Journeying With The Saints

This week we are reading the 23rd number from "Way to Inner Peace." We are entering into the section on virtues and the first virtue we are going to discuss is selflessness. I think all human beings can say that they have struggled with the opposite of this virtue. I don't think there is any person out there that can say that they have never been selfish. We all struggle with it and I think Bishop...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 720-724. Sister Faustina shares that it can be hard to live in a community. She ain't kidding! No matter what community we are in, people can be difficult. We ourselves are difficult. It's so important for us to learn to be good community members whether that be at work, school, church, or at home. People need patience and mercy.   

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 714-719. Christ seems to say some really harsh words to Sister Faustina. He tells her that she needs to be aware of what she truly is. It is so important that we are truthful with ourselves about our sins and about how those sins have made us do things that are not becoming to us. I share my experiences as a counselor. It is very difficult to get peopl...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 709-713. Apologizes for the mispronunciation of ciborium by me today in the readings and for the scratchy sound at the very end.  Sister Faustina realizes that she may not see the full fruits of her labors with regards to the Divine Mercy message. She knows that her life may end before the message fully spreads. She's okay with that. We, too, should al...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 702-708. Sister Faustina shares how much she loves to be close to God. She wants to talk to Him, learn from Him, share her life with Him. The good news is that God wants us to be close to Him. He is not a distant, unapproachable God. He is relational. He desires a close relationship with each of His created souls.   

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 697-701. So often, we look to Christ as a last resort to solve our problems. This is true for individuals, communities, and countries. Too often we look to politicians, the media, and progressive movements to fix problems. If we don't seek Christ's guidance in any problem we try to fix, not only will we not fix it, we will more than likely make the pro...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 692-696. Sister Faustina talks about the sufferings of death today. I would wager that most of us fear that sufferings of death and would just  like to go peacefully in our sleep when we are 95. But, the reality is that this probably won't happen to most of us--most of us will suffer in some capacity. Talking about it helps to lessen the fear.   

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 686-691. Do we show up in the hard? Do we show people we love them by showing up even when we are tired or even if we really don't want to do something at the moment? Sister Faustina is very tired and, yet, she still goes to give a Holy Hour. Christ tells her this pleases Him very much. It's because she still chose to give to Him even when it was hard....

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 680-685. Sister Faustina is asking for the intercession of Jesuit Saints. I thought today would be a great day to talk about the Jesuits and how they came about. My daughter recently learned about St. Ignatius and how he came to found the Jesuits. What I love about the Jesuits is their willingness to go into the unknown to bring the Gospel.   

This week we are reading the 22nd number from "Way to Inner Peace." This is the last reading from the section on external influences. We will move into a section on virtues. The reading is a little different this week and I wasn't quite sure to approach it. I think I came up with a pretty clever way to talk about the five groups of people that are "fish for the devil's hooks." They take the bait,...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 675-679. Sister Faustina mentions todays that the practicing the virtues is important to living out God's Will. So, I thought today would be a good day to talk about the Cardinal Virtues. We know that the virtues are good to practice, but I'm not sure we think about them very often. If we don't know what we are aiming to practice, it will be difficult...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 669-674. Sister Faustina is being tormented by Satan and she just wants to run into the garden to cry aloud. She is even tempted to miss Holy Communion because of temptations. Christ appears and asks her a very pointed question. It's a question that Christ will ask to each one of our souls at least once in our life. It reminds me of a question Christ a...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 664-668. Sister Faustina talks a lot about doing God's Will in our readings today. What impresses me is how willing she is to do God's Will even it means she is hidden and meek. She isn't worried about being known or famous. My pride causes me to struggle with doing things God wants when it may not be seen by others. This is a fault that I think many o...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 658-663. How do we know if we are truly being guided by the Holy Spirit? Well, there are safeguards we need to put into place to check and make sure any inspirations are truly from God. St. Faustina shows us those safeguards: Talking with a spiritual director, speaking with priests, other friends grounded in their Catholic Faith, and lots of prayer.

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 653-657. Sister Faustina talks about having contrition for her sins in her writings today. It is so important that we have true contrition for our sins. There is imperfect contrition and perfect contrition. We will discuss the differences today and, also, how to have contrition for our sins. Sometimes, our sins can make us numb and cause us to forget h...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 646-652. We get the continuation of the saga that happened in yesterday's readings. Today, everyone has changed. The confessor is less severe. Satan doesn't show up. Christ doesn't have too much to say and St. Faustina has renewed strength and courage. I think what we are seeing is the battle of self-will vs. God's Will. Even saints have to work out th...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 643-645. The readings today are very curious. Her new confessor tells her to give all these inspirations up, they are all an illusions. And curiously, she is relieved to get this message. However, she falls into darkness. Later, Christ talks with her and seems completely fine with how things are playing out. It's all very curious and I'm interested to...

This week we are reading the 21st number from "Way to Inner Peace. Bishop Sheen will be talking about passion. As a person who gets told that I am a very passionate, I appreciate this reading. It's not bad to be passionate about things, as long as it's ordered correctly. It's okay to be passionate about hating evil, however, we must be Christian in our approach to eradicating it. In the world we l...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 639-642. Sister Faustina has been going through Lent. Now she is thinking about Palm Sunday. I share my experience of walking the Palm Sunday path when I was in the Holy Land. Whenever I read the Palm Sunday narrative, it reminds me of the fickleness of the human heart when it comes to Christ.    

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 634-638. Sister Faustina has a conversation with Mary in our readings today. Mary implores Sister Faustina to get the message of mercy out so that souls can receive it before the Second Coming of Christ. At the Second Coming, Christ will be the Just Judge. We prepare for lots of things in our life, just in case something happens. Do we prepare our soul...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 629-633. As Sister Faustina is getting ready to depart, another sister comes and apologizes to her for being so difficult. Sister Faustina had been patient with this other sister and, in the end, it had brought about good change. Though it can be incredibly difficult to be patient with those that try us, we can change their hearts if we show them a Chr...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 624-628. Sister Faustina has a interaction with an elderly sister who was struggling to believe that she has been forgiven by God. Sister Faustina promises to pray for her and ask Christ if she has been forgiven. Sometimes, we struggle with doubts about whether God really loves us or really forgives us. God wants us to trust Him, but, thankfully, He ne...

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 617-623. Sister Faustina writes about how our prayers for specific souls in purgatory may not get applied to who we attend. God will apply our prayers to those that need them. I did an Ancestry DNA kit a few years back and I realized that I have a lot of ancestors that could possible use my prayers if they are in purgatory.   

Today's readings are from Notebook 2, numbers 615-616. Sister Faustina gives a lot of thoughts on following God's Will versus our own will. There are times when we know, deep in our bones, what God wants us to do. Many times, we just ignore and pretend not to know because we realize that following God's Will will mean giving up some sin we enjoy. Or we think we know better.   

This week we are reading the 20th number from "Way to Inner Peace." The topic is very interesting this week and when I first saw it, I was very curious as to what exactly we would be learning about. It's called "Bread and Kings" and at first you may wonder what in the world those two things have to do with inner peace. What's interesting is that for the past two months, my husband has been asking...