Association Of Catholic Bloggers

My husband, Michael, and I have been married for 36 years, and we are happy and still in love. Surprisingly, we have become one in reality, deeply in tune with each other’s spirits even though we are still opposites in personality. Our tangible joy is inexplicable through secular eyes, because from all outward appearances our life together has been a tough journey including poverty, nine kids, overwhelming chores on a small family farm and long-term, clinical depression. Accessing Power in the Sacrament of Marriage The grace available in the Sacrament of Marriage is not some esoteric theology;  it is real and it is powerful. The power available in the sacrament is what kept my husband and I together through the rough years. We both understood, beyond a doubt, that God brought us together. We never questioned this basic call from God, our vocation together, even during the dark years. I have always managed to keep our difficulties in perspective through humour.  One of my jo

She was the youngest saint, having died in 1902, at only 11 years old. What was it that such a young saint accomplished in such a short lifetime, worthy of elevating her among the saints, forever known to us as “ The little saint of great mercy ”? How could her transformative prayers for the sinful heart of her murderer, bring him also to great holiness, even after her death? And how did Maria’s example of mercy save the souls of both her murderer and her mother, as well as many who have sought her holy intercession? I was one of those sinners who needed Maria’s intercession to be truly saved. During my High School years, I had fallen into such darkness, that I could have been lost to God forever. As I began to seek the face of the Lord through RCIA, I prayed for a saint to find me. A saint to mentor me along the great journey and guide me out of this darkness. A saint who could help me in the areas of virtue that I struggled most severely. For this I prayed. Continue Reading at

Do you feel the sadness around you? Do you sense the fear and anxiety in the air? Maybe you’re full of sadness, fear, and/or anxiety? Life can be difficult these days. The news doesn’t help. I think almost everyone is feeling stressed and anxious now. Our safe world died with 9/11. Then, I think of my dog, Pixie. She likes to sleep. I have noticed that when things are stressful for her she retreats to her couch, and she sleeps. Being a creature made by God, but lacking an immortal soul, Pixie can only do God’s Will. She was infused with the knowledge of what to do and how to live her life. When my daughter’s kitties make her life miserable, Pixie goes to sleep. That is how she retreats and survives. Read More at Prayerfully Yours

Association Of Catholic Women Bloggers: #WorthRevisit - Sharing Favorite OLD Posts

Advent now comes and goes nearly unnoticed. The only thing worth of recognition between Halloween and Christmas is Thanksgiving, and even that has started to take a back seat as major stores start “decking the halls” and major TV stations start putting on Christmas movies in late October and early November. Advent, a delightful period of quiet waiting and anticipation for the coming of the child Jesus passes by largely forgotten. My husband is a Maronite Catholic. Any of you familiar with Eastern Catholicism may have heard that the Eastern Catholic rites follow a different liturgical calendar. Most major feasts, like Christmas and Easter, fall on the same dates, thereby emphasizing the unity of the Church, but other feasts and the general cycle of the liturgical seasons differs. Since we’re a mixed family (I’m Roman Catholic), I like to joke that we can opt for the longer Advent (Maronite calendar) and shorter Lent (Roman Catholic calendar). In all seriousness, though, I deeply

I think of God as having a name for me that takes hours to say. Somehow, the ‘whole me’ will be included in that name, and it won’t be complete until my life is complete.  My current name is like a symbol of this fully-known and fully-uttered ‘me,’ who has being within Him. At the moment during Mass when we pray, “only say the word, and my soul shall be healed,” I sense Him speaking this one word: my name. I ‘hear,’ “Charlotte,” but my heart hears that whole name, spoken from outside time into the moment of two small syllables. Each time, I hear my Self spoken back into being, healed, renewed, called forth to be me. What could better prepare me to receive Him than this Love, whose voice continuously upholds my being?? I love this moment! Sometimes, when I need that love to renew the face of my being, I just ask, “Lord, will you just say my name, please,” and He does. CharlotteOstermann.com

Compassion is not seasonal! Compassion seems popular this time of year. We tend to share our abundance with those less fortunate in the form of donations to shelters and food banks. Why is it that we only tend to take this action predominantly in November and December? People are hungry and homeless all year round. I don’t have a definitive answer for this question, but I think it has something to do with processing tax deductions. Perhaps I’m being a bit cynical. However, I think we need to... Read more...

