Just Shine On

Posts Tagged ‘being a witness’

Back in December, as I was sitting in the Abbey Church one night, I wrote this poem titled “All That I Am”. I was feeling an incredible sense of peace in that moment. Whenever I feel like I need to recenter my focus for my life, I read my poem to get myself back into that mindset and remember the most important purpose for my life.

All That I Am

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“In failing to confess Lord, I would only hide You from myself, not myself from You.”
~St. Augustine

St. Augustine, one of the great Doctors of the Church, knows the meaning of his words above better than anyone. After 31 year of life, filled with sin and lacking God, he finally chose to confess his sins and he converted to Catholic-Christianity. One of his great works is “The Confessions of Saint Augustine”, an autobiography written with philosophical/theological tones of musing, from which this quote comes from. In simple words, St. Augustine points out an important truth.

The ability to make a good confession is a Read the rest of this entry »

Every Christian hopes for one thing when they die: life eternal with God. We all want God to look at us, describe the ways in which we pleased Him, and say to us, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

 I wrote this poem as a reflection of just that. Read the rest of this entry »

 Ecumenical dialogue has always been important to me, almost as important as learning Catholic apologetics is.

I want to know everything about my faith, as well as I can. But I also want to be able to use that information I know, to participate in ecumenical discussion with anyone I meet. The more I have learned, the more I have been able to explain and understand, and have done so over the years.

I remember my first attempt at ecumenism, four years ago now, was very unforeseen, forced even.

In fact, it was somewhat of a hostile environment for me. I had posted a tweet about Read the rest of this entry »

“One day you are born, no one asked you if you wanted to live.

But now you are living. Sometimes it’s nice for you. Sometimes instead you are sad. There are many things you don’t understand. You are alive, but why are you alive? With your hands you must help reorder the world. With your mind you must learn to distinguish good and evil. With your heart you must love people, and help them when you can. There are many tasks that await you. They await our hands, our mind, and our heart.”
~Blessed Chiara Luce Badano

I was recently scrolling through the notes app on my iPod, and found this quote that I copied down in 2014. I liked the quote because it’s a basic, Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post, I talked about Mike Posner’s song ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’ and why I think it’s a good song. While it does seem to warn against drugs, the message could always be a little more explicit. While my friends can attest to the fact that I always turn up that song when it comes on the radio, it’s not my favorite anti-drug song. That honor goes to Read the rest of this entry »

I am just one person, living in a grieving country; a small part of this troubled world. We the people, are heartbroken about the increasing amount of tragedies that contribute to a river of blood which knows no borders.

I read the news and every day I read of a bombing in one place, a shooting in another, attacks that are taking place worldwide and with different motives. I will not use this post to point fingers, Read the rest of this entry »

GUEST POST
The March for Life is an important Pro-Life event that happens in Washington D.C. and other places around the United States each January. I had the awesome opportunity to interview triplet sisters who went on the March this year, and then got stranded on the highway during the blizzard that stalled many Marchers’ return home. They share their experience below. I hope you enjoy their witness story!

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(Left to right: Alexis, Kristen, and Lauren.)
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*****This was actually something I posted on on my personal FaceBook and Instagram, but the more I thought about it, I decided it would be a nice little blog post too. So for those of you who didn’t catch it, I hope you enjoy reading my little pep talk!*****

I think one of the biggest lessons 2015 taught me, is that you can’t save people, you can only love them.

2015 started with me finding out that one of my teammates had run away from home. I begged him to come home, but I quickly realized that no matter how many times I called his dead phone, or texted him, or sent him FaceBook messages, he wasn’t going to change his mind. All I could do, was pray. Things have worked out alright for him, I’ve heard, and for that I am glad.

That was just the first of a few instances this past year, where I think  Read the rest of this entry »

Be a real rebel. Be in it, not of it.

I think this is a very important concept that we all need to understand. Have you ever felt like you just don’t belong anywhere? Maybe, like me, you have a few different circles of friends that you drift in and out of. We enjoy the company of all of them, but we just don’t fit in. That’s OK, because none of us were made to fit in! We can only find the perfect love and acceptance that we want so much, when we turn to God. He put us on this earth, not to blend in with the crowd, but to stand out and point others to Him. We live in this world. But we don’t belong here. We need to be rebels and prove we are in it, not of it.

Enter the college scene. I have experienced my first semester of college. Within that first semester, I have been exposed to many trends Read the rest of this entry »