A snowy forest where a dog stops to look back at its own tracks where birds are grazing.

Powering Down and Listening Up

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Nature imparts the most beautiful noise to lull us into sweet silence. A leaf gently falling through branches to land softly among other leaves. The crunch of sparkly snow under a footfall. The snoring of your dog, curled up in his bed, during an afternoon nap. The early coo of the Mourning Dove and unexpected “chip, chip, chip” of a Cardinal all soften the edges of daily noise.

It’s the ugly noise we all want to escape: the sirens, the gossip, the nagging of bosses, the tattling of employees, the earsplitting horn of the driver behind you, the whining of children you don’t even know, the cursing for reasons that have nothing to do with you, the unceasingly shrill blabbing from all types of media … on it continues like demons on both shoulders yapping into your ears.

You just want to hear the silence. You just want to hear God’s voice.

Mother Teresa said, “God is the friend of silence.”¹ “We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness,”¹ she said.

If we spend all year wondering why God doesn’t answer our questions with clear direction and guidance, why do we expect to hear it during Lent by attempting to give up a vice and meat on Fridays? We don’t hear God not because He isn’t speaking to us, but because we can’t hear Him in the noise. Simply being in Lent isn’t going to cut it.

How can we overcome the noise and the restlessness to get to the point of hearing God speaking to us?

The desert mothers, ascetics of the early centuries, wrote and spoke of the value and necessity of silence and understood very well the demons that impede the goal. We have many steps to take to achieve the sweetness of silence. “Desert spirituality understood that the inner journey was one of warfare. Any weapon might be used against the seeker.”²

Know your demons.

We are all fighting demons. For some it’s substance abuse. For some, it’s dependence on others. Some need to shop  or be the center of attention. Others live in some kind of fear. That cold bottle of soda with its refreshing bubbles can be mighty stress-relieving during tense moments. Regardless, we are all fighting a greater fight.

Stop being the noise.

Unless you are in court, you don’t need to defend yourself. If you are in court, you pay lawyers to do so. Amma Theodora, a desert mother said, “A devout person happened to be insulted by someone, and replied, ‘I could say as much to you, but the commandment of God keeps my mouth shut.'” ² Do you need to contribute to every discussion? When a smile and nod will suffice, don’t add anything more.

Find the rhythm.

Have you ever fallen asleep to a loud movie? It isn’t necessarily because you’re so tired you can sleep through anything. Your body, on some level, has found the rhythm of the movie that the director created through the actors’ cadence, storyline flow, sound effects, and other nuances. Did the commercials wake you? They have disturbed the movie’s rhythm for you. Comforting sounds don’t come just from nature. Our bodies attune to a familiar pattern. We don’t hear the hum of a computer or the refrigerator’s motor until it stops or changes its sound. We turn on the fan in the summer, not just to keep us cool, but because its continuous whirring makes for a soothing composition. Lent comes early this year. Ash Wednesday falls on February 19 (Easter is April 5.)  Begin now. Practice filtering out the noise and finding the rhythm that moves us into silence and hearing God’s voice.

1. Hetzel, Whitney, “Why Silence Should Be Your Priority This Lent.” Good Catholic
(blog). Last modified January 14, 2025. https://www.goodcatholic.com/why-silence-should-be-your-priority-this-lent/.

2. Laura Swan, The Forgotten Dessert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of
Early Christian Women. (New York/Mahway, NJ: Paulist Press, 2001), 48, 66.

Feature AI Image Created in Adobe Firefly by Mary McWilliams

© Copyright 2026 by Mary McWilliams

Edited by Rietta Parker

The Virtuous Center

/0 Comments/in , , /by

“Four pivotal human virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. The human virtues are stable dispositions of the intellect and will that govern our acts, order our passions, and guide our conduct in accordance with reason and faith.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1804.

Have you read Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen? If not, get it right away and do yourself a kind favor: read it with deep curiosity and be rewarded with deeper insights.

Jane Austen is a genius who writes with a penetrating focus on the moral dimensions of human behavior. She is often misunderstood, and simplistically considered by some to be writing drawing room dramas. Her novels, though, illuminate the moral underpinnings of human actions, and portray how moral choices cause pain and alienation, or bring joy and peace to relationships.

