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What a story, Catholic Pilgrims. This is the true story of Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch woman, who lived through WWII, which included being arrested for helping hide Jews and eventually being sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in Germany. This book was captivating from the get-go. Corrie really brings you into her family life and does such a good job of helping you to know her loved ones. Her father is a watchmaker and a deeply devout and wise man. Their home, the Beje, is always alive with people. Though they didn’t have a lot, this family shared everything they had. It was so impressive to read about their generous hearts. Once Holland is occupied by the Germans, Corrie and her family join up with the underground resistance and hide Jews in their home. Eventually, they get caught and arrested. Corrie and her sister, Bestie, find themselves after many months in Ravensbruck and the horrors are nearly unbelievable. But, these two women hold on to their faith in God and they bring hope and faith to many other women. My grandfather, who helped to liberate a concentration camp in Germany, once told me through tears, “You cannot imagine what people will do to others.” This book is light and darkness at the same time. You see the worst in humanity, but also the best. The best is what makes this book so captivating. I would highly, highly recommend this book. It’s so encouraging to read about everyday people who lived out their faith extremely well when faced with unparalleled evil. Live the Faith boldly and travel well, Catholic Pilgrims.
When I was young, on rare occasions, I would attend church with my grandparents in the tiny, Kansas town that they lived in. It was an old wooden church that felt tired and almost like a relic of a bygone era. I’d always be the youngest person in there by, at least, 50 years. The “organ” was basically this keyboard that sounded like a haunted house and the organist pumped out the same old hymns each time I went. There was always the one lady who would belt out songs like she thought she was an opera singer. I remember looking around as a kid and thinking this was all boring and lame. Yesterday, at church we sang an old hymn which is rare. I was immediately transported back to my grandparent’s church on the corner of Maple Street and it made me a bit teary-eyed. Now, through adult eyes, I didn’t feel like the slow song was boring or lame. It’s funny how at the time, you don’t think certain things will leave an impression, but they do. When you get older and those memories come back, you are able to look at them with maturity and appreciation. Maybe the song made me long for a simpler time, at least simpler to me. Or maybe it made me miss my grandparents. Or maybe it made me realize that with the passage of time, our faith is the anchor and our only true calm in the storm. Or maybe all of those things. It truly is Amazing Grace, Catholic Pilgrims, that gives us moments like this and makes us grateful for the foundation we have in Christ. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Monday. *Try to find my husband in this picture. It will give you idea of the enormity of these trees.
When I was baptized at around 11-years old, I pretty much thought I had hit the pinnacle of the spiritual life. What more was there to do? I believed Jesus was “my Lord and Savior,” I believed “Jesus loves me this I know,” and, yeah, I believed. Now, I hadn’t read through the Bible, I barely had a prayer life, but that didn’t really matter because I believed. Of course I was a naive young girl, but the fact remains that I believed Salvation was a “one and done” thing. I understood differently upon becoming Catholic. At my husband’s Bible Study this past weekend one of the older guys commented on how he sees that the Catholic Church has a plan to move you towards Heaven from conception to death. The Sacraments are that plan, plus all the in between. We enter our spiritual life at baptism. We are strengthened at Confirmation. We need the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist weekly, even better if daily. Confession is there to get our souls back on track. The Sacraments of Marriage and Holy Orders give us graces to live out our vocations. Anointing of the Sick prepares us for possibly healing or death and helps us to bear suffering. Then there is all the in between. Prayers: Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet. The Saints Sacramentals Holy Days Feast Days Fasting Days There is just so much to assist us on our journey. As with anything that you start out fresh and full of vigor, there will come a point where you start to limp along. You will need something that affects real and true change and provides real and true graces. Nothing in the spiritual life can be a one and done deal. We need constant renewal and the Church recognizes that. We need help for the journey, Catholic Pilgrims. The Church has a treasury of helps that we can draw from and sometimes obligates us to use because, left to ourselves, we are in danger of slipping away from a relationship with God. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Friday.
When I was in kindergarten, for the second semester of school, my mom, my brother, and I went to live with my maternal grandparents. My dad had to finish an internship in Wichita and it didn’t make sense to move the whole family there for just a semester. Anyway, each day, I’d ride the bus out to this ghost town (not kidding) to attend school. At the end of everyday, when the bus pulled up in front of my grandparent’s house, I would see my younger cousin riding my bike. Oh, it made me so mad and I’d furiously stomp off the bus and yell at her. My grandmother asked me one day, “Amy, why does it make you so mad that she’s riding the bike? You aren’t even here to use it.” Angrily, I said, “Because it’s mine!” “You are going to be pretty lonely in this life if that’s the way you are going to act. Don’t you think you could share?” Jesus talks a lot about division in today’s Gospel reading and I started thinking about all the ways we bring about division with others. One of the most prominent ways is the insistence on yelling, “Because it’s mine!” My, me, mine. It’s MY body, MY choice. I need ME time. It’s time to get MINE. The insistence on self is one of the greatest causes of division. Instead we should say: This is my body given up for YOU. I want to spend time with YOU. I’d like to share with YOU. This is what we are meant to learn from Christ. He gave His Body for us, so that we might commune with Him as He shares His very self in the Eucharist. Incredible. Our lives are not our own, Catholic Pilgrims. When we cling to “me, myself, and I,” we find that we become very lonely, bitter, and selfish. Better to give ourselves away for love of others. Have a blessed day.
