I absolutely adore the changing of seasons, particularly as winter gives way to spring. The grass begins to green up, trees blossom and here in the South, azaleas bloom. If you are a golfer, or a fan of golf, blooming azaleas are a sign of another beautiful occurrence that happens every spring–the Masters. For those of you who may not be familiar, the Masters is the premiere professional golf tournament in the world played at one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world, Augusta National, in Augusta, Georgia. Augusta was designed and built by Bobby Jones, the first […]
christina.semmens
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The Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama is holding its first ever Eucharistic Congress this coming June 28-29. In anticipation, and to help prepare for the Congress, I was asked to speak about the Eucharist in Scripture and the many benefits of Eucharistic Adoration for benefit of the Our Lady of the Valley Charismatic Prayer Group. A link of that talk is posted below, or you can check it out on my personal FB page or the SayYesToHoliness FB page as well. Thanks much to Sergio Andrade for the video, and also to Blanca Mireles for the wonderful translation job she did […]
We stand at the advent of Passiontide–that often forgotten, but intense time that occurs just prior to the beginning of Holy Week. In some churches, all the statues and crucifixes are covered, and the absence of these signs make our worship space seem even more barren and forsaken. But that’s actually the point. Passiontide is about stripping away anything, even good things like a crucifix, that might prevent us from being open to entering into the darkness and hopelessness and abandonment of the Way of the Cross. And the Way of the Cross is becoming more apparent with each passing […]
“Theology of the Body” (TOB) is the name given to a series of 129 talks that Saint John Paul II gave each week from September 1979 to November 1984. His talks on human love in God’s divine plan were drawn from Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church, but were also rooted in John Paul’s own pastoral experience of encountering the desperate need of men and women to know the truth of God’s love for them. In a nutshell, Theology of the Body is a biblical reflection on the meaning of human embodiment as male and female from the […]
It’s a Friday of Lent, and the traditional day to go join a community to pray the Stations of the Cross. But even if you are unable to join a community, here is a beautiful resource for you to be able to still make the Way of the Cross with Bishop Robert Barron’s short video reflections about each Station. Enjoy! https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstations.wordonfire.org%2Fstations-of-the-cross&h=AT0bY56FcqsOZ1_-kEdBtmvjwo_roeg3XtnZp6u1pdNDcZy4w_S-PxhtWgXsZRcQoZm0JIHOjCKgp0jJuo7R25kdKO0mUU2AtFZKhSG1Y2B4781-_9OW_erKa95YXOU&s=1
Recently I wrote an article for the One Voice, my diocesan newspaper, about Curtis Martin’s latest book, Making Missionary Disciples: How to Live the Method Modeled by the Master. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Curtis, he is the founder and chief executive officer of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) which began two decades ago in January, 1998 as a pilot program at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, with two staff members and twenty-four students. Through God’s grace, FOCUS is now on more than one hundred fifty campuses with over 700 missionaries and supporting staff. Primarily […]
We are now a week into the Lenten season, I am frequently hearing from those around me, “I just can’t seem to stick to my Lenten resolutions.” I can easily identify with this frustration since I have often struggled with this issue myself in the past, but I wasn’t quite sure exactly why that was. My insight about this began to come about as I read an article entitled, “Why is it So Hard to Stick to Good Habits?” by James Clear, author of the book, Atomic Habits. In this article, he talks about how we tend to want to do life-changing things, but we […]
The Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent is always the story of Jesus going out into the desert for 40 days and being tempted by Satan. Saint John Chrysostom tells us that Jesus never said, or did, anything that was not for our instruction, and the temptations in the desert are no exception. Because in the wilderness, Jesus experiences the very temptations that each one of us faces each and every day–the temptation to make idols out of pleasure, honor, or power. So why did Jesus go into the desert and allow Himself to be tempted? So that we, […]
Oh, No! I Ate Meat On A Friday of Lent! So did I just ruin my entire Lent? In a word, no. No, your Lent has not been ruined. In fact, I would contend that you have actually been given an opportunity to have an even MORE grace-filled Lent than if you hadn’t eaten meat on a Friday. How so? Will get back to this in a moment. First though, we need to do an interior check on whether we actually forgot about not eating meat on a Friday of Lent, or whether we intentionally chose to “forget.” If your […]
Was reading an article today entitled “The Evolution of Anxiety: Why We Worry and What to Do About It.” by James Clear, author of the book, Atomic Habits. Why am I highlighting an article concerned primarily with behavioral psychology and stress management? Because yesterday marked the beginning of the season of Lent for most of the Christian world. (I say most because my fellow Orthodox do not begin Lent for another week. But I digress…) So what does Lent have to do with stress? Well, the image above might give you a clue. Lent is FULL of things that we […]