To begin, cast your eyes upon this beautiful photograph of Jesus and his mommy.
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| This is why Catholics love Mary: Because Jesus loved her first. |
If we can't love and honor this woman--who nurtured our Savior in her precious womb for nine months, who gave birth to the Lord of Heaven and Earth, who nursed the Redeemer at her breast, who taught Jesus how to walk, how to talk, how to cook, how to live as a holy little boy...this woman who lived side-by-side, under the same roof as our Savior and King, and who shared kisses and hugs, laughs, tears, and fears with our Jesus--something is wrong. We should love her because Jesus loves her. We should honor her because Jesus honors her. We should have a relationship with her because she is the mother of our Lover, and without her, who knows if the incarnation would have happened? Do you think it is appropriate to respect and talk to the mother of your boyfriend or girlfriend? I sure hope so. Is Jesus not the ultimate Lover of our souls? So why then would we not desire to respect and get to know His mother, too? Think about it. We do not worship Mary, we simply love her like Jesus does.
Alright, let's go chronologically backwards. We'll start with the present and work our way to the last blog post, to the best of my inadequate memory. So, I just got home from helping a friend of mine with a group project of hers. The project is for a marketing class, and her group is doing some research on crêperies and their customer-base. Basically we just answered some short questions about our perceptions and experiences eating crêpes. It was surprisingly kind of fun!
Before that, I went to Old Navy because they are having a crazy store-wide sale this weekend and my roommate got some super adorable clothing items, which inspired me to update my wardrobe a tad. I purchased some beautiful new dresses, blouses, and skirts, and I cannot wait to wear them!
Earlier today, at noon, I attended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and learned a lovely lesson of gratitude, humility, and faithfulness from Fr. J during the homily. But even more wonderfully, I received my Savior into my very body in the Eucharist. Fr. J posed some very moving questions to the people:
1) Do you notice how many lepers were saved in today's Gospel reading? ....Only one. Ten lepers were healed, but only one was saved because only the one came back to give thanks. Our Faith is a great gift from God, and should inspire in us profound gratitude to the Father who has bestowed such a gift. It is the faith of that one leper which prompted him to go back and tell Jesus "thank you," and it is this faith and gratitude which saves him. The other lepers may have been healed in body, but their souls were still sick. Is not spiritual healing more important than physical healing? The ungrateful lepers may have received their bodies back, but did they lose their souls in their ingratitude?
2) If you aren't going to Holy Mass every Sunday, why not? Is God not the most important Person in your life? Do you not have one hour to spare to give thanks to the God who created you from nothing? To worship the God who holds you in the palm of His hand and constantly ensures your existence? Do you realize that the only reason you are sitting there right now, breathing, reading, with a beating heart is because God Himself is thinking about you right now? At this moment, God has you in mind, and He is actively loving you into being. If God stopped thinking about you for one second, if He stopped caring about you for a moment, you would cease to exist. This is quite different from death. Death is our means of passing from this world into eternal life in Heaven, or eternal separation from God in Hell. As Saint Therese said, "Death is no phantom, no horrible specter, as presented in pictures. In the catechism it is stated that death is the separation of soul and body, that is all! Well, I am not afraid of a separation which will unite me to the good God forever." So why not get yourself to give one hour of your weekly time to God? Tell me one thing more important than God. The only proper response reinforces the point. God deserves your time more than anyone or anything else. He desires you to be at Holy Mass not because He needs it, but because you need Him, and you can find Him physically present in the tabernacle and in the Eucharist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I don't know about you, but if I can encounter God in a physical way, count me in.
