Among Women ReadHER 8.18.12...all the stuff we love: women saints, the rosary, Mary, and more!

Sorry for the late post, folks. I left this in draft mode. Silly me.

Among Women ReadHER 
8.18.12

Saints and Scholars --Meet some brilliant, bold and holy women
By Emily Stimpson at Our Sunday Visitor
Among Women fans will love this article about some awesome women saints.

Bill Buckley on Keeping the Faith
By Kathryn Jean Lopez at K-Lo at Large
A good read from the late Buckley on Lourdes and the mystery of faith, among other tasty tidbits.

10 Rosary Tips for Rosary Strugglers
By Rhonda Ortiz at Catholic Mom
Oh! This is g-r-e-a-t!

Violin for Sale
By Leticia Velasquez at Cause of our Joy
For the right person, this could be a find. (Leticia has been my guest on Among Women in the past year. Hear her talk about her book on this show.)

Creativity: What are You Creating?
By Jason Kotecki at Catholic Mom
Go make some fun!

After the Assumption
By Rebecca Teti at Faith and Family Live
A retrospective of highlights from different articles on the Assumption this week, including the Pope Benedict's homily.

Speaking of the Assumption...
So, you remember that I've written a book, now, don't you? One of my favorite homilies of ALL TIME on Mary from Pope Benedict XVI is the Homily he gave in 2005 on the Assumption... and yes, I actually quote a small segment of it in my book... but the reason I bring this up--not the book but Benedict-- is that while we are in the Octave of the Assumption, you really should read this homily. It will give you food for thought for a while. Mary loves us so very much. So, run along now. Go read.

Of course, two recent Among Women podcasts give you good stuff on the Assumption on AW 141 and AW 143 on the Queenship of Mary, the feast coming up on August 22.

UPDATE: Sorry for the incorrect link on Jason Kotecki's article, it is now corrected!

If you've been baptized, thank the Church... and other thoughts regarding my recent trip to France.

My column this week at Patheos is about the roots of faith, especially how I experience them in my own life. God loves us. Baptism confirms that love. Someone cared enough to have us baptized. And some of us have a legacy of faith that stretches back generations.

Here's an excerpt:

Jesus specifically asked his followers to make disciples of all the nations, to baptize the people they met “in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” To this day, we members of the church share in his mission, to reveal God to the very hearts that were made to receive him. Two thousand years later, that practice continues. 

I can trace my faith in Christ to the graces first imparted at my baptism. 

If you were baptized, you have someone to thank for bringing you, or leading you, to the font of life. Coming from a heritage of both French and Irish Catholic Immigrants, I have a lot of people to thank, stretching back generations. Their faith and love live on in me. 

On a recent pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, my husband and I found it marvelous to worship and pray with the international throngs of Catholic faithful at the Grotto -- where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St Bernadette, and where so many healings have taken place -- and in the shrine’s three basilicas. But Catholicism isn’t just a global faith, it is a personal faith -- the same faith that my parents offered to me when I was baptized over a half century ago, and the same faith that I have brought my children up in. 

Prior to the trip to Lourdes, I learned that my paternal grandmother’s home village was located in the south of France. Intrigued, my husband and I rented a car and explored the little town of Lembeye, where my immigrant grandmother began her life. 

As beautiful as Lourdes was, (in terms of the grandeur of being a world famous sacred destination) Lembeye was, on a personal level, just as beautiful to me. There, I entered into the Eglise de l’Assomption à Lembeye, the Church of the Assumption at Lembeye, an old 19^th century church -- the only one in town – and likely the place where my grandmother was baptized and received her first sacraments. I could not be sure, since I do not have Nana’s baptismal certificate, but this little French church might very well have been the source of my faith origins. Today I continue to reap the benefits of the faith that has been handed on to me from earlier generations.

 Read the rest.

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This makes me think... The Assumption of the BVM

The Feast of the Assumption is a day of joy. God has won. Love has won. It has won life. Love has shown that it is stronger than death, that God possesses the true strength and that his strength is goodness and love.

Mary was taken up body and soul into Heaven: there is even room in God for the body. Heaven is no longer a very remote sphere unknown to us.

We have a mother in Heaven. And the Mother of God, the Mother of the Son of God, is our Mother. He himself has said so. He made her our Mother when he said to the disciple and to all of us: "Behold, your Mother!". We have a Mother in Heaven. Heaven is open, Heaven has a heart.

