51
not a toothpaste flavor (or is it?)
10/11/2025 - before daily Mass - readings
[Not very legible today!] [took a photo of the page to prove it]
7:33am (sat down 7:30am) — Lord, I would like an indulgence for the poor souls in purgatory... I did consider walking1 but the deciding factor (besides the slight chill) is that I am oncall + should not go on a very long walk (or a 15 minute walk to someplace I stay a long time) w/o the laptop. But if we are being honest I did not want to walk in the cold! It was warm last week and I have not [even] taken the air conditioners in yet.
From here in the basement2 I hear the sussuration of traffic on the main road, birds chirping, ...a helicopter?..., and on other Saturday mornings sometimes the exterior door + the footsteps on the stairs of a priest or custodian/groundskeeper (today it is a retired priest; I passed him in the pews before the tabernacle on my way to the stairs to this basement chapel) — if there were people in the basement church-hall I would hear them — or if the organ upstairs were playing, but not the echoing murmur of the people praying “An act of consecration to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal”. I come down here not for reassurance (well, yes, sometimes for reassurance as though the beating heart of all that is could not console me from just anywhere) but because human speech is distracting and also I have a question.3
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity wrote in a letter:
“Pray that God might increase my capacity for suffering” —
Lord, I did not finish writing it before (I smile here, not knowing how to phrase it) “You gave me a little light”. I had thought of and discarded several metaphors yesterday (if it were raining golden coins one would make a bag of one’s skirts to catch them) (if it were raining one would desire the roof + gutters to properly shift it into a rain-barrel for watering a garden)4
Here is the image (in words) that came to me just now:
a person’s capacity for strong drink.
(On my own now, I think of the woman in an Indiana Jones movie drinking shots; she drank a man under the table.)5 This in itself in the literal sense is not per se admirable!
I will take up the cup of salvation [Ps. 116:13], which in these last years [i.e. lately] I understand to be can you drink the cup that I will drink? [Mt 20:22-23] “We can!” — you shall... [ibid, or Mk 10:39] Father if it is possible let this cup pass from me (but not my will but Yours be done) [Lk 22:42 (or Mt 26:39 or Mk 14:36)] he will make them drink it to the dregs, foaming and spiced [Ps 75 - in the breviary]
If we do not have the capacity we stagger and fall.
If we lack the taste for it, it is a nasty drink (no one sells6 scotch-flavored toothpaste, but mint or fruit flavored) and one’s cheeks burn.
Blood of Christ inebriate me (no, dear, I know Yours has the accidents of wine) Passion of Christ strengthen me! but now I have to run upstairs to Mass in debt to You more and more each time (isn’t that what You like?)
[Well, either it makes sense to the reader as it stands, or I will have to write an entire essay explaining myself.]
I could have walked to church instead of driving this morning, and I thought of it last night, reading Scoot’s fiction prompts https://gibberish.substack.com/p/fff-long-walk — I cannot write fiction yesterday or today because, figuratively, hold music plays interrupted occasionally by a recorded voice saying “all of our representatives are helping other customers right now. your call is important to us.” but in fact all of our representatives are taking a long lunch and might not ever come back. I instead salted this entry with the prompts, for the amusement of Scoot.
of the church; it is built on a hill and part of the basement is ground floor.
This question is from https://carmelitequotes.substack.com/p/a-rendez-vous-with-the-crucified — although it seems I did not write down what my question was! (This is because it was answered before I put it into words and asked it, and while I was still writing down the context.) So the question does not exist. But the general groping-in-the-dark sense of it would have been: How am I to understand and explain this?
and several other metaphors which also did not suit and were not vivid enough to remember. I should take two seconds to explain what this is failing to convey: on the one hand, the felt value of suffering (well, I would need an essay to explain this, some other time; with the usual disclaimer “suffering in union with Christ”); on the other hand, that this request (as it is phrased) is not asking to be given more suffering but it is about what happens with what we are already given.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex28yJVgqss - However, there is nothing of value in this clip, and I’m sure everyone has seen it before, and the pre-roll ad might be terrible. Perhaps https://makeagif.com/gif/marion-takes-on-the-drinking-game-in-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-1981-hd-720p-PmlDf8 (the man, falling out of his chair) would be a better choice.
It seems that I am in error https://www.snopes.com/articles/469768/ad-whiskey-toothpaste/ Amazing. Let us pray for the repose of the soul of Don Poynter, and for the souls of all the faithful departed, while I’m at it.
This is magnificent, and not just because of the clever sprinkle of the FFF prompts. Thank you for including me, and thank you for sharing these reflections!
One can increase the capacity for suffering even if the amount of suffering isn't increased. One can have the capacity for drinking increased without having more to drink than one had before. But I really can't drink much so God understands and just gives me weird stuff to deal with.