"He was a baby and a child, so that you may be a perfect man. He was wrapped in saddling cloths so that you be freed from the snares of death. He was in a manger so that you may be in the altar. He was on earth that you may be in the stars. He had no other place in the inn so that you may have many mansions in the heavens. “He, being rich, became poor for your sakes that through His poverty you might be rich”. (2 Cor 8:9) Therefore His poverty is our inheritance, and the Lord’s weakness is our virture. He chose to lack for Himself that He may abound for all. The sobs of that appalling infancy cleanse me, those tears wash away my sins. Therefore, Lord Jesus, I owe more to your sufferings because I was redeemed than I do to works for which I was created…. You see that He is in swaddling clothes. You do not see that He is in heaven. You hear the cries of an infant, but you do not hear the lowing of an ox recognizing its Master, for the ox knows his Owner and the donkey his Master’s crib. [Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 2.41-42]" - St. Ambrose

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:)

"Save souls for Jesus, so that He may be loved!" - St. Therese

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:)

“Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.”
– St.Maximilian Kolbe

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:)

“The poverty of Christ is richer than all the treasures of the world.”

— St. Bernard of Clairvaux

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:)

“In my deepest wound I saw Your glory, and it astounded me.”

— St Augustine

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:)

"Love is not synonymous with undifferentiated approval of everything the beloved person thinks and does in real life… . [nor is it] the wish for the beloved to feel good always and in every situation and for him to be spared experiencing pain or grief in all circumstances. “Mere ‘kindness’ which tolerates anything except [the beloved’s] suffering” has nothing to do with real love… . No lover can look on easily when he sees the one he loves preferring convenience to the good." - Josef Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love

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:)

“To be a servant of Christ is to be truly free.”

— Saint Agatha

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:)

“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time - waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God - it changes me.”

— C.S. Lewis

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“Begin to fulfill the commandments relating to small things, and you will come to fulfill the commandments relating to great things; everywhere small things lead to great things. Begin by fulfilling the commandment of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, or the tenth commandment relating to evil thought and desires, and you will eventually learn to fulfill all the commandments. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.”

— St. John of Kronstadt
From the book “My Life in Christ”

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The rest of that St. Augustine quote:

Late have I loved you,

Beauty so ancient and so new,

late have I loved you!

Lo, you were within,

but I outside, seeking there for you,

and upon the shapely things you have made

I rushed headlong,

I, misshapen.

You were with me but I was not with you.

They held me back far from you,

those things which would have no being

were they not in you.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness;

you flared, blazed, banished my blindness;

you lavished your fragrance,

I gasped, and now I pant for you;

I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst;

you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

—Augustine Confessions X.27

AKA:

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:)

“Be a Catholic: When you kneel before an altar, do it in such a way that others may be able to recognize that you know before whom you kneel.”

— St. Maximilian Kolbe

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:)

“You called me, you cried out, you shattered my deafness: you flashed, you shone, you scattered my blindness: you breathed perfume, and I drew in my breath and I pant for you: I tasted, and I am hungry and thirsty: you touched me and I burned for your peace.”

— St Augustine

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:)

Somebody on Tumblr wrote, "the catholic church encourages 7 year olds to drink blood every week but gay marriage is wrong." 

This was my reply:

The Catholic Church encourages everyone over the age of reason to consume Christ in the Eucharist as often as possible, and “gay marriage” is a literal impossibility. I was about to say those are completely unrelated, but the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life, so come along, children, and I shall explain Catholic teaching to you as best I can.

Firstly - the Eucharist. Catholics believe that in Mass, we transcend time and space and stand at the foot of the cross on Calvary. And everyone who has ever received or will ever receive the Eucharist is there - completely united to each other and Christ each and every time we participate in the Sacrament. When we receive the Eucharist, we receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. We unite ourselves to HIm. The Church is the body, Christ is the head, and we are all united in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is possible because Christ died for our sins and rose again so that we might be eternally united to Him in perfect joy. Pretty cool, right? In receiving His body, we become His body. Although we believe we are consuming human flesh and blood, it is not cannibalism for many reasons, but I’ll paraphrase the arguments made by thecatholicthing.org:

1) The Eucharist is life - We do not eat dead human flesh. We are receiving the living Christ in the Eucharist.

2)It’s the whole body and blood, not a part. Christ cannot be divided, and we receive Him in His entirety each time we receive the Eucharist. We are inviting Christ into our body and soul, not just a part of His body.

3) It’s His glorified body. We’re not receiving His earthly body or a resurrected corpse. We’re receiving His eternal body which is permanently united to His spirit, so that we truly receive all of Him each time we receive the Eucharist, including His soul and His divinity.

4) The Eucharist is not diminished by us consuming Him. Each one of us receives all of Christ every single time, and there is not “less” of Christ after we receive Him.

5) Really, the Eucharist consumes us. Instead of Christ becoming part of us when we eat and drink Him, we become part of Him - we join the Mystical Body of Christ.

6) It’s nonviolent. Christ sacrificed Himself for us, and His sacrifice and death makes our salvation, and therefore the Eucharist, possible, but we do not destroy, kill, or injure Christ when we receive the Eucharist.

In summary, the Eucharist unites us to Christ and to each other, as one body, and provides us with sustaining grace which allows us to live our lives in love of Christ and others and to accept an eternal home in heaven where we will be united to Christ and the entire Church in eternal, infinite joy (if we choose this place).

