Association Of Catholic Bloggers

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:12-13 In this new commandment Jesus took, “Love your neighbor as yourself” several steps further. Now love involves sacrifice. His greatest demonstration of this commandment was his death on the cross. But because he was willing to sacrifice his life, he rose again to new life in a body glorified. Waiting For The Word Resurrection 60, from Flickr Creative Commons This is the love he requires from us. It’s a radical love, a sacrificial love. What does it mean to lay down one’s life? Are we literally to die a martyr’s death? What other ways are there to lay down one’s life? Recently I had a chance to hear fellow Catholicmom columnist Allison Gingras describe a way. from right to left: Allison and Kevin Gingras and their daughter, Faith Click here to continue reading.  

My request for Catholic online and print resources on extreme parenting circumstances got an amazing response, so I'd like to share it with you. There's more on adoption than I thought, including an excellent new resource scheduled to be released by Pauline Books in 2015 (huge shout-out to author Jaymie Stuart Wolfe and the sisters at Pauline). But there's much less on fostering and step-parenting than I was hoping to find. Please, please, please if you have more to add to the list, respond in the comments or by email to santoskaree@gmail.com. It's so important to support parents taking on this holy but often incredibly arduous work. Adoption Adoption: Room for One More? , by Jaymie Stuart Wolfe (forthcoming from Pauline Books in 2015) Adoption: Choosing It, Living It, Loving It , by Dr. Ray Guarendi (St. Anthony Messenger, 2009) Longing to Love: A Memoir of Desire, Relationships, and Spiritual Transformation , by Tim Muldoon (Loyola Press, 2010) While We...

I worry over how much time I spend writing and reading in the blogosphere. This morning in the mailbox came a thank-you letter that brought me to tears of joy and made me realize the time I spend is not wasted. Jamie and Kim Arpin-Ricci thanked me for standing beside them during their adoption journey and shared pictures of their new family. I never have met any of these people face to face. I have never even spoken with them on the phone. And yet, because of this new and crazy place called the blogosphere, I have been able to pray for them. Read more here.

Some really great news to share from Delaware! The story below called "A Story of Love and Life," is from a blog post from the Delaware Right to Life blog that was originally posted by Jessica Ferraro. Click the title for the original posting A Story of Love and Life   " On May 21st, the IHM pro-life community celebrated the first Mass for the Unborn which had a two-fold purpose: to remember and pray for those babies lost to abortion, and to bless those mothers who are expecting, and their babies. The music was beautiful and Msgr. Lemon gave an inspired homily on Life. A mother and daughter who were present at the Mass, left church and the mother went to a store by their home with her husband. There they saw a very pregnant girl sitting on the curb. Commenting to her husband that she had just left a Mass for the Unborn, she recognized that there was clearly something wrong for this girl and they stopped to ask if they could help her. Sh...