Today's Scripture

The Bread of Life

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.” John 6:35

Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel is known as the Bread of Life Discourse.  It is here, not at the Last Supper, that we are told that Jesus has been given to us by the Father so that we can be saved and have eternal life.  Over and over in the Gospels Jesus ask his apostles if they have faith, if they trust and over and over again their words say no.  And then, Jesus shows them who he is and their eyes are opened, if just for the briefest moment.  And they see with eyes of faith.  Many of Jesus’ followers left him because of his words in chapter six.  They were looking for signs, something big and flashy.  But Jesus has no need of flash.  He comes to us in the simple, ordinary stuff of life; bread and wine.  All of him is contained in the smallest of crumbs, the tiniest drop and we take and eat and become one with Jesus.  And we pray, as John the Baptist, “I must decrease, he must increase.”

Our challenge is to become a true follower of Jesus.  Our faith and trust in him and his word must override our faith and trust in the world.  What has the world ever given us to compare with what Jesus has given us?  The world wants us to live for the moment; Jesus offers us eternal life.  The world is nonstop motion trying to achieve success; Jesus offers us a peace that is beyond all understanding.  The world says it is all about me; Jesus shows us that if we die to ourselves, we gain life in abundance.

Do we believe he is present in the Eucharist?  Pray to believe and know this with the eyes of faith.  And then, we can follow him.

Happy Feast of St. Ignatius!

I have a lovely reflection about how and why I have come to love St. Ignatius.  In my head.  Which is also full of a cold.  So, I've rounded up some links and things for you to enjoy instead!

1.  Six Characteristics of Ignatian Spirituality

2.  A Way to pray the Examen

3.

Church of St. Ignatius in Rome

4.  

St. Edward in Palm Beach, FL which was built by Jesuits

5.  A roundup of quotes

6  The book that began my Ignatian Journey.  Thank You, Mona!

7.  If you are on Twitter follow Iggy @FindIggy

8.  A #findiggy post from Margaret Felice

9.  A fun website, Find Your Inner Iggy,  with all the #findIggy posts, tweets and swag.

If you are unfamiliar with Ignatius, learn about him.  He was what the Church needed back in the 1500's and he is what we need today!  

For those who love, nothing is too difficult,                                                               especially when it is done for the love of  our Lord Jesus Christ.                                   St. Ignatius Loyola

10 Signs of Summer in Florida

1.  Every parking spot in the parking lot that is under a tree is taken, no matter how big or small the tree is or how far away it is from the entrance.
2.  The smell of sunscreen is ubiquitous.
3.  The cold water from the faucet or that runs into the washer is cold for about, umm, a nano second, then it's warm.  
4.  Rain and lightening and quick power outages. Just about every day.
5.  There is no such thing as wearing your hair down if you spend more than five minutes outside.
6.  In our house: rain=ants; we only turn the oven on early or late in the day so as not to heat up the house; blinds are kept closed to keep the heat of the sun out of the house (haha, as if that works!)
7.  Hazard lights on for rain.  No, this is not the law, as a matter of fact it is against the law, but it happens.  And, as my fellow I-95 drivers will agree, it's annoying!
8.  You grill dinner outside, but eat it inside.
9.  If you want to work up a sweat, stand outside during lunch time.  Just stand there, do nothing; you will sweat.
10. There are less out of state license plates.  

What's on your list?

Disclaimer:   I am not complaining.  I live here by choice and much prefer the heat of summer than the cold of winter.

St. Ignatius Novena

St. Ignatius in Rome; 

July 31 is the feast day of St. Ignatius Loyola.  He is someone I turn to often for inspiration and guidance.  I will be praying a novena to ask for his intercession on a few special intentions.  Please join me and know that I will pray not only for my intentions but yours as well.

St. Ignatius Novena and Podcast  from Discerning Hearts.  This website is full of information about many saints, prayers, great books and more.  One draw for me is that many of the prayer podcasts  have text you can read if you prefer.  I also have the app on my phone and can listen to talks on my commute.

Inspiration

Finding God in all things

St. Ignatius of Loyola is one of my favorite saints.  His spirituality is a very practical one which appeals to me very much.  One of the questions or concepts he tries to teach is the notion that God is present in all that happens to us in our ordinary daily life; we need to look and find him. In order to do this we need to pay attention and be mindful.
Read the rest at New Evangelizers...

