Serving, Suffering and Uniting it to Christ

Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many - Matthew 20:26-28.

These words perfectly describe what we are called to do. As Christians, as a apostles, as disciples of Christ we are not to count the cost for Christ did not count the cost. We are called to serve, and not always as we may expect. We are called to suffer, and we should not allow suffering to go wasted. We should give it to God. You may have heard me, or others so offer it up or lift it up - which means, when you're having a bad day you say God, I give it you. We should offer our suffering to God for the good of others, ourselves, and the Church.

My dear brothers and sisters, no matter how little your suffering may seem, if you turn it to God, and make it a prayer it will become fruitful, and easier to handle. Jesus will never give us more than we can handle. We must trust him to guide us, as we begin to serve Him, learn to serve Him, and continue to serve Him all throughout our lives!

If even one soul makes a decision to serve Jesus in a consistent way, the world begins to change. -Blessed Mother



Again you feel the weight of My cross. Unite your sufferings to Me, child, that I may benefit souls. Father is My servant. You may trust his guidance. I will leave nothing to chance and you should stop questioning My plan, method, or goals. All you need do is be at peace and do the work I ask you to do. I will never leave you. And you will never fail Me in this regard, because it is My work. Be an example of peace to your brothers and sisters...

If you are a follower, your holiness will shine from within you and that is what they will identify. Be at peace. Fear is not from Me and does not draw you closer to Me. You must strive for confidence in your God. I will be with you, even until the end of time. Your sufferings will console you greatly later, when you join Me. You will never be sorry you suffered for your Jesus. I am bringing you along and soon you will no longer feel the weight of this cross. -Jesus




Check out www.directionforourtimes.com to learn more about the quotes I posted from Jesus and the Blessed Mother

Our Lady of Consolation, Pray for us!

Monday and Tuesday of this week I had the pleasure of going to Cedar Point and to a shrine honoring Mary, Our Lady of Consolation. It was such a beautiful trip because on Monday we were crazy and had fun riding roller coasters and hanging out, but there was just constant noise between the number of people, music, and of course ROLLER COASTERS!!!! And then Tuesday was quiet. We celebrated the mass, had lunch, had an hour of quiet reflection to just wander about the shrine & it's accompanying park, and closed with an hour of Eucharistic adoration. Such a beautiful day. For our Holy hour, our youth minister, Dan DeMatte, gave a brief reflection on our Lady. He talked about how we tend to seek comfort and consolation in this world. A few examples in my life -

When I'm feeling down in the dumps I will eat chocolate, potato chips, candy, ice cream, etc. - thinking it will comfort me.
When I'm feeling exhausted I will sit in front of the television and watch a pointless, meaningless movie - think it will console me
When my body is really sore from 3 hours of sand volleyball, after being at camp for a week and going to Cedar Point - I just want to lounge and do nothing productive what so ever - which falls into aimlessly staring at the television or sleeping for a ridiculous amount of time.
I'm positive there are many other examples in every person's life, these are just a few to help get my point across.
Something Dan told us to do was rather than seeking our comfort and consolation in food or television or the internet/computer we should seek consolation and comfort from Mary.
Mary is our mother. She loves us as her own children. She desires for us to be peaceful, calm, and rested; capable to serve the Kingdom. If we seek her out when we're feeling neglected in our group of friends instead of stewing in our anger, we will be 1. more pleasing to God 2. feel 1000x better than if we stewed in our anger or sought consolation in food/television/computer.

Therefore, I encourage you to seek out our Lady. Mary desires to pour out graces on our souls. She desires to love us as the children we are. Next time you are in need of comfort and consolation turn Mary, our queen and our Mother. You can say a Hail Mary, or simply say Our Lady of Consolation, pray for us. Call on Mary, and you will receive grace!

Mary, Our Lady of Consolation, Pray for us!

