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I think it's not a big stretch to say that most fans of the original “Gilmore Girls” series were somewhat unsatisfied with the way it ended. Not enough closure, no real evidence of happily-ever-afters for the characters we had grown to know and love... And now, suddenly, in our social-media-outcry day and age, we have an entity like Netflix that can see a show with a cult following, realize that that cult following was unsatisfied, and identify that making a reboot of the show is a good idea. But the question is, does this reboot satisfy? Continue Reading

I discovered that giving birth and dying are not that different and life and death are not as far apart as I had once presumed. Exactly three years ago, I finally became cognizant of how thin the line between life and death really is when I nearly lost one of my daughters as she struggled to give birth. During labour, she almost bled out when she lost a litre of blood in mere seconds after an emergency C-section, the result of a series of unforeseen complications, a one-in-ten-thousand chance. continue

First Steps (after Millet) , Van Gogh  [ Web Gallery of Art ] For Readings and Reflections for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A,  click on the following:   Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A A Beggar Boy with a Piece of Pie Master of the Blue Jeans [ Web Gallery of Art ]

"Crisis" or not, opioid overdose is a problem. A lethal one, sometimes. We've used one opioid, opium, for millennia. Others have been developed during my lifetime. They're all useful: and dangerous if misused. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

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Joy of community. Writers go forth. Onward and Upward. God Bless Welcome, Join me in my camp here. Are you familiar NaNoWriMo? It is National Novel Writing Month. It is a virtual camp for writers to achieve their goals in creative writing. Having tried to do this camp NaNoWriMo thing for years. Finally, I am a participant yeah for me. In July, the writer can choose their own word count. Well, in any camp you can. Just do not let the stress and getting it perfect get to you anymore. My saying is “better done than perfect”. If I reach the goal, great and if I do not great. I am participating, to me that is all that matters right now.                 read more

The stress of life can cause anyone to fall behind and, for those of us with chronic illness, we fight this battle daily. I mean that if you work full time, have chronic pain (or maybe your child is chronically ill and, if so, I pray for you and your family), if you have small children (or large ones), pets or a hobby if you’re lucky; you end up falling behind.  We all do different things to benefit our families and sometimes the pay out is not a monetary one (even if it can be also that as well). If you are a stay-at-home wife or mom, you are worth just as much as you would be if you were working. If you collect disability, that’s the insurance for if you did work. If you work full time or part time you are truly blessed; as are all you wonderful business owners and women with side hustles.  Click here to continue and for scripture to help you get though it! 

Yesterday, in the United States, we celebrated Independence Day with an assortment of fireworks displays throughout the country. As with this type of celebration, the day after seems like quite a letdown, doesn’t it? The evening before was exciting, filled with color, splash and sound! Today, all is quiet and serene. We can draw a correlation between celebrating the Fourth of July and marriage. How so, you might ask? Fireworks and Marriage When we initially meet our spouse, it’s like fireworks are going off all the time. Life is filled with excitement. Everything around us seems to come to life. Then we settle into a relationship, with its ups and downs. Yet, the fire is still strong; so strong, that we decide to marry. Much time is spent preparing for the wedding ceremony and celebration. Planning for the big day can create excitement, color and splash! My Own Fireworks I remember planning my own wedding 38 years ago this month. I experienced that sense of... Read more...

Saturday’s first reading at Mass included the angel’s words to Abraham about Sarah becoming pregnant at the age of ninety: “Is anything too marvelous for the Lord to do?” This is echoed by the angel Gabriel when he tells Mary that the elderly Elizabeth will bear a son: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Relying on the truth of those statements, I’m venturing into a new project: marketing my books—more than eighty of them. One by one they are going out of print before the world has read them, or even know they exist! Nowadays marketing is done via social media, which to me is complicated and overwhelming. Hence the need for a miracle. In addition, ideas I’ve proposed have been blocked, so much so that I commented, “I keep running into a brick wall.” I was on the verge of giving up marketing. But then, last week on the first evening of my annual retreat, I began reading a book (on being happy). Not once but twice it advised that when you run into a brick wall, thro

As the Morning Rising: My uniqueness is of His making. : If there are ways in which I may feel left out, left behind, not one of the in set, let me remember in those moments of doubt t...

