Another New Friend

Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints!

I started reading the Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska on Sunday and every day of reading has been endless fun:

"One day, tired out from all these uncertainties, I asked Jesus, "Jesus are You my God or some kind of phantom? Because my superiors say that there are all sorts of illusions and phantoms. If you are my Lord, I beg you to bless me." Then Jesus made a big sign of the cross over me and I, too, signed myself. When I asked pardon of Jesus for this question, He replied that I had in no way displeased Him by this question and that my confidence pleased Him very much" (54)

The way St. Faustina talks reminds me so much of myself- I always used to bother myself with writing pretty prose or prayers- or just being really formal- in my journal to Jesus (He has since told me that He wants to hear what I say to Him...who woulda thought)- starting a sentence with "because" just seems to me to be a really 6th grade girl thing to do- I do it all the time when I'm rambling- but I love that she does it too! Not that she doesn't write beautifully, but it's so very human!

"O life so dull and monotonous, how many treasures you contain! When I look at everything with the eyes of faith, no two hours are alike, and the dullness and monotony disappear. The grace which is given this hour will not be repeated in the next. It may be given me again, but it will not be the same grace. Time goes on, never to return again. Whatever is enclosed in it will never change; it seals with a seal for eternity" (62)

A Few Things

Below is a picture of Joseph holding his bedtime snack tonight, a decadent dairy treat: hot cocoa with whipped cream on top. He even sprinkled a little cocoa powder on the whipped cream to make it fancy.

Why do I tell you this? Well, I've been looking for a replacement for whipped cream that didn't involve buckets of chemicals and partially hydrogenated oils- the search, I hope, isn't hopeless, but I have found a way to make a fancy, foamy dessert drink- behold!
Yes, the cup says "dream"- DREAM COME TRUE! It's just soymilk! You can't whip soymilk! Well, apparently you can- I did it while it was heating in a pan. I whipped it with an electric mixer over a medium flame (scorched soymilk tastes really weird- so heat gently)- when I was done I had heaps of foam that I could pick up with my fingers and dollop on my mug. Careful not to whip too much- it can all turn into foam and trust me, it really doesn't deflate.
I mixed in maple syrup, cinnamon, and cardamom- it was really good. Just like the fancy coffee place that made steamed foamy soymilk for me with their fancy machine- only I don't have a fancy machine! Further proof that not being able to have milk really isn't that bad.

And then...

As I was taking the above pictures off our camera I came across this video. I loaded it on my computer not knowing what to expect. This... is my family:

Don't ask me how Joseph make that sound at the end... he doesn't even know.

Awesomeness

Praised be Jesus Christ!

It seems I'm going to be pushed out of the blog-light by THESE TWO. Yes, my brothers have started their own blog... a place for awesomeness.

You Dolphins and All Water Creatures...

...BLESS THE LORD!

Yep, my boyfriend is the best. This past Thursday was my birthday and when Tony came home for break he gave me three fantastic fish!

On the container he gave them to me in, he pasted the words from the three young men not burning in fiery furnace in the book of Daniel: "You dolphins and water creatures, bless the Lord"! Very appropriate. So I appropriately named them Shaddrack, Mishack, and Abendego. I know, I know- fish die easily and quickly- but for now, they are lovely and delightful and I think they are certainly blessing the Lord!

No Limits

"Your Holy Will is the life of my soul"

-St. Maria Faustina

Blessed be God forever!

I've been struggling these past few weeks with the kind of trials that leave a bad taste in your mouth. They're like when you wake up all hot with that moist feeling behind your ears and for some reason you can't take a shower- it's that type of feeling. Something you feel like you should just ignore but feels gross. Some of these are feelings like 'God won't love me unless I pick up every scrap of paper that I see and do all the dishes even when it's time to go to bed'- and the feeling that I don't deserve to be happy and in fact I shouldn't be happy, if I'm happy there's something wrong with me and something that I should be giving up so that I'm miserable. I shouldn't sit in the SUN and read, I should sit on the floor and mortify my weak flesh for wanting to be warm and comfortable and my weak mind for wanting to enjoy something.

Obviously, these are faulty lines of thinking.

As a side note to what I'm about to say, I've noticed that on Sundays I always go through some sort of depression, anger or some other form of having a "bad day"- does this happen to you? In college it was every Sunday- really got triggered by our house dinners too. It's become very VERY clear to me over the past few years and months that the devil REALLY hates God. He hates everything about God- he hates everything God made- he hates me and wants me to hate God and hates you and wants to make you suffer in torment for all of eternity. HATE!!! He's spent a long time festering in hate looking for every possible opportunity there might be to make us hate God or at least make us indifferent to Him so that we have no chance of being happy or fulfilled in life. Consequently, the devil hates Sundays because it's the Lord's day. So next time you feel grumpy on Sunday or think that you're supposed to be miserable or that you don't deserve to be loved (when I say that out loud it sounds so ridiculous... how could God want us to be miserable and unloved?) REMEMBER THIS:

GOD HAS NO LIMITS!!!

In less than a poof the devil is absolutely powerless against God. We humans are very humble creatures, but that just shows us that we ALREADY depend on God so much for everything so why do we not let Him lavish His love on us? Why do we insist on taking care of our problems ourselves? God is crazy- absolutely crazy- and crazy about you! Can you even conceive of infinite love? I can't. That's why I resist it I suppose- I'm so used to being hurt, why wouldn't God hurt me? Well, because He loves you so much that he SWOONS at every hair on your neck, He gives you millions of nerves so that you can feel AIR MOVING, He will more than bend over backwards to fix your stupid problem that you created and you really regret. And yes, He still loves you when you're imperfect. Sigh. Big one for me. I don't get it but I guess I don't have to. God doesn't limit how much love we get, only we do. God doesn't limit how much forgiveness we receive, only we do. God doesn't limit His mercy or His gifts- even in the Bible He didn't do many miracles in places that had little faith. It wasn't that they weren't worth doing miracles for- I mean those people still had babies (SUPER MIRACLE!) and scads of other everyday miracles, but they limited Him by their lack of faith.

So pray for me, and pray for your friends, that we would not place limits on God- we have Him in amazing ways (cough, the EUCHARIST) and we have every reason to die out of sheer excitement for what He's done. So let yourself! Lord open us up!

Oh, and this is what lent is all about, by the way.

"The really unforgivable sin is the denial of sin, because, by it's nature, there is now nothing to be forgiven."

Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Peace of Soul, 71

I'd just like to say...

My boyfriend kisses bishop's rings. I love him. HAHA!

Yes, I know I'm a total Catholic nerd- but it's like the best kind! You get to do things like chant and get excited over unbleached beeswax candles and look sideways and smile when the priest uses an extra fancy chalice on a Marian feast day. In any case I was too scared to kiss Bishop's ring when the moment was presented to me- but I when I saw it I wish I had. It was a scene of the Crucifixion (yes it was a very large ring!) with Blessed Mother and St. John- a scene that means a great deal to me! The awkwardness of grabbing a man's hand and kissing his ring would have been washed away by pressing my lips to the image his precious and sacred wounds- not to mention Blessed Mother and St. John!