Our Lady desires a personal relationship you to help you receive the gift of your femininity—the gift of who you already are.

Claire Dwyer, author of the Advent devotional In Time: Living in the Now and Not Yet, invites us to step into that sacred tension and discover the heart of God in the midst of it.

The beauty of courtship is preceded by another, sometimes much longer, season: singleness. And with it comes the question, How do we live fruitful, joyful lives while we wait for our vocation?

Discover how the Saints met their spouses and how the sacramental grace of marriage helped them endure life’s difficulties and unknowns.

The next time a loved one suggests a trip, say yes. Yes to the inconvenience. Yes to the adventure. The journey will be worth it.

More than just a calendar, this planner is a spiritual companion. It helps you not only keep track of life, but also stay rooted in what matters most: your relationship with Jesus and your Catholic faith.

Looking for a way to ignite your prayer life? This Lent, consider making a desert day, a spiritual practice of silence and solitude to pray and rest with the Lord.

In this year’s Lent devotional Under the Olive Tree, Olivia Spears guides us as we remain with Jesus in the olive garden, consoling His Heart and sharing ours with Him in Gethsemane.

Discover how to prayerfully adopt a Saint for the year and listen for the word God has for you ... and why you should!

Liz Kelly Stanchina helps readers welcome the virtue of hope and become joyful bearers of hope for a hurting world.

Arise is a free 21-day recovery program to help you address these areas and gives practical tools to quit pornography for good.

The story of our 2024 Lent devotional is a pretty simple one. It begins and ends with God said so. I remember being at daily Mass one morning as my mind drifted prayerfully to Psalm 23. And in the moment I turned my attention to the Good Shepherd, the words of Saint John the Baptist  echoed in my ears: “Behold, the Lamb of God” (John 1:29). The Good Shepherd is the Lamb of God. I called Jenna right away only to find out our managing editor had shared the same inspiration—Advent and Lent companion devotionals exploring these two related titles of Jesus. But let me clarify: When I said “God said so,” I wasn’t referring to the grace I received in Mass to ponder the mystery of the Good Shepherd Who became the Lamb of God, or the similar inspiration He gave to our editor. God said so when He inextricably linked these titles and images together in the words of Holy Scripture.  It’s a secret hidden in plain sight, and He has entrusted it to our sweet sisterhood to treasure and meditate upon. How can our strong leader, Jesus—the way, the truth, and the life (see John 14:6)—allow Himself to become the sacrificial Lamb slain for the sins of the world? How can the Good Shepherd become a Lamb?  And yet, a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. It is the same creature, but one crawls upon the ground and the other magically flies through the air. The nature is the same, but the character is different. It falls short, as analogies do, but we can glean some truth from it. The nature of the creature (what it is) can be the same while the character (what it does) is different. And don’t we want to know every aspect and dimension of our beautiful Savior Jesus’ Heart and life? To know and love Him as both Shepherd and Lamb? This Lent, the Good Shepherd is extending His Hand and inviting us to walk with Him from the fields of Bethlehem to the city of Jerusalem. He is asking us to look upon another side of His Face and to receive another piece of His Heart.  In Advent, Jesus pursued each one of us and every part of us—and now He wants to rescue those whom He found. That is what Lent is all about, after all: what He did for us.  At times we get a little confused about that. We try to do for Jesus what only He can do for us. So this Lent, we’re looking to the Lamb of God to show us Who He is as Savior. In the Lent devotional, Rescued: Lent with the Lamb of God, we’ll read the prophecy of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 while meditating on different aspects of Jesus—extravagant, patient, healing, meek, willing, and strong—and what that means for our lives.  Jesus wants to be your Good Shepherd and your Savior, to reveal Himself as the Lamb of God Who sacrificed everything for love of you. This Lent, let Him.

