Into The New

The New Year!
The journey to the New Creation!

Looking forward to the second coming of Our Lord and the new life in the Kingdom!

On that Wedding Day...

Praise Jesus, our Bridegroom!

Holy Mary, Mother of God

Luke 1:31~And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32~ He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.

Long before the angel Gabriel ever appeared in Nazareth to a young virgin, there was a plan for God to come down, to be with His people in the flesh. 

From the very beginning, God knew that He would join His creatures, and that He would dwell among them in a human body. 

Now, He is God, so He could have just made Himself a body and come down as a human adult, but that wasn't the plan. 

Way back in the Scriptures the prophets spoke: 
Isaiah 7
14Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and she will call Him Immanuel. 

The plan had been in place even before the creation of man, but then when the mother of humanity, Eve, committed the first sin, the plan had to include not only God coming to dwell with us in a physical body, but God's body, blood and all, being offered as a sacrifice to save us. 

The type of Eve was to be a part of this plan of salvation, and so the new Eve would be the one who would be asked for the gift of her Body, and who would receive the Word and bring forth the Savior. This Savior would be the new Adam and He would put out what the old Adam had ushered in. 

Mary, the mother of God, was a real young woman, in a real little town, with a real father and mother, and real plans to be married to her betrothed, Joseph. 

She lived a real life, just like everyone else, except for one major difference, in order that the Son of God should be surrounded by a spotless womb, His mother was conceived without sin. He was carried in a perfect and pure Ark, through all nine months of her confinement. 

The woman that bore Him was without sin, so that He could come and defeat sin.

Mary, is the mother of the King, she is the mother of the One who came to declare war on the darkness. She is the woman clothed with the Sun. 

Of all the human bodies that have ever been, or ever will be, of all the feminine gifts, and of all the women that have been privileged to walk this earth and give life, Mary is the model, and the hope of our future. 

She was given life, she was mother of the Giver of life, and she is the mother of us all. 

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us who have recourse to thee....

Certain Things

Merry Christmas!

What an amazing thing to be celebrating the birth of our God, into the world that He created!

This is truly something to ponder. That God Himself would choose to become one of us, so that we could eventually have a chance to be like Him. What kind of God does that?!

Christmas Mass was so beautiful, and the Homily was a message straight from the Heart of Jesus.
It is still echoing in my own. That the Mercy of God, and His tremendous love has overcome all that the world can throw at us. He is with us and "It's gonna be okay."
I have heard this in my heart over and over and the affirmation of that message for me gives me so much hope!

This morning at Mass we heard in the first reading about the martyrdom of St Stephen.
This is also such an important thing to ponder. That the martyrs are truly a gift to the Church and the world.
Father talked about the power of the grace of forgiveness.
He also said that no Christian martyr has ever died for a cause, they die for a person.
To be willing to give up your life for Christ, and to be able to see the way that death can be a gift to the world, an outpouring not just of blood, but of Grace, as was St Stephen's, is huge. St Stephen died for Christ and the Kingdom, and the grace of his love and forgiveness fell on a young man named Saul, who would become Paul, who would go on to evangelize half of the known world at the time. Paul would himself be martyred, and the dance goes on.

Thank you, dear Lord, for this beautiful, wild world, for certainty in uncertain times.
We rest in you and we live in you, and God willing, we will die in you.

Praised be Jesus, now and forever!

Life or Death. You Choose.

A lot of people truly detest our president. A lot of people are thinking that he is a most unsavory character and a terrible choice as leader of the free world. Some people think that his election was illegitimate, some people think that he has committed heinous crimes.
I didn't think I wanted Donald Trump for president in 2016. I looked at the field of candidates and I hoped that anyone else would get in.
They didn't.
Trump became the candidate, and he was running against Hillary Clinton.

Trump claimed to be pro-life. Hillary is, was and probably always will be vehemently pro-abortion.
That simplified my choice, but I wasn't sure whether Trump was just playing to the Christian base or whether he really believed what he was saying. That was something that I had to wrestle with.

