THURSDAY OF THE SECOND WEEK OF EASTER
Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Dear Father:

HE IS RISEN! Alleluia!

The other day watched again the grand 'ol movie with Gregory Peck, "To Kill a Mockingbird". This is one of my favorite films of all time.

Every time I watch it it affects me profoundly. This movie depicts virtues that are almost non-existent in today's daily world. The film captures the greatest and necessity of virtues such as integrity, purpose, conscious, courage, determination, love, justice, passion, taking a stand against the crowd for what is right, risking one's own reputation for what is thr right thing to do.

I miss the days when these sorts of virtues were more commonplace in our films, and in our lives. Those days are gone as we now living in a wilderness, a spiritual desert in which many people die for lack of water. They die for lack of the living water of Jesus not because it is not there -- for there are oasis in the desert -- but because they refuse to visit the oasis. A well of fresh living water has value for a person only if he will drink from it.

Father, we live in an age not unlike your own, where God is mocked and pagan notions and behaviors are the norm. We need you Father to challenge the pagan priests like you did with the test of fire. Yes, I know, we must do that. You are not here in the flesh on this earth to do it for us. But your inspiration can bring us to follow in your footsteps.

This is true for Christ too. As a poem from St. Teresa observes: "He has no hands, but ours, no eyes, no feet, but ours." It is with our eyes and feet and hands that the will of God is manifest in this darken world. It is up to us to sanctify the temporal world as the priest sanctify the spiritual world.

Help us Father to understand this and to put it into action. Let us not be cowards to our calling as ambassadors for Christ and also His foot soldiers.

Amen.

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