Rejoice, O Virgin Mary!

Rejoice, O Virgin Mary!  Rejoice a thousand times!

Those are words from St. Louis de Montfort's Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  So often we see images of the Blessed Mother with tears in her eyes and a sorrowful expression on her face as she mourns and grieves over the sinfulness of her children.  But on Sunday, May 13th, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and Mother's Day, I believe that the Blessed Mother had just cause to wipe away her tears and rejoice, for on this day she was offered the loving prayers of over 250 of her children in the Milwaukee area who gathered together for a traditional May Crowning and outdoor Eucharistic Rosary Procession sponsored by Roses for Our Lady.

We began our day in expectant joy while the statue of the Blessed Mother at the Marian Shrine was crowned by a member of Roses for Our Lady, and our statue of Our Lady of Fatima on our  vara was crowned by a First Communicant.

Following the crowning, those who were able processed throughout the shrine neighborhood with our Eucharistic Lord while praying the rosary.  Our procession covered a ten block radius and for the first time in many, many years, we processed in the streets rather than on the sidewalk.  Use of the streets required a door to door campaign in the shrine neighborhood late last winter to gather signatures of the majority of the neighbors.  With three visits to the neighborhood I received enough signatures to qualify for a permit from the City of Milwaukee police department which allowed our group to really take our Lord to the streets and publicly share our faith.  Fr. Matthew Widder had the honor of carrying our Lord in procession for the second year in a row.

Following the procession we were treated to a beautiful homily by Bishop Hying and then Fr. Jim Kubicki led us in consecrating ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Fr. Christopher Klusman completed the day with benediction.

The Lord blessed us with gorgeous weather and we all rejoiced with the Blessed Mother on a day set aside to honor not only our mothers here on earth, but above all, our Blessed Mother and Queen of Heaven, the Virgin Mary.

Rejoice, O Virgin Mary!  Rejoice a thousand times!

The Inside Scoop on God-A Very Special Book Review

When I was still in high school and would struggle to come up with ideas for creative writing assignments, I would always turn to my sister Debby for ideas, and she never failed to offer me a plethora of unique characters and situations to enliven my stories.  Our entire family has long encouraged her to work on a book because we knew that she had some serious talent.  Well now, our wait is finally over!  I am so proud to share this review of Debby's first published book about her experiences of God.

The Inside Scoop on God, is written from the perspective of a Christian who has long sought God on her own terms, not settling for the confines of any one particular religion.  I love the description she offers on her website, DeborahErdmann.com, which states,  "An ordinary housewife spent several years stalking God like the paparazzi."  To my great delight, Debby's search for God has culminated in not only a deep and abiding faith in my sister's soul, but also a terrific book that will inspire and challenge you to spend some time stalking God for yourself!

The Inside Scoop on God is set up as a daily devotional with humorous family stories intertwined with scripture that reveal God's presence in the world around us.  Although I've obviously known Debby all of my life, I found myself pleasantly surprised by many of her experiences that I had never known about, and deeply touched by some that were very personal to my own life.  Debby writes with a light-hearted and joyful spirit while teaching important lessons about the Christian life.  It is clear that God reveals Himself to Debby with a playful and loving touch and she revels in His love and then reaches out to generously share it with others.

From the very first chapter where Debby connects her camping experiences to that of the Hebrews in the  Exodus story, she invites you to join her on her journey of faith.

"So let's do this campout the right way, with the Lord of the star-studded sky and smoky mountain sitting right beside us.  Each day as you're settling in to read one of these stories, invite God to sit around the campfire with you.  You can light a candle and stick a marshmallow over it if you like."

You will want to follow her on the trail she travels and bring God ever more deeply into your heart and soul.  And when you've nearly reached the end of your investigation into The Inside Scoop on God, you will find that, like Debby, you want to keep God sitting right by your side at all times, a prospect she sums up so well with a quote by Brother Lawrence who said, "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God."


I am so incredibly proud of Debby and so overwhelmingly happy to have a sister with such tremendous talent whose only desire is to use it to glorify God.  I love The Inside Scoop on God and you will, too!

Go ahead and visit Debby's website, DeborahErdmann.com, and watch for the availability of The Inside Scoop on God.  You will want to scoop up your own copy without delay and once you are holding it in your hands, you will devour every wonderful word from the beginning until the very end!

(Available in bookstores and on Amazon.com soon!  Visit Debby's website for details.)

Shine a Light

Late last month I had the honor of attending St. Francis de Sales Seminary's Open House and have been pondering the wonderful homily given by the rector, Fr. John Hemsing, ever since.

He began with a story about three men who all died at the same time and approached the gates of heaven only to find that St. Peter was on break and a substitute was taking his place at the pearly gates.  The man on duty asked the first man if he knew Jesus Christ.  "Of course," the man replied.  "I go to Mass every Sunday!  Yes, I know Jesus Christ."  The next man was questioned and he was also confident in his knowledge of Jesus Christ. He said, "Yes, I know Jesus.  I attend daily Mass and pray the rosary and read scripture every single day."  The man at the gate seemed to be pleased with these two responses.  Finally, he turned to the third man and asked the same question, "Do you know Jesus Christ?"  The man replied, "Of course I do!  I recognized You right away!"

As Fr. Hemsing continued with his homily he drove the point of this story home quite powerfully.  He said it may be fairly easy for you to be holy on the outside, to pray, to attend Mass, to read scripture, to perform works of charity.  But are you really holy on the inside?  Or is there some piece of sinfulness to which you refuse to let go?  Is there some darkness on the inside to which you cling?  What holds you back from really knowing and recognizing Jesus?

