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SHE SAID I DO TO GOD'S WILL AND YOU CAN TOO!
Mary accepted God’s will, and because of that, her soul proclaimed the goodness of the Lord. It is important to:
1. Pray for God’s will.
2. Accept things as God’s will.
3. Use all that He gives us as opportunities and gifts to grow spiritually.
4. Have that knowledge of the workings of God bring us joy as he refines us.
5. Know that God sees the whole big picture. We can only see a small portion of it.
6. We are all God’s Masterpieces, and we are all a work in progress.
7. Know that we are all infinitely loved by God, and that we are all children of God. Our heavenly Father has our best interest at heart for the salvation of our souls. His Holy and Divine Will.
When we accept God’s will, we accept all that comes as His will, we are at peace, and our souls also can proclaim the goodness of the Lord as we acknowledge Him working in us and on us. God sees the whole picture, He knows our beginning and our end, and He knows all in between. We need to surrender to His will and trust Him.
Luke 1:30-38
Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,* and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. “But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. Luke 1:46-50 And Mary said, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him.
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TOP 5 WAYS TO PRAY
For the best ways to do things, we turn to the “pros” to show us how to show us how. In this case, we turn to the Saints, to learn from how they prayed their way to heaven. There are so many to choose from. Here are the top 5 picks!
1. Saint Teresa of Avila
“Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”
-----All we need is God, if we allow him to possess us and to possess Him within us, we all have all we need, peace, fulfillment, joy and infinite love. What else is there. Everything else is fleeting. If we feel a disturbance in our peace, it is just the evil one trying to get to our union with God, and it is God allowing it to strengthen us! We must be fearless in our faith and trust in God.
2. Saint Monica
Model of patience, prayer, and perseverance, intercede for us that we, too, may be awaken to the sacred, and trust in God’s perfect timing. Pray without ceasing. Do not ever give up on your prayers.
-----God is always listening. We need to trust in God’s timing and how He answers our prayers. We live in a world surrounded by immediate gratification, difficult to build up the virtue of patience, trusting in God’s timing can help us attain this virtue.
3. Saint Terese of Lisieux
“Offer everything throughout your day to Jesus!”
A Morning Prayer Written by St. Therese: O my God! I offer Thee all my actions of this day for the intentions and for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I desire to sanctify every beat of my heart, my every thought, my simplest works, by uniting them to Its infinite merits; and I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them into the furnace of Its Merciful Love.
-----If we offer everything to Jesus, everything we do will be beautiful.
4. Saint Padre Pio
“Pray, Hope and don’t worry”
This is much like Philippians 4:6-9 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
-----We must truly give it to God in prayer. Worrying doesn’t change the outcome of anything. We must surrender our worries over to God, give them to Him in prayer, and know He has our very best interest at heart.
5. Saint Joan of Arc
"I am not afraid because God is with me. I was born for this!"
-----Whatever talents and wholesome passions Lord gave you, know that you were made for this, to do that in a holy way. Perfect love casts out all fear. 1 John 4:18, so, acknowledging God's perfect love will cast out our fears. We should not fear to do the holy thing amongst all the unholy things. God will give us the strength!
In everything, Pray!
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Ultimate Style Guide to Modesty
Ultimate Style guide Modesty is an essential part of dignity. We live in such a visual world. Everything represents something. Everything can be so customizable. We can in ways define who we are by the things that we own, the things that we wear and the things that we choose. What does what we wear say about us? The most important question is, what should what we wear say about us. Here is a visual to compare what Modesty and a lack of Modesty in dressing tells us. Modesty doesn’t mean turtle necks and long sleeves, it simply means to dress what God created with dignity and respect, to be reverent, to love oneself and others in respecting oneself and others. The images, so called mainstream “role models” of our times, and propaganda through advertising and such that is being pushed upon us is mostly flooded with a lack of modesty and causes us to be objectified and not respected as we should be.
Our Lady, Person of the Year
Our Lady is our true role model for all times, and for all ladies. She is humility personified. She lived and accepted God’s will. The fleeting role models of different times and generations come and go, in general do not inspire holiness, modesty, faith, reverence, virtues, the beatitudes to follow the commandments and God’s law, to trust and to follow God’s will. This is how we should all be living. This is how we should aspire to live. Mary, shows us the way though her to Jesus, and hopefully to heaven.
