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I just finished reading a book called “All That Remains” for my book club. It’s written by a forensic anthropologist from Scotland. The book was a bit disappointing for reasons I don’t have time to go into, but much of the book was centered on the author talking about death. There was one point in the book where she was describing different family members that had died. Commenting on the day of her uncle’s funeral, she said, “I realised that day that when the animation of the person we were is stripped out of the vessel we have used to pilot our way through life, it leaves little more than an echo or a shadow in the physical world.” Later, she commented on how when someone is sleeping, they are still animated. We know the difference between someone asleep and someone who is dead. The reason we can tell the difference is because the soul has gone in death. We’ve all experienced this at funerals. We see our loved one lying there and we know it’s no longer them. As humans, we are both body and soul, but it’s the soul that truly makes us who we are. Twins essentially have the exact same body, but they are two distinct persons because of their souls. Why do I mention all this? Well, today is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila. I read her book “The Interior Castle” for my podcast last year and I grew to love her. She once wrote, “Because we have heard and faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value. Consequently, little effort is made to preserve its beauty.” The more we care for our souls, Catholic Pilgrims, and the more we make them an acceptable place for God to dwell, the more we will transform into who God envisioned us to be at the moment our soul was created by Him. Take care of your body, take care of your soul. Have a beautiful day. St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
Continue ReadingI was teaching my son about purgatory the other day during school. He’s learned about it before but we were talking about how the stains of even forgiven sin have to be cleaned from our souls. He said, “It’s like tomato sauce.” I asked, “What?” “When you get tomato sauce on your white shirts, you always get mad and run away to clean it because you say it stains really bad. But, I can still see the tomato sauce on your shirt after you clean it. Like it’s still there just a teeny bit. So, stains of sin are like that. You might be able to clean it off here on earth, but if you don’t you’re still going to need to be cleaned in purgatory before Heaven.” “So, you can still see the tomato sauce on my shirt after I clean it?” “Yeah, a little bit.” “You didn’t want to tell me?” “I don’t know, you seemed happy about it.” (Sigh) “Well, yes, you are right. The stains of sin are like tomato sauce on a white shirt that’s been cleaned.” Guess I need some new white shirts, Catholic Pilgrims. 😂😂 Have a beautiful Monday!
Continue ReadingYesterday, I dropped my son off at his soccer game and had to run home real quick before it started to get a few things I forgot. It was a good thing I came home, because my neighbor called. She couldn’t find her keys and she asked if I could run her son and another teammate down to the game so they wouldn’t be late. The boys hopped in my car and as we went I listened to their conversation. One said, “Today, I finally counted how many cousins I have. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to count them. But, I was wondering and so I counted. I have eight.” The other one replied, “You didn’t know you have eight cousins?” “Well, when we travel around to visit family, I just play with the cousins that are there. I just play with them because they are in front of my face. Then we pack up and visit more family and there’s more cousins and I just focus on them. I’m always like, ‘Whoa, this is a lot of people. I don’t have time to count.’” The other boy said, “Yeah, that makes sense. It’s good you counted because now you know.” “Yeah, I wasn’t as busy today so I thought about it. Eight. That’s pretty cool.” I had to smile listening to this sweet conversation. May we be ever present to those that are in front of our faces, Catholic Pilgrims, and may we stop and find time to count our blessings. Have a good weekend. P.S. I realized that I have never actually counted my first cousins either, so I did. Thirteen. That’s pretty cool.
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