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We are T-minus three days out from Season Five dropping on my podcast "Journeying with the Saints." On Saturday, the introduction episode will come out and you can hear why I picked St. Frances Cabrini for this season and I'll give some background information on her. I'll also give you a run down on how the season is going to operate. It's a little different this time. I've been doing this podcast for five seasons now which is incredible to me. My brother prompted me to start a podcast back in 2019 and I wasn't really sure if I wanted to. After all, there are like 900 million podcasts out there and who was I to add another? I half-heartedly tried a Catholic Pilgrim podcast, but I just couldn't get the gears rolling. Then, lying on my bed one day in Turkey, the idea came into my head to read St. Faustina's Diary for a 365-day podcast. As crazy and ambitious as that idea sounded, I knew I had to do it. I wanted to bring the Saints' writings to people and that was the motivation and inspiration I needed. So, with my cheap microphone propped up on an ironing board, I started my first season. It was received better than I could have ever hoped. Five seasons in and I'm continually amazed at how the Saints guide me. Once I land on a particular saint, I definitely notice how they are working in my life. Season Five hasn't even started and I've already been blessed by so many people and opportunities. I've spoken with people at different shrines dedicated to St. Frances and the collaboration has been amazing. I've been excited for every season, but this one has been laced with connections that I couldn't have imagined. Later in the year, I've got some trips--pilgrimages--that I can't wait to share with you. So, I hope you are ready. You can find my podcast pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts and please subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Share with a friend if you can. It's going to be a great season, Catholic Pilgrims! St. Frances Cabrini, pray for us!
Continue Reading"Man can counterfeit everything in himself except a clean conscience." When we were stationed at Tyndall AFB, one of my husband's favorite things to do was to rent a boat for visitors. Whenever we would cruise around the bay, I'd be fine. However, if you got me out onto the open ocean, it was within minutes that I would feel nauseous. One day, my husband and I went out with my sister and her then boyfriend. My sister and I immediately started feeling sick and my husband said, "Stand up, look at the horizon, and smile." If you can imagine it, there we were standing stick straight, holding onto the boat, staring off into the distance with stupid fake smiles on our face. But, the fake smiles worked, we started to feel better. I get motion sickness pretty easily and whenever I'm feeling bad, my husband tells me to smile or force a laugh. It's ridiculous, but it works. I can fake it until I make it when it comes to motion sickness. Yesterday, in my OCIA class, I was telling the catechumens about my first confession. Being raised Protestant, I didn't have Confession at my disposal and I thought it was stupid anyway. I could just "talk to Jesus in my head and ask Him to forgive my sins." I never did this, but that was my argument. Plus, Jesus covered all my sins already, so what was the point really in confessing anything. AND to add to that, I wasn't *that* bad, so I didn't really have that much to confess, or so I thought. I faked a lot of happiness and goodness in my life and a lot of people were convinced. I could not convince myself, though. You cannot fake a clean conscience on the inside. Eventually, it will eat you up. You cannot fake it until you make it with regards to a clean conscience. I could trick my brain with fake smiles so that I wouldn't feel motion sickness. But, I could not trick my soul with fake smiles so that I wouldn't "feel" my unclean conscience. There was something I needed to do to clean my conscience and that was to go to Confession. "Conscience brings to man rewards of happiness or of pain: rewards of vivid life or--of death." --Dirk Coster A clean conscience rewards of happiness, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Monday.
Continue ReadingThis is a Nazareth kitty. I'm from a small town just outside the Kansas City area. My mom used to work for the city and, consequently, everyone knew who I was. I was very familiar to a lot of people and, to many, I still am. It's always a bit hard to go back to your hometown once you've started out on your journey. People in town just see you as who you once were or how they once knew you. This is comforting on the one hand because you'll always feel you belong. However, it is hard for them to see you as a person that has grown and changed. For them, you will always just be the person before you left town. That's what they are familiar with. Today, in our Gospel reading from Luke, we hear, "He came to Nazareth, where He had grown up." We know from other verses that people in Nazareth didn't take to Jesus coming back and being different than when He was young and lived among them. He was just Jesus, the carpenter's son. That was who was familiar to them. In their minds, He needed to just stay in that lane--just the "ordinary" Nazareth guy. Because Jesus was familiar to them, they had a hard time accepting His authority, His mission. Sometimes, I fear that we are like the townspeople of Nazareth. Jesus becomes just a pal, someone we know, someone we can hang with, you know...the familiar guy. When He becomes familiar in that way, we start to not see Him as the authority in our lives, and as Our King, Our Lord, and Our Savior. For some, familiarity breeds contempt. It did with many of the townspeople in Nazareth. It does with many of us today. We are familiar with Jesus, but we don't really want Him to have too much influence. We don't want to listen to Him too closely. If He tries to guide our lives in a direction we don't want to go, we tell Him how it's gonna be. If we hear anything from the Gospel that doesn't fit our worldview, we get mad and upset. It's not enough to just be familiar with Jesus. We need to know Him, seek Him, revere Him, and be in awe of Him. We can never say, "Oh, Jesus, yeah, I know that guy." Instead, Catholic Pilgrims, let us say with the Apostle Thomas, "Jesus, my Lord and my God." Have a blessed Sunday.
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