Dear Friend,

In his book The Pressure’s Off, psychologist Larry Crabb tells this story from his childhood.

"One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone’s help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door behind me, and for the next few minutes felt very self-sufficient.

Dear Friend,

During World War II, Hitler commanded all religious groups to unite so that he could control them. Among the Brethren assemblies, half complied and half refused. Those who went along with the order had a much easier time. Those who did not, faced harsh persecution. In almost every family of those who resisted, someone died in a concentration camp.

Dear Friend,

A man named Peter inherited a huge land grant, but the will provided that he could choose land in either Chile or Brazil. He chose Brazil. Unhappily, if he had chosen Chile, he would have received his inheritance in land on which they had recently discovered uranium, gold, and silver. But he chose Brazil.

When he arrived in Brazil he had to choose between receiving his inheritance in a coffee plantation or land with Brazil nut trees.

Dear Friend,

There was once a man who was bitten by a dog, which was later discovered to be rabid. The man was rushed to the hospital where tests revealed that he had, in fact, contracted rabies. At the time, medical science had no cure for this disease and so his doctor faced the difficult task of informing him that his condition was incurable and terminal.

Dear Friend,

In the twentieth century Will Rogers was known for his laughter, but he also knew how to weep. One day he was entertaining at the Milton H. Berry Institute in Los Angeles, a hospital that specialized in rehabilitating polio victims and people with broken backs and other extreme physical handicaps. Of course, Rogers had everybody laughing, even patients in really bad condition; but then he suddenly left the platform and went to the rest room.

Ciao! Meet Carlo, an Italian teenage techie who loved coding, video games, and animals, and who lived a life that put him on the highway to heaven! Meet the faith-filled teenager set to become the first millennial saint in this fascinating and visually-engaging biography for ages 8-11.

Includes fun and informative sidebars detailing historical, cultural, and religious terms, as well as information on the canonization process.

Dear Friend,

Let me suggest a few "Definitions" that flow from the Gifts of The Holy Spirit:

Prophecy: setting before people the Word and wisdom of God persuasively.

Encouragement: drawing alongside to comfort, encourage, and lead someone into insight toward action.

Dear Friend,

In Jerusalem, there is a Holocaust Museum dedicated to the memory of the millions of Jews who were killed by the Nazis in World War II. Going through the museum is a very depressing experience because you see these horrible pictures and read the accounts of the ghettos and the concentration camps. But in the midst of all the dark tales of suffering, there is one amazing story of how God can transform horror into hope.

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.