Waiting With Mary through Advent and Dating: Guest Post from Brooke

Brooke and I bonded this summer over hearts for ministry and Catholic wedding planning (she dreams of having her own planning business one day!) and the fact that we were wearing the same sandals when we met for coffee.  She's been dating her love, Timothy, since high school, and we've talked about the difficulty of waiting for engagement and marriage when your season in life, namely college, just doesn't make getting engaged the most practical idea for a while.  My story is pretty different; when Andrew proposed, we'd been friends for about a year and a half and boyfriend and girlfriend for only eight months.  So, having come from a different side of dating, I always enjoy and admire stories of couples who have known each other for years before falling in love and who are faced with a significant time of waiting before being able to start their married life together.  Brooke blogs at Something to Behold, where she shares her life as a college senior, her spiritual journey, and her majorly enviable style.  I promise you'll love her site, and her wisdom that follows here:

Advent is all about waiting. But more than that, it is about waiting well. Its funny; I was incredibly resistant to all things Advent this year, and I am just now figuring out why. This Advent was one of my worst as far as my spiritual life goes. My prayer life had no significant changes or increases; I  read zero reflections on the birth of Christ, did zero devotions, and barely even listened to Christmas music. More than just being resistant to getting more seriously into this Advent season, I was resistant to even wanting to try. 

This is new for me.  Usually when I’m at a low point in my spiritual life, I at least want to want it. But almost all of Advent, I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t even want to want Advent. And I think it is precisely because Advent is all about “waiting.” And I am tired of waiting.

Timothy and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary in October. We started dating when we were 16, and by 18, we knew  God was calling us to the vocation of marriage. We’re both 21 now, and on some level it feels like we’ve been waiting since we were 18 for our lives to truly begin. 

Don’t get me wrong. God has been so so good to us over these past four years we’ve been in college and has blessed us with joys and challenges that have helped us grow in so many ways. Still, there is something really hard in knowing what you're called to and then being asked to wait at least 4 years for that to be a reality. And if I’m being really honest with myself, I have not been my best self with waiting for God’s plan to unfold this past semester. I have not been asking God to continue to reveal to me the value in waiting, or to use this time of my life for His greater glory, or to help further prepare Timothy and I’s relationship for the vocation I’m so impatient for. Instead, most of the time I’ve been complaining and begging God to let the waiting be over.

So when Advent came this year and the Church asked me to reflect on what it means to wait, I said “um, no thank you.” It wasn’t until the phrase “We wait with Mary” crept into my mind, in a way I was somehow forced to listen to, that this resistance that I had towards Advent and waiting finally broke down, which occurred two days before Christmas. This phrase reminded me of an Imagination Prayer I once did from a book titled “Quiet Places with Mary.” This particular prayer asked me to imagine what the time between Mary’s Annunciation and Joseph’s Dream must have been like for her. 

Mary had no idea what Joseph’s response would be, what her life would look like, or exactly how God’s plan would unfold. She simply had to wait. And as I sat in this prayer, all I could imagine is that it must have been the presence of Christ in her womb that gave her the strength to wait and to trust in the will of God. At the end of my prayer, I felt Mary pointing me towards the Eucharist. I remember thinking, “If the presence of Christ in the womb of Mary sustained her in her time of waiting, then the presence of Christ in the Eucharist can sustain me.”

Remembering this prayer was exactly what I needed to not completely waste my Advent season. Instead, on the last two days of Advent and now for the rest of this Christmas season, I am remembering the inseparable connection between celebrating the birth of Christ and the Eucharist. Mary, who adored the Body of Christ in her womb, adores Him at every Mass in the Eucharist. She continues to guide us into adoration of her son, not just before the manger scene, but also before every Tabernacle. It is Mary I will continue to turn to as I struggle with this time of my life that feels so characterized by waiting.  By her example, hopefully I can learn what it truly means to “wait well.”

Thanks so much, Brooke!  Any other longtime daters out there?  I'd love to hear your stories and insights into developing a patient heart during times of waiting.

 

The Truth of Discernment and Vocation: Guest Post from Jiza

Jiza and I connected a few years ago when I was doing this every Sunday.  We found out we had a few friends in common from the Theology of the Body Institute, as well as shared hearts for ministry through beauty and Marian devotion.  I'm so inspired by her quietly devout spirituality and her artistic flair.  She and I have a new project in the works that I can't wait to share with you soon!  Meantime, please pray for our creative process as our project gets underway, check out Jiza's gorgeous photography business, Olive & Cypress (where you'll find more of her reflections), and enjoy this here piece of her heart.  I asked her to share some of her love story and spiritual journey; read on for her beautiful insights into walking the path to your vocation.

