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| Vision of St. Don Bosco |
Generally posts shared with the addendum in the title above have been reserved for lines of verse. Not so today. Instead, I'll share a few epigrams from the disparate bookends of the Desert Fathers and Mothers to the United States Marine Corps, with a few wise words of friends and saints in between.
Remember my recent post on being a pilgrim people? First up, from the deserts of Egypt near Skete, a thought about pilgrimage.
One of us asked Abba Sisoes, "What is pilgrimage, Abba?" He answered, "Keep silent; and wherever you go, say, 'I am at peace with all men.' That is pilgrimage."
Sigh. I'm a gonna need some help then. More epigrams, por favor! Like this one from an Amma,
Amma Theodora said, "Let us strive to enter by the narrow gate. Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter's storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; this present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven."
Speaking of storms, my buddy Blaise Pascal reminds us,
There is a pleasure in being in a ship beaten about by a storm, when we are sure that it will not founder. The persecutions which harass the Church are of this nature.
St. Paul on endurance,
For I am even now ready to be sacrificed: and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 2 Timothy 4:6-7
And from the Marine Corps version of the Communion of Saints, General Victor H. "Brute" Krulak. He stood 5' 4" tall, and maybe weighed 145 lbs when wet. Not a Catholic, but an Episcopalian, he fathered three boys. One of them would become the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the other two became Epsicopal priests and served as chaplains (one retired from the Navy, the other served in the Army). Here is his promised bookend thought,
Being ready is not what matters. What matters is winning after you get there.
Ain't that the truth.