Her novel, Sense and Sensibility, is centered on the four cardinal virtues, and on the one character who exemplifies them. Elinor Dashwood is the heroine of the story, the virtuous center, the figure around whom all others are seen as possessing or lacking in virtue. Elinor Dashwood demonstrates in her everyday actions those stable dispositions of intellect and will that govern, order, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith, as described by the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In Plato’s Symposium, Agathon speaks in praise of love by referencing the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper says, “The precept of prudence is the ‘permanently exterior prototype’ by which the good deed is what it is; a good action becomes just, brave, temperate only as a consequence of the prototypical decree of prudence.”
In his reference to the permanently exterior prototype of prudence, Pieper highlights the objective and autonomous pattern that we should strive to adopt in our everyday conduct.

Some might wonder if the cardinal virtues still hold relevance for our modern lives. Right acting, according to objective and eternal standards, cannot lose relevance but we can fall away from awareness of or commitment to such standards.

In his book After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre said, “It is her uniting of Christian and Aristotelian themes in a determinate social context that makes Jane Austen the last great, effective imaginative voice of the tradition of thought about, and practice of, the virtues I have tried to identify.”

Elinor Dashwood is the moral center of the plot of Sense and Sensibility, and the central figure whose moral choices bring to light the ethical essence of the other characters. She serves this role due to her consistent embodiment of the four cardinal virtues: prudence,
justice, temperance, and fortitude.

The words prudent or prudently are mentioned 14 times, and the words imprudence, imprudent, or imprudently are written 15 times in the novel. Justice or injustice is mentioned five times. Fortitude is referred to eight times, and temperance once in the novel. In which other novel could you even find these words, let alone a story that portrays their essential role in our personal lives?

The ethical qualities, or character, of each figure in Sense and Sensibility can be observed and judged according to the presence or the absence of the cardinal virtues in their conduct. The crucial pivot point in the story is not the resolution of a romantic relationship. Instead, it is the moral awakening of Elinor’s sister, Marianne, to her own imprudence and want of fortitude (pages 221 to 223).

Elinor reveals how she has suffered silently for four months, and Marianne wonders how she has borne it. It has “been the effect of constant and painful exertion,” Elinor says.

The cardinal virtues are human-sized objective moral standards that we are to grow into through persistent and prolonged personal efforts. The virtues are autonomous, not changing fashions. We are measured, like the characters in Sense and Sensibility, by the presence or the absence of the four cardinal virtues in our daily exertions at right living and deep loving.

Elinor Dashwood is the virtuous center of the novel, Sense and Sensibility. For whom do we serve as the virtuous center? Do we practice the cardinal virtues in our daily lives and our personal relations? Does our conduct awaken anyone else to their want of virtue? This story, and the character of Elinor Dashwood, will inspire you to better conduct.

I believe Plato would have loved Sense and Sensibility, and I’m certain you will, too, when you read or reread this illuminating novel.

After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre, Third Edition, University of Notre Dame Press, page 240.
The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper, University of Notre Dame Press, page 7.
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen, Penguin Books.

copyright 2026 Tom Medlar

A family is in their living room -a little boy is jumping for joy, a mother has her hands up to her face in disbelief, and the father is sitting in his chair in shock.

Review of The Miracle Book by Anthony DeStefano

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

We all need a miracle at some point. In the “season of miracles” here is some guidance
on asking for one.

“What matters is that you desire something badly. And
this time it’s serious. This time you mean business. This
time you need supernatural assistance, and you need it
now.” – (DeStefano 2025, 2)

We often hear Christmas described as the “season of miracles,” and it is. The birth of our Savior was the greatest miracle in history until His Resurrection. The Holy Family’s survival from threats, obstacles, and dangers at the time of His birth was guided only by angels and the hand of God. But that’s not what the commercials refer to when a little girl opens a beautifully wrapped box to find the doll she’s begged for all year. It’s not the snow coming down on a perfectly decorated Victorian inn on Christmas Eve in the typical holiday Romcom. Miracles, like angels, have been sentimentalized and trivialized in popular culture and oftentimes, God is taken out of the whole scenario. It’s only appropriate to attempt to right that ship this time of year.

In his 2025 release, The Miracle Book: A Simple Guide to Asking for the Impossible (Sophia Institute Press), Anthony DeStefano tackles the topic. The author of 30 titles that address, among other subjects, getting to heaven, handling anxiety, and navigating Atheist thinking, he has also produced some of the most beautifully written and illustrated faith-centered children’s books on the market that, quite frankly, could be enjoyed at any age. Anyone who has read Mr. DeStefano’s books or listened to his interviews knows he states his case clearly.

