Category: Living Your Faith

Featured Favorite: The Spirit of Simple Obedience

This little Visit with Jesus changed my life.  I left with the conviction that He was asking me to be a Sister.  What that meant, I really had very little idea.  I didn’t know a lot about religious life.  I didn’t know what kind of community I would enter, what I would do, or where I should turn.  What I did have, after this initial “call,” was the conviction that “if this is what God is asking me to do, then I’ll do it.”  As I have reflected back on this, years later, I thank my parents for helping instill this spirit of simple obedience to God in me in my early years, largely by their own example.

Chalice with wine (DollarPhotoClub)

Why do you remain Catholic?

I relived some key moments such as when I gave my life to Jesus at a Protestant youth retreat. In my staunch faith, I never dreamed that five years later I would marry in the Catholic Church. The only way God could ever get me to convert to Catholicism was to arrange for me to fall in love with a devout Catholic. My official conversion almost three years later when I realized I belong in the Catholic Church.

Four confidence builders for sharing your faith story

When we are with our friends and family, neighbors and business associates, are they so impressed with what we’ve said and done that they want what we have? They want to know the secret of our peacefulness in a chaotic situation, our commitment to God and family when it’s inconvenient, and why we build our schedules around Mass and ministries. They may not recognize at first that they are seeking the same close relationship with Jesus that transforms all our relationships.

Buy one, gift one! Free ebook with Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control. So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord. (2 Timothy 1:16)
While supplies last, everyone who purchases a Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story paperback from JoyAlive.net will receive the ebook at no cost.

Testimony: Sharing Your Galilee Moment

I have never forgotten the encounter I had with Christ that day. It was as if I had been told all my life about the Lord, but this day I knew I had experienced something so amazing and wonderful. He didn’t ask me to start going to church and stop living the way I was living. He just showed me, unconditional love, by giving me an assurance of peace that I had never felt before.

The Our Father and 7 Last Words of Jesus, 1st Word

Lenten Series: The key episode in all of history is the death and resurrection of Jesus. No other event in history is remotely close in impact and permanence of effect. It was the reason he came to Earth, the fulfillment of his life. The Son of God became man so he could pay the price of our sins on the cross. His whole human existence pointed to this moment.
The scriptures record what Christ said while he hung on the cross. For all believers, his words are worth pondering. The seven last words of Christ are seven statements he made. They are the last teachings he gave to us and connect to his teaching on how we should pray.

The Gate of the Year 2021

 And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”