Last summer I got a big, fat book. I started it while I was on vacation at the beach.
Every morning I study a few pages of this particular book. I am only about halfway through.
This morning I held the book in my hands, and I remembered the day when I started reading:
The warm sun was sweetly baking my SPF-15-protected skin. The light was perfect for reading through sunglasses. The waves were lapping in from Europe. It was heaven…
…I have a pair of cufflinks which I bought to remind myself of the beach. They have little sailboats on them.
Here is my vow to you: I am going to wear these sailboat cufflinks every day until the official National Airport temperature hits 70 degrees Fahrenheit…
…Listen: If you missed Sunday Mass because of bad weather, please remember that your pastor needs the monetary offering that you would have given.
…Let me say this, my blizzard-jockey friends: When the Washington springtime comes this year, it will be the sweetest ever…
Simon Peter fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him.
Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”
When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:8-11)
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
These were St. Peter’s words when he recognized the awesome holiness of Christ. Peter was afraid. He knew he was not worthy to be in the presence of God. After all, he was a rough and humble working man.
St. Peter and Angel Visit St. Agatha in Prison by Giovanni Lanfranco
When St. Agatha was tortured during the Decian persecution, they mutilated her breasts.
St. Peter came to Agatha in the night, and he healed her, without touching her.
I am not making this up. God loves breasts.
The following comes from one of St. Augustine’s sermons:
A baby cannot digest solid food. The mother transforms solid food into warm milk for the baby.
Our minds cannot handle the full truth of God, at least not yet. We need to be given warm milk, so that we can mature to the point where we are ready to see God.
I fed you milk, not solid food. (I Corinthians 3:2)
Christ is like the breast of God.
The Son knows the Father fully. Christ transforms the solid food of divine knowledge into the babies’ milk that we need. His teaching is our breast milk.
If we consume Christ’s teaching, and live on it, we will grow to maturity. Then some day we will be able to live on the solid food of the beatific vision.
…Snow? Forget it. Your humble scribe is on his way to Verizon Center to rock some serious Red!!!
On September 9, 1969, President Nixon’s transportation secretary ordered work on the Three Sisters Bridge to begin…
As construction began, near Foxhall and Canal Roads, just west of Georgetown, demonstrators lay down in front of bulldozers and tied themselves to trees that were slated to be chopped down. Opponents paddled a canoe out to the Three Sisters — the three boulders siting in mid-river — and hung a banner on the rocks that read: “Stop the Bridge.”
Arrests took place daily. But work was halted by a temporary restraining order issued that October. In August 1970, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court ordered work on the bridge halted.
His opinion said that proper planning procedures had not been followed and local voices had not been adequately heard. (Washington Post)
Not long ago, I promised to detail the Washington highways that might have been, but thankfully are not.
Our city was spared these depredations, thanks largely to ‘Washingtonian of the Year,’ 1972: Peter Craig.
Here is a brief outline of the city-choking asphalt that would have been laid:
A. I-66 would have crossed into Washington over the Three Sisters Bridge. Then it would have split into two freeways:
1. The Potomac Freeway would have channeled traffic from the Three Sisters Bridge along the Georgetown waterfront and onto a newly tunneled K Street. (It would have been eight lanes wide, double the size of the existing Whitehurst Freeway.) The K Street Freeway would have tunneled from Foggy Bottom to Seventh Street NW. (The approach lanes and exit ramps that now sit near the Kennedy Center would have been the western terminus of this freeway.)
2. The Palisades Parkway, four lanes wide, would have gone northwest from the Three Sisters Bridge to the Capital Beltway in Cabin John, along the Maryland side of the Potomac.
B. What is now the Metro Red Line from Union Station to Silver Spring would have been the ten-lane North Central Freeway. It would have met the Beltway just west of Georgia Avenue.
C. The Northeast Freeway would have allowed I-95 to continue through Prince George’s County and into the District, where it would have joined the North Central near what is now the Fort Totten Metro station. Ten lanes would have gone through Langley Park and Takoma Park.
D. The Industrial Freeway, would have run in six lanes from I-395 just north of the Capitol to Kenilworth Avenue in Maryland, along the New York Avenue corridor.
Glover Archbold Park
E. Most Appalling: There were to have been an “inner Beltway!” The South Leg of this ‘Inner Loop’ would have tunneled under the Mall, beginning beneath the Lincoln Memorial, running below the Tidal Basin and emerging between the 14th Street Bridge and the Jefferson Memorial (in one early rendering, it would have been trenched through the Mall, not tunneled).
