Happy feast of the first married couple to ever be canonized together, Saint Zelie and Louis Martin! Before reading their letters I saw them as kind of snobby (sorry it’s true). I imagined them as stiff figures praying 50 rosaries a day and having perfect children. Boy was I wrong. Photos don’t do them justice. Behind those few stiff photographs are two of the most passionate, zealous, funny, artistic, and humble parents I’ve read about int the last few years. Zelie’s letters especially reveal her intensity, passion, cheekiness, sarcasm, humor, wittiness. This often alongside her reoccurring periods of depression and anxiety. Also she went to court against women pretending to be nuns at a school to save a child who was being mistreated. This woman!!!! Above all, her tremendous… and I really do mean tremendous… love for Our Lord. Louis’ letters are short and few. His presence more hidden. He gave up his artistry to support Zelie in her lace making often traveling to support the business. Some of my favorite details for him come from Zelie when she writes to her brother that Louis was again on pilgrimage that weekend or again holding vigil until morning at the parish. He reminds me so much of saint Joseph. What great love these to had for our Lord, each other, and their children. How great their suffering losing 4 children, losing one to mistreatment from a nurse. Another survived but had tremendous psychological disturbances. Zelie suffering from not being able to nurse her children. And my God, Louis’ pain of total and complete loss when everyone he deeply loved was removed from him. May these holy spouses teach us to be fiercely passionate in the pursuit of serving Christ and loving others in the most mundane and when we are in most pain. Our spiritual parents Saint Zelie and Louis Martin, pray for us!!!! #bigapplecatholic #blessedisshe #projectblessed #zelieandlouismartin

Mama, help me to come home to my own heart. While on retreat several months ago it was so clear as day that I was no longer at home in my own heart. Not only was I a stranger to myself but I had no desire to welcome anyone or anything else. For different reasons my heart had become hard as stone and cold as ice. It happened slowly, quietly, subtly… I no longer paid attention to my own heart. My tenderness was turned into harshness. When I heard this meditation on retreat in it was painful and comforting all at once. Kind of like when you have strep and get a steroid shot? Ya know what I mean? I knew I needed it but the sting of it was great. I knew the Holy Family was the way back home in my own heart but I did not want to be faced with what I had done to myself. Distraction was far more comfortable than compassion. As I walked these 9 months (how fitting……) alongside my Mother I’ve begun to see why the greatest models in my life have such great devotion and tenderness towards her. She is a mother, she is a sister, she is a friend. She is my mother, my sister, my friend. And who better to melt my stony heart than she who was perfectly at home in hers. Perhaps you too find yourself far from home in your own heart. Scared, frightened, weary, overwhelmed, discoursed, doubting, and even apathetic. Such is a time to be nurtured by the heart of a Mother. A heart with no defense mechanisms that will reject us, no walls that will shut us out, no fear to drive us away. Come right here Mother.. right where I am most in pain, most in doubt, most in fear. Come Mama help me to be at home in my own heart to welcome my most desired guest..He whom you bore first in your own heart. #bigapplecatholic #blessedisshe #projectblessed #bissisterhood #catholic

Wisdom from a friend. 💌 #catolico #catholic #francisdesales #blessedisshe

Always longed for a friend and a love like this. It wasn’t too long ago I realized He was already with me. This heart is love and this love is pure. A heart with no defenses. A real, fleshy, human, heart of a man that loves and receives in totality. A heart that that does not rush. A heart who sits patiently. A heart who longs. A heart who dreams. A heart who laughs. A heart who weeps. A heart who loves all of me. My own heart has longed for a beloved and His heart is beginning to belong to me. A happy feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. #bigapplecatholic #blessedisshe #sacredheartofjesus #catholic

They speak for themselves. Take them to prayer today? Paintings: 1. Rest On The Flight to Egypt by Oliver Mersin 2. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Carravagio 3. The Return of the Prodigal Son by Girolamo Batoni #bigapplecatholic #blessedisshe #catholic

