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"OKLAHOMA, WHERE THE WIND COMES SWEEPIN' DOWN THE PLAIN." (sang in burly man voice) As much as Kansans get bombarded with "Wizard of Oz" jokes, I imagine Oklahomans get bombarded with this song from the musical "Oklahoma." 😅 It's a great musical, btw. Carrying on, though, my wayward sons, today's small town church showcase is St. Anthony of Padua in Okeene, Oklahoma. (Picture sent in by one of you.) Okeene is a tiny little town with a population of 1,040 and it sits northwest of Oklahoma City. This church was built in 1922. It was built to replace the wooden church before it. That one had been damaged in a tornado and the congregation realized that it was time for brick, instead of wood. Hopefully, a tornado wouldn't be able to blow and blow their brick house down. My husband and I stopped in Oklahoma City on our epic road trip last year and I've been bragging about that city ever since. The downtown was clean, interesting, and felt safe and my husband and I had a great time in The Bricks area. We, also, visited the amazing Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine there which is a must-see. A great day trip would be to go see St. Anthony's in Okeene and then head into Oklahoma City to see the Shrine and enjoy an evening downtown on the riverwalk. The outside of this church is lovely and, looking online, the inside is just what we like to see, too. So, if ever you find yourself sweeping across the plains of Oklahoma and have time to stop, go see St. Anthony's in Okeene, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Tuesday! St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church
I heard someone say the other day, "Catholics try to bring people to everything other than Christ first. They try to bring them to the Eucharist, to Mary..." Stop right there. Eucharist = Christ Usually we get dissenters who try to tell us that the Eucharist isn't Christ, but they at least know that we believe that It is Him. This guy was so off the mark that He didn't even realize that we believe the Eucharist is Christ. He thinks that we think we are just bringing people to round wafers. Yes, all day, everyday, I wanna bring people to Christ in the Eucharist. Guilty as charged. Christ did not leave us a mere symbol to help us to symbolically reenact the Last Supper every once in a while. He offers us His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the perpetual Sacrifice offered every day at every Mass, which "re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the Cross." "For His Flesh is true food, and His blood is true drink." John 6:55 It is the single most incredible, most miraculous way to get the Divine Life within you, Catholic Pilgrims. Yes, we want to bring people to Our Lord. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Monday. *Jesus in the monstrance for Adoration at St. Mary of Sorrows in Fairfax, VA
I heard someone say not too long ago, "As you go through your marriage, and as long as you strive to love your spouse well, you will realize, as you look back, that your wedding day was when you loved your spouse the least." The point of this quote is that on your wedding day, you can't possibly imagine how much more in love you will grow with your spouse. But, that's how love works. There isn't a finite amount and it gets tapped out. I'm not a perfect spouse by any stretch of the imagination, but I have learned how to love Dustin better through the decades. At the beginning of our marriage, I was definitely more selfish, more nitpicky, less patient. The Sacrament of Marriage will, if you let the graces from it work as they should, weed out obstacles to love. I'm reading "The Brothers Karamazov" right now and yesterday I read a great passage. It's from an old priest-monk who is imparting wisdom right before he dies. "Love is a teacher, but a hard one to obtain: learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever." I think one of the greatest things I've learned as a wife, is that to properly love my husband, I need to focus on how I can be a better woman. So often, especially early in a marriage, both spouses are trying to change the other person, to mold them into who they want the other to be. I have learned and, I'm still learning, that when I become a better me, I love Dustin better and that, in turn, frees him to be a better him. And I don't want to become better just so that Dustin will fix his faults. I want to become better so that I can love him better. I want him to know that it is my desire to love him more and more as the years go by. Learning to love well does take hard work, because it necessarily requires that you face yourself and see that parts of you need to be changed and nobody likes to think that they are the ones that need to change. I would do anything for love of this man and that includes purging negative parts of me so that I can love him better. That is what we are all called to do as spouses, Catholic Pilgrims. So, love your spouse well, because they are yours to love. *And before any feminist has to ask, yes, he does the same for me.
