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 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.

For almost the entire history of the Church, the Blessed Virgin Mary has been returning to the world she left nearly two millennia ago.

Dear Friend,

Among the many books written by Henri Nouwen (1932-1996), one stands out as an enduring little classic, The Wounded Healer. For those who knew him, this book is especially powerful because, without expressly intending to do so, it describes very well the man himself. It was because of his own wounds that he was able to touch the lives of so many people. “By his wounds we have been healed,” St Peter wrote of Jesus (1 Peter 2:24).

Dear Friend,

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 cased progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, and his throat would soon become unable to swallow.

Dear Friend,

A bishop friend of mine in Ireland recently sent this to me and I want to share it with you:

Ten Commandments of "Human Relations"

1. Speak to people. There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.
2. Smile at people. It takes seventy-two muscles to frown, only fourteen to smile.
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Dear Friend,

All blame is a waste of time.

No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you.

The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration.

Find the help and encouragement you need to work through the process of forgiveness and find freedom in Christ. Explore what forgiveness is (and what it isn't); how to forgive and why; how to work through anger; ways to forgive when we cannot reconcile; approaches to forgiving without condoning hurtful behavior; and help for forgiving members of the Church.