Morning Briefings

Words–and the way our actions do or don’t stand behind their meaning–have an incredible capacity to wound us or heal us. Words create reality, for we all invest in one another’s words with our hopes, fears and expectations.

– Daphne Rose Kingma
True Love

Prayer, rooted firmly in where-we-are, yet striving for where-we-long-to-be, is the expression of God’s call to us–and our response.

– Margaret Silf
Close to the Heart: A Practical Approach to Personal Prayer

It’s worth recalling that Ash Wednesday is invariably the Midtown landmark’s busiest day of the year; upwards of 60,000 workers and tourists annually flood St. Patrick’s Cathedral to receive the burnt palm symbolizing man’s mortality and need for redemption.

– Rocco Palmo
Whispers in the Loggia, February 19, 2009

Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is the last hurrah before the Catholic season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. It also has links to the Christmas season through the period known as Carnival.

– Catholic Roots of Mardi Gras
AmericanCatholic.org

Cash-squeezed privately held companies are facing another threat in this struggling economy: rising employee fraud. Employees engage in check forgery, petty-cash theft; Managers sometimes mistakenly blame lower sales instead of foul play.

– Simona Covel, The Wall Street Journal
Small Businesses Face More Fraud in Downturn

As I went down in the river to pray, studying about that good old way, and who shall wear the starry crown, Good Lord, show me the way!

– Alison Krauss, Down to the River to Pray
from the Raising Sand concert tour with Robert Plant

Saint Ignatius Loyola advises that if I’m having problems believing or if I know in my head the right thing to do but my heart is resisting, then I should act as if I do believe until I do. Oftentimes, when my faith wavers, I take great consolation in this advice. This is why the church values ritual so much. It allows my body and my voice to move me through the barren deserts of my spiritual life. Eventually my heart and soul will kick in again.

– Mark E. Thibodeaux
God, I Have Issues

We are walking in a ticker tape parade. That’s all that’s going on. Some pieces of confetti read ‘great calves,’ some ‘chronic sinus,’ some ‘no noticeable hair loss,’ some ‘multiple sclerosis,’ and some ‘third finger amputation.’ Don’t judge your neighbor by what pieces fall on his or her shoulder. Don’t think you are cursed or ‘blessed’ by what pieces fall on yours.

– Hugh Prather
Spiritual Notes to Myself: Essential Wisdom for the 21st Century

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

– Hebrews 11:1

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

– Ronald Reagan