Pray for Priests

The past week I was at Catholic Youth Summer Camp (cysc.com), and it was a beautiful experience. I was small group leader/counselor to 8 girls. They were all so beautiful, and the Holy Spirit truly worked this week, shining through them.

Anywho, something really struck me this week - the importance to pray for priests. One night, a speaker talked about how important it is to pray for priests and this struck me. I mean, I'd been told before that it's important to pray for them, but she talked about why it's necessary - and that is because the devil attacks them most especially since they are Christ to this world. They administer the sacraments, and live for God - so why wouldn't the devil attack them? Also, one of the cars had a bumper sticker that said pray for priests and it was a constant reminder to me, and every time I walked by the car I thought about it. Then, we have various priests come to camp to celebrate daily mass for us. One of them, who was with us for 3 days, was ordained about 6 weeks ago. Which means he has been a priest for 6 weeks. I spoke with him for quite a while and we talked about praying for priests. When he said to me, and the people I was with, please pray for priests, his sincerity and genuineness when asking for our prayers made my heart just reach out to him. Fr. Ty Tomson was such a blessing to all the youth this week.

Therefore, I encourage you all to pray for priests. Simply say a Hail Mary for them. You can do more of course, but start there. Then, as your prayer life grows you can pray for priests more by offering rosaries for them, and your mass.

God Bless!
Mary Help of Christians, pray for us!

Calming the Sea

When I looked up today's Gospel, I was so excited, and over joyed to see that it was the story where Jesus calms the storm in the sea. It seem that there is a large storm hitting my life, and those around - my mom had surgery, my younger brother got in a car accident, my friend was hit by a car while on a bike, and my friend's dad was diagnosed with lung cancer after having a stroke, plus various other things as well! But it struck me in this Gospel that Jesus calms the storm, simple as that.

Jesus asks the disciples with him, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?" This really struck me. How often do we go through hard times fearful, worrisome, terrified, or anxious? How often do we forget Jesus will calm the storm. He allowed the storm in the first place, thus we must trust He will calm the storm. Not only must we trust He will calm the storm, but also that He will give the strength to endure. We must surrender our fears, and allow Jesus to take control. We must constantly be praying, and seeking our Lord.

We must allow Jesus to help us. We must let Him help us. We cannot carry our crosses alone. And our storms will not be calmed, until we surrender them to Jesus. Once we give our lives and our heart and our minds to Jesus, we are better able to serve Him. We can be peaceful people, even in the midst of tragedy, if we allow Jesus to be our rock.

May the Lord grant us the grace to trust Him more, the strength to endure our struggles, and peace.

God bless!

I Need a Vacation...

The past 3 weeks of my life have been absolutely nuts! My house was under construction. I had a grad party. I went on a training retreat to be a counselor for camp. My mom had surgery. And, my younger brother got in a car accident. Plus some of a social life on top of that, and trying to get everything completed that I need to be truly set to go to Capital in August. Therefore, I need a vacation.

I was visiting with a dear friend the other night. We talked about my life and it's craziness, especially with my brother's accident and mom's surgery all happening in the same day. Which both occurred about 48 hours after my graduation party. She gave me these wonderful words of wisdom, and I think it's easy to forget this in the business of summer. I was told to relax and take some time to myself, be sure I keep praying and refuel. She told me I'm stretched as thin as I can go, if I stretch anymore, I'll bust. Which is unbelievably true.

My reason for posting today and my advice for you today is - during the hustle and bustle of summer, remember to take some you time.

Read a good book. Take a hot bubble bath. Take a long run. Do your nails, or better yet go get them done. Get a massage. Lay out in the sun, at a beach for a while. Whatever helps you relax! Be sure you get to mass, at least on Sunday, if not more. And most importantly, don't place God on the back burner. Remember to pray. Remember, Christ is truly where your energy comes from  - so be sure to spend time with Him, so you can have the energy and motivation to continue in the hustle and bustle of summer, and not break!. Be sure to take that personal vacation every once in a while!

