What metaphor best describes your attitude toward “Earth Day?’
Eyes blind, glazed, or wide-open?
In this Vincentian Mindwalk, let’s explore the “big picture” Pope Francis sees.


What metaphor best describes your attitude toward “Earth Day?’
Eyes blind, glazed, or wide-open?
In this Vincentian Mindwalk, let’s explore the “big picture” Pope Francis sees.

Up until now, I never thought about “how” Jesus shared his news with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
I never paid attention to the “how” he shared the good news in each of the appearances after his resurrection.

“Pay It Forward.” The lead line in the movie was, “When someone does you a good deed, don’t pay it back; pay it forward.”
Isn’t that what Jesus meant when he said “Do this in memory of me!”
Like Joseph… we need courage to guard from the new Herods of our time, who devour the innocence of our children.
What do we know… and not know about the Holy Family? What can we learn from the Feast of the Holy Family?
Who have you listened to and been nourished by this Advent?
Secular writers or social influencers?
Scriptures, the Sunday gospels, or homilies?
Your conscience?
A spiritual director?
A combination of the above?
In the annunciation of our Baptism, we are challenged to be Christ-bearers, to be Christ in the midst of our ordinary lives.
Mary’s visitation challenges us to “pay it forward”, to visit and encounter our neighbor.
Many of us either witnessed or were participants as children in appropriate costumes and props re-enacted the Nativity scene.
As adults we grew beyond these re-enactments.
Something Pope Francis wrote reminds me to think about recognizing that we act out various roles in our daily life.
Which approach is ours?
Giving up and walking away?
Giving up thinking we can do it on our own?
I just missed by a few days witnessing the 1965 passing of the document – The Church in the Modern World. We are still within the normal window it takes to implement such a document. Pope Francis calls us to fully implement the document.
Beatitudes for Bishops seems spot-on for leaders in the Vincentian Family and all who see themselves as servants of the poor after the model of St. Vincent following Christ the Evangelizer of the poor.
“Pray, Pay and Obey” was once a pithy aphorism that succinctly captured the Catholic view in the pre-Vatican II church! – Thomas Augustine Judge, CM was raised in that culture. Yet after twenty years a priest he went so far as to say “this is the layman’s hour”. What a radical thought 1919!
A millennial, learning the Acutis story recently, said “Carlos puts flesh on what a saint who plays video games and goes on the internet looks like. He challenges me to examine my conscience and say, ‘Ok, I’m called to be a saint who uses the internet too. Am I using it to make God’s love known?’”