Category: Learn & Live the Faith

Transfiguration - Just a Stretch of the Legs
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Transfiguration – Just a Stretch of the Legs

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Praying the Rosary on the way to work, something new regarding the Transfiguration jumped out at me. You remember the event: While Jesus was at prayer on a mountaintop, Peter, James, and John witnessed Him become “more brilliant than the sun.” Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus, and the disciples could hear them discussing His […]

Blessed Maria of the Divine Heart and the Consecration of the World to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
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Blessed Maria of the Divine Heart and the Consecration of the World to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

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When we think of saints who have promoted devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we often call to mind the Visitation sister St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and her confessor St. Claude de la Colombière, S.J. And that is for good reason. Although, prior to her, there had been a long history of devotion to […]

A Gift for My Grandmother and Saint Anne’s Gift to Me
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A Gift for My Grandmother and Saint Anne’s Gift to Me

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The summer of 2008 was a summer of opportunity for me.  I was able to attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City, Canada with other young adults from the state of Wisconsin through Catholic Youth Expeditions, a retreat ministry founded by Father Quinn Mann, a priest of the Diocese of Green Bay. As part […]

The Day I Got Kicked Out of a Hair Salon
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The Day I Got Kicked Out of a Hair Salon

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“We do not have a good rapport,” I was told by the salon owner with short red hair as she took off my plastic cape. “I won’t be able to work with you. You need to leave.” Who gets kicked out of a hair salon? But I had rubbed the hairdresser the wrong way and […]

IRELAND: Empty Churches, Hurting People - What Can We Do?
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IRELAND: Empty Churches, Hurting People – What Can We Do?

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As Ireland prepares for an August visit by Pope Francis, her people are locked in a life and death struggle with the Catholic Church. In a country that is perhaps the most Catholic of any nation in the world, some estimates show that while well over 90% of Ireland’s citizens identify with the church of […]

Faith: The Constant Exploration of the Boundaries of Hope
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Faith: The Constant Exploration of the Boundaries of Hope

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This deliberate choice of words is an attempt to express the reality within which so many of us find ourselves in regards to our religion. To say that I belong to a particular religion is by itself an expression of Faith, but it does not define the reality of my relationship with that religion. I […]

Lines from the Declaration of Independence to Ponder this July
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Lines from the Declaration of Independence to Ponder this July

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As youth, many of us were required to memorize – or at least study – the Declaration of Independence. Although we might not be able to quote it now, we’re probably able to spot it if we hear it read or recited by someone else. At least I hope so. The Declaration of Independence is […]

Thomas: Doubter, Empiricist, Apostle, Saint
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Thomas: Doubter, Empiricist, Apostle, Saint

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For St. John the Apostle, the empty tomb was all he needed to experience to believe in the Resurrection. But two who were later to be saints – Mary Magdalene and Thomas – began the first Easter season as nonbelievers. Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb not to assure herself that Christ is risen, but […]

The Pick-Up
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The Pick-Up

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This past Sunday morning on our way to the airport, I was dropping off my husband, a pilot for work. We had just finished saying the Rosary and were rounding the large loop about a mile from the airport, when we noticed a car off to the side of the road. The hood was up […]

The Acts of the Holy Spirit Through Peter and Paul, Apostles
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The Acts of the Holy Spirit Through Peter and Paul, Apostles

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On this the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul I will speak on the varieties of Revelation that each Apostle received from Jesus Christ, and what said Revelation means to us and to our Church today. There really is only one great Revelation—the Word made Flesh—but each of us receives it differently, in the amount […]

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist: Trust in God’s Loving Power
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The Nativity of St. John the Baptist: Trust in God’s Loving Power

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“You did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time”  (Luke 1:20). Faith assures us that anything is possible with God, and The Catechism teaches us that, “God, who created everything also rules everything and can do everything. God’s power is loving, for He is our Father, and mysterious, for only faith […]

Falling in Trust
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Falling in Trust

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Trust is an intrinsic part of the human psyche, though it’s resolve can sometimes seem almost irrational. It was trust in God that brought Columbus to discover the New World. The same could be said about the many pioneers who ventured out in wagons to cross the great prairies in the 19th century. In that […]

