PathToHoliness

Today I was reminded how fleeting life can be. Indy race car driver Paul Dana died from injuries he received in a pre-race warmup before the Toyota Indy 300 in Homestead, FL. He died before the race and they still ran the race. I find that pretty insensitive to say the least.

This hits home because I had just interviewed Paul by phone yesterday afternoon for my company’s website, Domestic Fuel. As it turns out that was Paul’s last media interview. I can’t express my sadness that a young life had to end this way but as I’ve learned in so many ways, there is a reason and we may not ever know it.

I pray for Paul, his family, friends and teammates. He will be missed. The picture is me interviewing Paul at last year’s Indy 500 race when he was recovering from injuries earlier in the season.

This is turning into a series of church pictures but that’s okay for now. This past week I had to stay in Omaha, NE and got to attend Mass at St. Stephen the Martyr.

I’ll be going on retreat next weekend so hopefully I’ll have some more before then.

If I’m going to post pics of the churches I visit I guess I should certainly include my own home parish. It’s the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, MO. This is a side view with our newly installed statue of St. Joseph who greets you as you walk up to the church.

You can find out more about our diocese here.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. With all the travelling I do why not write about the church I visit for daily Mass?

This week it was north Kansas City not far from the airport. This is St. Therese Parish.

I got to attend Mass on two mornings. Very nice new church.

Here in Jefferson City, MO we’re blessed to have a wonderful group of cloistered Carmelite nuns. They have a recently remodeled public chapel with daily Mass.

It’s a beautiful day in mid-MO. I know the nuns like to garden so I’m betting they’re outside getting started on a new growing season.

They will answer the phone and have a visitors entrance where they can speak with you through a screen. They pray constantly and take prayer requests. If you need prayers you can’t ask for anyone better to help you out.

Tonight was Knights of Columbus meeting night. We had 10 guys become members. That’s a pretty big group for us. We’re nearing 300 members in Council 12992. One of the things I do for the council is host and maintain our website and as you might guess. It’s a blog. You can find it at: http://kofc12992.blogspot.com.

There’s a new biography out about the founder, Father Michael J. McGivney. It’s titled “Parish Priest” and may be ordered from Amazon.

This has got to be the story of the week. At least for me. Pope Benedict now has an iPod Nano. He received it from Vatican Radio employees. You should read the release.

I’ve already seen the story on a number of websites like Engadget. Check that one out and read the comments.

For example. I thought an interesting one was simply, “iPope?” Another one made a comment about how Apple now has the POTUS and the Pope carrying around a Nano and getting serious free publicity. You can’t buy that kind of advertising.

Bottom line though is that iPods and other brands of digital audio players can become a useful part of your spiritual life. There’s great stuff to subscribe to like the Vatican Radio programming.

It’s fast and abstain day, the beginning of Lent. I was very happy to get a phone call from one of my college daughters who was checking in to double check on this. Good going babe.

I’m waiting on a flight in Dallas, heading to Anaheim and decided to have a slice of cheese pizza. As I was perusing the food offerings it just struck me again how blessed we are in this country with such an abundance of food. In fact, an over-abundance even. We hear and read so much about people with health and weight problems and I think a lot of it can be attributed to a food supply that’s so accessible. We’re almost never more than about 5 minutes from food somewhere, of some kind. The temptations supplied by the packaging and convenience of it all are extremely difficult to handle.

That just makes doing a true fast today and abstaining from meat that much more beneficial I think. So I encourage you. I’m trying and it’s not going to be easy since I have a corporate dinner tonight that I’m sure is not sensitive to the Catholics who will be attending.