Last night in church during his homily our priest presented us with this scenario. Suppose you were sitting all alone in church with Jesus and he asked you this question. “Why are you worried?” What would your answer be?  The answer was not a difficult one for me because I have asked  myself that same question many times before and always get the same response placed on my heart. I am worried because I don’t give it all to our Lord. The spiritual side of me knows I will be protected and taken care of . The human side of me, which is very stubborn at times, forgets this and tries to fight my own battles. That’s when the stress and worry sets in. Since losing Randy I have not given myself time to have internal conversation. I am thankful that I was given this question again last night to ponder. It comes to me at a fitting time in my life. Why AM I worried?

This is precise and unedited chat I had with one of my friend. And I think I was almost successful in annoying her to the extent she stopped replying (As she is well know for her skill of never giving up in an argument).

Her: have u sent me the invitation?

was it you

?

.

me: who knows ..

does that matter …

.

Her: hmmm

.

me: every thing around u is not indestructible …

.

Her: just like that i asked

x-(

.

me: life is too short to ask such question

lets analyze what have we achieved in our life …

.

Her: (punch)

.

me: pointing fingers is easy …

.

Her: waaaaaaaaaaat

wat happened

who did that?

.

me: but remrmber when you point a finger at some one …

ther other three point at you

.

Her: wat happened?

when did i point

??

x-(

have u gone crazy/

.

me: thats what appears to the whole world

the truth is …. i’ve realized …

i’ve realized the reason of life ..

there is not point in living this material life ..

.

Her: have u gone nute?

nuts*

.

me: who cares bout nuts … or butters .. or cakes…

its all just pleasure for some seconds …

and then its gone ..

its your soul which remains with you …

after all …

.

Her: (whew)

God save Ankit

.

me: not only me… god saves every one. .

even those who have devilish intentions …

he is watching each and every one of us

.

Her: Plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

for God sake

instead of crazy

.

me: may lord shower his blessings on you

.

Her: plzzzz

now stoppp

.

me: the power of one .. is still unknown to the world ..

so they ignore him ..

or fear him ..

.

Her: x-(

.

me: don’t be afraid my child …

.

Her: i am not ur child

.

me: he has the gentle hand of all … he wont hit you .. .only pat you …

.

Her:

.

me: with his kindness

.

Her: (whew)

.

me: god bless you my child …. god bless you

I’ve been seeing a lot of searches for the title of this post. While I do not claim to be an expert, I’ve been healing the 10 and 25-regular of this for months and months.  I have done 10 and 25 heroic for while, too.  More success in hero 10 than 25 hero though- LOL.

Anyway.. I figured I would walk you through what I do during the fights.

Northrend Beasts: Gormak

The priests usually start out levitating all the ranged toons.  This mitigates the fire bombs and works especially well in hero (due to the nasty tick the fire bomb leaves behind.)  No fire damage equals better survival.  I also try to re-levitate toons when the levitate wears off.  I programmed my mouse to shift+mouse wheel to re-levitate quickly.  I am usually assigned to raid heals.  So I keep renew, PW:S and PoM on the tanks.  I try to hit CoH along with PoM if necessary (they are both on ~6 second CD), especially when Gormak does his stomp on melee.  Please see the My Healing Style post about my Serendipity rotation.

Of course, getting snobolled! sucks.  So just try to Renew or Binding Heal your way through it.  Hopefully, the dps won’t too long to get it off you.

Northrend Beasts: Big Worms

Healers usually try to stay in the middle of the circle there, so that when you get the green poison (I forget what it is called), the tank or whoever can run by and cleanse the ranged almost immediately.  I just heal like regular paying close attention to those with the debuff.  Pop a HoT on them and keep going.

Northrend Beasts: Icehowl

I use the same healing style for the most part, except you mught want to keep a close eye on Deadly Boss Mods for the Massive Crash countdown.  Make sure your back is facing the wall while healing so that you can strafe once you hit the wall.  Also, BEFORE the Massive Crash, pop a renew on as many people as possible- including YOU.  Bubble them, too, if possible.  This will really help in heroic when the crash truly is MASSIVE. I posted this before, but here it goes again. 