Homilies like this always make me cringe because I recognize that his words are directed right to me personally. It's as if Fr. Hemsing was speaking to my heart. This was one of those moments when Christ clearly spoke through the priest as He addressed my own state of sinfulness.  Jesus wants me to see that I am not meant to live with darkness in my soul.  He wants to draw me into the light that can only shine upon me after I let go of my tight and fervent clinging to sin. My efforts to hide in the shadows and to avoid the love that can only be showered upon me when I am contrite and humbled before God have got to be put aside, cast off forever, and my heart needs to open itself to the amazing love of God who wants me to know Him and to be filled with His light and His love.

Are you like me-performing acts of holiness on the outside but clinging to sin within?  Do you think that you can effectively cast the glow of Jesus' love to the world around you while that darkness remains inside your heart?

How blessed we are as Catholics to have recourse to the confessional where the black stain of sin may be scrubbed from our souls.  We don't have to accept simply being holy on the outside through actions that all can see; we can shine with the light of holiness both inside and out through a deep repentance and turning away from all of the shadows that darken our souls.

Dear Jesus, Lord of all that is bright and holy, shine your love within my soul.  Reveal my sins to me and allow me to feel such a deep hatred for them that I will refuse to allow their ugliness to keep me from recognizing You when You call me home to Your eternal kingdom.  Bring me to my knees in contrition for love of You.  Amen.

God Put Me There

When I learned about the death of my neighbor's daughter, I complained to my sister about my sorrow at not knowing my neighbors, and at not being there to comfort them in their grief. And my sister said very matter-of-factly, "If God had wanted you to be there, He would have put you there."

If God had wanted you to be there, He would have put you there.

What blessed words of reassurance reminding us all that wherever we are, whatever situations we may find ourselves in or whatever events we miss in life, it is all through the grace of God's will.  What peace can dwell within our souls if we only remember that God will use us as He sees fit and all we have to do is lovingly and trustingly submit to His actions in our lives.

So often my insecurities and pride cause me discomfort. I find myself in situations where I feel as if I don't fit in, I don't belong.  I wonder how in the world I ever came to be in this particular place at this particular moment and I long to run away, to escape to some private hide-away where I can be alone and won't have to face my responsibilities.  It is then that I only have to remember that God put me there.  He is always with me and I can carry on.

When I don't feel smart enough, beautiful enough, young enough, old enough, rich enough, strong enough, brave enough, holy enough, to accept my present situation in life, I need only remember that God put me there as I am not as who I think I should be.  He is always with me and I can carry on.

Remembering that God put me there will bring peace without regret.  No more will I wonder why I wasn't given a particular blessing or why I wasn't chosen to endure a certain hardship.  I will no longer wonder why I was asked to lead or to follow, to go out or to stay in, to celebrate in a moment of joy or to cry in a time of sorrow.  Learning to accept God's will for my life in each individual situation that I may find myself in will only bring me the peace that can be found from letting go in complete submission to His divine plan.

If God had wanted you to be there, He would have put you there.

The Only Child

The U-Haul truck pulled up to the house across the street and little by little furniture was carried out and loaded into the truck. Our neighbors had not lived in their house very long, only two or three years...continue reading at Catholicmom.com

Walking in Memphis

Today Paul and I are celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary. When I look back at our wedding photos I can't help but think that we were just a couple of kids back then and I marvel at how much we have both grown over the years. I am amazed at how much life we have fully lived and I find it hard to remember what life was like without Paul by my side.  Growing old together truly is a blessing that so few people are able to realize, although compared to some, we are still just a couple of newlyweds in the early stages of our marriage.  I look forward to the day when Paul and I can say that we have been married for 50 years, so really, we are not even at the halfway mark of our marriage yet.

When the excitement of our wedding day had settled into a peaceful joy, we got into my electric blue Chevy Cavalier and drove to Tennessee for our honeymoon adventure. We started out in Memphis visiting Elvis Presley's Graceland and Beale Street, the birthplace of the blues, and then drove across the beautiful state to hike in the Smoky Mountains. It was providential that just at the time we were married Marc Cohn had a hit song, Walking in Memphis, and every time we hear it we are always taken back to that happy time when we were young and love was new. Like the words in the song, "you've got a prayer in Memphis" we really did have a prayer in that specific time and place, we had a prayer for the hope of a lifelong marriage spent in  the loving arms of God.

Why don't you watch the embedded video here and celebrate our anniversary with us?

Chimes

All day long I listen to pain and hardship...girls barely fourteen-years-old try to hide wombs ripe with fresh life, young mothers worn down from trips back and forth to the NICU to visit their babes born too soon, homeless families working to put the pieces back together-trying to re-establish roots, and mentally ill women bearing the torment of depression, anxiety and schizophrenia trying to comfort crying, frantic toddlers who would push the limits of patience in the most sane of mothers.  They share their stories-sometimes timidly and discreetly, other times with a loud brashness that makes me back away and tremble to be near them.  And it doesn't matter how many times I've heard these types of stories before, it still feels raw and fresh and painful every single time the suffering breaks open in my presence.

And then the chimes ring...the chimes that signify a new life born in the hospital. Another baby is brought into the world, gulping the oxygen of life, crying from the pain of breaking through the waters of the womb into a life that holds no promises of wealth or success or happiness.  But still, those chimes, they stop me in my tracks and fill me with hope and joy.  Because I know.  I know that each life born into this world is a gift, a miracle of cells multiplying and increasing to hold the presence of God and carry Him forth into the future.  And it won't be long before that new life is gently carried into my office by a mother filled with awe over the responsibility that has been placed into her unworthy hands.  And that new life will smile and gurgle and then peacefully fall into slumber, and that's all it takes to change my perspective from sorrow and frustration to elation over the goodness of God and the great gift of new life.

Every baby born is hope for the world.
Every baby born is a needed gift.
And I thank the Lord for every baby born.
Let the chimes ring out!  Alleluia!