3) Don't leave Mass early. It's rude and disrespectful. Fr. J gave a great analogy: What if you are at the movie theatre and you get up and leave before the movie is over? What does your action say? It says you didn't like the movie; it wasn't worth your time. Imagine if the director or producer of the movie was there and they saw you get up and walk out like that? How would they feel? They would be insulted and hurt. When you leave Mass early, you're telling God that Mass isn't worth your time. At Mass, we are given the Body and Blood of God. And that isn't worth your time? Ouch. Try saying that to His face next time. If the movie analogy isn't enough, imagine you're at your birthday party and once you receive your gift, you get up and leave. How would everyone else feel? You only wanted to use them to get something for yourself. Isn't that selfish? It's the same with Holy Mass. God gives us the best gift in the whole entire universe: His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And you're just going to walk out early after He gives Himself to you, instead of staying until the celebration is finished?
4) If you don't pray every day, why not? Doesn't God deserve five minutes of your daily time? Can you take a few minutes at the beginning of your day to say "thank you" to Jesus for allowing you to wake up that morning? For the electricity in your house? For a nice, cozy bedroom to sleep in? For the gift of life that the Father has given to you? Offer your day to God. Offer Him your struggles, your joys, your pains, your plans, your hopes, everything. If you don't talk to God about these things, why not? Isn't He worth a fraction of your time? Are you worth His? (See question #2).
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Man, when I get on a roll it's hard to stop. On to another beautiful subject: Hope!
Last week so many wonderful things happened at the crisis pregnancy center. I was beyond blessed and privileged to witness a 23 week (6 month) and a 19 week (5 month) ultrasound! These unborn kiddos are HUGE! Our ultrasound machine almost couldn't display their whole bodies on the screen at once because they are so big at this stage. But what I did see was breath-taking. The fetuses (note: "fetus" means "little one" in Latin. I am referring to the unborn babies as "fetuses" for no reason other than specificity. Fetuses are babies who live inside the mother.) were so active! They were kicking their mommy's bellies and squirming all around. It was adorable!
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| Not the actual ultrasound. |
A must share: The woman who was 23 weeks (LMP) along had a powerful story. When we learned that she had not been to see a doctor for any pre-natal checkups yet, and had not been taking pre-natal vitamins, we became concerned for her and the baby. We asked her why she had not done these things yet. Her answer was heart-wrenching.
She said the reason she had not had any pre-natal visit or taken any vitamins at any point this far in her pregnancy was because she was not intending to have the baby. She was going to have an abortion. In fact, she had already gone ahead and scheduled the abortion appointment at the Planned Parenthood in Houston. A date and an appointment time were set for her baby's life to end. On the day of the abortion appointment, she was getting ready to leave--putting on makeup, getting dressed, preparing to walk out the door, etc...when suddenly, she felt the baby kick. This was the very first time that she had felt any movement from her unborn child. The kick, she said, was strong and hard--unmistakable. At that moment, feeling the fetus kick, she said she knew she would never be able to abort this baby. She cancelled her appointment at Planned Parenthood! All it took was a swift kick in the gut from her fetus, and then the scales were removed from her eyes and she saw that the fetus growing in her womb is actually, in fact, a little human person. Thanks be to God!
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A few more things I wanted to share, which you may have seen already if you're on Facebook. But they are worth seeing again:
1) Have you ever been asked, "Are you saved?" and had a hard time knowing how to reply? Well, here is a nifty little response that might help you out next time you get asked that.
You could say, "...as the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5–8), but I’m also currently being saved (1 Cor. 1:18, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13)."
Pretty awesome, right?!
2) Read this.
3) Do not buy Girl Scout cookies this year, unless you want to support abortion. "Girl Scout cookie season will be here in no time. Since we know that Planned Parenthood has long standing ties to the Girl Scouts, we of course won't purchase their cookies. But sometimes we may want to say something...say why we aren't buying the cookies. But what do we say? And do we say something in front of their parents? Well, now you don't have to say anything." Abby Johnson has created a one page information sheet that you can fold up and quietly give to their parents. Hope it helps!
http://www.abbyjohnson.org/girl-scoutplanned-parenthood-link/
4) This is a beautiful song. Enjoy it!
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