FOUR QUESTIONS

Tonight I attended the rosary for a matriarch of our parish, and mother to Fr. Jim Benton. Her funeral is tomorrow at three, and perhaps then I'll write more about it because I found myself observing so much I wanted to get on paper (screen), but I wanted to touch on something else first.

In the social hall afterwards, I was introduced to Fr. Christopher Kubat, the Director of Catholic Social Services in our diocese and writer of a weekly column in our diocesan paper, the Southern Nebraska Register. I told him that I was going to be reading his latest when I got home because my wife had highly recommended it to me. It was very good, and I'm going to place some excerpts from it below.

He started his column by writing in gratitude for the nun who was principal at his school who prayed daily for him to become a priest. After ordination, he was a teacher himself, and writes:

When I was teaching, on the first day of class, I would pass out 3x5 cards so the students could write their names, their parents' names, and their telephone numbers on one side (in case I needed to call their parents!). Then on the back of the card I would ask these three questions: How much TV do you watch daily? How much do you pray daily? How do you think God feels about that?

I would like to ask all of you who are reading this column the same three questions plus one additional one--when was the last time you told God that you loved Him? St. Teresa said that prayer is lifting one's heart to God. It is an intimate conversation with the Lord. When one falls in love with someone, they make it their business to talk to them daily, and not just a few minutes. So if we really loved God, we would want to converse with him daily, not just for a few minutes.

What a GREAT idea! Grab your 3x5 cards and get busy! And not just for your kids...reserve one for you, too. He goes on:

I recently gave our clinical staff a two-day retreat on the interior life. The staff prepared themselves by reading the book entitled, The Soul of the Apostolate by Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, O.C.S.O. Three striking elements stand out in his book, the absolute necessity of morning mental prayer, the busier you are the more one needs an interior life, and our success depends on one thing, an interior life centered on the Blessed Sacrament.

I have been recommending this book a lot over the past several months to people, but have never done as good a job as Fr. Kubat did in that paragraph in describing the basis for the book. So there ya go. Get the book AND some 3x5 cards and go to work!