I watched a video the other day of a young woman who had completely altered her appearance to such a degree that it was impossible to "see" her. As a former counselor, I'm always a little compelled to watch these videos, because I know that some deep hurt causes people to do this to themselves. It's a type of self-loathing. Anyway, she was so covered with piercings, weird makeup, oddly chopped hair, and attention-seeking clothing that you could barely see the woman underneath. In her words, she was "alt-goth." She was getting ready to do a transformation back to a more normal look for her dad. Her look was hard on him, and apparently, before his mind is gone, she wanted to gift him with looking more like how he remembered her. Which was very good of her. Her transformation actually helped you to see her and she was such a pretty young woman. Tragically, she didn't like the way she looked. One comment, though, deserved my response. A lady said, "As long as you are happy and not hurting anyone." I hate this way of thinking. Clearly, the father is hurting by seeing his daughter disfigure herself. And, it was very clear, that she wasn't happy. There was no joy to be found. It, also, is so damaging to say to people that it's okay if you hurt yourself, as long as you don't hurt anyone else. That's never true. Never, ever, ever. So, I commented. To which someone had to come and tell me that "I'm boring and mentally ill for believing in a magic god" and blah, blah. That's neither here nor there. That kind of weak attempt at trying to offend me doesn't at all. The only thing to say to this is that the least boring people are the Saints. What incredible lives they led and do lead for those that are among us. Exterior bodily modifications don't make a person less boring. In fact, all it does is hide and mask the real person that God created you to be. Holiness is not boring. Our pilgrimage to Heaven is a wonderful adventure if we cooperate with God's grace and strive to live out His will for our lives. I've never read a Saint's story and thought to myself, "Wow. They are super boring." Quite the opposite; I wonder if I have what it takes to be like them. Pray for those people, Catholic Pilgrims, who don't yet know that they were made in the image and likeness of God. Have a blessed Thursday.
Yesterday, a picture with snow; today, a picture of Spring. For the last couple of weeks, the comments have been lively. Very lively. Lots of our brothers and sisters in Christ of the Protestant Revolution came over to have a chat. Some were nice, some were not. It comes with the territory. There was lots of encouragement for us Catholics "to read our Bibles." Accusations were made that we don't and people making assumptions. Yesterday was my first day back at daily Mass on base since the start of Lent. Our priest is finally back from training. Usually, there is another lady in there with me and my son. She's a friend of mine and nearly every day she comes in carrying one of her religious books that she's reading. She has it tabbed and highlighted. All her books look so worn and loved. Hours of her life spent pouring over reading about Jesus, Mary, and the Saints. I saw her today clutching her book and my heart just swelled with love for her and for all of you who inspire me so much with your devotion to Our Lord. I have a friend who couldn't get into the Blessed Sacrament room here on base one day and so he sat outside the door just to be close to Our Lord. I have friends whose Bibles are marked up, highlighted, and look so very worn, but the time spent in reading through the pages is just immense. There are so many of you who travel to churches just to see the beauty and spend time with Jesus. I find that incredible and beautiful. Some of you pray the Rosary several times a day and that's just--wow--amazing. The point of all this is that so often we hear the negative about Catholics. "They aren't filling the pews." "They don't read their Bibles." "They just go through the motions." God love you all, though, because what I see on here is different. So very different. So many of you show up to read my thoughts and to talk about Jesus and His mother and our shared love of our Catholic Faith and it all helps us grow closer to God. Last week, when people were attacking and only choosing to see the negative, I was so grieved because they don't know all of you. Sure, we are imperfect people, but I see people that really and truly love Our Lord and I'm so inspired by you all and grateful that you give such good witness to the beauty of our Catholic Faith. So, anyway, I just want to say that and to say keep living the faith boldly and traveling well, my fellow Pilgrims.
I'm sorry to show snow, but I figured I better get this picture in before Spring is full-blown everywhere. We are back to our small town church showcase and today's church is Our Lady of Good Counsel from Fonda, Iowa. When I was, I wanna say, 14-years old, my family took a vacation up to Wisconsin to the Dells and The House on the Rock. As we drove through Iowa, we stopped at the movie set for "Field of Dreams." That is one of my top five favorite movies. Oh! Just thinking about it right now gives me chills. The acting, the score, the message, the fact that it's centered on baseball makes it one of those magical 80s movies. You know, back when movies were good. Anyway, we went to the field, I thought it was awesome and I wanna go back. That is my one and only real experience of being in Iowa. I went to see if this church was close to the "Field of Dreams" movie set, but, alas, it is not. This church is more on the western side of the state and the cornfield is on the very eastern edge. One thing that I do know is that "if you build" pretty Catholic Churches "people will come." And when you go, you can ease Jesus' pain that He experienced in the Garden of Gethsemane. Most importantly, you can partake of the Eucharist, so that you can be filled with Divine Grace in order to "go the distance" for Christ. Seeing all the farmland, you may think to yourself, "Is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa," but God's creation can definitely give us a hint of what is to come. So, if ever in western Iowa, stop by Fonda, population 636, and see this lovely Catholic Church. Live the Faith boldly and travel well, Catholic Pilgrims.
