Not for Anything in the World

                 'Beware of bad books, 

                 and not for anything in the world allow your mind to be carried away 

                 by certain books which captivate people of feeble brain power 

                 because of certain subtleties which they savor.... 

                 On the contrary, have about you books of solid doctrine, 

                 and especially Christian and spiritual books,

                 so as to find sound recreation in them from time to time.'

                  St. Francis de Sales

                       Painting: Edmund Charles Tarbell, in US public domain due to age

In Need of Thread

'All that exterior activity 

is a waste of time if you lack love. 

It's like sewing with a needle and no thread.'

St. Josemaria Escriva

Painting: Philip Wilson Steer

Do We See This Happening?

'Sin becomes 
much more scandalous 

when the sinner is 
honored 
for his position.'

Pope St. Gregory the Great

Painting: Régnier, Carnival Scene


This post is linked to Catholic Bloggers Network Linkup Blitz

And So I Choose......

'Life with Christ is an endless hope; 

without Him, a hopeless end.'

(anonymous)

Painting:  Luis Astete y Concha, Woman in Wheat Field

But Truth Will Prevail in the End

'Error may flourish for a time, 
but truth will prevail 
in the end. 
The only effect of error 
ultimately 
is to 
promote truth.'

Blessed John Henry Newman









Painting: Chełmoński, Cross in a blizzard

Notice How They Preach

'Listen to the sermon preached to you by the flowers, the trees, the shrubs, the sky, and the whole world. Notice how they preach to you a sermon full of love, of praise of God, and how they invite you to glorify the sublimity of that sovereign Artist who has given them being.'

St. Paul of the Cross

Painting: H. A. Brendekilde, A Wooded Path in Autumn, 1902

But I Shall Call it Conversion

     'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
     and sorry I could not travel both 
     and be one traveler, long I stood,
     and looked down one as far as I could
     to where it bent in the undergrowth;

     Then took the other, as just as fair,
     and having perhaps the better claim,
     because it was grassy and wanted wear,
     though as for that the passing there
     had worn them really about the same.

     And both that morning equally lay
     in leaves no step had trodden black.
     Oh, I kept the first for another day!
     Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
     I doubted if I should ever come back.

     I shall be telling this with a sigh
     somewhere ages and ages hence:
     Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - 
     I took the one less traveled by,
     and that has made all the difference.'

     The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

     (...but as for my own life, I shall just call it 'Conversion')


        Painting: Henry Ward Ranger, Autumn Woodlands

A Very Common Temptation

'We should never 
postpone a good work, 
no matter 
how small it may be, 
with the thought 
of doing something greater. 
It is a very common temptation 
of the enemy to be 
always placing before us
the perfection 
of things to come, 
causing us to 
make little of the present.'

St. Ignatius Loyola 







Painting: Charles Courtney Curran, in US public domain due to age




 

In Which I Bend Rules and Answer All the Questions

One thing I love about blog awards is being able to answer all the things. It's like settling back for a relaxing conversation with dear friends. In this case: you!

Laura at String of Pearls has generously nominated me for a Liebster award. Thank you, Laura, for such a great honor! And while I'm going to break bend the official Leibster rules a bit (more on that later), I will answer the questions Laura presented, and I'll have fun with them, and I solemnly promise to respond to the best of my ability so help me Aging Brain.

Laura's questions:

1. Do you have a favorite saint, and what drew you to him/her?
    I'd have to go with St. Francis de Sales. I was drawn to him by... I think by him! That's a long story, of post-length all on its own, and maybe I'll write it down one day. The main thing is that this saint and Doctor of the Church taught lay people about their call to live totally for Christ.
     Not so radical, you say? Actually, In the 1600s .... it kind of was.

 2. Do you have a best-loved book that you've read multiple times?  (And will you probably read it again?)  Or do you always just read a book once and pass it on to others?
     Admission: my books alone would qualify me for one of those programs about hoarders.
     Oh dear. Did I just write that out loud? The thing is: after (and before) they've been read, books become my wallpaper. I love living surrounded by them. I "blame" that, in large part, on cozy rainy afternoons in the used books store when I was a child. Which is all to say I'm rather selfish about passing them on. BUT!  I do actually re-read many of them, and pass portions on to you, right here.
     And best loved ones? Oh, so many! Treatise on the Love of God by St. Francis de Sales. St. Faustina's Diary. And from the strictly secular end: To Kill a Mockingbird (is that everyone's favorite?), and the poetry of Robert Frost. 

3. What is your family's Christmas Eve tradition?
    That changes year-to-year, now that the children are grown and cherished grandchildren are in the picture.

4. When you dress up in heels, do you wear panty hose/tights, or do you go bare-legged?
    I haven't worn heels in ages, but when I wear 'dress' shoes, I always wear hose.