Now, on to marriage. Christ is the bridegroom to His bride, the Church. This is made evident throughout scripture, and the Eucharist is a beautiful representation of this reality. In the Eucharist, we (the Bride) receive Christ (the bridegroom) and in so doing, are joined to Him and incorporated into Him. We become one body with Christ, just as a husband and wife become one flesh. We are not many brides of Christ, although nuns and sisters individually share in the bridal nature of the Christ in a unique way, but we are all one bride, the Bride of Christ. Marriage is both an earthly representation of this relationship - Christ and His Church eternally bonded in mutual love, and an earthly representation of the love of God present in the Trinity. God is three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father begets the Son, the Son in turn loves the Father and submits to His perfect, loving Will, and their love is so profound that it is a third person - the Holy Spirit. In marriage, a husband and wife are joined into one flesh - still two separate persons as the Father and Son are separate persons, but mysteriously and wondrously joined into one flesh and one being by the love of Christ (they enter into marriage of their own free will, but it is Christ who joins them together). Their love is so intimate and so intense that new life flows out of it, just as the love of the Father and the Son flows out from them in the form of the Holy Spirit. The family then becomes an earthly image of the Trinity and a miniature representation of the Church.

Men and women have complementary anatomy and complementary “genius,” which is how we refer to the intellectual and spiritual gifts specific to each sex. The female genius, femininity, does not consist of wearing dresses or liking pink or playing with dolls, just as the male genius does not consist of playing sports or rough-housing or wearing too much plaid. It consists in gifts of graces, virtues, and understanding which are granted to men and women in different amounts and ways by the Holy Spirit. A lot of people much wiser than I have written a lot on this subject, and this is kind of a tangent, so I’ll let you do that research and reading on your own, but the main point is that men and women are different but completely equal in dignity and that our bodies, minds, and souls are made to complement each other, so that a husband and wife can help each other on the path to heaven.

Marriage was instituted by God when He joined Adam and Eve (whether they were really two specific historical figures is a separate debate), but it was elevated to a sacrament - an outward sign instituted by Christ to give us grace - by Christ. He said, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to His wife, and the two become one.” In marriage, a man and wife are made one, and this sacrament has several purposes:

1) Help each other grow in perfection - as I’ve mentioned, men and women complement each other mentally and spiritually, and the unique bond of marriage helps them to help each other reach heaven. To love is to will the ultimate good of the beloved, and the ultimate good is to attain perfect eternal joy with God in heaven, so if husband and wife truly love each other, then they are devoting their lives to each other’s salvation.

2) Unity - In marriage, the two become one. The married couple becomes an image of Christ and His Church and their love for each other radiates outward and teaches others how to love.

3) New life - as we’ve discussed, the family becomes an image of the Trinity when sex produces new life. The Church teaches that the family (NOT the individual) is the basic unit of society, and the marriage bond gives couples the grace, love, and support to bring new life into the world, sustain that life, and to prepare new souls for heaven. The family branching out and joining with other families becomes a miniature image of the unified nature of the Church.

Since Christ has instituted and defined marriage as a permanent (until death) union of a man and woman, the Church cannot change this definition. Marriage isn’t a social institution or something we made up. It is a glorious sacrament given to us by God, and even if we wanted to, even if everyone in the Church agreed that it should be defined differently, we couldn’t redefine it. In the book In Soft Garments, Monsignor Ronald Knox writes, “The Church does not forbid divorce. Almighty God forbids divorce, and all the Church does is shake her head and say there’s nothing she can do about it. The Church can no more prevent a divorced man who remarries from committing adultery than she can a man who falls off a precipice from breaking his neck.” (I’m quoting from memory, so a few words might not be exactly the same). Just as the Church cannot redefine marriage in a way that would allow for dissolution or divorce (an annulment declares that a marriage was invalid in the first place, not that it was valid and is now ended), She cannot redefine marriage to be a union between two members of the same sex. The Church does not define truth - She relates truth revealed to Her by God, and she cannot change it. “Gay marriage,” therefore, is not just wrong. It’s impossible. Whatever union two members of the same sex may enter into, it is simply not marriage.

It should be noted, however, that the Catholic Church teaches radical love of every single human being, including (and due to recent awareness of the issue, even especially) people who experience same-sex attraction. (SSA) The Catholic Church uses this term to describe people who might self-identify as gay or homosexual because we believe that your desires and temptations do not define you. We do not believe that you are a bad or inherently sinful person if you experience same-sex attraction or that you need to be “cured” of your homosexuality. Impulses, desires, and thoughts are often completely outside of our control, we all experience temptations, and recognizing your own personal temptations is much healthier psychologically and spiritually than trying to ignore them or pretend they don’t exist. The Church also believes in the ability of the grace of God working in our hearts to resist any temptation, no matter how strong, and she calls each and every person to avoid sin and to strive for holiness and love in everything we do. So persons who are tempted towards homosexual acts are urged to resist that temptation, because sex is a gift from God intended to be utilized only within the bonds of marriage between a husband and wife. In a similar way, all people are urged to resist the temptation to engage in sexual acts, regardless of sexual orientation, outside of the marriage bond. And we all sin. We all fail to live up to our full potential and we fail to love God and others. You are not a bad person if you sin. You are not permanently barred from grace, salvation, or the Church. Any sin, absolutely any, can be forgiven. The Church teaches that Christ loves each of us infinitely and is always reaching out to each and every one of us, inviting us to repent of our sins and to turn and follow Him, no matter how far we have fallen. And we are called as members of His Church and Body to love everyone and to extend that love and compassion to them as Christ extends it to us and to invite everyone to be united to Christ and the Church. Abigail Van Buren (source a little iffy) said, “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” We’re not out to make a bunch of difficult rules or to condemn people. We’re trying to love people so much that they end up perfectly united to Christ and the whole Church and perfectly recognizing their potential as sons and daughters of God.

