.png)
Happy Labor Day, Catholic Pilgrims! Working is a gift, but a day to rest and honor the good work we do, is important, too. "Perform good works all the days of your life, and do not tread the paths of wrongdoing. For if you are steadfast in your service, your good works will bring success, not only to you, but also to all those who live uprightly." Tobit 4:5-6 Have a blessed day!
In 2005, I was in NYC for the first time. My family had been in Connecticut for a graduation and then, with my husband's family, we went to NY to sightsee. I had never encountered so many lights, noise, people, or activity. We had a great time seeing many different things. But, one night, right before I went to sleep in our teeny-tiny hotel room, I looked out the window. All I could see was the brick wall of the building next door which was literally mere feet away. I couldn't see the night sky. All I craved in that moment was my grandparent's house located in a simple town in southeast Kansas. Recently, I went to an Allison Krauss and Union Station concert and they played a new song called, "One Ray of Shine." Part of the lyrics go: "I stand at the backdoor screen This is where I like to lean Trees like a village square Keep me here This is where I rest my head This is where I'll always be Home with a hollow tree In the yard But the wind blows through the radio And the sky is always grey The silence tells the sun To give her one One ray of shine." The picture here is the backdoor screen of my grandparent's house. I haven't rested my head here since 2019, as both my grandparents are gone now. But, man, what a sense of peace and love I always felt standing there. It was always a place of "one ray of shine." While I had a great time in NY, I still had overwhelming feelings of being disconnected and unsettled. I think many of us feel that way right now. So much is dark, tense, uncertain, unsettled, overwhelming, and grey. A fallen world is just that...a fallen world. As things grow increasingly dark, or just don't seem to get better, those that have sunk into despair, will tell us all is lost, so just give up. But, Catholic Pilgrims, we must find ways to, if nothing else, give "one ray of shine." We will never have a utopia here on earth, where we as Christians can kick up our feet and call it a day. We are truly here to fight the darkness. So, live the Faith boldly and travel well.
The first semester of my freshman year in college, my mom called me with some awful news. She explained to me that my old cheerleading coach had been tragically killed in a terrible car accident. She was a young mother of two. A lot of bad memories of my cheerleading days came flooding back to me. My junior year, in order to impress a guy, I dropped sports and became a cheerleader. There was a lot of turmoil in me and, consequently, I allowed that turmoil to turn me into an absolute brat. My cheerleading coach and I did not like each other and I was eventually thrown off the team during basketball season for being wildly disrespectful. So, it wasn't like I had fond memories of being with this coach, but it still felt like a blow because she was young and had two young kids. My mom asked me, "Amy, do you believe in Jesus?" I was totally taken aback by this question and half-heartedly mumbled out a feeble, "Yes." My mom sighed and said, "Okay," but I knew she was not convinced by my answer. See, it was my junior year when I decided to reject a relationship with God. I believed in Him, but I did nothing to show it. It's a good reason why Sola Fide doesn't work. I said I believed in Jesus, but my mom wasn't reassured one bit. After I hung up the phone with her, I was a bit jarred by her question. I pridefully thought, "Why would she ask me that, she knows I still call myself a Christian?" But, I wasn't fooling anybody. There was nothing in my actions to suggest that I really loved and believed in Christ. This worried my mother and rightfully so. I was a pitiful "Christian." There was something in her question though that remained with me and haunted my thoughts. My mom was worried about my salvation and she wasn't convinced that I was Heaven bound should I leave the earth "too soon" like my old coach. Just like St. Monica prayed for her son, St. Augustine, my mother prayed and prayed for me. Thank God for good mothers that never give up on our souls. Have a blessed Wednesday, Catholic Pilgrims. St. Monica, pray for us!
What is the purpose of this life? "To know, love, and serve God in this life so that you can be happy with Him in the next." First day out the gate for our homeschool and I asked this Baltimore Catechism question to my son. All three of my kids could probably say it in their sleep. Lol. I asked my son, "Is it hard to love someone that you don't know?" "Yes. You can still love someone, but it won't feel like how I love you and Daddy." "That's very true. You know, I didn't know my paternal great-grandma, she died a few years before I was born. I love her because she's my blood, but when I was a kid, it was a faint love. I just didn't know her. But, I wanted to love her more because my dad loves her so much and great-Grandma Shirley loves her so much. How do you think I learned to love her better?" "Well, you probably asked Papa and Grandma to tell you stories about her." "That's exactly what I did and still do. Each time I learn a little more, I come to know her more, and then love her more. It's the same way with God. The more we know Him, the more we will come to love Him, and the easier it will be to serve Him. So, how do we get to know Him?" "Well, reading the Bible, going to Mass, praying." "Yes. All those things and even more: Talking to His mom, reading about the lives of the Saints (because we will see Jesus in them), learning about God through science, philosophy, and beauty." I know for me, Catholic Pilgrims, when I barely knew God, my love was weak and faint. I loved Him in a very abstract, hazy way. The more I try to get to know God, the more I come to love Him in a very real and concrete way. And then, I desire to know even more to grow even more in love. So, live the Faith boldly and travel well this Tuesday.