“My God, since I am not worthy to be Your Spouse like my sister, I shall enter the married state to accomplish Your holy will...” – Saint Zelie Martin, Mother of Saint Therese of Lisieux

Much like Saint Zelie, I had originally thought I was called to be a religious sister.  Throughout my years of college undergrad, I had mentally prepared for the day I would enter & start my postulancy after finally receiving my degree in psychology. However, as my entrance date drew near, the numerous doors started to close, and like most college students, I began the typical journey of looking for a job and living a life as a young professional.

In the summer of 2008, I was a volunteer photographer for the Bike for Life Pilgrimage in the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a peaceful 2 weeks, but my future was still heavy upon my heart. I had just been through a failed dating relationship, was getting ready to quit my job as a special education itinerant in VA, and was eagerly awaiting a reply on an internship application for the Theology of the Body Institute in Exton, PA. As far as I knew, my life at the time was looking really unknown.

The pilgrimage ended on Feast of the Assumption, August 15, at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. As the pilgrims were preparing to go our separate ways and back into everyday lives, Fr. Lawrence, a then newly ordained priest with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, asked me if he could pray for me and if I had any intentions. I replied very matter-of-factly: “I thought I was called to be a religious. And then I had a dating relationship and that didn’t work out either. I don’t know what God is calling me to do anymore.”

He replied, “Entrust everything to Our Lady. Place it in the hands of Mary and she will open doors. She always leads us to Christ and to God’s Will.” “Entrust everything to Mary,” he kept repeating. Then he paused and looked at me intently and said “And I have a feeling that you will find out what that is very soon.”

I did just that, and well… Fr. Lawrence was right. A couple of weeks later, I soon met my husband, Mark. Actually, we were re-aquatinted online (via-CatholicMatch.com) but we had originally met at a Theology on Tap just a couple of months beforehand. We had a prayerful courtship while he finished his final year at the United States Naval Academy and during my internship at the Theology of the Body Institute. That early January we were engaged.

Later that month, I bumped into Fr. Lawrence at the annual March for Life in Washington D.C. When I spotted him, I quickly ran to him and asked him if he had remembered the advice he had given me. He said “Yes! How is that going for you?” I eagerly threw up my left hand and yelled “I’m engaged!” After a congratulations and a hug, he then asked me “So, when is the wedding?” Without a thought, I blurted “August 15”, a date that Mark and I had mindlessly and quickly decided on the day before due to his deployment schedule. 

“That’s the Feast of the Assumption. Exactly a year from when I told you to entrust everything to Our Lady,” Fr. Lawrence said.

In a crowd with millions of people on the way to the Capitol Building, a silence fell upon me and Fr. Lawrence in that moment. We just stood there, stunned. Then the tears of joy started to well up in both of our eyes along with a burst of laughter.

I honestly don’t remember how Fr. Lawrence and I parted ways that day. I want to say that our original groups that we were accompanying for the March had caught up to us. However, what I do remember is the peace that overcame me and that never left me. I wasn’t searching for a confirmation or a sign regarding my vocation to the married life with Mark because the peace and the knowing was already there. However, God gave me one anyways. Perhaps because He knew I would often look back at that moment to reflect on His Love for me and the intricate part that Mary, with her Immaculate Heart full of love, always desires to point us to her Son, Jesus.

Today, younger women will sometimes ask me how I discerned my vocation. Bill Donaghy of the Theology of the Body Institute said it best, in that “The truth of vocation is that it’s a dialogue, not a monologue. A dance more than a cold directive.”  In the beginning, my vocation discernment was overzealous and self-centered. I was blind in the fact that I just wanted God to dictate to me what He wanted, rather than what I should have been doing all along, which was--is--to surrender myself daily in love to Him, and with a willingness and docility to grow in my relationship with Him.

Love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being (St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, n. 11). Vocations are “peculiar to persons, and the very concept takes us into a very interesting and profound area of man’s interior life… A person who has a vocation must not only love someone but be prepared to give himself or herself for love… ‘What is my vocation’ means ‘in what direction should my personality develop, considering what I have in me, what I have to offer, and what others – other people and God – expect of me?’” (St. John Paul II, Love & Responsibility, p. 256).

