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When I was in kindergarten, for the second semester of school, my mom, my brother, and I went to live with my maternal grandparents. My dad had to finish an internship in Wichita and it didn’t make sense to move the whole family there for just a semester. Anyway, each day, I’d ride the bus out to this ghost town (not kidding) to attend school. At the end of everyday, when the bus pulled up in front of my grandparent’s house, I would see my younger cousin riding my bike. Oh, it made me so mad and I’d furiously stomp off the bus and yell at her. My grandmother asked me one day, “Amy, why does it make you so mad that she’s riding the bike? You aren’t even here to use it.” Angrily, I said, “Because it’s mine!” “You are going to be pretty lonely in this life if that’s the way you are going to act. Don’t you think you could share?” Jesus talks a lot about division in today’s Gospel reading and I started thinking about all the ways we bring about division with others. One of the most prominent ways is the insistence on yelling, “Because it’s mine!” My, me, mine. It’s MY body, MY choice. I need ME time. It’s time to get MINE. The insistence on self is one of the greatest causes of division. Instead we should say: This is my body given up for YOU. I want to spend time with YOU. I’d like to share with YOU. This is what we are meant to learn from Christ. He gave His Body for us, so that we might commune with Him as He shares His very self in the Eucharist. Incredible. Our lives are not our own, Catholic Pilgrims. When we cling to “me, myself, and I,” we find that we become very lonely, bitter, and selfish. Better to give ourselves away for love of others. Have a blessed day.
I woke up this morning thinking of this movie, so I thought I would share it with you all. "The Spitfire Grill" came out in 1996 and it was around that time that my dad and I watched it. We both instantly liked it. It's not flashy, it's not fast-paced, it's just good storytelling. The story centers around a young woman named Percy Talbott. Recently released from prison, she goes to work at a small-town cafe in Gilead, Maine and tries to start her life over. Some people in the town accept her, some don't. You know she has a past that needs to be healed but you don't know from what until much later in the movie. The owner of the cafe, Hannah, is a grumpy old woman who is overly blunt and has a bit of a hard-heart. Her son was traumatized in the Vietnam War and lives as a recluse in the woods, refusing contact with anyone--including his mother. Hannah has wanted to sell the cafe for years, but has been unable to. Percy comes up with the idea to have a $100-essay contest to sell the place. People can send in their essays for 100 dollars and tell why they would like to own the cafe. The reading of the essays as they come in by Hannah, Percy, and Shelby, Hannah's niece-in-law, is an endearing moment in the film. The stand out part of the film when Percy goes up to a hill and sits down and starts to sing "There is a Balm in Gilead." Her brokenness comes out in tears. As she is sitting there crying, Hannah's son comes up behind her and lays his hand on her head. Two broken people finding a way to be of comfort to each other. When I was looking up some information on the film, I wasn't too surprised to find that the "idea for this film was conceived by Malcom Roger Courts, long-time director and CEO of Sacred Heart League, Inc., a Catholic nonprofit fundraising and communications organization base in Walls, Mississippi." Nothing in the film is overly Catholic, but it does have Catholic themes running throughout. If you get a chance, I think you'll enjoy this movie, Catholic Pilgrims. I would suggest it for audiences 13 and up as it does have some mature topics. Have a great day!
One of the reasons that the Christian Faith has lost its appeal to people, mainly men, is that too often it is presented as mealy-mouthed and weak. It’s nice. Nice, nice, nice with a slice of doormat to go with your nice. There is nothing inspiring about this and it strips Christianity of its awesome strength and power to be a force for good in the world. We have been told that the only option in dealing with evil and immorality is just to turn our cheeks and slink away to go cower in a corner and keep ourselves out of sight. Pope John Paul II showed us, though, how a Christian stands up to evil. In dealing with Communist Russia, he didn’t fight with weapons, but he also didn’t just run off and hide. He faced evil with courage and strength. Told that Mass was not allowed to be held in Poland, he went and defied the “rules” and held Mass with millions. Knowing this could end his life, he did it anyway. He gave the people joy, he gave them hope, he gave them Christ in the Eucharist and you cannot beat Christ. Through all this, he kept a smile on his face and a positive attitude. This inspired people. Pope John Paul II was such a great example of courage, strength, joy, and devotion. His great leadership helped to bring down the Iron Curtain and deliver millions from oppression. Today, we celebrate St. John Paul II. He once wrote, “You must be like the first Christians and radiate enthusiasm and courage, in generous devotion to God and neighbor.” May we all try to live this calling out, Catholic Pilgrims. St. John Paul II, pray for us!
