Thursday, December 10, 2015

The Christmas Train



December 10th, ‘15

To all my friends,

                Throughout my forty years plus of teaching I always began every class with prayer to Jesus, followed by a story that would speak to the theme of that day’s lesson. Especially at Christmas time all my lessons plans in Theology class were oriented toward themes that related to Christ’s first coming on Christmas night. Truly “the world could not contain the books that would have to be written” (Jn. 21:25) to record the lessons streaming forth from the heavenly light that dawned on Christmas night.

                In all those beautiful years of teaching I for one was never at a loss to find yet another lesson that called out to me from the Christmas story - and not only from the Christmas story but as well from the “miracle stories” of Christmas that all of us experience during the Christmas season each year. “The Christmas Train” which follows is one such story, one such “miracle story”.

                “Mr. Michaud, are you going to tell us a story?” At the start of class my students never asked any other question of me more than that one. And though it happened long ago, I can still see the faces of an Emily, a Mike, a Molly, an Eric, a Kelly, a Peter, or Gen asking that question always with enthusiasm, and always with a twinkle in their eye. It was a question repeated   thousands of times throughout the years. And it was question never asked more of me than at Christmas time. Truly one of my most cherished memories of my students, whether at Guertin, Feehan, or CM, is how in the glow of candlelight they would all settle in at the start of class for the daily Christmas story, and never with more eager anticipation than for the story that follows, “The Christmas Train”.    

Enjoy! Merry Christmas!

Doug  +




THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN


It was 1954. I was seven years old. My family lived in the poorest section of our town, the Spruce Street section of Lawrence, Mass. My father hadn’t started his business yet. So there were times when he struggled to find work and would often be gone out of state (Connecticut at Pratt-Whitney aircraft) during the week to find employment and bring home an income. He always did. As a child then I always remember awesome food on the table, and I always felt the security and warmth of our Spruce street home.

What I didn’t know then, and only learned as an adult, was how my grandmother – my “Bacchie” – helped us during those days of hardship. She lived with us when I was small, and with her savings and social security she helped with the mortgage, the necessities of food and clothing, the utility bills, and even with money for the movies.

I’ll always remember her in her rocking chair, saying her daily rosaries and watching my brother Paul and I play our games – Monopoly mainly, and my brother Paul always won. I remember too that so many days ended with me being rocked to sleep in grandmother’s arms, all the while as she continued to pray her rosary ever in her hands.

One day as she watched and rocked and prayed, I was on the parlor rug, looking through the pictures in the newspaper. It was a month before Christmas and the paper had all kinds of toys pictured in the store adds. I remember like it was yesterday the first moment that I saw it: the picture of the Lionel train set. My excitement at the sight of it was palpable and Bacchie noticed right away.

The price of the train was $4.95 – can you believe it?! Yes, in 1954 it was $4.95 for a train set of six cars made out of real metal, not plastic. There was a figure eight track set, a mountain tunnel, a railroad crossing signal with barrier bar gates that dropped down and came up again after the train passed. On one of the railroad cars – a log car – there was a crane to lift the logs off the train. The logs were part of the train set too.

The steam engine was solid black metal with chrome silver plating. It blew smoke as it traveled the track, and pellets were provided to make the smoke. You only had to put them into the smoke stack, and the electric train heated the pellets and made them smoke.

The caboose was awesome too. It was flame red and had a rear door that opened to a back platform with a railing. There was a little railroad conductor figure that could attach to the platform and ride there at the rear of the train.

My heart was so set on the thought of having that train, and Santa was most assuredly going to get it for me that Christmas. With my mom and dad I was insistent that this was exactly what was going to happen. They weren’t so sure though. They told not to get my hopes too high. The price of that train was expensive (Remember five dollars then would be a thousand dollars today!), and Santa had to buy toys for other children as well. I remember that even days before Christmas I was praying for the miracle of having a train that was too expensive to get just for me.

