Author Archives: Johnnette Benkovic Williams

Advent Week Three: A Time for Sharing, A Time for Caring

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baby-Jesus-in-a-manger1The Incarnation of Jesus Christ has forever changed the destiny of mankind. Through His birth, death, and resurrection, the chains of death are broken, the gates of heaven are flung open wide, and eternal life has been restored to man. However, accepting the salvation Christ has won remains an individual decision to be made by each human being.

I remember well when I made that decision for myself. It all started with a woman who shared her faith in Jesus Christ with me.

Though she was going through an emotionally difficult time, she was certain God had a plan for her in the midst of it. Her trust stood in stark contrast to my own faith experience which had not recovered from my college years. Like living water flooding the landscape of my soul, her words and her witness brought me new life and led me back to Catholicism.

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Woman of Grace: St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

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St. Teresa of Avila shows us it is never too late to get serious about our prayer life. Born Dona Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada, Teresa was an active child with a big imagination and great sensitivity of heart. Little Teresa and her brother Roderigo were intrigued by the lives of the saints and the martyrs, and often sought to imitate their holy example. Read the rest…

An Urgent Call… “For Such A Time As This”

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Our nation is in the midst of its own “Battle of Lepanto.” Our temporal order – the institutions and enterprises of man, his culture and his society – has been infiltrated by an anti-life, anti-Gospel, anti-Church agenda.  The “final confrontation” intimated by Karol Cardinal Wojtyla when he addressed the United States Bishops in 1976 seems to have arrived. From Cairo and the Middle East, to Congress and the Senate, to the attack against the union of one man and one woman in marriage, to the proliferation of the morally reprehensible, to the efforts of Planned Parenthood and sex education in our schools, we see the frontal attack of the “Agenda of the Anti-.“ As Women of Grace® “impregnated with the spirit of the gospel” we must respond. Read the rest…

Women of Grace: St. Therese of Lisieux

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St. Therese of Lisieux (1873 – 1897)

Hidden behind the walls of the Carmelite convent she entered at age fifteen, St. Therese was struck down by tuberculosis in her early twenties. There was nothing remarkable about the young nun, nothing to suggest that she would become one of the most beloved of all the saints. And yet, her “little way,” characterized by the twin virtues of obedience and simplicity, touched so many people that Rome opened her cause for canonization only seventeen years after her death. She was canonized in 1925, proclaimed the universal patron of missions in 1927, and Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997. Read the rest…

Woman of Grace: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

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St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein, 1891 – 1942)

She was a brilliant scholar, a contemplative mystic, and a “liberated” feminist. At various times she was also a devout Jew, an atheist, a philosopher, a Catholic, and a Carmelite nun. Hers was a heart that hungered for truth, with a passion that burned with such purity and clarity that Pope John Paul II, whose own Mulieris Dignitatem and “Letter to Women” bear the unmistakable imprint of her spirit, canonized her less than fifty years after her death at Auschwitz. Read the rest…

Woman of Grace: St. Elizabeth of Portugal

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St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271 – 1336)

From the womb, Elizabeth seemed chosen by God to be a peacemaker. Her birth itself healed a rift between her father King Pedro III of Aragon and her grandfather. Elizabeth had a pious upbringing, regular religious instruction, and a good education. Mass, Eucharist, and the reading the Divine Office formed the backbone of her prayer life, holy habits she continued throughout her life. Read the rest…

Reflections for the Fortnight for Freedom – Day 14

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These reflections and readings from the Vatican II document Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) are intended for daily use during the Fortnight for Freedom, a national campaign designated by the U.S. Catholic bishops for teaching and witness in support of religious liberty. The readings and the questions that follow can be used for group discussion or for personal reflection. Read the rest…

Reflections for the Fortnight for Freedom – Day 13

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These reflections and readings from the Vatican II document Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) are intended for daily use during the Fortnight for Freedom, a national campaign designated by the U.S. Catholic bishops for teaching and witness in support of religious liberty. The readings and the questions that follow can be used for group discussion or for personal reflection. Read the rest…