I remember when “Gilmore Girls” was in its last few seasons on the CW. I was in high school at the time, and it was one of the first shows that I ever watched weekly as it aired. Eventually I gave up on watching it back then, because of the terrible plot directions of the sixth season. I never had seen all of the earlier episodes in order, just some of them as re-runs. So years later, when I found that it was on Netflix, I decided to give it a proper watch... Continue Reading

Today is American Independence Day. It's also the anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland's publication and Trois-Rivières founding day. Ashikaga Yoshiakira's birthday, Pactum Sicardi , and whole bunch of other stuff make this day important, too. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Jonathan Byrne is a professional mid-career artist who lives in the coastal town of Blackrock in Dublin, Ireland. After many years of making images and exhibiting at home and abroad, he returned to a subject that has always enthralled him, the Face of Christ. The images, of which there are over 30 in different colours, are being assembled into an exhibition that will go on tour in Europe in 2018. I interviewed him via email over the past week. Melanie: How would you describe yourself? JB:  I would describe myself as a servant to a thought that a life should be spent in crafting a decorative, and, hopefully, a more beautiful world around you. This can be done with prayer devotions or parenthood or building nice roads or colourful gardens but in my case, the images are the thing. I believe that there is an appetite amongst a new generation for a relationship with Christ and I hope that my images, being both modern and traditional, can be part of the language of those new relation

Here’s my confession: I have never been good at memorizing rote prayers, beyond the basics. My prayer life, historically, has been one of a free-flowing style, telling God what is on my mind. Within my prayer life, I seek His direction. Yet, I never said rote prayers beyond the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be. That was, until one day, after having a serious conversation about prayer with a priest friend of mine. The Value of Rote Prayers Father Benjamin helped me to see the value of rote prayers, as well as their importance. When we can’t find the right words to communicate our feelings, rote prayers rescue us, and assist us in opening our hearts to the Lord. For months prior to this conversation with Father Benjamin, I had been... Read more... 

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As the Morning Rising: Music : Music We lift up our hearts. The buried song resounds Once more. From ocean depths To highest heaven There soars In silence, and in s...

Welcome Here with me, today guest posting is Steve Sawyer. He has more than three decades of experience as a writer, editor, reporter, technical writer and writing teacher. He graduated from Auburn University in Montgomery, Alabama with a degree in journalism studies. He and his wife Marie, co-parent their two granddaughters, four and seven. He sings in his church choir and remains active in his men’s prayer group. Since he retired in 2010 he enjoys writing for his family-friendly, Christ-centered blog Monday through Friday. He is passionate about writing to help readers know, understand, believe, and live out of their true identity in Christ. Sweet Tea and Jesus  Folks who live outside the Deep South don’t understand Sweet Tea. If you go to most restaurants or truck stops north of the Tennessee  read more

One day, I scheduled a good sized block of minutes for uninterrupted concentration on God. I actually try to do this regularly, but on this day in particular I was ready and waiting. I had even dug through my bookshelves for an unused journal (I have several waiting in the wings) in order to make notes of What I Did Not Miss. I sat with a list of suggestions on how to pray with Scripture and opened my Bible to a reading from the Gospel of Luke. I read a few lines slowly, and waited. I read the lines again, and waited. I asked Jesus what He wanted to reveal to me, and I waited. 'Keep on doing this until the words begin to live,' the anonymous Religious had suggested. So I did. The words I read were good words, holy words, straight-from-the-written-Word-of-God-words, and I received them with gratitude. I thanked God for the words, and for His written word, and for gifts I was aware of and gifts I didn't know I was receiving. But did the words live? From

