All Questions Great and Small

I really thought we were going to get into our annual garden clean-up this week. It is its usually spring time disaster area. Maybe tomorrow. I'm thinking we'll finally find Amelia Earhart.

Remind me to write someday about my thoughts on Amelia Earhart. She is a lesson in taking the bad with the good.

At any rate, we are much closer to finding Amelia and her navigator George this year because--and this is how pathetically bad the garden looks--one of the eighth grade girls has taken it upon herself to try and sort the whole mess out. I think she started out dropping by because she has a crush on one of the eighth grade boys who fixes any computer glitches we have and sticks parts of old computers into our computer so that we have more computer bling.


Yes, I said bling. I'm sure it's not an appropriate word for computer upgrades. It seems to have more to do with teeth and hub cabs.

Anyhow, Sister St. Aloysius gave them some iced tea out on the little deck. Heaven knows why she thought that was a good idea. It's such a mess, you can't sit down. You can't tell which thing is a chair covered in morning glory and which thing is just a pile of morning glory. Pathetic.

So this girl seems to think we don't know the first thing about gardening. The truth is, I am quite a good gardener. I can actually do landscaping and keep things alive in pots for years and years. You just can't tell from my garden. She took pity sake on us and our neglected plants and dug in.

It's funny--funny ironic--that nuns spend all their time telling every one else to "mind your own garden" (which is excellent advice) and nuns really don't to that. We have to spend all our time fussing around about the souls of others. Not that we mind. It's just ironic.

Now this girl has come over several times and actually has the about half the garden squared away. The boy she has a crush on must like her, too, because he has dropped by in her absence to water for us (as though if they don't do it, no one will.....could be true.....).


I thought today I'd do a little blog clean up and get to some lingering questions:

Sister, is it alright to take Communion at a Lutheran Church? And is it really the Body and Blood of Christ?

The Lutherans are already not so happy with me. This isn't going to help.

No and no. Only a priest can transform the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ and since the Lutheran minister is not a priest, Transubstantiation (which is what this miracle is called) does not take place. We don't want any one to get confused, so we ask that you separate yourself from the separated brethren at the 'communion' rail....or line or whatever they do over there.





My question is about having a baby pool. We are being labeled as materialistic for having a baby pool so people can guess on the details of our baby's arrival. We are donating some of the proceeds, using some for items we need, and of course, awarding this winners. I merely thought of it as something fun and way to raise money for baby items and the local pregnancy resource center. But now our cafeteria catholic family members make it out to sound like we're immoral by doing this. Is there some reason to think it is wrong or is there a good response to give our family?

I don't see a problem. Gambling is not a sin in the Catholic Church. If you were a Baptist, there would be a problem.

I will say that I have never heard of someone having a baby pool for themselves. Every baby pool I've ever seen is everybody else putting in their chips for a prize, the end. The baby and the parents get nada. All nada, no bling. Maybe they're just mad because, since the prizes are spread out between you, the charity and them, they feel it's a chintzy pool.

I also detect a glimmer of 'we're more Catholic then them in the first place' here, as you go out of your way to mention they are 'cafeteria' Catholics. Just because someone picks and chooses which laws of the Church they will and will not follow, doesn't mean they are wrong about everything. George Bush wasn't Catholic at all and the whole nation followed him.

I'm sorry everyone has made you feel bad about the baby pool. I think it sounds like fun, too. A good response for your family? "Okay, you don't want to join the pool."



Sister, I'm originally from Chicago. May I vote more than once? Oh and is the log for that Blogger's CHoice awards the sames as my Blogger account?

If you are from Chicago you may, of course, vote more than once. You may also vote again after you are dead.

I think for the Blogger's Choice Awards you have to set up an account or whatever it's called, to log in and vote for people.

Thanks for your vote!

Votes....



Sister, Is it possible to be Catholic and still believe in karma? Or even be Christian and believe in karma?

It's possible that you could be a Catholic and still believe in karma. Your children, for example, believe in Santa Claus, and they are still Catholic, right?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that what you mean by karma and what karma actually entails are not the same thing at all. Most people think that karma simply means 'what goes around, comes around' in some sort of cosmic justice. You should already have a problem with this because it leaves God out of the picture. But I understand that we'd all like to believe that bad people have bad things happen to them and good people get rewarded. I'd like to believe in Santa Claus, too. The one that lives on the North Pole with his lovely wife and all those industrious elves. He's so sweet. And he has a flying sled!

It just doesn't work that way. If you think it does, I'm not sure on which planet you are currently residing. Bad people do bad things and skip along their merry way all the time, while good people toil and suffer and get Alzheimer's.

What karma actually means:
Karma is a belief that reincarnated souls work out their ego spirituality to be one with god consciousness--"nirvana." There is no Heaven or Hell.

You can't believe this and be Catholic, now can you.


Patron saint question: In this current economy, it seems like we could use some intercession in helping the unemployed. There is such a saint, Cajetan. Why is he the patron of job seekers, though? I didn't see anything in his bio to explain that. Do you know how that came about?

Yes, good luck with that. By the way, as a Catholic we don't believe in luck either.

Here's my best guess. St. Cajetan worked with the poor and the hopelessly ill (he also founded an order and fought the good fight to bring the Church back together he witnessed the same mess Martin Luther witnessed). He founded a bank (which eventually became the Bank of Naples) so that poor people could have a place to borrow money. Otherwise they would be at the mercy of loan sharks and those payday advance people.


So this is one of those patron saint by extrapolation deals. What did the poor people need to pay back their loans? Jobs.

I am of a mind to ask for the intercession of Pope John Paul II, who is most surely in heaven. There's a guy who found a great job that he loved and kept it for a very, very long time. Longer than anyone else in history with who held the same job.

We have more great questions to answer. More tomorrow.