On Sunday evenings, my husband and I like to talk with our son about the Mass readings in order to help him understand them a bit better. So, yesterday, we were talking about how James and John were looking for places of honor and power when they asked Jesus to grant that they may sit at His right and left. They didn’t understand what kind of king Christ would be and they were thinking in very worldly ways. Now, power and honor are not bad in and of themselves. We need people to use power well and honor, to loosely quote St. Thomas Aquinas, places a flag on that which we deem virtuous and worthwhile. We then talked about how Christ told them that service and sacrifice are really where it’s at—that’s what truly makes you great in the Kingdom. I then said, “In our culture, though, service before self is not the message. What do you think it is?” He said, “Everyone talks about me time.” “That’s right, they do. ‘Me time, self-care, focus on yourself, you do you.’ These are all self-focused messages and it’s not too surprising that our depression rates continue to go up rather than go down.” “If you ever find yourself unhappy and down, go focus on serving someone. Go love and serve those in your life or your community. It’s important to take care of yourself, but we are too focused on ourselves and that makes people unhappy.” Blessed Ladislaus once said, “If you want to be happy, make others happy.” It is one of the paradoxes of the Faith, Catholic Pilgrims: That to be truly fulfilled and happy, we must think less of ourselves and more of others. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Monday.
When my husband and I were first married, he was the lukewarm cradle Catholic and I was the lukewarm Protestant. But, because we had our new baby girl, we both realized that we wanted her to have faith in God. Where we once didn’t think our religious differences mattered, now it did and so we met on the figurative battlefield to square off. I was strongly anti-Catholic and a bit of a hot head. My husband is an engineer and the calm to my storm, so with his logical way of explaining things without getting too mad at me, I was continually proven wrong about Catholicism. When he would talk about the Eucharist, it was like he was speaking another language. The real Body and Blood of Christ? What?! As my husband dismantled all my arguments and after having a very strange experience when I went up to take the Eucharist without being a Catholic in a state of grace, I decided to look into things. John 6 was huge for me. Then, I also started reading what the early Church Fathers said. St. Ignatius of Antioch, who heard from St. John, so he would have learned from him, once wrote, “Take care, then, to partake of one Eucharist; for one is the Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one is the cup to unite us with His Blood, and one altar.” When I started reading things like this, I started to open my mind and soul to the possibility of the Eucharist being really what Christ said it was—His Body and Blood. Once I got it. Once it clicked for me, I knew I had to be Catholic immediately. I could barely wait. Because once you realize not what the Eucharist is, but Who, everything changes in your life, Catholic Pilgrims. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Thursday. St. Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us!
When I was younger, I watched, listened to, and read anything. I had no discerning process for what entertainment I consumed. It was just entertainment, after all. That was my defense. After awhile, I noticed that the very sinful things I was watching and reading started playing in my mind pretty frequently. That made me uncomfortable, but I pushed down my conscience. I lacked courage to say no to the popular culture. Upon becoming Catholic, I came to fully understand that we should seek out the true, the beautiful, and the good, especially when it comes to entertainment. Entertainment does shape our views and thoughts whether we think it does or not. Sometimes, we must wade into the darkness to deal with evil, like when your job takes you there. Specializing in the study of sexual violence crimes has brought me face-to-face with utter evil and depravity, but I will wade there to fight it. Recently, I was told that I needed to watch and listen to full episodes of the filthy podcast I mentioned a few days back. I was told that I needed to do this because I couldn’t be taken seriously if I didn’t and it ruined my credibility if I didn’t basically do a thorough deep dive into the smut. When I explained that I heard and saw enough to know it was bad, like really bad, that wasn’t enough. Shame on me for not giving the podcast a chance to show me how truly excellent it could be. 🙄 I responded with “How long do you need to stare at a train wreck to know it’s bad?” It is morally wrong to encourage people to wade into sinful entertainment just so that they can give you a fully-formed opinion. This is highly dangerous because they could be occasions of sin for people and really sink their souls. Where I once entertained all entertainment, I now know to turn off or close anything that steps out of bounds. I don’t need to keep feeding my mind and soul with filth. The reasons people would encourage such a thing are because they either like that entertainment and are trying to justify themselves or they agree with the topic and again are trying to justify themselves. Encourage people in the good, the true, and the beautiful, Catholic Pilgrims. We should be helping each other get to Heaven, not sending people off on paths of occasions of sin. Live the Faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday.
