JOY Alive in Our Hearts

The joy of conversion, Christian community, and the Catholic faith

Category: journaling

Evangelization / Fruits of the Holy Spirit / journaling / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

The Blessings of Journaling

When you open your heart and your journaling to the Holy Spirit, the floodgates of Heaven open. You will feel a downpour of wisdom, charity (love), understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in you as the first fruits of eternal glory. You become alive in the Spirit. Scientific research has shown that when you keep a journal regularly, your mind will be brighter, your recall sharper, your senses quicker, your self-discipline stronger, your communication clearer, your healing deeper, your creativity freer, your outlook brighter, your laughter louder, your stress calmer, your compassion greater, and your confidence higher.

Evangelization / journaling / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Best practices for keeping a spiritual journal

Remember, no one is looking over your shoulder critiquing what or how you write. Get lost in the experience of expressing yourself on paper in God’s presence as he takes you through the puddles and over the rapids of the living river of your faith story.

You don’t have to spend hours every day journaling. I don’t. Sometimes all I can manage to do is a weekly update. But when I try to remember all the graces and blessings of the last few days, I know something important is missing. I’ve forgotten many irreplaceable moments because I did not take the time to journal. 

Evangelization / journaling / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

A Journal versus. a spiritual journal

A journal of any kind is a way of writing about your life, as opposed to other things you might write: vacation dreams, career plans, business strategies, bucket lists, or health and fitness goals. Scientific research finds that journaling can enhance your life in remarkable ways that benefit your mind, emotions, relationships, confidence, creativity, communication, and self-discipline. A journal is written by you for your own benefit.

When you call on the power of the Holy Spirit, however, you add a spiritual dimension to your journaling. The results bring so much more than self-improvements or an enhanced lifestyle. All of the advantages of journaling can be yours, but the Holy Spirit can add a mystical dimension to them that unifies your spirit with the Holy Spirit.

Conversion / Evangelization / journaling / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Start with your spiritual journal

We have to be able to tell our story of how we met the Lord, and how our relationship with him is changing our lives. Like all evangelists, new or old, we are called to speak the truth of the faith as revealed in our experience and relationship with Jesus Christ—yes, that scary, vulnerable, stepping out in faith to share what God has done in our lives and how he transformed our hearts.

Evangelization / journaling / Joy / Scriptures / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Five tips to start sharing your faith story

What does it mean to evangelize? Why does God want us to reveal our relationship with him – isn’t our faith personal and private? These were my arguments before I saw the value in sharing my faith with others. Saint John Paul II convinced me to act on his words in Evangelii Nuntiandi:
Here lies the test of truth, the touchstone of evangelization: it is unthinkable that a person should accept the Word and give himself to the kingdom without becoming a person who bears witness to it and proclaims it in his turn. (EN 24)
He also taught that the most effective way to evangelize is through our personal witness – and that’s just what we have available to us!

CatholicMom.com / Coronavirus / Evangelization / journaling / Prayer / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

CatholicMom: Emerging from the Cocoon

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.

Catholic / Conversion / Holy Spirit / Jesus / journaling / Joy / Mary / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

The Cause of Our Joy: Four ways Mary helps us share our story

“I discovered Mary’s place in my life and in the church quite late into my life-long conversion as a Catholic. I had an amazing renewal experience that made me more alive in my faith and I began to be more active in the church in Bible Studies, marriage enrichment, as a eucharistic minister and at daily Mass. I began paying attention to what I accepted in my head but never got to my heart, like the importance of Mary. It was a gradual process, with a surprising vision one day. My husband and I . . .were in Tampa, FL. I went to Mass at noon . . . at historic Sacred Heart Church . . . I wrote about it on my blog in The loving glance of Jesus.”