Living Lent When Your Life is in Transition
As I’m writing this, I am 34 weeks pregnant. My to-do list feels a mile long, filled with tasks varying in importance from “hang pictures in the nursery” to “install...
Books to Read During Lent
Am I the only one wondering how Lent has already arrived? It feels like just yesterday I was decorating my Christmas tree and enjoying White Christmas with a mug of...
Mourning the Life You Envisioned
“Let go of the life you imagined for the life God has ready for you.” How many times have you heard, or read, some version of those words? It seems...
Choosing a Theme for Lent
Coming up with something to give up for Lent was easy as a child. I would give up my soda habit and tease my brother for his foolish lack of...
Weekly Wallpaper // 216
The Lord is kind and merciful. // Psalm 103:8a Download these beautiful free wallpapers from Abigail Katherine Rose from today's readings. Let His word dwell in us richly, sisters. Remember,...
Feeling Cold
It had been a “bleak midwinter” in West Michigan, to say the least. I did not experience the normal delight and fascination with the cold months as we muddled through...
Living as a Cloistered Cistercian Nun
Valley of Our Lady Monastery is a community of Cistercian nuns who live a life of contemplative prayer according to the Rule of St. Benedict and the traditions of the...
Scripture Verses to Pray When You Have the Winter Blues
It was the first full week of January. My children were back in school, and life was slowly returning to normal after a fun, but unstructured, Christmas break. I expected...
How to Support Foster Families
The Works of Mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities. Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works...
Weekly Wallpaper // 215
If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live. // Sirach 15:15 Download these beautiful free wallpapers from...
On the Feast of St. Claude de la Colombière
The feast of St. Claude de la Colombiere is very timely, as it lands on the day after Valentine’s Day. A day marked with hearts galore. Up until this year,...
The Search is Over
I was in my car when the 1985 song, “The Search is Over,” by Surrender came on the radio. I had not heard it in years, and for a moment...