I just finished reading a book called “All That Remains” for my book club. It’s written by a forensic anthropologist from Scotland. The book was a bit disappointing for reasons I don’t have time to go into, but much of the book was centered on the author talking about death. There was one point in the book where she was describing different family members that had died. Commenting on the day of her uncle’s funeral, she said, “I realised that day that when the animation of the person we were is stripped out of the vessel we have used to pilot our way through life, it leaves little more than an echo or a shadow in the physical world.” Later, she commented on how when someone is sleeping, they are still animated. We know the difference between someone asleep and someone who is dead. The reason we can tell the difference is because the soul has gone in death. We’ve all experienced this at funerals. We see our loved one lying there and we know it’s no longer them. As humans, we are both body and soul, but it’s the soul that truly makes us who we are. Twins essentially have the exact same body, but they are two distinct persons because of their souls. Why do I mention all this? Well, today is the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila. I read her book “The Interior Castle” for my podcast last year and I grew to love her. She once wrote, “Because we have heard and faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value. Consequently, little effort is made to preserve its beauty.” The more we care for our souls, Catholic Pilgrims, and the more we make them an acceptable place for God to dwell, the more we will transform into who God envisioned us to be at the moment our soul was created by Him. Take care of your body, take care of your soul. Have a beautiful day. St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us!
I was teaching my son about purgatory the other day during school. He’s learned about it before but we were talking about how the stains of even forgiven sin have to be cleaned from our souls. He said, “It’s like tomato sauce.” I asked, “What?” “When you get tomato sauce on your white shirts, you always get mad and run away to clean it because you say it stains really bad. But, I can still see the tomato sauce on your shirt after you clean it. Like it’s still there just a teeny bit. So, stains of sin are like that. You might be able to clean it off here on earth, but if you don’t you’re still going to need to be cleaned in purgatory before Heaven.” “So, you can still see the tomato sauce on my shirt after I clean it?” “Yeah, a little bit.” “You didn’t want to tell me?” “I don’t know, you seemed happy about it.” (Sigh) “Well, yes, you are right. The stains of sin are like tomato sauce on a white shirt that’s been cleaned.” Guess I need some new white shirts, Catholic Pilgrims. 😂😂 Have a beautiful Monday!
Because I’m a public presence, I definitely draw the ire of people who are extremely opposed to my views. This is fine. It exhausts me sometimes, but some people’s arguments are so bad that it really takes asking one question and they go silent and delete their initial comment to me. This past week, two people didn’t like a comment I made on a video and one told me “I wasn’t too bright” and the other told me that “perhaps your college owes you your money back.” Now, none of these comments bother me. They come from people who have no real argument and they are just trying to make me mad, which they don’t. It used to bother me, it doesn’t anymore. What bothers me is the glaring lack of wisdom. We have nearly all the information in the world at our fingertips. We have more people with college degrees than ever before. Most kids in first world countries get nearly year-round education, but we are not the wiser for it. You can have all the education in the world, but if that knowledge is not married to the wisdom of God, our ethics will suffer and all our degrees will essentially amount to not much. The Book of Wisdom is my favorite OT book and that is where we get our first reading today. “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I preferred her to scepter and throne…” Wisdom 7:7 We will not seem too bright, Catholic Pilgrims, if our intellect is not led by the wisdom of God. So, we must plead and pray for it daily. Have a beautiful Sunday. *Picture is from Sequoia National Park. I’m sitting in The Senate.
When I was a kid, I used to have to sell trash bags door-to-door for school. 😂 Anyone remember this? There were big yellow ones for leaves and brown ones for regular trash. Believe it or not, they were very popular. Now, I normally hate selling anything or asking people for donations or money, but there was a curiosity within me about what lay behind people’s closed doors. You have to knock on doors to see what people are like. Some people’s houses were dark and too clean. Some people’s houses were messy and noisy. Some people’s houses smelled like delicious food. Some people’s houses had a weird family scent. Some older ladies flung the door open and were so happy to see you. They’d bring their candy bowl over and insist you pick something. There was this one house down at the end of my street that seemed so mysterious and I was dying to know what the inside looked like. It did not disappoint when I finally knocked on the door. But, no matter what, to ask my neighbors if they wanted to buy trash bags and just to get to know them, I had to knock on their doors. With each knock, my neighbors were known to me a little more and a little more and they become less scary or unknown. If fact, as I did this through the years, (also selling GS cookies) people looked forward to my coming and I felt more a part of their lives. Jesus tells us to “knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds.” We will know Jesus better and better the more we knock at His door, Catholic Pilgrims. He will always be happy to open the door and see us, so never be afraid to knock. Have a blessed Thursday.
