Welcome Back

Blessings, all!

Honeysuckle, Rose, (hopefully Ivy) and myself are going to try our best to post regularly on this blog once again.

There have been two major changes in my life, at least, in the past year that have affected my spiritual life. First, due to a string of God-incidences, I ended up living in a convent/boarding house for ten months. Although I was still working and studying during this time, it was a sort of lengthy retreat “into the desert” since I had a chapel right beneath my room and I had many opportunities for prayer and quiet time. At the same time, I explored different career paths and had several doors closed in my face. This was very disheartening, but God was leading me towards something far better than I had imagined. I started a new job as a seasonal Park Ranger in May and have never been so happy in my life.

However, life changes always bring new challenges. My biggest challenge these days is making sure that I build time into my day for prayer and quiet time. And, to be honest, some weeks are better than others for me in this respect.

My sister and I look forward to putting time into this blog once again in the near future. Please be assured your prayer intentions have not been forgotten!

Inspired Letter

If you continue to place yourself in [the Lord’s] presence, turning away from the noise and tumult of the world, you will soon find that He is speaking to you quite distinctly. If we wish to hear the voice of God, we must go where he is most readily found: in prayer, silence, Sacred Scripture, the Church, the poor, the hungry, the sick, the ignorant, and the forgotten. You will find Him in all these places, but you will especially need the first four in order to find Him in the others. He is there…all He is waiting to hear is Amen…Fiat…let it be done. This is why Mary is our model, for it was her great Amen at the Annunciation that brought Our Lord and all His blessings upon the world. Be like Mary: listen, hear and say Amen.

The worst thing you can do is be unmindful of the good things God has already given you. Remember that we are headed to heaven! Contemplate heaven like you contemplate your weekend and life will become much easier. Think of it with the same joyful expectation and present concerns will quickly take on their proper proportions.

I got this snippet of a letter from the following blog; Musings of a little Redheaded Girl please visit!

Thanks so much for posting such an inspiring letter! I think I will be going back to reread it a few times a week! Such things we should keep in mind while living our everyday lives!

~Rose

The Manhattan Declaration

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. The sanctity of human life
2. The dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. The rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

SIGN HERE

~Honeysuckle ❤

Burial of Early Christian Children

I was reading on Thursday an article in the Envoy magazine. Envoy is a very informative Catholic magazine. You can read more about it at the link I posted above. The article I read was in their most recent issue and it struck me as extremely interesting. In it a priest was talking about a discussion he had with an archeologist at his parish. What the archeologist told him of Christian burials was as follows:

The archeologist said that in his field of archeology they could often date an area of dig in and around Italy by whether they found graves sites of young children. If they did they could be pretty sure that the area had been influenced by Christianity. Since there were often good records in many places indicating when Christianity came to various parts of the Roman Empire this was an excellent way of dating a new excavation. If they did not find such graves, then the pagan practices of treating very young children (I think it was 2 years and above, but I am not positive) as less than human was still the prevailing custom. In other words, one effecting of the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ was to establish, in theory and practice, that babies were fully human with an invaluable dignity worthy of respect.

The Priest in the Envoy article did some research on what the archeologist had told him.  He discovered that in Christian burial sites in and around Kellis something entirely different was discovered: the burial of infants and even fetuses.  The burial of fetuses is of considerable interest for our understanding of early Christian concepts of the nature of status of the unborn children, and of the entrance of the soul into the body. The fetuses were individually wrapped with same attention that was paid to the orientation within the grave, implying, therefore, the expectation of resurrection. Fetuses have been discovered as young as 14 weeks.

What this means is that with the conversation to Christianity came as new found respect for human life at all stages of development.  Thanks for reading this post. I hope you found it as interesting as I certainly did. Love to all!

~Rose

Here comes another one!

She'll do anything for attention

It’s a beautiful story and the idea of the imagery is touching. However, in its original caption it stated that “Her sister and handmaidens look[ed] on in horror.”

