Recently, I met someone who told me “There is no greater disappointment than Christ on the cross.” I want you to meditate on what that exactly means. Jesus is God made flesh, 100% God and 100% human. So when you look at a crucifix, realize that it’s God experiencing death. God the Son was dead. No apocalypse, no crime, and no betrayal could hurt more than the idea of God the Son suffering, bleeding, being publicly humiliated. What does that... Read more
“If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Many a Catholic identifies this as a refrain to a familiar psalm. But what is God’s voice? We can’t exactly hear it! Maybe the reason we can’t hear it is because we’re not listening to it. But we’re not the only ones. There’s a famous passage about Elijah trying to find God in 1 Kings 19: 11-12 ‘Then the Lord said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the... Read more
One familiar prayer associated with Catholicism is the Nicene Creed. Like many a mission statement and affirmation, the Nicene Creed reminds Catholics of the basics of the faith. For this post, I’m going to be looking into this particular phrase from the Creed: “I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church.” One Although part of the New Evangelization involves dialogue with other denominations, Catholics are always praying that all faiths will become one again. Beyond just co-existing, Catholics desire a... Read more
April is National Poetry Month! The Catholic Gentleman posted a blog about some Catholic poets you may not have heard of or may not have known were Catholic. But for this blog, I’m going to list off some saints who also wrote poetry and tell you some things about them. St. Therese of Liseux: One of my favorite saints (as I have mentioned), St. Therese’s best known work is her autobiography Story of a Soul and being an inspiration to Mother Teresa. She... Read more
Do you really want to know why I didn’t blog Sunday night? I was looking through Netflix and found that one of my favorite movies was on Instant Watch: Mean Girls. What does Mean Girls have to do with Lent? A little more than you think, but I’ll get to that later. I am always a sucker for movies with quotable dialogue such as Casablanca and The Princess Bride. Mean Girls is no exception. Just look at how many memes there are relating to the... Read more
I know. I’m being more inconsistent than a soap opera lately. I have no excuses. But it brings up a commonly asked question: Is fasting, prayer, and almsgiving required on Sundays? Technically no. However, there’s still a type of fasting that goes on during Sunday Mass. The Gloria isn’t sung, for one thing. Some churches choose to pray the Apostle’s Creed instead of the Nicene Creed. The kyrie and Agnus Dei are sung in their original language (Greek and Latin, respectively). But... Read more
Fr. Robert Barron’s Lenten Reflection echoes one of my earlier Lenten Blogs. But thankfully, my friends gave me an interesting prompt: Post 15 random facts about yourself along with your best selfie and your worst selfie. So here goes! I am a Texan by choice, not by birth I have weird taste in music I love reading Jane Austen and books about her more than I can say I love listening to musicals and can get all the songs stuck in... Read more
Fr. Robert Barron’s Lenten Reflection talked about how compassion and forgiveness became God’s weapons as Jesus hung upon the cross. The reflection is titled “The Weapons of Love.” I’ve written about love on this blog before. But there’s always two questions that I keep asking when it comes to people who write stories of love: Do they portray a healthy, wonderful, loving relationship accurately? And if they didn’t, why? Take JK Rowling for example. She created relationships in her books, but recently... Read more
Fr. Robert Barron’s Lenten Reflection and Pope Francis’s homily today seem to coincide with what I’m going through right now. Both of them talk about the three major things in Lent: Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. And all three of them can be used as methods for dealing with what St. Paul calls “the thorn in the flesh.” As said in 2 Corinthians 12: 5-10 About myself I will not boast, except about my weaknesses.Although if I should wish to boast, I would... Read more
There were a few reasons I didn’t write the past few days. Monday’s Lenten Reflection talks about how posture can make a difference when it comes to prayer. Fr. Robert Barron quotes psychologist William James who says “…it is not so much sadness that makes us cry as crying that makes us feel sad.” Without going too much into detail as to why, I spent Monday night crying. And what hurt more than the crying was a feeling of disappointment in the world as... Read more
Monique Ocampo Writes
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