He’s a no-nonsense kind of messenger.

In this book on asking God for a miracle, which is devoid of touchy-feeling sentimentality and superstition and filled with reason and spirituality, he looks the reader in the eye, takes him by the shoulder and sits him down to tell him what’s what. The author reckons that anyone reading his book needs something that is beyond their reach, and they are looking to God for some hefty help. He also assumes that, on some level, everyone believes in a miracle; it’s not a Catholic or Christian thing. Atheists and agnostics all need and ask for miracles at some point in their lives.

But what guidance can you realistically give about asking for something so abstract and supernatural? And so big. Surprisingly, some practical advice imparted in a highly pragmatic manner.

First, you need to understand what you are asking for – what is a miracle, what isn’t. The author offers three perceptions of a miracle. Understanding his perspective is the key to following Mr. DeStefano’s process. You can muster up all the faith and fervor within you, but God’s will may not be in line with your expectations. Still, he believes you can strengthen the possibility but understand, “… obtaining a miracle is both easy and difficult and that it involves a mysterious, divine paradox …” (DeStefano 2025, 4).

He returns to the concept of paradox throughout the book, tying it into the miracle premise. You must, however, put in the work and that involves being spiritually fit, for which Mr. DeStefano is your coach. Remember, he wants you to succeed because it’s not just about God giving you a miracle. It’s about the intimacy you and God ultimately share. It’s about Him knowing just what your soul longs for beyond your immediate request. It’s a certainty on your part that He’s there living inside of you and taking care of you. Coach DeStefano is on the outside, toning your spiritual muscles. His approach is as simplified as it possibly can be without losing any depth. He explains and encourages by referencing miraculous events and citing Scripture, such as the “miracle promises” God makes in the person of Jesus Christ in nine passages from the Gospels (DeStefano 2025, 34-36). He counsels you, when you are tired and afraid, of the truth that God is with you and wants to help you. He warns you of potential pitfalls and how to avoid them, digging into anxiety and feelings, how they can get the better of you, and how that can derail your progress.

Regardless of their unpredictability, moods and emotions can open a window for Satan to come in.

“Don’t underestimate the devil’s grasp of this phenomenon. He’s very adept at exploiting our feelings. Indeed, one of his most effective strategies is to convince us to act based on our emotions rather than on reasoned decisions” (DeStefano 2025, 88).

When it seems like you’re hitting a wall, he reminds you of the Mass and the Eucharist and of the intercession of the Blessed Mother. When you’ve completed your basic training, he sends you off with more prayers and the hope of good things to come. If this sounds too lighthearted for your miracle, you would be wrong. Remember, Mr. DeStefano said at the beginning that if you are reading his book, you or someone you love has a deep and heavy issue. He presents some hard examples: the death of a little girl who had countless prayers, and even his own prayers for his ill father. With his help and trust in God, you begin to have a glimpse of your request from the perspective of the Divine, rather than your own limited vision. And you begin to understand and trust that God will provide.

Featured image AI generated in Adobe Firefly with Google Gemini Nano Banana
© Copyright 2025 by Mary McWilliams

Edited by Rietta Parker

The Cookie Burn

/0 Comments/in , /by

“Look,” I said, holding my pointer finger. I showed my four-year-old son a small burn I had gotten from baking cookies the night before, hoping to get one of his sweet kisses on my boo-boo. Instead, the first words that came out of his mouth were, “I told you not to bake cookies.”

In reality, he didn’t. But what shocked me wasn’t the lie; it was the way he echoed back my own words toward him. This “I told you so” reaction was a morning wake-up call I wasn’t expecting. It made me come to grips with how I am raising my children. Instead of offering a kind or compassionate word, his “I told you so” showed me that I was doing a bad job raising compassionate kids.

As parents, it can be easy to default into authoritative mode; to reprimand every fall, mess, or mistake a child makes instead of offering an encouraging word or a compassionate hug. When I replayed all the “I told you so’s” I say in a single day, I realized that if someone kept a tally, it might be the main form of communication I have with my children all day. What starts as a habit can quietly become a disposition.

It reminded me of my years as a middle school teacher, dealing with coworkers who were unable to turn off their “teacher voice”. After spending eight hours as an authoritarian, saying phrases like, “Raise your hand. Stay in your seat. Spit out your gum. No, you may not go to the bathroom. No talking. No running in the halls,” they were unable to turn it off. They were condescending to colleagues, parents, and other adults in the school building. 

