Association Of Catholic Bloggers

Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.   Robert Brault One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.  by Dorothy Frances Gurney I always let my kids dig in the dirt with me, even if they pulled flowers instead of weeds. Now they all love gardening as much as I do. Gardening is a soothing, balm for my spirit. I can sense the Spirit of God permeating nature. In fact gardening is a prayer when we are quiet and listening. Perhaps most people also sense His life-giving presence in nature; that’s why so many love the outdoors, even if they are not especially spiritual.  As for us we are blessed to live on seven acres by a creek.  Much of it is still wild but I am slowly reclaiming more and more area, creating meandering gardens.  read more >

I am always so thankful this time of year when the fresh garden produce is ready to be turned into great dishes to get through the bleak winter.  Has God blessed your garden with an abundance of tomatoes?  I have a great tomato basil sauce recipe that freezes well and can be used as a base for soups and sauces. If you have a post with your favorite sauce recipe, feel free to leave us a link in the comments! To read more, please visit The Sincere Gift .

It is a Catholic tradition to acknowledge and honor the unselfish and holy life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One way of doing that is to plant a Mary Garden . In the Middle Ages, missionaries and travelers spread stories across Europe about flowers named after Mary and various times of her life. Mary Gardens that featured these flowers became popular there, and later the tradition made its way to America . Around 1932 it is believed that the first Mary Garden in the United States was constructed on the grounds of St. Joseph 's Church in the Woods on Cape Cod . To read more, please visit http://bezalelbooks.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-mary-garden-great-mother-daughter.html

On a rare day off this week, I took our dog for a walk down our block, a block of century-old houses on tiny lots with scraggly lawns. The sun was bright, the sky was clear and my neighbor Anita, nearing 60, was seeding her lawn. As we chatted, I noticed moss had taken over parts of her pocket-sized front lawn. I told her how pretty it all looks. Anita, who is some kind of scientist for a pharmaceutical company, said our neighbor Ruth farther down the block, a landscape architect with grown children, told her to let the moss grow. Moss, she said, is good for the soil. I am now thinking it is good for the soul, too. Read more here....

By Allison Salerno On winter workdays, I rise at the time Shakespeare says when night is "almost at odds with morning," and you can't tell "which is which." I leave home before the rest of my family has risen, driving north in darkness to my job and arriving just as the sun begins to rise. Sometimes, I don't return home until after sunset. And so I find myself in these days struggling with a kind of sadness, a desire to retreat from a world which feels fully of darkness. O God, come to my aid. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Alleluia.