When we travel we prepare our self for the journey.  We have a plan all thought through.  When we live, we need to plan out our life.  Both take time, energy, effort, and most of all our full attention.  How are you planning to live out 2023?  We are less than two months away from the new year.  I think we should all consider becoming perfect at planning out exactly the way we want to live our life in the ahead.

Our choices should be equally thought through with a lot of new ideas.  a fresh new perspective, a new lease on life, desiring to offer more to someone you love.  Giving more time and attention and detail to someone who needs a mentor!

Living as if this were the last year you were given to be on the planet.  Can you configure a plan how to best life out the next 365 days and living them to the absolute fullest.  How would you plan living out the last year, interesting idea.  Most of us are too busy and bogged down by life to set aside what's in front of you already in place, and plan out a full years worth of life as you have never lived it before.

As a writer, I think it is important to follow your hearts desire.  To dream big, and pursue your dreams, is the American way.  But not many of us get there.  The doors just don't open so freely for most people.  And I wonder sometimes why that is.  It's equally important to recognize this and to not to stay stuck there.  If you are a giver like me and not a taker, you can relate to what I am about to say.  I accept my weaknesses, and where they have ended.  I accept my strengths and where they have begun today as I pursue my life long dream to publish my writing.  Leaving behind what doesn't matter and advancing forward in what does.

Empowered by Christ himself, I have a duty, a responsibility to myself, to my God, to bring forth my best self, my life skills, and educate those interested in becoming more of who God intended them to be.  This podcast is the perfect example and true essence of Christ in motion. Christ is living in me.  I have become like Christ.  Leaving everything behind me.  Stripped of earthly desire, I come face to face to Jesus.  All selfish tendencies are extinguished.  Giving way to my new selfless persona. Beautiful and bursting like vibrant  cherry blossoms,  our world is set afire with a love that is Jesus! I often wonder what my life would have been like hadn't I not found the pearl of great price.  My wheels still spinning out of control on the treadmill of life.  Yes, that could have very well been me today, but I surrendered myself, all of me totally to Christ and I am reborn, I was made for greater things in this life and this is just the beginning! 

A strong prayer life is the best kind of life to live if you want to grow in your faith.  If you want to know your creator then prayer is your best outlet.  Today I decided to share my evening prayer with you as I daily recite the divine office, the Liturgy of the Hours.  If this is something you find yourself enjoying you can go on line a purchase a four volume set and give yourself the best birthday present this year!  

This divine office will slowly change your life for the better!  I am still a work in progress myself even though I have been reciting the divine office prayers now since 2011.  Some of my weaknesses have been worked out through the power of prayer along with my willingness to cooperate with the grace God is presenting to me through my desire to grow and become more Christ like.

Being centered in Christ is beautiful.  God is a God of great order. My husband reminds me of this time and time again.  And he is absolutely right.  I am honored and grateful to be growing in Christ, and my goal is to do so all throughout my lifetime.  However long or short, God gives me this gift of today to share with you everything that is good.  God is at our disposal 24/7 and we just don't take the time to know him!

But if we did we would have the most amazing joy filled life, that is completed by him who created us.  Yes. He wants us to come to Him.  To seek him, to find him, to rest in him.  My brothers, my sisters, please do not miss out on the greatest truth ever revealed to me in my life time.  It is here for you to tap into the well of life, the truth you have been searching for in all the wrong places.  Here it is on a silver platter, take it, run with it, you will be amazed by what God wants you to know, and see, and experience through him right now.  

Give God your life, give God your heart, and He will give you Eternal life, and He will give you His heart in exchange of the broken one you now carry within you!  He loves you, he waits for you, come back to Him and live!
   

The preservation of history is amazing because it allows us to see quite clearly what our ancestors wrote during their lifetime about Catholicism.  They were truly the greatest scholars who were chosen by God to keep the writings given to them and it showed us what the Christian faith was like a hundred years ago and I believe we received great insight into the generation before them as well.

 So Catholics have truly chosen to preserve the catholic faith in word through scripture, through the events occurring  within their life time, through the music that was written, sung, and played.  I look at my catholic brothers and sisters who tirelessly chose to live a life abundantly in Christ!  Fortunately, there is a living remnant of us who want to keep the tradition alive with the next generation of faithful living Catholics who have kept the faith, and won the race!  

All because  they live, move, and have their being in Christ Jesus!  Let us today show God our appreciation by the way we live, the way we love, and the way we want to see Christ living in every single human being he has ever created.

The Saint's in our life have a purpose.  We were asked in the 7th grade to choose a Saint's name for our Confirmation name.  I remember being so insecure and not knowing enough about the saints at the time to choose one I knew well enough to say I want that Saints name to be my Confirmation name.  When the struggle became evident to my teacher, she was there for me and helped me choose the perfect Saint that very day, Ann.  The Mother of Mary.  And in my youth I did not have the appreciation of what she did for me that day the way I have it today within my heart, as I am writing it and sharing it with you.  It's down right powerful to me knowing she took an important interest in me that later became alive and exponentially appreciated by me, a thousand times over.  And because back then I knew so very little about the Saints,  I have chosen to study them more deeply some forty years later.  My maternal grandmother had the blessed mothers first name and her mothers first name combined into one.  And I loved the fact that her mother chose the name Marianna for her.  The blessed mother was obviously very important to my great grandmother to have named her only daughter after the mother of Jesus and the grandmother of Jesus, how powerful is that?