Divine Hymn Macro
We ran with two priests tonight: 1 holy (me) and 1 disc. We took turns “singing” our Divine Hymn after the Massive Crashes to heal up the raid.. I took the first one. He took the second. I made a simple macro that casts Inner Focus, then uses my Talisman of Resurgence trinket BEFORE casting the Divine Hymn. Seems like a lot of time to do it, but the macro makes it easy. One touch, and it’s all done. Really nice heals for the duration of the spell. I choose to use Inner Focus because DH takes 63% of your base mana. It costs me a nice chunk at 2068 mana. Here is the macro:

/cast Inner Focus
/use Talisman of Resurgence
/cast Divine Hymn

That’s all I can think of right now.  I will post Part Two later today.  We will discuss Jaraxxus!  If you have any tips, please share them here!

Happy Raiding,

Exxy!

Churches are always interesting to shoot in as you never know what your going to get regarding lighting. This little ones church’s Baptism room had all kinds of stained glass to play with the “light” coming down on him while being Baptized.

It’s official! I am a Seattleite again! I’m spending my first night in my new digs in the Columbia Coty neighborhood of Seattle. It feels good to be back.

I must admit that i am a little nervous about being in a new place. I never instantly take to any new place where i live. It takes a few nights before i begin to sleep well. I have to get comfortable in a new space. I have to get used to the sounds that are in the background all the time. I have to get used to the traffic patterns and the patterns of daily life in a new place. I have to get used to the way the darkness feels in a new living space. This house will make sounds that are unique to it and i have to adjust to those sounds.

Also i have strong emotions around moving and starting over in a new neighborhood. I must establish new connections and new acquaintances. I have to deal with the routine issues of relocation. Where will i find places to establish the routines that make me feel grounded and safe and accepted? There are a million billion details that i must attend to.

Well it’s past 1am. I really must make the bed and retire for the evening. When the sun comes up i do have a ton of stuff to do. After all, i am a priest.

It’s impossible… to find a ui I like. They’re either too small for my poor eyes, or they don’t have enough bars, use pixel fonts… urgh. I went with caith ui, but that doesn’t like dual spec, lol. Not very good. I’ve spent the last… hour looking for one, ended up with one with no bars and pixel fonts… I’ll screw it up by adding a heck load of bars onto it, lol. Ages ago, there was one I loved but I can’t seem to be able to find it– let alone even recall it’s name. If this one screws up I have two backup options.. One of them I am very fond of. I don’t know why I never just carried on using that one??

Been playing my priest– a lot recently. I was saving up for my epic flying on my bank alt, saw I had about 2kg and said “oh what the hey” and got her a dual spec. Shadow/Disci, perhaps holy/disci at 80. I love my priest. And disci priests just own in bg’s? I want a super awesome absorb everything sheild?! I got it! What about a nice, strong and quick heal?! I got that too! And a dispell to get out of roots or ice nova? Well… apparently I’m the only disci priest with that skill.
One priest who was carrying it, got snared by roots and then died. I just sighed and said “dispell magic.” All I got back was “I’m trying.” Obviously you weren’t… hotkey freaking dispell magic for bg’s, it’s a LIFE saver.

And mages– wtf? Last time I played one it was squishy and I died so fast. I don’t remember being able to kill anything… there’s this firemage on my old battlegroup.. if you were against him, all you heard was “oh shit.” Fire owns in PvP, he was one shotting everything– me on a paladin, hunters, warlocks… everything! I hate mages…. so much! It makes me want to level an arcane mage, just because arcane mages in PvP? All those resistances? Juicy!