Recently, VP Harris went on a podcast called, "Call Her Daddy." Now, I don't recommend ever listening to this podcast, but it is the 2nd most popular podcast in the world. Right behind Joe Rogan. I'm not a listener, but I've heard enough to hear enough about what it is about because other people have played clips of it here and there. It's a podcast for women that basically just encourages women to be as sleazy as possible. Sleep with lots of men, even men that you aren't really interested in. Be as vulgar with your language as you can be. Use sex as a weapon. A recent clip I heard was so vulgar that so much of it was bleeped out that all you basically got were words like "and, the, and bed." In all my years of being around men, I've never heard men speak at a level this depraved and, believe me, I've heard a lot from guys in my time. Nothing on this level, though. In an attempt to ape men and be the "girl boss," women are encouraged to "raise their body count," brag about their STDs, and describe bodily functions with zero decency or shame. It's less than base, actually. There is no cultivation of the woman as a beautiful, feminine, intelligent being. The mind of the woman is not being enhanced. Women are not encouraged to bring beauty, light, or warmth into the world. The women on the podcast come off as animalistic instead of interesting, graceful, or charming. This is what feminism has done. Modern-day feminism is actually the rejection of everything that is uniquely feminine. It is the rejection of women by women, because they see men as superior and, therefore, they attempt to be just like a man. This was what was preached to me in college: What women offer means nothing. Go be more "man-like." And in trying to accomplish that, women just become a shell of themselves--bitter, self-loathing, advocates for death, lonely, and, ultimately, supremely unhappy. We live in a world that preaches so many conflicting messages. One being that men are bad and toxic, but women need to be more like them. Huh? Anything that doesn't promote life, love, purity, beauty, intelligence, and gratitude, Catholic Pilgrims, is going to leave people hollow and lost. We need to be very prepared to help these people when they finally see the wrong path they've been led down. Live the faith boldly and travel well this Wednesday.
I was watching a Trent Horn video the other day where he was watching another video of two abortion survivors speak with two ex-abortion “doctors.” The “doctors” were describing the horrific ways that children are killed in the womb and after watching, I commented, “It’s just unconscionable. We are a sick, sick nation.” Enter a woman whose handle you’ll find ironic, as she calls herself “kindintelligence.” First, she tried to prove that abortion is fine because the UN agrees with it and 80% of developed countries are cool with it. I responded by saying that the UN is not the moral authority on anything and once upon a time, slavery was an accepted practice the world over. Did that make slavery okay? Just because a majority agrees with something doesn’t make it right. She then pivoted to tell me that the embryo/blastocyst/fetus only becomes a human child once birthed. What is the child before that? She couldn’t say. What magic happens in the birth canal to supposedly change a different organism into a human child? She didn’t explain. From there she said that only a birthed child has a “fully-formed body” allowing them the right to live. I replied that babies don’t have a fully formed body, only a body sufficiently developed enough to live outside the womb. Humans don’t get a fully formed body until late teens, early twenties. Brains aren’t fully formed until around 25. Are people below the age of 25 subhuman? Ignoring what I said, she then moved to telling me that newborns aren’t wholly reliant on their “host” anymore and so that makes them okay to live. To which I informed her that newborns are wholly reliant on their parents to feed, clothe, and care for them. In fact, my 10-year old is still wholly reliant on his dad and me to feed, clothe, and shelter him. Reliance on others does not determine your worth. With nothing left to say, she let me know that she was fine that she “killed her pregnancy” and she had no “regrets or remorse.” I pointed out her constant use of euphemisms and said, “You didn’t kill a pregnancy. Your baby was killed thereby ending your pregnancy. I hope someday you can acknowledge your child and when the pain comes calling, I would be happy to walk with you and help you heal.” She declined. October is Respect Life Month. All through our conversation, this woman forced the unborn to prove their humanity and nothing was ever enough for her. Being pro-life is so simple, Catholic Pilgrims. A human is a human from conception to death. That’s it and that’s all. No need to prove your humanity. It’s consistent, logical, just, and loving. Have a blessed Tuesday.
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