Yesterday, for Valentine's Day, my husband and I did exactly nothing special for each other.
Today, on not-Valentine's-Day, he brought me home an iced coffee, and I made him a special dessert.
It's always a good day to show love.
While I'm here, I might as well mention that next Friday is #CatholicTrivia night!
Our generous sponsors and their prizes will be announced on Monday!! I'll tell you the theme to so you can study up.
#4thFridayTrivia #gamenight #mycatholiclife #catholicsonline
"So this is love. This is what makes lidea divine... So this is the miracle that I've been dreaming of. This is love." -Cinderella.
Do you remember the miracle of new love? I remember it. The early days, dating my husband. That feeling of newness, excitement, adventure.
The moment I met my babies. The tears of joy I cried when they were placed in my arms. The hours spent gazing at their peaceful, sleeping faces and touching their tiny fingers and toes.
New love, beautiful love, exciting love, is a miracle.
But it's the difficult love that makes life divine.
It's the hard love, the ugly love, the love that endures, which sanctifies us.
The love that weathers the tough seasons of marriage. That fights back against the obstacles that threaten to tear us apart. That holds on through the boring days and long nights and stressful seasons.
The love that sacrifices sleep when the kids climb in bed, scared of nightmares. That potty trains and disciplines and teaches. That reads one more book and gives one more hug and serves one more snack.
Love that sacrifices is what makes life divine. Love that gives is what makes us Christlike.
It may not always be pretty, but it is beautiful.
This is the love I'm celebrating today. Love worth dying to self for.
This. Is love.
#MyMassTakeaway - The Burden of Blessing.
Jesus didn’t just fill Simon’s nets – he filled them so much that the boats almost sank.
Now why did he go and do that? Couldn’t he give him a normal amount of fish?
But this isn’t your normal, daily blessing from God. This is a blessing of overabundance that brought a whole new round of trial and hardship for Simon.
Simon was brought to the point of self-knowledge through the extravagant blessings lavished upon him from God.
When we receive good things in just the amount we need, we can keep cruising along in the life we’re living.
It’s when we’re blessed to the point of burden that real transformation can take place.
When we receive that overabundance from God, when our vessel is full and overflowing, it’s then that we come face to face with just how inadequate we are.
It’s then that blessing brings the burden of our unworthiness. It’s then that we fall to our knees and cry out: “Enough! Depart from me, Lord!” Jesus gives us the burden of blessing to allow our hearts to swell to the point of breaking.
Ah, but Jesus doesn’t let us break. Instead, he calms our fears: “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching men.” When the blessings of life are too much for our frail human hearts, Jesus doesn’t pull back – like we might expect him to. Instead, he holds out the promise of greater things.
These fish that are sinking your boat: they’re not all I have in store for you.
And we step out of that boat of who we once were. And we become who we are in Christ.
We follow him more closely.
Our lives are transformed by him, defined by him, united to him.
Jesus becomes our everything, and through him we grow. We grow in capacity to love, to give, to live the Gospel message.
We grow in capacity to leave everything behind for his sake.
No, a normal amount of fish doesn’t cut it. A comfortable blessing isn’t enough.
Jesus will lavish us with the overabundance of his presence and grace in our lives.
And when that time comes, we fall to our knees at our unworthiness.
But then Jesus speaks a word.
And we rise again and follow him.
"Love never ends... And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:8,13.
Faith, hope, and charity are the three theological virtues.
Faith is the virtue by which we believe in God and all that he has revealed to us. We need Faith to believe in things like the Eucharist, or the Trinity. Things that we can't see with our own eyes. Things of the spiritual world that we know because God told us about them. Faith is of utmost importance in this life, to help us connect with the spiritual, the divine. But in heaven, our faith will be realized. What we know now because God told us, in heaven we will know by experiencing it for ourselves.
Hope is the virtue by which we desire heaven and we work towards heaven. Hope allows us to pursue Christ, and pursue a life of virtue. Hope keeps our eyes on Heaven in the ups and downs of this life. Like the virtue of faith, our hope will be realized in heaven, it will be fulfilled. We will have the attainment of all that we hoped for in this life. We will have the perfect happiness, the desire of our hearts.
Charity is the virtue by which we love God and love our neighbor. Faith comes to life through the virtue of Love. Likewise, hope inspires us to love God more and keep him first in our lives. Of these three virtues, love is the one that remains into eternity. In heaven we will spend all our time loving God and being loved by him.
Today I was struck by the thought of just how little from this life remains in heaven. Not even our virtues apparently. Love is the only thing! Love last forever. Everything else we do has to be defined by love if it's going to have any Eternal worth. All my thoughts, words, and actions. The ways I spend my time. All my habits and all my virtues.
No matter what else I'm doing, I have to make sure I spend all my time loving in the midst of it.
Today, spend the little moments in love. Because love is the only thing that lasts forever.