What are words and actions and ways that we can be like Mary.
She followed God’s will.
Saint Therese of Lisieux said, “Holiness is simply following. God’s will” Let us follow by the greatest example of Mary, like the little way of Saint Therese of Lisieux.
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Luke 1:38 38
She was humble.
Humility is the way to the God, and to find favor with Him. She was God’s servant, therefor, she was a servant of Love.
“For he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed” Luke 1:48
She was appreciative.
Mary treasured and pondered things. Today in a culture where we can get just about anything, the culture lacks appreciation rather an entitled heart and mindset.
“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
“Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.” Luke 2:51
She was a virgin.
Virginity is holy, revered, respected and something preserved for the sacrament of marriage.
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” “The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Luke 1:34-35
She is our heavenly mother.
When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. Luke 19:26-27
She shows us the way to live a miraculous life and the way to heaven in following Jesus.
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he (Jesus) tells you.” John 2:5
She was prayerful.
We need to be prayerful to have a relationship and union with God and the divine.
"All joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers." Acts 1:14
How to DO IT like a Catholic
Everything God created is good, and all evil is a perversion of something good. So, there is holy sex, and everything else is unholy sex. We live in a world of immediate gratification. Our culture wants to feast without getting fat, spend without debt, income without work, stay up all night and not be tired the next day, and... sex without children. Our culture wants to separate the procreative and the unitive aspect, and consummate a relationship before marriage only for pleasure and often the consequence is the death of an innocent life for that inability to control the momentary lustful desires. This is not a part of God’s plan. Lust allows sex to become an idol, and death of a child, the sacrifice to that idol. As counter cultural as it, we should control our lust and wait until marriage when so we do not pervert what God has given to us, as we should control pride, greed, envy, gluttony through possessions or food, wrath and sloth…the 7 soul killing sins, and we all have the ability to resurrect from them through forgives, reconciliation and reformation.
Have you ever wondered why many faithful Catholics have A LOT of children in today’s standards of number of children in a family? Did you know that the birth control pill allows life to be created? It does not prevent a female from getting pregnant. Life is still created, and then it is destroyed, killed, aborted, which ever word you fancy, they all mean the same. A non-abortive birth control pill does not exist. All birth control is an abortifacient. So, if a person is to be faithful and desire to follow the commandments and God’s laws including, “Though Shall not Kill” is taken seriously. We as imperfect humans have decided to argue over when a life begins, but a life is a life as soon as it is created, at the moment that God has co created with us, to make a life, and there is no question about that, and so with that knowledge, we don’t use birth control. What about other life evading techniques you ask…well, they are against God, cause a person to become objectified and and to be for used for 1 purpose only, and that leads to many issues such as of a lack of respect for each other. Using Natural Family planning methods allow a husband and wife the ability to get to know the reproductive bodies fully the way that God created them, and thus holding our bodies to a level of respect, honor and awe that is truly incredible. Like the liturgical season, there are times of abstinence and fasting and times of feasting, a time for waiting and a time for honeymooning, and this truly is the most beautiful and pure way in a marriage that keeps a husband and wife loving, respecting, honoring and continually being excited about one another. There is this love and love of life that develops and so through the love that is fostered in doing it this way, many Catholics simply avail themselves to having more trust and leave having children to God’s will, and truly honor the commandments whole heartedly to live out the faith in every way. God knows best, not us. This is how you DO IT like a Catholic! No wonder the divorce rate amongst husbands and wives practicing natural family planning is amongst the lowest. Couples that use NFP almost never divorce. Multiple studies done by the Family of Americas Foundation, studies show that couples who use NFP have a divorce rate of about 1% compared to those that don’t at about 50% There must be a link between sharing the faith, a desire to follow God’s laws, and a respect of one another that is fostered in this Natural Family Planning!
I pray we can all DO IT more like Catholics!
By Ingrid Bernard
A good and fun podcast recommendation on NFP is Green Sex by Jason Everett.
About the Quiz
Are you Feminine or a Feminist?
