Relationships: Pray Together. A Lot.

"Without Prayer nothing good is done. God's works are done with our hands joined, and on our knees. Even when we run, we must remain spiritually kneeling before Him."
 -Blessed Luigi Orione


Today was a very special day for my girlfriend and I: It was the first time we prayed a Rosary together (also, I was using a rosary she had made me, which is totally awesome."

I'm sure there's at least one person reading this who is now saying, "Huh?... How is that romantic at all? What was so great about that?" Hopefully there isn't and I'm wrong, but nonetheless, I'll address it just in case.

First off, it's not supposed to be, at least not between me and her. It's supposed to be a romance between us and Christ, especially through the intercession and love of His and our Queen and Mother, Mary most holy. It's always supposed to be about the passionate and completely self-surrendering of ourselves to Christ, no matter who you're praying the Rosary with. In fact, that's especially the case if you're praying it with someone like your girlfriend/boyfriend, fiancee, spouse, or anyone else who might distract you by their mere presence. We always need to be careful to keep the focus on our True Lover, our Heavenly Bridegroom, our Spousal King of Kings. Except by His overpowering grace, I would not be able to focus on my Lord because of my joy of being with her, but thanks be to God for His grace! Now I'm not saying that you should avoid praying with someone like that, quite the opposite actually! Obviously we should be careful in everything we do, especially praying with a loved one like a girlfriend/boyfriend, fiancee, or spouse, but that care should be taken so we can focus on the One Who has brought the two of us together to glorify and serve Him by our showing His love to each other, especially in prayer. Pray together over and over, as one of the main things or THE main thing the two of you do together, obviously according to the other's pace, but pray together! A lot!!

Secondly, it absolutely can be incredibly romantic (again, not the point, but merely an added bonus from the Lord)! I was once reading an article from a new subreddit on Reddit titled "r/CatholicDating", and one line that struck me perfectly went something like, "You should hopefully be with a girl that will find reading Aquinas together romantic." Now, obviously not everyone will have that kind of personality, especially for St. Thomas Aquinas, but the fact of the matter is that prayer, reading Scripture and the Saint's writings (St. Augustine?), going to Adoration and prayer meetings, and especially going to Mass together are romantic in a specific way: You're both helping each other to come closer to the True Lover, our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Heavenly Bridegroom wants us to come closer to Him in the ways He and the Father and the Holy Spirit have planned and set up for us, especially the person you're in a relationship with,  because what could be more romantic than loving your beloved like God does? Some might be saying, "But what about flowers? Or dinners? Or something else that ACTUALLY SEEMS ROMANTIC?" Well, let me ask you this: What're the points of those? Aren't they to make the other person happy? And aren't the Holy Mass and the other things above the best way for someone to be happy?

Once again, that's not the main point. However, going to Mass, to Adoration, to prayer meetings, reading Scripture and the Saint's writings, and praying together are literally the best ways to love someone you're in a relationship with. I'm not saying that having dinner together or going on dates of any other kind are not good; they are, they're spending time to love each other by that time spent together. But, in ranking of importance, prayer and other spiritual activities, especially going to Mass and Adoration together, are by an infinitely large margin at the top. So pray together. A lot!

Pope Saint John Paul the Great, please pray for all of us, to live our relationships as our Divine Lover intends. Mother Mary, please obtain for us the graces necessary to live like that, especially those of courage to do so, and fortitude to stay in the habit! Amen.

Miss Walter's Words on the LSR: Christ's All-Encompassing Mercy

“How happy am I to see myself imperfect and be in need of God’s mercy!” – St. Therese of Lisieux

If you recall, last Sunday’s readings were Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; and the Gospel was Matthew 15:21-28 (USCCB.org).  In summary, the first reading calls us to “Observe what is right” and “Do what is just” by becoming God’s servants and obeying his commands. The Psalm response is “O God, let all the nations praise you”, and the Psalm itself calls to God to “have pity on us and bless us”. In the second reading, Paul tells the Gentiles that God is merciful and will save them if they turn away from sin and disobedience. “The gifts of God are irrevocable”, he writes, to accentuate the permanence of God’s mercy in the face of their wrongdoings. Finally, the Gospel shares the story of the Canaanite woman who begs Jesus to have mercy on her daughter, who is possessed by a demon. Jesus does not answer her plea the first time, says that he cannot help her because she is not an Israelite the second time, and finally answers her plea the third time by responding, “O woman! Great is your faith. Let it be done as you wish.”