I decided in that moment to do my best to break this habit. This meant not only reflecting on my communication with my children, but also in other areas of my life. It meant looking at how I spoke to my spouse, how quickly I judged strangers, how I reacted to inconveniences, even the tone in my writing. Children absorb everything – the way we yell at drivers (“What is this guy doing?” “Use your signal!”), our impatience at the grocery store, the way we rush past the elderly in an aisle, or neglect to hold a door.

As parents, we need to understand that we are shaping our child’s inner voice. Just as my son gave me an “I told you so” instead of the little wet kiss I was hoping for. We often hear that today’s parenting style is too soft, that kids these days need discipline. Instead of arguing between the old and new schools of parenting, we should use Jesus as our example. Jesus formed, not dominated, the disciples. He told stories, not lectures. Jesus led with love and mercy, not law and punishment.

I work at a Catholic university, and part of my job is to lead like Christ. This is why I was surprised when a student told me about a bad experience she had with a professor. She was two minutes late to class, and the professor told her to leave. I have been an educator for over ten years, and I totally understand setting the tone and respecting the class. But in this case, the student was a college freshman. It was her first day, and she was late because she got lost trying to find the room. Moments like these are when we should ask ourselves: Do I correct more than I connect?

As Catholic writers, we should think about the tone and message in our writing as well. Are we correcting or truly connecting with our audience? Do we slip into an authoritative voice? How are we evangelizing with our storytelling? 

That burn on my “I told you so” finger was a reminder, almost like the scarlet letter, of what I was becoming—a harsh mom. Unlike Hester, I don’t have to wear my burn forever. In fact, it’s already healed and barely noticeable. But my son’s words are pressed into my mind like a cookie cutter. His silly scolding — “I told you not to bake cookies” — showed me that my own words were lacking compassion. His comment was the little dash of truth my cookies and I needed. Mercy isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you practice, just like baking. Next time, I won’t be baking, not because my son “told me”. Instead, I’ll just pick up a neat little box of ladyfingers — the perfect treat for a mom whose fingers clearly need spiritual formation. 😉

copyright 2025 Janet Tamez

I AM the Light of the World

/0 Comments/in , /by

 “All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:3-5)

 

Jesus is the light of the world, the light of the human race.

Jesus is I AM. He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him, and the Holy Spirit emanates from them both. Jesus is wholly human and wholly God.

The human person of Jesus is endlessly attractive, enigmatic, and compelling. Never will we comprehend him completely.

The divine Son of God is comprehensively beyond our ken. All that we know of Him comes from what He has told us about Himself.

Being did not emerge from nothingness on its own; creation cannot be its own creator. The Logos of light ignited the night in a reasoned plan of creation. The universe burst out into being at the illuminated word of the Word.

Without Jesus who is God, who is Logos, there is no light – basically because there would be no universe of limitless celestial lights. But if we imagine, for the sake of the following argument, that the universe was called into being, yet that Jesus had not come into the world, we can see that all persons would be dwelling in uninterrupted darkness with no hope: all tunnel and no light at its end.

Now, before creating the world, God created the order of spiritual beings. Lucifer was the most lucent, yet so enamored of his brightness that he identified with the light and forgot that it was created by God and was only a gift to him.

Angels, you see, are not cute, winged children. They are vast and awful in power, endowed with capacities of intelligence and will beyond those of human beings. Lucifer descended into demonic darkness, yet he did not – not yet – lose his power to deceive, to seek to draw others away from the light of God and into the black hole of non-being.

Adam and Eve surely knew better. Adam would have known the devious and corrupted nature of Satan when he first saw his shadowed slithering intrusion into the immense gardens of the Lord. He would have named him, and I assume Adam at first opposed him and sought to drive him from the blessed fields, and from his wife. Adam had access to resources more powerful than the prodigious preternatural abilities he had been given. He had access to the greatest angels, and to the Lord who walked in person in the fields and woods with Adam and Eve. But, alas, he fell, like Satan, and like we continue to do. Adam fell into infatuation with the great yet limited powers he wielded, and he imagined himself capable of and deserving of more, yet only, I suppose, because his resolve had been eroded by the darkening deceit of the evil one.

Jesus came gradually into the world following the disaster in Eden. He slowly prepared ways for us to recognize Him, and the difference between the true light that enlightens everyone and foolish darkness that proudly struts about as if it were illumination.

