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

It took me well over four decades of life to realize that the bonds of love that exist in so many of our homes exist long after those homes are gone.  Read my reflections on life, death and the family home here....     

As we looked around the kitchen, something caught my eye. The curtains in the living room--the only curtains still up in the house--jogged my memory. As I had been cleaning out my grandmother's cedar chest, I kept coming back to this one pair of curtains. I didn't know why and couldn't figure out why they were speaking to me. They definitely weren't her prettiest curtains. After picking them up for the fifth time, I decided to take them and maybe I would figure out their significance later---and there they were, the same curtains! Read more on Veils and Vocations .

Pope Francis' encyclical reminds me we are not angels. We have bodies, and we must live in the physical world. It is this physical world, our common home, that Pope Francis asks us to consider: On many concrete questions, the Church has no reason to offer a definitive opinion; she knows that honest debate must be encouraged among experts, while respecting divergent views. But we need only take a frank look at the facts to see that our common home is falling into serious disrepair. Hope would have us recognize that there is always a way out, that we can always redirect our steps, that we can always do something to solve our problems. [61] Interestingly, when I searched for images of "home" to include here, nearly 100% of the photos looked like this: ©IPGGutenbergUKLtd/Getty Images Read more at Praying with Grace !

Alone at St. Stephen the Martyr.  In the dark, in front of the tabernacle, just me and Him. This is where I am happiest, with Him. The door opens and a woman comes in in nurses scrubs, and sits down.  She is crying.   She is crying so loud it tears at my heart.  I go to her. With tears in her eyes she looks up at me.  She sees perhaps the compassion in my eyes and that I want to be with her and moves over so I can sit down. "I'm here if you need to talk, if you need anything." TO CONTINUE READING - CLICK HERE

I snapped this photo this afternoon, shortly before leaving my parents' house after a brief overnight visit. The scene is a vivid reminder to me of what being a mother is all about. Keep Reading...

If my children could  remember only three things to take with them into their adult life, what would I want them to be? 1 .  I love you ,  believe in you. Let that love be your foundation and your springboard into life. 2.   God loves you,    just as you are. Relax in that  Love, let it sink in , heal you, strengthen you and  release you into freedom and joy. Don’t try to save  yourself and  everybody else on your own because  He   is the only Saviour . Notice that I called  God   Lord.   Let  God be the Lord and don’t steal His job. 3.   Reach out and allow that   Divine Love to flow through you  to your partner, children, neighbours and in doing so discover your unique vocation, your work in the world. A child rooted in love becomes a secure, warm, giving adult who attracts as much light as he reflects. He can live in relative peace with himself and others. With his basic emotional needs fulfilled, he is free to love and serve other people and to develop intel