Dear readers, I know that some of you are in far-flung places. It might be hard for you to visualize clearly the horror of what could have happened to the most splendid city on earth.
Suffice it to say that there ought to be a statue of Peter Craig in at least one of the beautiful, well-treed parks which he saved from the bulldozers.
How could the Hoyas beat up on Duke on Saturday and lose to South Florida on Wednesday?
Incomprehensible.
But if you want really incomprehensible, try: Almighty God.
You are quite unable to think of such a thing [as God]. Such ignorance is more religious and devout than any presumption of knowledge…
We are talking about God, so why be surprised if you cannot grasp it? I mean, if you can grasp it, it isn’t God.
Let us rather make a devout confession of ignorance, instead of a brash profession of knowledge. (St. Augustine)
…Perhaps you have been wondering two things:
1. Why haven’t we heard anything from Fr. White since Saturday?
2. Why doesn’t Fr. White ever write anything about the world-famous “Year of the Priest?”
I have been basking in the mystery of what happened 40 days after Christmas, when the most pure Virgin went to the Temple to be purified, and she and St. Joseph redeemed the Redeemer with the sacrifice of a some birds.
Why was the Temple built? Only at this moment did the reason become fully clear. The Temple was built for the Son of God to enter it, and then offer Himself to the Father.
The Blessed Mother carried Him in, so that He could make this offering from His little Sacred Heart.
So we see that there are two priesthoods.
1. Some of us men perform the ministerial priesthood. It is a sublime mystery. The Lord uses us to make Himself present, so that He can be the Church’s offering to the Father.
2. All of us Christians perform the baptismal priesthood. We offer the Son to the Father, and ourselves along with Him.
The ministerial priesthood is God giving Himself to us. The baptismal priesthood is us giving God back to Himself, and giving ourselves to Him at the same time.
May we all exercise our priestly office every day, with fidelity and generosity.
…Please say a prayer for the repose of Fr. Levester Jones.
We have lost an excellent priest at a young age. May he rest in peace. May the Lord console all of us who love him.
Jesus said, “I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
“Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. (Luke 4:25-29)
Last Sunday we read that the Lord Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth and announced to the faithful Jews in His hometown that He is the Messiah.
We might think that this dramatic revelation would have led to immediate euphoria. We might think that, when the Messiah revealed Himself to the people who had known Him since He was a boy, everybody would have believed, and rejoiced, and smiled, and hugged, and said nice things about each other.
But this is not what happened. The people in the synagogue doubted. “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?”
Then I read a review that made me wonder: Was I imagining things? Or does Commonweal hire blind people to review movies?
…On January 28, we keep the feast of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.
St. Thomas was a theologian and teacher. He wrote countless books. He accomplished the greatest of all feats: He never over-stated his case.
Our knowledge of God remains in a certain darkness of ignorance–ignorance through which we are united to God in the best way, at least in the present life.
This consoles me as I careen through my fortieth year, an old man with rickety knees and a memory like a sieve.
Sometimes I listen to this sweet song, which takes me back to the spring when I was twenty-three:
Even more encouraging is the fact that, in Christ, we live forever.
Here are a few words from St. John Chrysostom about the holy Apostle Paul:
Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is…Each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him…
As for tyrannical rulers or the people enraged against him, he paid them no more heed than gnats…Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of Christ.
…The men’s basketball season progresses one tough game at a time. That said, I have two words for you, Hoyas fans: National Championship.
This morning I held the book in my hands, and I remembered the day when I started reading:
Posted by frmarkdwhite 
Christ is like the breast of God.
2. The Palisades Parkway, four lanes wide, would have gone northwest from the Three Sisters Bridge to the Capital Beltway in Cabin John, along the Maryland side of the Potomac.
Why was the Temple built? Only at this moment did the reason become fully clear. The Temple was built for the Son of God to enter it, and then offer Himself to the Father.
…Please say a prayer for the repose of Fr. Levester Jones.
Speaking of bees buzzing busily and their wonderful wax…
…Federer won his Australian Open semifinal in straight sets. He did not face a single break point.
I do not think that “iPad” is a very good name for a computer.
…On January 28, we keep the feast of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Hopefully everyone remembers from 
Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is…Each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him…
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