Without the divine person who is Jesus we would have had no Bible, no Old or New Testaments, no Hebrews and no Christianity. Aristotle would have been lost because there would have been no European Christian monastic tradition that kept alive awareness of his writings. With no Jesus there would be no Augustine, no Aquinas, no Catholic Church, no Eucharist. There would be no world-wide system of university education if it had not been initiated early on by Christendom, therefore no systems of science. The darkness in which we all would dwell if there was no Jesus is too terrible to imagine.

But that does not stop or slow the headlong rush of humanity from trying to ignore the true and objective light that is an expression of divine love, and to seek to replace He who is the light of the world with the prideful self-deception of thinking there is no objective standard, no divine creator, just us flexing our imagined self-created freedom – a farce of freedom which is simply a fetter of shadowy links – sinking us lower under the control of the evil one who never has stopped parading as a substitute for the genuineness of the human and divine one who is the real and true light of the world.

Jesus draws all persons to the light of love in endlessly individual and creative ways, and his calling is not limited to Jews or Christians but is communicated to all of His children who journey through the tragically wounded and dimmed landscape of a world ruled by the prince of darkness. But fear not! Darkness is only an absence, and there is no absence in Jesus – His light shines in the darkness.

copyright 2025 Tom Medlar

Edited by Sarah Pedrozo

A Nod from God

/0 Comments/in , , /by

I would give a million dollars for a crystal ball that revealed the path God has planned for me. It would be thrilling to get a glimpse of the future, to know all the hurdles I will have to overcome, and even identify things I could avoid entirely. I chuckle at this thought, realizing how silly God must think I am for even entertaining the idea. But what if God did give us small hints to show that we are moving in the direction of His will? How could we identify them? How would we respond?

Several terms can help us recognize God’s communication in our lives, such as “God moments,” “God winks,” and “God incidences.” I would like to introduce another term: “God nods.”

A nod from God is just as it sounds; I envision Him looking down with an approving expression, signaling that I am on the right track with whatever task or decision I am engaged in. Receiving God’s approval can deepen our faith and affirm the work we are doing on His behalf.

An example of a God nod might be something as simple as a room filling with your favorite scent—a scent that reminds you of a happy moment in your life. Another example could be the sight of a butterfly landing on your mom’s favorite flower at a time when that sighting is exactly what you need to feel her closeness. I don’t want to describe too many scenarios because a true nod from God will be an experience unique to each individual. I have had many moments where God showed up in unexpected ways, revealing that He was with me and that we were working together toward a common goal.

Recently, while I was on vacation, I felt a strong nod from God. He revealed to me that the decisions I made regarding our accommodations, event planning, and even dinner locations were all part of the path He intended for us. During our trip, I received a very unexpected nod from God in the form of a monetary gift. An affirmation that our vacation was truly inspired by divine guidance! I found myself asking, “Who does this? Who goes on vacation and connects with a total stranger on such a deep level, to the point that my ministry is blessed?” The answer is simple: it’s a nod from God, confirming that I am following His will. It’s a nod indicating that my ministry is alive and thriving. It’s a confirmation that God sees what I am doing and has given His stamp of approval.

Once you have answered the call and recognized the nod, it’s time to respond. I didn’t hesitate to praise God for His kindness in showing me His approval in such a wonderful way. It is a true blessing to be in alignment with God and to receive His acknowledgment. God desires our excitement just as much as He expects our praise. The act of praising God brings us closer to faith, prayer, and God Himself. It also ignites our passion to continue sharing God in the ways He has called us to.

My experience ignited a passion in me, prompting me to donate my books to local Christian bookstores before I left the town we were visiting. I never would have had the courage to do something like that before. With God’s approval, I felt determined to continue spreading the message.

Although we may not have a crystal ball, staying attuned to the spirit working in our lives and maintaining a consistent prayer life allows us to notice God’s gentle signs of approval. This is something to be cherished, developed, and shared with others.

 

Copyright 2025 Kimberly Novak

Edited by Janet Tamez

Window Glimpses

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Window Glimpses

An old friend and author recently retired. When I first met Susi, her passion for God’s marvelous creation magnetically drew me in, focusing on His boundless wisdom and love as manifested in nature’s beauty all around us. She offered me a guest column, “The Poet’s Voice,” on her now-retired website, “Catholic Stewards of Creation.”

