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Please visit Praying with Grace to enjoy my very last post for the Apostleship of Prayer.

Epiphany noun epiph·a·ny \i-ˈpi-fə-nē\ a Christian festival held on January 6 in honor of the coming of the three kings to the infant Jesus Christ a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way in 2016, the date POPE FRANCIS unveils his first monthly intention VIDEO! Starting with Leo XIII in 1890, every Pope has entrusted his own personal prayer intentions to the Apostleship of Prayer . Our job is to make sure everyone who wants to pray with the Pope knows exactly what is on his heart. Pope Francis has just made our job easier by going on camera with the Apostleship of Prayer!! Join me at Praying with Grace for the Vatican press release and all the juicy details!

We're celebrating  100   Praying with Grace  posts! I began this blog for the  Apostleship of Prayer  in October 2013. Through it, I have encountered many gracious, thoughtful, and prayerful people. I take a month off from the blog each summer, but otherwise here we have been together, every Tuesday morning, for two years. I am grateful. Thank you for praying with me. ©2015  Mark Frohna Photography Please join me at Praying with Grace for today's unique prayer experience.

Getty Images Dear friend, Your heart is broken. You feel abandoned and weak, a shadow of your former lively self. I have been praying for you. At church this weekend, we prayed Psalm 147, and these verses leaped out at me, sounding so applicable to you, my friend: The Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He tells the number of the stars; he calls each by name. I guess I've never thought about every star having a name, but there we have it: "He tells the number of the stars; he calls each by name." So the stars have names. What's more, God  calls  them by their names, implying that the stars respond. The stars are in relationship with God. Not just cold, mechanical constellations that guide navigation, stars have a sort of life and dignity, simply because God makes them and calls to them. Please join me at Praying with Grace for more. As I repeated the Psalm response after the cantor, I wondered how calling stars by nam

God was lavish with me on Sunday, drawing me close to him through church, music, family, community, and nature. Why would I sabotage his invitation to intimacy, his consolation? I must continue to pray and discern how to help others who suffer, certainly, but the panicky guilt I suddenly felt constricting my heart was a dirty trick. The movement I had noticed all day was joyful consolation; only an enemy would be interested in sucking the gratitude out of me. Once I got that straight, I decided to accept God's gift, gratefully, and to store up the peace for more difficult times that might lie ahead. Brimming with joy, then, I made this little list of 5 things that make me happy. Maybe they will make you happy too, or remind you of other happy things you've been meaning to thank God for. And now,  Things That Make Me Happy: Find out at Praying with Grace !

Come! Let us sing to the Lord and shout with joy to the rock who saves us. Let us approach him with praise and thanksgiving and sing joyful songs to the Lord. Psalm 95:1-2 "Americans spend more money on music than on sex or prescription drugs." "There is no known culture now or anytime in the past that lacks [music], and some of the oldest human-made artifacts found at archaeological sites are musical instruments." Both of these provocative lines come from books written by Dr. Daniel J. Levitin. The first is from his 2006 best seller This Is Your Brain on Music: the Science of a Human Obsession , and the second is from his more recent book (2008), The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature . Once a professional musician, sound engineer, and record producer, Levitin is now a neuroscientist who runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill University. In The World in Six Songs, Levitin

Want to start a fight? Ask two teachers what they think about memorization as a learning tool. (Go ahead! Try! I'll wait here with some bandages and antiseptic ointment.) Click here to watch the video! Personally, I have always been a fan of memorization, even though (or perhaps because) I don't have a great memory. In the Google Age, of course, facts are always just a click away! But I often feel annoyed with myself when I am forced to do an Internet search for something I should just . . . know. When Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries flew into the news after 9/11, I was ashamed that I had never memorized the geography of that region. When the US invaded Iraq, I had no mental context for the battle and had to spend time searching for maps of the Middle East. Sure, the maps I needed were easy to access, but I was frustrated, even embarrassed, that my brain had never permanently recorded a basic image of that region of the globe. Memorization provides perpetua

Photo Source . . . Suffering and sin pressed on me heavily this morning, making me feel constricted, helpless. Feeling burdened and discouraged, I boarded the bus for work. Immediately I noticed something new on the bus: a PA system recently installed that announces every upcoming stop. I couldn't help but notice the new system, because it's loud and relentless. The computerized voice blared out each bus stop as we approached: 120th Street! 118th Street! Watertown Plank Road and 116th Street! Watertown Plank Road and Mayfair Road! Transfer to Route 31, State Street Branch! Given how deflated I was feeling, my first reaction was to be annoyed by the new two-block warning system. And then, by God's providence, I started to imagine why the automated voice had been installed in the first place. Read on at Praying with Grace

Don't you just love a season with an unnecessary letter? A misspelled  Autum  looks so weird, while  Autumn  embraces its gratuitous silent letter and invites us to linger on that final  mmmmnnn  sound. I am excited about autumnnn. Strangely, autumn is the time for school to start and family calendars to EXPLODE. Sometimes I want to hire an event planner just to help us get through a week of school, work, sports, music, theater and church activities. This autumn is no different than any in that regard; we really do have an abundance of scheduled opportunities. Nonetheless, I plan to slow down. Read on at Praying with Grace !