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Letters... We reprint here some letters we have received over the last several months: Thank you for the February 2004 issue of Miles Jesu. I found the article on orphans especially interesting, as my father was an alcoholic. He took his own life when i was 16. Back in 1939, alcoholism was not known to be a disease: heavy drinkers can lay off alcohol when they please; alcoholics cannot. Fortunately, aunts and uncles on both sides of the family took turns at giving me a home until i was old enough to enlist in the U.S. army... Cordially yours in our Lord Jesus, To whom it may concern, The Lord is full of wonderful surprises. I work for Father Peter M. Rookey who has the gift of healing. One day not too long ago I looked up from my desk to see two priests come into the office. In a few minutes I learned one was the Archbishop of Thailand. He had heard of Father Peter’s gift and was here to ask for Father’s blessing. After Mass and the blessing which he had asked for because his eyesight was failing I had occasion to talk to him and I said I don’t know how to address an Archbishop, please forgive me. He said, “I am only a priest.” This humility made my soul cry...When I go to the office I always try to remember to offer his request to the Lord at Mass. What a holy, humble man, I thought. Then yesterday I received your publication which I subscribe to and what do I see but a beautiful article about Archbishop Khai and what he has endured for the Lord. What an inspiration to holiness he is. Please pray his eyesight might improve and he may not lose it. Yours in Christ, The following is a letter from Dan Osborn, a Miles Jesu seminarian in Rome. Dear Friends and Family, Blessed be the Name of Jesus! You were all in my prayers in a special way on February 2nd, the Feast of the Presentation. On that day, i was blessed with the opportunity to take part in the candle procession in St. Peter’s Basilica during the Holy Father's Mass for Consecrated men and women. At those events, it is clear how truly Catholic is the Church Our Lord founded on St. Peter. And what a gift it is to study in Rome, the geographical heart of the Church. Thank you all for your prayers and monthly financial support, which make our seminary studies here possible! The liturgical celebration for the Feast of the Presentation was very moving. A few moments before the Mass was to begin, the Holy Father emerged at the foot of the famous sculpture of the Pieta, Virgin Mother holding her Crucified Son. He was perhaps twenty yards away from me. I thought of how similar the Holy Father now is to Jesus in his Passion, and how much consolation and motherly tenderness Pope John Paul II also finds in the arms of the Blessed Mother. “Totus Tuus,” (Totally Yours) as his papal motto says. He is as mentally sharp as ever, but his physical ailments have reduced him to a dependency on others which reminds one of the apparent “helplessness” of the Babe of Bethlehem. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life, then, to see the Holy Father juxtaposed against the Pieta – a statue that so richly embodies the pope’s present union with Christ – both in the weakness and dependency of His birth and in His loving acceptance of the sacrifice of Calvary. There was one more unforgettable blessing after the Mass when i was able to greet the Holy Father and kiss his ring. Praise God for this grace! What was most striking was how simple and unassuming a man he is. His Christ-like humility reminds me of a saying I once heard, that “no great man ever thought himself so.” And this Pope will surely one day be declared just that: Pope John Paul II the Great. |