Just Shine On

Posts Tagged ‘serving’

As I write this post, it is August 15, 2018.

Today is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother. Today was a Holy Day of Obligation, and I went to the 8 AM Mass, just minutes after reading the report from the Pennsylvania Grand Jury and the reactions of people, Catholic and not, from across the globe.

This report, which covers the heinous crimes by the clergy, (of which an estimated 90% were from prior to the 1990’s) comes on the tail of the scandals in Argentina and Australia. A bit more personal to me, an investigation has also been launched against the major seminary in my own diocese, after an extremely damning piece on the conduct of some who have attended, was published by an ex-seminarian whom was one of my first JSO Instagram followers.

Considering everything that has been going on, and all the attention the Church has been getting from the major news media, it is safe to say that I, among many others, are beside ourselves, with a storm of incredibly difficult emotions.

I feel sick about the children who have been failed, their innocence destroyed and lost. I am angry about the coverups done to save face. I feel powerless to help clean up any of this mess and promote healing. I feel betrayed because the Church that I have fought for and defended for so long, is now being smeared by the hundreds of men who were unfaithful to the vows that they made. This goes beyond the breaking of promises though. This is pure evil, and it is unfathomable to me that this is the current face of the Catholic Church, especially since we know that our teachings hold us to the highest of standards when it comes to sexual conduct.

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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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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 »

“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 »

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!

*****

(Left to right: Alexis, Kristen, and Lauren.)
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It was just over 2 years ago, that I created my blog here, Just Shine On.  Naturally, it was time to update my About Page, so I just did that. My life has changed in some big ways! One of those big changes has been moving to college. I applied and was accepted to six Catholic colleges, and submitted the below essay, to each of them.   I recently found this essay on my computer, and thought sharing it with you all, might be a great post.  The essay prompt was: “Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?” 

I hope you enjoy reading it. Read the rest of this entry »

Last month I celebrated my 18th birthday. But turning the big one-eight wasn’t the only thing that made this past birthday so special. It was also the fact that my birthday landed on a Sunday this year. I spent a good amount of time thinking about this one night last month, as I held one of our hens and watched fireflies glow in the dusk, on a perfect early July night.

Celebrating my birthday on a Sunday might not seem like much. But for me, it means the world. You see, Read the rest of this entry »

A couple weekends ago, I went on my last high school retreat with my youth group. My youth minister and the CORE members did an awesome job running it, but I think one of my favorite parts (besides Adoration, which is always a great experience,) was the witness talk that was given. Our witness speaker happened to be a seminarian, which I thought was awesome! If you’ve been following my blog from the beginning, or if you know me personally, then you probably know I have a lot of admiration and respect for priests, and the vocation to religious life in general. So you can imagine how excited I was about this witness talk! The seminarian gave a really great testimony about his call to the priesthood, and the different things that happened throughout his life, that he now realized was God trying to speak to him.

The discussion guided by my CORE member, again led me to the conclusion that I often come to when I think about what the priesthood means to me: Read the rest of this entry »

The Pro-Life movement is so important.

But as I’ve kept up to date with the latest news about the March For Life via social media, I’ve become increasingly frustrated by the society that we live in. So many of my friends have participated in the march down in D.C., and I am so proud of all of them! But what frustrates me is how mainstream media can’t seem to provide coverage of anything more important than the proper PSI for a football. Seriously…there’s been next to no coverage of the March for Life in D.C. or any of the other Pro-Life protests going on across the country right now. Apparently numbers less than 12.5-13.5 are more infuriating than the numbers I found just by conducting a simple Google search.

So, in honor of the 42nd ‘anniversary’ of the Roe vs. Wade decision, let me share Read the rest of this entry »