When I ask you, “How many friends do you have?” what pops into your mind? Is it …
How many “true” friends?
How many Facebook friends?
How many friends in my whole lifetime? Actually, it’s far more than any of those numbers. In truth you have more friends than you can count. The saints in heaven are the best friends you could ask for – and they’re pulling for you.
As a kid I remember being super excited for a road trip from Massachusetts to New Jersey to visit my grandparents. In my five year old brain, “New Jersey” might as well have been the moon and a week was basically forever. I had to pack accordingly. Pulling bags out the closet I filled them with my stuffed animals, dolls, books, art supplies, my sticker collection and a panda poster. Wisely, my mother did an audit on the bags when I told her I was ready to go. She explained to me that I Read more [...]
There are two kinds of people in this world, the people who struggle with body image and the people who lie about it. I think that no matter how confident you are, or how much your hair and outfit looks like it’s straight off Wanelo (because it is, obviously) there’s always a part of us that is afraid we’re not good enough. Which is no surprise when skinny, photoshopped people are held as the ideal in everything from advertising to Abercrombie and Fitch stores. Yes, body image is Read more [...]
This weekend we celebrate Father’s Day. The day you say thank you to your dad for feeding you, clothing you, and being at your soccer games by giving him a photo mug. No matter how we show our appreciation: through a craft project, or a family dinner, or a phone call, Father’s Day is truly a day worth celebrating. Our biological fathers are meant to be a gift to us from God, to be a sign of the love God the Father has for us. We are told God wants to provide for us (Deuteronomy 2:7) Read more [...]
One little bump and I go from calm and collected to, “This plane is going to crash, and I’m too young to die!”
Yes, I’m that dramatic, sometimes.
I think of all the things that I want to still do with my life, things that I want to accomplish, places I wanted to go; I think of children and enjoying the benefits of becoming an old man who sits on his front porch drinking lemonade and yelling at kids to get off his lawn (face it, you know that is going to be awesome).
Fear will grip me the rest of that flight. I can’t focus on anything – not the weird in-flight movie or awkward conversation I am having with the person next to me. I’m gripping the armrest like it will actually steer the plane for the rest of the flight.
Let’s imagine that one day in Phys Ed class you’re playing volleyball and you twist your ankle while you dive for a save. Everything feels all right, but you wake up the next morning with a giant bruise, a swollen ankle and a lot of pain. What would you do? Most likely you’d go to the doctor’s. In fact, if you didn’t go, but kept limping around insisting you were all right, your friends would probably drag you there themselves.
We know when it’s important to get professional help with our physical ailments. It just makes sense to us. But as a society we have problem seeking professional help with our mental health. We often label people with mental illnesses as “crazy,” and think that if we can’t take care of issues that affect our mental health (like stress, anger, or loss) then we must be weak.
Jesus wanted to show us that His heart is constantly, forever, always, eternally loving and forgiving us. He loves you. He loves me. He loves every person so intensely that His heart burns with that love. Look into His eyes and you can’t see anything else.
But, yes, I am getting older, and with that age has come a realization of things I took for granted when I was in high school.
As an adult, and even more as a parent of a little boy who is just over a year old, I have come to appreciate all that my parents went through. So, as we sit in between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, here’s a list of a few things you may not recognize that your parents have done for you:
Everywhere you look, there’s an ad, magazine cover, or commercial telling you what the new hotness is in diet secrets and workouts. It can be confusing and honestly . . . how do you know what to believe? Don’t let the smiling, skinny people in the ads convince you; you need someone you can trust. That’s why I asked Dr. John Oertle some questions about diets, weight loss, and how you as a teen should approach your health. He’s an awesome, Catholic doctor who’s passionate about sharing the truth about the wonderful body God gave each of us.
I weighed myself 20 times a day. I allowed myself 100 or 200 calories a day. If I survived the day on 100 calories, I considered it to be a good day. If I had overeaten, which meant 300 calories, I made sure to punish myself the next day by running more miles and eating more meager portions. I went to bed starving and most nights I couldn’t sleep because my hunger pains kept me awake. My body ached.