Have you ever heard of a rule of life? It’s a rhythm that sets the tone and pace of your days to keep your heart and calendar aligned with your priorities. Without a plan I’ve found it’s difficult to keep the “one thing” the main thing (see Luke 10:22). I can so easily get swept away by busyness (or boredom) and fail to do the things that both mean the most to me and make for a beautiful life. If you, too, desire more fruitful days and a more peaceful mind, let me introduce you to the genius (and gorgeous) little book that helped me to make a rule and follow its rhythm all year long. Why Praying + Planning is Better than Just Planning I used to be a person that made lists and scrawled notes haphazardly: in the Notes app in my phone, my prayer journal, scraps of paper, and text messages to myself (yes, really). I knew I needed to organize my thoughts and life, but simply getting them down wasn’t enough. I needed a single place to design my schedule, make to-do lists, and keep myself accountable to the things the Lord was asking me to do. You see, it wasn’t only my work and domestic duties that needed organization, but my spiritual life, too. Enter the Blessed is She liturgical planner to solve all of my scattered ways. This year, a good and holy priest friend recommended that I make a desert day every month, so I turned to my planner to mark off one Saturday a month. With the date set (in pen!), I’ve been able to commit to going into the desert–or, in my case, a Poor Clare monastery–to spend the day with Jesus in silence and the Blessed Sacrament. Similarly, for the past few years I attempted to go to Confession once a week. But without any planning or preparation, it ended up being every couple of weeks at best. Not anymore. Every Friday, I schedule in receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation right after daily Mass. Not only have I been able to make a plan for my prayer life, the planner itself has become a part of my prayer life. Because in addition to discerning and jotting down my daily and monthly commitments, I am inspired by the Scripture verses and Saint quotes on every page and the prayer prompt each month allows me to move from my head to my heart. [elementor-template id="678606"] He Thirsts for You // The 2022-2023 Catholic Planner This year’s Blessed is She liturgical planner is really an expression of my heart’s devotion. Every year, we pray and ask the Lord His desires, His hopes for Blessed is She–and for me. At a revival night in Milwaukee last June, the Lord spoke a life-changing grace into my heart about water. A deep and living word that fueled my prayer for months. I suddenly became aware of the stream of water flowing through the story of salvation, from Genesis to Revelation. Water was everywhere! And water communicated the overflowing healing love and mercy of God and quenched the deepest desires of my seemingly insatiable heart. The profoundly beautiful image of water flowing from the temple in Ezekiel 47 captured my imagination in prayer and from it, the RISE retreat was birthed. That Living Water became the inspiration for and understanding of the Spirit’s movement in and through Blessed is She. As I brought my own thirst to Jesus in prayer, I discovered the depths of His thirst for me, for all of us. From the Cross, Jesus cried out, “I thirst” and in that desperate plea He was calling out for the love of every single human soul, of your soul. Hence, the name of this year’s planner: He Thirsts for You. It is my hope that every hand-selected Scripture, every wise word from one of our Saintly brothers and sisters would saturate the soil of your heart and nourish even the hardest or most barren places. That you would spend time with Jesus every month sharing this deep thirst within with Him, and satisfy His eternal thirst for you. Don’t simply use this planner to schedule your days, pray with this planner to change your life. A Size for Every Scenario We’ve designed the original big, versatile mini, and stylish perfect-bound planner to fit any lifestyle, but the heart of each remains the same–to help you to encounter the Living Water and satisfy the thirst of the One Who made you and saves you. LITURGICAL PLANNERS Our Liturgical Planners are based on the Litany of Humility. Enter into prayer every day alongside this beautiful Litany. Order your days in His peace. GET YOUR PLANNER

Blessed Is She's new study, Gift, can lead small groups into deeper devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist.

