Month: January 2022

You Are God’s Beloved Child

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While admiring photos of a friend’s daughter I thought that how she feels – the pride, love, and joy –  is how God feels about us. Our love for our own children is mirrored in the love of God for us as his beloved children.

I remember my own children as toddlers. Toddlers are uncivilized, irrational, emotional bundles of messiness and dirty diapers and even though I wondered if they would ever be decent enough to be let loose in the world, I loved them deeply. No matter how often they did the same naughty thing, when they said something hurtful to me, or just exasperated me with their childishness, I never didn’t forgive them. I always longed to be in communion with them. 

This is how God feels about us only infinitely more. He sees us doing stupid stuff, hurting each other, and being disrespectful to him. He also sees our goodness. He sees how we strive and when we turn our gaze toward him and ask for forgiveness he welcomes us back with joy because we are his children. 

God said of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son.” Jesus hadn’t begun his public ministry yet. He hadn’t healed anyone or driven out any demons but God loved him and was pleased. No matter how messy you are or were or will be, you can always, always run to God’s waiting arms like a toddler running to her mother. He will be delighted to have you there. He’s waiting.

Imagine God saying the same of you just as you would of your own child. Be bold and insert your name.

“This is my beloved son/daughter ______ with whom I am pleased.”

God, thank you for creating me to be your beloved child. Help me to rest in your love today. 

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Merridith Frediani loves words and is delighted by good sentences. She also loves Lake Michigan, dahlias, the first sip of hot coffee in the morning, millennials, and playing Sheepshead with her husband and three kids. She writes for Catholic Mom, Diocesan.com, and her local Catholic Herald. Her first book Draw Close to Jesus: A Woman’s Guide to Adoration is available at Our Sunday Visitor and Amazon. You can learn more at merridithfrediani.com.

Feature Image Credit: Ben White, https://unsplash.com/photos/JJ9irt1OZmI

St. Adrian, Abbot: Saint of the Day for Sunday, January 09, 2022

Born in Africa, Adrian became abbot of the monastery at Nerida, near Naples. He declined an appointment as archbishop of Canterbury, but accompanied St. Theodore to England when the latter was appointed Archbishop. Theodore appointed him Abbot of SS. Peter and Paul Monastery (later changed to St. Augustine’s) in Canterbury, and during his thirty-nine years’ abbacy, the monastery became renowned as a center of learning. He died on January 9 in Canterbury, and his tomb soon became famous for the …

Prayer for Students: Prayer of the Day for Sunday, January 09, 2022

Under thy patronage, dear Mother, and calling on the mystery of thine Immaculate Conception, I desire to pursue my studies and my literary labors: I hereby solemnly declare that I am giving myself to these studies chiefly to the following end: that I may the better contribute to the glory of God and to the promotion of thy veneration among men. I pray thee, therefore, most loving Mother, who art the Seat of Wisdom, to bless my labors in thy loving-kindness. Moreover I promise with true …

Pray and Live with Confidence

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What hope we hear in the readings today! 

In the First Reading, John encourages us to pray confidently because we have assurance of eternal life. But is it really that easy? In whom is our confidence? Ourselves? Certainly not! John’s answer is “If we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us.” (emphasis added by author) Not only must we be confident in the promises of our Father, we must be confident that He wills that which is truly best for us. It is when we can fully trust Him that we are able to conform our wills to His, and it is through that conformity that we gain confidence in prayer. 

As we move to the Gospel, we hear an excellent example of someone who submitted their will to the will of the Father, humbled himself before the Lord, and was greatly exalted: St. John the Baptist. What can we learn from St. John the Baptist? In short: “He must increase, I must decrease.” John the Baptist knew that it is humility that allows us to place our lives in the hand of God, and that, by being humble, we will be raised in the eyes of our Heavenly Father. Pride is often considered the deadliest of sins and the root of all other sins. It is pride that turns us away from God in our times of need. It is pride that allows us to take credit for our accomplishments and for our good deeds rather than giving the credit to our Creator. Recognizing the reality of our humanity before God, John the Baptist says, “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven.” Everything we have, everything we are is a gift from God. When we live our lives with this at the forefront of our minds, we are better equipped to pray with confidence. 

May we pray with the confidence, intentionality, trust and selflessness of which John speaks. Like John the Baptist, may we surrender our will to the Holy Will of God and allow Him to fulfill the wonderful plan He has for us. For it is in humbling ourselves before Him that we will be raised to glory with Him.

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Dakota currently lives in Denver, CO and teaches English Language Development and Spanish to high schoolers. She is married to the love of her life, Ralph. In her spare time, she reads, goes to breweries, and watches baseball. Dakota’s favorite saints are St. John Paul II (how could it not be?) and St. José Luis Sánchez del Río. She is passionate about her faith and considers herself blessed at any opportunity to share that faith with others. Check out more of her writing at https://dakotaleonard16.blogspot.com.