One of my jobs in high school was a shift manager for Mr. Goodcents, a sandwich shop. As I was getting ready to start my freshman year at K-State, the owner of the Mr. Goodcents in Manhattan, reached out to my boss in my hometown, to see if he knew anyone that could be a manager for his store. His had just quit. My boss explained that he had this gal that was getting ready to go to K-State and that I was experienced as a shift manager. My boss asked me if I wanted the job and, in my naivety, I agreed to take it. That was a terrible decision. With a full course load and marching band obligations, I did not have the time or energy to run a store with a MUCH higher volume than my hometown store. One day, I was standing at the register and had been there for hours, just ringing people up that came through in the steady, continuous line. I was exhausted and stressed over when I was going to do my homework and memorize my band songs, so I had completely checked out. I rang up this one girl and her boyfriend and looked to move to the next person when the girl said, "Amy. Amy!" I looked at her and there in front of me was my friend who lived across the hall from me in the dorms. Through my stress and exhaustion, I had not see her standing right in front of me. It took her calling my name to wake me up. So, I get why Mary Magdalene didn't see Jesus standing in front of her. She was worn and weary from what had happened on Good Friday, her sorrow drowned her, now her Lord's body was missing. She's so wrapped up in her emotions and thoughts that she can't even see Jesus. It takes Him calling her name to pull her out of it. We all do this: We get so overwhelmed by anxiety, confusion, sadness, anger, and busyness that we collapse in on ourselves and think we are all alone. We must listen for Jesus speaking our name to pull us out of these downward spirals and remind us that we are loved, He is with us, and we don't have to do go it all alone. Have a very blessed Monday in the Octave of Easter, Catholic Pilgrims. P.S. I didn't stay at the sandwich shop much longer after that incident with my friend. I realized that I couldn't do it all.
Holy Thursday. The day that Christ instituted the Eucharist. I've had a lot of back and forth conversations this week. It's definitely made for lively discussions. A lady on Instagram was trying to tell me that, as Catholics, we are wrong in thinking that the Eucharist is really Jesus. What was interesting to me is her reasonings. First, she thought that we believe it's the power of the priest that changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. "No," I told her, "It's the power of the Holy Spirit working through the priest." Then, she said, "You believe Jesus dwells in the bread and wine." "No, He doesn't dwell there. The bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus. The Eucharist is Him." One of her last attempts at refuting the Eucharist was a new one for me. She didn't think it was possible for Jesus to be in Heaven, yet pieces of His Body be here on our altars. So interesting. It's like she thinks that Jesus places a little bit of His shoulder matter on one altar and then a little bit of His forearm matter on another altar. Do this enough times for a few millennia and how could you not run out of His Body? For her, it's subtraction--Jesus is going to run out. For Catholics, it's more like multiplication. Like the loaves and fishes. God has the ability to multiply and whatever He multiplies, He never runs out of. The Consecration is a miracle, meaning, we won't fully understand it in this life. But, when I was Protestant, what finally clicked with me, was when I realized that nothing that Jesus did could be less than or equal to anything in the Old Testament. It had to be better. The Passover was wonderful and miraculous; Christ took it to the next level. Nothing about what Christ did on Holy Thursday could be symbolic because that would be less than or equal to the Passover meal. He elevated it to a degree that is infinitely staggering. Once, I realized this, I knew that I had to become Catholic. Jesus said, "This is My Body and this is My Blood," and I was done arguing with the Son of God over what He said. Thank God, our souls are nourished by the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Holy Thursday.
Did you ever wonder what Judas planned to do with the 30 pieces of silver? What were his plans? What in his mind did he think was going to amount to more than his friendship with Jesus? Those 30 pieces of silver were roughly the amount of four months wages, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. So, not even a year's worth of living. I just wonder what was going on in his head? So, you get the money, betray your Lord, and now what? In his greedy mind, what possible good did he foresee those coins purchasing for him that could outweigh what he had with Jesus? He does come to realize his mistake when he tries to give the money back. He must have thought, "This isn't worth it." He says as much, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." The temptation is to shake our heads and say, "Judas, Judas, Judas. What were you thinking? Thirty pieces of silver? That's not even a year's worth of wages." But, how many of us have betrayed the Lord for even less? For a day's worth of immoral pleasure? An hour? Swap out the 30 pieces of silver for any other idol that we are willing to take that betrays our Lord. True, we may not be handing Jesus over to the authorities to be ultimately executed, but what it is that causes us to turn our back on Jesus instead of move towards Him? What do we put our hope in more to satisfy than Jesus? We all have something. Those things that we cling to, Catholic Pilgrims, will never satisfy like Jesus. May God give us the grace to remove idols from our lives whatever they may be. Have a blessed Wednesday of Holy Week. *Street in Old Jerusalem.