Sometimes, I wish I could go back and tell my 22 year old self to not be so easily disheartened, assuming that she would have been willing to listen. However, I also know that my conversation with Fr. Lawrence on that faithful day was the catalyst for me realizing that my vocation is not about me, but about something greater than me. It is about Love and Love itself.

Entrust everything to Mary.

Thanks so much, Jiza!  Feeling inspired by her total surrender to Our Lady? If you missed it, click here for a roundup of Marian posts.  Have a wonderful weekend; I'd love to know what you're up to!

"My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord:" A Marian Post Roundup

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception, y'all.  Mary, under this title, is the patroness of my alma mater (and I know I'm biased, but really, given the name, the history, and the saintly children of Our Lady who've walked the grounds--Elizabeth Ann Seton being one of them--is there a school out there more suited to the term "loving mother?), and on this day in the past few years, I've had several extraordinary, transcendent times that bore tremendous joy and one exceedingly crappy, spiritual warfare-ridden time that ended in a breakdown.  Each of them, I know, regardless of my emotional state, has been the result of binding myself to our mother in Heaven (more on that below), a promise that has borne such fruit in my spiritual life and my marriage and that I'd never take back, even when the battles are on.

So between those things, this day of Mary's conception, the day she was formed to crush the head of evil and to illuminate our path to her son, is one of the most meaningful days in the Church for me.  In honor of her, to whom I'm immeasurably grateful to belong entirely,  here's a collection of posts from the archives on all things Marian:

In which I call Mary a badass (sorry, just trying to capture the right sentiment!), and why there's nothing more beautiful than a man in love with Our Lady

One of the first posts I ever wrote, on looking to Our Lady when you're struggling with beauty and self-worth

Why consecrating myself to Mary was one of the scariest, best things I ever did 

An awesome, self-guided book to prepare for Marian Consecration

How meditating on Our Lady's identity as an earthly mother to Christ can ease some of the insecurities of pregnancy

The exhilarating, sometimes terrifying (but always, always worth it) beauty of loving like Mary and Simeon at the Presentation

What about you?  I'd love to know what this day means to your spirituality and how you're walking with Our Lady this Advent!  Thoughts?

Advent & Christmas Roundup: Presents, Presence, Music, and Lying in Wait

Happy Advent!  Though we're still in this first week of anticipation for Christ's birth, I can't help wondering this year what life must have been like for Mary right after Jesus was born.  I mean, their family basically invented Christmas, so I don't expect she experienced the holiday FOMO I get touches of now and then as we navigate life with a newborn Lily, but the feeling of being united to Our Lady in motherhood, in all its good and exhaustion, has been on my heart a lot.

In the spirit of this sacred time, I present to you my collection of Advent and Christmas posts past with the hope that these pieces inspire your relationship traditions, gift-giving, and help settle the restlessness that engagement and marriage prep can bring:

How chastity and waiting for marriage is kind of like waiting for Christmas

2013 Gift Guide for guys, girls, couples, and hostesses

A Christmas and winter playlist worthy of listening for Bebo Norman alone

6 gorgeously wintry alternatives to fresh flowers for your bouquet

DIY salt dough ornaments and other decorations from our inferiorly lit first apartment

More Bebo and a classic suggestion for reception cocktail music at a holiday wedding

5 ways to seek holy silence during this time when our salvation grew in the silence of Mary's womb

2012 Gift Guide: classics for the men in your life

Also:

Andrew's Christmas cookie specialty, to which we add a 1/2 teaspoon of mint extract

A sweet (as in killer, not as in saccharine) monstrance-style tree topper you can make yourself

Cozy inspiration for a Christmas card photo or cold-weather engagement sesh

Pope Benedict's beautiful-yet-challenging 2012 Christmas Eve homily, intended, I think, to make us uncomfortable for the better

I'll let you take it from here: I love hearing about other couples' family and religious Christmas traditions, about obscure new covers of old favorite hymns, and about what gifts are at the top of your wish list!  Share away!