So yes, we encourage 7-year-olds to drink blood, and we deny the validity of gay marriage, because we are inviting everyone to something so much better than this world has ever imagined. Sex is a great gift from God, and it is one that helps us to grow closer to each other and to Him within the bonds of marriage, so that someday, we might reach the wedding feast of the Lamb, the eternal joy of heaven where the entire Church will be forever united to our creator, our redeemer, and our beloved, who loves us more than anyone else in existence, who has a glorious will for each and every one of us, and who desires nothing more than to give us eternal, perfect joy with Him.

May the peace of Christ be with each of you that reads this, and if you have any questions about Church teaching, feel free to message me :)

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:)

“Don’t worry about tomorrow because the very same Heavenly Father who takes care of you today will have the same thought tomorrow and always… What does a child in the arms of such a Father have to fear? Be as children, who hardly ever think about their future as they have someone to think for them. They are sufficiently strong just by being with their father." - St. Padre Pio

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:)

“True patience consists in bearing calmly the evils others do to us”

— St. Gregory the Great

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"Look at the face of the other…
Discover that he has a soul, a history and a life, that he is a person and that God loves this person."

- Pope Benedict XVI

Part of what I've been trying to do this semester, especially because I'm riding the bus every day, is to never act like a person is invisible. That doesn't mean I talk to everyone I pass, but I try to notice everyone around me and smile or say hello when it seems appropriate. I've ended up having some conversations with homeless people or other random strangers at bus stops and other places. I told my sister-in-law that riding the bus was awful (because of the schedule and route) and she said, "Because of all the homeless people?" But that's definitely not it. We definitely need to start seeing people as human beings. After all, they are loved by God and as Fr. Baker pointed out, we might just see that person again in heaven. In fact, we hopefully will. 

I'm praying for you!

:)

You probably thought I forgot about this blog.

But I did not.

And I am back.

Today, Fr. Baker said that the "talents" in the Gospel are not the things God has given us or even the spiritual gifts or talents He has given us. Rather, the greatest gifts he has given each of us are other people - family, friends, co-workers, and even the strangers we pass on the street. Because human beings are the only things in this world that are immortal.

So thanks for being one of my talents. I thank God for you.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Sorry for the lack of posts

"At this point, I have nothing left.  But I still have my heart, and with that, I can always love." - Blessed Chiara Badano

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:)

“But I, miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had entreated chastity of You, and said, Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet. For I was afraid lest You should hear me soon, and soon deliver me from the disease of concupiscence, which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished.”

— Saint Augustine of Hippo

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"The ROSARY is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the Rosary is beyond description."
-Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Way to Inner Peace)

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:)

“Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.”
― Saint Thérèse de Lisieux

"A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride."
-C.S. Lewis

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:)

God's response to Hezekiah's prayers (2 Kings 19):

This is the word the LORD has spoken concerning him:

She despises you, laughs you to scorn,

the virgin daughter Zion!

Behind you she wags her head,

daughter Jerusalem.

Whom have you insulted and blasphemed,

at whom have you raised your voice

And lifted up your eyes on high?

At the Holy One of Israel!

Through the mouths of your messengers

you insulted the Lord when you said,

‘With my many chariots I went up

to the tops of the peaks,

to the recesses of Lebanon,

To cut down its lofty cedars,

its choice cypresses;

I reached to the farthest shelter,

the forest ranges.

I myself dug wells

and drank foreign waters,

Drying up all the rivers of Egypt

beneath the soles of my feet.’

“Have you not heard?

A long time ago I prepared it,

from days of old I planned it.

Now I have brought it about:

You are here to reduce

fortified cities to heaps of ruins,

Their people powerless,

dismayed and distraught.

They are plants of the field,

green growth,

thatch on the rooftops,

Grain scorched by the east wind.

I know when you stand or sit,

when you come or go

and how you rage against me.

Because you rage against me,

and your smugness has reached my ears,

I will put my hook in your nose

and my bit in your mouth,

And make you leave by the way you came.


“This shall be a sign for you:

This year you shall eat the aftergrowth,

next year, what grows of itself;

But in the third year, sow and reap,

plant vineyards and eat their fruit!

The remaining survivors of the house of Judah

shall again strike root below

and bear fruit above.

For out of Jerusalem shall come a remnant,

and from Mount Zion, survivors.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.


“Therefore, thus says the LORD about the king:

He shall not come as far as this city,

nor shoot there an arrow,

nor confront it with a shield,

Nor cast up a siege-work against it.

33By the way he came he shall leave,

never coming as far as this city,

oracle of the LORD.

I will shield and save this city

for my own sake and the sake of David my servant.”

I'm praying for you!

:)

“Start being brave about everything. Drive out darkness and spread light. Don’t look at your weaknesses. Realize instead that in Christ crucified you can do everything.”

— St. Catherine of Siena

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:)

I'm praying for you!

:)

I'm praying for you!

:)

Little way

“Little things done out of love are those that charm the Heart of Christ.” - St Therese de Lisieux

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:)

Love of self

When you refuse to love yourself, when you say, "I'm ugly" or "I'm worthless" you are saying that God is wrong, because in His eyes you are all beautiful and destined for the highest purpose, to be loved and to love.

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:)

What would it profit?

Fr. Baker gave a homily today about prioritizing God. The bible says, "what would it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his life?" We sell out Christ for so much less though - tv shows, momentary comfort, petty arguments, gossip. We can't just embrace the cross when someone asks us to choose between Christ and torture or between Christ and death. We cannot even hope to make the right choice then if we don't bear our daily crosses and put Christ first in our daily lives.

