Listen to this inspiring talk by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen about the importance of adoration.
Last week I told you about the first auto accident injury case that I tried in front of a jury. I won the case despite being up against a trial attorney who had more than 30 years of experience, compared to my two years of experience. I told you about how I was like a fearless teenager who takes risks he shouldn’t take and jumps into situations he shouldn’t be involved in. Because of my youthfulness and lack of experience, I didn’t have any fear of going up against the older more experienced attorney.
A couple of times a week, my wife (Georgette) sends an email to me and our children with an update on what’s been going on in her life and the lives of our children. Three of our seven children live out of town — one in California, one in Colorado, and one in Chicago.
The first auto accident injury case that I tried in front of a jury was in 1985, two years after I opened my law practice. Prior to the beginning of jury selection, the insurance defense attorney and I sat down in the judge’s office to discuss the case. When the judge asked us if there was any way we could settle the case, the defense attorney explained that we had attempted to negotiate a settlement, but we were still $3,000 apart.
I finally did it. I sat down at my computer and watched an episode of Duck Dynasty. I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave in to my curiosity. For the past year there have been several occasions when I’ve read or heard about the show. I knew I was going to eventually see what it was all about, but when I saw two recent headlines, I couldn’t put it off any longer.
As I mentioned last week, during the time I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, we had limited access to telephones. Most of the communication that occurred between couples who were dating was in person. Parents were able to exercise a reasonable level of control over the amount of time their teenagers spent on dates by limiting the use of the family vehicle and by imposing curfews.
You may have seen the media frenzy surrounding Pope Francis’s recent answer to a reporter’s question about homosexuality, when the pope said, “Who am I to judge?” While the worldwide media focused on this one particular response, they ignored the overall theme of the pope’s answers to questions that were thrown at him by reporters for over an hour.
There is a frequent occurrence at my home that involves my three youngest daughters, Mary (21), Christine (19), and Teresa (17). They regularly engage in long discussions about the boys they come into contact with. Of course, the first piece of information they always share with each other is whether a new guy is “gorge,” which is short for “gorgeous.”
I can remember it like it was yesterday — my first hearing before a judge that involved a significant legal issue. I was 26 years old, and it was during my first year of practicing law (1983). The day before the hearing, I received a telephone call from John Mathers, the attorney I was renting an office from. He was out of the state on business and wasn’t going to be back in time to attend the hearing. He asked me to cover the hearing for him, told me where I could find the file, and explained the issues in the case.
Last week I suffered through a humiliating experience that completely blindsided me. In hindsight, I probably should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I ordinarily don’t have any problems sleeping, but this particular experience left me so shell-shocked that I had trouble sleeping for several nights after it occurred. All I could do was lie in bed, rosary beads in hand, and alternate between praying the mysteries of the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet.