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Hello, fellow pilgrims! My name is Amy Thomas. In 2009, I converted to Catholicism and I started writing to share the Faith. I’m a military spouse and my lifestyle has afforded me the opportunity to travel all over, exploring Catholic places. I have since expanded my writing to include a podcast and videos. My goal is to travel with fellow pilgrims and help them to discover the richness of the Catholic Church and grow closer to Christ. If interested in having me speak at your event or ask me a question, please click below.
Happy Veterans Day! To all my Catholic Pilgrims that have served, this military family thanks you. It's a hard life in many ways from deployments, injuries, family far away, lost friends, left friends, moves with bad movers, upended roots, long days and long nights, and even loss of life. But, it's, also, a life filled with many blessings--community, lifelong friends, purpose, new destinations to explore, resilient hearts, and the ability to serve your countrymen. Thank you to those that have hung up your uniform after serving your country. This family will always be grateful for your sacrifice.
Continue ReadingOver the years, I've asked people if they know what grace is. After thinking for a while, they usually say something like, "I don't really know how to define it." Some people have said to me that they don't really get what it is. I wasn't able to define it once upon a time, too. But, I've homeschooled my kids using the Baltimore Catechism and the answer to what grace is in that book makes everything clear. Grace is the Divine Life within you. How do we get grace within us? Well, the Catholic Church has seven beautiful Sacraments that give grace. "A Sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Jesus Christ to give grace." Baltimore Catechism for the win! At Baptism, Original Sin is washed away and we are flooded with grace. At Confession, we rid ourselves of sin hogging up space in our souls and grace can come pouring back in. Receiving Holy Communion is literally receiving Christ's Body and Blood and with that comes the Source of grace. You can receive grace in others ways, too. For example, actual grace comes to us when we pray and ask for help in a certain situation. Once I understood what grace is and could define it, it made it so much easier to see myself as a "temple of God," as St. Paul tells us today in Corinthians. Crazy as it sounds, I think of grace like the game Zelda. In that game, Link starts out with a heart full of life. As he wanders around and gets hurt, the life in the heart starts to drain out. That's how I see grace, funny enough. Our souls get flooded with grace from some Sacrament, it is full of Divine Life. But, as we go about our lives, we sin and little-by-little grace drains out of our soul. To revive it, we need to go to a source of grace--Confession. Then our soul is filled up. It's why we feel so good after receiving a Sacrament. I want that Divine Life--God's grace--within me, Catholic Pilgrims. It's what makes us holy and Christ-like. So protect your temple, that is your soul. Seek to keep it full of grace. Have a beautiful Sunday.
Continue ReadingA funny story for the month of November where we pray for the souls of our dearly departed. During my sophomore year of college, I cleaned people's houses to make enough money to get by. One house that I cleaned was the home of a very elderly couple, who really didn't dirty up the house that much. I was supposed to be there for three hours of cleaning, but after changing the bed sheets, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, and a few other minor things, there wasn't too much to do. So, one day, I decided to deep clean a bit more and clean areas that were neglected or hard to reach. Now, if you asked my husband what is one of the reasons he fell in love with me, he would jokingly tell you that it was because of my clumsiness. Grace is not my middle name and I'm known for my fantastic, clumsy incidents. Anyway, knowing my tendency to fall, I still grabbed an unsteady chair to climb on while I cleaned a very high mantle over the fireplace. I really had to stretch to grab things off so that I could dust the wooden ledge. One of the things was a squat vase with a lid and when I grabbed it, I was surprised at how heavy it was. But, as I was standing there on this rickety chair, with this vase over my head, the old gentleman of the house came into the kitchen and said, "You know what's in that jar?" "No," I replied back. "That's my sister!" Heh. Heh. My heart started beating fast as I could just picture myself toppling off the chair with 'ole sis in my hands. And as I fell to the earth, the urn would crash to the ground spilling ashes everywhere. So, instead, of continuing to take down the urn, I said, "You know what, I'll just put this back up," and I gently, uneventfully, put the urn back in place. Moral of the story: 1. Don't sneak up on people when they are handling urns with people's ashes in them and 2. Just put people in the ground when they die and save all housecleaners from a potential disaster. HA! Have a great weekend, Catholic Pilgrims.
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