WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

Somehow, this made its way into my Lectio Divina meditations (not contemplation) for this morning. I have so many wonderful and inspiring thoughts from the Holy Spirit about linking all reality with the Christ Principle. Even thoughts about where my classmates are somehow part of this one reality, One Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism. This is a picture of my high school graduating class from Central Catholic High School, Vincennes, Indiana, in 1958. I am not in the picture because I attended St. Meinrad Minor Seminary High School in St. Meinrad, Indiana. I signed up for a blog from my hometown in Vincennes, Indiana, for my high school class, and where are they now? My point is when I look at these photos of my classmates and ask the question, “Where is everybody?” At 80 years of age, I know that I am just a broken-down, old Lay Cistercian Temple of the Holy Spirit, but where are the rest of my classmates?

Where is everybody?

My point is, some are dead and some still living out the few years they have left. Where are they now? A lifetime of success, failures, making money, going broke, having children, being married or divorced are some of the choices we all make that define who we are? Why is that? Like one of those link roller traps that I use to clean up the dog hair from my Yellow Lab, Tucker, my choices are irretrievably linked to who I am. Some choices are bad for me and some good. St. Benedict, in Chapter 4 of the Rule, puts it this way.

41 Place your hope in God alone.
42 If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself,
43 but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.

44 Live in fear of judgment day
45 and have a great horror of hell.

Again, where is everybody? If they are still alive on earth, is Christ a part of their purpose in life, their personal center? If they are dead, where are they? Wherever they are, alive or dead, their choices in life will carry with them forever. As one still living, I pray for my family, teachers, and all those I have threaded with the Golden Thread of the Christ Principle each day, if not just for a fleeting moment in my Morning Offering.

May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of Christ, rest in peace, now and forever. Amen