St. Jerome Extravaganza with witty comments

Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.  -Commentary on Isaiah
This is his most famous quote and we read it in the Divine Office every year on his feast day.

Being over seventy is like being engaged in a war. All our friends are going or gone and we survive amongst the dead and the dying as on a battlefield.  St. Jerome  has many comments like this. Sobering picture of reality. I am not sure of the origin of this quote, I found it on another site.

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.
Such a positive motivational statement is rare among St. Jerome's quotes. He usually comes across as something of a grouch. I suspect that his perfectionism made him more miserable than happy, however he is the saint and I am not.  So what do I know? In his later years he was involved in a letter dispute with a younger man by the name of St. Augustine.

The friendship that can cease has never been real.
A rather sad note for St. Jerome, who was often prone to offense and seems to have left Rome under duress. I suspect he lost a number of friends throughout life. While this statement may indeed be true, there is very little consolation in this kind of truth. I guess it is warning not to call people friends prematurely. Real friends are a profound blessing.

Freedom

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John G. Riefenbaker

Virtue and vice

The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice. - Chesterton

Co-patron of the Archdiocese: St. Vincent de Paul

It is our duty to prefer the service of the poor to everything else and to offer such service as quickly as possible. If a needy person requires medicine or other help during prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind. Offer the deed to God as your prayer. Do not become upset or feel guilty because you interrupted your prayer to serve the poor. God is not neglected if you leave him for such service. One of God’s works is merely interrupted so that another can be carried out. So when you leave prayer to serve some poor person, remember that this very service is performed for God. - St. Vincent de Paul

Prepare for the struggle

So prepare yourselves for the struggle, serve the Lord in fear and truth. Put aside empty talk and popular errors; your faith must be in Him who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead and gave Him a share in His own glory and a seat at His right hand. To Him everything was made subject in heaven and on earth; all things obey Him, who will come as judge of the living and the dead. All who refuse to believe in Him must answer to God for the blood of His Son. - St. Polycarp, Letter to the Ephesians

Getting old

The pride of youth is in strength and beauty, the pride of old age is in discretion. -Democritus

Progress and reflection

Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back. - What's Wrong With The World, 1910 G. K. Chesterton

Daring to do the right

It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong. -Abraham Lincoln

Overstaying one's welcome

No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become a nuisance after three days.
-Titus Maccius Plautus

Feast of St. Matthew

On hearing Christ’s voice, we open the door to receive Him, as it were, when we freely assent to His promptings and when we give ourselves over to doing what must be done. Christ, since He dwells in the hearts of His chosen ones through the grace of His love, enters so that He might eat with us and we with Him. He ever refreshes us by the light of His presence insofar as we progress in our devotion to and longing for the things of heaven. He himself is delighted by such a pleasing banquet. - Saint Venerable Bede
  Taken from this morning's Office of Readings and St. Venerable Bede reflection on Jesus dining with St. Matthew and other public sinners.

More than machines

If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and earning money.  -John Updike

The cost of prosperity

Prosperity knits a man to the world. He thinks he's 'finding his place in it,' while really it is finding its place in him. -Clive Staples Lewis

Taking applications

It takes a village to raise an idiot. -William Dukane
     I can't help but think of Hillary Clinton when I read this quote.

A difficult truth

God foretold hardship upon hardship in this world until the end of time. And you want the Christian to be exempt from these troubles? Precisely because he is a Christian, he is destined to suffer more in this world.
- St. Augustine

From our Day of Recollection

Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man's love for God depends on how deeply aware he is of God's love for him. - Treatise on Spiritual Perfection, St. Diadochus of Photice

Bonus quote: The most effective response

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
-Mark Twain
       I guess there are a number of ways to interpret this one, but I cannot help but think how laughter disarms people of pretense.  I also think that there are few things that bring us back to ourselves like laughter. Life is not easy, laughter reminds us of the good, the unexpected and the humorous. While there are no records of Jesus ever laughing, knowing the company He kept He must have laughed more than we realize.

The cost of indifference

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.  -Plato
       Something to be mindful of as this cycle of elections approaches.

Liberals & Conservatives

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains. - Winston Churchill
       I remember hearing this statement many years ago. I think I had just emerged with my flirtation with liberalism for all of 2 years at Kirksville. I think the main appeal of liberalism to the young is the perception that liberalism is all about personal license. I am free to do what I want as long as no one gets hurt.  Of course getting hurt is usually qualified as aggressive assault just short of murder. Other than that, ANYTHING GOES!
       Conservatives on the other hand tend to value personal responsibility, personal accountability, and the realization that life comes with many limits. The discernment of such limits consumes much energy and time for any conservative minded individual engaged in life.  We don't like the "ought" of life, but what ought I to do is a constant question, exploring the consequences, trying to imagine the extent of the impact is at the heart of  any serious discernment of choices and actions.  Well I am sure I could ramble on this one much longer, but it is early and I am hungry.

