Living
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The Goal of Prayer
Why pray? It’s a great question, and I think the answer lies in understanding what exactly prayer is. There is so much that has been said about prayer — I certainly can’t sum it all up in one post — but perhaps a simple image can help us reach the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the essence of prayer. This summer we went on a pilgrimage, and it brought us to ancient cities with beautiful monastic dwellings, hidden amidst the shops, bustle and chaos of city life. Discovering these beautiful, hidden gems and stopping for a prayer or Mass or just a moment to regain a little…
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Why Do Catholics Do That?… The Miraculous Medal
Hi, I’m Catholic and I do crazy things like wear miraculous medals with Mary around my neck. Have you ever wondered why Catholics do that? In case you are wondering, this is not about worshipping Mary. Nope! I know that this might be hard to understand for those who haven’t grown up in Catholic circles. Trust me, I get it! In fact, there was a point in my life where I refused to say the Rosary because I also wondered if it was some sort of worship of Mary. Which now just makes me laugh — but then, it was a serious question that I grappled with. Maybe you grapple…
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Does Happily Ever After Really Exist?
Who doesn’t want to be married happily ever after? I know that I did. Nobody goes into marriage wanting it to fail — unless the person was only after money or fame or notoriety — but that wasn’t actually a marriage in the first place. That was just a legal contract with some benefits attached to it. I am talking about the majority of people who get married. Most people enter into a marriage because they love someone and want to spend the rest of their life with that someone — to begin a new life with them. They are in it for the right reasons. So why do 50%…
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Becoming a Superhero
Happy Feast of All Saints from St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Bernard of Clairveaux! 🥳. Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Technically, St Bernard wasn’t a dog — but technically a St. Bernard is a dog (though, technically St. Bernards aren’t light brown) — but I think this costume qualifies for our All Saint’s party celebration, wouldn’t you agree?😂. (Give me a break, people, I’m just trying to get through the days over here.) Yes, Catholics do crazy things like have All Saints parties to commemorate the heroes that have gone before us — we call them “saints”. We do even crazier things, like dress up like St. Lucy and…
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We All Need Healing
We all need healing. Every one of us. Can I get an Amen!🙌🏻 We’ve all inherited a fallen nature (shout out Adam and Eve 🙁 ), have grown up in a broken world, and have sometimes suffered greatly at the hands of the broken people around us. There’s no denying it, we have all been a bit battered and worn from the battle to do the right thing, to forgive the wrongs done to us, and to love the people around us, even when it’s difficult. Which is why we need healing — spiritual, physical and emotional healing — and it’s also why God stepped in and gave us a…
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Celebrating John
Today we celebrate John. It’s his birthday! Woot Woot! I figured this was the perfect time to share a little bit about the guy I have loved through thick and thin, till death do us part. Hooray! He’s been my right hand man (a.k.a. husband) for almost 20 years now😘. He still makes me laugh after all these years, but if I’m being absolutely honest, he has also been known — on the rare occasion — to make me want to break a slate over his head. (Anne Shirley, I get you!😂). Don’t worry I have never indulged in the urge to do violence to the man I love dearly,…
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Embracing Your Abundant Life
“I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly” John 10:10 You know, contrary to popular opinion, Jesus didn’t come to earth to ruin all of our fun. Nope. He didn’t come to earth to simply deliver a bunch of “no’s” so that we would miss out on the amazing life we could otherwise have lived if we didn’t listen to Him. In fact, what I have discovered in my own life is that every single “no” He asks of us is a “yes” to something greater. It really is. After all, He came so that we might have an abundant life. Have you ever taken the time…
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The Nobility of Being a Homemaker in a Career-Obsessed World.
In recent weeks, there erupted a bit of a storm around the question of married women working outside of the home. There was one man in particular, who shall remain nameless — well known in the Catholic Youtube world — who claimed Church teaching makes it clear that it is sinful for a women who is married (with or without children) to work outside of the home. You can imagine the barage of fighting that ensued after such a statement — with so many Catholic women working in different capacities, in and outside of their home, paid or unpaid. Honestly, I find statements like that to be highly inflammatory (and…
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The Big, Fat Baby’s Guide to Fasting
“And (Jesus) said to them, ‘This kind (of demon) cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.‘ “ Mark 9:29 Intermittent fasting is all the rage right now, but it is rare to find the people touting its praises on the internet to be approaching fasting from a religious perspective Fasting, in the public sphere, is often boiled down to a great way to lose weight, regain energy and increase focus — and though those things might be nice side effects of fasting, they are truly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the powerful benefits of fasting, from a faith perspective. True, intermittent fasting has…
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Staring at the Serpent
Through an unfortunate series of events, already enumerated in the update I shared this morning, today’s original post was irretrievably lost. The thought has occurred to me that maybe the devil didn’t want me to finish that post — which, I know, sounds strange, but I feel like this little conversation we had with a man named Stewart is crucial in taking back what has been lost in recent years. It’s hard to even describe what has been lost, but maybe you have felt it, too. It’s as if we (and by “we”, I mean “Christians”) have given up the good fight and gone into defensive mode, just trying to…
