Author: Mark J. Chmiel

Selective Appreciation

We usually like prophets when they say what we want to hear. They are especially welcome if they heap indictments on our enemies. When they get close to home, it is a different matter. –John…

All

Dear Mother, when meditating upon these words of Jesus, I understood how imperfect was my love for my Sisters. I saw I didn’t love them as God loves them. Ah! I understand now that charity…

Job’s Friends

The friends cannot be expected to recognize their own injustice. As with all those who create scapegoats, they consider their victim to be guilty. Therefore, for them, there is no scapegoat….In Job’s eyes, the three…

Today’s One-Liner (#259)

Jesus came to blind those who have clear sight and to give sight to the blind; to heal the sick and let the healthy die; to call sinners to repentance and justify them, and to…

A Long Way to Go

Some of these beginners, too, make little of their faults, and at other times become over-sad when they see themselves fall into them, thinking themselves to have been saints already; and thus they become angry…

Reciting by Heart

When I use my memory,  I ask it to produce whatever it is that I wish to remember. Some  things it produces immediately; some are forthcoming only after a  delay, as though they were being…