I woke up this morning thinking of this movie, so I thought I would share it with you all. "The Spitfire Grill" came out in 1996 and it was around that time that my dad and I watched it. We both instantly liked it. It's not flashy, it's not fast-paced, it's just good storytelling. The story centers around a young woman named Percy Talbott. Recently released from prison, she goes to work at a small-town cafe in Gilead, Maine and tries to start her life over. Some people in the town accept her, some don't. You know she has a past that needs to be healed but you don't know from what until much later in the movie. The owner of the cafe, Hannah, is a grumpy old woman who is overly blunt and has a bit of a hard-heart. Her son was traumatized in the Vietnam War and lives as a recluse in the woods, refusing contact with anyone--including his mother. Hannah has wanted to sell the cafe for years, but has been unable to. Percy comes up with the idea to have a $100-essay contest to sell the place. People can send in their essays for 100 dollars and tell why they would like to own the cafe. The reading of the essays as they come in by Hannah, Percy, and Shelby, Hannah's niece-in-law, is an endearing moment in the film. The stand out part of the film when Percy goes up to a hill and sits down and starts to sing "There is a Balm in Gilead." Her brokenness comes out in tears. As she is sitting there crying, Hannah's son comes up behind her and lays his hand on her head. Two broken people finding a way to be of comfort to each other. When I was looking up some information on the film, I wasn't too surprised to find that the "idea for this film was conceived by Malcom Roger Courts, long-time director and CEO of Sacred Heart League, Inc., a Catholic nonprofit fundraising and communications organization base in Walls, Mississippi." Nothing in the film is overly Catholic, but it does have Catholic themes running throughout. If you get a chance, I think you'll enjoy this movie, Catholic Pilgrims. I would suggest it for audiences 13 and up as it does have some mature topics. Have a great day!
One of the reasons that the Christian Faith has lost its appeal to people, mainly men, is that too often it is presented as mealy-mouthed and weak. It’s nice. Nice, nice, nice with a slice of doormat to go with your nice. There is nothing inspiring about this and it strips Christianity of its awesome strength and power to be a force for good in the world. We have been told that the only option in dealing with evil and immorality is just to turn our cheeks and slink away to go cower in a corner and keep ourselves out of sight. Pope John Paul II showed us, though, how a Christian stands up to evil. In dealing with Communist Russia, he didn’t fight with weapons, but he also didn’t just run off and hide. He faced evil with courage and strength. Told that Mass was not allowed to be held in Poland, he went and defied the “rules” and held Mass with millions. Knowing this could end his life, he did it anyway. He gave the people joy, he gave them hope, he gave them Christ in the Eucharist and you cannot beat Christ. Through all this, he kept a smile on his face and a positive attitude. This inspired people. Pope John Paul II was such a great example of courage, strength, joy, and devotion. His great leadership helped to bring down the Iron Curtain and deliver millions from oppression. Today, we celebrate St. John Paul II. He once wrote, “You must be like the first Christians and radiate enthusiasm and courage, in generous devotion to God and neighbor.” May we all try to live this calling out, Catholic Pilgrims. St. John Paul II, pray for us!
On Sunday evenings, my husband and I like to talk with our son about the Mass readings in order to help him understand them a bit better. So, yesterday, we were talking about how James and John were looking for places of honor and power when they asked Jesus to grant that they may sit at His right and left. They didn’t understand what kind of king Christ would be and they were thinking in very worldly ways. Now, power and honor are not bad in and of themselves. We need people to use power well and honor, to loosely quote St. Thomas Aquinas, places a flag on that which we deem virtuous and worthwhile. We then talked about how Christ told them that service and sacrifice are really where it’s at—that’s what truly makes you great in the Kingdom. I then said, “In our culture, though, service before self is not the message. What do you think it is?” He said, “Everyone talks about me time.” “That’s right, they do. ‘Me time, self-care, focus on yourself, you do you.’ These are all self-focused messages and it’s not too surprising that our depression rates continue to go up rather than go down.” “If you ever find yourself unhappy and down, go focus on serving someone. Go love and serve those in your life or your community. It’s important to take care of yourself, but we are too focused on ourselves and that makes people unhappy.” Blessed Ladislaus once said, “If you want to be happy, make others happy.” It is one of the paradoxes of the Faith, Catholic Pilgrims: That to be truly fulfilled and happy, we must think less of ourselves and more of others. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Monday.
