Please pray for my Grandpa Joe

My grandpa Joe died on this day in 1987. I didn't know him very well. He was an alcoholic and left my grandmother when my mom was a child. He stayed and lived with my family when I was a child for a few months. I saw him a couple times in the weeks preceeding his death from cancer. That was my entire contact with him during his life.

Grandpa Joe lived a life that was full of sin. Not only did he abandon the bonds of his marriage ot my grandmother, who he had married in the Catholic Church, but remarried outside of the Church. He lived the majority of his life addicted to alcohol and tabacco. But in his final weeks he seeked reconciliation with God. I pray that God may have mercy on his soul and speed his assumably very long journey through purgatory!

If by God's mercy you have made you way to heaven Grandpa Joe, pray for me, that I may have the strength to avoid sin, especially those that so dominated your life.

kencraw on 05.13.05 @ 03:52 PM PST [link] [No Comments ]

Tribute to The Play

Last night my wife and I watched the movie 'Forrest Gump'. I forgot how much I liked that movie. One of the many scenes I had forgotten was the first football sequence when he runs for a touchdown and just keeps running through the endzone and takes out a couple band members.

There is no question that was a tribute to The Play. It was even a trombone player who took the direct hit. Got to love it!

kencraw on 05.12.05 @ 01:20 PM PST [link] [1 Comment ]

Reflections on Sunday's readings

I didn't make it to Mass on Sunday and I don't have a very good excuse. I had the opportunity to go to either the 8:30 AM Mass or the 5:15 PM Mass but went to neither. God forgive me!

Today I write as a humble man who knows and have always known that I am frequently a failure in my following Christ. I frequently don't hand my life over to God like I should. There are certain sins, serious sins and not just missing Mass, that I, despite knowing their sinfulness, continue to repeat. In addition there are actions I am called to as a follower of Christ that I fail to do.

So today I find myself gro... stinking... how do you spell groaping? I know that isn't right. Oh, drop the 'a'...

As I was saying, today I find myself groping through Sunday's reading looking for redemption. I'm crying out looking for God's mercy in the readings. I am groping to find God because I feel so far from Him. And as always, He is there in Scripture. Christ tells us that eternal life is "that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ." With those words I know what I must do: I must go to Church and to confession to receive the special forgiving graces promised to us in that Sacrament. Then I must receive God in the Holy Eurcharist.

What better way is there to know God than to be in His presence?

Lord, I am not willing to receive you... but only say the words and I shall be healed.

kencraw on 05.09.05 @ 01:55 PM PST [link] [No Comments ]

Scripture Quote of the Week

"Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth
by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
Now glorify me, Father, with you,
with the glory that I had with you before the world began."

-From the Gospel of John 17:3-5 from Sunday's Gospel reading

kencraw on 05.09.05 @ 01:38 PM PST [link] [No Comments ]