But then Bacchie was watching and listening to all this pleading. She had seen my excitement, and she knew how much that train would mean to me. On Christmas morning the train was there, all laid out on the parlor floor right in front of the Christmas tree!!!

What a glorious Christmas morning that was. How ecstatically happy I was. My Christmas train! I played with it day after day, week after week. I never grew tired of playing with it. And all the while my Bacchie would watch me while she rocked in her chair and prayed the rosary.

What I never knew as a child was that Bacchie paid for the Christmas train. Times were hard for my parents, and the money for a Christmas train was not to be had. I remember hearing from my mom only as an adult how Bacchie had gone out and purchased that train for me. I remember how moved and inspired I was to learn that.

What a lesson in true Love it was for me – in unconditional Love. For Bacchie all that mattered was my happiness. She didn’t need to have me know that she paid for the Christmas train. It was enough for her to rock and pray and watch me play with my “miracle gift” on Christmas morning.

And so the beauty of this person who showed me from my earliest years a Love like only God can love… I felt that love in her arms, in her embrace – the love I still feel now in the arms of Mary our Blessed Mother.

It was in fact one of two of Bacchie’s dying wishes the following year to have my brother and I brought from school to her hospital bed. It was so she could embrace us one more time before passing on to Christ. For as long as I live I will never forget the Love that I felt in that final embrace. It was Divine Love. It was the Love of Jesus reaching out to me from within her.

Her other wish? It was the wish to be buried by her husband, a man that abandoned her and their farm after conceiving twelve children together. He had left her, but she had never left him. Again her unconditional Love for a man who broke her heart, mirrored the Love of Christ, mirrored the Love shown forth from the Cross, a Divine Love, a Love like only God can love. It was that Love in Bacchie that brought her home to the Lord and to the Heart of the Father. And it will be a Love like that burning in our hearts which will bring us home to God as well.

To all my Facebook friends and to all my LinkedIn colleagues, a most beautiful and blessed Christmas to you and your loved ones, and may your New Year be filled with happiness, filled with a Love like only God can love.

In the Love of Jesus and Mary,
                                                         Doug +       







Sunday, October 25, 2015

What MATTERS Is The Miracle of All Human LIfe Made in God's Image - Whether Black or White, Red or Yellow, and Blue Blood Too!



“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

                                                      Marianne Williamson

                      “An immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in an effort to win a soul for God.”
                                                         - Author Unknown


“Black lives matter!” Of course they do! But unfortunately that statement represents a short-sighted focus, a misguided focus – the myopic focus of one generation of Americans after another now being taught in Godless schools and universities; of generations of young people with Godless attitudes and a values void largely due to the exclusion of God and His truth from the public forum.

“Black lives matter!” Of course they do! But why settle for such an insipid statement that asks us to think so small about any human life – to think simply that life matters, that somehow and for some reason a human life is a plus and not a negative? And God forbid that you should ask that secular society for some rational explanation as to why you should think this! But leave it to our abortion culture, and now our infanticide culture, to think in such small terms, in such dull and mundane terms, about the value of a black life, a white one, a blue one (police!), or a red or yellow one.

The fact is that our society and schools, silent and without feeling for the killing of our children, have wandered far off from the Light of God. Our society and schools have totally lost a sense of the wonder and miracle of each and every human being. In Judeo-Christian tradition – largely ignored by mainstream media today – the basis for this wonder and awe in the face of even one human soul is the concept of dignity. It is the incredible concept that every human being, irrespective of color or creed, is a child of God made to uniquely mirror the divine image.

The dignity concept tells us that each and every human soul is “beyond all price”. Every person has inestimable worth and value.  It’s not a question that a human life – any human life - simply matters.  It’s more the case that a human life, any life made in God’s image, has “power beyond measure” to  make a decisive difference in this world – power in fact to make all the difference in the world. And a society that respects human life has a moral imperative to make sure that each any every human life has that chance, has that possibility.