Heartbreak, Suicide and God's Endless Mercy
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Heartbreak, Suicide and God’s Endless Mercy

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Frequently, when I speak to groups about death and dying, people will share their own stories of loss. At a recent event, a woman came up to me with tears running down her face, to talk about her daughter who had died by suicide. She had been raised as a Catholic, with the idea that […]

Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Remedy Against the Culture of Death
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Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: Remedy Against the Culture of Death

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Even as we see our government and our leaders try to solve our problems, it’s clear that we cannot rely on them to solve our spiritual problems. Instead, when we as a civilization open ourselves up to God’s love, he will pour a new anointing of His Spirit upon us.  Our plan must be to […]

His Mother Brought Him to Lourdes, His Heavenly Mother Healed Him, Now He's a Priest
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His Mother Brought Him to Lourdes, His Heavenly Mother Healed Him, Now He’s a Priest

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Mothers make great sacrifices for their children, that is widely known. That they are often the gateway to sainthood perhaps less so, and yet, behind every great saint (to steal a phrase), is likely to be an attentive mother. Fr. Christy David Pathiala would probably agree. He speaks of his own mother with great reverence, […]

pieta, mary, jesus, suffering
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Mary, My Mother

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In relation to boys, girls have always had a very short childhood, inversely proportional to the wealth of the family. Two thousand years ago in Palestine they were hardly off the breast before they were expected to conform to strict behavior patterns. Little girls grew in the knowledge that they were second class citizens, forever […]

You Need a Silent Retreat
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You Need a Silent Retreat

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As we’re now in the Easter season and summer is just around the corner, I want to strongly encourage all of you to sign yourselves up for a silent retreat this year. Yep, just look at your summer calendars, and do it. Unfortunately for me, I’ll have to wait until my latest baby is done […]

The Meaning of Easter
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The Meaning of Easter

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To the secular world, our celebration of Easter Sunday is an odd event. In their eyes, we celebrate a corpse rising from the dead, and they really can’t figure out why.

The Octave of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday
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The Octave of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday

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Easter Sunday is not the end of our Easter celebration.  After forty days of preparation with Lent, and the Easter Triduum from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, it is easy to miss looking ahead on the Church’s liturgical calendar. This is, after all, the climax of the Christian year with the celebration of the Passion, […]

Good Friday, Allegri, and A White Easter
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Good Friday, Allegri, and A White Easter

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Today is Good Friday. Now I know that I ought to be focused on the passion and death of Jesus Christ, and I am, but I am also a mother. Therefore, I must plan ahead for my family accordingly. And this entails preparing any necessary music that my family will want to sing and listen […]

Triduum Traditions
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Triduum Traditions

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These days of the Paschal Triduum are a very special time.  For me, they are not an easy time, but they are a wondrous time. They are full of traditions…traditions common to the Church throughout the world, traditions I brought from home, and traditions I have developed personally during my time here at St. Anne’s. […]

Powerful Prayer for Spiritual Protection
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Powerful Prayer for Spiritual Protection

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“You’d better take down your article,” I was advised in an email.  “The Blessed Mother has warned that anyone who interferes with her message will suffer consequences.”  Ah the joy of writing about condemned apparitions.  The article being referred to was five years old. The odds of me taking down an article I had carefully […]

In the Shadow of Saints -- Padre Pio and St. John Paul II
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In the Shadow of Saints — Padre Pio and St. John Paul II

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Meeting a Future Saint In the 80s, my husband Cliff, a news photographer and reporter, accompanied Bismarck, ND Catholic Bishop John Kinney to Rome to record his five-year Ad-Limina visit, which is an obligation of church hierarchy to visit the tombs of the apostles, and to meet with the pope, in this case, Pope John […]

Heretical Groups Are Barnacles on the True Church
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Heretical Groups Are Barnacles on the True Church

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I could have been talking to the devil rather than a man ordained as a Catholic priest. He clings to the title “Father” while operating far outside the Church. During an interview with him for another article, at one point he yelled, “Screw the Catholic Church!” He said that he hates JPII and that, “Pope […]