Bonus Quote: Exaltation of the Holy Cross

May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. It means nothing whether one is circumcised or not. All that matters is that one is created anew. Peace and mercy on all who follow this rule of life, and on the Israel of God.
- St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians
       Everyday may we set before our attention the Cross of Jesus Christ and draws wisdom and inspiration from the revelation of love and truth that the Cross is. May it become for us the measure with which all of our thoughts, words and actions are compared. Just the thought of that makes me realize how little I love and how much more conversion is needed if I really want my life changed by the truth. Paul reminds us in another letter that only three things will remain; faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love. When asked what is love, we can say simply and humbly: "Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Savior of the world, Come let us adore Him."

The sucker

If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
- Paul Newman

Fences

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. -G. K. Chesterton

The three hardest task - Bonus Sydney J. Harris quote

The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, "I was wrong".  - Sydney J. Harris

Appearing at a classroom near you

Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own. - Sydney J. Harris

Be dull

Conform and be dull. -J. Frank Dobie
       While it might be surprising coming from a Catholic Priest, conforming is dull and the greatest pressure to conform is from society. Many want to ascribe conforming to the Church, but the invitation from Christ is simple, Follow Me. No one acknowledges our individuality like God, no one recognizes and celebrates the uniqueness of our personhood like God. However, our function on which we place much of our value is easily replaceable.

Aggressive stupidity

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
 -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Irony

My mother never saw the irony of calling me a sonofabitch. - Jack Nicholson

Happy Birthday Mary!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Mother of the Church, Model of Faith, I come before you today to ask your intercession on my behalf that I may more completely imitate your Son, Jesus Christ, in all that I say and do this day. You welcomed Him into your life and dedicated yourself in love and service to Him. Inspired by your example of holiness may I surrender myself to the will of the Father this day. May the Holy Spirit fill me so that I will bring forth the presence of your Son by the way I live my life. May your example of humility lead me to deeper trust and confidence that God’s providence is unfolding in my life. Dear Mother, pray for me that my yes to God will be as trusting as your fiat. You are the perfect disciple, pray that I am true to my calling as a Christian. - Tom Miller
       Just a little prayer I wrote during my deacon year in 1992.  It has become part of my morning offering from time to time. I try to maintain an active devotion to the Blessed Mother, St. John the Baptist, St. John Chrysostom and St. Gregory the Great. I consider them my patrons as I entered into priesthood. They are the friends who inspire with their love for Jesus and their lives of holiness.

Celebrate the beauty

All you who love the Lord, sing His praises, celebrate the beauty of His Holiness. - Divine Office

The Mysterious

The most beautiful thing to experience is the mysterious. It is the true source of life, art and science. -Michael Talbot

Perseverance

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance. -Samuel Johnson
Every time I think an experience is more than I can handle, perseverance always help me take the next step. It is the one virtue along with patience that God wants to grant to us in abundance. Too often we pray for deliverance and immediacy rather than realize the opportunity for perseverance and patience that life and God is providing to us.

Yesterday's missed quote - Taking time

Time cools, time clarifies no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. -Mark Twain 
Taking time to think things over rather than acting on imuplse can make a profound difference.

Feast of St. Gregory the Great

The Holy Bible is like a mirror before our mind’s eye. In it we see our inner face. From the Scriptures we can learn our spiritual deformities and beauties. And there too we discover the progress we are making and how far we are from perfection. - St. Gregory the Great
       As  much as we look in mirrors, looking into Scriptures would be more revealing and help us look the way we should want, as men & women of faith and virtue.

The proof of love is in the works. -St. Gregory the Great
       We should all fear the fact that is far easier to talk of love, to muse on love and think of love rather than act on love. While our works may not save us, they certainly have the power to damn us. All we are hoping to do is make a meager return to the Lord. In some way to grow in love so that we might one day behold His glory without the terror & dread that sin will create if it abides in us.

On a personal note, Happy Birthday Dad!  A big 84 if you were still with us.

The Walken speaks

Life, at best, is completely unpredictable.  -Christopher Walken
       Amen.

Appearing on a burlap banner near you.

(Think of one's self as a teakettle) Though up to it's neck in hot water, It continues to sing.  -Unknown
    I still have vivid memories of all the burlap and felt banners that used to be part of my home life in the 1970s and part of church life too. Statements like this quote were often on them. While I generally found them to be somewhat goofy and a bit nauseating, some did contain glimmers of truth. I wouldn't call this one of my favorite quotes, but I do like the imagery and the perspective it provides. Now where are my platform shoes?