Give us this day our daily bread… not monthly, quarterly, annual bread. So many of you resonated with the first reading from yesterday of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. humbled deeply by the gentle way in which the Lord invited the widow into relationship. He could have given a six month supply of oil and flour just as he could have given the Israelites stockpiles of food. He could have provided much quicker and “more abundantly.” And yet he didn’t. Why? Far more precious than her need for flour and oil for her son was her need to know Her God. To know him intimately, experimentally, every single day. Her need was great, His desire to bless her even greater. God is relentlessly devoted to encountering us and providing for us every. single. day. Materially , spiritually and emotionally. We learn this most deeply in the daily, real, gritty, intimate, challenging, sometimes terrifying, but most often liberating, relationship with a real person. This is why we do not ask for a cash advance of six months worth of grace. It leads our hearts to treat God more like a business partner and less like a Father. And how little we like to be dependent. How little we like to be invited Intro daily trust. How little we like to go into the vulnerability of being deeply loved, seen, known, and accepted every single day of our entire lives. Like the widow, I cannot stockpile my trust. And I’m so glad I can’t because the alternative is to live in a mere transactional relationship rather than with a Father, with my Father, who wants to give me far more than I could ever ask for.. if only I can trust him to provide for me for just today. #bigapplecatholic #blessedisshe #projectblessed

Hola hola!! I believe the last time I introduced myself around here was two years ago. Currently saying hello from a bus headed to Lisbon. No idea exactly where I am but I know where im headed.. which is quite fitting for an introduction.. more on that in a bit. First, my name is Mariana and I was born in Colombia and raised in the USA. I come from a strong family of mostly women and my friends find it hard to believe I’m on the more quiet people of my family. It’s true. I spent many of my summers growing up in my home country and I’ve a deep love for the people and land. I love Muji, a protein filled breakfast and i have a deep deep deep love for @miloanthonyventimiglia 😜 Also I’m obsessed with the amber heard and Johnny Deep trial.. if you know you know. Growing up I also always knew I was going to move to NYC and so when I was 18 I moved there to study at @thekingscollege. It was the experience of a lifetime and will forever be indebted to my professors and peers for teaching me things far outside of the classroom.. virtue, honor, courage, humility..etc. During my time in NYC I found myself suddenly far from my catholic faith despite having been incredibly involved all my life. I knew Christ was real but He didn’t quite have a proper place in my life yet. So when I hit a very dark place in my life in 2017 I knew I needed something more. And I found him in the most obscene places… in New York City amongst the deepest sin I had ever been in. I gave my yes to Him and his Eucharistic presence early in 2018 and my life has never been the same shortly thereafter meeting @focuscatholic missionaries and giving myself to him a new and radical way by becoming his missionary. Mission has been some of the best, hardest, and most beautiful two years of my life. My FOCUS fam will always and forever be in my heart. Im sad to be leaving after just two years (story for another time) but am confident in whatever the Lord has for me in store. In many ways I am awaiting my “placement” as I was two years ago. Thanks for being here and letting me share bits of my heart and story. I hope it blesses and encourages you on our pilgrimage Home. Xo. Mariana

