//Happily Ever Again//
Health Isn’t Only Physical
What Money Can Buy
//A New Way of Thinking//
Thank You for Gifts not Wrapped in Fancy Packaging
//Encouragement in the Lord//
The Catechism in a Year – Day 299 – Respect for Health
Our health is a gift from God, and so we have a responsibility to care for it. Fr. Mike emphasizes the importance of caring for our health while also explaining that we cannot idolize our health and bodies as an absolute good. If we do idolize health, it can greatly distort the way we view the dignity of those around us. He also unpacks the virtue of temperance, defining it as, “doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time.” Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2288-2291.
Click on Link: https://youtu.be/lmFC1qULXI8?si=wzN7lD0JR2ZvPxkM
Daily Message from Pope Francis – I Have Felt Your Closeness
THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2021
“I have felt your closeness and the support of your prayers. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!… Let us remember that, in the protocol of the final judgment – Matthew 25 – one of the things they will ask us will be about closeness to the sick. In these days of being hospitalized, I have experienced once again how important good health care is, accessible to all, as it is in Italy and in other countries… And let us pray for all the sick… Accompany them with prayer, especially for those in the most difficult conditions: may no one be left alone, may everyone receive the anointing of listening, closeness, tenderness and care. Let us ask this through the intercession of Mary, our Mother, Health of the Sick.” Pope Francis
Daily Message from Pope Francis
TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 2021
“When we pray we must be humble, so that our words are actually prayers and not just idle talk that God rejects… I go to pray but You, Lord, convert my heart so that it asks for what is convenient, for what will be best for my spiritual health… On some occasions, therefore, the solution to the problem is not immediate… Then, over time, things have worked out but in God’s way, the divine way, not according to what we wanted in that moment. God’s time is not our time.”
Pope Francis
Minute Meditation – Good Work is Like a Prayer
It is in work that we find the test of our relationship to the creation because work is the question of how we will use the creation. For Wendell Berry, work done well brings us into a wholeness and cooperation with the creation in which we can find health. Bad work destroys the connections that make life possible. For Berry good work is like a prayer—it is an act of both gratitude and return. Good work accepts the gifts of creation and uses those gifts to further their givenness. There are seeds that lie for decades in the soil, waiting for the right conditions before springing to life. Good work is that which creates the conditions for such life to burst forth from the whole of the creation.
— from the book Wendell Berry and the Given Life
by Ragan Sutterfield
//Franciscan Media//
Saint of the Day – May 15 – Saint Dymphna
St. Dymphna (7th c.) was the daughter of a pagan Irish chieftain and a beautiful Christian noblewoman. Dymphna was raised as a Christian, and she consecrated her virginity to Christ at a young age. Dymphna’s father loved his wife deeply. When her mother died, Dymphna’s father was so overcome with grief that he became mentally unstable. Unable to find another suitable wife of equal character and beauty to his first wife, he attempted to marry Dymphna due to her close resemblance to her mother. Upon learning of his wicked plan, Dymphna fled across the sea into Belgium along with her tutor and confessor, Father Gerebran. Her father pursued them and eventually discovered their location by tracing the foreign money they used along the way. He killed Dymphna’s confessor and pleaded with his daughter to return with him to Ireland to be his wife. When she refused, he cut off her head in a mad rage. St. Dymphna’s church still stands on the place of her burial near Antwerp. There have been numerous accounts of those afflicted with epilepsy and mental illness visiting her tomb and receiving miraculous cures through her intercession. Because of this, St. Dympha is the patroness of those suffering from mental and neurological disorders and illnesses, as well as of mental health professionals. Her feast day is May 15th.
//The Catholic Company//
Resisting Happiness with Matthew Kelly – #9 of 30 Are You Spiritually Healthy?
Daily Message from Pope Francis
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2021
“Mary defends us from danger, she is concerned about us even when we are concentrated on our own things and lose a sense of the way, and when we put not only our health in danger, but also our salvation. Mary is there, praying for us, praying for those who do not pray.”
Pope Francis