40 Days of Prayer and Fasting Across the United States

one of my baby's precious feet.

 I just heard about this today and would like to welcome and encourage all to join in this worthy cause. People all over the country will be fasting and praying for life over the next 40 days.

If you would like to get involved with a group near you or want more information check out their website at 40 Days For Life.com 

Remember, you can always participate at home and with your family and friends if you don't have a lot of extra time. Please share and spread the word!!

wish I could write more, but wouldn't you know it, I'm holding a baby that wants a little attention. :)

Questions For The Heart

Some thoughts that have found their way to my little ear that I would like to echo back into the world:

Do we allow others to change for the better? Or do we hold who they are now or have been against them?

Do we desire good for others, especially those we do not like or agree with? Or would we rather see some people fail and experience bad things?

Do we accept people as the beautiful creation of God that they are and love them in spite of their faults? Do we pray for those who are in most need of prayer?

Do we strive to love as God loves. Do we love as God asks us to love others and Himself?
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole strength. [Deuteronomy 6:5]

Are we living what we know to be true? And if we are not, why?


How far above our ways are Your ways, O Lord, and how far above our thoughts are Your thoughts. Help us to love as we should, dear Jesus, and guide us all safely home to you. Grant us the gift to live in your beautiful, and most loving, Sacred Heart. That our hearts may be consumed within yours, burning with Your love for all the world and those in it.

Holy Spirit, move in us and open our hearts to know and do the Father's will.

Blessed Mary, pray for us! We are your children and are always in great need of our Mother.

Holy Name of Mary, Our Lady of Perpetual Help

 Today is the feast of the Holy Name of Mary. Here is a lovely little prayer to honor our Blessed Mother and her Holy name today. Happy feast day everyone!

O Mother of Perpetual Help, 

grant that I may ever invoke Thy most powerful name, which is the safeguard of the living and the salvation of the dying. 

O Purest Mary, O Sweetest Mary, let Thy name henceforth be ever on my lips. 

Delay not, O Blessed Lady, to help me whenever I call on Thee, for, in all my needs, in all my temptations I shall never cease to call on Thee, ever repeating Thy sacred name, Mary, Mary. 

O what consolation, what sweetness, what confidence, what emotion fill my soul when I pronounce Thy sacred name, or even only think of Thee. 

I thank God for having given Thee, for my good, so sweet, so powerful, so lovely a name.  But I will not be content with merely pronouncing Thy name: let my love for Thee prompt me ever to hail Thee, Mother of Perpetual Help.

~Recite Nine Hail Mary's.~

Look what I found outside my window yesterday. :)

 

A Quote From Pope John Paul II

"People are made for happiness. Rightly, then you thirst for happiness. Christ has the answer to this desire of yours. But he asks that you trust him. True joy is a victory, something which cannot be obtained without a long and difficult struggle. Christ holds the secret of this victory."

                                                                              -Pope John Paul II ~World Youth Day 2002

Fight Bad Habits With Good Habits

If you want to stop a bad habit, start a good habit in place of the bad one.
How often do we try to overcome a bad habit all on our own and eventually just go back to it or replace it with another bad habit? And how much more successful would we be if we asked for God's help and put a good habits in place of bad ones? For example, if I often yell and lose my temper, instead of just trying not to do these things I could add a good habit every time I feel myself getting upset and pray to God to be with me and help me to do what is right.
I heard this idea at Mass on Sunday and it rang true in my heart, like a clear and resounding gong of a church bell calling out to us wherever we may be to remember and think about and adore our God, if not at church, at least in the temple that is our body, in our heart, upon which He has written His law. Anyway, I really wanted to share this because I think it will be very helpful in my life and could be  helpful to others too.
I pray that day by day, we can all spend more time with God, than in the world and with ourselves. That He dwells in our hearts always drawing us closer to Himself. And please, dear God, through Mary's unblemished hands and the Divine Heart of Jesus, help us to overcome all our bad habits and every evil in our lives. Amen.

Here are some more ideas for good habits:
Praying the Rosary
Morning prayer and offering
Evening prayer and Examination of Conscinece
Spiritual reading, especially the Bible
Smiling :)
Praying for the people we see and hear about throughout the day
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
Confession

Something I've been thinking about:
God wants us to be free from sin, but He also wants us to be free to be who He created us to be and to be in union with Him. So really we should get to know Him and build our relationship with Him while we are here on earth and maybe that is a way for us to have Heaven on Earth.

St. Maximilian Kolbe

A new prayer card for a great Saint.The M.I. is what he would sign after his name and it stands for "Soldier of Mary Immaculate".

Patron Saint of prisoners, drug addicts, families and journalists

Today,  August 14th, in the year of our Lord, 2012, is the feast day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe.
I read his story recently (St. Maximilian Kolbe, A Man For Others) and was really moved by this dear Saint. He was a Franciscan priest and did amazing and wonderful things. He also did many ordinary things with great love and patience. He loved our Mother, Mary and did all things through her. He called Mary his "little Mother". He spread the love of God, devotion to Mary and the church's teachings through a magazine publications using printing presses, which was cutting edge technology then in the early 1900's. He gave much and asked for little. He was very smart and knew different languages. He trusted himself entirely to our Mother's care and protection and she never let him down. She was with him till the end when he gave his life for another man in a Auschwitz concentration camp in 1941.
Thank you God, for this good and holy Saint.
Little Mother, please help us to walk closely in his footsteps that they may guide us closer to Heaven.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us!

Here are two prayers I am going to use for his prayer card:

St. Maximilian Kolbe, so patient and full of love for God and our “little Mother” Mary.  Intercede for me that I too, may love without limits and do good to all men. Upon my knees I pray that I may follow your good example, always trusting completely in God, through Mary, who will certainly lead me safely through all difficulties. Help me, good saint, at all times to see the    loving hand of God at work in my life, to answer all things with prayer, and to suffer  every hardship, great of small, willingly for God with patience and love. That I may be a light in the darkness of life.

Amen.

Feast day: August 14th

Patron Saint of prisoners, drug addicts, families and journalists

 

The Immaculata prayer by Saint Maximilian Kolbe

O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of   sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to  entrust the entire order of mercy to you. I, (name), a repentant sinner, cast myself at your feet, humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases you.

If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve,  wholly to accomplish what was said of you: “She will crush your head,” and “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world.” Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and Increasing your glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever you enter you obtain the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through your hands that all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Allow me to praise you, O Sacred Virgin. Give me strength against your enemies. Amen.

Another prayer by Kolbe:

Immaculate Conception
Immaculate Conception
Immaculate One of God
Immaculate One of God
My Immaculata
My Immaculata
Our Immaculata
Our Immaculata

"Take Christ's hand in one of yours and Mary's in the other. Now even if you are in darkness you can go forward with the confidence of a child guided by it's parents."
-St. Maximilian Kolbe

This post is dedicated to a dear friend of mine and I wish her a very happy anniversary today!