I’ve spent a large part of this year alone in a bedroom. It began with a brutal stomach bug in January knocking me off my feet only to keep me there when a surgery I had planned in February came with unplanned complications in body, mind and spirit. Even now as I am nearing the end of recovery I spend my days alone. Sometimes by choice but often by physical limitations. Within a week of recovery I had already exhausted all podcasts, movies, tv shows… I finished The Good Place in 5 days. Don’t ask how many episodes or seasons there are. For the following two months I spent my days hardly able to sit up on my own, unable to drive, too dizzy from medication to read, and to annoyed to listen or watch anything. I couldn’t even do something as read a book let alone do my job as a missionary. It was clear I would need extra help so my mom and I flew home to Birmingham. It was a decision that felt devastating at the time, as if even the smallest bit I had here has been taken from me. I found myself bored as ever. I could not understand how Ignatius or Therese did this for years. Perhaps the most challenging part was that I could no longer run away from the reality that I had spent the last 8 months hiding from God. I kept myself busy internally and externally in an effort to hide my shame. In the process I forgot who I was and often hurt others along the way. A thrill, truly. Perhaps that’s why this book by Fr. Pine resonated with me so acutely. I knew what it was like to be stopped dead in my tracks of busyness and be left to deal with myself. Which largely included my sin, my solitude, my existence. Btw my busyness was “holy” busyness. Dedicating myself to the apostolate, filling myself with great books, podcasts, and conversations. All of these good.. but I found myself listening about God more than listening to him. It was subtle but in the process I once again lost any sense of meaning, purpose, and worth. I chose busyness over my beloved. And I did so because I was so terrified of sitting with myself and my reality. Our avoidance of our hearts is costing us our abundance. Come, Holy Ghost, teach us to receive true abundant life. #bigapplecatholic

It’s time to take things personally. How often we encourage the opposite: don’t take this so personally but.. this isn’t personal.. don’t be mad that definitely wasn’t personal.. We find so much relief when something isn’t personal. Is this not the antithesis to the Christian narrative? If the truth of Christ is not personal then it falls as another lousy fable to keep minimal hopes up for as long as we can muster our own strength. How sad of a life for all of us if we continue to avoid taking things personally. Can I propose then that unless we take the Resurrection personally, we will not find any true fulfillment in life? Much like the apostles in Gethsemane I’ve been asleep with sorrow and grief in the last year. Death has worn over many areas of my heart and I have been blind to the promise of the Resurrection. And which promise is that? That if Christ truly did resurrect then I can hope for the same in my own heart.. here, now, today. Perhaps you too have been asleep with grief. Resurrection Himself speaks the language of my heart to me through every flower, every sunset, every consolation from a friend, every time I’ve randomly run into sheep lately (which is many!!!). He’s been calling to me, longing for me to respond, to see His own gloriously resurrected, beautiful body running towards me.. Mariana, his beloved one. It’s personal. He has risen for you friend. You are the beloved. You are his beloved. Christ has risen. Take it personally. #bigapplecatholic #blessedisshe #catholic #easter #bissisterhood

*Please note this writing is a little more sensitive in nature. This time last year I sensed a gentle nudge that it would be time to prepare to make a greater gift of myself, mind body and soul.. I didn’t know exactly what that meant but I knew it was time to start making small moves. So along with with preparing my mind and soul, I began to dive deeper into the issues in my body and found at the time my body wasn’t able to conceive. After 15 years of hormonal issues and endometriosis I wasn’t surprised this was the case but I found in the process that it was my own heart that was not ready to ‘conceive.’ I was at my third ultrasound this time and seemingly the most painful one. I couldn’t tell which was more painful, the fear, the anger at months of weight gain and hair loss or the physical pain. I wanted to rebel out of my loneliness in that chapel but I had to make a choice of how I was to receive all this. And by the grace of God I learned a lesson I would have never otherwise been able to learn. As my arms fell into my lap in surrender my heart was moved to pray, “Jesus I give you my womb.” And in doing so my understanding of Our Lady grew more than ever. We were both young women alone, cold, scared, even confused and entrusting the unplanned of our femininity to our Father. And even more strikingly than surrendering our bodies..were both being asked to allow the Holy Spirit into a level of companionship deeper and more intimate than we might have asked for. Let it be done unto by body according to thy word. These words were incarnated in Mary and Joseph as they both surrendered all who they were as man and woman.. body and spirit.. to the Father for the greater glory of God. Is it no surprise then that Jesus of Nazareth would speak these words with HIS own body on the cross and in the Eucharist? Our beautiful bridegroom speaks the language of surrender with his body everyday in the Eucharist and joins us in our own surrender. What beauty. Holy Spirit, spouse of the Virgin, teach us to surrender all that we are with joy and expectant hope in the great glory you are waiting to conceive in our being and our hearts. #bigapplecatholic #blessedisshe