2025 Begins

 I would like to say Happy New Year to all who read this.  It's difficult to say because as you may have seen first thing this morning in the news, someone in New Orleans decided to drive a truck through Bourbon Street about 3:15am.  As of the time of this blog (10:30am CST), 10 people lost their lives AND the perpetrator was killed by police an ensuing gunfight.  Just imagine the families of those individuals who lost their lives.  It's similar (on a much smaller scale) to the feelings people may have had way back on 9-11 in New York City.  Simply horrifying.  Please pray for the victims and their families.

New years are supposed to be filled with hope.  As I look back at 2024, I have many reasons to be grateful in my life.  I continue to develop in ministry and I am very thankful for a lot of new friends over the past year.  In June, the priests of the Archdiocese had our convocation which happens about every three years.  They are days that are filled with keynote speakers, time for prayer and reflection, and, lots of socializing that we don't tend to get to do with many of our brothers as we would like to.  The thing that is kind of strange for me is that I don't know if I call them friends, brothers, or acquaintances.  I say that because I don't know if I would lay down my life for every one of them.  I guess I would because of our priestly connection.  It sort of comes back to a recent saying "I have to love them, not like them."  In other words, there are quite a few priests that drive me nuts with their theology and ecclesiology; however, I am sure they say the same of me.  Yet, being all made in the image and likeness of God, and successors to the Apostles, if any of them were in danger and it was my life or theirs, I would likely offer mine (I think so at least).

I went on vacation with my family for the first time in nearly 30 years in late July/early August.  We went to a relatively small town in Northwest Illinois called Galena.  It has several opportunities for renting properties from individual families and some resorts.  There are several championship golf courses and lots of great shopping.  Yet the highlight of the trip was taking a drive a tad over the Iowa border to Dyersville where there is the famous Field of Dreams.  It was the setting of a great movie of the same name.  With our family love for baseball, the Field of Dreams is an amazing pilgrimage.  I have not kept in shape enough to be running around a whole bunch, but it was still magical to play on the field from the film.  The most famous scene and quote from the movie makes a ton of sense.  One player says to the main character "Is this Heaven?" to which he responds "No.  It's Iowa."  It was quite thrilling.

Another trip I made in 2024 was going down to Alabama for the first time since I was there in February of 2023 to bury my best friend.  It certainly was a good thing to see his family, but it was very difficult too.  I never really came to accept that it would be SO different.  I realized that when we would visit in the past, my friend had a sort of agenda.  He knew who he wanted to see and what he wanted to do while we were there.  I felt so lost.  I was grateful that a friend went with me, however.  That really made a difference.  I might have simply gone to my friend's grave and turned around to come back.  Being at the cemetery was very different too.  I didn't think it would be as difficult as it was.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

What about 2025?

Well, the Church has now begun a jubilee year As Pilgrims of Hope.  St. Cletus has been given an honor from the Archdiocese to be an official pilgrimage site for people to visit.  Many people take pilgrimages to deepen their interior lives.  A benefit of going on pilgrimage is to gain what are known as "plenary indulgences."  A plenary indulgence (according to a definition found on Google) is "a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ to remove the temporal punishment due to sin. It is not a forgiveness of sin but the remission of punishment for sins already forgiven. It may apply either to oneself or to souls already in purgatory."  It is a long-practiced tradition of the Catholic Church.

The Code of Canon Law tells us: A plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day. In order to obtain it, the faithful must, in addition to being in the state of grace: have the interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin; have sacramentally confessed their sins;  receive the Holy Eucharist (it is certainly better to receive it while participating in Holy Mass, but for the indulgence only Holy Communion is required);  pray for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff.

Many people would rather believe that God is going to take them off to Heaven without hesitation when they die.  However, WHAT IF that were not so?  WHAT IF there is such a thing as purgatory.  Indulgences are meant to be a way to "shorten time-served."  It really sounds to me like getting released from prison early for good behavior.  I know that sounds like I don't believe they are real, but they have always seemed confusing.  I am not of the mind that God is going to simply whisk me off to Heaven when He calls my number.  I am more of the mindset that if I were to die without being anointed, then I would need to pay my dues, whatever God would have in store for me.  Praying for the dead is a spiritual work of mercy.  I try to do that more than anything, as I tried to do at the top of this entry.  

Once again, don't take my thoughts as gospel truths.  If you want those answers, check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  You can get lots of information on things like indulgences.  So much of my blogs will be my opinions.  I hope that what I put in these entries helps you to think about some of the topics -- religious or not.