7 Quick Takes: Tales of NYC

We went to New York last week to spend some time with the family. 

1.  While in the Church of my childhood, I saw these clips on back of the pews.  Do you recall the purpose of those little clips?  I mean, besides the obvious of sticking your little brother's finger in them or your sister's pony tail?

2.  I finally got to take a walk on the High Line .  Here's a picture looking towards the Hudson River.   

3.  After that we walked over to Eataly! and had lunch.  As usual what I choose was the tastiest, mushroom farrotto, which is farro cooked like risotto.  The gnocchi and caprese salad were good 

.

4.  June 15 is National Cucumber Awareness Day in England so folks were giving out cucumbers by Madison Square Park.  My son felt compelled to take one when offered.  But I wasn't carrying it around all day in my purse and neither was his girlfriend.  So in his back pocket it went!  It was pretty hot that day and so we decided to get a drink at McDonald's.  There was a man panhandling and opening the door as folks went in and out.  My son, as we leave, offers him the cucumber. "Want this cucumber/" "What am I going to do with a cucumber?"  "Eat it!" "Get outta here, you crazy!"  "Alright then."  "Nah, wait, I'll take it!"  So he tossed it to the man and off we went.

5.  Like many people, my phone also serves as my camera.  But lately the pictures have been very blurry.  I asked a few people what could cause this but no one had any ideas.  Except my son, who said to clean the lens!  So I mention this to my 15 year old niece and she takes the phone and is looking carefully at the lens.  "There's a bubble in there!"  How can there be a bubble under the case?  She takes the case off and discovers that the plastic film that covered the phone when I bought it a year ago was still on the phone, hence my blurry pictures.  First, love that girl for solving the problem and second, the man at the store put the case on the phone, not me!

6.  I have ventured into the land of SnapChat.  My nieces and nephew gave me a quick lesson.  The hardest part was proving I was a real person.  I had to click pictures on my screen where the little snapchat image was present.  Could not do it.  After way too may tires, I gave it my nephew.  One shot, it took him one shot.

7.  I've saved the really big news for last!  I am not a fan of grocery shopping, or as is said in NY, food shopping.  I don't care for it at home and I certainly don't like it in my old neighborhood.  Then my mom says, "let's go to Fairway."  So off we go.  What an awesome store.  It was a blend of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, clean, samples of great products to try, reasonable prices,  and polite help (well, until we got to the cashiers, but hey you can't have everything).  We went to the one in Douglaston.  If you can get to one, go, you'll love it!  it really is like no other market!

More 7 Quick Takes at This Ain't the Lyceum

To Ponder

Why I am Catholic

Portobello Mushroom Pizza

I hesitate to even call this a recipe.  It is that easy.  And in my house, even easier since the man mans the grill!

Ingredients

4 large portobello mushroom caps
1 tomato, thinly sliced
grated Parmesan cheese or any cheese you like

Remove stems from mushroom caps, clean and then brush with olive oil
Grill until soft, turning a few times
Have the mushrooms on the grill stem side up, add the tomato slices, 1 or 2 each and then put the cheese on top of that.  Close the grill lid so the cheese melts
Serve and enjoy!

I made this Keto Bread to go with it, it's made with almond flour.  I follow the recipe as is, except I use about 2 tablespoons coconut oil instead of butter.  Also, oven temperature in Fahrenheit is 400.

Lemon Garlic Chicken

I cooked the most amazing chicken today.  The recipe comes from The Kitchn (no, that's not misspelled).  I don't have a slow cooker/crock pot so I cooked it in my dutch oven on the stove.  It is so good!  Try it.

There's a funny side of INSOMNIA...

said No One EVER!

>

10 things about 1000 posts

This is post #1000 on the blog!  WOW.  

1.  I began way back in February of 2007, with these offerings given to the internet!

2.  Most viewed post:  Prayer to the Holy Spirit.

3.  # of page views: 67,009 

4. One of my favorite posts, about giving a friend her Last Holy Communion. 

5.  # of followers:  8  

6.  # of comments:  almost 400

7.  Oddest post in the top 10 viewed:  this Italian Christmas song

8.  Average # of posts per year:  125 

9. This blog has led me to write for Catholic Mom, New Evangelizers, and Amazing Catechists.  

10.   I really like having this tiny space on the internet to call my own and it makes me happy when you visit.

Small Success Thursday

Today is the day to tell what went right instead of focusing on what went wrong which so many of us are so good at doing!