To me, mostly they look annoyed. Like the one in the upper right corner who looks like she’s thinking “Here we go again” and the lady in the foreground left, who looks like she’s saying “What the heck are you doing?!?!”

I in no way take credit for the story, music, or artwork. I do, however, take full credit for the hilarious caption.

*Ivy

And now, for something completely different!

Quick!, Everyone make her comfortable!

I am not a bad person by nature, but when a picture comes along like this, it is asking to be not only admired but mocked in the privacy of one’s mind. I just happen to be the kind of person who doesn’t usually keep my mind private.

*Ivy

Life is Worth Living

I found,  with abundant rejoice, Fulton Sheen’s 50 part series of Life is Worth Living! I am sooo excited! I am auditory so listening to things I find to be much easier than reading. You can listen to the podcast on your computer while at work! I will be listening to them along with you. I’ve read one of his books, volume 4. Which, I highly recommend, however, if you find you don’t have much time in your day to sit down and read a book, you can listen to it instead! While at work, washing your dishes at home or sitting down and doing homework you can receive inspiration to live your life as a Christian. Here is a link to his first MP3 podcast (I am listening to it as I post this, lol) :Ascension

After listening to a podcast, please comment. I would love to discuss them with you.

Please enjoy! I know I will!

❤ Rose

Soldiers of Christ

As you may recall, last year, I wrote a post titled: “My experience at Mount 2008” In it a mentioned I Todd Lemieux’s talk about us as Catholics. I mentioned that he showed us a clip from “We were Soldiers” I am presenting that clip to you now.

We are all soldiers of Christ. We all must watch each others backs in the battle against sin. We must pray for each others strength. We must pray that each one of us will turn to God, our armies leader, in time of need.  We fight for God. We fight for the gifts he has given us. God presented us freedom from the chains of sin through confession. We must embrace our duties, as solders of Christ. No matter who we are, God is there, watching after us. He was the first to step onto the battle field, and, I promise you, He will be the last to step off…

Thanks

~Rose

Sand and Stone

Here is a story I found online. I was musing around and happened upon it. It is a inspiring story.  It brings to mind God’s forgiveness, our sins are gone with the wind, considering we are sorry. And our good deeds carved in stone, with grace and roses in heaven.  We slap God in the face everyday, and he writes it in sand, where he may wipe away and forget it in confession, and he writes in stone the good deeds that we do for him! Original sin is blown away from our souls at baptism… and God’s love for us is carved in stone by his death and resurrection!

Sand and Stone!

A story tells of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, she wrote in the sand:

“TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE”

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but her friend saved her. After she recovered from the near drowning, she wrote on a stone:

“TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE”

The friend, who had slapped and saved her best friend, asked her, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone, why?”

The other friend replied: “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it, but when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, so no wind can ever erase it.”

~Rose

“…A part of salvation history…”

Pope John Paul II

The Value of Prayer

Through prayer, especially to Jesus at Communion you will understand so many things about the world and its relationship to him, and you will be in a position to read accurately what are referred to as the “signs of the times.” Above all, you will have something to offer those who come to you in need.

Through prayer you will possess Christ and be able to communicate him to others. And this is the greatest contribution you can make in your lives: to communicate Christ to the world. You will receive the power to show compassion to every human being – just as Jesus did. Through prayer you will have a part of salvation history as it unfolds in your generation.

In prayer you will be able to enter into the heart to Jesus and understand his feelings towards his Church. By using the Psalms, the prayer book that Jesus used, you will be able to repeat, under the actions of the Holy Spirit, the praise and thanksgiving that have been offered to God for centuries by his people. In all circumstances in your lives you will find that Jesus is with you – he is close to you in prayer.

It is in prayer that will bring joy into your lives and help you to overcome the obstacles of Christina living…When you go to Jesus in prayer – and through him to the Father – you will always find inspiration in Mary, his Mother. With every generation of disciples you will learn to prayer with her, and with her to await the action of the Holy Spirit in your lives.

~Rose