This election things are different.
Trump is still a blusterer. He is still obnoxious and he just can't keep his fingers off the Twitter keys, but as much as I find that distasteful, he has proven himself a champion of life.
He has stood behind the promises that he made and he has shown that he will do what he can to fight the culture of death.
Not one of the Democrats running has shown even the slightest inclination in that direction.

Yes, there are many issues that we need to think about.
Immigration, poverty, economic disparity, and such, but which one of those is more emergent than the need to end the culture of death?
The blood is flowing all day, every day. Children are being extracted, cut up, and disposed of.
How can anything be more important than that?

We are going to be up against some really tough conversations with family members, friends, and co-workers over the next nine or so months.
We want to be sure that all we say we say in charity, but we can't let this go.

There are going to be two choices.
One will be in favor of stemming the flow of blood, and turning the tide.
The other will be openly in favor of continuing the practice of child-murder and walking back the progress that has been made.

Life or Death. It's Biblical.

Seeking The Lost

"It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost."

Dear Jesus, be persistent in your pursuit of those who stray. They think that there is good pasture in the wild, and they don't see the beast that prowls, wanting to devour them. You are the Good Shepherd and Our Father always desires that they are brought home. The lamb that has strayed finds themselves lost and unaware of how to find the way. They are often skittish, especially if they have been wounded. Only by building trust can we get close enough to help them. If they can just be brought to You, You will speak to their hearts and convince them to come back to the fold.

Guests of The Saint

I haven't posted in awhile, but that's not because there is nothing to post about!

I had the honor of making a pilgrimage to the St John Paul II National Shrine in Washington DC on Saturday, and it was just a beautiful day, all the way around!

Tim and I left at around 8 to be sure and get there before 10:00.

When we got there we were directed to the beautiful Luminous Mysteries Chapel for Mass.

The reliquery that holds the blood of the Holy Father

The Dominican priest that said Mass shared some very important thoughts on the life issues and the culture. Living in a culture of death has left many of us with a bit of spiritual PTSD, but there is such Hope in Christ! We need to always hope in the promises of our Lord. The culture is going the way of cultures past, and it really is a rescue mission to save as many souls as possible. Our dear Papa saint gave us so many tools for bringing about conversion.

After Mass we said the Rosary in the chapel and then went to Confession. It was a truly wonderful Confession! Very healing.

Then we heard again from Fr. Another very good reflection.

Lunch was on our own so we walked down to the Basilica and got sandwiches from the cafeteria.

After lunch we took a tour of the beautiful mosaic sacred art that has been created in the upper church, the chapel, and the hall. I actually bought the book about it because there is so much meaning there.


After the tour we were able to walk through the museum, which houses so much history! So many things that belonged to the Saint and his story along with it.

Like these:

Some shoes that are hard to fill!

 It was such a great day, and I am so grateful that the Shrine is close by! We can go there again soon!

How He Loves Us

We had an interesting conversation at Bible Study this morning.
We are studying James, and one of the questions was about ways that "friendship with the world" can be considered committing "adultery" against God.

There were many answers.
Any time our primary relationships take a lower priority than other things or people in our lives, we run the risk of infidelity.

Our hearts are fickle, and Jesus is gentle. He doesn't nag, or whine. He loves us and He is always there. It is so easy to find ourselves taking him for granted and putting Him last in our lives, even just out of laziness or busyness.
Even when we are committed to a relationship with God and we spend time in prayer and give Him something of ourselves, we don't often give Him ALL of ourselves.

He should be our first love.
He is the Bridegroom, and He is jealous for us.
The Grace that He wants to pour into our hearts, He wants to pour into hearts that are wide open to receive it. We can't even imagine how different our lives would be if we just gave Him all of ourselves.
But that is what true Love is.

We all had various examples of ways that we hold back, or put other things before Jesus.
We also had examples of people that have given all of themselves to Him.
St Theresa of Calcutta, St Padre Pio, St Theresa of Avila.
These were all people for whom Christ was the center. He was their everything.

I want to be a more faithful lover of my Lord. I want to think of Him first thing in the morning and last thing before I go to sleep. I want to always listen for His voice as I go through my day.
Rock Solid, that is His love for us. We are the Church, His Bride, let us be faithful.