The readings that I will focus on this week will be the last two. This past weekend I visited a parish in New York State. The priest there was an older man, white haired, his face looking tired and weathered under his thick-rimmed glasses. His speech was knowing, yet somewhat bored, signifying that he’d been saying masses for quite some time. When he went to give the homily, I wasn't sure what to expect, but he kept his words short and sweet, and his ideas really stuck with me.

What I absorbed from the homily were the ideas of unexclusiveness and persistent faith. Throughout Scripture, we constantly see groups of people mentioned. Israelites, Canaanites, Gentiles, Jews, etc. and often times, especially in the Old Testament, God acts a certain way towards those people. We sometimes tend to focus on how prevalent God’s wrath is towards certain groups of people (such as His flooding of the Earth in order to get rid of the unrighteous in Noah’s day) which can be frightening. However, when we read the second reading and the Gospel, both talk about God’s mercy extending out to people who are of all different backgrounds. In the Gospel reading, the woman who is a Canaanite is granted mercy by Jesus, even though she was not a Jew. In Romans, Paul speaks directly to the Gentiles, and delivers a message of hope to them that they may be redeemed by God’s mercy, even though they're not Jews either. These passages display the idea of unexclusiveness; that God is so merciful and loving that He chooses to save all people willing to accept him, not just one chosen race.

Though this is great news, we must be willing to persist, as the Canaanite woman had when asking Jesus to heal her daughter. Sometime when we pray, it seems that God isn't listening or isn't there. However, just as in his first exchange with the woman, Jesus had listened to her plea but hadn't responded. Although Jesus tells her in another response that he has only come to save the people of Israel, he really sees how faithful she is when she persists even after that comment. From this story, we learn that Jesus is willing to reach out his hand to ALL who ask and persist in faith when they truly need help and truly believe.

As a call to action, I would like us to focus on the unexclusive mercy that God sheds on us. No matter who we are, how badly we've sinned, where we come from, or how discouraged we are, we can be saved by God’s grace. I pray that we can share this love with ALL of our neighbors, so as to become more like Christ!

Miss Walters' Words on the LSR: Introduction to the New "Last Sunday's Readings" Column

(The introduction to the new weekly posts by Miss Jennifer Walter, an amazing young woman of God!)

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." - St. Jerome

Hey all! To introduce myself, my name is Jennifer and I am a friend of Joe’s. I am Catholic, and constantly trying to become more rooted in my faith every day! As an experiment, I am starting a new column (if you can call it that on a blog) called “Last Sunday’s Readings.” Every week, sometime between Monday and Friday, I will be posting a new article about my reflection on the readings from the most recent Sunday. I do this for two reasons: first of all, because I am quite the procrastinator, and second, because I like to give time for my ideas to float around in my head and collect detail until I feel ready to sort them out and write them down. My reflections are based off of homilies from priests, my own personal meditations, and most importantly, the readings. I will try to summarize a connection or realization about two or more readings, but if something is on my heart about just one, then I will write about it.

(Joe here – All readers, please pray for our new writer!)

Friendship: With Friends Like These

"Fly from bad companions as from the bite of a poisonous snake. If you keep good companions, I can assure you that you will one day rejoice with the blessed in Heaven; whereas if you keep with those who are bad, you will become bad yourself, and you will be in danger of losing your soul." - St. John Bosco


The saddest thing I've ever had to know took place in my first semester of college. Yes, you new freshman read right; my first semester of college. That seemingly magical time when you're meeting all sorts of new people, new personalities, new thoughts and lifestyles, new creeds, new friends and, unfortunately, new people who would rather not be anywhere near you. One of the sad facts is that, especially in this first new time, they're pretty interchangeable. The drama from high school might be over, but the new stuff is even worse. It's the toughest part of going into college, more so than any class, even organic chemistry and molecular biology! The saddest thing was not having true friends, friends in love with the Lord Jesus, near me, pushing me. Those who had been in the beginning either left His love later on or simply gave up.

But this isn't meant in anyway way to create worry, anxiety, or distress! In fact, the message is quite the opposite!

