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(I guess I should say that if you were pinged and want NOT to be or were NOT pinged but want to be, let me know.)

Okay. THIS is long. It's excerpted from a letter to a visionary.

To my non-Catholic friends. First, please be assured of my love and admiration. Then understand, please, that "I paint what I see," and I am -- decidedly if not obnoxiously -- a Catholic Christian. If what I write is helpful, so much the better. If not, pray to God for me that he may amend me.
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Praised be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation!
He comforts us in all our afflictions and thus enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have received from him.
As we have shared much in the sufferings of Christ, so through Christ do we share abundantly in his consolation.
-- 2 Corinthians 1:3-5( The repellent NAB translation)
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Today we commemorate Paul Miki "and companions." They were crucified in 1597 century Japan because they were Christians.

One of the delights of reading Paul is the sense that one is seeing the beginning of Christian thought. Paul is putting words to the mystery of the God who suffers and dies.

Many in the Bible and elsewhere were "brought back" from death. In the Resurrection, the "Anastasis" (from which comes the lovely name "Anastasia") we see for the first time that death is now a way station, a stop on the way forward. There is no "bringing back." There is a newness, something not seen before.

And the baptized (this is not exclusive; we trust a loving God to deal mercifully with the unbaptized) are mystically incorporated into Christ's suffering, dying, being dead, and rising.

This is about your pain viewed in the scheme of a life incorporated into Christ's.

Worshippers of the suffering God cannot reasonably offer refuge from suffering. We cannot say, "follow Christ," and hold out anything else than his tears of mourning at the death of Lazarus or his scourging, humiliation, and crucifixion. One of the obscene perversions of what we preach is the version that says, "Do right and behave yourself, and things will go well for you." And another related perversion is that, in a heaven which is presented as either as an insipid pastoral scene or an unbelievably long church service, you will be rewarded for being a good little girl.

No. We hold out what the Greeks call "divinization." You are offered the highest sort of godliness available to anything that isn't its own origin. If we could see one another as God intends us to be, we would be tempted to fall down in worship.

But the trail has been clearly blazed. The "Way" passes through the Via Dolorosa and up the hill outside Jerusalem -- or Nagasaki, or thousands of other such hills since God became a man. Do not mistake! It does not STOP there. But it passes through there.

Along the way there are comforts and consolations, not in the soft sense, but in the stern sense of, say, the strength to observe and accept the pain as it courses though body and soul, and to offer that all for the purposes of God and the service of one another.

And so we come to Paul's opening doxology in Second Corinthians. We have been given the astonishing gift of being able to bring strength and peace to others. Who, seeing this gift, would not desire it? What joy can compare with bearing joy to others?

Yes, it is not so far wrong to see the pain of our lives as the random sadism of the angels who preferred illusory domination in chaos to true power in the Order of Love. And we cannot deny that at times we have preferred wild chaos to chaste beauty.

But the gift (or a part of it) is this: Even if the origin of our sorrows is found somewhere in an inexplicable preference of rebellious tohu-bohu before beauty, light, justice, mercy, and love, still those same sorrows, offered in love for sanctification, are the very tools with which we strengthen others with the strength to pass through a sea more threatening than that which barred the way between slavery and freedom for our fathers.

It may be that all we see and feel is weak knees, stooped shoulders, faltering steps. It is certain though, that clearer vision sees wings as much greater than the wings of eagles as eagles are greater than toads. You yourself may see this when you look in the eyes of those you serve.

Awesome, MD!

I happened to read this from the Office of Readings earlier this morning:

From an account of the martyrdom of Saint Paul Miki and his companions, by a contemporary writer

You shall be my witnesses

The crosses were set in place. Father Pasio and Father Rodriguez took turns encouraging the victims. Their steadfast behaviour was wonderful to see. The Father Bursar stood motionless, his eyes turned heavenward. Brother Martin gave thanks to God’s goodness by singing psalms. Again and again he repeated: “Into your hands, Lord, I entrust my life.” Brother Francis Branco also thanked God in a loud voice. Brother Gonsalvo in a very loud voice kept saying the Our Father and Hail Mary.
Our brother, Paul Miki, saw himself standing now in the noblest pulpit he had ever filled. To his “congregation” he began by proclaiming himself a Japanese and a Jesuit. He was dying for the Gospel he preached. He gave thanks to God for this wonderful blessing and he ended his “sermon” with these words: “As I come to this supreme moment of my life, I am sure none of you would suppose I want to deceive you. And so I tell you plainly: there is no way to be saved except the Christian way. My religion teaches me to pardon my enemies and all who have offended me. I do gladly pardon the Emperor and all who have sought my death. I beg them to seek baptism and be Christians themselves.”
Then he looked at his comrades and began to encourage them in their final struggle. Joy glowed in all their faces, and in Louis’ most of all. When a Christian in the crowd cried out to him that he would soon be in heaven, his hands, his whole body strained upward with such joy that every eye was fixed on him.
Anthony, hanging at Louis’ side, looked toward heaven and called upon the holy names – “Jesus, Mary!” He began to sing a psalm: “Praise the Lord, you children!” (He learned it in catechism class in Nagasaki. They take care there to teach the children some psalms to help them learn their catechism).
Others kept repeating “Jesus, Mary!” Their faces were serene. Some of them even took to urging the people standing by to live worthy Christian lives. In these and other ways they showed their readiness to die.
Then, according to Japanese custom, the four executioners began to unsheathe their spears. At this dreadful sight, all the Christians cried out, “Jesus, Mary!” And the storm of anguished weeping then rose to batter the very skies. The executioners killed them one by one. One thrust of the spear, then a second blow. It was over in a very short time.