When my husband and I were first married, he was the lukewarm cradle Catholic and I was the lukewarm Protestant. But, because we had our new baby girl, we both realized that we wanted her to have faith in God. Where we once didn’t think our religious differences mattered, now it did and so we met on the figurative battlefield to square off. I was strongly anti-Catholic and a bit of a hot head. My husband is an engineer and the calm to my storm, so with his logical way of explaining things without getting too mad at me, I was continually proven wrong about Catholicism. When he would talk about the Eucharist, it was like he was speaking another language. The real Body and Blood of Christ? What?! As my husband dismantled all my arguments and after having a very strange experience when I went up to take the Eucharist without being a Catholic in a state of grace, I decided to look into things. John 6 was huge for me. Then, I also started reading what the early Church Fathers said. St. Ignatius of Antioch, who heard from St. John, so he would have learned from him, once wrote, “Take care, then, to partake of one Eucharist; for one is the Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one is the cup to unite us with His Blood, and one altar.” When I started reading things like this, I started to open my mind and soul to the possibility of the Eucharist being really what Christ said it was—His Body and Blood. Once I got it. Once it clicked for me, I knew I had to be Catholic immediately. I could barely wait. Because once you realize not what the Eucharist is, but Who, everything changes in your life, Catholic Pilgrims. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Thursday. St. Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us!
When I was younger, I watched, listened to, and read anything. I had no discerning process for what entertainment I consumed. It was just entertainment, after all. That was my defense. After awhile, I noticed that the very sinful things I was watching and reading started playing in my mind pretty frequently. That made me uncomfortable, but I pushed down my conscience. I lacked courage to say no to the popular culture. Upon becoming Catholic, I came to fully understand that we should seek out the true, the beautiful, and the good, especially when it comes to entertainment. Entertainment does shape our views and thoughts whether we think it does or not. Sometimes, we must wade into the darkness to deal with evil, like when your job takes you there. Specializing in the study of sexual violence crimes has brought me face-to-face with utter evil and depravity, but I will wade there to fight it. Recently, I was told that I needed to watch and listen to full episodes of the filthy podcast I mentioned a few days back. I was told that I needed to do this because I couldn’t be taken seriously if I didn’t and it ruined my credibility if I didn’t basically do a thorough deep dive into the smut. When I explained that I heard and saw enough to know it was bad, like really bad, that wasn’t enough. Shame on me for not giving the podcast a chance to show me how truly excellent it could be. 🙄 I responded with “How long do you need to stare at a train wreck to know it’s bad?” It is morally wrong to encourage people to wade into sinful entertainment just so that they can give you a fully-formed opinion. This is highly dangerous because they could be occasions of sin for people and really sink their souls. Where I once entertained all entertainment, I now know to turn off or close anything that steps out of bounds. I don’t need to keep feeding my mind and soul with filth. The reasons people would encourage such a thing are because they either like that entertainment and are trying to justify themselves or they agree with the topic and again are trying to justify themselves. Encourage people in the good, the true, and the beautiful, Catholic Pilgrims. We should be helping each other get to Heaven, not sending people off on paths of occasions of sin. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday.
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!
I 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!
Because I’m a public presence, I definitely draw the ire of people who are extremely opposed to my views. This is fine. It exhausts me sometimes, but some people’s arguments are so bad that it really takes asking one question and they go silent and delete their initial comment to me. This past week, two people didn’t like a comment I made on a video and one told me “I wasn’t too bright” and the other told me that “perhaps your college owes you your money back.” Now, none of these comments bother me. They come from people who have no real argument and they are just trying to make me mad, which they don’t. It used to bother me, it doesn’t anymore. What bothers me is the glaring lack of wisdom. We have nearly all the information in the world at our fingertips. We have more people with college degrees than ever before. Most kids in first world countries get nearly year-round education, but we are not the wiser for it. You can have all the education in the world, but if that knowledge is not married to the wisdom of God, our ethics will suffer and all our degrees will essentially amount to not much. The Book of Wisdom is my favorite OT book and that is where we get our first reading today. “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne…” Wisdom 7:7 We will not seem too bright, Catholic Pilgrims, if our intellect is not led by the wisdom of God. So, we must plead and pray for it daily. Have a beautiful Sunday. *Picture is from Sequoia National Park. I’m sitting in The Senate.
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