A reader asks today, “How do you determine what you write and when?” This is a frequently asked question, so I will write a post about it. In that is part of the answer. If I am asked something frequently, eventually I will blog the answer. Because this is my own personal blog, I do not have to answer to an editor. Neither do I have any large donors who prod me one way or the other. I choose what to write about all by myself and the only one prodding me is God, albeit sometimes through my readers. Everything I do, I try to do in accordance with what He expects from me. Choosing what to blog about is no exception to that. The real question, though, ultimately, is “WHY” do I write at all?  First, a bit about the “how” of it, but this can’t be explained without adding the “WHY” of it.

Because of mental disorder, the decisions made in my brain can be rather flighty. It is not my brain that reflects my will, though. My will is in my heart. It is my will that keeps the blog going. Individual posts, though, are reflections both of (1) my will that is in my heart, and (2) of my flighty brain which is rather broken. Sometimes my brain makes bad choices, but my intentions are always to do what God expects of me and I find solace in knowing that no matter how I may mess up, God’s plan will carry on. He doesn’t need me. I need Him. This blog is a reflection of that need that I have for Him and of my desire that others know about Him somehow, through the various news events that occur every day.

God has made me to be very “flesh”-conscious, which is why I’m a Eucharistic convert and a Passionist. When people die, it tears at God’s Flesh in Jesus, and it tears at me. Wherever death is making headlines in the news, it tears at me, because it tears at Jesus. People kill other people because of sin and ignorance. There isn’t much I can do about the sin. There is something I can do about the ignorance. At the same time, my whole life is in the Mass, as it should be for every Catholic. The Mass is my life. It should be for yours, too.

My post responding to how EWTN is covering the Israeli-Hamas conflict is an example of trying to stop the killing that tears at Jesus’ Flesh.

My post responding to Dr. Jeff Mirus is my attempt to minimize damage to the pro-life movement, which is trying to stop the killing that tears at Jesus’ Flesh.

My post on the rainbow as God’s logo has to do with identity in God’s will. Many who reject that identity, who embrace disorder in the area of the passions, have tried to co-opt the rainbow. That co-opting of our identity in Christ is tearing at Jesus’ Flesh.

I try to promote unity, and I listen to what the Vatican is saying. Sometimes I post press releases from my friend Rick Santorum, or I answer a question from a reader as I am doing in this post, or mention Catholics who are doing good things, and who have good answers to tough questions, but mostly I write about the things that are ripping at Jesus’ Flesh and I try to make this blog a part of my own personal responsibility in reparation. I am an impatient Passionist, and that is rather yucky, so I have to learn patience. Writing about all these things is good practice in learning patience. I pray the rosary daily and try to put myself under the mantle of Our Sorrowful Mother at the Foot of the Cross in order to learn the patience I so need to develop in myself….with God’s help and with the help of our Blessed Mother.

Stories and events and conversations with readers and challenges against the Church are all things that kind of drop in my lap constantly every day, and when I see something that jumps out at me as something that I feel literate enough to address, I address it. But it is all the Mass in my life. Whether it comes out that way to others, I have no idea, but that is where I am in it.

I relate very much to the trial of Servant of God Fulton Sheen, who said:

Whenever there is silence round about me, by day or night, I am startled by a cry. It came down from the Cross the first time I heard it, and I went out and searched and found a Man in the throes of Crucifixion, and I said, “I will take you down.” I tried to take the nails out of his feet, but He said, “Let them be, for I cannot be taken down until every man, woman and child come together to take me down.” “But,” I said, “What can I do? I cannot bear Your cry.” And He said, “Go into the world and tell every man that you meet, there is a Man on the Cross.”

Applying this to the news events of the day is mainly what I try to do.