Welcome to our Blessed Chats series! Each month, we will dedicate an entire week of blog posts to a topic that affects many of us. These conversations often come up in our Facebook groups and in our real life friendships. We want to share a variety of perspectives on the topic at hand, so we've asked women to share their stories and how the teachings of the Church have guided and comforted them. In this series, we're talking about life as single women. We'd love for you to join the conversation! I sat somewhat uncomfortably beneath the shade of tall pine trees, a gentle wind rustling the canopy and my hair. My journal rested in my lap. I was on a leadership retreat in high school, just learning that I could have a personal relationship with God in prayer. I fidgeted on the cold, hard ground and leaned in hard to hear Him. Like a pen pal catching up a beloved friend after months of missing each other, I poured out my heart in those pages. My monologue of fears and failures, dreams and desires spilled over from one page to the next. But one question, one hope, dominated the landscape of my heart and the contents of that letter: my vocation. A Longing I longed for romantic love, and was preoccupied with it. In every elementary school class I had a crush. Next I fell deeply in love with my junior high best friend. And in between classes as I walked my high school campus, my eyes and heart were always searching for someone. The one. I always imagined having a love that spanned my whole life, so I was eager to get started. After sharing my perfect plan for a Perfect Marriage™, I put the question to Him. Would He send me this man? And for the first time, I heard the Voice of the Lord in prayer. One clear, pure word settled in my heart: wait. Looking back, I still marvel at the peace I felt in the moment. I wasn’t dejected or discouraged, instead I was elated that the Lord listened to my prayer and responded. Waiting didn’t have a terrible, long-suffering connotation. I felt no fear or resentment. In fact, as I made my way back to the hall for our next session, my steps were lighter. God heard me, He loved me, and He wanted the best for me. After all, I reckoned, 17 is still young. Years ticked past and my hopes continued, deferred. The boys I liked never invited me to a dance. My not-so-secret college crush never asked me on a proper date. There was no post-grad office romance, especially since the only man I worked with as youth minister at my new parish was the priest. But still, I prayed. I hoped. And contrary to Padre Pio’s sage advice, I worried. Peace in Eucharistic Adoration Having encountered Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament on another high school retreat, I sought Him out in Eucharistic Adoration. In those early years of ministry, I cried to Him on lonely Friday nights and pre-gamed with Him before youth group every Sunday. I stopped in when I was having a bad day and needed a Friend. The chapel became my safe place, my second home. In it, I filled many more journals recording conversations with the One I had come to know so well. Spring, summer, fall, and winter, morning, noon, and night, I visited Him. Even when I was angry at God about my self-imposed vocation deadlines, I showed up. When I felt unseen, I punched in the little code and sat down before His Eucharistic face. When there was no one and nothing, when there was and then there wasn’t, when my heart broke and I thought I messed it all up, I cried and raged and finally, blessedly, came back to peace in that still, small chapel. [elementor-template id="469410"] Keep Showing Up This devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist changed my life. Like the sinful woman in Luke 8, I daily poured out my heart at His feet. In His True Presence, He purified and rightly-ordered my desires, restored my dignity, and revealed the Love I was longing for. I’ve spent the last twenty years kneeling before Him in dozens of similar chapels, and still my hope for my vocation has not yet been realized. Still I wait. But in those twenty years, I have been deeply loved. The Lover of my soul pursued my heart and called me Beloved and told me again and again how beautiful I am to Him (Song of Songs 4:1). An Invitation Jesus walked with me through those desert years of waiting, grasping, and longing. But as I turn to assess all the ground we’ve covered, I find that the cracked and parched earth has begin to bloom where His footsteps landed. His presence floods the dryness, giving grace to past seasons. And that same grace is available to you, sweet friend. Can I ask you to do one thing as you wait for the desires of your heart? Commit to a weekly Holy Hour. Go to Him no matter the weather or circumstances or emotions that may try to deter you. In His Presence, that seemingly insatiable desire for understanding, acceptance, healing—for love—will be satisfied by the Living Water. Because beneath the very real call and desire for your vocation lies the ultimate call, the deepest desire of your heart: Love Himself. We weren’t made for marriage, or religious life; we were made for Jesus Christ.   We want to hear YOUR story. Please share in the comments below! And if you want more help with finding your own story, our popular Write + Pray course offers 9 topics, nearly an hour of guided video, and almost 50 Scripture verses and questions for you featuring Managing Editor Nell O'Leary. Find your story today.   [bctt tweet="Blessed Chats: Single Women // Prayer #BISblog #blessedchats //" via="no"]