Mary, and her mother Ann, are both very important maternal figures in my life.  I have studied about the life of Mary in Ephesus and have shared her life with you on a previous podcast.  I think I need to consider creating a podcast on the life of her mother Ann.  That would bless us all tremendously!  

The Saint's do play an important role in our life, as we get to imitate how they lived their life and carry the torch of faith to the next generation, I believe this is our duty and our responsibility and great honor to serve God by serving His people in the light of Christ and His truth.  So I hope you are enriched by the stories, the prayers, and you are living, truly living in the holy presence of God.       

As we quietly enter into the holy presence of our Lord, let us pause for a moment to remember all the living Saint's.  Those who may have already gone to meet God but have left their mark forever on our heart, our mind, and our soul.

The Saints in our life time, were ordinary everyday people who cared for us, nurtured us, especially through our woundedness, and they loved us no matter what.  There was no discord, just a strong desire to love, and help carry some of our burdens when we could no longer carry them our self.  Some have even carried others in codependent relationships that goes on too, but in the end they become very damaged relationships ending in a break up.

Let us for a moment, think about that special person that God knew would be there to help us grow and change our life.  Stay there for a little  while and reconnect yourself with the journey you both shared as one.

I would like to think that person was a part of God's perfect plan.  

Maybe, that special individual knew deep down your very deepest weakness, and decided to love you, and carry you to a better place anyway.  I believe that we each have a special calling in life from God that allows us to enter into this type of service that's enriching if we are receptive to everything God is doing and providing through this person.  And we graciously agree to participate in God's holy will.  And that in itself is beautiful.  

To be  engaged into what God is calling you to do, is a life changer for both individuals.  It takes a special person to be opened enough to share a life in this capacity.  We all have the opportunity to experience this personally.  Yes, you do have a special calling as well, that comes specifically, and purposefully, from God.   You might not think that you do, but its true, we are all called to become like Saints.  

How you choose to respond to your individual calling in life is totally up to you. In my life time I will freely share with you, that my teacher's became my mentors in life  through their very  guidance and inspiration.

They helped me tremendously as a Woman of Faith to bounce back into living out my Baptism, my Confirmation, and in enriching a continuous prayer life that made me truly appreciate the invitation I and  everyone at mass receives at the holy banquet of the mass when Christ is resurrected into our hearts, into our lives and at the holy Eucharistic feast.  

The Mass, reconciliation, the combination of all the above, truly help us to see,                believe and receive into our body the precious Gift of Eternal Life, Jesus Christ!

Sacrifice and service was the greatest example shown to us by God.  He did it for all of mankind.  His death on the cross was selfless.  He died for our every sin.  So that we can be with him forever.  Do we truly get this?  Christ has Illuminated our path to life!  We must strive to know Him better.  And we must strive in living out our faith within our best self, our best intentions they count, and God is counting on us to be like him in everything but sin!

On this awesome, blessed, holy feast day,  let us strive very hard to be like the Saints who are praying for us all this very day and in every circumstance, let us call on them right now in our time of great need.

A Eucharistic life, is a great life that is full of Joy and that joy and fullness we receive, only comes from a deep great faith and appreciation for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!   

When we are at our best it is easy to keep the peace.  When we experience confrontation peace becomes a challenge.  I wish we could all be great at communicating when confrontation comes into play.  I think if I could personally place Christ next to me the next time I have to correct someone, I think I could deliver my message much better without hurting someone else's feelings.  That happened to me recently and I didn't get to correct my outcome.  We all fall short in weakness and realize we need God to help us straighten up and do better.  No one wants to fail and let alone fail some one else.  I must be accountable for my actions, my inactions, and do everything in my power to become a woman of Christ, in the battlefield of good verses evil, I must not step over the line.  And I think we all step over that imaginary line and get ourselves into situations we later regret. Why is that you may ask?  Oh it's simple, we just don't take the time to work on ourselves. To look deep within our blind spots and on how we affect other people, gets in the way of the healthy growth and healthy dialogue that is necessary to further progress ourselves and the lives of those we are in contact with.  The last thing we need is conflict, it's just so disruptive and it does nothing but stunt the growth that is needed and necessary for everyone.  

So peace, let us find it, lets us be part of the solution and not the problem and may peace forever be the choice from here on out. 

All human life needs a powerful advocate/voice of hope!

 Are you willing to be that special spokesperson ?

The slaughtering of precious babies in the womb needs to stop. 

To take a life is to kill. 

 And many babies in the womb have had no say in the manner.

Today I am the voice for over 80 million babies aborted.

I believe we have to look at life, and uphold all life with a respectful disposition.  

You and I could have been a statistic along with the aborted.