Love Notes: Men and Mary

{small ways to show great love}

 from my Insta

When I was in high school, I'd spend the time before going to sleep ticking off on my fingers the qualities I wanted to find in my future husband: I hoped he'd be, in no particular order, funny, musical, a reader, from a big family, and naturally, handsome.  As time passed and my spiritual life flourished, my list started changing.  Actually, I still prayed for all those things, but meeting and marrying a man of deep faith pushed things like "able to make me laugh" from the top spots on the list.  Specifically, I hoped that my husband would have a relationship with Our Lady.

Suffice it to say I'm blessed beyond measure to have found all these qualities and more in Andrew.  When we started dating, he told me how starting to do a daily Rosary had brought order and peace to his life at a time when he knew he was wandering from the path of virtue and true masculinity he so deeply strove for.  Nighttime Rosary walks around our college campus quickly became a ritual we loved, and I can so clearly remember the clarity I sensed with our prayer.  Within a few months, we talked together about feeling such a healing from past sins against chastity and such a certainty and purity in the start of our relationship.  Eventually, it was after a Rosary walk that Andrew asked me to be his wife.  We chose a line from the Memorare, "before thee we kneel," for the inscription in our wedding rings.

To me, there is nothing more attractive, more admirable, and more masculine than a man in love with the Blessed Mother.  It seems easy sometimes to think of Mary as pious and quiet--the image of a docile woman--what with all the statues of her serenely holding baby lambs and things.  A friend of mine has told me before that as a man, it's not the piety and docility that draw him in.  "Mary can be a badass," he said (pardon the language; I just felt like I had to say it for the full effect).  Think the Battle of Lepanto.  Her love can be stern at times, even to Jesus at Cana, yet like any mother, she knows so well what each of her children's hearts needs at different times.  I myself think it's also important to consider her fullness of humanity and what I like to think must have been a rich emotional life: a pure-hearted passion for her husband, an abiding love for her son, and an emptying to the depths of her being at the foot of the Cross.  She is so alive, and can truly show a man how to love his bride, by loving her and imploring her intercession.

St. Louis de Montfort described devotion to Mary as being "Our Lady's slave," an image that's understandably uncomfortable across 400 years and an entirely different culture.  When I first heard it my freshman year of college, I was kind of freaked out, honestly--I was just starting to learn more about the faith and was considering Marian consecration.  To discover that Mary wanted to chain me to her for eternity didn't exactly seem loving, let alone pleasant.

I'm glad I heard out the explanation of the language, and am grateful for the grace of developing a devotion to her.  Now, when I think of being chained to Our Lady, I don't think of it as a burden, or a literal ball and chain.  Instead, it brings me deep comfort to know I'm forever tethered to her.  It's impossible for her to let me go, even if I try; by grace alone, she's always pulling me back to her and into a deeper love for her son.

That said, how can you cultivate a deeper devotion to Mary, especially during this, her month?  Make a habit of praying the rosary with your fiancé or husband each time you're together, even if it's just one decade.  Hang an image or icon in your home.  Do something celebratory, like a really nice dessert, on Marian feast days (I really want to explore living liturgically!).  And, consider consecrating yourself to her as a couple.  I made my consecration 7 years ago, and Andrew did it with his family when he was really young, and we're considering renewing them together for our anniversary in a couple months (you can read about my consecration experience here, and about a fantastic consecration preparation here).

What about you?  Tell me about your experiences with inviting Our Lady into your prayer life and into your relationship!  Do you have any Marian traditions?  Any stories about how she's shaped your love story or yours or your fiancé's lives?  I'm all ears!

Return To Me: Thoughts on Blogging, Babies, and the Blessed Mother

Back on Friday, I was so excited to start bringing this blog back from the dead, and truly I am.  At the time my most recent post went up, Andrew and I had just gotten home from spending the night in the hospital with our sweet baby boy.

In the middle of the night last Wednesday, Aaron started screaming hysterically in his sleep, on and off for about three hours.  It sounded clear to us that he was experiencing either a good amount of pain or of fear, but since he didn't wake, we chalked it up to a night terror sort of thing.  I figured I'd let him sleep the morning away and then end up with a happy, well-rested baby, but after Andrew left for work around sunrise, Aaron continued screaming on and off, then began throwing up continually, like the more-than-typical-spit-up variety.  The more he puked, the greener it got, which Google told me indicates bile loss and is fairly serious.  After trying not to panic and calling the pediatrician, off we headed to the emergency room. As I was packing up to leave, Aaron was completely listless--no eye contact, no nursing (his refusal to eat was what started to really concern me) no interaction at all, and my baby who ordinarily fights sleep with all his heart wanted to do nothing but sleep. I thought we were in the clear after he finally nursed for a few minutes near the end of our ER stay (this was before I knew we were about to be admitted to the regular pediatric ward), but no sooner had he finished than up came some more green and out came some blood in his diapers, three in a row.