Did you ever feel God was speaking to you, that the coincidence that just happened was just too. . . well, too coincidental to be coincidence? Could Sunday's Gospel have been a coincidence? Could those who chose our  Sunday Mass readings  years ago have known what the Western world would be feeling in the days after Friday the 13 th  of November 2015? Or could God have planned the Gospel knowing we’d read it while still reeling from the worst attacks on the French since WWII? Could He have planned that reading for a time when we might be more attentive to our own vulnerability specifically to remind us to prepare for our own end? It can be hard to believe in God’s plan when the world is so full of hate and anger, betrayal and pain, but maybe Sunday's Gospel reading from the  Book of Mark  was planned for that day to remind all of us that we never know when our time is up. We expect tomorrow to come, perhaps decades down the road, but it will come somed

This week I heard two homilies in a row in which a priest mentioned a fig tree. That was the inspiration for this blog. I like Fig Newtons but never ate an “undried” fig until Sister Regina Alfonso brought some home from Tennessee. In Scripture fig trees are a sign of peace and prosperity. Our expression “I don’t give a fig” stems from the fact that fig trees were abundant. It means “I don’t care.” Caring is important, something that human beings do. When one of my nephews had the habit of saying, “Who cares?” my sister fined him a quarter each time he said it. These days people all over the world are caring about those who were affected by the horrendous events in Paris. We sympathize with their suffering and sorrow. The three colors of the French flag are cropping up all over, an attempt at “comforting the sorrowful.” Click to continue

Via Vimeo I have no preamble to this wonderfully simple, yet extremely powerful and very moving video message.  You may find it here .   P.S. - Have you visited petersboat.net yet? Wishing you and yours the very best -  Sabrina 

Today is the third day in a row of rain. Some of the rain has been a beautiful mist, but some of the rain has been heavy and dense. As I stand and look out at the scenery, I can feel God settling into the corners of my heart. He is filling my heart with His beauty and strength. His love expands my heart as I see the rain that plunks on the ground. I breathe to the rhythm of the rain. Each beat of my heart beats to the meter of His Sacred Heart. Read More at:  Prayerfully Yours

(From BBC News, used w/o permission.) (" The names of victims have started to emerge. Top left to right: Nohemi Gonzalez, Marie Mosser, Djamila Houd. Middle left to right: Juan Alberto Gonzalez, Guillaume Decherf, Nick Alexander. Bottom left to right: Mathieu Hoche, Thomas Ayed, Valentin Ribet " (BBC News)).... ...Another article tells about efforts to find folks who are still missing: either dead, or hospitalized and not able to say who they are. I'll get back to that.... ...A few names from that BBC News article — "Dado," the nickname of a man killed at the Bataclan. Hugo Sarrade, Cedric Mauduit, Mathieu Hoche, Quentin Boulanger, Guillaume B Decherf, Marie Lausch, Mathias Dymarski, and Lola Salines, had been at the Bataclan, too. No pressure, and this is just a suggestion: but praying for everyone involved couldn't hurt.... More, at A Catholic Citizen in America .

When my son Paul was a toddler, his favorite book was “The Pig in the Pond.” It’s one of those books where each page complicates the plot by adding a farm animal and, of course, the sound it makes. The first time I read the book aloud, I mimicked the animal sounds with gusto and enhanced the experience by shouting and jumping at the appropriate times. Paul was hooked, and I was doomed: from then on—no matter how exhausted I was or how many times I had read the book that evening—that story required hugely energetic noises and movements. The way we share stories matters. At every Mass, we share our story. The Liturgy of the Word invites us into Jewish Scripture, the Psalms, the letters of the apostles, and the Gospel. Every Sunday reminds us of our universal human story: we are created tenderly by God, but we are not God. Because we tend to sin, God lovingly sent his Son into the world to accompany us, teach us, suffer for us and save us. This is our story. And the way we sh

The events of the past week have led many of us to ask: What is the solution to mankind’s woes? It remains the same as it was in 1925 when Pope Pius XI instituted the Solemnity of Christ the King, which we celebrate this Sunday. Only a radical conversion and acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as King of the universe will solve the world’s problems. How does this conversion happen? It happens one soul at a time, deep in the hearts of each individual person. Read Inviting Christ to be King of our Hearts here...

