I finally made it to the hotel, changed clothes, and headed out for noodles and rice. I grabbed a copy a booklet on the Divine Mercy and stuck it in my back pocket. The cathedral wasn't too far from my hotel, and I thought I might hike over after dinner.

I ate my noodles and headed out into the street, suddenly realizing that I was far too tired to try the cathedral hike (about a mile and a half from where I was at just then). I decided to head back to the hotel and crash early.

On the way back, I stopped at a light and waited for the crossing sign to change. A very small oriental woman tapped me on the elbow.

"Are you a minister of God," she asked.

"Me? No, I'm not. Why do you ask?"

"The Divine Mercy book in your pocket. I saw it and thought you might be a preacher."

"Oh, I forgot all about that. Sorry. I'm not a minister." I took the booklet out of my pocket and gave it to her. "Here, you can have it. I have a couple more at home. If you're interested in reading it, you can have it."

"Oh, thank you, but it cost $4." I waved off the cost, not thinking what four bucks might mean in her world. "How can I stay in touch with you?" The question kinda threw me off. Stay in touch with me?

"I'm not from around here. I'm from Dallas, so staying in touch with me won't do you much good."

"Oh, I see. Are you hear to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ," she continued as she followed me across the street.

I should say at this point that the lady was obviously homeless. She wore a sweater inside-out on a warm day and looked a bit dirty. About this time I noticed that some of her teeth were blackened.

"No, I'm not." I thought she meant to ask again whether or not I was a minister of some kind. "I'm just here on business for a couple of days. I'm from Dallas..."

"But how can I stay in touch with you?"

"I'm from Dallas. You can't really stay in touch with me." I admit I was getting a bit edgy at this point. We were approaching my hotel. The last thing I needed was a homeless woman, with what appeared to be some mental health issues, hanging around my hotel each evening waiting for a chat.

The rest of the conversation was rather brief. Within just a few moments she was gone in the crowd, taking the Divine Mercy booklet with her. I never saw her again.

She never asked me for money, though I would have given her everything I had. But I didn't give her the one thing she did ask for indirectly - time. After thinking about it for a while, I came to understand why she appeared there.

If I am very honest with myself, I have to admit that I take a certain pride in my treatment of the homeless. I give whatever I have in my pocket. I don't complain. I don't run around telling others what I've done. It was my pride that undid me this time. If she'd asked me for money, I would have given happily and thought well of myself in doing so. But she came at me from an angle and I was completely unprepared. She was lonely. She only wanted someone to talk to. And I left her as alone as I found her.

I have to admit that she frightened me a bit. Homeless people do that to many of us...c'mon, admit it. It's the "there but for the grace of God go I" factor. If we talk to them, it might rub off. But then I ask myself later, what was the theme of John Paul II's first address to the world after being raised to the papacy? BE NOT AFRAID!

I didn't go to LA to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and I don't consider myself a minister or a preacher of any kind. The trick is, I didn't go there as a minister or a preacher. But that was my plan, not God's. When given the perfect opportunity to proclaim the gospel and actually live it, I ran to the comfort of my luxury hotel just as fast as my little feet would carry me.

People appear in my life like this from time to time. I don't need to go to others to evangelize, God sends them to me. There's always a reason, if I can but see. I turned my back on this lonely woman. I walked away. God gave me the opportunity to just talk, and I passed. It wasn't convenient to me at the time. Or, just maybe, God put her in my path to write this post, so that you might read it and take the opportunity to live the Gospel that I turned away from. BE NOT AFRAID!

"Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."

I got to my hotel late in the afternoon of Day 1. I didn't have a car this time - there was bus service between the hotels and the convention center. As a result, I was on foot for anything I wanted to see or do. Turns out, there are precious few things to see or do in downtown Los Angeles that are within my personal budget. For instance, the main restaurant at the hotel I stayed at had dinners starting at $68 per person. From there, they went up to a max of $178! Way outside my budget, even on an expense account. I was forced to look for food outside the hotel, and was left to wander the streets of downtown LA alone, hungry, broke.

Good fortune was mine, however, as my hotel was on the edge of "Little Tokyo". I happen to like Japanese food, and there was a little ramen noodle shop about three blocks away. The food was GREAT! I ate there all three evenings for about $15 per meal (including taxes and tip).

As I walked around, looking for a place to eat, I encountered the King of Los Angeles (or, as he pronounced it, Lahs Ahn-jaleeez). He was a large fellow, not fat but big - he might have topped out at 6' 4". I saw him from across the street, so I'm not sure. He was taller than everyone around him.

It was 85 degrees that day (the locals were complaining of the heat, but it was spring weather for a Texan). His Highness was wearing a long black leather great coat, black leather pants, black shirt, and a broad brimmed black leather hat. He had a tremendous black beard.