My father reminded me of this good advice when I was in my teens: "...whatever is true, ... whatever is lovely, ... think about these things." My response was something like '...because they won't last.' I wasn't happy about saying that at the time. I still regret it. I can't, of course, undo what was done. And the time for telling my father "I'm sorry" has long since passed. In any case, I said "I'm sorry" too often, and that's almost another topic. The quote is from Philippians 4:6 - 9 . I'll get back to that. Following the advice from Philippians isn't easy for me. But it's been getting easier as I work though a massive backlog of bad habits. Nothing unusual there, since we're all dealing with consequences of a bad choice described in Genesis 3:1 - 13 . 1 ... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

It's been a while since I've seen a movie that I disliked enough to write a fun rip-apart review on. Enter Marvel's Doctor Strange . It just came to Netflix, and I seemed to remember hearing lots of good things about it when it came to theaters. So we watched it. And as we watched it, I wondered, had I completely mis-remembered hearing those good things? ...  Continue Reading

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As the Morning Rising: Butterflies : Butterflies In a meadow teeming with wild flowers No single stem has power to stall them Partnered as they seem to be Elopi...

The Calling of St Matthew (detail), Caravaggio [ Web Gallery of Art ] Readings  (NAB: USA) Readings (Jerusalem Bible) Gospel Matthew 10:37-42 ( NR SV, Catholic Ed ) Jesus said to his Apostles: ‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’ Post-World War II Japan [ Source ] Whoever loves father

We wouldn't expect to find life on 51 Eridani b, even if were the size of Earth and at the right distance from its star. The planet is only a bit over 20,000,000 years old. At that point in our home's long story, the earliest critters wouldn't appear for at least another several million years. We've discovered thousands of new worlds so far, some a bit like Earth, most not; and many not like anything in our Solar System. Scientists are starting to make sense of what's being found, and discovering that we have a very great deal left to learn. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Every once in a while, a song, a book or a speaker manages to cut through our pride, our preoccupations with our busy lives to pierce through to our inner longing for God. Then our emptiness and poverty are revealed and we have enough space within to receive more of Christ. This following worship song,  sung during a Eucharistic procession, pierced through all my scattered preoccupations ushering me into the Merciful Presence of  Christ. Matt Maher sings “Lord, I Need You,” followed by Audrey Assad’s singing the Exposition hymn “O Salutaris Hostia” in front of 25,000 pilgrims kneeling before the procession of the Blessed Sacrament at the Tauron Arena Mercy Centre.          continue

I think my husband and I didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into when we started watching the Netflix original drama-thriller “Bloodline.” Mostly, I think we decided to give it a whirl because Kyle Chandler, the dad/coach from “Friday Night Lights” was the star. We'd liked that show quite a bit and considered him a pretty good actor; “Bloodline” looked at least mildly interesting, so what the heck, we decided to try it. We had no idea how dark and twisty a story we were about to enter... Continue Reading

Hoy hay sombras en la Capilla...quizá sea porque está atardeciendo....   Tú, Jesús, estás como siempre, silencioso en tu eterna espera....pero tienes el oído atento para todo el que llega, para todo el que te quiere decir algo… : penas, anhelos, sueños, alegrías y tristezas....Tú corazón abierto está para quién a ti llega....y yo se que te quedaste ahí precisamente porque sabías que en el mundo... hay dolor. ¡Vaya que si lo hay!

I have to admit, the reason it has taken me this long to write this post is because I had to work out some personal issues before I could share my story with the world. So I guess on that note, I should just stop beating around the bush and say what I need to say. I did not want to write this because I was embarrassed. I felt as though industrious and my name could not even be in the same sentence. So I pouted about it for a few days until the Holy Spirit touched my heart. Click here to continue!  

Look no futher than... here. {insert ha ha, eye roll, and lol here} I'm looking for a solid faith... but where do I go? I'm not going to tell you I have the corner on the truth because honestly, I don't.  I think that honor goes to gifted teachers like...: Father Robert Barron Scott Hahn Peter Kreeft and R.C. Sproul (maybe also the very gifted and wise  Tim Keller ) There are so many!!! :) I think one of the things that is hardest about parenting are the times when I am at a loss. It is when I come up short in knowing how to guide my children. Perhaps it is not having the correct answer when they ask ... Top Ten Ways to Know You're on Solid Ground: read the rest at tacywilliamsbeck.com