Vandy won! And I finished my grad school applications (I'm waiting on one recommender, but I finished all the apps themselves). And God is good. All the time.

I'm praying for you!

:)

So yesterday, my computer decided to quit functioning so I couldn't post anything to your blog. But, I'm thankful for all my friends, for all the support and guidance they've given me, and for teaching me how to love like Christ.

For today, here is a quote which quotes Monsignor Ronald Knox, who is the bomb.com:

“In the 1950s at the first Mass of a newly ordained priest, Ronald Knox, Monsignor Ronald Knox, preached and he said words which are true as well today. He said that everyone knows that the best Mass which is offered is the one in which all of the faithful walk out at the end of Mass and ask themselves, ‘Who said Mass today, what priest was it?’ We are meant to lose ourselves in order that Christ the High Priest can shine through. In order that we can see the mysteries which are being carried out on the altar.”

—	Fr. John Berg’s homily at the 25th anniversary Mass of the FSSP on October 18, 2013, in Rome.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Day 8: I am thankful for Vanderbilt (University) Catholic and for the Catholic and Christian community at Vanderbilt. This community has molded me into a better image of Christ and drawn me closer to Him.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Day 7: I'm thankful for my life and for all its ups and downs.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Day 6: I'm thankful for everyone who has helped me apply to grad schools.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Day 5: I'm thankful for all the beauty in the world.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Day 4: I'm thankful that God uses all things for His glory, including Vanderbilt football.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Day 3: I am thankful for Vanderbilt and for all the opportunities I have had here.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Day 2: I'm thankful for my family, especially my parents and my siblings. They've been there for me through everything and they've taught me a lot.

I'm praying for you!

:)

 From now until Thanksgiving, I'm just going to name some stuff I'm thankful for. If you want to think about stuff you're thankful for, too, that's awesome.

Day 1: I'm thankful for God's guidance in my life. Over the past year, He's showered me with amazing friends, amazing experiences, and even the grace to hear His voice directly, and I have such a clearer sense of direction in my life right now than I've ever had before.

I'm praying for you!

:)

In his homily today, Fr. Baker mentioned something about Jesus sweeping us off our feet, and I just got stuck with an image in my head of Jesus coming along and scooping me up into His arms. And I think the first image that came in my head was of the Church like the Bride of Christ and Jesus just sweeping each of us into His arms. But the other image was that of a child who's fallen down. And even though he looks hurt, he's got a look on his face that says, "I want to do this alone. I'm a big kid." So, his dad stands there and watches him, but the second the kid starts to cry, when he screams out, "Daddy!" his dad swoops in without hesitation and scoops him into his arms.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Since he clings to me in love, I will free him, protect him for he knows my name. - Psalm 91.

This is probably my favorite part of the entire Bible. And I wish I could read the original text of it and understand it, because it was probably even more beautifully written originally than in the translation.

I'm praying for you!

:)

IT'S SUNDAY OF AWAKENING!!

I tried to post today's and yesterday's posts in advance, but Blogger was down :(

Anyway, Awakening was amazing, as always. Jeff has a lot of great things to say about it.

And as always, I'm praying for you!

:)

I'm praying for you!

:)

I'm praying for you!

:)

There is one saint in the calendar of the Church who has never been associated with the idea of punishment: even justice is alien to her, compared with the ideas of mercy and love. She is the one whom Catholics know as Our Lady.
Yet it is around this figure that the bitterest conflict has always been waged. No statues in Puritan England were more certain to be destroyed than hers, and the same was true in Spain in the 1930s. Ministers in their pulpits may question the divinity of Christ and cause no stir outside a few country rectories — but when the doctrine of the Assumption, which has been established as a feast of the Church for more than a thousand years, is defined as a dogma, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York claim that the division of Christendom has been widened. They believe in the resurrection of the dead — but to suggest that an actual resurrection has already taken place seems to them blasphemous.
No storm was raised when, a hundred years ago, Newman wrote: “Original sin had not been found in her, by the wear of her senses, and the waste of her frame and the decrepitude of years, propagating death. She died, but her death was a mere fact, not an effect; and, when it was over, it ceased to be.”
Temporarily there were other issues: the Protestant churches were worried by the idea of evolution, even the age of the earth was a cause of scandal because it was believed to contradict Genesis. But the conflict of science and religion always passes sooner or later: what remains is this mysterious savage war around the only figure of perfect human love.
What is the explanation? One theologian has explained it, for our generation, as a distrust of the concrete. We are so used to abstractions. Words like Democracy and Liberty can be used in quite opposite senses without arousing attention: they go in and out of our ears like air. So with religious belief. The Supreme Being, the Trinity, The Creator of all things, such phrases may once have excited thought, but they do so no longer. Even the concrete name Christ has become so diluted, into the Great Teacher, the First Communist, and the like, that only a small amount of opposition is raised by the idea that Christ is God — it is rather like saying Truth is God.
But the statement that Mary is the Mother of God remains something shocking, paradoxical, physical.
” — Graham Greene, ‘Our Lady and her Assumption’, 1951, in Ian Thomson, ed., Articles of Faith: The collected Tablet journalism of Graham Greene, 19-20
I'm praying for you!