Also… I don’t know what I was thinking earlier, /sigh at me! My druid has been back and forth between feral and boomkin for a very long time. I find boomkin so boring, but easy so I don’t have to think. It’s good for being lazy… But on feral, I love tanking! I hate the dps, can’t stand cat form at all. My off spec is resto… so I’m thinking for now, I’ll just keep resto main spec and my dps boomkin if there’s another healer in the group. I don’t know why I even did it… boomkins get a huge nerf next patch… Maybe it was because I so dearly wanted one of those boomkin plushies so I decided to get a boomkin instead.

I’ve also noticed my weird habbit of not rolling classes without actual feet. I have tauren.. an undead and a troll… and I just feel so ‘urgh’ when I see them without ‘proper’ shoes on! So everything on my horde side is now going to be orc and belf. I’m glad we can trade BoA items to our ally counterparts next patch… I might feel inclined to roll a nelf or human.

The mission of OFM is to provide ministry education in places where such education is hard to get.  Classes have started in Geita, an African town around 100 kilometers south and west of Mwanza.  Geita contains the only working gold mine in Tanzania.  The gold mine is a big operation.

There are two Anglican churches in Geita itself, a larger one in the center of the city, a smaller one on the outskirts, and many other Anglican churches in the surrounding area.  I teach at the larger church in Geita, Christ the King, whose pastor is named Mathias.  He is the biggest supporter of the classes.  I currently stay with a local family.

The classes are held in the church itself.  High temperatures often drive us outside to under a large shade tree. Rain occasionally drives us back into the church.  There are 20 students, none of who speak any English, all who come from different Anglican churches in the area.  All students are evangelists, each pastoring a church under the infrequent and distant supervision of a priest-pastor.  From the data sheets I collected, the highest education level attained was 7th grade by the way we measure.  Only by grace, by some knowledge of Scripture, and by personal hard work do they succeed as pastors.

One day, I asked some questions of my students.  All 20 of them are lay people, evangelists and church teachers.   Priests rarely come to their churches. All the students normally lead Sunday services, doing a service of the Word.  In reality, they are the pastors. I asked each to describe the ministry at their church, how many members they had, and what was their average Sunday attendance.  These 18 people pastor over 2,500 people and collectively serve an average of 2,000 people on Sunday.  In one way, they may be big enough to qualify as a diocese in the new Anglican Province in North America!

An important moment occurred on Tuesday. I had perceived some feelings of inferiority among my students and I was asked, “Why is it that some parishes are pastored by priests and some parishes are pastored by evangelists?”   I thought – Oh this is an important question.  Lord, help me to give them your answer.

The reply, “In the Anglican Communion, the churches of most countries do not have evangelists in the same way as you do.  In those countries, almost every parish has a priest who is supposed to be the evangelist.  Here in Africa, you do not have enough priests for all parish churches because the education system cannot support the development of all those who might be called by God to be a priest.  Yet, God wants to provide ministry and leadership for his people.  In Lake Victoria, a boat without a rudder wanders aimlessly about, subject to every wind and wave, and cannot complete the journey.  A church without leadership and ministry is like a boat without a rudder on Lake Victoria.  So, God gives a gift to each parish without a priest; He gives them an evangelist to lead the church.”  They beamed.

Initially, class was very hard for them.  Translation makes progress slow.  Lack of ministry education makes most material new.  Prior bad teaching and bad assumptions means that they have to unlearn some things they thought they knew.  There were many misconceptions about Trinity, Virgin Birth, Dual nature of Christ, and others.  Changing such misconceptions is a big challenge, but they work at it.

The Holy Spirit moved mid-week. The students began to understand better.  They became more participative.  They thought and answered questions and discussed issues.  One lady evangelist witnessed to me how she thought that God had touched her life in the class and I was able to affirm that it was God.

Thursday, I met Rev Donat and nine other priests who were visiting from the Diocese of Gahini in Rwanda, and here in Geita for an evangelization crusade.  They must have talked to someone here because they asked if I would come to Rwanda and teach.  I gave them my card and asked them to contact me after I returned to America.