If you answered A on most of your questions, you are a feminine lady in the vision of God, if you a mostly B, you have gone with the ways of the world, in the feminist movement created with the sexual revolution in conjunction with the birth control, that caused woman to be objectified for pleasure, for women to be able to be more like men and choose to provide over to be mothers and homemakers while their husbands provide and protect and respect. Feminists have really spearheaded the way confuse the gender roles as God created them. Remember God doesn’t make mistakes. Everything He makes is good. Everything He makes because He loves us, to strengthen us, to lead us to heaven. Resisting His holy will, is to resist God and Heaven. If you answered some of B or all of B, you have been conditioned by the ever-changing tides and ways of the world to sway us away from God and our true identity as a woman as God created us. The Catholic church and the readings Word of God and teachings are constant, consistent and clear. This gives us something to anchor ourselves in, to be unmovable by the changing tides of the world. This is something to cement ourselves in as our foundation. The world changes and God does not. I pray that we can find our true identity as feminine, faithful, beautiful ladies. Some of these things are touchy subjects, but they are a reality, and things that should be addressed fearlessly based on the truths of the Church. For those of us living the faith, we are in it for the long game, for heaven. We live to please God, not others. We can’t please everyone, but we sure can please God, and we can delight in that.
By Ingrid Bernard
MUST READS
There is a great book out there. It is called the Anti-Mary Exposed, Toxic femininity by Carrie Gress. A great book, and an eye opener to what the feminist movement has done to femininity, how it started, and what it is all about. She also wrote the Marian Option.
Another great lady that spoke up and wrote about femininity was Alice von Hildebrand “I would not call myself a Christian feminist but a champion of femininity,” “The sublime beauty of the female mission as virgin, wife or mother has been so degraded that I felt a calling to shed light on ‘The Privilege of Being a Woman,” the title of one of her most popular books, published in 2002. In that book and others, she argued for the sacredness of women’s bodies and said that women had a key role to play in advancing the world, notably as mothers and wives. “I think that a man should thank God for being a man because he’s given a very clear mission to protect. A woman should thank God for being a woman because her very special mission is to give life, to corroborate with God,” she said in a 2018 interview that Crisis Magazine published after her death. “I love it! And the older I am, the more I love being a woman. Which doesn’t mean to denigrate what manhood is, but simply to say that this is what He wanted me to do.”
Crowned Miss Universe of all Time
Mary was, is and always will be the most beautiful Lady there ever was and will be.
Our culture tries to define beauty as skin deep. True beauty is simply holiness. Mary was the holiest woman that ever existed, therefor she is the most beautiful. God created beauty and is the father of beauty and love. All that is sinful is ugly. The devil, the father of lies and hate fosters sin. Our Lady's humility and sinlessness made her beautiful.
God in her and acting through her make her beautiful, as God’s light and love radiate out of her.
Everyone that has seen her describes her as the most beautiful lady they have ever seen!
In Lourdes, France in 1858 when Bernadette saw “Our Lady” she described her as the most beautiful lady she had ever seen, not just physically, but her presence, her tenderness and love. “she was more beautiful than any other.” Our Lady of Lourdes.
In Fatima, Portugal in 1917 The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, appeared to three young peasant children: Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia; ages 10, 9 and 7. They described her as “a Lady all in white, more brilliant than the sun… indescribably beautiful,”
In 1531 in modern day Mexico, Our Lady of Guadeloupe appeared to Juan Diego. He describer her as a beautiful lady.
Mary’s holiness, her friendship with God, makes her Satan’s number-one enemy
in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. In the second reading at this Mass, we heard about the woman clothed with the sun. The woman of the Apocalypse reflects the radiance of God, the divine splendor. Light emanates from her, like in the apparition at Lourdes, because she is filled with God’s light, with her Son’s grace. She wears on her head a crown of 12 stars which represent the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 apostles, the entire people of God, the whole communion of saints. Remember she is our queen as well as our mother. At her feet is the moon, the image of death and mortality. The huge dragon in the book of Revelation is the ancient serpent in the book of Genesis, the devil returned. He tries to devour her newborn Son, but is unsuccessful. Mary successfully overcomes the devil because she is sinless.
Though the dragon has been defeated by Christ, he is far from harmless and is capable of making things very difficult for disciples of Jesus. We must battle against evil. The conflict between Satan and the human race continues throughout human history. The disciples of Jesus are still pursued by the dragon. We heard at the end of today’s reading: “Then the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to Jesus.”
Her message to all is a very simple messages of prayer, penance and conversion.
The ultimate judge, our Lord crowned her queen of heaven and earth. She is the true miss Universe of all time.
By Ingrid Bernard