looking for a prayer boost? check out MY DAILY VISITOR

I was delighted to write the daily reflections for the month of September for My Daily Visitor, a publication of Our Sunday Visitor. 

If you don't already know this great prayer resource -- or if you want to read my reflections on each day’s liturgical readings, now is the time to check it out (daily) here.

To give you a taste of the style, here’s the reflection I wrote for September 2, Tuesday:

Deny Stinking Thinking

One of the great revelations of my life was that I control my thoughts, my thoughts don’t control me. My thoughts, my insightful therapist explained once, can define and shape not only how I interpret life, but even my emotions and attitude. In the 12-Steps-Program they call it “stinking thinking,” the power of negative thoughts to influence one’s life. When I allow negative thoughts to take control, I start to believe that I can do nothing right. I’ll inevitably fail. I mess up everything. I’m no good.…

Click here to read the rest of the post! 

Since it is a printed book of monthly reflections, there’s no way to subscribe to receive future posts over email.

But—if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you can read previous reflections retroactively!

to Edith, on her feast day

Edith holding her cousin's son, 1921

Edith the philosophy student

Like Christians in the early centuries, I was confirmed at the same time that I was baptized. Although in my case, it all happened on my way home from the hospital--a mere three days after I was born in the city of Pinar del Río.

As my parents explained, everything was so uncertain and chaotic in 1960 Cuba that our pastor and family friend suggested it. Castro’s government had already shipped, literally, hundreds of priests out the country on a boat, and no one could predict how long, or if, any priests would be allowed by the communists to stay behind.

After moving to the United States as a teenager and seeing how confirmations here are done, I felt a bit cheated that I never got to pick a patron saint.

Fast forward to my early forties. Writer and dear friend Colleen Smith contacted me with a book idea, one that had been offered to her fist—but that she discerned would be a better fit for me: a biography of a Jewish convert, Carmelite nun, and soon to be saint.

When I first began reading about Edith Stein, I was more than a little freaked out.  She was a gifted, renowned philosopher, a brilliant writer and speaker—and I was entrusted with the task of writing a popular biography introducing readers to this phenomenal woman.

I began by ordering all of her books that have been translated into English by ICS Publications (Institute of Carmelite Studies), which of course, did nothing to appease my anxiety.  Stein was a prolific author and her texts were rich, academic and spiritually profound.

I looked at how others told her story and found out that there had been a number of biographies already published by people much better versed in both philosophy and Carmelite spirituality. 

What would I have to offer that was new and different?

Everything changed when I picked up Vol 5 of Edith Stein’s Collected Works: “Self Portrait In Letters 1916-1942,” translated by Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D.

In her letters I met a young woman who loved God so deeply, so profoundly that, like the original apostles, dropped everything she had and knew, to follow Him completely.

I fell in love with Edith, my self-adopted patron saint, reading her letters.

If you want to read my biography of this beautiful saint, whose feast day is today, August 9, click here.

 

published by Our Sunday Visitor

“[I]t is always a small, simple truth that I have to express: How to go about living at the Lord’s hand.” ~letter by Edith, 1931

“I do not use extraordinary means to prolong my workday. I do as much as I can. The ability to accomplish increases noticeably in proportion to the number of things that must be done. When there’s nothing urgent at hand, it ceases much sooner. Heaven is expert at economy.” ~letter by Edith, 1930

Introducing: "Catholic Mom's Café"

It is my pleasure to introduce to you my friend, best-selling author Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle, and her latest project, Catholic Mom’s Cafe: 5-Minute Retreats for Every Day of the Year.

Donna is a renowned speaker, blogger, EWTN host, and author of numerous books, including Mother Teresa and Me: Ten Years of Friendship. Although we’ve never met in person, I’ve had the pleasure of calling Donna my friend as well as my colleague for many years.

Donna writes and speaks about faith and family in her numerous blogs—check here and here, for example—always with a special fervor for Catholic motherhood.

This post is part of a Blog Tour launching Donna’s new book. Drop by her Catholic Mom's Café blog and Facebook page to check out the rest of the stops on the Blog Tour—as well as Catholic ideas, book excerpts, reviews, inspiration, news, and recipes.

As a mother of five, Donna knows what it’s like to be a busy mother who has to be deliberate about carving time out of her day for the Lord—or it just won’t happen.