Susi Pittman understands the fundamental truth spoken by William Shakespeare: “The eyes are the window to your soul.” Her mentorship fostered in me the confidence to begin writing publicly. Through her eyes, I became hyper-aware of nature, animals, and beauty in general—all glimpses of God.  

“The eye is the body’s lamp. If your eyes are good, your body will be filled with light. . . .” —Matthew 6:22

I am humbled when thinking about how God views His creation. He gazes at us with immense love and sees us through the lens of His beloved Son, Jesus. How can anyone not know our Creator exists and loves us when He reveals Himself daily to us in this part of the universe called Earth? What we see here is such a small representation of God’s magnificence—as St. Paul said, “Now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror. . . .”—1 Corinthians 13:12. 

Susi awakened me to abundant glimpses of God, and we can be glimpses of Him for others when we let ourselves be filled with the light and beauty of His creation. I say, “Open wide the windows!”

 

“Window Glimpses”

by Paula Veloso Babadi

 

It’s only a glimpse of

one sunbeam of light

one moment of love

one troublesome blight

one twinkling star

one glow in the morning

one wearisome sigh

one gasp of warning.

It’s a thread in the tapestry

one tear on a cheek

one piece of the puzzle

one thought that I speak.

 

It’s only a glimpse—

nose pressed to the pane—

one reflection returned

of one move in the game.

It’s a portion of me,

one part of the whole

it’s a glimpse through the window

to my soul.

 

Copyright 2025 Paula Veloso Babadi

Edited by Gabriella Batel

Believing and Rejoicing

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Believing and Rejoicing

A poignant moment of faith comes in John’s Gospel with the meeting between Jesus and Thomas the Apostle after the Resurrection. Eight days earlier, Jesus appeared to the disciples, but Thomas, who had gone away to mourn alone, was not with them. Now, when Jesus appeared for the second time, with Thomas among the Apostles, Thomas was unable to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. Offering proof of His triumphant return, Jesus invites Thomas to place his hands in the nail marks in Jesus’ hands and the wound in His side.

We read the exchange between Jesus and Thomas in John 20:26-29.

Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.”

Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

As we face trials and uncertainties, we might relate to Thomas and his desire for proof, but another moment in Scripture points to a better response. St. Elizabeth’s words to Mary in the Visitation illustrate the faithful response to God’s promises and the markings of true faith.

Elizabeth says of Mary, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Luke 1:45).

Jesus will echo those words in His exchange with Thomas 30-plus years later.

Mary believed in God’s promise of a Messiah before experiencing the miraculous Resurrection—she was truly blessed by not needing physical evidence in order to accept the truth. She trusted in the prophecies and the promises of God, recognizing that He is our ultimate salvation. Mary did not allow any obstacles to hinder her faith, and for that, she was blessed and rejoiced.

How easily we can fail to believe, looking for signs and wonders as caveats of believing. If we fail to view the world through the eyes of faith, with a heart willing to see God at work, obstacles can mount daily. Rather, let us see and accept the truth of God’s promises fulfilled and embrace Jesus’ glorious victory over sin, death, and the troubles of this world.

Mary allowed grace to fill every ounce of her being—strengthening her to give a daily “yes” to follow and believe. Before Jesus even explained to the disciples that the work of God is to believe in the One sent by God, Mary believed. As she stood before Elizabeth with the Fulfillment incubating within her, her Magnificat burst forth:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46,47).

We receive the same promises through the Eucharist; we see these Mysteries unfold with Jesus literally within us every time we receive the Eucharist. The grace that filled every ounce of Mary’s being is available to us abundantly; we merely need to ask, accept, and cooperate with it.

“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).

What keeps us from asking? Although Thomas is credited as doubting, Jesus did not withhold from St. Thomas what he asked for to help him believe.

Mary reminds us that God “has mercy on those who fear him in every generation” (Luke 1:50). Believing without seeing, however difficult, is not impossible. God would never ask the impossible. He is a loving God who works the impossible within us through cooperation with grace. No one exemplifies the powerful result of allowing oneself to be filled with the grace of God more than the Blessed Virgin Mary. May we turn to her and trust her intercession so we too may be counted among the blessed who have not seen and yet believe.