In January of 2019, the day before my 40th birthday, my husband came to me smiling and said, "Pack your bags! We are going to Cincinnati for a day!" I instantly felt dread. Not because I didn't want to go with him, but because it would mean leaving our kids home alone for one night. My oldest was a senior in high school and completely capable. My best friend lived not far away and we would only be a hour south. Still, I was nervous about leaving. My kids urged, "Mom, it's going to be just fine. Everything is fine." But, I couldn't shake my need to think that I was the only one who could take care of things properly. Reluctantly, I agreed to go, though I was struggling to trust. Off we went and, thankfully, I fixed my attitude and we had a wonderful time. When we got home the next afternoon, I spotted my best friend's van near our house. "Hmm...is this a surprise?" I wondered. Upon entering the house, it was completely quiet and I snuck into the kitchen and found my family, my best friend's family, and my dad, sister, and nephews all there to surprise me. "SURPRISE!" they all yelled. What I didn't know the day before was that my husband had to get me out of the house so that my family from Kansas could arrive to surprise me. They were there the whole night with my kids. We often don't trust God when He asks us to walk the Narrow Path. We don't trust Him with our happiness and have faith that a life walked in imitation of Christ will be worth it. What I would have missed out on if I had chosen to stay home and not trust my husband and kids. What we miss out on when we don't trust Christ with our lives. Trust in the Narrow Path, Catholic Pilgrims. It won't disappoint. Have a blessed Sunday.
Yesterday, I watched a video of Charlie Kirk debating a cocky Oxford student on the topic of religion. Charlie always impresses me with his ability to keep calm, especially when the other guy is agitated and loud. Anyway, I won't go into all the details, as the video was rather long, but the basic idea was that non-religious Oxford man was trying to say that orthodox Christians are wrong in how we interpret Scripture when it comes to the sinfulness of homo$exual acts. The guy was trying to say that it was "all a linguistic error," you see. Charlie did a very good job of explaining what the verses actual say, but the guy wasn't really listening. At one point, though, seeing that trying to explain Scripture wasn't working, Charlie appealed to Tradition. This shocked me, as Charlie Kirk is a pretty staunch Protestant. He even acknowledged, as much, in his argument when he said, 'Now, I'm a Protestant, but we have 2000 years of Tradition..." I was like, "Whoa," and kept eating my popcorn with wide-eyed amusement. However, Mr. Oxford Man brushed that off. And then, the debate turned into both men trying to prove whose interpretation was correct. Round and round it went until the moderator cut it off. Charlie is close. So close. What he's missing is that third pillar--the teaching authority of the Church--the Magisterium. Mr. Oxford Guy has no authority to tell anybody what Scripture means. Protestantism lacks the Magisterium, which is why you have hundreds of denominations all saying THEY know what Scripture says. Once you chuck the authority given to Christ's Church by Christ, well, this is the inevitable outcome. As a Catholic, I do not nor should I, appeal to my own authority on interpretation. I should appeal to the authority of the Church given to us by Christ. The Church that canonized the Scriptures, passed on the Traditions when the Scriptures weren't yet compiled, and has authority from Christ. Like I said, he's close. He's got two of the pillars. Let's pray that he, and others in the same boat, find that third pillar, Catholic Pilgrims. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Thursday. *Pillars are from Laodicea in modern day Turkey
Love, for it to be true, must be like a refiner’s fire. It must help burn off weakness and purge you of sin. If God is nothing more than a distant deity that asks nothing of us, we will never become who He created us to be. If your spouse never tries to raise the bar for you, never calls you out of sin, they do not really love you. Real love cannot stand to see you sink and be stagnant. If a parent refuses to discipline, guide, and lead their children, there is no real love. Parents are called to help “burn” off the selfish inclinations of children and teach them to be productive, caring, giving people. If a friend is fine with seeing you fall into sin, if they encourage sin, or join you in sinning, they do not love you. We have confused in our culture the idea of what love actually is and what it should do. For many, love is blind tolerance to any behavior or belief. However, Love is never indifferent to sin. Love always should call you higher. Love should make you want to be a better person. Love should burn off weaknesses within us. Will we always like to hear that we aren’t perfect people? No. More often than not, it will anger us and cause division. Jesus said as much. However, we cannot expect people who love us to stand by and watch us lose our souls to mortal sin. That would be the most unloving thing a person could do, but we see people do it all the time. True love will and should cause some friction within you, Catholic Pilgrims, as it calls you out of complacency and selfishness into a life of holiness. Have a blessed Sunday.
