There are 75 million Americans who voted for Mr. Biden. There are 71 million Americans who voted for President Trump. There is a divide, there are passionate people. There is an election that had been lost; an election won. And in the midst of all this I am reading “The Immortal Irishman” by Timothy Egan. The books details the life and times of Thomas Francis Meagher, from his rise as an Irish nationalist and leader of the Young Irelanders in the Rebellion of 1848 (in the wake of the Great Hunger ((Irish: an Gorta Mór ; outside of Ireland known as the potato famine), his conviction of sedition, sentencing to death (but instead exiled for life to Van Diemen’s Land/Tasmania in Australia), his escape to the United States, his leadership of the Irish Brigade during the American Civil War, and his final adventure to Montana.
Was it worth it?
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Did you know that gratitude has been scientifically studied? In just the last 10 years, there have been hundreds of studies that have documented the social, physical, and psychological benefits of gratitude. The graphic and the following text all point to some of the benefits of practicing gratitude: 
Today has an 
Part of the blessing being a parish priest is that you are invited into some of the most intimate moments of a family’s life. There is perhaps none more intimate and intense than the moments when illness passes through uncertain diagnosis, to one which blurs into the final days of a life. It is part of a life of ministry to be into a family whose loved one’s days are numbered. It is a privilege to journey with the family are they prepare for the loss that surely and steadily this way comes. In those times, Hope can seem more tentative, more distant; perhaps hovering on the edge of disappointment. 
In the course of celebrating Mass we come to the distribution of Communion – during these times of the coronavirus pandemic. At my parish many precautions are taken as part of the distribution of Holy Communion: sanitizing hands of the minister, wearing masks, standing behind a plexiglass shield with a hand pass through – and the Bishop has asked that all the faithful please receive in the hand and not on the tongue. Still we try to be accommodating as best we can. If someone want to receive on the tongue, I will ask them to receive in the hands, but if they insist, I simply ask them to wait until the end of the line so that they are the last to receive. They can then receive on the tongue, following which I am able to again sanitize my hands. 
friarmusings 