— 1 —   This Week’s Post: Guest Post ~ To Have A Friend by fellow blogger Mary Beth Baker.  Lots of good things to ponder in her post about friendships!  Thank you, Mary Beth!

— 2 —    Next Week’s Post:  Sooooooooooooooo excited to announce that author and fellow blogger Amanda Mortus will be featured here next week.  Amanda is a newly engaged bride-to-be and when I found out about her engagement I pounced on her to ask her some very nosey questions.  Ya wanna know her answers?  Come back on Monday and check out my interview with Amanda!

 —3 —  Spotlight On:

• This week’s spotlight is on Celeste from Sacred Sharings for the Soul!  Do you know the date of your Baptism?  Check out her blog post and read about her sweet celebration of her first Sacrament!

— 4 —  SAYONARA, 20s!:  As she turns 30, Christina Grace of The Evangelista wrote a fantastic post called Why I’m Ridiculously Happy To Be Turning 30.  Excellent! Oh, and her follow-up, How To Make The Most of Your 20’s.  Excellent again!

Happy Birthday, Christina Grace!

“When I look back on my 20s, with all of the graduating and moving and changing jobs and therapy and running from God and running to God and making new friends and dating and blogging and letting go and hanging on and learning to love and learning to be loved, all I can say is: Deo Gratias. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the beauty and the mess”

— 5 —    Try On Wife:  Oh goodness, I found this and I had to share it.

— 6 —  ‎Evangelii Gaudium:  From 

• The Joy of the Gospel:

10.  “The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is
not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment
for the weak.”

— 7 —  ‎Evangelii Gaudium:  Awesome Comments shared by Janet Smith:

“Just finished reading Evangelii Gaudium. Nothing like it. Every pope has his own voice and Pope Francis’ is truly distinctive. What a reader of the human heart! He identified all my excuses for inaction… He wields a veritable sword to the heart. I have my “concerns” but most of it is powerful spiritual reading and my guess is every reader will come away, thinking “I wish I had his faith and zeal.” And he would say, “Just ask, and the Holy Spirit will help you.”  Janet Smit

“He walks the talk. Here is what an almoner is. I want to learn to be an almoner.

“”Being an almoner, it has to cost me something so that it can change me,” he said. He contrasted such alms-giving with, say, the unnamed cardinal who once …boasted about always giving two euros to a beggar on the street near the Vatican.

“I told him, ‘Eminence, this isn’t being an almoner. You might be able to sleep at night, but being an almoner has to cost you. Two euros is nothing for you. Take this poor person, bring him to your big apartment that has three bathrooms, let him take a shower – and your bathroom will stink for three days – and while he’s showering make him a coffee and serve it to him, and maybe give him your sweater. This is being an almoner.””  Janet Smith

God love and bless you!

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