Today is my favorite Marian Feast Day and this painting is my all-time favorite of Mary. It is found in The Cathedral of San Pedro de Los Milagros in Colombia by Juan de Jesus Munera Ochoa. About a week ago, I was watching a Catholic respond to Allie B. Stucky's attempt to debunk the Assumption. In true Sola Scriptura fashion, she dismissed the Assumption because it's not in Scripture and there is no historical evidence for it. As for historical evidence, well, that's right. There is no tomb, no bones, no body, no nothing. Because...of the Assumption. For all the ridicule Catholics get over their devotion to Mary, one would know that there is no way on earth that Catholics would have let the knowledge of the location of her tomb just fade away like the Beatles on "Hey, Jude." We Catholics are pretty darn good at knowing the location of Biblical people's graves and placing a church over it. So, back to the video. I watched it and I commented, "Well, is there any precedent for people being taken up into Heaven in the Bible? I think so." To this, a guy responded with a very lengthy response about her Assumption not being in the Bible. I responded back, "But, could it be possible? Do we have precedent?" He wrote out another long lecture, but didn't answer my question. So, I asked him to answer my question and he said that he did. He didn't. Then he proceeded with another lecture. Here, I was done, because at the very end of the last lecture he declared that "Catholics were wrong and he knew better because he studied Scripture." Basically, it was the I'm-my-own-pope-and-magisterium argument and when people claim that, well, I'm out, because he has no claim to authority other than his one man show. There is no definitive verse that declares that Mary was assumed into Heaven, this is true. But, there is precedent for it in the OT and it is not outside of God's power. Mary did not ascend by her own power, as Christ did. She was assumed into Heaven--Body and Soul, by the power of God. It makes me so happy to know that Mary did not see bodily decay here on earth. The Mother of Our Lord--the woman whose Body carried Jesus Christ--deserved to join her Son, Body and Soul at the end of her earthy life. What a beautiful grace. Have a blessed Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, Catholic Pilgrims. Get thee to Mass!
My maternal grandfather served in WW2 in the Army. When I was a little kid, neither one of my grandfathers spoke of their time in the war. It made sense, they weren't going to burden a small child with the horrific things they witnessed. But, as I got older, both of my grandfathers began to open up. At the old country dining room table in my grandparent's home, my grandfather started to tell stories of his time serving under General Patton. At the end of the war, we were surprised to hear him talk about how he liberated a concentration camp. He closed his eyes, as if recalling the scene in his mind. He quietly said through tears, "You just can't imagine the evil that people can inflict on others." Even with all the pain he carried through the years of what he saw and dealt with, he was a wonderful man and a top-tier grandpa. I miss him dearly. We often wonder why God allows evil to exist. It's one of the strongest arguments atheists have against the existence of God. There is no slam-dunk argument to counter it, but I think the answer can be found in Christ and His Saints, like Maximillian Kolbe. Where we find terrible evil, that is where you will find the greatest stories of supernatural love. I only know what light is because I experience the absence of it--darkness. I only know what warmth is because I experience the absence of it--cold. I only know what truth is because I experience the absence of it--lies. I only know what love is because I have experienced the absence of it--hate. If you ever read the book "The Giver," you will understand this better. Now, God didn't want evil to be in this world, but He had to give us free will, otherwise, we'd be robots programmed to "love" Him. As we know, that is not real love. Through our fallen humanity, evil entered the world. It is devastating and tragic. But, when terrible evil shows up, great love always shows up, too: Christ on the Cross, St. Maximillian Kolbe giving up his life in Auschwitz for another man. It is that immense love that moves us to tears, the only way our bodies know how to express such intense feelings of awe and gratitude over people that have the courage to face evil and remind us of what our humanity should look like. The paradox of this life is that we know love because we know the absence of it, Catholic Pilgrims. We know Christ loves us because we understand the evil that put Him to death. Thank you, God, for giving us people that know how to love like Christ. St. Maximillian Kolbe, pray for us!
