Fr. Jerry Pokorsky: Responding to Insults

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture, May 01, 2023

Fr. Jerry Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington who has also served as a financial administrator in the Diocese of Lincoln. Trained in business and accounting, he also holds a Master of Divinity and a Master’s in moral theology. …

Consider this unexpected spiritual dynamic: As the culture sinks into wickedness, irrational sensitivity to criticism increases. The “woke snowflakes” are not alone. We too have become hypersensitive. Do you remember when grandmothers could get away with saying to their grandchildren, “You keep up that crying, and I’ll give you something to cry about?” What do grandparents know about raising children?

But sometimes run-of-the-mill bad people are more responsive to correction than the self-righteous.

The funeral home was outside the parish boundaries and needed a volunteer priest for the wake service. I was young, zealous—and naive. A woman, advanced in years, had died, a gypsy matron. When I arrived, I could not locate the funeral director, conveniently lost in the cosmos. He failed to provide the Catholic prayer booklets. I was on my own. …

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