All that bile loss and bloody poop resulted in an IV drip, ultrasounds, an X-ray, and ultimately, an overnight stay in the hospital for my poor little man.  Andrew and I agreed it was one of the scariest experiences of our lives (and my husband almost took out a doctor in his frustration).  Thanks be to God, Aaron accepted some Pedialyte that evening, slowly perked up again, and eventually started nursing again during the night.  Amazingly, whatever sickness this was seems to have been a quick-hitting virus, and my baby has been contentedly eating and sleeping away and seems even smilier than before.  I told my sister-in-law this weekend that as long and as difficult a day it was, Aaron's easy recovery has almost made me forget about it already, not in the sense of willfully blocking it out, but just in the sense of gratitude for such a speedy return to his normal, happy demeanor.

Why am I talking about my baby's poop and vomit and clumsily trying to connect it to my blog?  I mentioned Friday that writing my manuscript has coincided with having a newborn, and both of those things have taken priority over blogging, rightfully so, over the past few months.  I'm excited to return to more regular posts, but at the same time I've felt a little guilty just wanting to hop on the computer the second Aaron falls asleep, and I've missed my other hobbies, too.  Mamas who dash off daily posts and birth stories just days after getting home from the hospital, I salute you and you better believe I gobble up those birthin' tales.  For me though, I've come to prefer and be at peace with way less screen time than I've had lately, and if that means more time with my menfolk then I'll gladly take it.

So this is a return to my blog, but in a moderate way.  The other night in the hospital, nursing Aaron in the chair we slept in (all. night.), I was thinking how, as crummy and scary a situation as we were in, my sense of presence felt renewed, and being present, without all the usual distractions I surround myself with while nursing or generally taking care of him, is so freeing for me.  All I needed to do at the moment was feed my baby, hold him, and let him get better.

Much as I love the Rosary, I'm honestly kind of delinquent about it a lot of the time, but have made efforts to recommit myself to it this Lent.  Something about this being my first Lent with a son, I feel like I've been able to see through Mary's eyes in a new way--the closeness, the deep love, and yes, the shared sorrow, between her heart and Jesus' is a new revelation for me.  In each mystery, she is present and is loving her son in the profound way of feeling every emotion and experience the person you love is feeling, to the same degree they are.  I get it now (and I'm sure I'd feel pretty similarly if I had a daughter, since the love of a mother and child is so powerful regardless of whether it's a boy or girl).  I think Our Lady has been pulling me back to her these last few weeks, out of my spiritual laziness and into a different, deeper knowledge of her heart, and I'm so thankful for that grace.  And so I return.

Mamacitas, I'd be so interested to hear your take on sharing time between your blog baby and your baby-baby!  Thoughts?

Pierced: Thoughts On the Presentation

Okay, first of all, how do you mamas do it?  Taking care of a baby and a blog ain't no small thing.  I've been at peace lately with posting less often, as I take the time to work on my book and spend as much time as I can with my sweet boy.  I figure the internet will always be there, but I only get my Aaron at two months, then three months, and every month after for such a short time in his life.  Add that to a general lack of much inspiration, and I've been feeling like I'd rather stay quiet, and be alright with it, than be stressing myself out trying to come up with new posts.

Moving on.  Until yesterday, I'd had no idea the Feast of the Presentation involves the blessing of candles, that it only falls on a Sunday every seven years, or even that it's also called the Feast of the Encounter, commemoration Simeon's wonder-filled encounter with Christ.

Maybe it's my lack of knowledge that had me grasping at nothing for a long time when it came to meditating on the Presentation during the Rosary, until a few years ago.  In the Marian prayer group I belonged to in college, we spent one meeting meditating on this mystery, the Presentation, through Our Lady's experience.  Specifically, Simeon prophesies to Mary, "you yourself a sword will pierce" (Luke 2:35).

