Association Of Catholic Bloggers

I believe people are put in front of us for a reason. Today was an example of that... Today was super busy: studying, Mass, lunch with friends, a visit to a grant competition for our older son and then the fitness center, where I haven't been in more than a week. Tomorrow looks even busier. Keep Reading...

I’ve always had some sort of exercise routine—even if it wasn’t much of a “routine,” per se. Eating well and staying fit has been part of my life more out of necessity than desire. It rises from chronic illness rather than vanity. The catalyst for me “working out” has been my calling to live out my vocation as wife and mother and never how I look in a bathing suit. In fact, I use the term “working out” rather loosely since the same chronic illness that requires me to monitor my bodily well-being hinders my ability to really drill down and push myself to any physical limits. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have—but there are always severe consequences. So I’ve had to find that balance between “working out” and not killing myself in the process. Enter yoga. Or the idea of yoga. The appeal of the gentle movements and stretching of yoga really drew me in as I searched for the perfect exercise routine that would tend to my body but wouldn’t break me, and so I began researc...

A dear sister-in-the-Lord recently shared her enthusiasm with me in regards to 6 pounds she had shed. I smiled and congratulated her and gave her a big hug. Six pounds – an awesome accomplishment, indeed! Of course she looked the exact same to me as she did before she lost the 6 pounds but I kept that little realization to myself. In other words, I thought she was perfect. Her physical beauty and her spiritual beauty were so interconnected, from my perspective, that had she gained weight I would not have noticed either. But those few pounds made a difference in how she viewed herself and how she believed the world viewed her. My own self-perception is just as fragile. I have never been known to purchase clothes that actually fit. I view myself as needing clothes that are always at least one size larger than the “real” me. My own body image still suffers as a result of many comments made to me while I was a young teenager. Body image is something that affects almost all wo...

The path to Hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t get that. It seems to me that good intentions ought to be worth more than a ticket to Hell. Having said that, I definitely get that the good intentions I have for any number of things can always be a hellish path. Exercise comes immediately to mind. As does dieting and just keeping fit and well at 53 years old. I am filled with good intentions, but turning those passive good intentions into successful achievements is another story. I suppose this also falls under the Scriptural category of the-spirit-is-willing-but-the-flesh-is-weak. So maybe the whole path-to-Hell-is-paved-with-good-intentions does make more sense than I am willing to admit. Either way, I have come to realize that while the initial good intention is a necessary first step to health and wellness, a viable course of action must accompany it—preferably something not too painful, boring, or time-consuming. My goal this year has been to find the right-...