Random thoughts on a stormy afternoon

• Being called "nice" is not a complement really. Nice originally meant to be agreeable with all because you are simple minded and ignorant. The nice person stands for nothing and will not speak up when faced with sinful behavior. Ann Barnhardt says it far better than I could.
  
  
  
  
  
• Guys, never marry a woman who :
  
  
  1. Takes frequent photos of herself with her phone.
  2. Has an Instagram account and followers who admire her semi nude self "exercising" or playing with makeup.
  3. Had an abortion and is not sorry.
  4. Has made it her mission in life to fix you.
  
  
   
• Something strange is in the air.  A few months ago I sat in church and realized slowly that the woman next to me was growling. I don't mean this figuratively. I don't mean she was comically imitating a dog. I mean she was growling like some dis tempered beast. I glanced at her. Tears were pouring from her eyes and she looked to be in pain. I started to lean towards her but something stopped me.  Father said the words of consecration and raised the Host. The growling stopped. She looked up, still crying and exhausted. After Mass I looked away for a moment and she was gone. I haven't seen her since.
  
  Another odd thing that is  happening is that a middle aged layman dressed in black has taken to coming to church during Adoration or after Mass and speaking loudly in Spanish to the priest or to the Consecrated Virgin. Both calmly shushed him and backed him out of the church into the hallway. I've seen him do this three times so far never been able to make out what he is saying. Is he disturbed or an aggressive Evangelical? Why is this happening now?
  
  
• Once in the South it was not exactly a folk custom but a tolerated behavior among the lowliest of the sharecroppers to get pregnant before the wedding to show that you were fertile and your intended was not going to be stuck trying to farm alone in his old age if he married you. This was frowned on by decent people and it seems from the pope's recent comments about marriage that a variation of it exists in the provinces of Argentina. The Protestant preachers and social workers of a past era fought against this and wiped it out.
  
  
• Medically assisted suicide is now legal in Canada. So neither the dog nor the sick is safe in the land of the Maple Leaf.
  
  
  
• Why on earth should a Catholic fast for Ramadan  when you make up excuses to do nothing for Lent? Every blessed Lent I see posts on various blogs and op/eds on Catholic sites stating that no, the writer is not fasting for Lent but is going to read the entire Simarillion or will "fast" from gossiping or losing their temper with annoying people. I read this and think, "Really? I'm supposed to be impressed by this?
  
  
• I keep breaking my work bag rosary so I'm trying out a replica of the World War I combat rosary.