:)

This is just one of the things Jesus told me during my accidental pilgrimage with Jake last spring:

I am Love. Love is not proud. But it knows its own talents, and it is not afraid to speak the truth. So do not be afraid to speak, when you know what must be said.

I'm praying for you!

:)

In Genesis 37, Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. It's a pretty familiar story. But a part I hadn't thought much about before is 13:26-27.

Judah said to his brothers, "What is to be gained by killing our brother and concealing his blood? Come, let us sell him to these Ishmaelites, instead of doing away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers agreed.

He is acknowledging that Joseph is his brother, his own flesh, and he's suggesting they sell him into slavery. And he really doesn't seem to be suggesting that Joseph won't die, merely that they won't be the ones to kill him.

This seems utterly ridiculous at first glance - you're acknowledging your brotherhood, so you're going to do one evil thing instead of another evil thing, when you could just not do evil at all?

I think it's supposed to seem ridiculous. It's supposed to make us remember that we always have a choice to do good, to refrain from evil altogether.

But a lot of times, we tell ourselves that we'll just do the thing we consider less wrong and everything will be fine.

It's one reason so many Catholics use contraception. It's less wrong than abortion, right?

I don't do cocaine or heroin. I just get really drunk. That's less wrong, right?

I didn't yell at my friend. I just silently loathed her for a while. Less wrong?

And the problem is, we're way more worried about the relative wrongness of our actions than about the rightness of our actions.

It shouldn't matter if getting super drunk isn't quite as sinful as snorting coke. We shouldn't do either one. We shouldn't be concerned about avoiding the most evil stuff. We should be concerned about doing the right thing.

At the point where we're debating between sins, we've already decided to sin.

If he's your brother, you don't throw him in the cistern. You don't kill him. You don't sell him into slavery. And you shouldn't need a list of what NOT to do to him. Because you should love him.

I'm praying for you!

:)

“Our Lady has 117 titles. She selected this title at Fatima:
“I am the Lady of the Rosary”.
St. Francis de Sales said the greatest method of praying
IS - Pray the Rosary.
St. Thomas Aquinas preached 40 straight days in Rome,
Italy on just the Hail Mary.
St. John Vianney, patron of priests, was seldom seen without a rosary in his hand.
"The rosary is the scourge of the devil" - Pope Adrian VI.
"The rosary is a treasure of graces" - Pope Paul V.
Padre Pio the stigmatic priest said: “The rosary is THE WEAPON”
Pope Leo XIII wrote 9 encyclicals on the rosary.
Pope John XXIII spoke 38 times about our Lady and the Rosary. He prayed 15 decades daily.
St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort wrote:
“The rosary is the most powerful weapon to touch the
Heart of Jesus, Our Redeemer, who so loves His Mother.””

—	The Pieta Prayerbook

I'm praying for you!

:)

'But the Lord had given her such a living faith that when she heard some person saying they would have liked to have lived at the time Christ our God walked in the world, she used to laugh to herself. She wondered what more they wanted since in the most Blessed Sacrament they had Him just as truly present as He was then.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

I'm praying for you!

:)

“If you will be honest about your life, you will admit that God has never failed you. He has never let you down. He may not have always given you what you wanted or orchestrated your life according to your desires or taken your advisement on His providential care for you, but when it comes down to it, He has never, ever failed you. You may have felt distant from God at times, but He’s never abandoned you. He has never left you or forsaken you. You have never been without His love and sovereign care.”

—	Matt Chandler

I'm praying for you!

:)

“Do you realize
that Jesus is there
in the tabernacle
expressly for you-
for you alone? He
burns with the
desire to come into
your heart… don’t
listen to the demon,
laugh at him, and
go without fear to
receive the Jesus of
peace and love…”
― St. Thérèse de Lisieux

I'm praying for you!

:)

Happy All Souls' Day!



I'm praying for you!

:)

You can't be half a saint. - St. Therese de Lisieux

Happy All Saint's Day (again)

I'm praying for you!

:)

HAPPY ALL SAINTS DAY!!!



I'm praying for you!

:)