In my last blog I talked about the need to care for ourselves, body and soul. So get ready, put down the pop tart, and listen up because I am serious about this – it’s important! If you’re anything like me, sometimes caring for yourself is easier said than done. How do we care for ourselves in the midst of our busy schedules? And What does that even mean? Our Needs Part of learning how to take care of your mind, body, and soul is learning how to understand what you need. Your Read more [...]
I have a hard time taking care of myself. It isn’t that I don’t want to care for myself. I just always think there are more important things to do. When did life get so busy? Running into spiritual direction, the truth smacked me in the face like a 2 by 4. After 45 minutes of sharing my busy and over committed schedule, my director said: “Mary, we are mind, body and soul. You are exhausted! If you don’t learn to care for yourself first, or you will never be spiritually healthy.” Wait, Read more [...]
“That’s bad karma.” “What goes around comes around.” “You’ll get what’s coming to you.” These are the kinds of things we hear often. It’s that idea that life will always take an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. And if you live a good life, good things will happen to you. If you make mistakes and wrong turns, bad things will happen to you. So what does that mean for us, a world full of sinners, who constantly fall short of God while being called to holiness? In a Read more [...]
http://youtu.be/I0O3iX85kvY Have you ever met a priest who fights like a ninja, talks like TV star, and cooks better than an Iron Chef? You probably haven’t, because there’s only one Fr. Leo Patalinghug. Fr. Leo and his ministry GraceBeforeMeals.com have been helping people around the world learn to eat better, share time with their families, and have a ton of fun doing it. In today’s video, Fr. Leo makes two special recipes just for LifeTeen.com that will help you be a healthy, happy, holy, Read more [...]
When I was in high school, during those ancient years in the 90′s when we had an alarm clock that was separate from our phones, I hated waking up early. Okay. Maybe hated isn’t the right word. Let’s go with loathed. No. Despised. Yeah. That’s it. Look. Let’s just say I would have rather drunk a broccoli milkshake topped with sour cream for breakfast every morning than yank myself out of bed when my alarm clock went off. Unfortunately there’s this little thing known as Read more [...]
You all know that what you eat affects your waistline. But did you know that it also affects your mood, your ability to concentrate, and therefore your ability to pray? Since we are not just a body, or just a soul, but a body and soul together, the choices we make with our bodies are reflected in our souls. In this excerpt from Mark’s radio show “Fired Up” from The Catholic Channel on Sirius XM, he and his wife Mel talk about the changes they’ve made to their diets in order to be healthier, Read more [...]
I bring this up because I have recently realized how important this “remembering” is in my relationship with God’s word. If I do not immerse myself in God’s word like I immerse myself in music, TV, etc., then it will never affect my speech or habits and I will quickly find myself forgetful and ignorant of Scripture. And, as St. Jerome reminds us, “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”
There’s a very popular saying: “God loves us just the way we are, but He loves us far too much to let us stay that way.” To move us, and to draw us to Him, sometimes God must withdraw so that we can grow. God wants us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and to do that we have to choose the path of Christ. Sometimes we are consoled and we feel so close to Jesus. Other times, maybe not so much. Just remember . . . when God feels far away, He is simply calling us to Him and He wants you to come along.
If I could get a ripped, NBA body by sitting in front of the TV an hour a day watching Mythbusters, you bet I’d never miss an episode. In fact, if getting in shape was that easy we’d all be walking around looking like Tony Horton and Jillian Michaels (fitness gurus to the uninitiated). But it’s not that easy. And there are so many things I’d rather do than exercise for an hour a day — like watch reruns of Mythbusters. Things that are good for my body are rarely ever Read more [...]
One day, a handsome, mysterious stranger walked into the shop where I work and I gave him a job. I had no idea where he had come from or how he found me, but we needed the help and he was willing to work. Over time, despite many obstacles, we fell in love…