Copyright 2025 by Allison Gingras

Edited by Theresa Linden

The Meaning of Life – Part 3 of 3, Being Fully Alive, Happily Ever After

/0 Comments/in , , /by

 I will seize the occasions that present themselves every day; I will accomplish ordinary actions in an extraordinary way. (Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân, Five Loaves and Two Fish)

Life is a journey on which we grow, learn, discover, and become. We begin that journey with many questions. Who am I? What is my purpose? What should I do? Where should I go? Where will I end up? The questions are large, small, simple, and complex; and often, the answers we discover lead to more questions. We long for answers with tidy endings, but life is not a book with a happily ever after!

Or is it?

Discovering the Meaning of Life

Think about how many self-help books there are out there. How many articles and podcasts and Ted Talks are there about finding yourself, knowing your purpose, or discovering the meaning of life? We are surrounded by authors, psychologists, doctors, talk show hosts, podcasters, TikTokers, journalists, and more who purport to know what we’re seeking and where we can find it. They all claim to have the answers!

I’d like to propose that many of those books should be tossed out, articles ripped from the seams of the magazines, and recordings silenced! We all have inside of us what we need to discover the meanings of our lives and the directions in which we should be heading. All we need is to have faith, lead with mercy and compassion, and love one another. Through faith and prayer, we can discover how to follow our paths and live life abundantly, the way God intended us to.

We need to open our eyes to the gifts and talents God has given us and learn to use them, and use them well. We need to look deep inside ourselves and find what we are good at, what we are passionate about, and pray about what we are to do with that knowledge, those skills. We need to keep asking questions and keep looking for God to answer them.

We must seize upon the words of Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân: “I will seize the occasions that present themselves every day; I will accomplish ordinary actions in an extraordinary way.”

I will admit, this isn’t easy. It’s taken all my life—over fifty years—to find my path and discover answers to my questions. And I’m not alone. We live in a world in which we are surrounded by so much noise, we can’t hear God calling our names and don’t know which way to turn to find the right answers and the right path.

Finding Our Calling

The truth is, we can’t live our lives abundantly until we discover our callings, and we all have a calling. We all have a path that has been laid out for us. It has always been there, waiting for us to find it, to ask the right questions. It’s up to us to discover the path and up to us to choose to follow it. God will not force us to do anything we don’t want to, but He will lay the path and give us clue after clue, prompting upon prompting, and sign after sign. We can look for and acknowledge them, or pretend they don’t exist. There is always an answer to our question. We may not like the answer, or we may not be prepared to accept it, but it’s always there. Psalm 16 tells us, “You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” (Psalm 16:11).

Don’t get me wrong. Even when you find the path, you will still have questions and will continue to search for meaning. However, the longer you follow your path, the more answers you will receive. It won’t always be easy. Sometimes the path will be clear and obvious, paved and lighted. Other times, the path will disappear around a bend into the darkness, and we must find our way to the light. Those are the times the answers aren’t readily apparent. Those are also the times when staying on the path is the most rewarding. Those are the aha moments we have when we look back and see the answers so clearly, we can’t figure out how we missed them along the way. Pope Francis said, “If we wish to follow Christ closely, we cannot choose an easy, quiet life. It will be a demanding life, but full of joy” (The Spirit of St. Francis: Inspiring Words from Pope Francis, p.87).

Called by Name

So many throughout the Bible were called, some by name. God called out to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, using their names twice to get their attention (Genesis 22:11-13; 46;1-4; Exodus 3:1-10), and I wonder how many times He has to call my name because I’m too busy to pay attention. I think of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3:4 who was called by God but didn’t recognize that it was the Lord calling him.

How often do we hear the call but don’t realize it’s the voice of God?

I lovingly recall Mary Magdalene weeping at the tomb, asking the “gardener” where Jesus’s body was. It was only when the man addressed her by name that she recognized it was the Lord (John 20:11-16). How often have I stood and looked at something without understanding that it was God trying to get me to see Him?

At some point, each of us is called by name, and at that point, we will know that we are fully alive, ready to answer God’s call. If we listen and turn toward the voice with an openness and readiness, we will see our paths illuminated before us, littered with the answers to our questions. Yes, there will be twists and turns and many crossroads as we continue to question the way, but the path is there, and so are the answers. All we need to do is be willing to follow the path wherever it leads us, and open ourselves up to living life in abundance. And that is how we will find our happily ever after.