 But instead our mothers had the good sense not to abort us.

We were lavished over with love.

We survived a nine month journey within our mothers womb.

We must remember the gift we were given to be born.  

It is simple .....

God had wanted for us to live. 

United together we can make every effort to protect life from conception to death.

National Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is January 3rd.

Pray with me for the out lawing of abortion pills.  

Also known as Chemical Abortions.

There are two pills.

One pill kills your baby.

The second pill creates contractions.

This intrinsically evil act is why Roe V. Wade was overturned.

We are a PRO - LIFE GENERATION.  

Pray Unceasingly engage in the Pro Life Movement.

Sign the Human Life Petition Amendment.

Your vote on November 8th will save the life of all babies in the womb!  

Prayer does something to us internally.  It is a beautiful tapestry woven between you and God.  At first, you cannot see the progress, but in that moment and those thereafter, God is working miraculously through you and his greatest work is you!

 I love to pray.  I believe that prayer moves mountains.  Prayer converts the most hardened of hearts!  It is the answer to everything that is unknown to us and visible by the naked eye, it  can also be felt in our spirit, and experienced in our psyche.  

Prayer breaks the bonds and barriers that separate us from experiencing our greatest and best self.  I have been a prayer warrior for well over three decades and I have to tell you, in all truthfulness, once we begin this prayerful journey, there is no turning back to a life that is prayer less.

 We invoke upon the holy spirit when we pray.  Something happens to us when we call upon God and surrender our free will.  With our permission being given exclusively to God, he can much more easily accomplish in us everything we were once lacking.  

Prayer...You would be greatly surprised if you would take the time to keep a gratification journal.  And every day as my dear friend Catherine Lamb would say, write down five things that happened to you today that were good.  Well, I did that, and expounded upon it and was very surprised about what I had learned.  I had learned that miracles were happening all around me, and in my life and in the lives of those I love.  I was praying for all my family and friends, and suddenly it dawned on me that God was allowing me to see his power in my life through my prayers.

Granted he graced me with the opportunity.  And secondly I could not have ever seen the power of his hand hadn't I kept a gratification journal which made me magnify what was really happening in my life and in the life of those I love.  When something is written you can see it, reread it and not forget it.  I think that is why I love to write as much as I do.

My prayer life today has increased, and so has my ability to keep this life long journal now a podcast for Christ going strong!  None of it is me.  All of it is God.  I be nothing without Him!

A Saint so greatly loved and adored by many.  He was an amazing Shepherd guiding the flock properly and he was someone in my lifetime that I greatly looked up to.  He sparked the flame of truth for me as a Catholic.  I had the great honor and fortune of seeing him at Central Park in New York City 1980's, and during a papal public audience in Rome, Italy in 2003.

 To see him was a gift, to be in his presence twice was spiritually a very powerful experience.  My connection to him remains even to this very day as write about him.  He gave the church a strength, and anyone attending church were inspired by his presence, he was very authentic in his speech, genuine, gentle yet very strong as a leader, he had the perfect balance and he lovingly expressed his gratitude toward God and his faith in such a way that everyone understood.  He did not complicate the faith, nor did he confuse the flock, no, he always presented himself as one of us and that was the trait I believe that attracted so many followers.  

I am blessed to share his feast day with you, along with his every contribution.  He gave his entire life to the most important calling, a true and lowly servant of God.  He never wasted the time God gave him on this earth, he lived a life devoted to being the truest example he could at living out his life unselfishly and unreservedly for Christ and his church.  He spoke and wrote profound truths for us to follow even today.  Take them to heart and apply them to your life.  For all life, is truly sacred in the eyes of Christ.  Live deeply in the community of the Catholic Saints, for one day we will all be united as one forever with Jesus.  And what a day that will be!

Be Lover's Of Christ!   How do we enter into a meaningful relationship with Christ?  How do we get there?  The first tool in the toolbox is prayer.  Pray the rosary.  Get to know the Mother of Jesus by praying and understanding each decade of the rosary reflecting upon Jesus and his Mother's life.

Then pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and learn your faith inside and out, page by page.  Understand the mass, know everything there is to know about the sacraments of the church.  Attend baptisms, confirmations, first holy communions, attend a catholic wedding, and lastly be present during a catholic funeral.  Know about the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.  It is in this environment you will see how good the church has been to the people connected to Christ.  

Their lives were blessed exponentially because they had always placed God at the helm of their lives.    God was, and is, and forever will be at the forefront, of their very lives.   God in return, reveals himself to them through the blessings he personally bestows upon the faithful families exhibiting that genuine desire of living a life of holiness.

We all were born for a purpose, to know God, love God, and serve God, in this life and well into the next.  But before we die, we live a life reflecting Gods goodness to us, today.  And we live by the great example of our ancestors who taught us by the way they chose to live.  They chose to live a life according to the laws of Christ.  Those laws kept them in line, those laws saved their souls from final damnation.  Those laws helped them get to heaven.  Heaven is not a place according to Father Patrick Francis O Doherty, heaven is a person.  That person is Jesus Christ!