He shouted at the top of his prodigious lungs this warning - "I am the King of Lahs Ahn-jaleeez. Hear me, my loyal subjects. They are tunneling under our fair city. That's what causes the earthquakes." 91 hours later, there was an earthquake. Coincidence? Hmmm... No one really paid attention to His Majesty. In fact, they just walked past him as if he wasn't there. He didn't ask anyone for money (why would he need to, being Royal and all).

On my trip back to the hotel, he was gone. Perhaps he took to his earthquake-proof shelter. I honestly don't know.

I wanted to get these two done quickly. The results look rushed, but hopefully they'll still be useful. At any rate, they'll have to do for now. I’m still swamped and behind, and the swamped-ness and behinded-ness isn’t going away until after the first of August. However…

Given the recent political decisions in California and New York, and the previous ones in Massachusetts, I think I need to press ahead with the next installment in the sacraments series:

HOLY MATRIMONY

I won’t likely get anything posted on it until after the first of August, but I will try. No promises.

Let us have a look at what the Christians of the first few centuries thought of the Eucharist. These are just a few.

“It is finished”, is part of John 19:30. It is here in John that we find the key to the puzzling cup in Matthew. I had always been told that this quote dealt with our redemption. As one Protestant friend once said to me long ago, “It’s the work of Christ that was finished. His work of salvation was finished on the Cross.” Ok - but - well, not really. He hadn’t been resurrected yet, so there was still something to be done (Romans 4:23-25). To my uneducated eyes, this still didn’t look quite right.

Both of these will play into our next discussion of the Eucharist, and the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament. However, to join the cup from Matthew 26:39 to the phrase in John 19:30, we have to start by stepping back in time. Our first stop is in Exodus, and…

I’m going through a certification program at work, and doing some traveling as part of the program. As a result, I’m taking work home for the first time in ages, all in an effort to keep up.

The program will be over the last week of July. I’ll be back shortly after that. If I can manage it, I’ll post something between now and then. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look likely that I’ll manage it.

Worst case scenario – I’ll be back in early August.

“Jesus made it abundantly clear in this context that eternal life is gained by believing. 6:50-51 is a synonym for believing.” Parallel Study Bible

“v53 precludes direct reference to the Lord’s Supper. He clearly does not teach that receiving the sacrament is one requirement for salvation.” Zondervan NASB Study Bible

“v52 - Jesus was speaking figuratively, but the Jewish leaders took him literally.” NKJV Study Bible

“v53 - Apart from personal union with the Savior, there is no salvation.” Reformation Study Bible.

“Christ declared the metaphor Himself in verse 63.” - 2006 online conversation

“It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division. 'Will you also go away?’ The Lord's question echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has 'the words of eternal life’ and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.” Catechism of the Catholic Church (1336)

Today we look at the Gospel of John, chapter 6. This is so important that we’ll spend most of this post in this one chapter.

One technical note: I’m not going to quote all of John 6 here. Why? Simple, to save space - this is going to be painfully long as it is. I’ll leave each of you to get a Bible and read the text yourself. Though there will be bits and pieces quoted below, I suggest that everyone read the text before getting started. Once you’re done, continue and we’ll start to break open The Word.

In addition, you’ll notice some Greek in the middle of this post. It is a small part of John 6 (verses 47 through 59 to be exact). Don’t panic! It’s there for a reason, and we’ll get into the specifics later.

Sit back and relax, this is going to be a bit long.

So the Great Hard Drive Crash of '06 has a follow-up: The Little Hard Drive Crash of '08. I say "little" because I managed to salvage a fair amount of data. But it's taken a hefty amount of time an energy to save what I saved.

And, to top that off, I've been on the road some.

I'll be back. I just hit a bump in the electronic road...

In this post, we will examine both the establishment of the Eucharist and its earthly form.

We Catholics take 2 Timothy 3:16 very much to heart. “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” The key here is the all Scripture part. To look at what the New Testament says is fine, but we need to look at all the Scriptures to get a good foundation for the Eucharist. Therefore, our first stop will be deeper in the past, in the Old Testament.

Thusly we begin…

Happy Easter everyone!

The results are now available.

First we explore the Eucharist. I foresee four posts on this particular topic, but that may change as time goes on. I have four working drafts in play right now, so I may change some elements as I work through the early versions. The first post is almost done.

Objections might wait till the end of the line. That way we make sure all the details are in before we start working through the objections. I may post a 5th piece, just as a sounding board for any objections that come up. But, then again, I may not. Readership is still very low, so there may not be enough objections to warrant a whole post.

Again, this may change as I go along, but right now I think the table of contents for the first set will look something like this:

1 – Foreshadowing
2 – Establishment & Form
3 – The Bread of Life
4 – The View of the Early Church

When I started this series of posts, I had planned to use only text available in the average Protestant Bible. Obviously, I’m going against this in number 4. However, after getting into the outline, and starting the drafts, I felt that we should also look at the Sacraments as the early Christians looked at them. The importance of this will be explained later.

Each of the Sacraments will be handled in much the same way…I think.

Anybody else out there on different browsers seeing different font weights?

Thusly we begin...