I can recall an event back in the 1970’s that perhaps can illustrate the power and potential of one human soul. The Holy Father, John Paul the 2nd, was hosting a youth rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. During his presentation there was a power outage and for moments over 25,000 young people sat in total darkness. Then one young man lit a candle. Applause rang out through the massive assembly, for all could suddenly see in the glow of that one light. What was that light worth? What difference did it make?

In fact, that light made all the difference in the world. They say that the overthrow of the Communist regime in Romania started in the same way – with the lighting of one candle by Daniel Gavarol. What else can happen with one light, one life? If it’s a single light in a steeple of an Old North Church and the year is 1776, that light has infinite potential, unlimited possibilities, and incredible power to make all the difference for the future of our world.

So also is the power and potential of the light that is each human life. Each of us has that same power to decisively grace the world with our own unique light, a song that only I can sing, a poem that only I can pen, a book that only I can write, an idea that is uniquely mine - for when God made each of us, “He made an original, not a copy, a copy, a copy…”

The potential of each human life? Don’t think small here, and settle for an idea that somehow it is a question that a life “matters” versus having no value. Open to the infinite possibilities and unlimited potential of each human life - and especially open to the “power beyond measure” of that life if that person is open to the help of God. “God times one – you can’t put that number on the board!”Look at Mother Teresa! Just one person open to the promptings of Grace, responding unreservedly to the irresistible leadings of the Holy Spirit, and the Light of that one life has forever changed our world, has lit our world with the radiance of the noon day sun.   

So what is that light worth, the light that is each and every human life? Compare the potential light of each human to the Light of Jesus. Oh yes, the comparison is valid. St. Paul tells us that all the honor, wealth and prestige he had before knowing Jesus was as dung to him. The Light of Jesus, the Person of Jesus, was worth more to him that all rank and privilege, than all the gold and silver in the world. But doesn’t Paul in saying this also mirror to us the love in the heart of the Father for His Son? Furthermore, as God’s children made in His image, this inestimable value of the Son is precisely our worth as well in the eyes of God? Were we not bought with the price of His blood? In union with Jesus are we not now like Christ a child in the arms of our all-loving Father?  

Only a Judeo-Christian society resting securely on its biblical foundations can even begin to see the grandeur and glory of even one human life. For the Bible forces us to see the incredible sanctity of life, to see life through the eyes of a Father’s love for us. God’s Word compels us to contemplate all human life as the Father of us all Himself sees it: the life of even one person as infinitely precious in His sight; the human soul as worth more to have than the chance to have the whole world (Mt. 16:26), or the chance to gain the glory and wealth of all creation.  What more does the Lord’s Love shown forth from the Cross tell us, if it does not tell us this?

But is our sick society today capable of rising up as out of the darkness of a cave into the grandeur of this light – the light that is the inestimable value and worth of each and every human life?

As a father myself there have been so many powerful moments where I know I have seen that light, where the Grace was given to see the value of even one life through the eyes of God’s Love. Much as God Who “so loved the world”, as the Lord Who did not spare His own life for us, what would I not give for the life of my child, for one who is flesh of my flesh, life from my life?

There have so many decisive defining moments in my life that have made abundantly clear for  me  the answer to that question. But one some years ago I remember most of all. I remember it all too well, in every detail. Often in fact, I relive it as if it were yesterday, or as if it were only moments away in my recent past.

It was a day when I almost won “Megabucks”, a lottery game in our state – and as my luck with lottery games goes, believe me this “almost won” moment was for me a once in a lifetime experience. I had four of the six numbers. The fifth number was one digit off from the correct one. The sixth however was nowhere near to the right one.

