Category Archives: Saint Days and Liturgical Feasts

Merry Christmas from Women of Grace!

Posted on by

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.”  –Isaiah 9:6

My Dear Friends in Christ,

As we enter the final days of Advent and begin our journey into the season of Christmas, we joyfully anticipate the great gift of the Christ Child and all that His birth has meant to humanity.  Our hearts are filled with gratitude for this unfathomable gift. 

We are also filled with gratitude for all that you have done to support the mission of Women of Grace and all of our outreaches.  We wish all of our benefactors, customers and friends the peace, joy and love of Jesus Christ and pray that the He will fill your hearts with His Love and Peace!  May the coming New Year bring you “every spiritual blessing in the heaven!” (Ephesians 1:3)

All of the staff of Living His Life Abundantly® and Women of Grace® offer our prayers for you and your intentions during this Christmas season.  We ask you to please remember us and the efforts of our apostolate during your times of prayer!  I would also ask you to prayerfully consider making a sacrificial year-end donation to assist us in our mission of evangelization for the coming year. 

May you and your families have an even greater experience of the presence of the Child Jesus and His Holy Mother, Mary in the deepest recesses of your soul this Christmas and always!

God bless you!

With gratitude,

Johnnette's Signature

Johnnette S. Benkovic and Staff

Preparing the Manger of Your Heart

Posted on by

The Advent Season is upon us, and the call is to “watch and pray.” One way to make fruitful this time of holy anticipation is to prepare the manger of our heart for the coming of our Lord and King.

To that end, let me recommend a couple of great resources we have available for you. On the Women of Grace homepage (www.womenofgrace.com) we are featuring two Advent retreats on CD — one by Dr. Edward Sri and the other by Father Edmund Sylvia. Both of these offerings will take you deeply into the heart of the season and fill you with wonder at the gift that is ours through the Christ Child

Another great resource certain to enhance your Advent experience is Issue #4 of the Women of Grace Journal.  You can use this independently and it is a fabulous Advent study for your Women of Grace study group. It truly encourages us to enter deeply into the reality of this blessed season by calling us into the sacred mysteries of our Faith. For those of you who are Gold Members of WOG Exclusive, it is available in the library. Simply type “Women of Grace Journal” into the search feature and scroll to Issue #4. It is also available in print and can be ordered through our on-line store or by calling us at 1-800-558-5452.

I am confident that if we enter into this glorious liturgical season and let it enter into us by means of prayer and retreat, Christmas Day will be a graced event like never before.

Let’s remember each other in our petitions and ask God to give us all holy anticipation for the coming of our Savior.

Our Queen Mother

Posted on by

Today is the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This Feast was established by Pope Pius XII in 1954 and concludes the octave of the Feast of the Assumption.  Pope Pius XII stated that,

 “Jesus Christ alone, God and Man, is King in the full, proper, and absolute sense of the term.  Mary also, in a restricted and only analogous way, shares in royal dignity as the Mother of Christ who is God, as His associate in the work of Redemption, in His conflict with the enemy, and in His complete victory.  From this association with Christ the King, she obtains a height of splendor unequaled in all creation” (Ad Caeli Reginam, no. 25).

Wow! What a Queen Mother we have!  When we place ourselves in her caring hands, she continually draws us ever more closely to Jesus, Our King.  I hope that you will entrust yourself, your family, and all of your needs to the loving intercession of Mary, Our Queen.  Please enjoy this beautiful prayer of Pope Pius XII: Read the rest…

Drawn to the Cross

Posted on by

Have you made good use of your time of Lenten preparation?  NOW is the perfect time to reflect and prepare for the great paschal mystery which will soon be upon us.  In the link below, I share some food for thought for these final hours of Lent.  Please take a few moments to listen.  Join me in making these last days, the very best days of our Lenten journey!

Drawn to the Cross – Women of Grace Live Audio

The Fertility of the Fiat

Posted on by

Here at Women of Grace® we L-O-V-E Our Lady.  She is the model whom we look to as THE woman of grace.  In fact Mary is at the core of our Foundational Study Full of Grace: Women and the Abundant Life. 

