Author: Gerry Palermo

Camino Reflection 3.

Pentecost approaches again. By ordinary accounting the 1,990th Pentecost. Give or take.

Said another way, the Holy Spirit has been trying for a very long time to get us to grow in wisdom and stature. Of late we have resisted growing.

To put it in layman’s terms: when roller staking uphill, you either climb or go backwards.

Eek!

The answer is plain. Each year we sing it although we barely try to actually understand it nor apply its message.

The necessary sin of Adam. The necessary sin of Adam destroyed completely by the death of Christ.

O happy fault! Earned so great and glorious a Redeemer. Such contradiction! Yet, like the cross, it plays a necessary role!!

So little contemplation of this mystery. The Holy Spirit must be quite frustrated by our failure to contend with this truth. 1,990 times over.

People need space to grow and learn and make mistakes. That’s it in a nutshell.

Instead, today, the church follows a legislative path. This is our path, though which we’ve fallen into the temptation of the desert.

Virtue is learned. Vice is its own repulsion.

Legislation is a cheap proxy for our role as Mother Church. Behold your mother, behold your son. The patience of God is for the salvation of souls. The Church wishes to dispense patience?

Forbid it, Lord!

People need room to grow and learn. People need to find each other in this most.

Remember the wisdom of Solomon.

People need a patient Mother.

Peace be with you,

Deacon Gerry

Peace be with you,

Deacon Gerry

After two days in Santiago de Compostela (one if you count sleeping 18 hours as not a day), on to Bilbao. When I started this trip I had only a vague idea of how to return to BIQ Biarritz, the airport for the return home.

But since I gave half a thought to walking the Camino via the Northern route, this is a happy bus trip East. From the comfort of a coach, sightsee what I could not walk. The French Way was quite the walk and family forbids I walk yet another segment. Thou doest protest too much 😃

I want to see the ocean again.

Peace be with you,

Deacon Gerry

Camino Reflection 1.

The gift of Pentecost is to understand. A reversal of the effects of the Tower of Babel, chaos, confusion, alliance, acquisition and advantage.

The gift of understanding from the source of all understanding and truth, God himself as gift. Jesus’ return to the Father so that the Consoler will come is not a sign of weakness or insufficiency as if God can only spare a third of himself at a time.

No, Father and Spirit gifted Son in the Incarnation. Father and Son gift the Spirit in Pentecost.

All are present in the Father.

God holds nothing back. In His entirety he gives.

The Camino is a gift of understanding. From planning, arrival, onset, continuation, to climax in Holy Mass of the Pilgrim in the Chapel of Pilgrims on the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord.

Jesus returns that he and the Father gift us again.

Stories and insights, yes. Over time, I’m in no rush. But you should know of all I could remember, of those I was reminded of and those on the Way, prayers and supplication.

We stand and exist by the power of God, in the love of God, and for the reflexive and responsive love we were created into and for.

Babel has ended. Divine insight is ours as gift: personal and in the person of God.

Be set free and like in the gift of understanding.

Peregrinos, return in understanding.

Peace be with you,

Deacon Gerry