Liturgically, we’re taking a brief breath in ordinary time. We’ve lived the long wait of Advent, and Christmas has been celebrated and it’s trappings stored away – nativity sets snuggled in attic alcoves and ornaments stacked in garage bins.
We have never needed the message in this video (below) more.
Our nation-and the world-are slowly grinding to a standstill in the wake of a virus we were barely aware of a few weeks ago. How quickly things change…it wasn’t part of my ‘plan’ this year to have my kids doing all schoolwork at home, my college son’s commencement canceled, all public Masses halted. I don’t even think it has totally sunk in, honestly. I’ve been wandering around in a daze, trying to figure out what to do next and where to get Lysol wipes and eggs.
Women of Grace® study programs give you the blessed privilege of witnessing the magnificent movement of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the women who attend – and you will experience His dynamic power and grace in your own life as well. As your study group learns about the great gift of authentic femininity and how to live it out in our world today, hearts will be healed, lives will be changed, and souls will be saved. This is indeed a time of transformation, renewal, and deepening commitment.
“This is the way to become a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old way of being will pass away and we will be made new in Him." -2 Cor. 5:17-18
All of us here at Women of Grace are busy preparing for our upcoming events, additional webinars on insightful and inspiring topics, and a host of other outreaches to help us live our call as Catholics in the world today, none of which would be possible without your prayers and financial support. Please visit our website (womenofgrace.com) to find out all about our upcoming events, including our annual Women of Grace Retreat at Malvern Retreat House in July.It’s hard to believe we are already closing in on the halfway mark of Lent. How would you evaluate your Lent thus far? It’s a good question to ask at the mid-way point. It’s never too late to adjust, begin again, or even start over should you need to.
Life being what it is, I have often found it beneficial to come up with a plan and a strategy to help me enter more deeply into the Lenten season. In years past, I have planned and strategized how to “give up” certain foods or treats (don’t buy them), activities and recreations (don’t go to them), habits and behaviors (don’t do them). One year I even gave up going to the mall (don’t drive by it). That was my longest Lent ever!
Along with the exclusions, I have often added a few inclusions: more time in prayer and study, going to adoration more frequently and performing additional acts of charity.
This year, I have devised a new plan centered around behaviors that start with “C,” as in Cross. Together, they are acting as a compass leading me through this holy season. The goal has been to implement some and eliminate others. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which!
Here are a few:
» Complain
» Collaborate
» Console
» Control
» Complete
» Carp
» Conciliate
» Carry On
In the end, the purpose is to advance in becoming what the cross is all about – LOVE. Recall that it was because of His love for us that God gave us His Son, and it was out of the Son’s love for us that the Son chose the Cross. Two passages from Scripture tell us as much: For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life John 3:16), and There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).
As Christians, we are called to live Christ, to be His presence in the world, to be His love among men in all of the diverse circumstances, situations, and nuances of our daily lives. Jesus tells us:
This is my commandment: love one another love as I have loved you (John 15:12). And this, It was not you who chose me, it was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit. Your fruit must endure… The command I give is this, that you love one another (John 15:16,17).
Both remind me of yet another passage. Given to us through St. Paul, this one shows us the way to love: Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous, it does not put on airs, it is not snobbish. Love is never rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries. Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but rejoices in the truth. There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, its hope, its power to endure … Love never fails … There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love (1 Cor. 13: 4-7, 8, 13). This is the way to become a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old way of being will pass away and we will be made new in Him (2 Cor. 5:17-18).
Lent is 40 days long. Researchers tell us it takes about six weeks to engage a new behavior. My hope is that implementation of my “C” words will help me overcome vices, grow in virtue, and better become Christ’s love in the world today.
It’s been a lofty goal to be sure, but why not think big for the Lord? We can never arrive at our destination if we never set off.
Let’s sojourn together through this holy time no matter or plan or strategy. Together we can do great things through the Lord!
As always, I faithfully remain...
May God bless you abundantly this Lent.
This morning, my somewhat precocious six year old granddaughter and I had a conversation over breakfast:
“Grandma,” she said gazing out of the kitchen window in our Florida home.
“Yes, Julia?” said I.
“Pretty soon Easter will be here because it is Spring outside.”
“Yes, you are right. Ash Wednesday is this week and that begins the season of Lent.”
The canonized women who are mothers add to our altars a special kind of incense – a two-fold fragrance of motherhood, both natural and spiritual. The very definition of their sainthood reveals that the life of the soul was sacrosanct to them and that while they nurtured the physical life of their children, it was eternal life which they desired to impart above all.
Even though all of us were created by God to do Him some definite service in this world, the reason why some of us find it so difficult to discern what that service is supposed to be is because we have a tendency to over-complicate the discernment process. Maybe this Lenten season is the time to get rid of that bad habit.
Perhaps no other appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary has captured people’s hearts and imaginations like those she made to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France in 1858. Our Lady appeared eighteen times that year to an impoverished, uneducated fourteen-year-old girl who lived with her family in an old jail. Since that time, more than five thousand healings are reported to have taken place in the spot where the Blessed Mother appeared; sixty-four of them the Catholic Church has proclaimed “miraculous.”
Woman of Grace: St. Scholastica (480 – 543)
St. Gregory the Great recounts this story from the life of St. Benedict’s beloved twin sister, St. Scholastica, which shows how expressing our petitions to God with childlike faith and confidence sometimes yields immediate and amazing results.
After Benedict founded a monastery for men, Scholastica remained very close to her brother, founding a convent for women some miles away. Every year Scholastica went to visit Benedict at a little place just outside the monastery gate.