It's a beautiful but scary thought, meditating on the Presentation this way--I'd pray, Jesus, Mary, pierce my heart.  Break me open; break my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh…but don't break me too much.  In my mind, since Simeon's prophesy foretold Mary's pain at the foot of the Cross, the joy of Jesus' welcoming into the community was overshadowed by sorrow.  Suffering brings so much grace, but I had a lot of trouble understanding why such a promise would classify as joyful.

I think it wasn't until becoming a mama myself, and reconsidering the Presentation as told to me in yesterday's homily, that I could really see the joy.  Letting your heart be broken open, letting yourself be pierced, so often bears a deeper love and deeper understanding--it's a closer, deeper encounter, I can see now, with Jesus Himself.  Of course, I thought, a mother's love for her child runs so deep that she'd feel any of his pain as if she were experiencing it herself.  Of course their hearts are so closely united to the point of tears.

But, that closeness doesn't go away in times of joy.  If anything, I'm thinking, two hearts can be united in joy as much as in trial.  Being broken open doesn't necessarily mean being heartbroken, just being brought deeper into the love of Christ and into the heart of another person.  Jesus, Mary, break down the walls of my heart that I might come to know you more.  Bring me into deeper and deeper communion with you, with my husband, and my baby.  Let my heart be brought to life by your living flesh.  Amen.

Thoughts?  I love learning about the Rosary and would be so glad to hear any additional knowledge or reflections you have.  And by all means, if you have any advice on parenting and blogging at the same time, share away!

The Woman and The Serpent

At just about 9 months pregnant (I'll be full term on Monday!), I think I'm only now becoming able to articulate the thought that's been swirling around in my head for the past few months.  Over the summer, I started to notice a more and more frequent sense of heaviness on my heart.  Maybe part of it was the insanity of a 300 mile move and the temptation to despair when a lot of details Andrew and I had planned and anticipated ended up falling through or changing, but I think there's been something else at work, too.

Way back in the early days of this blog, I wrote about my first encounter with spiritual warfare during my engagement.  During the year I worked as a chastity speaker while planning my wedding, my purity came under attack big time.  I realized something that year, and I'm realizing it again now: Satan's enmity for woman, the hatred that began in the Garden, affects brides in a certain way.  Authentic beauty and purity shine so clearly in comparison to the lies of artifice and lust that the world packages and presents to us, so why wouldn't the evil one strike constantly at our sense of beauty when it goes to the core of who we are?  It can be so easy sometimes to feel like your weight and your looks aren't enough, and chastity before marriage can be such a battle.

A few years later, I'm feeling some of the same attacks on who I am as a woman.  I really have been blessed with a healthy and pretty easy pregnancy, but it's still hard, more and more often, not to feel huge and clumsy when I can't get out of the car or sit up in bed without help, not to be frustrated with my increasingly limited wardrobe and my belly when I look at magazines and clothes catalogs, and not to hate the stretch marks that suddenly started zebra-ing their way down one of my legs.  I need to remind myself often (and, thanks be to God, I'm constantly reminded by my sweet, affirming, and truthful hubby) that regardless of how I'm feeling physically or how I perceive my appearance, my body is doing something amazing and something beautiful in growing and caring for our son before he's even born.  I have a really strong sense that it's the same way the evil one came after me when I was engaged; authentic womanhood and motherhood are such enemies of his.

Engaged ladies?  Mamas?  Do you ever feel this way?  Being a bride and being a mother can come with such a spiritual struggle when you're down on yourself.  All of it goes back to Our Lady, I think.  She is a perfect bride, virginal, beautiful, and completely integrated in her body and soul, and a perfect mother, a holy dwelling place for the Lord.   So Satan's constantly after her, and her children, but of course, she can't be touched.  If only it were that easy for us...

I love statues of Mary where she's crushing the head of the serpent beneath her feet.  As hard as it is, and as resistant as I have to admit I usually am, I know that clinging to her during my times of self-doubt and attack are graces in themselves.  Please pray for me.  Even as I wrote this post over the last few days, I had a hard time, not with being honest but with just feeling peace.  I noticed a greater sense of impatience and frustration with myself and even a feeling of self-loathing and despair for feeling that way in the first place; it's a feeling I know wasn't of the Lord.

St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote, "to come closer to her, to become like her, to permit her to reign over our hearts and our whole being, that she live and ace in us and through us, that she love God with our hearts, and we belong to her unreservedly; this is our Ideal.  That her life might grow deeper in us from day to day, from hour to hour, from moment to moment, and without limits: This is our Ideal."  Amen.