Daily Reflection: 24 Oct 2024

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Daily Reflection: 13 Nov 2024

Today is the Feast Day of St. Frances Cabrini, so there couldn’t be a better day to announce who I’m reading for Season 5 of my “Journeying with the Saints” podcast. Around February last year, the movie about Mother Cabrini came out and as my daughter put it, “It’s pretty good, but it’s too girl boss and doesn’t show her joy and dependence on God.” Not long after that, a man named Michael messaged me and asked if I’d seen the movie. I hadn’t. He went on to explain that he had found the online publication of Mother Cabrini’s letters, but the book had gone out of print. He set about the task of basically recreating the former book so that it could be reprinted again. Through this labor of love, he discovered Mother Cabrini’s wonderful personality. “I don’t think the movie accurately captures her joy and love of God,” he told me. He offered to send me the book and upon receiving it, I knew immediately that I wanted to read her words for Season 5. It’s different than anything else I’ve read, so far. This book is a collection of her letters sent to her daughters throughout her numerous travels. It’s such a unique glimpse into the day-to-day activities and thoughts of a saint. This isn’t a book about high theology or conversations with God, but instead, a more personal look at the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint. Season 5 will be a bit different and I’ll explain more as we get closer to starting. We won’t be starting until February 1st, 2025 as I want to have a short break between Season 4 and 5. You are really going to enjoy this book. I hope you join me, Catholic Pilgrims. St. Frances Cabrini, pray for us!

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Daily Reflection: 12 Nov 2024

I had a full house this weekend. It was wonderful. Both my daughters were home. My husband was doing a special project with a company and so we had a bunch of young guys here—smart entrepreneurial types. At one point, my daughter started having a conversation with a moral relativist and one of the things he said was that he didn’t believe that you could fully say if something was right or wrong. This is cowardice and as someone who has worked with kids that were sexual abused it enrages me. He seriously can’t condemn sexual abuse, racism, murder, arson, and many other evils? Of course he would because any decent human being who isn’t a psychopath would say that those actions are morally reprehensible. So, why claim that you are a moral relativist? It all comes down to one thing: There is some vice/sin that they want to continue engaging in or supporting and because they don’t want to be called out, they feign a moral relativistic worldview. Connected to this would, also, be someone who has done something wrong and they don’t believe in Jesus’ love and mercy. Since they have done something wrong and don’t want to feel super bad about it, they don’t want to say that others do anything bad. You may not know what it is that they want to engage in or what they have engaged in, but it’s there. The truth is, is that nobody really lives as if they believe everyone should just go around doing whatever they feel is right. Nobody lives as if there should be no standard of right and wrong. Nobody. Yet, many adopt this attitude because of what they want to do that they know, deep down, is wrong. It’s a self-preservation tactic. There are morally right things and morally wrong. For the most part, it’s not too hard to figure out, except when our souls are heavy with sin. No matter what we’ve done, we can always turn to Christ and repent, Catholic Pilgrims, and that will always make us feel better. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Tuesday.

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Daily Reflection: 8 Nov 2024

My undergrad is in criminology which falls under the sociology department. I had several female professors who were dyed-in-the wool feminists, but one in particular basically wanted the women in the class to hate men. Her and I went round and round. My Masters is in Applied Behavioral Science, which is just a fancy way of saying that I study criminal behavior. I specialized in sexual violence crimes. The professor that oversaw my thesis was a hard-core feminist. She was constantly giving me articles to read for my research from many man-hating feminists. I read so many and it became nauseating. Everything about men was evil according to these papers. Many of them even said that s€x between spouses could never possibly be good because the man always held the physical advantage. Best to be sexless, they claimed. Over and over, I read and was lectured on how men are bad. Men are awful. Men just want to hurt women. Even I, who had been hurt by two abusive boyfriends could see through all of this propaganda. There was no discernment of character. For these feminists, that are teaching young minds I might add, having XY chromosomes made you bad. All these professors, every one of them, was purposefully single, purposefully childless and not for some noble cause. They were also very bitter. I knew I never wanted to be like them. All over social media since Trump got elected, hundreds and hundreds of young feminists are in videos vowing to practice the b4 movement. This is a radical feminist movement that came out of South Korea where women refused to date men, have sexual relationships with men, enter heterosexual marriages, or have children. This is all in an effort to punish men. These videos are highly disturbing. This is what happens when you pit the sexes against each other. What a sad world it creates. Are there bad men out there? Yep. Are there bad women? Yep. But, it is not your sex that makes you bad. It’s your character. God created us male and female, Catholic Pilgrims. Therefore, neither sex can be intrinsically evil. Better to hold each other to high standards so as to build good character. And better to appreciate the good things each sex brings to the table than to refuse to acknowledge anything positive. Have a blessed Friday.

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