What is it about Our Mother Mary that makes her the exemplar of what it means to be a disciple AND a woman of grace?  Today’s Feast of the Annunciation highlights her greatest attribute, her complete and total “Yes” to God.  A passage from the book Full of Grace briefly summarizes the greatness of Mary’s fiat and how we as women are to follow her example: Read the rest…

Death and New Life

Posted on by

During these first few weeks of Lent, Holy Mother Church directs us to ponder the reality of our mortality and to make a serious appraisal of how we are living our lives in light of it.

Today’s reading from Divine Intimacy (#95) by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD, brings spiritual perspective to this most important consideration. Following are a couple of nuggets that impacted me today in my time of prayer:

Read the rest…

Lent: Be Mortified – Not Mortifying

Posted on by

Yesterday on our radio program, Women of Grace® Live, I recommended two resources for Lent _– In Conversation with God, Volume 2 by Francis Fernandez; and Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD. Today, I followed my own advice and prayerfully read the selections for Ash Wednesday. Both were excellent. But it was one line in Section 2 of In Conversation with God that grabbed me. Read the rest…

Lenten Wisdom from a Six Year Old

Posted on by

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.”

“Oh,” said Julia. “I began Lent already. Remember when you told me not to climb on the chair?

Well, I stopped and I haven’t done it again.”

“Julia, that is wonderful! I am proud of you!” I replied with enthusiasm (always ready to reinforce obedience!). “I have been thinking about how I will spend Lent this year, too.”

“Grandma, I know what you can do!”

 “Really, Julia? What is that?” I said hesitantly not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“You could donate things.”

“That’s true, Julia, I sure could,” I responded already ticking off the items in the garage that I’d just love to get rid of but realizing it would be a pleasure and not a sacrifice.

“You could give away some of my toys,” said Julia deep into the idea by now.

“They’re your toys, Honey. You should give them away.”

 “Okay. I’m so good I’ll do that too!” and with that she finished her milk and bounded away.

Read the rest…

Behind the Scenes with St. André

Posted on by

Fr. Ed and his special guest, Fr. Tom Looney, Provincial Superior of the Eastern Province of Congregation of the Holy Cross, gave us a intriguing behind the scenes look at the Order of Holy Cross and the life of the recently canonized St. Andre Bessette of Montreal.  

If you missed their discussion, you can listen at our podcast link below.  St. André Bessette, pray for us!

Thursday’s Women of Grace Live Radio Program

My Beloved Child by Ron Quinlan

Posted on by

Fr. Ed shared this beautiful quote by Ron Quinlan on the Catholic Exchange website during today’s Women of Grace live radio program.  It beautifully illustrates God’s deep and abiding love for us.  Happy St. Valentine’s Day! 

My Beloved Child,

Yes, you are my beloved child.  I know this is hard for you to believe.  You see all your mistakes and failures, all the times you lost your temper, all the times you’ve hurt people, all the times you stayed away from me.  You look at yourself and see your failures.

I look at you and see your beauty.  I see the love you’ve given to those you encountered in your life.  I see the times you tried to love others, all the times you’ve given of yourself.  I see a beautiful person struggling to become the person you were created to be.

There is a beauty and love deep inside of you.  Right now you may not see it but someday the whole world will look at you and see this rare beauty, someone very special and unique, a gift to the world — for you are my gift and my beloved child.

So often you’ve been afraid of me.  You run and try to hide, hoping that I won’t notice your mistakes.  So many hours you spend, doing everything you can to stay busy, too busy to think, to busy talk to me.  You run away from me but I long for your company.  I long to shower you with my love, to pour my blessings upon you.  I yearn to comfort and console you, to be there for you in your pain.  My desire is to take care of you.  My passion is for you to come to me, seeking me, to know and love me — for that is why I made you.

I want you to know that I know everything you ever done — and I love you with a passion so intense that human words can not describe it.  Your past is forgiven and forgotten.  I remember nothing you have confessed.  I passionately desire to forgive you everything.  All you have to do is repent and confess.

So come to me; come so that I may pour my blessings upon you.  There is so much I want to give you.  I want to do so much for you.  I want you to know my peace.  I want to set you free from the guilt that robs you of your joy; from the fear that plagues you; from the worry and anxiety that is tearing you apart.  I want you to know my joy, to know my freedom, to be secure in my love.

Come, now! There is nothing you have to change or do, no improvements you have to make before you come to me.  Come as you are.  I love you exactly as you are.  Just, come!