Welcome to our Blessed Chats series! Each month, we will dedicate an entire week of blog posts to a topic that affects many of us. These conversations often come up in our Facebook groups and in our real life friendships. We want to share a variety of perspectives on the topic at hand, so we've asked women to share their stories and how the teachings of the Church have guided and comforted them. In this series, we're talking about addiction, compulsion, and loving those who suffer this cross. We'd love for you to join the conversation! I was eleven or twelve years old the first time I saw pornography. Honestly, it’s been a part of my story for so long, it’s hard to remember exactly when it started. But I remember where it started, how it felt. I remember the deep green of the carpet and the way my pulse quickened and my stomach flipped the first time I found it. I wasn’t looking for it and no one showed it to me. I was alone. And that’s how the story continued for almost twenty years. Secret Shame I thought about it in class and before I fell asleep at night. Anytime I saw something remotely racey on television or read a slightly suggestive scene in a book, a switch in my brain flipped. And it wouldn’t turn off again until I found a way to be alone, to look at pornography, to masturbate. Porn was a secret, shameful part of my life. It didn’t touch the other parts. I did theater and speech and debate, ran for student council, and spent my weekends staying up watching the Spice Girls’ Movie from my best friend’s trundle bed. I went to Mass every Sunday and was an eager student with an easy laugh. Those other dark and hidden things were separate from the girl on stage or at a sleepover. And so I continued on that way, alone and addicted, until I fell in love with Jesus. The Sacraments On a Confirmation retreat in high school, as I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament (maybe for the first time?), a desperate desire welled up in me and a fearful question gripped my heart: Could that Love be for me, too? I began to go to Confession—often. It’s surprising to look back now and remember my insecure, teenage self, cheeks aflame with shame, kneeling and naming the sins of pornography and masturbation. This was the first grace: to use their proper names in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Rather than confess general impurity or lust, I confessed them by name, said the words aloud, every time. And so the pattern continued for many years: I sinned, I confessed. I sinned again, I confessed again. And again, and again. Another grace: God gave me the strength to persevere. The sober stretches would get longer sometimes, but I could always feel a lingering darkness, an oppressive sense of shame. Even as my love for the Lord deepened and He called me into ministry, I still wrestled with unchastity. I wondered if I would ever be completely free, or would these sins I’d struggled with since childhood always plague me? WRITE + PRAY We invite you to sit with the Word and unpack it in a uniquely personal way, finding your own story. Discover your story within His. GET WRITE AND PRAY Spiritual Strengthening I listened to chastity talks and podcasts with testimonies and tips, read Scripture and the Catechism, cried out to God to deliver me from temptation, then asked for His forgiveness in prayer. The shame was suffocating. In retrospect, I know that the Lord’s mercy and grace were at work all along; but as I frequented Confession, always with the same sins on my lips, I couldn’t see it or feel it. One uneventful night, I began to the pray the Rosary. Never having been a Rosary devotee, I listened to an audio recording led by a faithful priest on the Mary app. And I kept praying with that priest on the app, night after night, year after year. I wasn’t asking