It’s Iimi! Rapprochement (The Long Goodbye: Part I)

The Dhumzur family is making the final preparations for their move. But Kismetta finds herself excluded from watching her brothers due to Sumeja’s fear of them being corrupted. Left to hang out, she has a chance encounter with Najiyah. Will this end in discord? Or is there a chance for… Rapprochement

It’s Iimi! Bear One Another’s Burdens

Between answering barrages of attacks against her faith and being asked to carry heavy secrets she can’t reveal to her friends overwhelms Iimi, who thinks she shouldn’t complain because her friends “have it worse.” She learns that her struggles matter to her friends.

And Kismetta gains some insights into the Christian approach to dealing with resentments.

It’s Iimi! Lone Wolf and Bug: Handcart at the Gates of Heck

All Iimi wanted to do was take a nap before youth group. But Chela wanted to wrestle. That resulted in both of them being sent on an errand. She’s not sure what’s worse: a hyperactive little sister or the third degree her friends give her along the way.

This was an experiment with telling a story with apologetics in it, instead of making the apologetics itself the story.

Post-Comic notes: The title and the cover is a parody of the manga and live action movies, Lone Wolf and Cub. (I don’t particularly recommend them to the Catholic reader as they tend to be excessive in the violence, sex and nudity categories and would probably get an O rating from the USCCB.

The main character is Ogami Ito... hence the parody Oga-Iimi-to.

TFTD: Have We Lost the Will To Fight?

As the shouting fades out on the Catholic blogs, I look at the complaints against the Pope and the synod and find myself wondering—when did we stop being members of the Church Militant and start becoming members of the Church Whining? I mean we have had saints who have had to fight real heresies, real laxness, real abuses—all of which had lasted longer than the life of the saint. Sometimes they had to pay for them with their lives. But they always had to work hard without ceasing in combating error and promoting the truth.

But today? A leaked unofficial document from a small group of the synod, the media misrepresentation of said document, and people are complaining that the Church will never be able to undo the damage, that Pope Francis has lost his chance to win over conservatives, that he will no longer be able to lead the Church effectively.

So, are we going to just throw in the towel? Concede the battleground to the enemy? Blame the Pope?

If our forefathers in the faith had behaved this way, there would be nothing but heresy out there today.

Let’s face it. There are a lot of lies told about the Church that never go away. The concept of the Middle Ages, the Crusades, the Inquisition . . . and let’s not forget the modern falsehoods: The so-called “Silence of Pius XII” or the sexual abuse scandal etc. Does that mean we should blame the Pope and bishops for the ignorance of others? Should we complain because we’re undergoing hostility?

To behave like this is to abandon the fight, leaving the Magisterium isolated.

If we’re going to be like our forefathers in faith, we have to realize there will always be an “all hands on deck” situation where we are called to be the witness to the Church where we are in the world.

Maybe we should consider the possibility that the reason error seems to be running so rampant is not because the Pope dropped the ball, but rather that we have dropped that ball. That we’re expecting a perfect world without the toil.

That’s not reasonable. Christ gave all of us a mission to spread the good news. That’s not just the people off in Darkest Africa. That’s also the de-christianized here as well. The “Nones” and the “not practicing” are the fastest growing group in the country. Why are we blaming the bishops when it may be our job to reach out to them?

Instead of bewailing the media distorting the teaching of the synod and blaming the Pope and bishops, why not consider helping them out?

And Now We Wait… and Pray

Extra omnes (Everybody out)

The Cardinals have entered the conclave to begin the process of choosing a new Pope.  Many of us have picked up the apps, have registered at Pope alarm for notification of the new Pope, and  adopted a cardinal. 

(If you're curious, I was assigned Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, and for him I pray that he be guided to choose a man who would best serve the Church in the eyes of God, and if he is personally chosen to be Pope that he guide the Church wisely and well).

So now with all the instant media updates, we are now faced with… having to wait.  That's the antithesis of the modern technology.  We need to wait for the Cardinals to cast their ballots and pray until they have selected the next Pope.  We want to know NOW!  So we see the media filling the airwaves with speculation.  We can't stand silence.  But the conclave exists cut off from Twitter, RSS feeds and text messages and until we see the white smoke, we won't know anything.

This is where we need to slow down, practice patience and wait for the next Pope.

We can either pace the floors or we can devote our time to prayer.  Prayer for the conclave, for the Church, for the world, for our family and friends.

Let's have faith in God.  Let's remember Matt 16:18 and Matt 28:20.  We don't know what the future will bring, but we know the Church will continue to be under His protection.