Burns Clerihew for Clerihew Thursday

Robert Burns
hid behind some ferns.
He feared that he might be shot
by the husband of an auld acquaintance he forgot.

Pax et bonum

Mother's Rosary - Haiku Tuesday

Pax et bonum

Peter Maurin and Easy Essays

A friend recently wrote about Peter Maurin, one of the co-founders of the Catholic Worker movement, and posted one of Maurin’s Easy Essays. As a fan of Maurin, I appreciated that. I have long been a fan of Maurin.

Some background.

Peter Maurin was born in France in 1877. He wandered from job to job and vocation to vocation for many years, even tried homesteading in Canada, and eventually emigrated to the United States. He had drifted away for the Catholic Church, but in the 1920’s, inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, he returned to the faith and started trying to live in a Franciscan way. He also read extensively - including works by G. K. Chesterton - and began promoting his thoughts about how to live as Christians in the world, expressing his ideas in a poetic form in what became known as “Easy Essays.”

He met Dorothy Day in 1932, and with her founded the Catholic Worker movement. His Easy Essays were featured in the Worker newspaper, the Catholic Worker.

Maurin died in 1949. But his Easy Essays have been collected. I own one collection put out by the Catholic Worker years ago. I also own a more comprehensive recent collection, The Forgotten Radical Peter Maurin: Easy Essays from the Catholic Worker, edited by Lincoln Rice. (I also have two biographies of him, one by Arthur Sheehan, and one by Marc Ellis.) I even briefly served on the live-in staff at a Catholic Worker House!

Maurin believed in the power of the Church to bring about change in the world, but noted that that power was not being used. One of his Easy Essays was about that problem.

BLOWING THE DYNAMITE

Writing about the Catholic Church,
   a radical writer says:
   “Rome will have to do more
   than to play a waiting game;
   she will have to use
   some of the dynamite
   inherent in her message.”
To blow the dynamite
   of a message
   is the only way
   to make the message dynamic.
If the Catholic Church
   is not today
   the dominant social dynamic force,
   it is because Catholic scholars
   have failed to blow the dynamite
   of the Church.
Catholic scholars
   have taken the dynamite
   of the Church,
   have wrapped it up
   in nice phraseology,
   placed it in an hermetic container
   and sat on the lid.
It is about time
   to blow the lid off
   so the Catholic Church
   may again become
   the dominant social dynamic force.

I’ll post more of his Easy Essays in the future.

Pax et bonum

Inflicting Dad Jokes

For my Secular Franciscan Fraternity I produce a weekly newsletter, Living Stones Notes. I include announcements, upcoming events, and formation/educational articles.

I always end the newsletter with "A Little Humor." 

Most of that humor is in the form of Dad Jokes.

After all, we are the "Brothers and Sisters of Penance".

Here are a few of the recent Dad Jokes.

My dad used to work 12 hours a day to put food on the table.
He was a great man, but he sure was a slow cook.

Studies show that cows produce more milk when the farmer talks to them.
It’s a case of in one ear and out the udder.

Last night someone broke into our house and stole a dozen eggs.
They also left a saucepan filled with warm water.
Police believe it was poachers.

Who built the Round Table for King Arthur at Camelot? Sir Cumference.

There was a priest who was determined to hear God laugh. He asked his Bishop for advice. The bishop told him that, being the Father, God must love dad jokes, and that God is closest to us on Christmas. He also gave him a list of the best puns in the history of mankind. So, every year for a decade on Christmas, the priest would tell one pun during adoration and wait for laughter. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

Did you hear about the guy who tripped over a frozen newspaper in his driveway? Apparently he fell on hard Times.

I’m terrified of elevators so I’ve been taking steps to avoid them.

Peruvian owls always hunt in pairs. It’s because they are Inca hoots.

A hardcover copy of “A Christmas Carol” just fell on my toe. It hurt like the Dickens.

Did you hear about the shoelace that got coal for Christmas? It was on the “Knotty List".

A pirate went to a doctor and said, “I have moles on me back.”
The doctor looked at the moles and said, “It’s okay, they’re benign.
The pirate replied. “Count again, I think there be ten.”

Pax et bonum

Free Art and Photo resources ...

https://open.substack.com/pub/cmreid1/p/a-comprehensive-list-of-creative?r=1lp1xg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

https://substack.com/home/post/p-158673318

https://www.si.edu/search/collection-images?edan_q=&edan_fq=media_usage%3ACC0&oa=1

https://www.nga.gov/open-access-images.html

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search?showOnly=openAccess

Unsplash

Pax et bonum

Stand Together for Life (March 22, 2025)

Every Saturday, a group of us gathers outside the Planned Parenthood headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., to pray and offer help to women. We say a Rosary, a Divine Mercy Chaplet, and assorted other prayers. This group actually got started praying outside another Planned Parenthood, but then that one closed. Hooray.

Every fourth Saturday we are joined by Protestant pro-lifers for Stand Together for Life. That larger, peaceful vigil begins with a Rosary, and is followed by Scriptures, hymns, updates on ministries and pro-life activities, and a featured speaker.

The music is often led by a fellow ex-seminarian.

The featured speaker today was Deacon Mike Kristan. In addition to his parish duties, Deacon Mike heads two ministries, one combating human trafficking, the other helping men fight sexual and porn addiction. He is also involved with a new initiative with his wife, Dr. Angela Kristan, a new, pro-life, pro-woman health center. Among the services the center will offer is assistance for those struggling with fertility, promoting ethical, moral treatments (and not IVF).

One of the myths about pro-lifers is that they don’t care about the women and children after birth. But the people involved with the Stand Togethers show this to be false.

Just diagonally across the street from Planned Parenthood is a Pregnancy Center where women and families can get infant clothes, car seats, diapers, clothing for older children and adults, food, pregnancy tests, referrals, sympathetic ears, and more. The center also sponsors an ultrasound van that comes on a regular basis to the offer an alternative to the women.

Some of the Stand Together leaders hold baby showers for the women they help, offer rides, provide support and mentoring, and more - and sometimes even take women into their own homes.

For some of the women, there are also alternative health care and housing assistance offered. One of the housing options is a home where women can live for up to two years while they do what they need to do to support themselves and their children - finding housing, finishing school, securing a job, etc. I helped to found that home.

The goals of our efforts at the Stand Togethers are to save lives, to protect and help women, to change hearts and minds, and, hopefully, to see abortion made illegal.

We will continue to pray until that occurs. Love will end abortion.

Pax et bonum

Two reads

In the last two days I finished two works on my to read list.

Snapdragon in the Wall by Joyce Sugg met the biography of St. John Henry Newman biography goal, and 
The Poet and the Lunatics was the book by G. K. Chesterton I wanted to read.

Both were enjoyable reads. 

The Sugg book was more of a young adult biography, but that's okay, It was a good introduction to Newman's life. I'm following it us with Newman's own Apologia Pro Vita Sua, another book on my to read list for this year.

As for Chesterton's collection, it was a pleasure to read more of his short stories. I tend to enjoy his short fiction more than his novels.

Pax et bonum