Tales

In recent years

I've been writing
Easter and Christmas tales,

short stories exhibiting

from a given perspective

these signal seasons

in the Catholic calendar.

I say Catholic

and not Christian

because I think

there's a difference.

Somehow in the last five hundred years

we've diluted the concept

so that it's become easier

than at any point in history

after the early Roman years

to question

the validity

of the Catholic world,

ever since the schisms

became permanent,

not mere heresy

but believing relitigation
of basic doctrine

ignoring all previous instances

in favor of recent complaints

of the human frailty

was good enough,

which is also

how the latest slandering

of the Catholic church

has made it so difficult

for modern adherents
to be taken seriously,

why they continue to age

in the pews

and why the young

will be found

in the large families

of Latin masses

and scarcely elsewhere.

How does any of this
reflect the faith?

I don't know.

In the tales

it's easy enough to understand,

but apparently impossible

outside of them.

But it's the tales,

how they explain the faith,

that are important,

not my tales,

but what they represent,

which is the faith.

Maybe it never made sense to you,

maybe you grew up in a household

that scoffed at it

or for some other reason

you chose to reject it,

believing your good world

exists without it,

and yet it doesn't,

and never did.

Sometimes

what you don't understand,

what is bigger than you,

doesn't need your opinion,

a fact that is also catholic.