is all about relationship - my relationship with my God: the Father - He told me to call Him Papa. . .the Son - my dear sweet Jesus. . .the Holy Spirit - He's Sasha to me. It's about my journey with Them, my Catholic faith, the Family of God, and the way it shapes my life.
It’s already near the end of the fifth week of Lent and a reflection that I read on Ash Wednesday has stayed within my heart and soul.
It’s a continuing theme that resonates deep within me, and in talking with different spiritual friends, I hear it echoed in our conversations.
“Create a clean
heart in me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.”
We were already into the second week of Lent, and I was a failure!
“My daughter, you give Me most glory by patiently submitting to My will, and you win for yourself greater merit than that which any fast or mortification could ever gain for you. Know, My daughter, that if you submit your will to Mine, you draw upon yourself My special delight. This sacrifice is pleasing to Me and full of sweetness. I take great treasure in it; there is power in it.” Jesus to Saint Faustina
I am well aware that accepting God’s will in my life is what He truly wants, and I really try my best to do so. But if I’m perfectly honest, it is often not with patient submission. Instead, it is more a “white knuckling” submission in the hope that things will soon change and be more to my will.
“He came to His own, and His own received Him not.” John 1: 11
I was suffering! Suffering for Our Lord and suffering for myself, or so I thought!
“Consult not your fears but your hopes and dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do.” St. Pope John XXIII
I read this quote and although I recognized it as truth, I could not receive it.
“To always be close to Jesus, that is my life plan." St. Carlo Acutis
I was very excited and felt encouraged, that two young people from “our time” were being canonized on September 7, 2025: Carol Acutis and Giorgio Frassati – both Italian laymen.
Although I was familiar with both “Blesseds,” because of my great love for Jesus in the Eucharist, Carlo’s journey resonated more deeply with me.
“When the devil looks at a man who sincerely desires not to sin, he is not so unintelligent to suggest to him (as he would to a hardened sinner) that he go and commit fornication or go and steal. He knows we do not want that and he does not set out to tell us something we do not want to hear; but he finds out that little bit of self-will and self-righteousness and through that, with the appearance of well doing, he will do us harm.” St. Dorotheus of Gaza
If asked to describe myself, the words that come to mind would be kind and thoughtful, strong but yielding, steady and dependable, but the word rebellious would never enter my mind. But quite unexpectedly and suddenly, a storm of rebellion has moved in!
As Truth stood before me, I could not deny His presence. His gaze penetrated my heart and soul. Although I knew “the jig was up,” there was a part of me that felt grateful and relieved. I did not want to be like “the rich young man and walk away sad,” but own my actions and ask for God’s mercy.
Since my last “awakening,” I had been trying so very hard, “to sell everything in order to buy the Pearl of Great Price.” I felt determined to rid myself of all inordinate attachments and stop hindering my progress of union with God. I did not want to settle for baubles any longer when I could acquire THE Pearl of Great Price. I really believed I could do it this time, but I was mistaken.
“Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write. Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare to ‘give away’ on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches.” Henri Nouwen
For some time, I have avoided the urge to write. I did not feel as though I’d be “gradually coming in touch with my riches.”
It is true that in writing, we do discover what lives in us. There are times when admitting to “that life within,” is not something we want to reveal to ourselves, let alone to others.
But the call to write and mine the findings became stronger than my reluctance. I had to be true to my calling from God and begin the journey.
“It is so hard to be silent, silent with my mouth, but even with my heart. There is so much talking going on within me. It seems that I am always involved with inner debates with myself, my friends, my supporters, my opponents, my colleagues, and my rivals. But this inner debate reveals how far my heart is from You. If I were to simply rest at Your feet and realize that I belong to You and to You alone, I would stop arguing with all the real and imagined people around me. These arguments show my insecurity, my fear, my apprehensions. You, O Lord, will give me all the attention I need if I would simply stop talking and start listening to You. I know that in the silence of my heat You will speak to me and show me Your love. Give me, O Lord, that silence. Let me be patient and grow slowly into this silence in which I can be with You. Amen. Henri Nouwen
As I read Henri Nowen’s words, I felt stunned! Stunned like finding a hidden chest, filled with pertinent, life-changing information: about myself, about what I was doing, about how I was robbing my soul of God’s peace and presence. Until those words penetrated my mind and heart, I was totally unaware of the damage I was inflicting upon myself and my relationship with God. But once I knew -- I could not know. From the depths of my heart and soul, I knew instinctively, that I needed desperately to change my behavior…. A practice I had engaged in, probably, for most of my life. Although this would be difficult, I saw it as a graced moment from God, sent to me by a dear Friend, via email.
I sat at my computer, one day in mid-April, scrolling through my emails. There were so many each day, that I did my best to go through them daily, reading those I judged valuable and deleting the others.
A women’s apostolate, whose blog I read on occasion, was inviting its followers to make a consecration to our Lady.
