November 13, 2025 // Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, Virgin
[In the Dioceses of the United States]
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Wisdom 7:22b–8:1
Reflect on the Word //
The pain of the past hits me like a ton of bricks to the heart. I am suddenly brought back to a time and place in which hope felt too hard to hold. As God reveals the hurt once more, my thoughts float from I wish this were different to Will this always feel so raw? to God is already at work on my behalf. I feel much like a ping-pong ball being paddled from one side to the other, and each extreme feels like a heavy weight. It feels confusing and like too much to bear.
It is Wisdom that comes to meet me in prayer. She is a gift of the Holy Spirit—to be received and pondered. To sit with and lean into. "In Wisdom is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, Manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, not baneful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, Firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, And pervading all spirits" (Wisdom 7:22-23).
Each description of Wisdom leads me to beg God to stir within me a desire to be right here, with Wisdom. To stop looking back and focus, instead, on where my feet are in these very moments. The pain of the past begins to be transformed in my heart into resurrection light. Though my reality and circumstances remain the same, Wisdom comes to help me see with the eyes of the Father—a vantage point that I could not reach without His help.
There is no such thing as wasted pain for the believer. God desires to gift us with and lead us from our place of self-reliance to trust in His Wisdom. As pain rises to the surface, He reveals only to heal and never to simply leave us abandoned in that seemingly empty, painful place. Wisdom is "the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of His goodness" (Wisdom 7:26), and you can rest and remain still as the gift of Wisdom comes to soothe you in your pain. He will transform it all.
Relate to the Lord // How has the Lord healed and transformed your pain? Thank Him today.
Shalini Blubaugh is a Minnesota transplant living in Coppell, Texas. She served with NET Ministries and went on to graduate with her J.D., though happily left all things law behind. Along with her roles as wife and mom, she now runs her own company, Pray. Train. Grow., as a Certified Fitness Trainer and Nutritional Therapy Practitioner. Her mission is to help Catholic women grow STRONG in mind, body, and heart through the integration of Faith, fitness and food.
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