Association Of Catholic Bloggers

The novena to Saint Zita begins today.  Repeat the following prayer for 9 days in a row. Her feast day is April 27. Saint Zita is the patron saint of housekeepers, domestic workers, servants, and waitresses. She is also invoked to help find lost keys. Saint Zita came from a poor, but deeply pious family. To help support the family, she became a maid of the Fatinelli family, in the nearby Tuscan city of Lucca, serving them loyally for 48 years. Continue reading.

Have you been praying for the Rosary for years or maybe like me you avoided it because the very idea just screamed tedium. Thanks to some major Holy Spirit moments - I've been able to add this powerful prayer to my spiritual repertoire.  Spiritual Abacus My mind likes to wander, keeping my thoughts on a subject for longer than 15 seconds can sometimes be a challenge. My short attention span wreaked havoc on my ability to complete a Rosary until the Holy Spirit inspired a perfect plan for my brain. The beads on one of my favorite rosaries just happen to slide. As I was fingered my way through the prayers, I thought how it sort of resembled a Chinese Abacus. Suddenly, I thought, “What if I use each bead to as a counter – creating a ‘spiritual abacus’?” Now as I pray my Hail Mary's, I recall a particular person or intention as I moved from bead to bead. BUT wait there is more.... All rights reserved, Allison Gingas 2017

I have learned that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.  The lead up to the election is breeding a lot of anger all around, so I am choosing to respond in righteousness.  I don't know what God's Will is for this election.  I don't know who He would vote into office.  However, I am pretty sure it would be for a candidate who loved this land, liberty, and life.   Please visit Veils and Vocations to read more.  

Lent is a time to focus on our discipline of prayer. Here is a prayer story from November, 2015: After completing my  54 Day Rosary Novena jaunt around the house  - I felt compelled to begin another when given a small tattered copy of  Rosary Novenas to Our Lady  (see image below) by a stranger when I attended a friend's Ultreya to hear her give her testimony.  As one who believes in GODCIDENCES (if you ask me there are no coincidences in life especially in spiritual matters), there was no way I was going to ignore this invitation from Our Blessed Mother to spend another month and half in prayer with her! The grace and blessings as I closed on the first 54 days was truly remarkable!! One of the most miraculous moments came when I went to my bank on November 30 - prepared to beg for leniency with overdrafts I was sure had been incurred after paying an unexpected HUGE house bill and then a creditor unwilling to hold off on their payment for just a few days,...

I have hosted a Novena of Novenas before.  I think it is time we do so again.  The conditions for Christians in the Middle East are beyond horrendous! When the photos were released of the Holocaust, the world vowed, never again!  Yet, photos are flooding out of the largest and most vicious genocide ever, and our world is waiting and watching in silence. Syrian Christians are on the cusp of mass slaughter, already displaced and starving, they now face certain death at the hands of ISIS. Am I being over dramatic?  I think not. I think that there are no real words to explain to horror.  We have been inundated by such horror of late, we are paralyzed, overwhelmed by the onslaught of endless evil and darkness. Continued on Veils and Vocations.

On Facebook, the other day, there was a meme that stated, "If we offered a minute of silence for every victim of the Holocaust, we would be silent for eleven and a half years.  It got me wondering, if we offered a minute of silence for every victim of persecution and ethnic cleansing, would we ever speak again? In college, I had the opportunity to spend six months in Austria to study political science and history.  As one of our study tours, we visited a small concentration camp. It is the only part of my three semesters abroad for which I have no photographs.  It seemed like too hallowed of ground to photograph. Also, I knew I would never forget being there-- twenty years later I can still feel the immense weight of sorrow that presses in on you and smell the stench of heinous deaths.  What struck me most, though, was the small strip of green grass that separated this place of horrors from a beautiful town.  Yards away people were eating and drinking...

The plight of the persecuted has never been more dire, yet most of the world has remained silent---a deafening silence!  My heart has been heavy with wanting to help those who are suffering the unimaginable.  They are constantly on my mind and in my prayers.  While I have tried hard to shield myself from the graphic photographs, just reading about the atrocities has flooded my mind with images that I can't forget. Many nights thoughts and fears have consumed me. Perhaps fear is not the correct word. I do not fear, I know that the gates of Hell shall not prevail. I know that my God has already won. I know that Christ is risen, and in Him I shall never die. God always prevails and provides. However, the feeling of evil closing in around us has greatly saddened my heart. Read more on Veils and Vocations .