I quickly deleted the email because I had made several consecrations to Mary and did not feel called to do another one. Good, I thought, no need to put something else on my plate. Besides, I have a wonderful relationship with Mama Mary, and I do not see the need to even entertain the thought.
Delete. Done. Finished!
“God’s love calls us to move beyond fear. We ask God for the courage to abandon ourselves unreservedly, so that we may be molded by God’s grace, even as we cannot see where the path may lead us.” St. Ignatius of Loyola
“During my quiet prayer time, an image began to play out in my mind’s eye. I came to full attention because it was rare for something like this to happen to me.
When a person moves toward God: Second rule—In persons who are going on intensely purifying their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, the method is contrary to the first rule. For then it is proper to the evil spirit to bite, sadden, and place obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, so that the person may not go forward. And it is proper to the good spirit to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations, and quiet, easing a taking away all obstacles, so that the person may go forward in doing good. St. Ignatius of Loyola--Discernment of Spirits
With a heart full of gratitude, sitting before the Lord, I wrote in my journal:
Oh, My Dear Sweet God,
The revelation that You gave me about being a pilgrim on this pilgrimage back to You was a game changer!
“The human heart plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps." Proverbs 16: 9
It was almost 9 years ago, that I experienced my first group pilgrimage. Sometime before we left, we met as a group with the priest who would be leading us on our journey. I was very excited and couldn’t wait to hear all the details about our trip.
“O my God, You and You alone are all wise and knowing! You know, You have determined everything that will happen to us from first to last. You have ordered things in the wisest way, and You know what will be my lot year by year until I die. You know how long I have to live. You know how I shall die. You have precisely ordained everything, sin excepted. Every event of my life is the best for me that could be for it comes from You. You bring me on year by year, by your wonderful Providence, from youth to age, with the most perfect wisdom, and with the most perfect love.”
St. John Henry Cardinal Newman
Holy Scripture confirms this truth: “You have seen my actions; in Your book they are all written; my days were limited before one of them existed” (Psalm 139: 16).
“Mary’s childlike trust consists in giving a full yes to God – without knowing everything this yes implies. This complete yes is full of trust, not of detailed knowledge of what is to come. In his encyclical on Mary, Pope St. John Paul II captured this dimension of her faith: ‘To believe means ‘to abandon oneself’ to the truth of the word of the living God, knowing and humbly recognizing ‘how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways’ (Rom. 11:33)’ (Redemptoris Mater, no. 14). Mary teaches us how to say yes, too, with her childlike simplicity and trust, even when the full truth often lies in darkness.” Icon of Trust – Fr Slawomir Szkredka
Unlike our Mother Mary, I have been struggling with giving my full yes to God.
I feel like I have been living under “the cloud of unknowing” for the last year and a half. I wrestle with God Who asks for my full and complete trust.
In this Sacrament, then, under the appearance of bread, Our Lord and Savior gives us His Flesh and Blood for food for our souls. It was not enough for Him that He should become one of ourselves by adopting a human nature like our own. It was not enough that He should share the hardships of a life like our own – that He should suffer and die and atone for our sins, in our name. He loved us, and He would not rest until He should be completely united to us. And in His love, He devised the most extraordinary method of union, in which He Himself becomes our food! Truly a tremendous lover!” Dom Mary Eugene Boylan
Our dear sweet Jesus is madly in love with us and has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove His love to us, yet many make a halfhearted effort to get to Mass, while others have walked away from their Catholic faith.
“The divine activity permeates the whole universe, it pervades every creature; wherever they are it is there; it goes before them, with them, and it follows them; all they have to do is to let the waves bear on them. Would to God that...all men could know how very easy it would be for them to arrive at a high degree of sanctity. They would only have to fulfill the simple duties of Christianity and of their state in life; to embrace with submission the crosses belonging to that state, and to submit with faith and love to the designs of Providence in all those things that have to be done or suffered without going out of their way to seek occasions for themselves…This is the spirituality of all ages and of every state. No state of life can, assuredly, be sanctified in a more exalted manner, nor in a more wonderful and easy way than by the simple use of the means that God, the sovereign director of souls, given them to do or to suffer at each moment." Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade
As I read this quote of Fr. de Caussade, from Abandonment to Divine Providence, I take pause…take a deep breathe, and think, you say this is easy? Maybe I misread--oh--not easy, but very easy!
“Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the dove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance. Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come!” Song of Songs 2: 10b – 13
God was calling me to be with Him. To go and take a break from the difficult 6 months that were now behind me.
I felt weary. I felt tired. I felt spent! Like a closed stuffy room, I needed to cast open the windows and allow some fresh air to blow through me. I longed for the Spirit of God, to breathe new life in me. I was still reeling with the effects of everything I’d been through, and Papa was well aware of it.
“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.” Psalm 62:5
As I gazed upon that scripture verse, hanging on the wall of my bedroom, I longed for that to be true. I knew I was so very far away from finding my rest and hope in Him alone.