Few More Papa F Quotes + Sports

Jayhawks whupped the Hoyas. ‘Skins found a way to lose to Dallas. Rain falls. I have a mountain of work to do. Haven’t bought anybody any Christmas presents. Headcold never dies.

But: It looks like I picked the right bandwagon to get on, since the Panthers got the big W over New Orleans. And Evangelii Gaudium fills my heart…

“Since this Exhortation is addressed to members of the Catholic Church, I want to say that the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care…Our preferential option for the poor must mainly translate into a privileged and preferential religious care…

“The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration…It is a community of communities, a sanctuary where the thirsty come to drink in the midst of their journey, and a center of constant missionary outreach. We must admit, though, that the call to review and renew our parishes has not yet sufficed to bring them nearer to people, to make them environments of living communion and participation, and to make them completely mission-oriented…

“Diversity must always be reconciled by the help of the Holy Spirit; he alone can raise up diversity, plurality and multiplicity while at the same time bringing about unity. When we, for our part, aspire to diversity, we become self-enclosed, exclusive and divisive; similarly, whenever we attempt to create unity on the basis of our human calculations, we end up imposing a monolithic uniformity…

“I am firmly convinced that openness to the transcendent can bring about a new political and economic mindset which would help to break down the wall of separation between the economy and the common good of society…

“Sometimes it seems that our work is fruitless, but mission is not like a business transaction or investment, or even a humanitarian activity. It is not a show where we count how many people come as a result of our publicity; it is something much deeper, which escapes all measurement.”

Rock in Thin Air

“A strong city have we,” with “houses built on solid rock.”

What rock can there be but God? Something so simple and fundamental—and yet so easy to get distracted away from. Which is why we so desperately need our Lady in front of our spiritual eyes at all times.

She came of age, reached womanhood, and the choice appeared before her with crystal clarity: Everything for God; everything invested 100% in His holy Word; everything staked on His faithfulness to a beautiful plan we can’t see. Or: hopelessness, the slow tragic arc towards death, dissipation in a thousand compromises with shallowness and selfishness.

These are the real options. Everything for the invisible Rock of infinite love, running towards Judgment Day with nothing but eagerness to see Jesus. Or: comfort right now, followed by boredom tomorrow, confusion eventually, and ultimate desperation.

What rock can there be but God? What else is good? I would love to see my new bandwagon favorite Carolina Panthers march to Seattle in January, beat the evil Seahawks, and go the Super Bowl. I would love it. It could happen. But even if it does—is there any imaginable way in which Cam Newton can be the rock of my life? Is there any imaginable way in which the ephemera of this world can make me happy, really, for good?

No. God is the only rock. His testimony of love is the only foundation for any lasting city.

If we stand on this holy Rock of faith, like our Lady; if we stand with both feet squarely placed on the rock of the divine Word; if every pound of our weight, every ounce—everything; if all of me stands on the Rock of God, like our Lady stood, as if floating in the air—when the angel said, ‘the Holy Spirit will do this,’ and she said Yes; if we stand like her on the thin air of staking everything on the faithfulness of God, than you know what we can do?

Look each other in the eye. Look each other in the eye and see the great mystery: This person right here is my fellow citizen of Jerusalem. This person right here has just arrived—has just been beamed to this exact location by God Himself. No Amazon delivery drone required. God Himself has beamed us all together right here, right now, for a moment of love that will never die.

Our blessed Mother looked the Archangel in the eye, so to speak—since angels don’t ‘have’ eyes, but are eyes—she looked and saw the same reality that we can look and see, when we stand squarely on the thin air of God: The choice. Turn away, and crumble, little by little. Or say Yes to love, jump out, and fly like an eagle on the wind.

Of the Weekend

The play of the weekend was A-Rod’s ninth-inning homer Friday night to tie Game 2.

The quote of the weekend was uttered by Larry Michael during the second quarter of this afternoon’s NFL game in North Carolina:

Carolina’s offense is the most inept we’ve seen, and we know ineptitude when we see it.

The melancholy moment of the weekend was when I ran down 33rd Street in Baltimore for the first time since 1995, and, intead of laying eyes on Memorial Stadium, I saw an unmowed field.

The history lesson of the weekend is:

In 1904, the first modern war broke out.

Russian and Japan fought over disputed territory. They used machine guns, mine fields, torpedoes, and telephone communications. All of the fighting took place in neutral territory, either in Korea or China.

It could have become a world war.

President Theodore Roosevelt had been in office for three years. He engineered the Treaty of Portsmouth, which brought the Russo-Japanese War to an end and led to forty years of peace between these two world powers.

In 1906, the year after the treaty was signed and the war ended, President Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.