Actually today's morning insight doesn't have anything specific to do with St. Francis - I expect you all know who St. Francis is - and he is one of my go-to patron saints. His home town of Assisi is one of my favorite places on earth, and I think, one of the holiest places on earth. Today is his feast day.

But here's my morning insight: Superman has a big problem.

What's that, you ask? Well, did you ever think about the fact that bullets bounce off of Superman (this is more obvious in the older versions of the story). But if that were real, it would pretty much always lead to some innocent person getting shot with a bullet bouncing off of Superman. That's why bullet proof vests cannot just be made of some really hard material. You can't have a bullet proof vest that bullets bounce off of - bullet proof vests have to ABSORB the bullet.

It's the same with a goalie on a a soccer team. The goalie can't just head butt every ball that is heading toward the goal, because by bouncing that ball back into play, you never really get rid of the risk of being scored on. So the goalie has to CATCH the ball.

And I've discovered that it's the same with suffering. If we echo suffering off of us, spreading it around to others, then we just cause the people closest to us to suffer too. We are not meant to reflect suffering, we are meant to absorb it. In Catholic-ese we talk about offering it up, or adding our suffering to the suffering of Christ on the cross, but however you think of it, the real Christian response to suffering is not resistance, anger, protest, complaining, or retaliation - it's to absorb it for the sake of those around us. I've become convinced that a man's job (and not to say it's not also a woman's job, but go with me here) - a man's job is to be the goalie for his family. Or if you prefer the ballistic analogy, to be the bullet proof vest for his family. To absorb that bullet and net let it get through to the family. To catch that ball and not let it get into the goal of the home.

Thoughts...?