Jesus

Four Things That Bring Great Peace

As I continue to slowly go through “The Imitation of Christ”, I was excited when I saw the title of the next section “Four Things That Bring Great Peace”. It said that Christ offered these things to bring us freedom and peace: Try to do the will of another rather than your own. Always choose […]

Admitting Weakness

I have been continuing to listen and reading along with the book, “The Imitation of Christ.” It is deep and heavy for me, but truthful and thought provoking. I’m glad each session is only a few minutes in length. Today was the chapter entitled, “Admitting our weakness and the miseries of this life.” While it […]

Near Death Experiences

I have been listening to a series on the Hallow app about near death experiences. It has been enlightening and fascinating. The series is based on studies that have been done and interviews with people of all ages and walks of life who have physically died or nearly died and came back to life. Each […]

Eucharist Procession in NY

I learned today that Fr. Mike Schmitz celebrated Mass in NY city on October 10 followed by a Eucharist Procession. Over 5000 people attended the Mass and procession including priests, nuns, and laity. While there is so much violence, turmoil, and protests in this world and in this country, we need God more than ever. […]

Imitation of Christ

Today I started listening to a podcast of “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a Kempis, on the Hallow app. It started out by acknowledging that the literature is challenging. But to encourage the listener, a quote was read from the book that could be beneficial in many situations, “Do not be detoured, nor quickly […]

Viaticum

We were blessed to have the new priest from our parish come over to the house today. He was young, soft spoken, gentle, and caring. He talked with my mother for some time and asked her what she thought Heaven would be like. She said she pictured it as full of clouds with an organ […]

Don’t Be An Obstacle

Today’s Gospel reading was when Jesus told Peter, “Get behind me, satan.” which is shocking. Only a couple of verses before, Jesus built His Church on Peter. There are a couple of things that really stood out to me from the readings and homily. First was that Peter must have felt pretty great that he […]

Inspirational Reflections

This past week, my Wednesday night prayer group had an inspirational discussion about today’s Mass readings. Today, I went to church while my sister stayed home with my mother and they watched Mass online. I also listened to a podcast about the Gospel and read the homily of a friend. There were a lot of […]

Scruples

Today I was thinking of the past. I can be haunted by mistakes I have made and things that I wish were different. I decided to continue listening to a podcast of the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This particular chapter described how Ignatius suffered from “Scruples” defined as a condition of self-criticism and […]

Receiving Communion

During my mom’s recent hospital stay, a Eucharist Minister came to her room. Before she was able to start, a care coordinator arrived. She said it was fine to start and she stayed in the room. As the Eucharist Minister went through the prayers, mom and I joined in. I was a little surprised when […]