With every new step in life come new friends, new people to open ourselves to, which should of course entail opening our faith and hope and love of Christ to them. Perhaps they might not accept it, or maybe they might be lukewarm about it and not really care much. Or perhaps they are seeking after truth right when you meet them, and they'd like to know more! Maybe, by the grace of God, you've just met someone or will meet someone soon who is already totally in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, someone who can help you and you can help them grow closer and closer to Him. God works in mysterious ways, and the friends we have share in that work, and we for them.

The challenge is in finding those friends lastly described above, those companions who will never abandon us to fear and despair. The true friends are like Samwise Gamgee, refusing to let us fall, carrying us to where we need to go when we can't walk there ourselves, loving us as God loves us by sacrificing their own time and talents, themselves, for our sake, and we need to do the same for our friends, as well as our enemies. St. Thomas Aquinas once said, "There is nothing on this earth to be more prized than true friendship." If you look at the saints, they all had true friends who pushed them, who helped them walk, who carried them closer to Christ. St. Francis had St. Dominic as his companion, St. Augustine had friends like St. Ambrose and St. Possidius who helped him come to Christ, and in fact it was St. Ambrose who baptized St. Augustine and his son!

Seek after the people who God is trying to make more important in your life, those Godly companions who will remain with you through the trials, who will help carry you to Christ, who will help you carry your cross, who will push you and rebuke you because of their desire to see you perfected in Christ the Lord. And, of course, do the same for them, love them like God loves them, for Christ told the Apostles, "I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn't confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me." (John 15:15)

St. Edith Stein - "On the question of relating to our fellowman – our neighbor’s spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is the end already, since God is love."

Sts. Augustine, Ambrose, Possidius, Thomas Aquinas, Francis, and Dominic, please pray for us all, that we may all find, keep, and love the companions the Lord God has sent and will send us!

Readers, please pray for the writers of this page! Thank you!

Working in Love: Fight Against Idleness!

"Either we learn to find our Lord in everyday life, or else we shall never find Him." - St. Josemaria Escriva


St. Joseph, the foster father of our Lord Jesus, was a carpenter. A man of a simple lifestyle, even for that time period, one who lived by his work as a craftsman and builder. He never says anything in all of Scripture, and perhaps it's because of his simple lifestyle as a carpenter that this is the case. Obviously, some of the Apostles and early Saints came from simple lifestyles, and one can say that they still did even after the followed Christ, going from place to place in plain clothing, not taking very much with them usually. However, St. Joseph wasn't called to be an apostle, a prophet, or an evangelist. Rather, he worked tirelessly to raise together with Mary his foster son, the Son of God. And though this in itself is the greatest of his service to God, St. Joseph still offered all of his laboring to Him, never remaining idle or in bored laziness. This is truly a man of God, and both men and women should pay attention to his unceasing devotion to giving all he was to the glorious will of his foster son. Even now, he prays and intercedes for us, ready to obtain for us the graces necessary for us to selflessly and tirelessly serve God in everything we do.

In this day and age, with cell phones, video games, the ever-expanding and ever-interconnecting internet, and all of the noisy and constantly changing events around us, we might fall into a rut when trying to do His will; getting distracted by all the things around us and forgetting exactly what we're trying to do. I myself have a 3DS, and had bought a new game for it recently, playing it almost obsessively and having almost all of my thoughts on it, even though I know that God is trying to tell me things He wants me to do! He's always trying to tell all of us something that He wants us to know or do, and He doesn't ask much of us. God, the Lord Almighty, is constantly shouting to us how much He loves us, how much He wants us to be completely given to Him, and also the ways He's wants to do so, the things we can participate in for His will. Yet we focus so much on the ever-shifting newsfeeds, the newest articles on our favorite reddit pages, texting someone to try and pass the time, and even with all of these, so many people are still so bored!

We, as a society, have become idle. We spend our time trying to get out of boredom, and then we complain that we never have any relaxation, and so we try to get ourselves bored again. When we know it'd be a great idea to pray the Rosary to come closer to our Mother Mary, or to read Scripture to know Christ better, or to evangelize to someone, we often think to ourselves, "Ah, I'll get it done later", and later keeps becoming "later" until one day we decide we just don't care anymore. However, look at St. Joseph: Working tirelessly all the time, never stopping from giving glory to God in His labors, never bored and so never idle, always living a life for God. We need to imitate St. Joseph if we are to live our lives for God, never ceasing to listen to what He's telling us, never letting our desire to relax become important than the will He has for us. And like St. Joseph, we must do so in the everyday things, the simple lifestyle that we all still have as at least a part of our normal lives, giving everything we do to God, not just the big things.

