I hated Christmas. I wanted to love it so badly. I loved everything that came before Christmas day...
Ascend is a lectionary-based resource that walks any reader through the Sunday Mass readings (from the first Sunday in Advent all the way through Christ the King). Ascend provides clarity to the readings by overviewing important connections, word definitions, background information, and challenges the reader to reflect on the readings through prayer, journaling, and action. Ascend successfully educates and empowers us to be fully ready to receive the Word of God at Mass on Sunday.
With a new year comes new opportunities to build or rebuild relationships with the staff we serve with, our parishioners, parents, and especially our teens. It will be tempting to sink back into old structures, habits, and modes of doing ministry "the way things were." However, the ways we minister going forward will require vulnerability, and we will need to continue to adapt to new needs, issues and circumstances.
Let each of the following prayers act as an inch to your tree of faith this Lent. Each prayer is designed to lead you more deeply into this season and the majority can be prayed in 10 min or less. Pick and choose one prayer for each day or simply repeat one of these prayers for the 40 days of this season.
It may be a shock, but even the most powerful and beautiful tools in a Catholic’s spiritual arsenal can be rendered useless or empty because of our tendency to sin.
I always struggle to adequately portray the obstacles I was facing and manipulative nature of the relationship in which I had found myself in, but within one week of discovering I was pregnant, I had scheduled an appointment at Planned Parenthood. In that time, I had allowed myself to buy into every lie Satan sold me
When Jesus knocks—which He always does—do we close the door? Do we call out, “Sorry, I’m busy!” or, “There’s no room for you here.”? Is our floor cluttered and messy? Are we prepared to let Him in, or do we send Him away, onto the next home?
In that moment, I was reminded that God is not going to abandon us in the darkness, but will be our light to guide us through that darkness.
Life is filled with events that that require leaps of faith, trusting in the unknown. A long time ago, a young peasant girl, in the town of Nazareth, took a leap of faith. That girl was Mary.
