Wisdom…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Speaking of his own endeavors with the Jesus prayer, St. John writes: “When you have Christ in your heart, make sure you do not lose Him and together with Him your inner tranquility, for it is bitterly hard to begin anew; all your efforts to attach yourself once again to Him after falling away will be hard and will cause many bitter tears. Cling to Christ with all your might, attach yourself to Him and do not lose your sacred connection with Him. Christ, introduced into the heart through faith, dwells there in peace and joy. When you notice that your heart is cold and unwilling to pray – stop and warm your heart with some dynamic vision – for example, of your iniquity, of your spiritual poverty and blindness, or of God’s great and continuous blessings upon you and all of mankind, especially Christians, – and afterwards continue to pray unhurriedly, with warm feeling; even if you do not have time to finish all your prayers, that does not present a problem, since much greater benefit accrues from warm and unhurried prayer than from reading all the prayers without any feeling. It is well to pray continuously, but not all are capable of such an effort, thus to each his own. Whoever is unable to cope with lengthy prayer should preferably pray briefly, but with an ardent soul. One should ceaselessly address the Lord and be with Him every single moment, in order to avoid being overcome by demonic irritation or dejection. By using the spirit of dejection, the enemy has led many people away from the narrow and salvific path and unto the wide and smooth path of perdition. While praying count yourself for nothing and accept prayer as a great gift from God. Pray without any hesitation, with heartfelt simplicity: just as it is easy to think, so should it be easy to pray. Prayer is the breath of the soul just as air is the breath of the body. Our souls breathe with the Holy Spirit. One cannot utter a single heartfelt word without the Holy Spirit. While praying you are conversing directly with the Lord, and if your heart is open through faith and love, you will at the same time breathe in the spiritual blessings issuing from Him. Learn to pray, force yourself to pray; at first it will be hard, but afterwards, the more you force yourself, the easier it will get, but initially you must always force yourself. When you pray to God, look with the eyes of your heart inside yourself, at your soul. The Lord is there, in your thoughts and in the movements of your heart, just as He is outside of you and everywhere. The heart’s insensitivity to the genuineness of the words of prayer comes from disbelief and insensitivity of one’s one sinfulness, which comes, in turn, from a hidden feeling of pride. From his feelings during a prayer a person can discover whether he is full of pride or humility: the more ardent is his prayer, the humbler he is, and the more insensitive the prayer – the greater his pride.”

People are selling…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

their burial plots for money in these hard times. Sign of the times I suppose but perhaps having a grave plot is a good thing. Thinking about the end brings wisdom for the present. In that sense the plot might be more valuable than anything they could buy with the proceeds of the sale.

Wisdom…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Whoever says that it is impossible to be saved with a wife and children is a deceiver. Abraham had a wife and children and three hundred and eighteen servants, and also much gold and silver, and he was called the friend of God! Many servants of the Church have been saved, and many lovers of the desert; many aristocrats, and many soldiers; many craftsmen, and many farm laborers. Be devout towards God and loving towards men, and you will be saved.

St. Niphon

Worth considering…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

The statistics are familiar. In 1970, 85.2 percent of children under 18 lived in a two-parent family. In 2005, it was 68.3 percent and dropping. Forty percent of births in America are to unwed parents. Broken down by ethnic group, the figures are 30 percent among whites, 50 percent for Hispanics and 70 percent for blacks.

Another marriage debate…

They'll look at us…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

probably rushing in at the last moment, and we’ll look at them. We both know they have to do this before they roll the cots out for the night, Plug in, sound check, ready to go.

It’s amazing how young some of them are. What could you have possibly done to get cut loose so quickly? The old guys will be there too, a trail of lost people and jobs and homes behind them. Wine in the morning Jesus at night before bed. While there’s breath there’s hope, even if the breath smells like Night Train.