I remember remonstrating with the Lord about this: “Lord, could you  not have given me wealth today?” And then I went on and on to Him about all I would do with the money to give glory and honor to God. I felt like the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7, haggling with the Lord for the healing of her daughter. Her importunate pleading paid off. The Lord was pleased with her persuasive protestations and her persistence. He answered her prayer and healed her daughter. But in answer to me the Lord was silent – or so I thought.

It was not even an hour later after this dialogue with the Divinity that my youngest son came home. He looked shaken and fear still cast a dark shadow across his face. In an agitated voice he told me that on the way home only moments ago he had almost been killed by a car while on his bicycle. The car had rapidly and recklessly backed out of a driveway, forcing my son out into the middle of the road only then to face an oncoming car. Miraculously he had dodged the first car and also avoided a head-on collision with the second.

There have a number of times in my life when I know the Risen Lord has spoken to me. One of those moments was then, as I looked into the face of my ten year old son and loved him. Just at that instant I heard the voice of God say to me: “Did I not give you wealth today?”

Tears filled my eyes. I had received this day the “wealth” only God can give, the “wealth” that money cannot buy. God had given me the life of my son. What would I give for that life? Would I give even “Megabuck millions” for the life of my son? You know the answer. His life to me was and is more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. Since that day to now my prayer before the Lord, the Father, their Holy Spirit has always been to fill my life with their “wealth”, the “wealth” that money cannot buy, and the “wealth” that once God gives it the world cannot take away.

What is that “wealth”? It is the lives of my children, my wife, my family, my friends – the lives of all the people God has given me to love as He loves: as His children made in His image and likeness; and as such, infinitely precious in His sight, of inestimable value and worth. This day the Lord rejoices over each and every one of His children, and renews them in His Love. This day He sings with joy even because of you. (Zeph. 3:17-18)

Proclaim then in whatever way you can the real value of each and every human life, all children of God marked with divine dignity and called to a most divine destiny. Stand up and stand out with the grandeur of this light of biblical truth in the face of a dark and demented world all around us today – a sick world that aborts its children, or even allows them to be born only to be slaughtered and sliced open for the harvest of vital organs; a perverse world where untold thousands of Christians and so many others are being killed in the name of some sinister and unholy crusade.

Tell that sick society the price paid in Christ’s Blood for each of those lives lost to the evil inhumanity and barbarism that is really out there in the world of our own day and time. Tell them the real value of each and every one of those lives lost – young or old, infant or aged, black or white or blue (police!). Tell them of the Gospel of God: of the call by the Father to each of His precious children, to each and every human life – the divine call to Holy Communion with God through oneness with His Son, the call of Love from the Father to an eternal intercourse with God, the call of the Divine Bridegroom to all humanity His Bride to become one flesh, one body, one heart, one life with Him forever.     















Thursday, June 25, 2015

Baltimore Riots - A Warning to America, a Warning to All Humanity



“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

                                         Marianne Williamson

                 “An immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in an effort to win a soul for God.”
                                            - Author Unknown
           