What is it to experience a mystical union with God and is this only reserved for a select few? No, as Teresa would be the first to point out, this unity and grace is available to each of us as fruits of our baptism. Yet, do we have the temperament and conditioning to sit and be still with God? Are there also external expressions to our spiritual union with God's love to meet the challenges we see in the world today? Led onward to the centermost dwelling place of the soul, Teresa describes a space filled with a “cloud of majestic splendor” and a beholding vision of the Trinity. [1]  No longer are our senses suspended, and we come to understand “a most profound truth…that what we hold by faith, it understands, we can say, through sight”. [2]   Read More..

“…all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.” James 1:17 The day was cold. Her little hands were blue from the cold. She tried to keep her hands warm as she tried to keep up with her Mom. Her Mom had told her that they were going to be nice and warm tonight. They were getting to the shelter early. Hannah would have a full tummy tonight and a nice warm bed. Hannah trusted her mom. It would be nice to be full and warm. Read more at Prayerfully Yours

Children Copy Us Children mirror what they learn from adults and older siblings in their lives. So, just what is it that you are teaching the children in your life? Are you teaching them, by your example, how to grow in virtue? Or, are you teaching them the very things that you don’t want them to become? In essence, do you practice what you preach?  Or, is it more of a “Do as I say, not as I do” mentality around your house? On my blog, I write about the virtues for adults, to benefit not only the adults, but the lives of children. My blog teaches you as an adult, how to embrace and practice virtue; so that you can be good role models for the children in your lives. If, as adults, we do not embrace and practice virtue, then how can we expect our children to grow in virtue? Read more...

There is a place for shock tactics in the battle to save our unborn children. because modern man often glibly, glosses over the atrocity of abortion. Yet our society is bombarded by grotesque images of war, starvation and torture; it is almost immune to the  most horrific scenes flashing across the media. Sometimes humour, warmth and humanity gets the point across. With this thought in my mind, I have created a few pro-life memes which centre on the power of prayer and the love of Mary our mother for the unborn. rather than horror. Let us celebrate the miracle of life and birth. continue reading

Q.  "Are there Legions of Angels?"  Yes, there are Legions of Angels.  Jesus spoke of twelve Legions of Angels that were available to Him. And behold, one of those who accompanied Jesus put his hand to his sword, drew it, and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his ear.  Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:52-53) But never forget, the Demon has also Legions also.   Remember when Jesus went to exorcise the man of the demon that dwelt among the tombs that could not be contained with a chain? TO READ MORE....CLICK HERE!!  

Prayer and my Personal Journey It took more than twenty years after leaving school years before I  discovered that I was a dyslexic, thanks to a chance meeting with a doctor who knew something about what she called ‘my gift’. It was a tremendous relief to meet someone at long last who understood what nobody had been able to understand before, and that included me. At school my teachers subscribed to one of two theories – either ‘ That boy is stupid!’  or ‘ That boy is lazy ’. For myself I didn’t know what to think. All I knew was that I wasn’t stupid; I knew I had a good mind even if it didn’t easily conform to traditional teaching methods devised for the majority and the examinations set to validate them. When my form master wrote on my school report,  ‘You could scourge this boy and he wouldn’t work’ , I just had to accept that what he said was true. Funnily enough, when in later life I had managed to master most of the other deadly sins, I found that despite what I had been force

From The Cloistered Heart

(From Anne Sophie Chaisemartin/AP, via New York Daily News, used w/o permission.) (" Victims of a shooting attack lay on the pavement outside La Belle Equipe restaurant in Paris Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. Well over 100 people were killed in Paris on Friday night in a series of shooting, explosions. " (New York Daily News)) I've read that Friday's attacks in Paris are the fault of right-wing hate-mongers, that America's president is to blame — — — and the American election is still nearly a year off. I am not looking forward to the usual self-serving balderdash.... ...I am pretty sure that Muslims who blame France, America, and Western civilization for their problems are sincere, too. But the grand imam of Al-Azhar called Friday's attack "odious," Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb said it was "heinous," and Saudi King Salman called it "repugnant." 1 ... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

