That's what I said in an interview with The Catholic Spirit for an upcoming issue. I can't drink because I have severe gastroesophageal - acid reflux whatever disease. But I am so tired.
Another journalist from a Catholic paper read a post I did and wanted to interview me, I asked some other blogger friends to help. They did - so I think I'll pass on the interview and hand it over to them, if they will accept. It's flattering to be asked for an interview, your blog gets press, and maybe readers, and oh, my gosh, maybe you can be a writer for a newspaper. Or maybe not.
I can't help but question every newspaper's motives. I'm just a suspicious kinda guy. (I may have a story here. A customer gave me some info on the Legionaires of Christ - there may be something to write about there. And my apologies to Archbishop Flynn - he doesn't seem to be wearing the black hat so many others may think he wears. More to come on this - I'm way too tired to do anything about it at this point. I'm in retail for heaven's sake - I have no time to myself in Christmas season!)
One thing I've learned in being able to spout off publicly like this, especially on Church related opinions, is that it can be used against you. There are a lot of factions out there - some fighting each other. Let me say right now, I'm just a regular guy who says what he thinks, and sometimes I don't like how the politics work - even if it happens to involve Church people and all the diplomacy involved in that.
What a day today though.
I have this uber-Catholic friend who is going through this whole crises of faith. She's been like a dogma dog in the past, sort of the Bitch of Buchenwald when it comes to orthodoxy - extremely concentrated on all the theological stuff - liturgy, modernism, anti-Vatican II, etc. Now she doesn't know if she believes in a God who allows suffering. Oy! It's too complicated to get into.
What a switch however. This is the same person who has told people they are going to hell if they are not Catholic. That John Paul II was a bad pope. That Vatican II was evil. And she's pissed the Blessed Virgin was free from sin and she was not. (I think someone needs medication.)
When you substitute a Catholic spiritual life with strict adherence to traditional liturgy, and neglect prayer and the sacraments, because they do not accord with tradition - that is, because they are Novus Ordo, and all of your spiritual reading is the encyclicals of past popes condemning modernism and the like, you're going to end up spiritually bankrupt. She's to the point where she is denying the cross, the whole idea of suffering, and the God who permitted it, as well as the blood of the martyrs. (This same warning applies to apparition chasers as well.)
Today another person was told she was going to hell because she couldn't make it to Mass - by another person other than my friend. This 'good samaritan' explained that she had to tell her that out of Christian duty, or else she would be condemned for not having warned her. That's self seeking isn't it? I think it is. So zealots have to tell other people they are going to hell because they are really trying to save their own butts from condemnation because of some strange understanding they have regarding their duty to warn people of sins of omission and admonishing the sinner - of course they only do it in charity.
These same people tell others that their dead relatives are probably in hell because they died outside the Catholic Church - you know, those protestants. They question if the Eucharist confected at some Novus Ordo Masses is the real thing because the priest says "For all" instead of "For many". That's why they only go to Mass on Sundays, to the trad liturgy, and deprive themselves of frequent Communion during the week at a Novus Ordo Mass.
I think they are imbeciles, dogmatic imbeciles.
See, I am tired. And religious people can be very tiresome indeed - that's why I don't really belong to any religious group and don't hang out with very many religious people - and NEVER go down for coffee and donuts after Mass - oh please! I work with these people. Euthanize me now!
So that's my story of how this wonderful feast day went.
The End.
(Nevertheless, the joy of this feast continues to console me - I'm so not angry that Our Lady was preserved immaculate from the moment of her conception - much to the contrary.)
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