...

Mary is taken up body and soul into the glory of Heaven, and with God and in God she is Queen of Heaven and earth. And is she really so remote from us?

The contrary is true. Precisely because she is with God and in God, she is very close to each one of us.

While she lived on this earth she could only be close to a few people. Being in God, who is close to us, actually, "within" all of us, Mary shares in this closeness of God. Being in God and with God, she is close to each one of us, knows our hearts, can hear our prayers, can help us with her motherly kindness and has been given to us, as the Lord said, precisely as a "mother" to whom we can turn at every moment.

She always listens to us, she is always close to us, and being Mother of the Son, participates in the power of the Son and in his goodness. We can always entrust the whole of our lives to this Mother, who is not far from any one of us.

On this feast day, let us thank the Lord for the gift of the Mother, and let us pray to Mary to help us find the right path every day. Amen.

--Benedict XVI, Homily on the Solemnity of the Assumption, 2005

M.O.M.S. the Word... my latest at Catholic Mom

It's no secret I have a friend and mother in Momma Mary. Here's a little tribute for her in gratitude for all she has given me as we come upon her Solemnity of the Assumption.

Dumping My Assumptions about Mary -- my latest column at Patheos

My column, A Word in Season, over at Patheos is one part reflection of the road I've taken toward friendship with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and one part a refresher on the joy of Mary's Assumption that we will celebrate on Monday August 15th.

Here's where it starts...

I once thought Mary irrelevant. 

I am ashamed to admit that when I was a younger woman I had little use for the Blessed Mother. 

I was raised Catholic, but when it came to Mary and Marian devotion, my post-Vatican II religious education lacked that punch. My Protestants friends, claiming to know the Bible better than I, had little respect for Mary beyond the historical footnote as being the mother of Jesus, and I believed them. Even some Catholics I knew dismissed Mary as just too “old fashioned” for the times.  Stated plainly, Mary was no feminist icon. 

Even worse, I had absorbed a subtle lie: if I imitated Mary, I would become weak, passionless, and boring -- the antithesis of the modern woman. Mary was an old-school relic that had nothing to do with me.  Little about her life was applicable to mine. 

Then I became a mother. 

My first pregnancy, sadly, was a miserable experience. I was sick, overwhelmed, and sick some more. For. Nine. Months. I could barely keep my head up and go to work each day.
My theories about strength, passion, and my remarkable destiny suddenly faltered. For those months, nothing about motherhood seemed “blessed” and I simply had no confidence for the task. 

Hope came in the form of a dear Catholic friend. She was a farther down the mothering road than I was, and definitely more mature in her spiritual journey. And she had joy.
She saw I was adrift and needed some real mothering, and an introduction to Mary was the solution. My friend taught me how to turn to the Blessed Mother in prayer.  She told me that Mary “gets” me, even if I didn’t “get” her. And that Mary “gets” motherhood, and would help me do the same. I had nothing to lose, except maybe my breakfast.

Read the rest.

If you'd be so kind, consider subscribing to this blog, you'll see the RSS feed in the upper right sidebar. And if you like my column, A Word in Season at Patheos, kindly consider subscribing to that over here.

Among Women Podcast # 106 - A Pilgrimage to Mary's House; WYD too!

Among Women 106 features chats about the value of going on pilgrimage, as Pat is joined by Sarah Vabulas, creator of the Catholic Drinkie blog, and a recent pilgrim to Rome, the island of Patmos, and a visitor to the Virgin Mary's home in Ephesus, Turkey. (Mary's home is featured in the photo at left, with our guest, Sarah Vabulas.)

Together Pat and Sarah talk about the power of new media, person to person evangelization, and how faith comes alive when one is blessed to go on a pilgrimage.

Pat shares prose from Christian authors Caryll Houselander and Fulton Sheen on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary that will be celebrated August 15. She also looks at the event of World Youth Day in Madrid, to be taking place during the Octave of the Assumption. Listen to the new episode here.

Finally, let us hear your voice on an upcoming Special Edition of AW on the Rosary in early October. To participate, contact Pat by sharing what you love about the Rosary. Please phone our voice feedback line at 206-203-2024, or leave a facebook message, or email Pat at amongwomenpodcast@me.com. Entries must be received by 6pm EST, Monday Sept. 26th.