(From Starbucks, via AP/KOMONews.com, used w/o permission.) America's presidential campaigns may explain some of this week's sturm und drang : 1 " Outcry, pushback escalate over Starbucks holiday cup flap " Mae Anderson, AP Business Writer, via KOMONews.com (November 10, 2015) " Is Starbucks Waging 'War on Christmas'? Red Cup Stirs Controversy " Sarah Whitten, CNBC (November 10, 2015) " Starbucks red cup controversy: The view from Chicago " Greg Trotter, Chicago Tribune (November 10, 2015) I put a mercifully-brief excerpt from each of those items at the end of this post. 2 Hats off to the Chicago Tribune's Greg Trotter, for his "extremely unscientific survey" regarding the latest looming crisis. Tongue in cheek is, I think, a reasonable attitude toward the Starbuck's holiday coffee cups "controversy." Interestingly, I haven't heard a peep about the Starbucks Veteran's Day cup, which rese

Luca Bruno, Associated Press I came across the most wonderful online chat via the Huffington Post's Huffpost Live . I thought you might enjoy it as much as I did.  You can find the video interview here . And, you can find  here  a really wonderful piece from The New York Times online that describes the changing face of the American nun.   Wishing you and yours a wonderful Sunday, Sabrina 

If you have been following my blog, you know that I haven't been blogging as often as usual lately. To be honest, Tom (my husband) and I have been going through a tough time and have been trying to figure some things out.  For years now, we have been trying to figure out our ministry niche and what God's will is for us. Tom has a degree in Theology but for the last seventeen years he has been working in insurance at a company in Clearwater. Ten of those years we have lived in Lakeland and he has been commuting to and from work. That means for three to four hours he is in the car everyday. He usually leaves the house around 7am and arrives home between 7 and 8 pm.         Continue reading @ beautifulthorns>

So, the saints speak to us tonight. “Peace is simplicity of heart, serenity of mind, tranquility of soul, the bond of love. Peace means order, harmony in our whole being: it means continual contentment springing from the knowledge of a good conscience; it is the holy joy of a heart in which God reigns. Peace is the way to perfection, indeed in peace is perfection to be found.” St. Padre Pio Read More at Prayerfully Yours

Adoration of the Name of Jesus , El Greco, 1578-79 Chapter House, Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial, Spain Gospel Mark 13:24-32(NRSV, Catholic Ed., Can.) Jesus said to his disciples: “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “But ab

It’s late Friday afternoon. The sun is starting to dip low on the horizon. Right now, I’d like to kick my feet up on the ottoman and have a glass of wine. I’d love to sit and watch the sun descend from the sky into the earth that I see. The light will be gone. I’d love to watch this in silence, however, I’m BUSTED! I’m at the computer writing this blog post. The wine is still in the refrigerator. The silence, well, I’m relaxing to the sounds of Fernando Ortega on Pandora. No silence here for now. Silence is my weakest area of worship. I use my body when I worship. I move my arms. I kneel. I sit. I whisper my prayers. I chant the psalms. Silence? Not really.  Read More at Prayerfully Yours

Before the New Horizons mission, we knew Pluto was very cold, had little or no atmosphere, and that was about it. ( October 30, 2015 ; July 10, 2015 ) Now scientists think they've spotted 'ice volcanoes' on Pluto that look a lot like shield volcanoes on Earth and Mars.... ...we're rational creatures, created in the image of God, and "little less than a god." Studying this universe, and using that knowledge is part of our job. So is using our power responsibly.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

I’m on the computer writing. Usually, I work in silence, but today, I decided that I wanted to hear Christmas music as I wrote. I love the hymns and music of the season. “Wait!” I hear someone cry. “Are you crazy? Thanksgiving isn’t here yet! Why are you listening to Christmas music now?” That’s a good question. Today, I am getting ready for Christmas mentally, physically, and emotionally. I am remembering Christmases past. I remember the joy and the sorrows of the celebration. Yes, there were sorrows after the death of my husband. So, I remember on these levels. However, I have not begun to prepare spiritually for the coming of the Messiah. Right now, I am thinking about the celebrations, the gatherings, the gifts, the food. I need to do this, too. Spiritually, I am still in Ordinary Time.  Read more at:  Prayerfully Yours