It seems that each year gets better and better! Each year, three speakers and one musician join to discuss God's love and mercy. Today, we heard from two Dominican sisters, Sr. Miriam James and Sr. Mary Johanna, and a catechetical director from the Diocese of Nashville, Joan Watson. Here are some of the notes of the day.
Sister Miriam James - Loved As I Am
- As women, we compare ourselves to other women. And we sometimes think that God does the same.
- Have you ever been caught off guard by true beauty? God made the world beautiful because He loves us! Beauty is a language that God speaks to us.
- "Beauty: Appetizers to the main entree of heaven."
- The desire for community and family is ultimately found in God. It is God's desire to reveal Himself to us again and again. Not to force us, but to ask us. He came to us as a fragile infant. Imagine Jesus as a young child, learning to walk. How vulnerable and human! We can hardly bring ourselves to say we're sorry, but His humility is amazing!
- People who have been visited by Mother Mary can only verbalize one thing about her, that she is beautiful. Why? Think about what Gabriel said to her: "Hail, Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with you!" God's grace is beauty!
- "The soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love something because she is made of love, and, by love, I created her." - St. Catherine of Siena
- Our souls are created to be in Communion with God through other people. It is when there is a break in Communion that breaks our hearts. Jesus Christ comes to restore that Communion with Him to heal our hearts.
- "Original sin begins the moment man distrusts God. The image of the Father who loves and who gives is substituted with that of the avaricious, self-serving Master."
- Satan twists God's Words to us, saying that He is forceful, withholding, and domineering, rather than the loving, merciful Father. When we believe Satan, that is when sin begins.
- Think about caring for young children. We, as adults who have foresight and understanding, provide guidelines because we love them fiercely. It is the same with God.
- God created you to be the person you are. Not to be like your siblings, or like your parents, or like celebrities. He desires you to learn who you are in Him.
- Think about the Samaritan woman at the well. She comes at noon to avoid other people because of her shame. She carries heavy weight, over and over each day, resigned to her current life. This constant "through-the-motions" living forces us to turn our gaze downward to our problems. Jesus was already waiting for her at the well. He knows her story before she speaks, but He doesn't judge her. He gently pulls out her sins in order to heal her.
- "We're only as sick as our secrets."
- Jesus doesn't take away our sins just to return us to the same person we were before. After Christ heals us, we become the person He created us to be.
- There is a reason Jesus calls us to be childlike. They see things differently, think more freely.
- Christ never reveals Himself to anyone, but He does tell the woman at the well. In her joy, she runs to tell everyone in her village and witnesses to them. They all believe because of her, one person.
- Young children keep a security blanket, and they often hide behind them. They may stop playing or socializing because they can't go without them. We are the same way. We keep our secrets because we think they protect us. We think that if we take on the face of perfection that no one will see who we see in the mirror. But God sees us as His beloved children. He knows that no sin can ever unmake the mark of being a child of God.
- Sometimes we are broken, messy, disheveled. But we are beautiful! Because God makes beautiful things!
- It is in ordinary living that we spend most of our lives. Ordinary time is when saints become saints.
- Many of us think of sainthood as extraordinary. Saints' heroic actions don't happen out of nowhere. They serve God and their neighbors everyday.
- When we think of Mary's life, we tend to think of two events: the Annunciation and the Crucifixion. But what about he rest of her life? Most of Mary's life wasn't spent receiving messages from Angels. It was spent in ordinary things, sweeping, doing laundry, praying. She is our model, not on a pedestal, but here in ordinary life. In her everyday living, Mary shows us how to surrender to God in all our actions.
- Mary was able to undergo seeing her Son suffer on the Cross because she had undergone all the small acts that taught her how to be holy, nursing a newborn when she is tired, kissing a boo-boo, sweeping the floor for the 30th time in one day.
- By doing all of our everyday activities for Christ through holiness, He transforms the activities into saintly things. When He transforms those things, He transforms us as well.
- Holiness requires a plan. It may be found in the everyday, but we have to intentionally plan it. We don't just luck out and find it!
- When we ask for baptism, we also ask for holiness.
- So often we give our pursuit of holiness our leftovers. Do we really expect greatness on a starvation diet?
- See your failures as reminders that you need God.
