#MyMassTakeaway for the 3rd Sunday in Lent.
Moses reacts to the burning bush in a way I never would.
Something uncomfortable and inexplicable happened in Moses’ life, right in front of his eyes. A bush was engulfed in flames, but it didn’t burn.
I would have been out of there so fast.
No way would I have gone and taken a closer look. But Moses didn’t run away. Moses entered into the mystery.
Continue reading
We play Catholic Trivia over on Instagram each month. These are the questions and answers to this month’s #4thFridayTrivia game.
What’s more familiar to us than the year?
We live it every day, every week, every month, year-in and year-out. You’d think we would know it like the back of our hand.
The liturgical year is packed full of amazing feast days and celebrations. And those feast days and celebrations are surrounded by traditions, customs, symbolism, history, debate, and meanings you may not know they had.
Let’s see how much you know about the liturgical calendar!
Continue reading
5 Simple Ideas to bring Christ into the everyday moments of your life throughout Holy Week.
St. Paul says we make up for what’s lacking in Christ’s sufferings (see Col 1:24). This isn’t because Christ’s Passion is in any way incomplete, but because Jesus offers us an opportunity to share in His Cross. What’s “lacking” is our participation – not Christ’s deficiency, but ours.
Here are 5 simple ways we can participate in Christ’s passion, by offering everyday moments of our life in union with His suffering. Continue reading
A reflection on the Mass in the context of Holy Week.
We go to Mass every Sunday or more. We know the routine so well we sometimes go on auto-pilot. We receive the Eucharist habitually. And we lose our sense of awe and mystery.
I’m here to bring it back today.
Let’s start with what we know. Continue reading
A prayer journal for the holiest week of the year.
Imagine yourself encountering Holy Week for the first time.
Place yourself into history.
You’ll walk by His side every step of the way. You’ll experience the fear, the pain, the suffering, and finally, the joy of this pivotal week in Salvation History.
With this prayer journal, you’ll enter into Holy Week in a whole new way.
Continue reading
A reflection on Jesus’ words to the women of Jerusalem. This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
A mess of tears streaked down my face the first time I watched The Passion. My stomach churned at the horror of each torturous scene. The unimaginable pain inflicted on Jesus weighed on my body and crushed me in my seat.
As I watched the story of the Passion unfold from the safety of my living room, I was horrified that “those people” could do “that” to an innocent man. And I was filled with sorrow that my sins contributed to the gruesome death of my God.
I watched the crucifixion from the outside. And it was only a story of drama, not of saving grace.
Until Jesus reeled me in. Continue reading
Hope for those with unexpected suffering this Lent.
You had a plan for Lent.
Whether you wanted to give up one thing for 40 days, or everything for 5 minutes at a time. Perhaps you planned to break a sinful habit or take up daily spiritual reading. Maybe you started small, or maybe you launched a heroic sacrifice.
And then Lent punched you in the gut. Continue reading
How Ash Wednesday and the Transfiguration point us toward heaven. A reflection on mortality and immortality.
Whenever I need an excuse for a good cry, I add onions to the menu.
While I prepare dinner, I take time to reflect on life’s toughest problems. As I peel back the onion’s layers with my knife, I peel back the layers holding the sorrows in my heart. My eyes sting from the pungent mince under my knife, and my sorrow surfaces with the tears.
My pain releases, and it doesn’t take long for the healing waters to wash over me and restore my heart.
By the time dinner is complete, the bitterness of both the onion and my sorrows will turn to savory sweetness.
This week, we enter into Lent – the bitter onion that often brings me to tears. Continue reading
It’s been an off kind of day.
One of those days where nothing is really going bad, but nothing is going the way I want it to either. This day has left me feeling down. Not angry or frustrated, but unfocused, unmotivated, dissatisfied.
A personal devotion that has helped me have fail-free Lents and grow in relationship with Jesus.
What to sacrifice for Lent? I’ve tried giving up all the standard things. Chocolate, caffeine, Facebook…
But I always worry my sacrifices aren’t good enough. So, as Lent approaches, I choose harder and harder sacrifices until suddenly, I’ve picked an acceptably impossible penance.
Because there’s nothing quite like “failing Lent,” right? Needless to say, I’ve never cold-turkeyed something for Lent and stuck with it the whole 40 days. Continue reading