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:)

 "You know, O my God, I have never desired anything but to love You, and I am ambitious for no other glory."

- "Story of a Soul" - St. Therese of Lisieux, Pg 256 

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:)

St. Sabina

August 29 is the feast day of St. Sabina. She's recognized as a saint and martyr, but practically nothing is known about her life or her death.

So what can we learn from her? Probably humility. I doubt she's sitting in heaven fuming because her feast day isn't celebrated well or because people don't know her full story. We know she loved God on Earth and continues to live in love of him after death. And at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Becoming who we're meant to be

“We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be. The only problem is that there is also so much other stuff, typically fixations with how people perceive us, how to get more of the things that we think will make us happy, and with keeping our weight down. So the real issue is how do we gently stop being who we aren’t? How do we relieve ourselves of the false fronts of people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for power and security, the backpack of old pain, and the psychic Spanx that keeps us smaller and contained?

Here’s how I became myself: mess, failure, mistakes, disappointments, and extensive reading; limbo, indecision, setbacks, addiction, public embarrassment, and endless conversations with my best women friends; the loss of people without whom I could not live, the loss of pets that left me reeling, dizzying betrayals but much greater loyalty, and overall, choosing as my motto William Blake’s line that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love.” - Anne Lamott

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:)

Saints

"Don't be concerned with looking like a saint. BE a saint." - Fr. Baker

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:)

You are Rock

On Sunday, Fr. Baker talked about Peter being the rock of the Church and how the rock was a deciding factor in his conversion to Catholicism, that the Church is a solid foundation, even if rocks are not always comfortable to stand on. Everything else in the world shifts and changes and falls out from under our feet, but the Church is built on solid rock. Fr. Baker also mentioned the Israeli Catholics that are being persecuted and killed right now, and how even though many are fleeing and many are being murdered, none of them appear to be denying their faith, because the Rock is more certain than anything this life can offer. It's even more certain a footing than this life. And we identify that Church, that solid rock, by identifying Peter's successor and by standing with him.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Excerpt from St. Faustina's Diary

"My daughter, suffering will be a sign to you that I am with you."

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:)

Mysteries and small children

So I was trying to explain the concept of a mystery to my 10 year old cousin, because I was trying to explain transubstantiation (the conversion started with Old English, wove through about 50 other topics and ended up on mortal sins and the necessity of hell...) But no matter how I tried to explain it, she wasn't understanding. I finally realized it wasn't because she didn't hear the words coming out of my mouth. It was because she didn't see the paradox that most adults automatically see. You tell an adult that the substance changes without the accidents changing and they'll spend hours, days, or weeks puzzling over it, trying to figure out how that's possible. You explain the concepts of substance and accidents and then tell my 10 year old cousin the same statement and she just accepts it. I said, "and it's a mystery because we can't understand it." And she replied, "but you just explained it." I thought at first that she was young and so just not educated enough to recognize the paradoxical nature of God in the form of bread. But I realized, there is no paradox in the Eucharist. There is no paradox in God. The real problem with mysteries is that we can't comprehend the sheer simplicity of God. So if I see a paradox in transubstantiation and my cousin doesn't, I'm really the one not seeing straight. Maybe we just all need to have a little more of the simplicity of a child so we can avoid seeing paradoxes where there are none.

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on the way, some little boys came out of the city and jeered at him: “Go away, baldy; go away, baldy!” The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the children to pieces. - 2 Kings 2:23-24

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:)

 "A priest is a spiritual physician. Show him your wounds, without being ashamed, sincerely, openly with son-like trust and confidence; for the confessor is your spiritual father, who should love you more than your own father and mother; for Christ’s love is higher than any carnal love. He must answer to God for you."

- St. John of Kronstadt

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:)

"When people wish to destroy religion, they begin by attacking the priest, because where there is no priest, there is no sacrifice." - St. John Vianney

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:)

Anglican spirituality?

So that strange heretical church I told you about claimed to be holding on to their Anglican tradition and spirituality while still being in full communion with the Catholic Church. While their claim that they are at least in name part of an established group within the Church appears to pan out (I found the website), I still don't understand how anyone who truly knew and loved the Catholic Faith could ever want to cling to a protestant spiritualism or traditions (which seems especially odd because those are much younger than the Church). If you have any thoughts on that, feel free to send them my way.

I'm praying for you!

:)

"The Universal Church of Christ, and therefore each particular Church, exists in order to pray. In prayer the human person expresses his or her nature; the community expresses its vocation; the Church reaches out to God." - St. John Paul II

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:)

I'm praying for you!

:)

The nation doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are.
-St. Teresia Benedicta

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:)

“It is strange that we should not realize that no enemy could be more dangerous to us than the hatred with which we hate him, and that by our efforts we do less damage to our enemy than is wrought in our own heart.”

— Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book One, XVIII

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:)

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” - St. Therese of Lisieux

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:)

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t understand.
—C. S. Lewis

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:)

Oh my goodness, I'm getting bad at this blogging thing. 

Grad school is crazy hectic, with tons of reading and papers and field trips (yes, you read that right). 

We talk a lot about public policy and how research can inform it, and today we were talking about the 100,000 Homes campaign, which set out to get 100,000 people off the streets. Research shows that it's easier to tend to people's other needs once they're housed and that subsidizing housing costs less in taxes than paying for emergency room visits and other services for the homeless, so they decided to just get them off the streets and worry about everything else later. In Nashville, they went out, found all the chronically homeless people they could in the city, interviewed them about their health, then ranked them according to who was at most risk for dying and got as many as possible off the streets immediately and into housing. The program overall has housed more than 101,000 people and after it ends at the end of July, they're starting a new zero campaign to target individual cities one at a time to end homelessness completely in each city. It sounds really promising, and 85% of the people they get into housing stay there successfully, which is a higher success rate than just about any program ever. 