- Mary would have been a model to her neighbors in Nazareth. Her holiness radiated to those around her. How others saw her, that is how I am called to be.
- We can't give birth to Christ Mary did, but we can give birth to His Word.
- She shows us what it means to be a disciple of Christ. She worshipped the Son of God in the little things, like cooking His dinner, changing His diapers, teaching Him to walk. Do your little things to the glory of God.
- Who knows God better than someone who talks to Him every day, as well as His Son, and His daughter and Mother Mary? She knows Him and loves Him.
- We can never love Mary too much, because we can never love her as much as Christ loves her.
- We don't have to try to figure out where Mary fits in. Because she is always there where Jesus is.
- We don't have to stress about forcing a deeper devotion to Mary. She is where she wants to be. Just there, right there with her Son. She doesn't want to take away from God. She doesn't want the spotlight. Just to be present.
- You'll never regret learning more about her, getting to know her.
- No one can grow closer to Jesus without growing closer to Mary. And no one can grow closer to Mary without also growing closer to Jesus. Because she is there beside Him.
- She is your mother, too. Talk to your mother!
- What does it really mean to be "Catholic"?
- What do we mean when we call it the "Holy Mother, our Church"?
- We see the faith as a family: God, our Heavenly Father, the Pope as our earthly father, Mary, our Mother, the saints as our brothers and sisters.
- The architecture of St. Peter's Basilica, the columade is built as the arms of a mother embracing her child.
- Problems within our church families are not new. From the start, people argued about rules, funding, and basic character differences.
- The Church is the Holy Communion with Christ.
- From the beginning of creation, God's plan was to gather us together as a family. Even when Adam and Eve sinned, He put into motion the coming of Jesus. He set into place covenants with His people, sent prophets to tell of His coming, and called holy kings to bring His people together.
- When Jesus preached to the five thousand, the apostles told Him that the people were hungry. He told them, "You feed them." He could have sent bread from heaven, but He chose to work through the apostles, as he continues to work through each one of us today. He also told the apostles later, "Whoever listens to you, listens to me. Whoever does not listen to you, does not listen to me." Again later he says, "Whatever you bind on earth, I will bind in heaven. Whatever to loose on earth, I will loose in heaven." He tells Peter three times, "Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep. Feed my lambs."
- Furthermore, He gives the apostles the Great Commission, and gives them power to baptize others in His name and authority over evil to drive out demons.
- On Resurrection Night, Jesus came to the apostles and told them, "Peace be with you," and breathed on them. He told them, "Whose sins you forgive, I forgive, and whose sins you retain, I retain." The apostles were the first Christian Church and we are their successors.
- It is, most of all, in the Eucharist where we are made a Church body, a family of believers.
- God has written in our hearts a desire for Him, whether we attend church or not. But through the Church, we are lead to Christ.
- The Church can be thought of in an analogy of a boat. Some of us are on the deck. Some are hanging on the side. Some are holding on to a rope on a buoy. It is for us to invite others onto the deck, because it's a much easier ride.
- Each Catholic bishop can trace his "lineage" to one of the 12 apostles. This is definitely ordained by God! Imagine playing the game of telephone! The message barely reaches the next person! But the Lord ordained that Christianity should not only survive, but to thrive!
- The Church's birthday is said to be Pentecost, when Christ breathed the Holy Spirit into the apostles. But the Church also claims Good Friday as its beginning. From the pierced Sacred Heart of Jesus came the first of the Church, just as Eve came from the pierced side of Adam.
- The Church is the spouse of Christ, who is the Mother of all Christians. Scripture tells us, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church." Marriage is like the love and devotion between Christ and His bride the Church. It is the perfect relationship!
- We do not become Christians on our own. It is a gift from God through the Church, who raises us and teaches us as a mother would.
- We, who are called to be daughters of the Church, are also called to be mothers of the Church, for we ARE the Church. Each Christian is meant to be a bride of Christ, daughter, sister, and mother to others.
- Jesus didn't come to humanity just once. He continues to be born into the hearts of believers.
- Be a mother of the soul for our spouses and children. This sometimes means that we must suffer for our spiritual children.
- In Spanish and in Hebrew, the word for wait is the same as he word for hope. As we wait for the Lord, we hope.
- We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, daughters of our Mother, the Church, and mothers of new Christians!
Till next time!
Amy