To wrap up this series, let us reflect on these words of St. John of God:

If we look forward to receiving God’s mercy, we can never fail to do good so long as we have the strength. For if we share with the poor, out of love for God, whatever he has given to us, we shall receive according to his promise a hundredfold in eternal happiness. What a fine profit, what a blessed reward! With outstretched arms he begs us to turn toward him, to weep for our sins, and to become the servants of love, first for ourselves, then for our neighbors. Just as water extinguishes a fire, so love wipes away sin. (Cartas y Escritos 18)

Copyright 2025 Amy Schisler

Images copyright 2025 Amy Schisler, all rights reserved.

How to Pray All the Time

/0 Comments/in , , /by

How to Pray All the Time

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

St. Paul’s exhortation to “pray without ceasing” once baffled me. How can I have a life filled with work, chores, family care, and even leisure time, all while praying? After nearly twenty years of trying to remain connected to Christ throughout my day, I’ve figured out a few ways to integrate prayer into the day. I may not yet be praying without ceasing, but I am definitely moving in the right direction.

Five suggestions to encourage unceasing prayer:

Pray Your Newsfeed

How often do we encounter requests for prayers when perusing our social media feeds? How about the many situations and persons we read about that could surely use our prayers? I don’t stop at every post to pray. Instead, I pray unceasingly by keeping God at the forefront of my thoughts as I read through my social media outlets and offer a “Lord, hear my prayer” or “Lord, have mercy” as I scroll. For more serious situations, I will pause and pray a Hail Mary or Memorare.

Pray Your Neighborhood

This one came to me quite unintentionally. I was scooting about town running errands, when I passed the house where a dear friend’s husband had passed away from brain cancer just a few days earlier. My heart was so moved with compassion for the family, I could not help but offer a prayer for the repose of his soul and for the family that was grieving his loss. As I continued my drive, I passed many homes that invoked memories and thoughts that moved my heart again to prayer. This practice soon became a habit when I drive anywhere. In addition, I include special prayers as I pass police/fire stations, schools, churches, and cemeteries.

Instead of whistling while you work, try prayer!

When my children were little, it felt like my entire life was folding laundry, changing diapers, and walking the grocery store aisles. Since I barely have a domestic bone in my body, these things were torturous some days. Instead of allowing myself to be defeated by these tasks, I turned them into prayer. While folding laundry, I would pray specifically for the owner of whichever article I happen to be handling at the time. I offered up the stench of the stinky bottoms, looking instead into the eyes of the precious gift who had created it for me and praising God that I had a baby with poop to wipe. Today, my kids have long been out of diapers, but I still find plenty of reminders to pray as I wash dishes, wipe crumbs from the table, or take out the trash.

This can also be adapted for work done outside the home. Whatever your occupation, there is always someone to pray for. Process mortgages? Pray for the family purchasing the home. A teacher? Pray for the student failing your math class or holding the lead in the school play. Throughout your day, lift your co-workers or boss in prayer as you answer an email from them or complete assigned tasks.

Take prayer requests on social media

One of my greatest inspirations from the Holy Spirit came one day when I was getting ready to head to Adoration. The idea was to ask for prayer requests on my Facebook page for my upcoming time in Eucharistic Adoration.  I simply place an image of Jesus in the Monstrance (either one I have taken or a royalty-free one from the internet) with the status update, “Going to spend some time with Jesus. Can I bring Him your prayer requests?” I’ve always been amazed at the exuberant response I receive, with sometimes hundreds of requests!

Consider transforming your inner voice to one in open dialogue with the heavens

Talking is just kinda my thing. Though I may only have a few things I know I have a knack for, I am fairly confident chatting is definitely one of them! Since I constantly have a running conversation underway with myself, I decided in 2007 to transform that to an open discussion with heaven. I know that sounds odd initially, but it is truly the most spiritually beneficial thing I have done for myself. I have running conversations all day with whoever will listen to me: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Mother, and my Guardian Angel. I reach out to the many awesome members of my Saint Posse, which fluctuates depending on my current needs or circumstances, and my special friends, the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

Those conversations with myself are fruitful and purposeful. I am not just spinning on the hamster wheel in my head; quite the contrary, now I often get answers, inspirations, and spiritual insights, unexplained feelings of peace, and so much more!

Your turn: how will you pray without ceasing? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

 

Copyright 2025 by Allison Gingras

Edited by Theresa Linden

Stay in the Know

Join Our Newsletter

Members and supporters can get the latest on CWG news and events by signing up for our newsletter.

Catholic Writers Guild
P.O. Box 77
Eaton, IN 47338

About
Membership
Connect
Showcase

Blog
Contact
Terms of Use
FAQs

Pray with Us

Click Here