for Mary’s help undoing this knot, but surely my suffering did not escape Our Lady’s attention or intercession. I wasn’t alone anymore. He Broke the Chains I was in my thirties when my mom and I attended a Marian Conference for her birthday. On the final night of the conference, after a solemn Eucharistic procession, priests stood at the foot of the stage for prayer. I recognized a priest from my childhood parish and lined up with no specific intention, only whatever grace God wanted to give. I watched as he prayed intensely, compassionately for each person before me. He laid his hands on a woman’s head, a man’s shoulders; he cupped a child’s face. But as this holy priest approached me, he lifted his hand and reached out to cover my eyes. Everything in me tensed. I felt exposed and embarrassed. Everyone will know, I thought. His prayer lasted only a few moments, and nothing really happened. No goosebumps or prophetic words. I just went back to the hotel with my mom and went to sleep. Only months later did I realize that I hadn’t needed to confess pornography or masturbation. I checked in with my body, my soul, my imagination. There was no lingering darkness. No stinging shame. I wasn’t bracing for another temptation. Everything felt right. Settled. Steady. I felt... peace. Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the prayers of God’s holy priest, the Lord cast out a spirit of pornography and masturbation, a spirit of lust. He right-ordered my sexuality. He set me free. You Can Be Free from This The Lord wants you to be free, too. So does His Blessed Mother. So do I! After battling alone and unsuccessfully for so long, I want to help you find the freedom you were made for. If you’re struggling to defeat these or other sexual sins, here’s what I know to be true. Confession works. Don’t be discouraged if you have to go every single week, or if you fall again right after making a good, sincere Confession. Just get back up and go again. A regular Confessor could also be a great source of support and encouragement. Remember, His mercy is endless. His mercy is for you. Satan is real. The same way we “renounce Satan and all his works and all his empty promises” when we renew our Baptismal vows, you can renounce the spirit of the sexual sin you’re struggling against. You can even ask a priest to lead you in a simple prayer of renouncement, download this spiritual warfare app, or read more here (Deliverance Prayers for the Laity). Mary wants to help. She is not only Jesus’ Mother, she is Our Mother. Her heart is pure, her intercession is powerful, and she will always lead us closer to her Son. Pray the Rosary. Everyday. It will change your life. You can’t do it alone. Praise God for the courage to name your sins in Confession and ask Mother Mary to pray for you. But I also want you to tell another person. It could be a friend, counsellor, or mentor. Or you can DM me (@thebethdavis on Instagram). I want you to know that you’re not alone, that none of us are “the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son,” as Pope Saint John Paul II so beautifully said. There is Grace for You God is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11). What He did for me, He will do for you, too. In fact, I believe that because you’re reading this blog right now, the Lord is pouring out some of that same grace from my miracle over you. Take courage! You, too, can be completely healed and totally free. And until then, I’m praying for you.   If you want more help with finding your own story, our popular Write + Pray course offers 9 topics, nearly an hour of guided video, and almost 50 Scripture verses and questions for you featuring Managing Editor Nell O'Leary. Find your story today.   [bctt tweet="Blessed Chats: Addiction // Pornography #BISblog #blessedchats //" via="no"]