Yesterday, I had a back and forth with a woman on a post from The Feast of the Holy Rosary last October. In the post, I was talking about how all the Rosary prayers are centered on words from the Bible, are prayers to God, and prayers asking Mary to pray for us. Anyway, a woman showed up and just said, "Nope." To which I responded, "Yep." I love it when people show up to play the one word game. Anyway, she went on to post, "Romans 10:9." This is a verse that has absolutely nothing to do with my post on the prayers of the Rosary. Nothing. It's a verse that Protestants often use to try to prove their "faith alone" doctrine. I only gave her three verses back from Matthew 7:21-23 to show her that you can't cherry pick otherwise you create stumbling blocks for yourself. She ignored all that and sent a slew of other verses and told me that she "knows her name is written in the Lamb's book of life. No stumbling blocks there." I don't get into verse wars with Protestants because they have no authority to tell me what Scripture means and none of them agree, so it's just utterly pointless. I appeal to the Catholic Church for guidance, because it is the Church that gave us the Canon of Scripture. I told her as much and, also, that nothing of what she's written speaks to the original post on prayers. She then went on to sing the praises of having left our cult! Praise God! Her parents, too! She doesn't need a religion! No religion saved anybody! I responded with "Okay, well, have a nice day." The sin of presumption is so ungrateful. I know, because when I was Protestant, I used to presume that just because I called Jesus, "My Lord and Savior," that I was good to go. The label of Christian saved me from Hell. This led to a lukewarm attitude in my soul. I didn't go to church, I didn't read the Bible, I didn't pray, I didn't do anything at all. Certainly, not all Protestants have this reaction, but it is still dangerous. Our salvation is not a one moment event in time when we "confess that Jesus is Lord." For Catholics, salvation is a continually ongoing cooperation with God's grace and a surrender to His will for the rest of our earthly life. I presume nothing, but instead, hope and trust in all the helps God gives us to humbly make my way to Heaven. Have a blessed Tuesday of Holy Week, Catholic Pilgrims.
When something bad happens to us, we can become full of anger, fear, self-pity, bitterness and many other negative things. It's not that we should feel flippantly indifferent to what has happened and slap on a happy face and pretend nothing happened. But, most often, we become full of these negative emotions. Sometimes, it's not even that something really bad has happened to us, but that we just aren't pleased with how our life is going. All this does is paralyze us, keeps us stagnant or, worse, causes us to spiral down into utter despair. With Hallow, we've been praying a simple prayer from Mother Olga of the Sacred Heart. The first part of the prayer is... Lord, empty me. Empty me of hatred and bitterness, of selfishness and laziness, of rage and revenge, of fear and my own will. We need to be emptied of all these things before God can move into the space of our soul and do the good work that only He can do. It can be a bit scary to be left bare without all the negative things that we've used to cope, but if we trust in God, He will not leave us bare and empty. During this Holy Week, Catholic Pilgrims, let us pray to be emptied of all that holds us back from shining brightly. Have a blessed Monday of Holy Week.
Honor is one of the four false idols that Thomas Aquinas writes about in the Summa. Honor isn't bad in and of itself. It is good to give honor to people that deserve it. But, when we want it to prop up our ego, then it becomes a dangerous thing. Many years ago, when I was substitute teaching, I asked the high schoolers that I was teaching what they wanted to be someday. Nearly all of them said, "Famous." Some wanted to be famous athletes, some actors, and some didn't know what they wanted to be famous for, all they knew is that they wanted to be famous. What is it about honor and fame? Well, it makes us feel like we've achieved something. We just might make it in the history books and our name will live on forever. A great fear for many of us is that we will leave this world and be forgotten in an instant. What will it all have meant if that is the case? If we can be famous and honored, we think we have actually achieved something worthwhile. Up until today, Jesus hasn't wanted too much notoriety. He's performed miracles and told people not to tell. Some miracles He's performed for just a small crowd. He's carefully drawing attention to Himself, but not too much. Then, with the raising of Lazarus, the cat is out of the bag. Word is going to spread and spread fast and this is a miracle where Jesus doesn't say "keep it on the down low." Because now is His time. This leads to the honor and praise He receives on Palm Sunday. Jesus doesn't need it, but He allows it so that prophecies can be fulfilled. Eventually, in time, people will connect the dots and realize just Who He is exactly. Jesus doesn't need the honor, but He deserves it more than anyone. Here on Palm Sunday, the crowd rightly gives praise and honor to the King of Kings. They might not fully realize the magnitude of Who He is, but they still recognize that He is worthy of honor. May we always seek to do good so that God might be honored and praised through our actions, not in order to satisfy our own selfish wants, Catholic Pilgrims. It is He who should receive all honor and glory. Have a blessed Palm Sunday.
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