Feature Image Credit: remehernandez, https://www.cathopic.com/photo/18254-oracion

St. Thorfinn: Saint of the Day for Saturday, January 08, 2022

In the year 1285, there died in the Cistercian monastery at TerDoest, near Bruges, a Norwegian bishop named Thorfinn. He had never attracted particular attention and was soon forgotten. But over fifty years later, in the course of some building operations, his tomb in the Church was opened and it was reported that the remains gave out a strong and pleasing spell. The Abbot made inquiries and found that one of his monks, and aged man named Walter de Muda, remembered Bishop Thorfinn staying in …

The Good Morning God Prayer: Prayer of the Day for Saturday, January 08, 2022

Good Morning God!
You are ushering in another day,
untouched and freshly new.
So here I am to ask you, God,
if You’ll renew me too.

Forgive the many errors that I made yesterday
and let me try again dear God
to walk closer in Your way.

But Lord, I am well aware,
I can’t make it on my own.
So take my hand and hold it tight,
for I cannot walk alone.

St. Raymond of Pennafort: Saint of the Day for Friday, January 07, 2022

St. Raymond of Pennafort, Patron Saint of Canonists (Feast day – January 7) Born in Spain, St. Raymond was a relative of the King of Aragon. From childhood he had a tender love and devotion to the Blessed Mother. He finished his studies at an early age, and became a famous teacher. He then gave up all his honors and entered the Order of the Dominicans. St. Raymond was very humble and very close to God. He did much penance and was so good and kind that he won many sinners to God. With King James …

For a Sick Child: Prayer of the Day for Friday, January 07, 2022

St. Gerard, who, like the Savior, loved children so tenderly and by your prayers freed many from disease and even death, listen to us who are pleading for our sick child. We thank God for the great gift of our son (daughter) and ask him to restore our child to health if such be his holy will. This favor, we beg of you through your love for all children and mothers. Amen.

God is Love

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What is love? This question seems to echo through the halls of human history as strongly as the question asked of Jesus by Pilate, “What is truth?” Of course, the answer to both questions is found not in a book, experiment, or set of theories, but rather in a person, namely the person of Jesus Christ.

Ok, that’s cute and all to tell to students in a youth group to help them feel loved, but what does it really mean? We hear in the First Reading today that we can only love because God first loved us. I often try to bring my readers back to the beginning, not because Genesis gives us a purely scientific description of the start of all things, but because it shows us deep theological truths about who we are and who God is.

When reading through the first few chapters of Genesis it is immediately striking that out of all the creation narratives that have been written, and there have been many, Genesis stands apart because it is finally talking about a God who creates out of nothing in an act of pure love. All of the other major creation narratives talk about gods at war or sexual promiscuity as the source of all things, but here God stands apart from all the other pagan beliefs. We hear it in the Gospel of John, “God is love”. John also draws the connection between this God who is love and the Creator in the beginning, they are one and the same. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God.”

Ok, where am I going with all of this? Let’s think back to that First Reading. We cannot even begin to love unless God first loves us. The Catechism makes the bold claim that, “God is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.” From the very beginning God is love itself and we were made in the very image and likeness of that same God. We have love in our DNA so to speak, as deep as our bones, and deeper in fact because it resides in our soul.

I think we can often try to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and white knuckle religious rules and regulations. By that I mean, I think we often think we can do this religion thing on our own. We may have the false belief that we only need God for the really big things. But in today’s readings we are reminded that without God we can’t even love, because we would be rejecting love itself. Rather than living by this pelagian mindset, the heresy that we can do it by our own strength and don’t need God, let’s instead ask for the grace to live according to how we were created in the beginning. Adam and Eve may have lost the grace of God in the fall, but we can get it back through the God who is love who hangs on the cross for us.

During this new year, let’s try to make an effort throughout the day to notice when God is working with his grace. The great tragedy of our time, it seems, is that we can go weeks without ever contemplating how God is working in our lives. Let’s ask for grace to take hold so that we may be loved and in turn may go and love others. From all of us here at Diocesan, God bless!

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Tommy Shultz is a Business Development Representative for Diocesan. In this role he is committed to bringing the best software to dioceses and parishes while helping them evangelize on the digital continent. Tommy has worked in various diocese and parish roles since his graduation from Franciscan University with a Theology degree. He hopes to use his skills in evangelization, marketing, and communications, to serve the Church and bring the Good News to all. His favorite quote comes from St. John Paul II, who said, “A person is an entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.”

Feature Image Credit: Jez Timms, https://unsplash.com/photos/bwtgal6MJLM

St. Andre Bessette: Saint of the Day for Thursday, January 06, 2022

When Alfred Bessette came to the Holy Cross Brothers in 1870, he carried with him a note from his pastor saying, “I am sending you a saint.” The Brothers found that difficult to believe. Chronic stomach pains had made it impossible for Alfred to hold a job very long and since he was a boy he had wandered from shop to shop, farm to farm, in his native Canada and in the United States, staying only until his employers found out how little work he could do. The Holy Cross Brothers were teachers …