NunEssential

Wishing all of you a blessed and grace-filled new year. I don't know if you make New Year's Resolutions (i don't, tried it MANY times, just didn't work for me!) but if you do, that's great. One thing I learned many years ago and something that I still do every year on New Year's Eve, is to entrust the coming year to Our Blessed Mother and commend the previous year to her heart as well. I ask her to take care of me and all those who have asked me for prayers and  for whom I have promised to pray. I ask her to receive the graces that I didn't receive because of my failures in the previous year and I ask her to prepare me for the coming year as well. Although we do not know what is on the horizon for us, for our country and for the world this coming year, this might be an opportune time for all of us to dig deeper into learning and living our faith. Take a Bible study, join an adult education class at your parish or take up some spiritual reading on a ...

  http://www.hli.org/store/motherless.html Devouring the new book Motherless by Brian Gail was an amazing experience. The second book in this trilogy gripped me from the opening sentences and once again, the unexpected happens. I found the twists and turns surprising and magnetizing. Set in the present day, the story divulges the latest endeavors of our friends from the first book. We learn where life has taken them, how they have suffered and where they have triumphed. As we all face, these characters will make hard decisions between wealth and morality, notoriety and justice, life and death. And one of them will pay the ultimate price. Its not just the story that is so interesting but what I found most gripping and disturbing was the reality of the issue of reproductive technology. Much of this story deals with the dark side of reproductive technology and Mr. Gail has done an amazing job researching and writing about things that are indeed happening. Technology that ...

Here it is! Finally video footage that nuns must be serious at all times. Click here to see it. ...if you dare.....(he he he....)

Saturday January 15th - Serra Club Fundraiser- St. Joseph's Parish, Vancouver, WA- 6pm Friday January 28th -- Catholic Answers Live Radio Show- heard on your local Catholic radio station or stream live here - 4pm Pacific Time

Here is a video of Taylor Swift singing and playing the piano-- just because she is so lovely!

As I recently (5 minutes ago) wrote about joy- the gift of God that is contentment of the will (possessing a true good), I also wanted to share a little about one of the biggest robbers of joy (aside from anxiety- listen to our radio show for that one!) which is self-pity. We all, from time to time, experience the feeling of self-pity, where something seemingly or truly unfortunate has happened, and we find ourselves a victim in need of sympathy. Many times this is a normal reaction to certain situations until we can gain since distance from them and assess them more closely. However, if we find we struggle with chronic self-pity, there are some things we might want to take a look at because as long as self-pity rules our emotions, thoughts and actions, we will never be able to fully embrace the gift of joy (because our spiritual "hands" will be full of negative things) How do you know if you struggle with self-pity? Here is a definition: Self-pity or " feeling sorry...

During this Christmas season , we hear many songs and much talk about joy. "Joy to the World", we sing at Church and often people wish one another "joy and peace" during this time. But often, I don't see too many people full of joy. People get upset if they didn't get "what they wanted" on Christmas day and trying to navigate through a big city during the Christmas season can be anything but "joyful." and this got me thinking, "what is joy, anyway?" As i dove further into this mystery, I realize that I often confuse pleasure with joy. Let's investigate.... CatholicReference.net defines pleasure as: The satisfaction that accompanies the exercise of a human faculty. Depending on the faculty used, there are different kinds of pleasure, namely, sensuous or intellectual. Is pleasure a bad thing? In and of itself, absolutely not. God gave us pleasure as a gift to enjoy the things of life. We enjoy reading a good book...

I came across this new song by country singer Carrie Underwood written to her mother. She calls it "Mama's Song" and the video features Carrie's mother, new husband and family photos. Very, very touching. Enjoy :) (and grab a box of tissues ;) )

Wishing all of you a very blessed and holy Christmas season and also a joy-filled New Year. As a new adventure dawns with the rising sun every day, may you know the love of Jesus and Mary. May they grant you peace and hope, now and always.

This is a VERY beautiful song by Mercy Me entitled, Joseph's Lullaby . Wow, it moved me to tears. I think so often we relegate the personhood of St. Joseph, as if he wasn't a real man with real desires and a real love as a father to Jesus. This is a delightful song- a song of a father singing to his baby son.

Here is an article that appeared in The Progress , the Archdiocese of Seattle's newspaper. It features more details about Archbishop Sartain's Installation Mass and some excerpts from his amazing homily.

ok, this is just WRONG! (I would say that it's just getting "wronger" but that's not a word...) Why are we as humans so arrogant as to think we can play with human life, categorize it, separate it from its natural environment, mix and match it and then bar code it and think it's ok? Yikes. Scary stuff. This ending quote of this article says it all- “The embryos develop normally and once we’ve perfected everything, they will lose the code after implantation," she told FoxNews.com. "So you won’t be producing a baby with code on it,” she said. Read about it: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/13/tag-human-embryos-bar-codes/#ixzz183UXW3zI

I heard this BEAUTIFUL Christmas song on the radio and wanted to post it for you. The lyrics are deep and meaningful and the person who made this video uses some powerful imagery. This song is called How Many Kings and is written and performed by a group named Downhere Breathe this one in......

I just wanted to post the words of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego, as he was concerned about many things when she appeared to him. Please allow these words to sink into your heart and soul, because she is speaking to all of us, all of her children. “L isten and let it penetrate your heart…do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mo the r? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is the re anything else you need?”  How she loves us! :)

Happy Feast Day to our beautiful Mother and Patroness of the Americas, Our Lady of Guadalupe. If you don't know much about the image of Our Lady or how it came to be, please READ about it here.  It is no coincidence that in this time in history, when the skies are growing dark and truth is being challenged on ever increasing levels, that we have been given a Mother to protect us. The name Guadalupe, as she referred to herself,  is a shrine in Spain but it also sounds very much like the phrase "she who crushes the serpent" in the native dialect of Juan Diego, the simple man whom Our Lady appeared to in 1531. Sometimes people relegate this special love for Our Lady of Guadalupe as a Hispanic devotion, since she appeared in Mexico but this not a geographical affection. Our Mother has been declared by two Popes as the Patroness of the Americas and she is very, very powerful. There are so many amazing things within the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, so many profoun...

Looking for a good movie to see over the Christmas season? I don't usually do movie reviews and I am not always a fan of animated movies but I recently saw a movie that might be worth your while. I am going to talk about the plot within this blog post so I am giving you a SPOILER ALERT! :) if you don't want to know what happens...well, maybe I will just talk about the beautiful themes of the movie without revealing everything, so you can go and experience it for yourself. Disney just released an animated movie entitled "Rapunzel." Perhaps we all know that traditional story of the girl with the long hair who locked in a tower, awaiting her rescue-- but Disney gives it just a little different flavor and perhaps without realizing it, they creators of the movie delve into realities that speak deeply to the heart of every human being. So the story goes that as a little girl, born to the King and Queen, Rapunzel has the gift of magic, healing hair. Whenever she sings...

Today, we received a new Shepherd of the Church in Seattle, WA. Archbishop J. Peter Sartain was officially installed during a beautiful two hour Mass at St. James Cathedral in downtown Seattle. Within the cathedral it was standing room only as people watched and listened attentively to their new shepherd proclaim the word of God. As he officially accepted his new position and took his seat on the cathedra (the Bishop's chair) every person in the cathedral stood and applauded for nearly 5 minutes. It was a beautiful sight to behold. There was such joy within those walls today. I am including a link to the Seattle Times article about the Mass, which features video portions of the celebration.  (Please note as you read the article that is written for a secular audience so consider that accordingly) Archbishop Sartain, you are in our prayers!!  :)