Because that is what love is: Never stopping to serve the beloved, never stopping to do everything for their sake, never giving in to laziness and boredom in this chaotic world. We need to love in everything we do in our daily go-abouts, to love through the plain words we speak and the actions we do, especially by putting away the distracting things for other, purposeful things, for prayer, for Scripture, for acts of mercy and evangelizing. We need to live "the working man's" life, just like St. Joseph.

St. Joseph, St. Josemaria Escriva, and all you holy men and women, please pray for us!

All you readers, please pray for the writers and editors of the page!

Feast Day of St. Dominic: Speaking of Desire

"You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you." - St. Augustine, Confessions

Happy feast day, St. Dominic! Thank you for all your prayers, especially for those who have been called to the order you started with your friend and companion, St. Francis! You preached the Good News with such amazing fervor, and you shared the gift of the Most Holy Rosary with everyone! You desired God above all, and your great rule to live for Him alone has brought so many closer to Him! Keep us in your prayers, great Saint!

St. Dominic's rule, although technically from St. Paul's letter to the Galatians, is amazing, especially since it's incredibly challenging: "Speak only to God or of God". This is not only difficult in itself, but is especially difficult in the culture we live in today. Everyone loves to talk so much nowadays, and sometimes we can get nervous and anxious when we're not talking. We love to hear ourselves talk about even the most inane things, topics and ideas with no purpose. So often we desire only to listen to ourselves, to talk about everything and nothing at once, to blather on and on about worthless things.

This is not what we were made for! 

We were made to desire  only one thing: the love of God, the Most Holy Trinity. To hear the Father's Word, the Lord Jesus our Heavenly Bridegroom, in the grace, power, and understanding of the Holy Spirit. We were made to listen to He Who is talking to us constantly, trying to get all of our attention so we can hear His message of eternal life and love. In this culture, we focus so much on ourselves, maybe on others, but our desire is so often on the temporal and the imperfect. We talk about pointless things, trying to pass the time, but we have been made, most of all, to be in love with this God Who is Love Itself. Wouldn't you rather listen and talk to your Divine Lover rather than the things of the world?

In this relationship with our loving God, we have been commanded to go out and tell the whole world the Good News of His life, death, and resurrection, to shout out the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ Who gave Himself up for us. Therefore, our speech must be bent and bound to that command, to His holy will, ready to proclaim the love of God wherever we go. However, this won't be possible for us if we do not desire our Lord and His Word above all, if we don't desire to listen to Him above all! Our desire must be the chain around our speech, to "speak only to God and of God", for how else can we live for Him completely if we're focused on other things? 

In conclusion, let us, by the grace of God, dedicate ourselves, especially our speech, to desiring only our Beloved in Heaven, and to run and tell everyone of Him, not wasting time on pointless conversations and environments that might distract us from our command to shout His Gospel! Let us be completely in love with Him and tell the whole world in the fervor of the Spirit, just like St. Dominic did!

St. Dominic, St. Francis, and all of you holy men and women, please pray for us and for our speech!

Mary: Holy, Beautiful, Tender, Loving Mother - By Dean Kovacs

(Another amazing article from Dean Kovacs, a great man of God!)

Who is this that comes forth like the dawn, as beautiful as the moon, as resplendent as the sun, as awe-inspiring as bannered troops? -Song of Songs 6:10

Mary, your very name is like wine which passes through my lips. My heart is burning for love of you! Let me gaze into your eyes which are more beautiful than the aurora of the skies! Just one glance from you and all fear dissipates. Truly and rightfully do we call you blessed, you are full of grace! More than the stars of the sky are your virtues and deeper than the depths of the ocean is your love. How I long to embark on that sea and to cast anchor in the shores of your Immaculate Heart!

I have learned first hand that the easiest and surest way to combat Satan is through devotion to our Blessed Mother. It was through her yes that Christ entered into the world to win the war against sin and death. Wouldn’t it only make sense that it is through her that Christ would do the same in our own souls? It was because of Mary that I can even call myself a Christian. She has helped me rid myself of my many sick habits. She played a major role in my reversion and continues to help me grow in my faith and love for Christ everyday.