The ministry is working.  One week has been successfully completed.  The students have learned much new material about what the beliefs of the church are and what is ordained ministry.  Two more weeks of instruction will follow.

I congratulate the people of Christ Community Anglican Church in Liberty KY on the completion of the second phase of their building construction, doubling the size of their nave. Now God can fill it.  See pictures of the expanded church.  The link may be found on the MSJ website.

Thank you God.  Thank you people of God.  Your prayers and financial support are bearing fruit here in East Africa.  The teachers of God’s people are being taught.  Without you, all this does not happen.  This ministry, the students in Africa, the rural church in Africa all rely on you and all thank you. Asante sana!

Fr Francis Wardega MSJ
Mission Station Geita, Republic of Tanzania

This should not be the topic of my first blog touching on the Year of the Priest. Maybe it should a story of vocation, or a theological reflection on the priesthood of Christ and his church. Perhaps an ecclesiological exposition of the ministerial priesthood of the bishop, presbyter, and deacon, with ecumenical emphasis. That is the price of procrastination, however. Those will come in time.

I came across both of these articles yesterday evening, and it was too powerful to avoid.  

Very Rev. K. Scott Connolly

The first is from my diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Northwest Progress, in part of a series highlighting the presbyterate of the archdiocese in honor of the Year of the Priest; they provide brief profiles of five pastors each issue. This week’s issue includes five whom I know personally. Two were in seminary formation with me; two have worked with me as collaborators for the pastoral leadership of a parish; I have had several conversations with each, and have known most of them since I was 17 or 18.

Given that familiarity, I was mostly skimming the profiles. What priest does not think the greatest joy of being a priest is celebrating the sacraments, anyway? (Well, OK, there was one). I almost missed “the greatest challenge as a priest” on my first read, but that is the most telling part. Most of us who are or have been in pastoral ministry find that time-management and administration is an omnipresent challenge, and legitimately so. Yet, one response truly stands out, and calls us to remember what ministry, and the presbyterate, is really about.

Achbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin

To then turn to the next article only confirmed that read. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin addressed this week’s release of the national investigation of the sexual abuse of children and its systematic cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland. The report itself reads much like the reports in the States over the last ten years. What reads differently is the response of the archbishop himself, which should be read in full and is available here:

Three times, the archbishop repeats that “No words of apology will ever be sufficient.”

He acknowledges not only the profoundly sinful nature of the acts of abuse by priests, but also the abject failure of the bishops and religious superiors to act for good:

“One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the Report is that while Church leaders – Bishops and religious superiors – failed, almost every parent who came to the diocese to report abuse clearly understood the awfulness of what has involved.  Almost exclusively their primary motivation was to try to ensure that what happened to their child, or in some case to themselves, did not happen to other children.”

He does not equivocate, blame the media, secular society or anti-Catholic bias; he does not claim that they ‘did not understand’ the nature of the pedophile and the ephebophile thirty years ago, or that they needed a ‘learning curve’ to adequetely deal with these problems. He makes no excuse for the culture of clericalism and institutionalism that allowed and encouraged the perpetuation of grave sin:

“Efforts made to “protect the Church” and to “avoid scandal” have had the ironic result of bringing this horrendous scandal on the Church today.”

In his interview he refers to the people making these excuses as a ‘caste’, a group who thought they could do anything and get away with it – which makes the crimes all the more horrendous because they were perpetuated by those who serve in the name of Jesus Christ.

There may be a long way to go before all remnants of that caste-mentality are eradicated from the Church, but our prayers and dedicated efforts to that end must never cease. Structures of sin have no place in the Body of Christ.

It reminds me of a parishioner whose daily intercession at Mass was for the “holiness of our priests” – simultaneously a prayer of gratitude for the many holy men who serve the Church, and a plea for the conversion of the rest.

Amen, indeed.

Ten years ago today, I was ordained a priest.

Currently there is not much in my day-to-day life that looks especially “priestly”.  I may not have worn my alb and stole at all so far this year.  I don’t think I’ve presided at the Eucharist.  I may have worn a “clerical shirt”/dog collar once or twice.