Today begins the novena in preparation for the feast of St Joseph on March 19th. I am sponsoring a pray along. Each day I will post the Novena prayers for the day along with intentions that need prayer. Please share with family and friends, and share any prayer requests in the comments. Let's pray for and with each other! Today, I am praying for struggling marriages, reconciliation within families, and those trying to sell their home. God bless! Source Novena to  St. Joseph Day One FOSTER-FATHER OF JESUS Saint Joseph, you were privileged to share in the mystery of the Incarnation as the foster-father of Jesus .  Mary alone was directly connected with the fulfillment of the mystery, in that she gave her consent to Christ's conception and allowed the Holy Spirit to form the sacred humanity of Jesus from her blood. You had a part in this mystery in an indirect manner, by fulfilling the condition necessary for the Incarnation -- the protection of Mary's virg...

I have been working on a series every day, all month (except Sundays) where I blog my way through the Catholic faith, by way of the alphabet. Today, I wrote about N ovenas and thought I would share the midpoint of what has become a wonderful, ongoing conversation with atheists, Protestants and cradle Catholics, people from the United States, India and the UK to name a few. I extend the invitation to you, to share your voice and add to the whole of our Catholic faith. Read more at Filling my Prayer Closet...  

Please join Awestruck in this Novena to St. Joseph (March 11 to March 19).  I have reworded this prayer to suit my OWN prayer language. See the original on Awestruck. We will be praying for your intentions and for all men – that they will imitate Saint Joseph. NOVENA PRAYER Saint Joseph, you are the faithful protector and intercessor of all who love you. You know that I have special confidence in you and that, after Jesus and Mary, I place all my hope of salvation in you, for you are especially powerful with God and will never abandon your friend. I ask for your prayers and  your intercession for myself and my loved ones. Saint Joseph, spouse of Mary, pray  for me for the gift of a pure, humble  mind, and perfect surrender to Divine Will. Be my guide, my father, and my model through life. CONTINUE PRAYER  ON MY SITE OR AT AWESTRUCK

My girlfriend K., like me, was raised Catholic and like me, did not receive a full grounding in the faith.  She asked me yesterday how best to show her gratitude to God for answered prayers. "Prayer works!" she told me yesterday. "It really really works!" I'd like to ask you, dear readers, what your suggestions might be. Read more here...

Everywhere I have gone, all the Blogs that I have the opportunity to visit, the social-networking sites, everywhere...it is quite rampant... We need Jobs! I have come across this Prayer to St. Joseph, whom among other things is the Patron Saint for...you guessed it, Work.  He's not St. Joseph the Worker for Nuthin'! 9 Days.   A Simple Novena.  I Pray you also find your Vocation, not just a Job... God Love You ♥   Powerful Novena to Saint Joseph (Over 1900 years old) O St. Joseph whose protection is so great, so strong,  so prompt before the Throne of God,  I place in you all my interests and desires. O St. Joseph do assist me by your powerful intercession  and obtain for me from your Divine Son all spiritual blessings  through Jesus Christ, Our Lord;  so that having engaged here below your Heavenly power  I may offer my Thanksgiving and Homage to the most Loving of Fathers. O St. Joseph, I neve...

St Patrick the Pilgrim by Ken Thompson, 2002 The statue is located close to the mainland pier of the ferries to Station Island, Lough Derg, where St Patrick's Purgatory is. Thanks to English blogger Fr Ray Blake for drawing the Novena for the Church in Ireland to my attention. He in turn found the novena at Protect the Pope . Just now I have discovered that it originated on Facebook . The Church in Ireland, meaning all its members, needs prayers very badly. May I invite you to join in this novena which ends on the Solemnity of the Assumption, known in Irish Gaelic as Lá Fhéile Mhuire Mhóir , the Great Feast Day of Mary. The photo above was taken at the point where pilgrims take a boat on Lough Derg to go to St Patrick's Purgatory. I must confess that I've never been there. A priest who spent some summers working there was Fr Ragheed Ganni (20 January 1972 - 3 June 2007), the Iraqi priest who was murdered along with three subdeacons just after celebrating Mass on Pente...