Doubting God - Finding Hope in Him

I was just playing a game of solitaire on my computer, and it looked like it was going to be a bad game so I went to hit the F2 button in order to deal again, but I paused for a second to think about what I was doing. I made the moves I could make with the opening cards and flipped through the deck once, and decided that was enough of a chance that I was giving that deal. In less than 5 minutes, I had given up hope of ever winning in that game. 

How often do we give up hope in life? How often do we doubt God, and doubt what he can do? 

My friend and I had a brief conversation about this the other day. She leaves Tuesday to study abroad for the summer and was really stressed about getting everything done in time to leave very early on Tuesday. My friend said, I know God will take care of it all, but it's so easy to doubt, and I doubt him all the time. 

One of my other friends dropped everything at home, packed up his bags and moved to Columbus to serve the Lord, after having lived in the South all his life. He said before one of the greatest struggles in this journey has been trusting the Lord will continue to provide for him. 

I could continue telling you all these times where people have doubted, but I'll only share one more, my personal experience, which played a major role in my conversion. Before my conversion, a personal relationship with God was a strange idea to me. I thought the whole idea of prayer and a relationship with someone or something I wasn't sure even existed was super sketchy. But I eventually gave it a shot...and realized God does exist, prayer life is important, and there is something beautiful about having a relationship with Christ. However, for the longest time I still struggled with hope. I struggled to know and to trust that my future was in God's hands.

When speaking on hope the catechism says, When God reveals Himself and calls him, man cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own powers. He must hope that God will give him the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God's love and of incurring punishment (article 2090). When speaking on hope as a theological virtue the catechism says, Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit (article 1817). The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness, which God has placed in the heart of every man (article 1818).  

What does all that mumbo jumbo mean?

For starters, it means we as human beings are weak. We cannot serve our Lord without strength from him. It means we must learn to believe in the existence of God. Then we must learn to trust that He is going to give us the ability to love, if we let Him work in our lives. So in all reality, we need to be open to the idea that God exists. Then we need to come to believe in him through our searching and desires. And then, we need to allow him to work in us. We need to develop a relationship with Christ, so that we can trust Him and trust that He will provide.

We need hope in order to obtain the happiness that we desire. Therefore, we need to pray for the virtue of hope in our lives, trusting and knowing that God will provide for us, and rely not on our own strength, but on his.

This is not an easy task. I’ve been working at growing in the virtue of hope for about 6 months now, and it’s so beautiful, but I’m constantly doubting and questioning the power of our God. It’s so easy to but a limit on our God, but I promise you, our God is limitless, His power is endless – we just need to allow Him into our 
lives and to take control, constantly fighting a battle against the contemporary, materialistic world. 


For you are my hope, O Lord God: you are my trust from my youth 


Psalm 71:5

Closing a Chapter - Beginning Anew

This time of year is so funny, especially for those still in school - whether it be high school, jr. high or college, because there is change. People in your lives are moving onto different things, some are graduating high, and soon will be moving out, living on their own for the first time. Others are graduating college and entering the ;real world', whatever that means...and still others are only beginning the journey we just ended - freshman year of high school.

This weekend I graduated from high school - congratulations class of 2011, we successfully ended the first major chapter in our book called life. It was a funny thing because I wasn't there this year, I participated in a post secondary option, and succeeded quite well. And not to toot my own horn, but it was said that I was the model senior-to-sophomore student. It was the best year of my short 18 years of life so far. I made many new friends, strengthened many relationships, and lost a few along the way, all in the glory of God.

I really wanted to post on this today because I want to encourage my followers on here, and my many friends and classmates to keep going. As Mr. Boylan said today, it is not the end, but only the beginning. Many of us have goals for our immediate future, my we always set goals in our life, and keep searching and seeking and adventuring about this world.

I pray those of you who do not know Our Lord, our God and Savior, that you may meet Him along the way. May God bless you!

Amber