Dear Friend,

Do you remember the cartoon with Wiley Coyote and Ralph the sheep dog? I use to love that cartoon. Every morning Ralph and Wiley would meet at the time clock which was mounted on a tree. As they clocked in they would great each other and then they would go to their respective departments.

Ralph the sheep dog went to his post on the cliff and took his position as head of the sheep protection department. Wiley, true to his nature, would slink away in to the forest to plan his strategy as head of the sheep acquisition and consumption department.

Dear Friend,

Let me suggest a few "Definitions" that flow from the Gifts of The Holy Spirit:

Prophecy: setting before people the Word and wisdom of God persuasively.

Encouragement: drawing alongside to comfort, encourage, and lead someone into insight toward action.

Dear Friend,

Bob and Stan were good buddies and baseball friends. One day at a ballgame, they made a vow to each other that, whichever friend died first, that friend would send a message back to earth to let the other friend know if there was baseball in Heaven.

Sure enough, one-day Bob died. After a while, he sent a message back to earth to Stan: "Hey, Stan, this is your old baseball buddy, Bob. I have good news and I have bad news for you from Heaven."

I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the loving God, who was born of the promise to a virgin named Mary.

I believe in the love Mary gave her son, that caused her to follow him in his ministry and stand by his cross as he died.

I believe in the love of all mothers, and its importance in the lives of the children, they bear.

It is stronger than steel, softer than down, and more resilient than a green sapling on the hillside.

Dear Friend,

A Catholic Magazine carried a story about four young men, Catholic College students, who were renting a house together.

One Saturday morning someone knocked on their door. And when they opened it, there stood this bedraggled-looking old man. His eyes were kind of marbleized, and he had a silvery stub of whiskers on his face. His clothes were ragged and torn. His shoes did not match. In fact, they were both for the same foot. And he carried a wicker basket full of unappealing vegetables that he was trying to sell.

Dear Friend,

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis recently gave an important pastoral instruction.

Gossip, he explained, is one of the most dangerous sins because it is so subtle and ambiguous -- many are unable to recognize it. Be on alert against gossip whenever you hear of “secret information” being circulated, or if you hear anyone else’s name is used in a conversation. Gossip exists whenever persons “talk about others” in less than a favorable way.

Dear Friend,

In his book The Pressure’s Off, psychologist Larry Crabb tells this story from his childhood.

"One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone’s help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door behind me, and for the next few minutes felt very self-sufficient.

Dear friend,

Sin demands to have a person be alone. It withdraws the individual from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him or her, and the more deeply the person becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is the isolation.

Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed, it poisons the whole being of a person.

Dear Friends,

Margaret Cregg, my high school classmate, wrote that in the mid-1990’s her uncle, Father Walter Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, and his throat would soon become unable to swallow.

Most of us have now learned to live with voicemail as a necessary part of our daily lives. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if God decided to install voicemail?

Imagine praying and hearing the following:

Thank you for calling Heaven.
For English, Press 1.
For Spanish, press 2.
For all other languages, press 0.

Yvette, who is a young mother in Washington, D.C., recently told me her remarkable story, she wrote:

"It was the end. I knew it. I could no longer fight. I sat here emotionless. I was totally alone. Others had tried to help -- doctors, nurses, parents, husband, children. But they were gone. Hours earlier I had come into the hospital on an emergency basis. I had back pain so severe that at times, it dropped me to my knees. This was not my first hospital stay. I had been sick for a long time it seemed...

Dear Friend,

Lent is a time of refreshment and renewal. The word “Lent” comes from the old English, “lencten," which means spring. Lent is meant to be a "springtime" for the church. In Lent we participate in works of charity, prayer, and penance. Oftentimes people give up something in Lent and this is certainly a laudable practice. However, it is also good to do more prayer, more works of charity, etc.

Dear Friend,

C. S. Lewis once provided a powerful image of the difference between heaven and hell.

He described hungry people sitting at a huge banquet loaded with delicious food. Every person had a meter-long fork and knife attached to their hands (that’s about three feet long). The scene in hell was one of anger, frustration, and fighting as people scrambled to feed themselves. They could reach the food with the long knives and forks, but they were too long to feed themselves. The conflict, screaming, and unfulfilled hunger continued for eternity--that is hell.