Gratitude

We had a different priest say the Latin Mass yesterday morning. The one we usually have is on retreat.

The priest we had this time talked about being gratitude. He also said that there's a restaurant in Michigan he stops at on the way to "my native Canada." I've known for a long time that the Canadians' Thanksgiving is held in October-not November. Must be wonderful being a Canadian living in the United States-getting to celebrate Thanksgiving twice! I had that pleasure one year. I was going with a man who lived with a Canadian citizen. I was invited over to their house for Thanksgiving twice-both in October and in November. It was awesome! In fact the food the Canadian's wife fixed in October was the same as what we have in November in the US.

My friends in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) refer to November as Gratitude Month and say that the Canadians' Gratitude Month is October.

What a wonderful thing to have 61 days dedicated to being grateful!

Many times I'm not grateful enough-and complain about things not going my way-instead of being grateful for the good things.

I'm grateful today that I have a room to retreat to with a full bath and a phone (same number I had in my apartment) without people constantly banging on my door all hours of the day and night-regardless of what I'm doing trying to get money out of me for cigarettes-or at least a can of pop-as if I were responsible for feeding their addictions.

I'm glad that I can spend some time here praying at different times without having to constantly being distracted by noise or being dragged out of my "prayer closet" to see what anyone wants. I think this really helps me spend time with the Lord-and His Mother-when things are quiet most of the time-or that the noise out in the hall is not there to get me to do anything for anyone-it's just there.

I'm grateful that there are plenty of dogs and cats I can visit and pet. We can't have a dog or cat at the place I live, but we can have pet fish in our rooms-and I have a couple of them. I have a friend who has dogs and cats at her house. I get to go over there and pet them. Actually, there's just ONE dog at her house-she called me to tell me the other one is missing and to tell me to have EVERYONE I know pray for the other one to come back.

I'm not exactly rich or the healthiest person around-but others have it worse than me. Of course this is not good that people are so sick and poor-they do need our help.

And I'm grateful today that Jesus and Mary love me and want me to be in Heaven with them. In fact the ONE thing that Father says matters the most-that no matter what else happens to him is that he is in a state of grace!

I guess I haven't been thinking about that very much before attending the Latin Mass as much as I've been admiring the Protestants for their love of Jesus. But thinking of what Father says sometimes helps me to keep my sanity about even things that seem catastrophic-such as my rent check bouncing on me in July.

I've been very grateful that someone did the Heimleich maneuver on me and saved me from choking to death on a tiny bran flake. The feeling of gratitude I have about being alive-in the physical sense-reminds me of how I need to be grateful to Jesus for saving my soul-so I can go to Heaven when I finally have to leave this earth. But the sanctifying grace given by Jesus is far more important than anything that can be done by any man, woman, or child to keep me breathing so I can still be with them on Earth.

Be A Saint!

I've been browsing around on eBay to find more missals and other books to sell to the people at the Latin Mass and and at our parish's next yard sale.

I love what one seller has on the page with the description of the item he/she's trying to sell. This person prays for anyone who buys at least one item from him/her and wants to be kept in our prayers.

The paragraph ends with "....the only tragedy in life is not to have become a saint."

How true. It reminds me of something Father says that the thing that matters most is that one is in a state of grace. This matters even more than if you have food in the house-or whether you're dead or alive.

In fact Father did tell us in one of his homilies that one mother said to her sons, "As much as I would hate to see you dead, I'd rather you die and be in a state of grace than to be alive and in mortal sin."

And some people have been murdered for going along with what the Lord wants of them rather than to commit some sin so that they could live (in the physical sense.) These people have been rewarded for losing their lives for their obedience to God-no time in Purgatory-straight to Heaven! These are the martyrs.

I've read about how and why some of them have been killed-many have even been killed for refusing to commit a mortal sin.

A friend of mine started a group on Facebook about St. Maria Goretti, who went to Heaven at age 11. Some young man wanted to make her give up her virginity and murdered her because she refused. The Lord miraculously kept her alive for 24 hours while she prayed for the man and witnessed to him about the Lord. Eventually he repented and talked about how the young Saint had helped him come closer to the Lord.

Sure other things matter. I was very unhappy about the check for my rent bouncing-but this is better than being in a state of mortal sin. Hearing Father's words about a state of grace being what really matters was a real comfort to me. When I saw him last Saturday night at the mostaccioli dinner, I told him about how I thought of his words about being in a state of grace. I told him that if I didn't hear him talking about a state of grace like that I probably would have had a "nervous breakdown" over the bad check. True, overdrafts like that also need to be taken seriously.

But like everything else on this earth even bad checks don't "hold a candle" to mortal sin.