St. Catharine of Siena

This is an excerpt from a book I'm reading. I love this book because the chapters are just 2 pages long and beautiful, inspirational messages that remind of the duty which has been given us by God. 

"We ought to be servants because we are bought with his blood. However, I do not see how our service can be profitable to him; therefore, we should be of profit to our neighbor, because the neighbor is the means by which we test and gain virtue. You know that every virtue receives life from love, and love is gained in love, that is, by raising the eye of our mind to behold how much we are beloved of God. Seeing ourselves loved, we cannot do otherwise than love. Loving him, we shall embrace virtue through the force of love, and shall hate vice and turn from it. 

So you see that we conceive virtues through God, and bring them to birth from our neighbor. You are well aware that for the needs of your neighbor you bring forth the child charity from your soul, along with patience with whatever wronds your neighbor does to you. You pray, especially for those who have done you wrong. And this we should do; even if people are untrue to us, we should be true to them, and faithfully seek their salvation; loving them by grace, and not for personal gain. In other words, do not love your neighbor for your own profit, for that would not be faithful love, and you would not be responding to the love God has for you. For as God has loved you by grace, so he wills that since you are unable to return this love to him, you return it to your neighbor, loving him by grace and not, as I already pointed out, as part of a deal. So whether you are wronged or should see that love is withheld or your joy is lessened, you must not be stingy or withhold love toward your neighbor. Instead you should love him tenderly, bear with and endure his faults. Always be reverent toward God's servants and find consolation in them. 

Take care not to behave like mad or foolish people who pretend to investigate and judge the actions and habits of God's servants. Anyone who acts this way deserves a severe rebuke. This would be the same as trying to rein in the Holy Spirit as if we could make all the servants of God walk in our own way - an impossible feat to achieve."

Vocation is Love

Sometimes God just blows our minds in ways completely unexpected. That happened today. I've been reflecting on the past year, of living in household, my second year in college, and the many ways I have grown. In this time, I have concluded that humility is the one thing that has consistently come up in my prayer, and that I feel I have learned the true meaning of this virtue. I don't know what I thought humility was, but I have a clear definition for it now. Humility is accepting your faults, and weaknesses, and also accepting that those around you are faulted too and being able to forgive them for the way you are hurt by those around you. Which leads us to greater love. If we can accept our sin, our failures, it is easier for us to accept others too - it is easier for us to receive God's love, and to spread that love to all that we encounter because we know that we are all in need of this love. 

"Real humility is to accept ourselves as we are, to love ourselves as we are. And it attracts God's grace very powerfully." Jacques Philippe

That quote is from a book I'm reading on the way of St. Therese. And in this book, currently, the author discusses how St. Therese had a desire for all vocations - to be a priest and celebrate mass with love, to be a preacher, to be a missionary, to be a martyr, etc. Her greatest desire was to be a martyr. I started thinking about this - and a conversation I had with one of my friends - she said something that struck me: "I'm afraid to suffer, I'm afraid to be inconvenienced..." Which struck because it's true - and in reality, we are all called to martyrdom, to die to ourselves so that Christ may be glorified, in all that we do. So yeah, sometimes we might be afraid to be inconvenienced, to suffer, but that's our form of martyrdom. That is how we are called to die to ourselves, in order to more fully live for Christ. 

So first, we must know that we are called to die to ourselves, so that the love of Christ may be proclaimed in all that we do. Because our true purpose is to love. All vocations can be wrapped up in one word - love.

1 Cor 13 says:" If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing"

Without love we are nothing, and we have nothing. I'm just going to quote what is written in the book to say the rest...

"Her conclusion is that in the mystical body of the Church, love lies at the basis of all vocations, the love that the Holy Spirit kindles in the hearts of Christians. If this burning love died out there would be no more missionaries, no more preachers, no more martyrs... There would be nothing at all left in the Church. Love alone is the life of the whole body of the Church, and if I myself make every effort to love in my poor carmelite convent in Lisieux, in the little corner of Normandy, if I do all I can to love, and do everything for love, I am, in a way, living out all vocations. Love contains all vocations...."

"I have found my vocation at last: in the heart of my mother the Church I will be Love... like that I will be everything...and so my dream will be fulfilled." -St. Therese


Our greatest purpose on this earth is love. 

Remove the Root

When a weed grows in a garden, we want to remove it root and all. If we just cut it down, and leave the root, it will grow back. However, if we remove the weed, root included, it will no longer grow, ruining the garden.

This same concept applies in our lives, to our sinfulness, to our failures. A few Sundays ago the Gospel came from Jn 21:1-19. In this Gospel, Peter and the disciples had decided to go back fishing. They returned to an old way of life, the way they were before they knew Christ, before they knew truth, before they knew love. So often, especially in the early stages of conversion, we are tempted to do as these men did, to fall back to that old way of life. This is because there is still a root in our hearts, that spikes up and catches us, pulling us down again, killing our garden - and the beautiful flowers that have grown in our hearts, our souls.