Working as a full time youth minister for over a decade, you would assume that I had a disciplined and abundant prayer life, but that wasn’t always the case. For many years I prayed where and how I wanted to and whenever I felt like it. It took me a long time to find a rhythm of prayer that sustained me, and I want to give you the cheat code to develop one for yourself while avoiding the many mistakes I made. Why Pray? In the Gospel of Luke, while responding to Martha’s overwhelmed plea for help, Jesus points to Mary’s attentive posture at His feet as the one thing necessary (see Luke 10:38-42) and in Matthew 6, Jesus enjoins us to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). This call to prayer is both an invitation and instruction. Why is He so insistent?  We can find the answer to this question in the Scriptures themselves. Martha’s life of service, as generous and good as it is, is burdensome and unsustainable when fueled by her own strength. Jesus isn’t so much correcting her action as her intention. She’s focusing on the wrong thing, and so life gets overwhelming. Sound familiar?  And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promises that when we seek Him with our whole hearts, “all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). Everything in our lives comes into right order when we put first things first: Jesus. Our lives belong to and are sustained by God. Jesus is the vine, we are merely the branches (John 15:4). If we want to thrive and bear fruit, we must stay connected to His loving presence throughout our day. No other life hack or organizational system will work to calm our anxious minds, renew our depleted energy, and heal our wounded hearts. He is our daily Bread (see John 6:51), our soul’s sustenance.  Jesus is the One Thing, and He is worthy of our love, attention, and time. So we must make a concerted effort to make prayer primary. But how? Pitfalls When You Start to Pray It may seem counterintuitive to start here but I want to save you from turning into a Martha in prayer and doing all the things for Jesus. It can be discouraging to dive into a new and ambitious prayer routine only to find you can’t live up to your own expectations. So consider this a gentle reminder to start slow, start small. If you don’t have a set aside time of mental prayer, start there. If you have a disciplined daily prayer time, add daily Mass to your routine. You wouldn’t expect a symphony to be written much less performed overnight, so don’t expect to execute prayer perfectly at the start. Build your rhythm of prayer little by little, over time, through repetition. That’s why we call it a prayer practice. Practical Steps to Find Your Rhythm of Prayer Whether you’re new to prayer or desiring more structure as a part of your prayer routine, a consistent, set apart time in silence and solitude is essential. The Catechism of the Catholic church reminds us that “we cannot pray ‘at all times’ if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it” (CCC 2697). This means a specific place and time every day where we can commune with the Lord. For me, that means sitting in my "prayer chair" with my morning coffee and prayer essentials like a Bible and journal. These consistent encounters become touch points in our day, anchoring us in His love. This prayer is primarily relational. Start with the daily Mass readings or even just the Gospel. The Rosary can be a helpful meditation to quiet our thoughts and turn toward the Lord. Or you may want to start with gratitude. Journaling can be a great way to begin to focus on. These tools will become an entry point into His presence, not the end of prayer itself.  Once we’ve “plugged into” the Vine, we gently put the tool down to give Him our full attention. Over time, our minds and bodies will learn to anticipate this practice, and so we are more readily able to dispose ourselves to the Lord’s presence and receive His look of love. Prayer will get easier to settle into.  Once you’re in the mental prayer routine, build out your rhythm from there. Try integrating daily Mass next. Your relationship with Jesus will become even more vibrant when lived in the rhythm of the Church. Frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist gives us the grace we so desperately need. It’s impossible to outline all the benefits of daily Mass because, in His goodness, the Lord will pour out the spiritual and material blessings that are uniquely meant for you. To begin, start with one day a week of daily Mass until it becomes a habit and build from there.  With the firm foundation of daily prayer and Holy Mass, your rhythm of prayer will naturally start to flow. You’ll become more aware of where the Spirit is leading you and what’s needed in different seasons. Perhaps committing to a regular Confession time is your next step. Maybe a morning daily offering or evening Examen would be helpful for surrendering your day to God. Or you might sign up for a weekly Holy Hour at your local Eucharistic Adoration chapel.  With time, you won’t be just asking the Lord about spiritual things. You’ll begin to ask Him questions about everyday things, like what to read, how to spend your weekend, or when to run an errand. As you open up, it will become more natural to turn your mind and heart to God while driving or enjoying your favorite hobby, too. God gave us His very life, His Spirit, to live life through Him, with Him, and in Him. He wants to live more of your life with you and share more of His with you. And He wants to overflow into every area of your life. Benefits of Prayer Finding and living your rhythm of prayer won’t just change your life, it will change you. With Jesus at the center, you’ll begin to experience a deep rootedness regardless of your circumstances. Your life will begin to flourish in new and unexpected ways which ripples out to others.  Once you’re consistent in your prayer practice, take inventory of how your prayer is changing or serving your relationships. Here are some ideas as to how the Holy Spirit might inspire you to love those around you: Start a conversation about the Lord with a coworker Attend (or start!) a small group Invite your child(ren) to Confession Ask one friend to Communion + Coffee End your hang-out with a friend with a prayer Find a local shelter or ministry to volunteer with Smile at the gal next to you in a coffee shop Give our Somebody Loves You card to one person a week Host a Blessed Brunch In John 10:10 Jesus declared that He “came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” As you begin to practice this rhythm of prayer, the abundant life will become more of a reality, not only for you, but for everyone around you. Connected to the Source, you’ll become the world changer you were created to be. What are helpful things that encourage and develop your unique prayer life with God? What have you learned about yourself and God through a deeper commitment to daily prayer?