Paving the road
Today's Mass readings (link) If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and the streets of Heaven are paved with gold, what about the road to Heaven? Mud. Mud and potholes, and the signposts are faded, slanted, and often printed in some totally unfamiliar script. And it's uphill! Hell is "down there" somewhere, and good intentions are so slippery you can just sit down and slide to Hell on your sofa cushion. Heaven is a hard climb. OK, I'm in danger of getting hopelessly lost in this metaphor, so let's just move on.... This is what I want to say: Always we begin again. It's a motto of the Benedictines. My spiritual director used to repeat to me a quote from one of the desert fathers, who when asked how the monks lived, answered, "we fall down and we get up ... we fall down and we get up." The Mass readings today are all about the possibility of change -- for the better or for the worse. It's a really important theme for me! I wrote