivers go to the sea… To the place where they go… the rivers keep on going.
I remember as a youth how this affected me so much, this idea of the rivers, always going “to the place where they go”, all the water… we always end up there. (A river in Idaho, the Salmon, the “River of No Return”, I remember thinking how all rivers are “rivers of no return”…) It was an enigma to me as a young boy and a young man. Fascinating ….but terrifying.
We all have times in our life, whether in our professional life or our family life, when we need to make decisions: every day small decisions but also major life changing ones. Choosing one path by necessity closes others. In our business life, we gather data do a cost-benefit analysis, conference with key stakeholders and hopefully make a good decision. In our personal life the process may be less formal but is essentially the same.
The following is taken from a meditation given by Fr. Bruce Wren L.C. at Catholic Professionals of Illinois Advent Retreat 2015 (Part 4)
If Christ has come to us, then he also calls us (or “attracts us” is perhaps a better way to say it). Faced with the absolute impossibility in which mortality enchains us, faced with this boredom, “the ugliest, nastiest, and most foul” than any other vice, that Baudelaire speaks of in the post-Christian modern man, God incarnate in Jesus Christ presents another possibility which becomes an urgent appeal: this call is expressed in different ways:
Anyone who wants to follow me, let him deny himself.
If you love me, feed my sheep.
There is no greater love than to give one’s life for those who you love…
The following is taken from a meditation given by Fr. Bruce Wren L.C. at Catholic Professionals of Illinois Advent Retreat 2015 (Part 3)
What is really amazing finally is Christmas, what it means if we take it seriously!
The myth that people attempt to create around Christmas is the existence of a magically charitable world, in which we exchange gifts of a mythical cornucopia which spread happiness with a smile, and the deer who steal (interesting that Santa Claus comes from Saint Nicholas, a Bishop of Asia minor), and without sacrifice or virtue.
The following is taken from a meditation given by Fr. Bruce Wren L.C. at Catholic Professionals of Illinois Advent Retreat 2015 (Part 2)
To try to understand this Christmas light, we must also understand the dark, in other words, what a world without Christ must mean. What would “a world without Christ” be like? I see two answers: the world without Christ before Christ, and the world without Christ after Christ.
The following is taken from a meditation given by Fr. Bruce Wren L.C. at Catholic Professionals of Illinois Advent Retreat 2015 (Part 1)
In his book God and the World with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Peter Seewald says with good faith during his conversation with the Cardinal, that Christmas has become “the biggest myth of all time.” But the Cardinal, in a very interesting response, replied that Christmas is not a myth. A myth, he says, is:
A kind of visionary means of expression for realities that go beyond what is visible and tangible, and thus expresses a higher truth than what is merely factual. It refers to a vision, not to facts.
MENTAL PRAYER: JUST DO IT. DON’T WORRY ABOUT MAKING “PROGRESS,” THE “QUALITY,” LEST YOU GET DISCOURAGED AND GIVE UP Lord,…
Here are some tips for engaging in mental prayer: Go to a place conducive to prayer so you can consciously…