5. How did you and your husband meet?
    Through God's grace to help me make a good decision, and I'm absolutely certain that was the case. It was a Memorial Day, I was in college, and I was invited to a party. I'd been to a gathering with this basic group of people before, and it had gotten a bit wilder than I was comfortable with. But this was a holiday, after all, so I figured I'd probably just go.
    Then I got a phone call from the president of the Catholic student center at my University. Would I like to come over that night to do some typing for their Mass bulletin? I'd wanted to get to know some Catholic students, so I made a decision right there on the spot. I'd go for the typing.
    Boy, did I take flak for that one! Type instead of going to a cool party...? On Memorial Day?!?! ("what on EARTH has happened to Nancy?!"). The typing took about half an hour, and then - well, what do you know. There was a party right there, in the kitchen of a priest-chaplain! Into the gathering walked a tall, smiling young man and that, as they say, was that. He called me the next night and talked for over two hours (he told me later that he was trying to get up the nerve to ask me out). We dated for a year, became best friends as well as sweethearts, saw each other nearly every day, and he called me absolutely every day. We sent silly greeting cards to each other constantly, and we went to the Catholic student center chapel to make visits to the Blessed Sacrament as an end to many of our dates (his idea). We married thirteen months after that first meeting.
    Typing on Memorial Day? It turned out that decision was worth any amount of "flak" I had to endure.

6. What's your go-to prayer in times of distress?
    The Sign of the Cross, and the aspiration "'Jesus, I trust in You."

7. Where is the one place in the world you would visit if you could?
    Annecy, France, where Sts, Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal founded the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. Anyway, Annecy is a charming little town.  See...............................................?

8. How many siblings do you have?
    I had one sister, thirteen years older than I. She's no longer living.

9. Are you a worrier?  (I'm worried you'll think that's a weird question.)
    I'm worried that if I say yes, you'll think I don't trust in God enough. And I'm worried that if I say no, I won't be entirely truthful. I'm worried that I'm worrying too much about what you'll think, either way. I'm worried that I should trust God with my feelings as much as with my decisions, but of course I can help my decisions but not my feelings. I'm worried that I might be over-thinking this. I'm worried that I might be, in fact, a worrier. I'm worried that I will never actually get around to answering this question.
    Am I a worrier? Hmm. Think I need some help answering that. What do you think......

10. What, if any, sport do you enjoy watching the most?
    Thank you for the "if any." In my case, it definitely applies.  In my high school and college days I did like basketball, but that was looooooong ago. Now I can ... sort of ... tolerate watching ice skating and surfing, but I get bored quickly even with those.

Now: here's the part where I break the rules. I do hope you will forgive me, but you see, I really wanted to answer Laura's fun questions, and this blog has been "'Liebstered" before, and I think I've passed the award on to a number of other bloggers and now I can't remember who they are (oooops), and there are many blogs I'd like to pass it along to but I'm WORRIED that I'll leave out a blog that I love, love, love simply because my memory is old and creaky, creaky, creaky.

So - instead of posing questions and officially nominating anyone, I am simply going to call your attention to a few blogs that probably don't take "blog questions" anyway.  If you have not found these yet, you just might thank me for telling you about them (and you're welcome!).

I encourage you to visit these ....

Ben O'Neill at Walk with Me.  Ben is a young man serving as a missionary with FOCUS, and his enthusiastic dedication to God is contagious.

Victoria's Art. I find Victoria's artwork stunning. It's a big word, 'stunning,' and I mean every bit of its bigness. Not only does Victoria share her finished work, she often takes us through her process of creating it. Check it out!

The Mad Eyed Monk.  I've mentioned this blog here before, but the writer has begun posting again after a little break. Hers is good poetry.  And I mean really good poetry.  Poetry shows, it does not tell, a writing teacher said years ago. Check out this blog and I think you'll see what that means.

Linda Maran's blogs, particularly It's Time for Pain Free, Prep Free Living and Linda Maran, Freelance Writer. Linda writes Christian fiction, Amish novels, and self-help nonfiction.

If any of these four bloggers would like to accept the Liebster Award, please consider this a nomination. You can add this (or any as I understand it) Liebster "badge" to your sidebar.

Thank you again, Laura. And may God bless us, every one!

Where You Are Meant to Be

'May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.'

St. Therese of Lisieux

Painting: William Bouguereau, Kiss

A Vanity of Beads

Has it been only a year since I admitted my blatant first grade disobedience, the act of defiance that for some (surely angelic) reason did not get me immediately expelled from school? I feel I told of it ages ago; probably because I've always clearly remembered taking pencil in hand and writing on my desk, bearing down reeeaally hard with the point, just when I was certain Sister would be watching.

Vanity of vanities, it was all because of the beads.

If you should care to, you can re-visit that story by clicking here. 

Angel of God, my Guardian Dear, thank you for always staying so near.....

This Delight

'In God alone 

is there primordial and true delight, 

and in all our delights it is this delight that we are seeking.'

St. Bonaventure







Painting: 'Portrait of the Artist's Son'