Thaw

I know I decided to use some colorful pictures to scare away winter, but I was cheered by the morning sun reflected in this ditch where for the first time this year water was running freely.  Later I saw robins, a blue jay, and a cardinal singing his heart out.
With our Holy Father Francis' anniversary of election coming up Thursday, I've been reading a lot about him.  America begins its March 3 editorial,  "In the Joy of the Gospel  Pope Francis proclaims that the church must be a place 'where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.'"  His intention is to include rather than exclude.  Not a small remnant of the faithful, but Joyce's "Catholic means here comes everybody."
In his August interview he said, "The church that we should be thinking about is the home of all, not  a small chapel that will hold only a small group of selected people....Instead of being a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads,
that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent."
Our Holy Father Francis insists, "The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives."  A welcome thaw is underway.