Tuesday, January 26, 2010

The Church Militant

Slowly, slowly marching on-
heads bowed in prayer,
hearts filled with song-
through the dark valley proceeding.

Events quicken, the valley erupts
yet the column continues onward,
led by the Lady in Blue.

Jesus, we trust in you.
Jesus, we trust in you.
Jesus, we trust in you.

All the way to the Cross...
and beyond.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Pick-A-Saint

This year, I was introduced to a Catholic New Year's tradition involving the Saints. Apparently, this is something that even Saint Maria Faustina did with her fellow sisters!

Anyhow, the way it goes is that you take a bunch of Saints' names on little pieces of paper and toss them in a hat or bowl. On New Year's Day, each person in the family says a quick prayer and reaches into the bowl to pick a Saint for the year. Then, the idea is to establish a relationship with your new patron as the year progresses. Some say that, even though we do the physical picking of the name, it is the Saint that chooses us!

I thought it was a neat idea and so on January 1st, my family put together a big bowl of Saints and got to choosing. The four of us came out with a pretty impressive list of patrons and we all look forward to getting to know our newfound patrons throughout 2010.

Our new family Saints are:

1. Saint Anthony of Padua
2. Saint Dominic Savio
3. Saint Joseph
4. Saint Jerome

I encourage anyone who stumbles across this Blog to put this little tradition into practice. We can learn so much from our brothers and sisters in Heaven (the "Church Triumphant") and I think that they are just itching for an opportunity to help us.

Praise God!