A few weeks ago one of my friends called me, needing someone to talk to, to help her through a tough time. And a week later she called me again, feeling so much better than she had the previous time I talked to her. I have several friends who struggle with depression/anxiety in some form. This particular friend I have seen come farther than many of my other friends, in her struggle with this illness, and large reason for that is she went through counseling, where she sought to find the root of the problem, with a trained professional - who could help her seek healing in these problems. Through the help of her counselor, she did discover the root of her pain, and has been much more peaceful, even just knowing where this originated from. And she is also able to take steps to heal, and mend relationships where they may need mended.

This friend pointed out a parallel to me. In Jn 18 Peter denies Jesus three times - and they are standing before a fire warming themselves. In Jn 21 Jesus asks Peter if he loves him three time - just as Peter denied him three times - and again he is before a charcoal.
Jesus takes us to the roots, to a place familiar, to where the sin, the failure occurred. Peter denied Jesus before a charcoal fire. Jesus asks Jesus if he loves him before a charcoal fire. They go to where the failure initially took place.

You see, Peter failed. The one who was the rock of the Church - he failed, many times. As do we.
Day in and day out we fail. We fail to love, we are selfish, we hurt others, we deny Jesus' love. The rock of the Church failed, how can we be expected not to?

We are expected to fail. Jesus knows this. Original sin is a reason for this. Therefore, we must seek the mercy of Christ. We must seek his love, his kindness, his forgiveness. He wants to resolve our problems. He wants to make us whole. He wants to heal us.

My dear friends, do not be afraid to turn to Jesus and go those places that keep you from knowing his love. Give him every bit of your heart. Maybe there was an experience your life that took away your dignity - I once heard a man talk who had essentially been molested as a child and he thought he could never be loved, and that Christ could never forgive him. It tore this man apart, and lead him into more sin in his life - though he had been an innocent little boy, and this did not happen to him by his own choice. He shut this memory off, and locked it away. It was not until he brought this to Christ and sought Christ in this that he could start to come out of the sin he had gotten into because this sin - the molestation as a child - lead him to greater sin and he had to back to the root, the source of hurt in order to be healed.


Go to Jesus and take him your wounds, your hurts, especially those that you have hidden away and not wanted anyone to know of. Jesus knows of them anyway because he knows all. He wants to heal you, and in his mercy, he is waiting on you to run into his open arms of mercy.

He Entered Willingly

Today at mass I was convicted to tell the Lord I love him. So as the priest was preparing the Eucharist I was gazing at the crucifix, and just saying "Jesus, I love you" Then I focused in on what the priest said where he says "Jesus entered willingly into his passion death" willingly - willingly. Jesus willingly enters into the passion and death - the way of the cross. He chooses to do this - to suffer, to become man

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Phil 2:5-6 

Jesus willingly chose to do all of this simply because He loves us. He loves us so so much - and this is why we can now, this Easter season, rejoice in the Resurrection of Christ. He died, choosing this to be the way of salvation - as the Father had determined at creation. 

This Easter season, may we remember why we have the ability to rejoice - and may we further come to know the depth of Christ love for us!

Monday Memo

"Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus." - Mother Teresa

Am I Missing Jesus?

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping.

And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb
and saw two angels in white sitting there,
one at the head and one at the feet
where the Body of Jesus had been.
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “They have taken my Lord,
and I don’t know where they laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
Jn 20:11-14


I read this Tuesday before mass, as it was the Gospel reading, and thought to myself, how often do I weep, wondering where Jesus is?

I look back on the last 6 months of my life. I started having daily headaches, failed a class, retook the class, withdrew from full time classes, had my heart broke, started physical therapy, and I remember so many times thinking to myself, woe is me. Why must I have this suffering? Why am I going through all these things? Why am I suffering? What did I do to deserve this? Woe is me, woe is me, woe is me. Why did God let this happen to me? wait. stop. Why did God let this happen? God was there, knowing what I was going through, knowing the challenges I was having, he was there. But I did not see him. I did not know his presence. Sure, there were moments where I would look at the cross, and say "none of this matters because Christ's love surpasses all" but those were few and far between. More often, it was why am I being asked to suffer in this way? Why is this happening to me? I can't do this anymore, I can't bear this cross. My suffering limit has been exceeded. 

I felt all these things because I was missing God, right there with me - in my emptiness, in my pain. Just as Mary Magdalene did in this Gospel - why are you weeping my daughter? 'Because my Lord has been taken, and I do not know where he is' -yet he was standing right next to her. He was right there the whole time. 

Our lives will always be filled with trials, and tribulations. Through our journey, we will learn it is a joy to suffer for Christ, but will we continue to overlook him, and his presence with us, a-midst the depth of our suffering, or will we see how our suffering can be used for the salvation of souls?

I challenge you, and myself, to ask am I missing Jesus' presence in my life? Am I overlooking him, when he is standing there next to me?

I look back on the last six months, and remember all the times where it felt life would never get back to normal, and I was going to miserable forever. I thought that the suffering would never end. I doubted that Jesus would carry me through. However, just in time for Easter, the Lord has provided for me everything I needed. The healing I needed, the job I needed - all that was lacking he provided. Where there was hurting, he healed. In the moment, I did not see Christ present with me, but looking back now, I can see where he was, and how He was working. I can only hope to do better at seeing his light the next time I am given a cross to bear - to his presence, to see him walking alongside me, helping me with the cross given to me by the Father.