Looking for Loopholes

Seriously, we are the most blessed group of individuals on the planet.

But before I get to that, I see people's comments and I tried to reply yesterday, but I'm pretty sure I failed. So! My apologies to people who feel neglected by my non-response. To answer the question of when the picture will be revealed, I have no idea. As you can tell we're pretty busy. I think our hope is to have at least a sketch done by the end of training (which is only 2 weeks away!). It's a pretty intense image...both the picture and the artist's skills are worth the wait. I will keep everyone updated.

Also, I have no idea how to let people 'follow' me. Apparently that's not working either. So if anyone has any insight into either of these two issues, please let me know. :)

So back to being blessed.

We have the most amazing visiting priests coming to training. They are holy and do wonderful things for my view of the priesthood. We are also blessed to have had four Sisters of Life and four Dominican Sisters of Mary (Ann Arbor) with us for a few weeks. What holy and beautiful examples. More specifically, today's homily really bridged the gap for me between the gospel reading and everyday life. For four consecutive days (starting yesterday) we read about Jesus addressing the law. He sees the Pharisees living the letter of the law, but not the spirit and basically says, when you are before God, your 'reasoning' will be seen for the weak excuses that they are. The priest was brilliant! He started the homily with a story of a man who had 2 DUI's and then crashed a snowmobile into a woman's house while intoxicated. The court ruled that because the man was not driving a car on the road (snowmobile into the side of a house) it technically wasn't his third strike, so he could keep his license. Point being that we let the letter of the law get in the way of logic. Obviously this man does not respect the responsibility that comes with having a license. Take it away. Then he slid in "but this is also the country where we have ruled that an abortion is not the killing of a child, as if anyone has ever seen a woman give birth to a plant or another species. I digress." It was amazing.

Aside from the priest being absolutely amazing, his homily really made me think. How often do I try to find loopholes? How many times do I let myself say something was ok because it followed the letter of the law? As Christians, we are called to follow Christ and be imitator of Him. So let's follow Him the way He asks us to: with our hearts which speak to us the fulfillment of the law, and stop hoping we'll get off on a technicality.