Saints and Feasts and Rogation Days, Oh My!

On May 8, 2024May 8, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In AscensionLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Whew! So much is happening this week. We’re in May, the month devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, tomorrow is Ascension Thurday (except most of the US will observe it on Sunday). There are two saints’ memorials today, and it’s the feast of the apparition of St. Michael in 590 AD, and the dedication of the sanctuary built on the site. AND today is the final day of the Minor Rogation Days. (I have to admit, I’ve heard of Rogation Days and I’ve read about them, but I’m only just now getting it through my head what they actually are. What can I say? I discovered the Church long after the changes of Vatican II, and though I read a lot of old books, what I don’t know is vast.

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St Joseph the Worker Day

On May 1, 2024May 1, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Saints and Blesseds2 Comments

+JMJ+ Today is the Optional Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker. In his honor I’m sharing some videos about him, then some prayers, and links to a couple of articles, too, in the notes. St. Joseph, protector of the Holy Family, pray for us! (Don’t forget to enter the Giveaway while you’re here! Entries accepted until May 17, 2024 at 11:59pm. Details on Giveaway Spring 2024 page.)

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New Giveaway for Spring 2024

On April 24, 2024April 24, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In GiveawaysLeave a comment

+JMJ+ Okay, I’ve narrowed it down for our Spring Giveaway. Sorta. I’ve put what I came up with on the Giveaway Spring 2024 page tonight.

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Time for a Giveaway!

On April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Giveaways1 Comment

+JMJ+ Our most recent loosely-themed series, Catholicism 101 or What is Christianity, has ended for now. While I decide what to do next (and I have some ideas), why don’t we do a giveaway? We haven’t done one in a while, Pentecost is coming up, so that sounds like as good an excuse as any. Now we just have to decide what to give away. What will it be?

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It’s about transformation

On April 10, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Series, What is ChristianityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ (Our loosely themed Catholicism 101 or What is Christinity series continues.) A Christian anthropology: what would that mean? Christianity does have a certain way of looking at man, at God, at the world, at reality. It is more than a way of looking but, yes, it is a way of looking. It’s a way of describing what reality is. And it is more than describing it. We describe it to think about it and to tell others about it, but we also describe it so we can do something with it or about it in an interior and an exterior way.

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Happy Divine Mercy Sunday, y’all!

On April 7, 2024April 7, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Divine MercyLeave a comment

+JMJ+ You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.

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The Way to Emmaus

On April 3, 2024April 4, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Easter, Seasonal3 Comments

+JMJ+ Tonight I was reading in the devotional, In Conversation with God, Vol. 2 (see notes below) for Wednesday in the Octave of Easter. The chapter talks about the disciples on the way to Emmaus, part of the readings for the day’s Mass, and the title is “Letting Oneself be Helped.” Sometimes that is the hardest thing, isn’t it? Asking for help. Letting someone help us. Surrendering that insistence on doing things our own way when clearly our own way isn’t working. Or isn’t working as well as it could be. Or is actively working against us. Surrendering control, allowing someone else to decide how to help us and when, and what we need to do. We balk at it naturally. But what if the One trying to help us is the Lord? Do we balk at His direction? Do we refuse to let Him help us?

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Happy Easter!

On March 31, 2024March 31, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Easter, SeasonalLeave a comment

Regina Caeli

V: Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
R: The Son you merited to bear, alleluia,
V: Has risen as He said, alleluia.
R: Pray to God for us, alleluia.
V: Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
R: For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.

My First Holy Thursday Experience

On March 27, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Holy Week, Seasonal, Series, What is Christianity2 Comments

+JMJ+ Though this was originally written a few years ago, I’m including it as a re-share in our current Catholic Christianity 101 or What is Christianity series. No other Holy Thursday has affected me as deeply as that first one just two nights before I was to be received into the Church at the Easter Vigil. And so I will share with you again, and for those who have not read it, for the first time, my account, lightly edited, of that evening.

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It’s not about comfort

On March 20, 2024March 20, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Series, What is ChristianityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ (We’re continuing our series on Catholicism 101 or What is Christianity.) People have said to me, people who should know better, but the secular world has gotten to them and their minds have been affected and they have said things like, “I understand why you need religion, it gives you comfort.”

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Happy and blessed feast day of St. Joseph

On March 19, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Patron of the Universal Church, guide us.
Protector of the Holy Family, guard us.
Show men not to be afraid of being men.
Amen.

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I am a soul who has a body, oh, really?

On March 13, 2024 By Lee (@disciple96)In Series, What is ChristianityLeave a comment

+JMJ+ (We’re continuing our series What is Christianity? or Catholicism 101.) How many times have you heard someone say it? “I am a soul, I have a body.” That’s not what the Church teaches. Think it doesn’t matter? Oh, but it does. If you think you are a soul who has a body, then you probably think your soul is the more important of the two and that the body is somehow second rate. There is a sense in which this is true. After all, the soul can live without the body, but the body can’t live without the soul. But without the body you would be incomplete. A human person consists of a soul and a body. A better way of saying that would be, a human person is a union of body and soul. *I like to say the words together, well, as close together as I can say them, bodysoul or soulbody. I just can’t seem to say them at the same time. We humans are limited that way, one thing after another, one thing at a time.)

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