By the power of the sacrament of baptism we became members of the body of Christ.  Was it not Mary who bore Christ in her womb, who nursed Him, protected and raised Him?  How can a mother give birth to her child without a body? How can a mother nurse her child without nourishing the body? In a very real way she is our mother who carries us in her arms and kisses us goodnight. She feeds us, clothes us, and instructs us. She loves us with a real and tender motherly love. She delights in preparing her daughter, the Church, for the wedding of the Heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

The greatest thing I’ve ever done was consecrating myself to Mary, to become a very slave of Jesus through her. Because of this holy slavery, I know that I, along with many others, have made great strides over the sin in our lives and we have come to know the love of God in ways we never thought possible!! She is the dispenser of graces and she makes sure her Son’s Bride will be holy, beautiful, and immaculate. Like a good mother she makes sure the wedding will be perfect! I know that those who love and trust her will never suffer eternal fire.

If you haven’t consecrated yourself to Mary, do not wait any longer; there is so much to gain in doing so. I personally like St. Louis Marie de Montfort’s form, but there are many other forms of consecration by many others like: St. John Paul II, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and Fr. Michael Gaitley’s in his book 33 Day’s to Morning Glory. Usually the process takes 33 days and involves much prayer and reflection, but it doesn’t compare to the amount of self knowledge and spiritual benefits gained through preparation period.

Mary is the demon crusher, through her fiat she crushed Satan with her dainty fourteen-year old foot; he has no power over her. She will help you win your spiritual battles and help you to leap over mountains of trials. She will bring Jesus to you, who lays sleeping in her arms. Let her set your heart on fire and give her the joy of being your mother. Just approach as a child, and whisper to her, “Here I am mother, love me!”

St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. John Paul the Great, St. Louis Marie de Montfort, please pray for us, that we may come to love our Mother more and more, everyday falling more in love with the Lord Jesus her Son by our love for her!

The Church: The Bride of Christ

“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has made herself ready.” – Revelations 19:7

If any of you know who St. John of the Cross is, hopefully you have read or are reading his writings right now, mainly his poetry. Especially in his poem and subsequent book, "The Spiritual Canticle of the Soul", he describes something absolutely amazing: The soul as the bride of Christ, our Heavenly Bridegroom. In fact, the entire Church is the Bride of Christ, given to Him in marriage by the Father.

In Scripture, we see what it means to be wedded to someone. In Genesis, "the two become one flesh". The Church is also the Body of Christ, with Christ as the head. How else could the Church be the Body of Christ without being His Bride, wedded to Him and united in one flesh? In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he says, "Men, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it." Men being commanded to give themselves to their wives just as Christ gave Himself for the Church shows how man and woman married together and given to each other is a reflection of the divine love between Christ and His Bride the Church. St. John the Apostle tells us how he saw the Bride of the Lamb come to the marriage feast in Revelations 21:2 - "And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." 

Each of us, all members of Christ's Body the Church, and therefore all part of His Bride the Church, are called to be completely in love with Him, wholly given to Him in everything we are and do. In essence, each and every one of us is called to give ourselves in Most Holy Matrimony to Christ our Heavenly Bridegroom. Obviously, if He is our Bridegroom, we will never be in that state of divine marriage with Him until we are with Him in Paradise. However, our life is therefore similar to an engagement process by which we seek to be closer to Him to be finally in the fullness of matrimony afterwards. As any engaged couple will do, we prepare to be with our Lord by our living and giving for Him in total self-sacrificing love. And, most importantly, we receive Him in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which, although the greatest thing possible in this material life, is still not as amazing as the completely overwhelming, enveloping, pure, complete love we will know and have in Heaven. 

So let us all live as the Bride of Christ, preparing for the divine marriage between the Bridegroom and His Bride. Let us all prepare as any bride would to be with our Beloved Bridegroom for all eternity, opening more and more to His great love every day, seeing Him on a daily basis to fall more and more in love with Him, and doing everything for His will, receiving Him as often as we can to come even closer to that union which will be perfected in our new life in Him in Paradise!

St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Jesus, and all of you holy men and women, please pray for us! Holy Mary, Mother of God, prepare all of us, your children, to be wedded to your Son, our Lord! Amen!