Catholic Mom’s Cafe: 5-Minute Retreats for Every Day of the Year is a 365-day devotional book for busy Catholic moms. The daily reflections highlight the virtues of faith, hope, and love, and are brief enough to be enjoyed in just five minutes.

“The focus in this book is about living lives of faith, hope and love within the vocation of mothering our children. God as a free gift gives us these wonderful theological virtues at our baptism. These virtues are key to living a Christian life, and I think sadly sometimes we forget about them. I thought it would be helpful to write a book in this way, which offers the busy mom a chance to discover the virtues already present in her life, but unfolding more and more each day. I think the book can be a reminder to "flex" a particular "muscle" of virtue each day to "grow" the virtues! Practicing these virtues makes us more like our Creator.” 

~Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle

Donna describes the meditations as “spiritual daily vitamins” to energize you and help you find “the faith, hope, and love you’ll need to be the mom God wants you to be – today and every day.”

By the way, Donna will be hosting on EWTN an upcoming five-part television series by the same name, "Catholic Mom's Café." Check your local listings for details.

One more thing—autographed copies of Catholic Mom's Café are available for purchase at Donna-Marie's website. You can also purchase the book through the publisher, Our Sunday Visitor.

Here's a sampling. Today's meditation in Catholic Mom’s Cafe: 5-Minute Retreats for Every Day of the Year:

April 23rd

Ponder
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." 
~Hebrews 11:1

Offer
I used to visit an elderly blind man at a nursing home. My first time visiting him, he reached his hands forward and ran them all over my face. That's how he "saw" me. It was the first time I had ever experienced something like that, so it was a tad startling.

In a way, his gesture demonstrates how difficult faith can be: Even when we are literally blind, we struggle to "see." And yet God calls us to have conviction about faith--these "things not seen"--even though we cannot put our hands out and "feel" it. Let's trust that He will help us grow in faith and pass it on to our children.

Pray
Lord Jesus, strengthen my faith in you so that I may share it with my family and others. Act of Faith, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.

Savor
I want to reach out in faith as the blind man did.

the doors are closed...

The doors are closed.

Let us remain One in prayer, and commend the process to the Holy Spirit 

under Mother Mary's intercession! 

Veni Sancte Spiritus!

Christmas with Hispanic eyes, el nacimiento

Alipio Páez, "Lelo," at his home in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico

Every year of his adult life until his death at the age of 95, my Cuban grandfather Alipio Páez set up a Nativity scene or nacimiento that could easily compete with the elaborate window displays put on by Macy's.

Not satisfied with presenting just the figurines of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the cast of usual characters, Alipio would turn the living room of his small house into the whole town of Bethlehem. This was not ''just'' the Bethlehem described in the Gospels, but a Caribbean-style Bethlehem -- with abundant palm trees, rivers, houses on the hills, tall blooming trees, all set up on papier-mâché mountains painted in shades of green and brown. My meticulous grandfather even had plastic pigs and cows to keep the miniature sheep and their shepherds company.

No matter what new addition he came up with, Alipio's Bethlehem always centered on the glorious crèche, the physical place where the deepest and most complicated elements of Christian theology became flesh. My earliest Christmas memories all center on that humble stable, where the mystery and wonder of the word ''Incarnation'' came to life for me. The virgin birth. The Son of God conceived in Mary's womb. A baby in Mary's arms, both true God and true man. Even as a child, I understood the unspoken truth that the colorful Christmas tree was meant to take a back seat to the stunning Bethlehem scene.

el nacimiento, the main event in Alipio's Bethlehem

By bringing his own world of pigs and palm trees to Bethlehem Alipio was not saying that the biblical details of the Christmas story were unimportant to him. It was entirely the opposite. By bringing to life the surroundings of the story beyond the historical pesebre, the humble crèche, my grandfather emphasized the central truth -- the actual point -- of the story! God so loved the world that He came to be one with each of us, right where we are.

Like Alipio's beautiful nacimiento, Christmas traditions for Hispanics are often a gentle incarnation of the sacred within the ordinary. Through traditions that inspire all the senses -- with songs and sights and delicious smells -- Hispanics bring to life and celebrate the familiar birth story of Jesusito, reminding us what's most important about the Christmas season.

TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE, click here

Alipio's full Bethlehem scene