Of course, people in my class started arguing about what the neighbors would think and whether we should be helping people who are only on the streets because they are ex-cons with substance abuse problems. And one girl said that they almost certainly had troubled childhoods, so those problems really weren't their fault.

I said it didn't matter whether it was their fault. They were human beings and if they were willing to accept help and we are able to give help (which it seems we are, given the effectiveness so far of this program), then we should help them. Regardless of their past. We shouldn't abandon anyone to die on the streets if we have the means to prevent it.

And my professor fussed at me for making an impassioned speech and told me that we had to consider science and leave feelings out of it.

My only question is, "Why can't we have both? Why can't we be compassionate and be guided by science in terms of what works?" A lot of policy makers want science to give us the answers to not just what we should do but why we should do it. Housing people is an economically sound decision. It saves taxpayer dollars. It makes the streets safer, promotes cohesiveness, reduces crime, etc. But what if we just stopped and said, people are people. And we should love human beings and promote their overall well-being no matter what. People should be our first priority (second only to God). We can use science to determine some of the ways in which people's brains work and how situations affect people's abilities to use their proper judgment or to exercise their free will. We can look at risk factors. We can find solutions. We can develop programs that work. But to try to throw out love and human empathy as motivators is insane. Public policy guided only by science does not help people. It ignores people and categorizes them as statistics or variables. And in today's world, we desperately need love.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Here's a bio of St. Margaret of Scotland:

Margaret was an English princess. She and her mother sailed to Scotland to escape from the king who had conquered their land. King Malcolm of Scotland welcomed them and fell in love with the beautiful princess. Margaret and Malcolm were married before too long.

As Queen, Margaret changed her husband and the country for the better. Malcolm was good, but he and his court were very rough. When he saw how wise his beloved wife was, he listened to her good advice. She softened his temper and led him to practice great virtue. She made the court beautiful and civilized. Soon all the princes had better manners, and the ladies copied her purity and devotion. The king and queen gave wonderful example to everyone by the way they prayed together and fed crowds of poor people with their own hands. They seemed to have only one desire: to make everyone happy and good.

Margaret was a blessing for all the people of Scotland. Before she came, there was great ignorance and many bad habits among them. Margaret worked hard to obtain good teachers, to correct the evil practices, and to have new churches built. She loved to make these churches beautiful for God's glory, and she embroidered the priest's vestments herself.

God sent this holy Queen six sons and two daughters. She loved them dearly and raised them well. The youngest boy became St. David. But Margaret had sorrows, too. In her last illness, she learned that both her husband and her son, Edward, had been killed in battle. Yet she prayed: "I thank You, Almighty God, for sending me so great a sorrow to purify me from my sins."

Let us take this saintly Queen for our example. While we do our duties, let us keep in mind the joys that God will give us in Heaven. Her feast day is November 16th.

Bio obtained from http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=304.

I'm praying for you!

:)

I moved out of my parents' house! Crazy, I know. And my lease on my new apartment starts Thursday, so I actually am crashing at Stephanie's apartment until then. Her roommates are pretty cool. One of them took us to her Bible study yesterday, where our group resolution, broadly speaking at least, was to pray for "the soil" and to be better soil. We read next week's Gospel, in which Jesus tells the parable of the seeds that fall on the rocky soil and the good soil and the thorns. I had always read that passage thinking of myself as the seed, but we are also the soil for others. We can provide people with a good, loving foundation in the Truth, or we can get them excited about Jesus without any real understanding, or we can actively discourage their faith or choke their faith right out of them. So my prayer is that we can all be better soil for others, especially because we don't even always know when someone needs us to be soil. I hope that makes sense :P

I'm praying for you!

:)

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

— G.K. Chesterton

I'm praying for you!

:)

“The world, the devil and the flesh are a band of adventurers who take advantage of the weakness of that savage you have within you. In exchange for the poor bauble of pleasure, which is worth nothing, they want you to hand over to them the pure gold and the pearls, the diamonds and the rubies, drenched in the living and redeeming blood of your God - the price and the treasure of your eternity.”

— St. Josemaria Escriva

I'm praying for you!

:)

“I plead with you—never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.” - St. John Paul II

I'm praying for you!

:)

I found a book called Growing Up Catholic today that's pretty much a tongue in cheek guideto childhood in a Catholic family. It was joking about confession being a chance for you to make up ridiculous fake sins in order to seem more pious for knowing those ones and confirmation being a chance to pick a cool new name. I was laughing at the book until it hit me that the joking manner in which the author described Catholicism is actually the way a lot of Catholics, especially children, view the Church. We make kids memorize prayers and recite confessions and before long, we have whole generations of children who know next to nothing of the actual love and depth of Mother Church. I laugh at the ridiculousness of my "Catholic" education a lot, but it really shouldn't be funny. We should be raising kids to truly understand and love God and the Church to the best of their abilities,and anything short of that goal should make us weep in shame for failing to pass on the Faith properly to future generations.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Sorry for the long absence. I wish I could blame it on being at summer camp all last week, but my phone had service and I could have posted. The awful truth is that I spent a lot of the last 2 weeks refusing to speak to God much at all.

I went to a different parish on Sunday, and the priest gave a homily about adoration of Christ's body (which makes sense with yesterday's feast). He was talking about how adoration was the most basic stirring of the human heart and soul, the awestruck wonder with which parents and children stare into each others' eyes. And I thought, I want that back. I used to adore Christ constantly, and now, I don't feel that awe.

