Halloween treats...

Today. I drove Sr Kateri out to town early in the freezing cold on a pitch black darkness of the wee hours of the morning for her 8 o'clock Ct scan at St Vincent hospital in Sta Fe, an hour and a half drive from the monastery.

Sr Kateri needed to go to St Vincent Hospital for her medical ct scan. Nothing serious about her. It's only part of her regular monthly follow-up check-up.

From the hospital, we proceeded to Studio X- the community gift shop's web designer and had some time with its owner-manager Nancy for some important discussions with our plan to re-design the whole gift shop web. We ended the discussions and brainstorming just past twelve and so we went to a nearest restaurant for our late lunch. We went back to the monastery after lunch and i had to drive her in going back from Bode's store in Abiquiu and back to the monastery.



After taking a break from posting meditations here, and after going through the difficult days that passed by, I am back again to my bring you some food for thoughts that you may bring and pack as the day unfolds and finally ends with you; that is, posting the day's Gospel and my reflections .... so my friends, here we go.

Today, the Gospel message from Luke 13: 22 - 30 is giving us a proof of the wisdom and brilliance of Jesus Christ.

He is asked the question, " are there many who will be saved?"

If Jesus answered there would be few who would be saved, then many of us would certainly get disappointed and discouraged. We would say, "I am not good enough. No matter effort I would exert, I will still be damned anyway, so I may just as well enjoy and endure my damnation."

ON the contrary, If Jesus said that many will be saved, then most probably, many of us will be presumptuously proud.

We would then say, "I am not that very bad. I think I am gonna be included in that number. I am not that wicked and so, I don't have to be scared because I will certainly and surely be included."

But the Lord did not say, "yes, there are many." nor "no, there are'nt many."

Rather, Jesus simply said, "do your best and I will take care of the rest."

That is what I am trying to say to you that the Lord is full of wisdom and brilliance. He delivers us from presumptuous pride and as well as from discouragement and despair from our repeated mistakes and flaws we commit in our lives.

Then after the Lord has delivered us from both, He leads us into self-responsibility.

And that's where we usually and constantly fall short. Without self- responsibility, we never feel accountable to ourselves simply because we are not that ready to take the responsibility for ourselves: for what we do with our present condition; for what we say to ourselves in our daily encounters with life.

We feel and think: "everybody is at fault except me. The whole situation is bad not because of me, but because of all of you."

Now, the Lord is asking us to once and for all, take the responsibility and be accountable for ourselves. Let's do our best and He will take care of the rest. God will never spoon feed us. God will not give us salvation on a silver spoon and platter. We must do our share. He is counting on us and with His loving mercy and grace, we will make it work so that one day, when we woke up one morning, we can say: I have succeeded and reached my goal!

Happy Wednesday to all of you...and have a great Halloween night.

How halloween came to be...

It's five days to Halloween and everybody is freakingly preparing for this night of crazy fun and enjoyment. Everybody is excitedly getting ready with their weirdest, scariest, freakingly awesome halloween costumes. But before we get carried away by its magic and splendor, let me tell you a story of how it came to be...

Halloween is one of the oldest holidays with origins going back thousands of years. The holiday we know as Halloween has had many influences from many cultures over the centuries. From the Roman's Pomona Day, to the Celtic festival of Samhain, to the Christian holidays of All Saints and All Souls Days.

Hundreds of years ago in what is now Great Britain and Northern France, lived the Celts. The Celts worshipped nature and had many gods, with the sun god as their favorite. It was "he" who commanded their work and their rest times, and who made the earth beautiful and the crops grow.

The Celts celebrated their New Year on November 1st. It was celebrated every year with a festival and marked the end of the "season of the sun" and the beginning of "the season of darkness and cold."

On October 31st after the crops were all harvested and stored for the long winter the cooking fires in the homes would be extinguished. The Druids, the Celtic priests, would meet in the hilltop in the dark oak forest (oak trees were considered sacred). The Druids would light new fires and offer sacrifices of crops and animals. As they danced around the the fires, the season of the sun passed and the season of darkness would begin.


When the morning arrived the Druids would give an ember from their fires to each family who would then take them home to start new cooking fires. These fires would keep the homes warm and free from evil spirits.


The November 1st festival was called Samhain (pronounced "sow-en"). The festival would last for 3 days. Many people would parade in costumes made from the skins and heads of their animals. This festival would become the first Halloween.

During the first century the Romans invaded Britain. They brought with them many of their festivals and customs. One of these was the festival know as Pomona Day, named for their goddess of fruits and gardens. It was also celebrated around the 1st of November. After hundreds of years of Roman rule the customs of the Celtic's Samhain festival and the Roman Pomona Day mixed becoming 1 major fall holiday.

The next influence came with the spread of the new Christian religion throughout Europe and Britain. In the year 835 AD the Roman Catholic Church would make November 1st a church holiday to honor all the saints. This day was called All Saint's Day, or Hallowmas, or All Hallows. Years later the Church would make November 2nd a holy day. It was called All Souls Day and was to honor the dead. It was celebrated with big bonfires, parades, and people dressing up as saints, angels and devils.

But the spread of Christianity did not make people forget their early customs. On the eve of All Hallows, Oct. 31, people continued to celebrate the festivals of Samhain and Pomona Day. Over the years the customs from all these holidays mixed. October 31st became known as All Hallow Even, eventually All Hallow's Eve, Hallowe'en, and then - Halloween.

The Halloween we celebrate today includes all of these influences, Pomona Day's apples, nuts, and harvest, the Festival of Samhain's black cats, magic, evil spirits and death, and the ghosts, skeletons and skulls from All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day.