It isn’t what I would have imagined being a priest would be like.  For the first few years of being a priest I would have worn vestments and presided at the Eucharist most every week.  Even when I began at the university four and a half years ago, I thought that there would be weekly Eucharist and other places where my “priestly ministry” would be expressed more formally.  (And for a time there was).

My bishop probably gives the same talk to all ordinands.  A priest, he tells you, is someone who has “time for you”.  He talks about the importance of having time, of not being busy; of being on the side of the poor and marginalised, the broken-hearted, the widow and orphan (for); and of seeing people in their particularity, of seeing them as beloved of God (you).  At least that’s how I remember the talk.

It’s easy to be sucked into busy-ness.  To feel the need to be productive.  Anyone who’s seen me in the last couple of weeks wouldn’t have got the sense that I was a person with “time for you”.  Nor time for anything but crossing off lists and getting things done.  I’ve all but forgotten my vocation.

For me, being a priest is about resisting the urge to be “useful” and “productive”.  It is attempting to live as if I know that humans are of value by virtue of their being rather than their doing.  And offering that recognition to everyone I come into contact with.  Beloved of God.  Human being.

Murphy showed up at Mass one Sunday morning and the priest almost fell down when he saw him. Murphy’d never been to church in his life.

After Mass, the priest caught up with him and said, “Murphy, I am so glad ya decided to come to Mass. What made ya come?”

Murphy said, “I got to be honest with you Father. A while back, I
misplaced me hat and I really, really love that hat. I know that
McGlynn had a hat just like mine and I knew he came to church every Sunday. I also knew that he had to take off his hat during Mass and figured he would leave it in the back of church. So, I was going to leave after Communion and steal McGlynn’s hat.”

The priest said, “Well, Murphy, I notice that ya didn’t steal
McGlynn’s hat. What changed your mind?”

Murphy replied, “Well, after I heard your sermon on the 10
Commandments, I decided that I didn’t need to steal McGlynn’s hat
after all.”

With a tear in his eye, the priest gave Murphy a big smile and said;
“After I talked about ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’ ya decided you would rather do without your hat than burn in  Hell?”

Murphy slowly shook his head. “No, Father, after ya talked about ‘Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery’ I remembered where I left me hat.”

hat of doom

“Shawni!  Shawni, hold still a sec, I want to try this thing out!”  When Shawnisi kept walking, rummaging in her backpack and counting the vials of mana potion she’d just purchased, Kesryn stamped her foot in annoyance.  “Shawni!” she barked.  “Come on, stop being such a stick in the mud!”

The young woman finally turned to face her blue-haired, Elven counterpart, and scowled around the packet of enchanting dust she had pinched in her teeth.

“Kes, ee eel-ee…”  She rolled her eyes, dropped her bag, and spat the packages into her hand.  “We really don’t have time for this.”

“But I got this and I wanted to…”  When she saw the forbidding look on Shawnisi’s face, Kesryn’s expression deflated and her lip quivered in a pout.

“Oh good Goddess, are you pouting?”

“N-no…”

“Alright, alright, fine, one stupid picture and then we have to go!”  Shawnisi leaned over and started tugging things out of her backpack, digging for something.  “As it is we’re running late if we ever hope to make it to the guild meeting… where is my… ah, okay!”  She removed a battered, heinously ugly red hat from the bag and tugged it on over her cropped black locks.  “There!”  She struck a pose in the middle of the stone walkway.  “What do you think?”

“You’re not seriously going to wear that, are you?”

“My hat?”

“Yes, the hat.”

“Do you have any idea how many things I had to kill to get this hat?”

“I gave you that hat.”

“Then you have no right to complain!”  Shawnisi braced her feet and lit her hands with a smooth, healing glow.  “Now or never, Longears!”

