About five years ago, I was attending a weekday Mass at a local church. Halfway through the Mass, two women in their sixties snuck in the side door of the church and ran over to the nearest pew. Both women were wearing gray sweatshirts. The way they scurried over to the pew reminded me of the animated mice you would see in a Disney movie — because the women were short, pudgy, cute, and grinning from ear to ear.
About 10 years ago, an adorer called our home to let us know that he and his wife were not going to be able to cover their holy hour. (For the purpose of this article, I’m going to call him Frank.) At the time of the call, Frank and his wife were in their late 70s. Since no one was home to answer the telephone, Frank left a message on our answering machine.
My oldest daughter, Anna (30 years old), has been married for nine years. She and her husband, Josh, have four children, all of whom are under the age of eight. Anna recently sent an email to everyone in our family with a suggestion:
For some unknown reason, during the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about the 10 principal virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As a reminder, the 10 principal virtues are (1) her profound humility, (2) her lively faith, (3) her blind obedience, (4) her continual mental prayer, (5) her mortification in all things, (6) her surpassing purity, (7) her ardent charity, (8) her heroic patience, (9) her angelic sweetness, and (10) her divine wisdom.
Last Sunday (the fourth Sunday of Lent) the Gospel reading for the Mass (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32) described how the prodigal son asked and received half of his father’s inheritance, moved to a distant region, then proceeded to squander the money he received on alcohol and women.
Hell came into existence because of the pride and envy of Lucifer and his followers. Lucifer envied God’s perfection and authority over him. He also envied the happiness of our first parents and did everything in his power to alienate them from God.
A few definitions from Webster’s Dictionary: