Restless

I love the Gospel today. It is most fitting for this time of year, as many are on the way to transitioning in their lives.

Fr. Michael used the quote "we are restless until we rest in you, O God" by St. Augustine in his homily, and talked about how we are made for happiness. Today's Gospel says we are in God and He is in us, and He will never leave us. John 14:18 says I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Sometimes, it is easy to forget our Lord comes to us. Often times, we place Jesus on a back-burner and forget about Him. Thus, we leave Him. But, He tells us He will not leave us; rather, He will come to us and remain in us. He then continues to tell us that our views will change as we come to know Him more because we will realize we do not need things of this world. We will come to learn we only need Jesus, in order to be happy, to be joyful, to be peaceful; for just as St. Augustine says, our hearts are restless, until they rest in you, O God.

Therefore, I encourage you to start a personal relationship with our Lord. Seek to know our Lord, for it is in knowing our Lord that we receive graces we need to be joyful and peaceful.

May we always remain in Christ and find our happiness, which we were created for, in Him.

God bless!
Amber

Change

"It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness, he is waiting for you... It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, and making the world more human and more fraternal. " -Blessed John Paul II - World Youth Day 2000


Today my parish hosted a Senior Mass & Brunch in honor of those of us who are taking the next step in our lives. We were given the above quote, in a frame. I was greatly inspired by this quote. Our Parish Pastor, Fr. Michael Mary Dosch, celebrated the mass and gave a beautiful homily. He always reminds us why we were created...for happiness. I thank God often for sending Fr. Michael to our parish because he does so many great things, and I've learned much from him in the short time he has been present at St. Patrick's. During his homily, what stood out most to me was when he quoted St. Augustine - "Our hearts are restless, until they rest in you, O God". Our happiness, our joy, our peace, all rest in God, and we are restless until we rest in our Lord. Our Lord is restless, until we rest in Him, for he desires us. He desires us to be with him. He desires for us to remain in Him. He desires for us to have an intimate relationship with him. 


This is the time of year for change. Many graduate, either high school or college. There is change. We are moving out of our current place of residence and moving back home. We are moving into a new apartment. We are preparing to say good-bye to long friends as they follow their path in life. However, this change is good. We are being sent off into the world to change. We are to be Christ to others. We are to love, and to love with the love Christ. We are to rest in Christ, and remain in Him always.


May we allow the changes in our lives to come willingly. May we embrace the change. May we continually follow our Lord, Jesus Christ, wherever His path may take us. Lastly, may God bless us abundantly as we are sent off into the world to serve and to be Christ to those we meet - at work, on campus, in school, through ministry, and through our daily lives. 


God bless!
many prayers. 


Amber

Modesty - Where Do We Go From Here?

We’ve gathered all this information – modesty is an issue in today’s society, starting with the differences between how men and women work, how he is not just a pervert, it is our problem…so, where do go from here? How do we fix this problem? What can we, as women do, to help our brothers grow in holiness, and 

us? Well, buckle up, because here we go!

I have a four-step plan for you. This plan will help us, as women, to be more modest, and in addition, help our brothers grow!

Step 1 – Pray for men

Sounds simple enough, right? Right! We are to pray for our brothers, especially youth. Pray that they will be strong and steadfast in their personal fight against impurity. Pray for them each time you see immodest women – on the street, in the mall, in school, in mass, on television, in advertisements (you will find you pray quite frequently, almost constantly!). Pray when you see an adult bookstore, magazine rack, and men’s only clubs. Pray that men will have the wisdom, strength, knowledge, and will-power to say NO to those items.

Step 2 – Pray for other girls.

Upon seeing another girl immodest, there is sadness in my heart. My youth minister says “When I see an immodest girl, I feel sadness for them because I know there is a hole in their heart and that they don’t know their worth.”

A woman dresses the way she feels. If she feels like trash, she dresses like trash. If she feels like an object, she dresses like an object. If she feels she’s not good enough, not attractive enough, not smart enough, not kind enough, worthless, she dresses to draw attention to other things, and when they are noticed, she feels better. If she feels like a daughter of God, she dresses like a daughter of God. If a woman knows her worth, her beauty, her love, her goodness, her uniqueness, her dignity lies in God, she will dress so that her body glorifies God. Therefore, pray for each girl you meet, whether she is dressed like a woman who knows her worth rests in God or not, because you never know how that girl is feeling or when she’ll need that little quick pray you send to heaven.

The worth of every woman is more than human mind can fathom; it is beyond this universe. My youth minister said, “Ever woman is worth so much. You are worth more than the entire created universe and you reveal more beauty than the entire created universe.”

Sisters, we are the crowning of creation. We are WOMEN! We are BEAUTIFUL! We are WORTHY! We are worthy to be loved. We are worthy to be cared about. We are worthy to be treasured. We are worthy and deserve to be treated like princesses because we are all princesses in the eyes of our creator. Therefore, I say to you, pray for your fellow sisters. Pray for their purity. Pray for their modesty. Pray they have the strength to fight the culture of death. Most importantly pray they have the wisdom and the knowledge to realize, to understand, to grasp they are worth more!

Step 3 – Fake it until you make it!

Maybe you still don’t understand why modesty is so important. Maybe you still haven’t grasped your worth. Maybe you still think this topic is stupid. That’s okay! However, until you realize it, until it hits home, you need to choose to dress modestly anyway. In dressing modestly, despite understanding, you learn the beauty of dressing modestly. You learn the comfort of dressing modestly. I would even go so far as to say you learn your worth, and your beauty in dressing modestly.

We don’t need someone to measure our neck line, our short length, or our skirt/dress length. You don’t want to shoot for just “making the line.” Think: how can I look truly beautiful – making Jesus look at me and say – this is my beautiful daughter!

Use accountability. Just like when you are struggling with gossip or judgmental remarks about others, you might ask close friends to tell you immediately if they catch you doing this. Thus, ask your friends to tell you if your dress is immodest.

Step 4 – VERITAS: To seek and defend the truth

Dear sisters, I encourage you to strive for modesty and purity, and try to be aware of your dress, speech, and action; to those who already do so, thank you and keep up the good work!

We have 2 tasks – change of heart and help others convert. Therefore, it is time to rise up! Be a herald of the good news in deed and in action. Dress modestly, to be an example to others. Lose yourself in Christ, so you may find your dignity in Christ. Hold your sisters accountable, and lovingly inform them of immodest dress, and help them change and find something better.

When it comes to sports, tell your coaches, the athletic director, present in front of the school board, if necessary, and tell them volleyball does not require spandex and it does nothing, absolutely nothing to aid the game. Runners – of track and Cross Country, short shorts are not necessary, bring this to the attention of those in charge. Make the change. Be the change. Start the change. If that doesn’t work, be counter-cultural, be an individual, and dress modestly, dress purely, talk purely, carry yourself with dignity, knowing you are a daughter of God who is worth more than this world!

Start a revolution at school. It only takes you! It takes one person to make a change. Eventually other girls will catch on, and there will be a chain reaction; before you know it, girls will be dressing modestly school wide, city wide, county wide, state wide, nationwide!

Lastly, defend your modesty. If a man, offends your modesty (makes fun of you), cut him off, be firm, and be truthful. Tell him, do NOT talk to me like that. I am WORTH MORE than what you are saying. If a girl offends your modesty, inform her otherwise, inform her of her dignity and her worth, most importantly – love her. 

Modesty - News Flash: It IS Our Problem

“The good of our soul is more important that the good of our body; and we have to prefer the spiritual welfare of our neighbor to our bodily comforts. If a certain kind of dress constitutes a grave and proximate occasion of sin, and endangers the salvation of your soul and others, it is your duty to give it up” Pope Pius XII in Moral Problems In Fashion Design 1957.

In 1957, Pope Pius XII called out the importance of modesty in one’s dress throughout their life, reminding us it is our duty. We have responsibility to the other. We are all called to holiness and we are all called to help each other attain holiness; therefore, it is our duty to be sure we help our brothers avoid the sins of impurity and lust by dressing modestly, and it our duty to hold our sisters accountable by calling them out when they dress immodestly.
How do we call our sisters out?

Do’s	Don’ts
Pull them aside Be nice Say it in a way that won’t offend them Suggest ways to help Offer to go shopping Continue to hold her accountable Pray for them Example – Hey Sue, I just wanted to let you know your shirt the other day was a little low, you try putting a cami over it or wearing a cardigan	Call them out in a crowd Call them out on facebook Be rude Yell Become angry Feel betrayed if friend doesn’t respond well

It is easy for us to rationalize our immodest dress – ex. It’s hot outside, it’s not that bad, you can’t see anything, etc. However, this is just laziness. We want to modify the standards of modesty to ease our struggle and we don’t want to change.

It’s said in many books when you willfully cause a person to sin, it is a sin itself. Jesus says that if one causes another to sin it would have been better for that person to have never been born – now that sounds a little extreme, but if you think about it – striving for holiness is a challenge and it is our duty. Failing to fulfill our duty as Christians is no small task. However, don’t become overwhelmed. It’s hard to do and something we must work at.

This is hard for me to say because I think of my past and how I’ve dressed, and because I know it’s hard to hear, but I know it needs to be heard, and I say with love and with the desire my fellow sisters will realize the important of modesty. Willful immodesty is a grave, grave sin. Willful immodesty stems from two main reasons: 1. You are too lazy to dress modestly, go through your closet and get rid of modest clothes, take the time to shop and look for modest clothes, and help your brothers get to heaven. 2. You are choosing to draw attention to parts of your body reserved for your spouse, seeking the glorification of your body rather than the glorification of God and the Holy Spirit who dwells within you. Both points 1 and 2 are extremely severe cases of sin.

Remember that each day you are making an impact on others around you. What kind of impact are you making? Are you revealing the beauty of God? Or are you a spark lighting the fire of impurity for men?
Ask yourself that question each time you get dressed.

Continue reading as we will discuss where to go from here and how to change seductive immodest dress to beautiful modest dress!

Modesty - It’s Not My Problem, He’s Just a Pervert

False, it is our problem, a he’s not a pervert, he’s simply a man and his brain is functioning the way God designed it to work. In my previous post we discussed much on impurity stemming from modesty. Modesty and impurity are two of the gravest sins one may commit. I say this one, because men commit impurity and think it’s perfectly okay. Women dress immodestly, and it’s the greatest sin they commit and think little of it. I say this 

two, because for men and women of God these two sins are their toughest battles.

Modesty is a woman’s daily battle. It is hard to dress modestly. It is hard to find clothes that are modest and fit proper. This task often requires longer shopping trips. It often requires spending more money. If you were to go through your wardrobe today, you may discover you need to throw out your entire closet minus a few select pieces. Therefore, make an effort to fight your battle. Save up money by not spending your money on music, ipods, movies, and other fun things in order to buy clothes so you can go out and know you are helping your brothers out by dressing modestly. Lastly, fight! Fight this battle for yourself and help your brothers fight their 

fight.

Matthew 5:27-28 “If you so much as look at a woman lustfully, you have already committed adultery in the heart.” Men of God, striving for holiness and purity, are the only people who really know how big of an issue this is. Priests, when asked, will tell you the most frequent sin brought to confession is impurity, coming from men who are struggling with all they have to remain pure. Women, it is our duty to step up to the plate and fight against our contemporary culture by dressing modestly. Therefore, love your neighbor as yourself by dressing modestly. 

How a Man’s Mind Works – Different than Woman’s

A man’s mind works differently than women, just as God designed. Men are visual and sensual when girls are audial and sentimental. Boys see things and put them together, fill in the blanks, for example, when a male sees a picture missing a nose, his brain draws in a nose fitting to the face. This is why boys are often mechanics and engineers, because they fill in the blanks. When hearing this talk the speaker used an example with his wife, there was an issue that his wife simply wanted to talk through, but his brain started thinking of all the different solutions there could be to this problem, because that is how God designed man’s brain to work. 


Girls, on the other hand hear things and can remember them, they generally are not as focused on visual aspects, but rather they hear something and remember and they are emotional. A girl is very touch with her emotions, and she often describes things based on how she feels and makes decisions based on feelings. For example, when deciding where to eat a girl will often I don’t really feel like eating Mexican or I don’t feel like going out, when a guy might say something along the lines of Mexican food doesn’t look good because he pictures the Mexican food in his brain, since this how his brain function. 


How does this difference apply to modesty? A man sees a woman in a low cut shirt he sees the two lines connecting at the breasts, causing his brain to notice that body part because the lines point there. This also happens with short shorts or super tight pants a man’s brain literally follows the lines of your legs, and because so much is revealed through those clothes, the man’s mind finds that something is astray, thus it must be fixed. When a girl wears leggings as her pants the male brain basically thinks, well this is what her legs would like if they were black. 


The immodest dress leads to men struggling with impurity. Women seem to think men are like faucets, they can turn their thoughts and emotions on and off quite simply and easily. Not true. Men are far more complicated than that because once the human brain starts thinking about something, it is a battle to get that thought out of our mind. Therefore, just as women cannot turn off their emotions, men struggle to turn off thoughts that lead to impure acts. A man of the world will dwell on these thoughts, in order to pleasure from the; however, a man of God will fight these thoughts with all the will power he has because they are sinful. However, when man sees immodestly dressed woman after immodestly dressed woman it becomes a battle, and eventually he may become warn out and stop fighting, falling into acts of deep sin…all because a woman’s immodest dress causes his brain to do as it was created, and fill in the blanks. 


Remember your brothers in Christ each day you get up and get dressed. They are fighting a battle against sin. Create less temptation for them by dressing modestly. Help them fight their fight, as is our duty as their Christian sisters to love them in this way!


Mary, Help of Christians, 
Pray for us!
Mary, mother most pure, 
Pray for us!
Mary, mother most chaste, 
Pray for us

Modesty - Introduction

Modesty is a topic frequently covered by youth ministers, in youth groups around the world. It is a pressing issue and many girls and women dread modesty talks, which is why I am going to do a series on modesty, including a man’s perspective, seeking a new take on modesty.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”

We hear this verse repeatedly, but it is a hard message to understand, and I’ve struggled to understand it for a long time now. However, it has become clearer to me the issue at hand, and through this series, we will further define this verse.

As we learn about, and repeatedly hear about this virtue I want to share words of wisdom from my youth minister – “When modest dress is no longer an issue for the women in our youth group and in our culture, then we can move onto something new”

Lastly, as we begin this journey to grow in modesty, may we entrust ourselves to the Blessed Mother, our most pure, most chaste model and mother. 

Mary, Help of Christians, 
Pray for us!

Mary, mother most pure, 
Pray for us!

Mary, mother most chaste, 
Pray for us!

God bless!

In the name of Jesus and Mary,

Amber

Fearless

I was watching Franklin this morning and Franklin's friend was playing this role of being a fortune teller, but they termed it destiny. The character telling one's destiny told Franklin he was going to have a bad day tomorrow. Franklin was very upset by this and in turn caused him to have a bad day. He had a bad day because instead of going out and living his day as usual he chose to hide out at home in fear of what could happen to him . His friends went to the tree house and he thought "What if I fall out", and the bird nest that he found hatched, which he missed because of his fear after being told he would have a bad day. There were several other occasions throughout Franklin's day where this happened because he was living out of fear.

Blessed Pope John Paul II tells us "Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows "what is in man". He alone knows it" Therefore, let us follow these words of truth who come from this beloved man. Let us not live in fear, but rather in total surrender to the love God. Open wide the doors for Christ, and do not be afraid of what may happen because if Christ is in control you have nothing to fear. His plan is perfection, there is nothing to fear. 

To build your life on Christ, to accept the word with joy and put its teachings into practice: this, young people of the third millennium, should be your programme! There is an urgent need for the emergence of a new generation of apostles anchored firmly in the word of Christ, capable of responding to the challenges of our times and prepared to spread the Gospel far and wide. It is this that the Lord asks of you, it is to this that the Church invites you, and it is this that the world — even though it may not be aware of it — expects of you! If Jesus calls you, do not be afraid to respond to him with generosity, especially when he asks you to follow him in the consecrated life or in the priesthood. Do not be afraid; trust in him and you will not be disappointed. – Pope Benedict XVI