The Lord said I think thoughts of peace and not affliction...Introit

This page is dedicated to + Nancy Sweene deceased

Nov. 10, 2016,  faithful reader of this site.

"Consult not your fears,

but your hopes and dreams. Concern yourself,

not with what you tried and failed,

but what is still possible." Saint Pope John XXIII

 Post Election Reflection:

54% of Catholics voted for Trump

81% of Evengelicals voted for Trump

98% of Klu Klux Klan membrs voted for Trump

98% of American Nazi Party members voted for Trump.

Therein lies a powerful coalition: Catholics, Protestant Evangelicals, Klan Members, and Nazis who assured the election for Trump.

Some, perhaps many of the 54% of Cathoics formed their conscience that they could not vote for Hillary because she stood for abortion rights.

 Some, perhaps many of the 46% of Catholics formed their conscience that they could not vote for Trump whose ideas  were endorsed, and supported by the Klu Klux Klan and th American Nazi Party.

So we have a divided Church Community and a divided nation.

Reflection from Joyce Rupp:

"Amid the sadness I feel about the election results, I find myself adjusting my inner sails to see that this priocess is continuing  what I see as the"chaos theory"--when disorientation, destruction,and other elements of radical loss lead eventually to a new form of life. When that new life will come, I do not know, perhaps in the distance. What I do believe is it is essential for us to continue to grow and deepen in being persons of immense loving kindness. And as Margaret Wheatley writes, 'to gain comfort, strength, and courage to go forward drawing on the kinship we share."

From Margaret Wheatley, So Far From Home:

quoting Viclav Havel..."Hope is a dimension of the soul...an orientation of the heart,. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons."

From Ronald Rohlheiser:

{ When we wonder "Why not justice and goodness from God NOW?]

...what we want is a God who rescues us, who intervenes actively for justice and goodness in this world, who acts visibly in this life...And so we live with a lot of expressed and unexpressed impatience with God...Atheists seem to give up:  "We've waited long enough!...

"I will no longer wait for God!"

Then the opposite is true: faith is just another way of saying:

I will wait for God.

If atheism is impatience.

Then faith is patience.

And from Good Saint John XXIII

"Consult not your fears,

but you hopes and dreams.

Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in but what is still possible for you to do."

And so we pray for our President Elect Donald Trump:

Sometimes O Lord the task, the job, the position shapes the holder for better things.

We pray tis grace for our President Elect.

We pray for a newly shaped heart.

Deliver him from racism to compassion,

Deliver him from mocking the handicapped to concern for their weakness.

Deliver him from accusing migrants to helping them

And deliver us all from division to unity.

Amen 

Thus the election is someting I have a hard time getting my mind around.

I hope these reflections are helpful to you.