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Saints, in a vague sense, are part of American popular culture. We have the secular definition of a saint as someone who is very, very, good; St. Francis statues at garden centers with cupped hands outstretched to hold bird seed; Saint Peter with halo and wings standing before the pearly gates. I liked learning about […]
Early Monday morning, my sister Beth and her family piled into their car and began the long drive back to Kansas. Stuart went to work, Midi went to school and I drove to Lake Michigan. I wrote in my journal: I am at the Lake again, in the state park at Devil’s Slide beach. It […]
I woke up early on Holy Saturday, April 8th struck with the realization that the next morning, I would wake up Catholic, an adopted daughter of God. At Mass on Sunday morning, how would I feel when praying “Our Father,” abba, my Father? How would it feel to receive Communion and participate in my first […]
When I got home from the Good Friday service, my sister Beth, her husband Jeremy, and two daughters were waiting. I wanted to take time to write a little bit about her and what she has done for me before getting to the post about Easter Vigil. You see, even though we were both raised […]
Chrism Mass I took most of the week leading up to Easter off so I could attend Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and go down to Lafayette for the Chrism Mass. Also, my sister was driving all the way from Kansas to be there for Easter Vigil. On the way down to Lafayette, I wrote in […]
The tipsy-in-love feeling lasted for a few days. By the evening of March 29th, the in-love feeling was still there, but I didn’t feel tipsy anymore. This was great because I had planned to attend Eucharistic adoration for the first time that evening and driving in that state would have been difficult. Beaver Lake Adoration […]
I was about two-thirds of the way through St. Therese de Lisieux’s “Story of a Soul” when I picked up St. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle, flipped it open to a random page, and started to read. Forward then, my daughters! hasten over your work and build the little cocoon. Let us renounce self-love […]
In the week following the first scrutiny, I kept thinking about sin and praying for God to help me. I continued praying the Novena to the Holy Spirit as well. Sometimes, I pictured myself sitting at the foot of the cross, holding Jesus’s feet when I prayed this but I still couldn’t look up at […]
After the Rite of Acceptance, the next step in the process of an unbaptized person joining the Roman Catholic Church is the Rite of Election. This is when all the catechumens write their names in a book at the cathedral and the Church elects to accept them. Undergoing this ritual meant that we were committed […]
A few weeks after the Rite of Acceptance, Father Mike asked if I might be interested in helping out with the pastorate bulletin. He also asked when they would be seeing some of this poetry he had heard about. I said I would be happy to help with the bulletin, thankful for the opportunity to […]
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