The homily continued to lay out the symbolism of the Last Supper in connection with Christ's Passion. Christ offers His disciples His Body at the beginning of the Passover meal, and he ends the meal that night with His blood, the third out of four cups that are to be drunk at the end of the meal, but He does not give them the fourth cup. They leave the dinner incomplete, having consumed Jesus at the beginning and the end. He is the alpha and the omega (the priest didn't say that part - that's just my musing).

On the cross, Jesus cries out that He thirsts. They offer him new, partially fermented wine on a reed. He tastes it and says "It is complete." The Passover meal is completed now. Now that His sacrifice is accomplished and He has brought about His kingdom, He tastes of new wine and completes the Passover he began on Holy Thursday (when He told the disciples He would not taste of the fruit of the vine until He drank new wine with them in His Father's kingdom - i.e. He would not complete the Passover meal until He had sacrificed Himself as the new lamb).

He accomplishes the Passover, establishing the new covenant with Himself as the Lamb, and inexorably links the Passover meal begun on Holy Thursday to His Passion on Good Friday.

"You cannot be present at the meal of Holy Thursday without also being present at the foot of the cross." - as close to direct quote as I can remember from the homily.

*This is the end of the actual homily. Below are my thoughts entirely.*

So when we receive the Eucharist as He instructed us to do, we are transported to the foot of the cross, to gaze up at our Lord and Savior, who in turn gazes on us.

That doting, loving sense of awe (although certainly not the worshiping aspect) is a two-way street. Christ invites us to the foot of the cross not just so that we can see His sacrifice and see the result of our sins and betrayal of Him. He invites us to stand at the foot of the cross and look into His eyes, to recognize the constant adoring love present in His eyes, to recognize the depth of His love for us. This love is most present and most evident on the cross. In the throes of His agony, Christ's love for us shines forth more brightly than we can ever imagine. Amid the concerns of everyday life, it is all to easy to forget that loving gaze, to imagine a harsh, judgmental gaze awaiting us on the cross. Yet each time we receive Him, we are transported once more to His presence and, if we only look, we can see His gaze of love and mercy. Perhaps, if we allow ourselves to meet His gaze, frightened though we may be, we will someday learn to return that gaze and to adore Him who loves us throughout all eternity.

I'm praying for you!

:)

I often make Saul 's mistake of assuming that I know God's will better than He does,  that I know best what will please Him. the Lord told Saul to kill Amazes and put all his followers and their possessions under the ban. Instead, Saul kept a lot of the livestock, ostensibly to sacrifice to God. When Samuel confronts him, he insists that he obeyed the LORD and that he will sacrifice the rest. He loses his kingship because there are many sins contained in one. First, he disobeyed the LORD. Second, he assumes that he knows better than God, even that he knows God better than God knows Himself. Third, he tries to conceal his sin by deceit. Finally, he is greedy and cowardly, since he kept the best livestock from the ban and did so at the request of his army. If God asks for me to clean my room or spend time with my brother, a rosary will not appease Him, because the words themselves were never what pleased him. He desires our love and obedience. Any form of offering, if not done out of live and obedience to Him, is empty show.

But we can also learn from Saul to worship the LORD always. He finally admits his sin and begs forgiveness through Samuel, and he is denied. Even though he loses his kingship and the favor of the LORD, he worships the LORD. Christ forgives our sins when we repent,  but we should not worship Him merely because he has shown us mercy. First and foremost, we should worship God because He is God.

I'm praying for you!

:)

I've probably said this a thousand times, but it amazes me how much even though I say I love Him and I want to do His will always, that I am so good at avoiding actually spending time with Him. Even when I'm praying I often just recite words in the hope that I can avoid being still with Him. He says be with me, I love you, and I rattle off Hail Marys as if that will get me off the hook, as if I won't have to spend time with him or as if that counts as me spending time with Him. Jesus told me once that I would be able to hear him again after going to confession and I thought that meant that when my heart was heavy with sin, that he would stop talking or that I would somehow just not be able to hear him. But that's not the way it works. He's always talking and if I want to I can always hear him. When my heart is heavy it's not God who creates the distance. It's me. When I haven't been to confession for a while,  I don't want to hear Him because I'm afraid of what He might say. and I pretend that I'm afraid because He'll be mad, because I'm afraid of some horrible punishment. But really I'm afraid of exactly the opposite. I'm afraid that he won't push me away, that he won't punish me, that his command will be the same as always: to simply be still, to be with him. and in those moments I think I know why the ancient Israelites were so afraid to look at the face of God, because his light washes everything else away, and I so often don't want to let go of everything else. So I run and I hide forgetting that nothing is hidden from him. I often think that all those things I'm holding on to are me, but the truth is that only when all of these things are stripped away am I able to see myself, and to do that, to know myself, I have to stop running; I have to be still, to be with him and allow him to love me.

I'm praying for you!

:)

The aunt I thought would never come into the Church is coming into the Church on Sunday, and tomorrow my uncle and she are having their official Catholic wedding ceremony. Sometimes, the world seems so irredeemable and so dark that it's easy to forget the overwhelming power and love of God, but He does not abandon us and nothing is impossible for Him. To paraphrase St. John Paul II, you can't paint a realistic picture of today's world unless you include the countless reasons we have for hope.

I'm praying for you!

:)

Just some food for thought: most of the times in the Old Testament when it says the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon someone, the person doesn't wander around murmuring sweetly about the beauty of creation. They start hulking out and killing the enemies of the LORD.

I'm praying for you!

:)

I'm praying for you!

:)

“Evening meditation:
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.”

— Fr. James Martin S.J.