Our little band is part of the parade too. The preachers, the singers, the good, the bad, the ugly, the fervent, the shouters, and the people who pretend we know what its like to have to listen to us. Every Wednesday, just before bed, we descend on the Gospel Mission to have our say. Treasures in clay vessels all of us with a captive audience that just wants to go to bed.

Yet no matter how badly we do it, or how well, it still is true, even if we look stupid up there. Jesus saves. Whether we have a home tonight or not. Whether we’ve bounced along the surface of life or sunk through the waters. Regardless of which side of the pulpit we stand. Jesus saves.

We know going in that we’ll mostly be ignored. We understand and we’ll try not to stink the place up too bad before the folks go to bed. Yet as we play and our lead singer says a few words understand that we, I suppose, have better things to do as well except for the fact that we know one thing. Jesus saves.Even if you’re the skinny guy with the pink hair or the man who hasn’t much time yet before the liver just plain quits or the guy up on stage with the bass who somehow got out of it all before the worst could happen.

Jesus saves, and if just one  figures that out tonight, or even starts to figure it out, we’ll play until our fingers bleed. It, and they, are worth it.

A Poem for Tuesday…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment
The Parson’s Son by Robert William Service
 
This is the song of the parson’s son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights, when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it’s sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan:

“I’m one of the Arctic brotherhood, I’m an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first — O God! how I’ve cursed this Yukon — but still I’m here.
I’ve sweated athirst in its summer heat, I’ve frozen and starved in its cold;
I’ve followed my dreams by its thousand streams, I’ve toiled and moiled for its gold.

“Look at my eyes — been snow-blind twice; look where my foot’s half gone;
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek, where the frost-fiend bit to the bone.
Each one a brand of this devil’s land, where I’ve played and I’ve lost the game,
A broken wreck with a craze for `hooch’, and never a cent to my name.

“This mining is only a gamble; the worst is as good as the best;
I was in with the bunch and I might have come out right on top with the rest;
With Cormack, Ladue and Macdonald — O God! but it’s hell to think
Of the thousands and thousands I’ve squandered on cards and women and drink.

“In the early days we were just a few, and we hunted and fished around,
Nor dreamt by our lonely camp-fires of the wealth that lay under the ground.
We traded in skins and whiskey, and I’ve often slept under the shade
Of that lone birch tree on Bonanza, where the first big find was made.

“We were just like a great big family, and every man had his squaw,
And we lived such a wild, free, fearless life beyond the pale of the law;
Till sudden there came a whisper, and it maddened us every man,
And I got in on Bonanza before the big rush began.

“Oh, those Dawson days, and the sin and the blaze, and the town all open wide!
(If God made me in His likeness, sure He let the devil inside.)
But we all were mad, both the good and the bad, and as for the women, well —
No spot on the map in so short a space has hustled more souls to hell.

“Money was just like dirt there, easy to get and to spend.
I was all caked in on a dance-hall jade, but she shook me in the end.
It put me queer, and for near a year I never drew sober breath,
Till I found myself in the bughouse ward with a claim staked out on death.

“Twenty years in the Yukon, struggling along its creeks;
Roaming its giant valleys, scaling its god-like peaks;
Bathed in its fiery sunsets, fighting its fiendish cold —
Twenty years in the Yukon . . . twenty years — and I’m old.

“Old and weak, but no matter, there’s `hooch’ in the bottle still.
I’ll hitch up the dogs to-morrow, and mush down the trail to Bill.
It’s so long dark, and I’m lonesome — I’ll just lay down on the bed;
To-morrow I’ll go . . . to-morrow . . . I guess I’ll play on the red.

“. . . Come, Kit, your pony is saddled. I’m waiting, dear, in the court . . .
. . . Minnie, you devil, I’ll kill you if you skip with that flossy sport . . .
. . . How much does it go to the pan, Bill? . . . play up, School, and play the game . . .
. . . Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .”

This was the song of the parson’s son, as he lay in his bunk alone,
Ere the fire went out and the cold crept in, and his blue lips ceased to moan,
And the hunger-maddened malamutes had torn him flesh from bone.