— 1 —   This Week’s Post:  My Christmas Card To You!  I hope you had a very merry Christmas!

— 2 —   Christmas Miracles:  Gregg and I witnessed several Christmas miracles this week having to do with loved ones we have been praying about for a while.  Prayer~ an act of Charity that will never offend.

“…Was just at Adoration praying for you and our sweet and gentle Father wanted me to tell you that He loves you and yearns for you to ask miracles of Him. ‪#‎youareloved.‬”  Maura ~ Made In His Image

 —3 —  Confession:  We went to the Penance Service at our church on the Wednesday before Christmas.  There were four Priests available and we were blessed to have a new Priest to our County hear our confession.  After sitting with me for what, five minutes?, he gently and lovingly indicated that I might have a trust issue with God.  Hello, Holy Spirit! 🙂

— 4 —  Spotlight On:  This week’s spotlight is on Stephanie Calis for her guest post on Arleen Spenceley’s blog called A Case For Chastity.  You know Stephanie, right?  Besides being a new Mom to this gorgeous child, here is a bit more about Stephanie:

“Her passion is telling young women they possess immense worth and that pure, sacrificial love is real; she thinks a truthful understanding of sex and love is medicine for an aching culture. Stephanie blogs about love and wedding planning at Captive the Heart.”

— 5 —  Your Parents:  If your singleness is causing stress between you and your parents, it is most likely because your pain becomes their pain.  They want your pain to end and they have no idea how to help end it.  They want you to be happy.  They may think that you are somehow causing your own pain.  Finding a spouse may have been easy for them and they cannot figure out why in the world you cannot make this happen in your life.  They may have no clue when it comes to understanding the weight of your cross.  Their insensitive remarks and actions are most likely the result of worry and guilt ~ as I always say, “the two gifts of Motherhood.” Guilt leads them to look back on every parenting decision they made and wonder if they could have done something different.  Their perceived insensitivity is just them fumbling the parental ball.  

— 6 —  ‎No One Is Getting Away With Anything:  If the events of this Christmas have tempted you to think that God is rewarding those who do not follow His commandments and precepts, here is a good reminder for all of us:

“Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away.  For the LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.”  Psalm 1:4-5

— 7 —  Faith “Sees” To The Extent That It Journeys:  I love this reminder from Pope Francis’ Encyclical “Lumen fidei / The Light of Faith”:

Abraham, our father in faith: Faith opens the way before us and accompanies our steps through time. Hence, if we want to understand what faith is, we need to follow the route it has taken, the path trodden by believers, as witnessed first in the Old Testament. Here a unique place belongs to Abraham, our father in faith. Something disturbing takes place in his life: God speaks to him; he reveals himself as a God who speaks and calls his name. Faith is linked to hearing. Abraham does not see God, but hears his voice. Faith thus takes on a personal aspect. God is not the god of a particular place, or a deity linked to specific sacred time, but the God of a person, “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Ex 3,6), capable of interacting with man and establishing a covenant with him. Faith is our response to a word which engages us personally, to a “Thou” who calls us by name.

The word spoken to Abraham contains both a call and a promise. First, it is a call to leave his own land, a summons to a new life, the beginning of an exodus which points him towards an unforeseen future (Gn 12,1). The sight which faith would give to Abraham would always be linked to the need to take this step forward: faith “sees” to the extent that it journeys, to the extent that it chooses to enter into the horizons opened up by God’s word.

This word also contains a promise: “Your descendants will be great in number, you will be the father of a great nation” (Gn 13:16; 15:5; 22:17). As a response to a word which preceded it, Abraham’s faith would always be an act of remembrance… But, as the memory of a promise, it becomes capable of opening up the future, shedding light on the path to be taken… It is thus closely bound up with hope.  Pope Francis Encyclical ” Lumen fidei / The Light of Faith”

God love and bless you!

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