I heard these 'vows' in my Irish Catholic household: Vow of Poverty, Vow of Chastity, Vow of Obedience. I guess I was checking out a career in the clergy since my first cousin, Ann Tumulty, was a Dominican Nun. When I reminded my brothers and sisters about this doctrine, none remembered ever hearing it.
Irony, of course, is the religious reality of the Irish.
So when Pope Frank advanced to the throne, and my family was struggling with alcoholism, substance abuse, divorce, nervous breakdowns, all the usual suspects in the human condition, I recalled this doctrine of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Mostly because I could never remember the third tenet and that in itself was significant. Obedience was never my thing.
to be continued....
and my brother suffered the same malady.
Discipline and Desire, and all those human behaviors inbetween, determine the strong and the weak, and the 'fall from grace,' we all manage to take.
I offer this. Do not take Vows or promises you cannot keep. Do not suffer fools who do not understand that in this life, sorrow is life or life is sorrow.
And, our many misfortunes and emotional rollercoasters of stormy seas and any emotional ocean is marked by epochs of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
We must suffer poverty, etc.
We must endure poverty, etc.
As this contrast shows us how to manifest wealth, health, sexual healing.
Our society is riddled by sexual violence, aggression, ME FIRST iconoclasms of haves or have nots, but I say, you will be all those things, and then we are all one again.
Irony, of course, is the religious reality of the Irish.
So when Pope Frank advanced to the throne, and my family was struggling with alcoholism, substance abuse, divorce, nervous breakdowns, all the usual suspects in the human condition, I recalled this doctrine of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
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| Pope's Quarters, The Vatican |
Mostly because I could never remember the third tenet and that in itself was significant. Obedience was never my thing.
to be continued....
and my brother suffered the same malady.
Discipline and Desire, and all those human behaviors inbetween, determine the strong and the weak, and the 'fall from grace,' we all manage to take.
I offer this. Do not take Vows or promises you cannot keep. Do not suffer fools who do not understand that in this life, sorrow is life or life is sorrow.
And, our many misfortunes and emotional rollercoasters of stormy seas and any emotional ocean is marked by epochs of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
We must suffer poverty, etc.
We must endure poverty, etc.
As this contrast shows us how to manifest wealth, health, sexual healing.
Our society is riddled by sexual violence, aggression, ME FIRST iconoclasms of haves or have nots, but I say, you will be all those things, and then we are all one again.

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