November 21st is the feast of the Presentation of Mary, the day Anne and Joachim offered her to the Lord just as Mary and Joseph did with Jesus. For centuries, Catholics have been encouraged to consecrate themselves to Mary because Mary is the surest and quickest path to Jesus. It is common practice to arrange the period of preparation (typically 33 days) so as to land on a Marian feast day. I cannot speak highly enough of this noble spiritual practice, but I'll leave it to St. Louis De Montfort, the author of the most thorough preparation literature ever written, to explain it best.
Eric and I took the boys camping this weekend along with a good friend of ours. We had an awesome weekend, and made some great memories. I wanted to share a few lessons I learned leading up to and during the weekend:
Last month I shared a personal story about How God Moves Us. I have been slowly working through a book that came out of that experience... I'm only on page 40, but each page is a goldmine.
The message is this: The Holy Spirit is essential to our Christian life and is needed to progress on the path on which God leads us. The Holy Spirit inspires, but we have to be disposed to notice and respond to these inspirations.
It is our mission to equip families for battle in the modern world. Spiritual warfare is life long battle which means our customers need weapons that last a lifetime. As we continue to grow and learn, we are constantly optimizing our business and operations. There are 3 areas we are focused on that will translate to improvements that benefit you as a customer.
I have a story I want to share for all of you out there who feel far away from the Lord, lost in the desert, in a fog or another, similar mental/spiritual state. This is a story about little bread crumbs from Heaven that led me out of that place of desolation and back into awareness of God’s love and grace.
Can you relate to this tension? Do you struggle to see yourself the way God sees you? Do you really know how God sees you? If I can’t see myself the way God sees me, how can I see others that way? On the surface it seems possible to love others better than I love myself, but is it true?
Last week I began a one year program in the Resilient Catholics Community lead by Dr. Peter Malinoski at soulsandhearts.com. Souls and Hearts was developed to meet the needs of practicing Catholics who struggle with the everyday challenges of life. Grounded in a Catholic anthropology, Souls and Hearts' contributors draw from the psychological sciences to offer Catholics mental health education and information in an online format.
Our priest's homily yesterday was on point. He talked at length about the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization. He talked about what it meant to be these 3 things: Pro-Catholic, Pro-Life, and Pro-America.
Last July, about a month into this new job, I became pregnant with my first child, and my husband and I welcomed our sweet son in April. We named our son Benedict after Saint Benedict of Nursia, one of our favorite saints. He has been a very important and significant saint in our marriage and relationships, but especially in work. I mean his motto is "ora et labora" ("pray and work"). However, if I’m being honest, sometimes it’s more like having to work at prayer. It isn’t always natural or easy.