So the Irish government has announced that pedophile priests are finally going to be dealt with. Fine, although it must be said that the Irish have often used that tactic in the past when addressing pedophile priest scandals, with nothing being done subsequently.

What is slightly different here though, is that the government, the official representative of the people, has  “apologised” for the scandal.

Good news, no? No, it is anything but good news. Think about it.

Catholics spend their lives confessing and atoning. There’s even a ceremony for it, “Confession.” Catholics are even BORN sinners, according to themselves.

So, because Catholics are no more (or less) virtuous than the rest of us, they spend their lives sinning and feeling bad about it. Yip, just like the rest of us.

It’s just that the idea of Confession is such a hypocritical way of considering crime. It comes down to “You can sin, and do, because you’re human, but if you confess and atone for your sins, you’re in the clear.”

After all, didn’t the famous writer Jules Feiffer once say:

“Jesus died to forgive our sins. Dare we make it meaningless by not committing them?”

The Irish people, and parents with children in particlular, should see this government charade for what it most probably is. An attempt to get off the hook.

When the authorities have jailed a few dozen offenders as well as the Bishops who have covered up their activities, and when they have changed their antiquated laws on the subject, put in preventative and proactively educative measures for children and implemented laws to control the Catholic Church in a much more effective manner, I’ll believe them.

But until they do that, I won’t believe in the sincerity of Ireland’s excuses at all.

I’m 790 Rep short of Exalted with the League of Arathor, which is realistically  close enough,  but I have a long way to go for Silverwing Sentinels.

Apparently working on 35 Rep a flag return and 23303 to go untill exalted   with the Sentinels thats  665.8 Flags I need or 221 WSG Wins ( 3 flags in a win) .

If I play all weekend on a WSG weekend I apparently get +10 more rep per flag -  

/sigh  my life will have to be WSG for  the next month or three.

Is it worth changing my race to human so I need 66 less flags? ( or there about)

Why would I do something so Insane?

I love Pvp.  If there was a title amongst all the titles that I felt meant something to me.  Justicar would be one that represented where a lot of my time and love and hate goes.   

How does something so repetitious still be enjoyable?   It could be the pesky pally that JUST WON”T DIE!  Or the Warlock that chains me and goes  *opps when I have fear warded, and I have dotted him to death for a change.  The hunter who sends his pet after me,   and forgets to resend after I have Shadow Melded and his pet runs off and then I kill him, the thrill of chasing flag carriers – dispel fear, dot – the thrill of being the flag carrier.  Dispel, fear,  heal trinket ” HALP!”  Yelling at people to get out of the middle.   That first time everyone heads to the flag room in WSG and  your part of a team! untill the rogue stealth, some go up the tunnel,  some up the ramp.  Some one starts the fighting in the middle.  levitating off LM to BS and hoping no one sees you in time for a ninja cap.  The sound of your bikes engines roaring as you ride through the crisp clean snow in AV and so on. 

I get more out of Pvp emotionally then a raid.   So getting the PVP title would be more meaningful to me then my current “Of the Nightfall”  which while sounds cool – was done by bugging out Sarth, and dps zerging .  – how is that an accomplishment?

I feel special…..      

I have a IPhone.  I love it.   I can see me having humongous issues with paying for App’s – I have a few I bought, it’s like.. I want that App – and that one  and that one..  and ohhh  you mean you can get an app with how many vibration settings? ( YES YOU CAN )   I did have a gander at the WOW related apps available – and I is there!  So I feel a little special – turns out the developer is a Aussie -  ( yes I did go to the trouble of looking it up)   So perhaps chance is a little biased

But just so you know -  you can get my RSS feed for free…   Big Orange RSS Button in the top Right hand corner.   You don’t need to buy  an app for it.