I'm on vacation this week and I've managed to strike a balance between relaxing and getting things done.  

On Monday we tackled the headboard in our bedroom.  I bought a new comforter and curtains, but the headboard no longer matched.  So my husband painted it blue (which was very nice of him and unexpected) and recovered the foam core board with new fabric.  Looks much better.    I had to go to the fabric store to get the new fabric and while I was there I happened to see fabric I liked and then just had to get a new pattern. The patterns were only $1 each.  Who could resist that?!

I cleaned my work room which means when I go in there I am not distracted by the clutter and mess.  I can sit, work, read, pray, ponder in peace.  And sew that new dress.

And this morning, I went grocery shopping.  It was pretty bare in there, I used the last of the eggs yesterday to make cinnamon coconut flour muffins and after my husband packed his lunch for today, well, there was some spinach, celery and a few apples.  Not much else.  

Want to see who else has had a good week?  Join us at Catholic Mom.  

Catherine of Siena Prayer

My Nature is Fire

In your nature, eternal Godhead,
I shall come to know my nature.
And what is my nature, boundless love?
It is fire,
because you are nothing but a fire of love.
And you have given humankind
a share in this nature,
for by the fire of love you created us.
And so with all other people
and every created thing;
you made them out of love.
O ungrateful people!
What nature has your God given you?
His very own nature!
Are you not ashamed to cut yourself off from such a noble thing
through the guilt of deadly sin?
O eternal Trinity, my sweet love!
You, light, give us light.
You, wisdom, give us wisdom.
You, supreme strength, strengthen us.
Today, eternal God,let our cloud be dissipated
so that we may perfectly know and follow your Truth in truth, with a free and simple heart.
God, come to our assistance! Lord, make haste to help us!  Amen.

from Discerning Hearts Website

Dream

7 Quick Takes - Easter Joy!

 I had a lay low type of Lent.  I gave up coffee and that was it. Was I being a slacker or realistic?  I'll lean toward realistic.  But I am working on living in Easter joy!  Today is day 19 of Easter and this is the best Easter season we have had in years.  Here are 7 things that are cause for celebration.

1.  My husband is doing very, very well health wise.  It took nine months, longer than I expected at first and then I had decided it would take a year but here we are, quite content and moving forward.  Praise God!

2.  I am going to start working part time, which is very wonderful.  We'll have to give up a few things we've gotten used to until I find some other income stream, but we need to focus on other things for a few months.  I am open to God's leading me to where I need to be, ready to use my talents for him.  I'm not saying yes or no to anything right now, just trying to be open and ready to discern.

3.  I finished reading Sacred Fire by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI and highly recommend it.  Reading it is part of how I reached my decision to change my work status.  The first quote is from Theresa of Avila: "When one reaches the highest degree of human maturity, one has only one question left: How can I be helpful?"

4.  I'm doing two novenas right now, one is for the intercession of Catherine of Siena; her feast day is April 29.  The website it is on, Discerning Hearts, is one of my favorites.  They have great podcasts and the app is available for all types of devices.  Check it out. The other novena is from Pray More Novenas and it is Our Lady Undoer of Knots.  The best feature here is it comes to your inbox directly, so no wondering what day you are on!

5.  The website module for an online course I help facilitate was finished and my partner presented it last night.  We are both happy we are done.  Now on to the revisions!

6.  We made plans to go to New York for a visit.  I am hoping to see a show and get to a museum or two.  Now that John can walk all he wants (or as much as I want, hehe) nothing will hold us back.  Total aside, I realized I wrote New York, figuring, as all folks from one of the five boroughs do, that you will know I mean NYC, not anywhere else in the state of NY.

7.  Life is good, when when it isn't perfect.  Part of my living Easter Joy commitment is to realize that I need to stop waiting for things to be different before I lived my life to the fullest.  Now, we are trying to focus each day on living in the present, in the now. Jesus came so we might have LIFE, so I am going to LIVE it!

More Quick Takes over at This Ain't the Lyceum.

The Accidental Marriage Book Club

This is a very interesting work of fiction that makes you think.  The characters grow and develop as the story unfolds.  Sometimes you find yourself not liking one or the other, but if you stick with it, I think in the end you will enjoy it. It is the featured book for the CatholcMom book club and if you are interested in participating, all you need to know is right here.  Join us!  

Pray and Work