text: Dennis, I remember well a very bitter older woman who was really outrageous in her condemnation of others in the parish. She attended everything, daily Mass, Rosary, Benediction, everything. She was a one woman brood of vipers. 
  
  Then we had a parish renewal weekend. I deliberately engineered it so that she would be in the same sharing group as a young, single mum. Over the course of the weekend, the older lady heard the very sad story of the young Mum. She changed. She got a glimpse of her own cruelty and stupidity. The two women became close friends thereafter and it was such a joy to see. The poisonous words stopped.
  
  I believe that, that older woman had been disobedient to her very self for decades, disobedient to her God given feminine inclinations and natural instincts. She had been taught to disregard the Christ within her. The result was that she became miserable and brought misery to those around her. 
  
  The one common denominator for all of them is a lack of joy.