            There is something that tears at the very heart of me when I see American teens emptying out of their public schools and then rioting in our streets - teens from public schools leaving their “educational facilities” and then robbing, looting, destroying property, and all the while attacking and assaulting police in the process.
            What’s happening in this country? Or should the question rather be: “What’s not happening in this country?” To cut to the chase here, are these students in Baltimore public schools, or in public schools anywhere in America, being taught the substance of the Marianne Williamson quote above? What is that the substance and foundational core of that quote? It is that you are a child of God made in His image, with a soul therefore of inestimable value - a soul therefore with power beyond measure because it is capable of making manifest in this world the Glory of God that is within it.
            This is what is not being taught in the public schools of this country. This is what is not happening in this country. The young today in the USA do not know their inherent dignity as children of God made in His image, the inestimable value of a soul that has the power to mirror the divine in this world. There is no limit to God. So also, there is no limit to a soul made in His image. There is no limit to how high that soul can reach, no limit to how far that soul can go on a journey to excellence for love.
            When liberal minded educators today remove such teachings from our public schools because of their biblical basis, tragedy happens. When they forbid the teaching of such foundational truth, spurn such core values like a student’s dignity as a child of God made in His image, the stage is set for societal collapse. It becomes only a matter of time before the disturbing images from Baltimore begin to spread like a disease throughout our country, before the moral and spiritual decadence those images represent become the norm throughout our nation.     
            But where educators and professors do teach this foundational truth, the biblical concept of a student’s dignity as a child of God, amazing events happen, even miracles happen. People’s lives are transformed, elevated to the heights of the extraordinary, to the heights of excellence. I think of such real life miracle stories as those captured in films like “Stand and Deliver”, “Coach Carter”, “Freedom Writers”, “Miracle”, and “Dead Poets Society”.
            In each of these films an educator or a coach dares to think differently, to think “outside the box” of what the liberal agenda allows or what a godless curriculum demands. The educators in each of these films build their teaching efforts upon the biblical truth of human dignity (Gen. 1:26-27): that their students are children of God made in His image. They respect this inherent dignity of each and every one of their students. Accordingly, they set goals and expectations that “raise the bar”, that summon their students to reach for a level of academic and athletic performance representing nothing less than consummate excellence.
            The results are phenomenal. In each of these movies – save one (“Dead Poets”) - the stories told are based on real life accounts. Each film narrates a tale of incredible events that unfold in the lives of students taught their inherent dignity; in the lives of students called to high expectations – called to reach for dreams, goals, and noble aspirations only capable of a soul made in the divine image.
            In essence, each film simply tells story of students realizing their innate dignity – of students realizing their “power beyond measure” in the pursuit of the extraordinary (So Professor Keating’s term in “Dead Poets”), the “uncommon” (Herb Brooks term in “Miracle”), the outstanding, the prodigious, the arcane; of realizing the inestimable value of their lives and their souls in the actual achievement of works indicative of nothing less than consummate excellence, even genius.
            So America, wake up! Our educational efforts with youth today are doomed as long as our schools exclude from the public forum all reference to God, His word, and biblical values. That word and those values have been throughout our history the basis of our law and the bedrock and foundation upon which our society stands. But now we are building our future on sand, and as such our posterity will only “inherit the wind”.
            Even now, all-pervasive throughout our land is a generation of youth that no longer understands the power and potential of a human being made in God’s image. In fact, in our society’s darkness attitudes toward human life have gone deeper and deeper into the night. Turning from the Light of God, it is a society sick and blind that sees human life as cheap, not good enough; that treats the child of God as trash and not treasure, as a piece of junk and not as the jewel they are in the eyes of Christ, as a piece of cheap glass and not as the diamond they are in the heart of the Father.
            Given the rejection God and Heaven widespread throughout America today, our society already sees, feels, and experiences what the lost souls feel in the torment of Dante’s Inferno – that they are “no one”, and therefore expendable, disposable. How many among us feel nothing less than this today? How many in fact feel that they are disenfranchised, cast out, forsaken; or, that their life is cheap, of little worth, easily to be left out or discarded? What else can one feel in a society that yawns in the face of abortion, in a society that stands silent in the face of ISIS slaughter, in a society obsessed with violence in its media, amusements, and movies?
            But there is something else among us that one can know and feel. In schools where the teaching of God and His Christ are honored, there is something else that people still experience in most dramatic ways. Students in particular still experience their inestimable value and dignity, the transforming power of the human soul made in God’s image. It is “power beyond measure”, a power within every person that impels us to reach for and achieve brilliance, beauty, wisdom, ethereal truth, love like only God can love. It is Power, a Spirit within, that exalts each of us to the heights of the divine; a Power, A Spirit, that like a “wind beneath our wings” enables us to climb the sky and perch on mountain peaks – all toward the end, the goal, the dream, that each of us can do what we were born to do: reflect in our own unique way the Glory of God within us all.