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:)

“God’s presence is not the same as the feeling of God’s presence and He may be doing most for us when we think He is doing least.”

— C.S. Lewis

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:)

God is everywhere. There is no place God is not… You cry out to Him, ‘Where art Thou, my God?’ And He answers, “I am present, my child! I am always beside you.’ Both inside and outside, above and below, wherever you turn, everything shouts, ‘God!’

In Him we live and move. We breathe God, we eat God, we clothe ourselves with God. Everything praises and blesses God. All of creation shouts His praise. Everything animate and inanimate speaks wondrously and glorifies the Creator. Let every breath praise the Lord!

- Joseph the Hesychast 78th Letter

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:)

"To deny oneself means to give up one’s bad habits; to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world; not to cherish bad thoughts or desires; to suppress every evil thought; not to desire to do anything out of self love, but to do everything out of love for God."

- St. Innocent of Alaska

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:)

"Let your modesty be a sufficient incitement, yea, an exhortation, to everyone to be at peace on their merely looking at you."
-St. Ignatius Loyola

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:)

A short reflection on Hannah's prayers and actions in 1 Samuel 1

Hannah prays to the LORD for a child:

In her bitterness she prayed to the LORD, weeping freely,11and made this vow: “O LORD of hosts, if you look with pity on the hardship of your servant, if you remember me and do not forget me, if you give your handmaid a male child, I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life. No razor shall ever touch his head.”

At first glance, this looks like she might just be promising to bring him up as a faithful follower of God.

But no, when she has the child, she takes him to the temple:

She conceived and, at the end of her pregnancy, bore a son whom she named Samuel. “Because I asked the LORD for him. The next time her husband Elkanah was going up with the rest of his household to offer the customary sacrifice to the LORD and to fulfill his vows, Hannah did not go, explaining to her husband, “Once the child is weaned, I will take him to appear before the LORD and leave him there forever.”Her husband Elkanah answered her: “Do what you think best; wait until you have weaned him. Only may the LORD fulfill his word!” And so she remained at home and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

She literally takes her son and leaves him in the temple, forever. She gives him up. And this was her idea; she prayed to the Lord and said, "I will give him to the LORD..." 

From a modern point of view, this whole exchange looks weird. Why would she pray for a child after longing for one for so long, and then just give him up almost immediately? Why would she suggest consecrating him to the Lord? If you give me a baby, Lord, I'll give him right back? I mean, she still doesn't have a son she can raise now. For all intents and purposes, she's still childless. 

So why?

Perhaps the answer is that her understanding of motherhood is much more loving and mature than my gut reaction. 

Her reward lies not in having a child to hold but in being allowed to participate in the bringing forth of new life, to participate with God in creation. 

She willingly gives him up as soon as she has him, because the point was never to "have" him. The point was for him to exist, for his life and hers to bring glory to God.

There is also a parallel between Hannah and Mary. Both call themselves the handmaid of the Lord, and both willingly give their children completely into the service of the Lord, although Mary raises Jesus in her home rather than leaving him in the temple. Hannah asks for the Lord to look with pity on his servant. Mary proclaims that God has looked with favor on his lowly servant. And for both of them, the primary cause of their joy was not that they had a baby to hold or a male heir. Their joy was in participating in the love of God, in fulfilling His will. 

I'm praying for you!

:)

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." - John 14:15 (Today's Gospel)

I heard a really great homily today in which the priest told us that the "commandment" of Jesus was not, "Love thy neighbor" or the Golden Rule. His commandment, His constant commandment is "Do this in memory of me."

If we love Jesus, we will celebrate the Eucharist, eat and drink of the New Testament, the new covenant of His sacrifice.

Thinking back on Fr. Baker's homilies, though, I realized that if the commandment Jesus refers to here is to receive the Eucharist, then the commandment is really to accept His sacrifice, to accept His love. Or, in Fr. Baker's phrasing, to BE LOVED.

If you love me, you will accept my love. If you love me, you will allow yourself to be loved. You will let me love you.

The first and foremost commandment we receive from Christ is not to do anything at all, really. It's to surrender ourselves to His love, to be with Him and to allow Him to love us. When we accept His love, we love Him in return and we are capable of loving others.

This is made even clearer by the ending of today's Gospel:

"And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him." - John 14:21

I'm praying for you!

:)

“Mary is a “woman of the Eucharist” in her whole life. The Church, which looks to Mary as a model, is also called to imitate her in her relationship with this most holy mystery.”

— St. John Paul II

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:)

"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls." -- Mother Teresa

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:)

But Ruth said, “Do not press me to go back and abandon you!

Wherever you go I will go,

wherever you lodge I will lodge.

Your people shall be my people

and your God, my God.

Where you die I will die,

and there be buried.

May the LORD do thus to me, and more, if even death separates me from you!”

- Ruth 1:16-17

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:)

We now begin to discern a first vague outline of the attitude signified by the word “credo” [“I believe”]. It means that man does not regard seeing, hearing, and touching as the totality of what concerns him, that he does not view the area of his world as marked off by what he can see and touch […] it signifies, not the observation of this or that fact, but a fundamental mode of behavior toward being, toward existence, toward one’s own sector of reality, and toward reality as a whole […] belief signifies the decision that at the very core of human existence there is a point that cannot be nourished and supported on the visible and tangible, that encounters and comes into contact with what cannot be seen and finds that it is a necessity for its own existence.By Josef Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity

I'm praying for you!

:)

I'm praying for you!

:)

“The one who listens attentively to the Word of God and truly prays, always asks the Lord: what is your will for me?”