"Get over yourself and give Christ the Glory He deserves by honoring His Word instead of wasting time on pilgrimages that clearly satisfy the lusts of your flesh." --A Concerned Protestant But...what if...just what if, I meant the pilgrimage of life? Yesterday, I received this piece of advice from a person who has never once taken the time to come to my page and find out about who I am. She saw my page name, the Catholic Pilgrim, and assumed--to assume makes a donkey out of you and me--that I'm just going on pilgrimages right and left while probably getting mega rich. And she'd be right, though not in the way she thinks. When I first started out on this social media journey, I called myself "Passionate Purpose." It was vague, ironically purposeless, and I was often mistaken as a, eh hem, lady of the night. But, then I saw the movie "The Way,” a fantastic story centered around the pilgrimage of walking The Way--the Camino de Santiago. I was a pretty new Catholic and it was the first time I was introduced to the idea of pilgrimage. After watching that movie, I realized that our journey to Heaven is the ultimate pilgrimage. In that moment of realization, I knew that I had to call myself “The Catholic Pilgrim.” I love pilgrimages in the more "earthly" sense of the term, but my goal is never to satisfy the lusts of my flesh, but a desire to satisfy my thirst for God and His Kingdom. As one of my long-time fellow pilgrims said on here, "What is a pilgrimage but a field trip you do for the love of God?" That couldn't be more true and, because of this, I have been richly blessed. My quest for God as I travel through this life seeking beautiful churches, Adoration chapels, shrines of Saints, and places where my Lord actually walked has filled my soul with joy and love. And I love sharing it all with you because I count you all as dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Nearly every day for the last thirteen-almost fourteen years--of being Catholic, I have written about God to encourage others to persevere on this pilgrimage through life because of love for Him. Today, I ask two things of you, my fellow Pilgrims. 1. Please, always represent our faith well and 2. as you know, always live the Faith boldly and travel well.
At 17, I became the one out of a hundred that went astray. There's a lot of reasons for it. I was worldly. I didn't trust God with my happiness. I felt betrayed by God because several terrible things happened to me at the hands of bad guys. I didn't know what to do with suffering. I had been baptized, but my Protestant upbringing gave me no other Sacraments. My level of understanding of God had stalled out at a "Father Abraham, had many sons" VBS level. There's more reasons, but you get the point. So, off I went astray, trying to figure things out on my own. Looking back now, I see very clearly all the ways the Hound of Heaven came after me. He knew my prideful heart needed to be humbled. He knew my intellectual thirst needed to be satiated. He knew I needed the Sacrament of Confession desperately. God found a way to reach me. It took years and years, mind you, but it is fascinating to me how tailor-made my rescue mission was. The thing is, is that God is always coming after us when we go astray. The key ingredient that has to be there is that we must come to a place where we desire to be found and brought back among the fold. God respects our free will, but, thankfully, I do believe that most people get to a place where they do want to be found and loved by God--even if they can't articulate it. And so, Catholic Pilgrims, we must be aware that our voice may be the instrument God uses to help them see that they really do want to be found and rescued. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Tuesday.
I once listened to audio of Bishop Fulton Sheen telling a story about a time he was called to the hospital to see a dying man. The dying man had been raised Catholic, but left his faith behind and bitterness, rage, and hate were all that was left within the man after a lifetime of rejecting God. Bishop Sheen talks about how he went into his hospital room to attempt to get him to confess his sins, but he was yelled out of the room. Time-after-time, Bishop Sheen tried and was met with absolute contempt. See, many people, and I was one of them, think they can set God off to the side and maybe get back to Him once they’ve lived life how they want to live life. However, as I also know, trying to live this way drowns you in shallow waters. You become addicted to finding the next thrill or pleasure to feel happy, but soon that fades. Slowly your heart slips into despair and people that feel despair are miserable, unhappy people. If you’ve set God aside, thinking you’ll come back to Him at the end of your days, you are fooling yourself. Your sunken soul will be so weak and lost that it’s not like it can just flip a switch and be full of light and grace. Instead, that despair will cause you to fight against God even more, just like the guy Bishop Sheen dealt with at the hospital. We must always stand ready to meet our Maker, whether we are a teen, young adult, middle-aged, or a senior. We simply cannot wait to get right with God until after we’ve indulged ourselves in sin. As Jesus tells us, the master will come at an “unexpected day and at an unknown hour.” We must always be ready to meet our Maker with a clean heart and joyful heart, Catholic Pilgrims. Have a blessed Sunday. *St. John’s Chapel at Mercy Hospital
.png)
.png)
.png)