"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 

I'm praying for you!

:)

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

I'm praying for you!

:)

Saints

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

I'm praying for you!

:)

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."

I'm praying for you!

:)

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

I'm praying for you!

:)

 "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

I'm praying for you!

:)

"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

I'm praying for you!

:)

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!

:)