— Pope Francis on Twitter : http://ift.tt/TD2UYF

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:)

"Without the Way, there is no going. Without the Truth, there is no knowing. Without the Life, there is no living." - Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ 

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:)

“What if, instead of expecting God to love you and make you feel happy, you love Him and try and make Him happy? Because when we choose to reach out, we will be surprised, because we will see that He has been reaching for us all along, when we were just too busy looking at our own needs and desires.”

— T.B. LaBerge // Jesus, His Grace and the Gospel

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:)

“Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.”

— St. Augustine

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:)

“Reason ought to guide, since it alone has understanding of truth. Will ought to obey reason and guide the emotions, since it is free and, therefore, responsible. The emotions ought to be neither served nor avoided, but formed, since they are the raw material for the work of the will guided by the reason.”

— Catholic Christianity, p. 176, by Peter Kreeft

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:)

"The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man." - G. K. Chesterton

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:)

"Anxiety is one of the greatest traitors that real virtue and solid devotion can ever have. It pretends to warm us to do good works, but doesn’t and we grow cold; it makes us run only to make us trip. One must be careful of this on all occasions particularly at prayer. And to better succeed it would be well to remember that graces and the consolations of prayer are not waters of this earth, but of Heaven, and that therefore all our efforts are not sufficient to make them fall, even though it is necessary to prepare oneself with great diligence, but always humbly and tranquilly; one must keep ones heart turned to Heaven and wait from there the heavenly dew."

—St. Padre Pio

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:)

“A man who has just come out of the hospital, having nearly died there, and having been cut to pieces on an operating table, cannot immediately begin to lead the life of an ordinary working man. And after the spiritual mangle I have gone through, it will never be possible for me to do without the sacraments daily, and without much prayer and penance and meditation and mortification.”

— Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain

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:)

St. Augustine's Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.

I'm praying for you!

:)

“A saint is someone who knows he’s a sinner.”

— G.K. Chesterton

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:)

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

— C.S. Lewis

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:)

"May the reign of the Eucharist come about more and more. For too long impiety and ingratitude have been allowed to hold sway over the world! Adveniat regnum tuum. Thy Kingdom come." - St. Peter Julian Eymard

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:)

“St. Anselm says that “wherever there is the greatest purity, there is also the greatest charity.” The more a heart is pure, and empty of itself, the greater is the fullness of its love towards God. The most holy Mary, because she was all humility, and had nothing of self in her, was filled with Divine love, so that “her love towards God surpassed that of all men and Angels,” as St. Bernardine writes. Therefore St. Francis de Sales with reason called her “the Queen of love.””

— St. Alphonsus Liguori

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:)

"When Teresa of Avila was asked what she did in prayer, she replied, ‘I just allow myself to be loved.’" - Anthony de Mello, Sadhana, a Way to God

I'm praying for you!

:)

I've been trying to think of something really interesting or deep to write tonight, but I'm really nervous about a lunch get-together I have tomorrow, so here's a picture of a kitten that looks like it could be looking at Jesus in the Eucharist:



I'm praying for you!

:)

Today is the feast day of my patron saint, St. Catherine of Siena:

When I was little, my mom told me that one time, St. Catherine experienced the Beatific Vision and that when she awoke and discovered that she was still on Earth, she cried for days on end.

And that's how, as a small child, I started actively praying to never experience heaven until I got there for good.

I'm praying for you!

:)

St. John Paul II instituted Divine Mercy Sunday in 2000.

He died on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2005.

He was canonized on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2014!

I'm praying for you!

:)

Happy Divine Mercy Sunday!

St. John Paul II and St. John XXIII, pray for us!

I'm praying for you!

:)

"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul." - St Augustine

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:)

"My conscience is the tribunal of Pilate… as often as I choose to speak the uncharitable word, do the dishonest action, or consent to the evil thought, I say in so many words, “Release Barabbas unto me.” And to choose Barabbas means to crucify Christ." Ven. Fulton Sheen

I'm praying for you!

:)

"The demons are sleepless and immaterial, death is at hand, and I am weak. Lord, help me; do not let Thy creature perish, for Thou carest for me in my misery." - St Peter of Damascus

I'm praying for you!

:)

"If you please man and never please God you have nothing; If you please God and man forsakes you, you have everything. " -Dorothy Patterson

I'm praying for you!

:)

Easter is really difficult to explain to children. I spent all day today at my brother's house, so I got to talk to my 3-year-old niece (RM) about Easter.

Me: RM, what do we celebrate on Easter?
RM: JESUS!!
Me: Yup, we celebrate Jesus every day. What happened on Easter, though? What did Jesus do?
RM: I don't know.
Me: He rose from the dead.

She accepted this without question. When I mentioned that He died and then rose again, she pointed to the crucifix on the wall and said, "There's Jesus, dying." But when she asked why there are palms in the house and I told her the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem, she refused to believe that. "No!" was all I got.

Of course, the reason for her acceptance of the miracle of Easter was simple. She doesn't understand death.

My brother: RM, what do we celebrate on Easter?
RM: Jesus!
My brother: Yes, but what did Jesus do on Easter?
RM: He rose from the dead!
My sister-in-law: Do you know what dead means?
RM: Yeah, it's when you step on things. (Meaning bugs).

To be able to explain the miracle and joy of Easter to someone, you have to be able to explain death to them.

To be able to appreciate Jesus's resurrection, we first have to understand His death. We have to understand our own death, our own sin, and the need for redemption. Without sin, without death, without redemption, there is no Easter.

Just as we have died with Christ in baptism, so also we will rise with Him to everlasting life. But how will we ever rise if we do not know we have died?

I'm praying for you!

Happy Easter!

Christ is risen, Alleluia :)