Saint Leonardo de Porto Maurizio, Priest
Porto Maurizio, Imperia, 1676 – Rome, November 26, 1751

It is this saint to whom we owe the credit for having conceived the Via Crucis. Ligure (1676-1751), was the son of a sea captain. Born in Porto Maurizio, Imperia today, he studied in Rome at the Collegio Romano, then entered the retirement of St. Bonaventure, on the Palatine Hill, where he would wear the Franciscan habit. Posted in Corsica by the Pope to restore harmony among the citizens, he was able to obtain, despite the serious divisions among the inhabitants, an unthinkable embrace. The theme of the Cross was at the center of his preaching drew crowds to repentance and Christian piety. Alfonso Maria de Liguori called him “the greatest missionary of our century.”

Roman Martyrology: In Rome in the convent of Saint Bonaventura on the Palatine Hill, St. Leonard of Port Maurice, Priest of the Order of Friars Minor, who, full of love for souls, engaged all his life in preaching, in publishing books of devotion and to visit in over three hundred missions in Rome, Corsica and Northern Italy.

Young Franciscan Leonardo had asked to be a missionary in China. Cardinal Colloredo had replied: “Your China will be Italy.”

And at the end of the seventeenth century, Italy had enough misery and misfortune enough to be considered mission territory.

Leonardo was a student in Rome, when a friend suggested going to hear a sermon. A few steps, they found that a hanged man dangling from the gallows. “This is the sermon,” said the two young men.
A few days later, the son of a sea captain of Porto Maurizio, Liguria, followed by two figures of monks who climbed to the convent of San Bonaventura on the Palatine Hill, where he donned the habit of the Franciscans called “the riformella” or “displaced” .

Devoting himself to preaching, perhaps remembering that torture hanging from the gallows, including Leonardo was always in mind the other execution, hanging on the Cross. Therefore, his favorite theme was that of the Via Crucis, typically Franciscan devotion to which he gave the largest spread.

His preaching had something dramatic and tragic, often by torchlight and voluntary torture, which underwent between Leonardo, now placing his hand on the torch lit, now scourging blood.

Immense crowds flocked to hear him and be impressed by his fiery speech, which re-called to repentance and Christian piety. “He is the greatest missionary of our century,”said St. Alphonsus de Liguori. Often, the entire audience, during his sermons, burst into sobs.

He preached throughout Italy, but the region of Tuscany was beaten because of the cold Jansenism, he wanted to fight first of all with the fervor of his heart, then with his themes more effective, namely the Name of Jesus, the Madonna and the Via Crucis.

In a visit to Corsica, the island’s troubled robbers fired their muskets into the air, shouting: “Viva friar Leonardo, long live peace.”

Back in Liguria, was launching a galley, named in his honor, San Leonardo. But he was gravely ill, the sailors said: “The boat is water.”

Consumed by the missionary labors, he was finally recalled to Rome, where, with his impassioned sermons, which also assisted the Pope, he prepared the spiritual climate for the Jubilee of 1750. On that occasion, he planted the Via Crucis at the Colosseum, declaring that place sacred to the martyrs.

Historians have also demonstrated that the Colosseum was never martyred Christians, but the preaching ~ in good faith – of San Leonardo prevented the further destruction of the monument, hitherto regarded as a quarry of good stone.

It was his last effort. He died the following year, and San Bonaventura al Palatino it took the soldiers to hold back the crowd who wanted to see the Holy priest and take away his relics. “We lose a friend on earth – the Pope Lambertini said – but we gain a protector in heaven.”

It was he who suggested the definition of the Marian dogma of the Immaculate Conception, through consultation letters with all the pastors of the Church.

Source: Parish Archives

Note: The site of the Compagnia di San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio

source: Santi e Beati

Even among the wise there is confusion. Even among the learned there is dismay. Even among the pious there is greed. Why is it we hold others to a standard we ourselves cannot keep? Why is it we would trust those who cannot trust themselves? Why is it we would hold the word of one person above all others? Surely if God is God, He would make Himself known to us in a way each and every individual could understand. Cannot the foolish know love? Cannot the uneducated know love? Cannot even the wicked know love? None comes before another for we are all in this together. Listen not to me, for even I can be confused. Listen to the wisdom of your heart.