Category: Quotes

Thanksgiving Table (Photo by Richard C MIller - Getty)

Thanksgiving Blessings: Edelweiss and the Doxology

Our family tradition for Thanksgiving grace is sung to the tune of  “Edelweiss” from the Sound of Music. The Von Trapp family at the festival performed the forbidden national anthem as they prepared to escape the country. Bless our friends, Bless our food, Come, O Lord, and sit with us. Make our talk glow with...

Testimony: Learning to Love the Cross

When I look back to see how the Lord has been working all my life to draw me closer to Himself, I am reminded of a scene in The Silver Chair, one of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles: two children have been sent by Aslan (the Christ figure of Narnia) on a perilous quest to rescue the lost prince of Narnia. Aslan gives them instructions on how to complete their quest but, in the hardship of their journey, they get so tied up in their own discomfort that they forget to look for the signs he has told them to watch for. Only after much struggle and danger do they happen to look back over the way they have come; now they can see clearly that a series of troublesome trenches through which they have struggled are actually a message carved in the earth, spelling out one of Aslan’s instructions for anyone to see who cares to look. What the children in the story couldn’t see at the time is plain in hindsight—but they have left it almost until too late before they look back.

CatholicWritersGuild: Emerging from the Cocoon

I closed my eyes and found myself in a cocoon — the coronavirus cocoon of isolation. Where was the familiar life I knew yesterday? Here God wrapped me in his protection by confining me to a small space and captivating my heart. Instinctively, I struggled to escape. Each struggle to escape brought me a new understanding of myself and, finally, peace in God’s will. I settled into the attitude of learning what He intended to teach me.
In my coronavirus captivity, God was shaping me into the woman I need to be when I fully emerge into a new life. He was giving me the strength, wisdom, and faith to survive in the world outside that was becoming so different from what I remembered. He was teaching me not to expect or long for the old life I had, but to trust Him for this new life He has for me.

The Rustle of Fear

“To him who is in fear it seems as if everything around him rustles.” — Sophocles (497 BC)
What are we noticing now that was in plain sight all along? Do we sense the rustling of poverty, sickness, loneliness and death? Haven’t these been around us all our lives? We look at how the world around us is changing – and not for the better.  It’s is all too easy to be afraid of what we didn’t notice on Ash Wednesday when we determined our disciplines for what became the Longest Lent.
The rustlings draw louder as fear threatens to consume us, We know we don’t have the confidence and wisdom to deal with its demands on our own. How do we sort out what we must accept, what action we are called to carry out, and what we must leave to providence? And I don’t mean denying and ignoring the needs we find all around us.
The fact we find hard to accept is that we can choose victory over fear in trusting Jesus by surrendering to his will and staying open each moment to his presence when victimhood is rustling around us.

The Friar's Corner

Friar’s Corner: Protected in God’s radiant glory

Come, Light of God’s own glory!
Seal and protect us and our family,
in a protective home of Your glory!
Deliver us, Lord, from every evil,
especially the Coronavirus
and all its effects.

Grant us peace in our days.
In your merciful love,
keep us free from sin and all viruses
and protect us from all our fears,
anxieties and worries,
as we await in joyful hope
for the second coming
of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Prayer Companion: Come, Holy Spirit

“Acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will acquire salvation” – St. Seraphim of Sarov St. Seraphim dreamed big. Honored by both the Roman Catholic (today) and Orthodox (January 15) calendars, this wonderworker emphasized seeking communion with God as the true purpose of life for every Christian. St. Seraphim’s life demonstrated that everything else was merely the means for “acquiring the Holy Spirit.” Wait! Didn’t we acquire the Holy Spirit at baptism and weren’t we sealed with the gift of the Spirit at Confirmation? Can’t we acquire more of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Reconciliation or receive the Eucharist? A resounding “yes” to all of these.