Holy Hour

Normally on Tuesdays after class I go to Mass then stay on campus to get my homework done, then stay for sip and sign. This past Tuesday I went to Mass in the morning and wasn't going to be staying for sip and sign so I came home right after class and forgot to get my homework done. So I had to go to the library yesterday to get it done because it's due today. I was standing outside waiting for my ride and one of my friends walked by. We started talking and after a while she said to me "I don't know if you know this, but there's a group that has a Holy Hour every Wednesday night at 7:00 at the cathedral if you want to come. Father Steve is speaking." I really wanted to go because I love Father Steve and he moved recently and I hadn't seen him in a while. I was able to make it and it was amazing! There was a reason I was meant to be there.
It was very peaceful and relaxing. Everything that Father said and all the music was really what I needed right now. Father's meditation was about feeling the longing for intimacy and how each one of us longs for intimacy with another. He talked about how if we are dealing with unrequited love we should think about how much love God gives that is unrequited and we should unite that suffering to His suffering. One thing that he said that really stuck was that God doesn't want us to pretend anymore. To me this whole meditation really spoke to me about having to wait to enter the convent. Not directly but in a lot of ways I took it in relation to that. For instance, I feel sometimes like I'm not loving God enough here or that I can't do enough here. How often does God feel like He can't do anything in the lives of the people here on earth?
I guess it just really opened my heart more to being willing to suffer for those in the world. Of course if won't be easy, but I know that God has given me this for a reason and all I need to do is let Him use me.
I've also been struggling a lot still with having to wait, as much as I've come to accept it and be fine with it, it is still very hard. I was very convicted when Father said that God doesn't want us to pretend any more. I think I finally realized that I have been pretending for the past six months that everything is fine and you know what? It's really not. I am having a hard time with everything that happened, and I'm not dealing with it perfectly, but that's okay. I don't need to be perfect, I just need God. God living in me is the only thing that will get me through this all.
After Adoration we hung out for a while in the parish hall. I had a ton of fun, met a lot of new people and felt like I really fit in for the first time. There were three women who remembered me from Nov. retreat with the Dominicans and one of them was wearing her SMME shirt that she won in white elephant on retreat! It was really good to be around people the same age as me who are just as passionate as me about their faith. Plus, the group is called Totus Tuus and I found them the day I started my total consecration to Mary! How amazing is that?

JMJ+

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.

Saint Catherine pray for us.

Nor is the sacrament itself diminished by being divided, any more than is fire, to take an example. If you had a burning lamp and all the world came to you for light, the light of your lamp would not be diminished by the sharing, yet each person who shared it would have the whole light. True, each one's light would be more or less intense depending on what sort of material each brought to receive the fire. I give you this example so that you may better understand me. Imagine that many people brought candles, and one person's candle weighed one ounce, another's more than that, and they all came to your lamp to light their candles. Each candle, the smallest as well as the largest, would have the whole light with all its heat and color and brightness. Still, you would think that the person who carried the one-ounce candle would have less than the one whose candle weighed a pound. Well, this is how it goes with those who receive this sacrament. Each one of you brings your own candle, that is, the holy desire with which you receive and eat this sacrament. Your candle by itself is unlit, and it is lighted when you receive this sacrament. I say it is unlit because by yourselves you are nothing at all. It is I who have given you the candle with which you can receive this light and nourish it within you. And your candle is love, because it is for love that I created you, so without love you cannot have life.

The Dialogue
St. Catherine of Siena

Happy feast day of Saint Catherine.

JMJ+

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.

Hm...

I'm kind of frustrated and scared right now. I'm starting to doubt that I can actually do the whole sign language program. It's really hard and I'm only in the first class right now, it's only going to get more hard. I don't know why He wants me to do this and I'm really scared. I also don't know what difference I'm making here in Lansing. How am I doing more here then in the convent? I don't know if I'm going about sharing my faith with people in the right way. I don't want people to be afraid of me or in awe of me or anything like that. I also don't want people to think my life is perfect because it's not. Yes, on the outside it looks like a very easy life, but that's because everything is on the inside and I don't know how to show what's going on on the inside at all.
But even in the middle of all these doubts and questions, I know one thing, that this is God's will for me right now and He alone will get me through it. I don't know why or when or how or anything like that but I do know that He will and that's what I'm clinging to. One thing I learned from my retreat with the Franciscan Sisters is that confusion is okay! Questions are good. We need to question God so that He can teach us. But we need to question once and then believe! We need confusion but with hope! For without hope confusion turns to anxiety. Don't be afraid of the confusion, it's a normal part of life and everyone needs to deal with it. But deal with it with hope and deal with it with Christ!

JMJ+

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.

A Letter from Mary

When I journal I write down what I hear in the form of letters. This is one I received from Mary on the fourteenth of this month.

My Rose,
You have entrusted your heart and your vocation to me, so let me have them. I will lead you to my son, I've told you this again and again, I will lead you and you will get there. But first you must live a "normal" life on the outside, but on the inside, be radically different. Do not be afraid to be passionately pure and radically in love with my Son for that is what will draw them to Him. Because you are so unassuming in your faith and yet will never let it be shaken you will win many souls to my Son. Always remember that with the call comes the grace and He won't bring you to it if He won't bring you through it. Do not fear that you will lose your vocation because the reason He has you picked for this work is exactly because He knows that He has given you strength and clarity of vision that will enable you to live consecrated in the world for a time without loosing that call to religious life in the convent. That is such a gift!
Your time will come, let me lead you and let Him love you into a big huge beautiful Rose bloom but in the mean time, let us love you as you are, small, pink and beautiful! I love you and I will protect my rose.
~Mama Mary

The story behind calling me her rose is from retreat with the Franciscans this past weekend. On Friday night during Adoration we each had a chance to kneel right in front of the Alter and pray. We were told before Adoration that after we were done praying we should take a rose from a vase under the alter and that that was our rose from Jesus. Most of the flowers were big rose blooms but there were a few that were tiny, just barely pink rose buds. I took one of the pink ones. As I was praying in Adoration God said to me "This flower is your vocation right now. I promise that some day you will be a big beautiful red rose bloom but right now you are still beautiful and you can still spread your fragrance in the world." In Adoration on Monday I was journaling about retreat and when I was done, right before I left, a name popped into my head. Miria Rose. Miria is the Aramaic for Mary so it means Mary's Rose. I totally fell in love with the name and I really believe that she was telling me through that to give my vocation to her. It was in Adoration a few days latter that she gave me this letter. It has been very encouraging and I hope and pray that it will encourage you in some small way as well.
God bless you and keep you in His loving hands

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.

An Act of Love.

I found this prayer in my prayer book and would encourage all of you to start praying it as often as possible for the conversion of America. It is very simple and can be said over and over again many times a day.
"Jesus, Mary, I love you with my whole heart. Save souls."
The first time I prayed this prayer I was in Adoration and Jesus showed me the gates of Purgatory being opened and countless souls being freed. However the prayer isn't just to save souls from Purgatory, it is also to save the souls of those still living. Please, I can't encourage you enough, please say this prayer for the poor lost souls here in America. We need to start battling for our fellow countrymen. We need to repent of our sins and pray for their conversion and repentance.
I would also encourage you to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy daily for this intention.
Prayer and fasting are the most powerful tools we have against Satan. Let us use them!

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.