First, a detour.

Lady Gaga rocked!

“Accompanied by the President’s own United States Marine Band,” she hit that perfect, sweet spot note – “and the flag was flag was still there” - while television networks broadcast images of a sea of flags commemorating the more than four-hundred-thousand lives lost to the coronavirus plague or the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the flag of the National League of POW/MIA Families flying over the Capitol.

“Wednesday, one o’clock. You and Father Roger.
Alabama Jack’s.
I have a hankerin’ for crab cakes and beer.
Be there and bring you note pad.”

“What!?!,” I protested, not recognizing the voice
on the other end of the call.
“Who is this?”

“God. Just be there.
It’s outta the way. No one will recognize me.”

For a moment, let us celebrate courage.

Officer Brian Sicknick, 42-years-old, of South River, New Jersey, was a member of the U.S. Capitol Hill Police Department. Bluntly stated: It is reported that his skull was bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher by insurrectionists…

“He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger
is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice.
And if you can live amid injustice without anger,
you are immoral as well as unjust.”
St. Thomas Aquinas

Henry Williamson was just 17-years-old when he joined the British Territorial Army for the sports - including boxing and swimming – the Army offered.

By the end of the year - 1914, more than a million young men had enrolled in the British military – believing they would quickly win the war in Europe and be home with stories to tell as they celebrated the Christmas holiday.

Have you ever wondered about God?

I don't mean prayed. Or even thought about God the way that theologians do with their strangely abstract ideas like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But wondered - jumped into the awe and mystery of God, trying to sort Him out and make sense of God.

“But still when two or three shall meet,
And old tales be retold,
From low to highest in the Fleet,
We’ll pledge the Blue and Gold.”
From the United States Naval Academy Alma Mater

“Jesus said that he came to give life, so that people could have it abundantly;
it's hard to have abundant life if you're dead from a virus
that could have been avoided.”
Rev. Joseph Peters-Matthews
Vicar, St. Hilda/St. Patrick Episcopal Church
Edmonds, Washington

“… from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.”
Abraham Lincoln

“Heart Speaks to Heart”
St. Francis de Sales

Three cheers for the Irish!

Not the football, phony Irish or their never-went-there followers. (Miami Hurricane fans will never forgive their 1988 cheating!)

The real Irish.

Few can fancy-up or subtle-ize a curse like the Irish.

As a kid growing up in South Florida in the late ‘50s, altar-boying was a great gig.

Funerals didn’t pay much but they got ya outta school and, if the cemetery was one of the two close to downtown, you might miss the whole day. I think we prayed more for the far away cemeteries than for the repose of the soul of the “dearly beloved,” especially since that prayer was personal and in English.

John and Mrs. Massey

Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice,
here by a smiling look, there by a kind word;
always doing the smallest right and doing it all with love…
A word or a smile is often enough to put
fresh life in a despondent soul…
Therese of Lisieux

It is possible to imagine, during the most challenging days of World War II England’s Winston Churchill and America’s Franklin Roosevelt, separated by an ocean, singing from a common hymnal:

⁠Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth and falsehood,

For the good or evil side…

Remember Rosie (the non-racer) Ruiz?

Her name often appears when you Google “biggest cheats in sports.” And, not so surprisingly, she serves as a paradigm for what we’re seeing in the closing days of the presidential election in “the world’s longest living democracy.”

“One person can make a difference.”
Raoul Wallenberg

“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator,
but, above all, thou shall not be a bystander.”
Yehuda Bauer

Half a century ago, the central plaza of Cochabamba had changed only incrementally over almost four centuries of Spanish occupation and Bolivia’s eventual liberation. At the plaza’s four corners, drivers of jury-rigged American vehicles from the 40s vied for the right-of-way by honking their horns during the day and flashing headlights at night.

When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time.
People know themselves much better than you do.
That’s why it’s important to stop expecting them
to be something other than who they are.
Maya Angelou

The first time I interviewed a victim of sexual abuse by a priest I wept. I sobbed. And I apologized, over and over. I apologized to the young man and for the Church I love and the good priests who serve the People of God.

WOW! Dog whistles are cheap… ‘bout seven to seventeen bucks on Amazon. Problem is: Fear-feeding, fear-breeding politicians don’t use dog whistles – because they can’t be heard by human beings.

Since we’re not supposed to “hate,” let’s just say that – even at 102 years old – Mrs. Flynn nurtures an extreme hostility toward Notre Dame football and onetime coach Lou Holtz.