A Series of Thank-Yous: To the Men

To the men who showed me what it means to be a woman of God by their example, calling me on to do His work, thank you. 

To the men who saw their sister in Christ struggling to realize her identity as a daughter of God, thank you for listening and loving me through those difficult times. 

To the men who walked me back to the door of my dorm at night, come hell or high water, I cannot thank you enough. (And if you trudged through the snow to do so, you probably knocked a few years off Purgatory. I'm sanctifying you.) 

The Little Flower and Her Brother

One of my goals this summer is to finish all the books I started reading at school (and there are many). So far, I’ve completed Wendy Shalit’s A Return to Modesty and Patrick Ahern’s Maurice and Thérèse: The Story of a Love. If you know anything about the Little Way, you’ll recognize those accent marks. I’m referring to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, whom I mentioned in my previous post. Prior to reading this book, I had little knowledge of St. Thérèse, aside from what others had told me about her sainthood. However, as I read, I began to understand the attraction many Catholics have to St. Thérèse’s Little Way. 

Maurice and Thérèse is a collection of letters between St. Thérèse and Maurice Barthélémy Bellière, a young seminarian at the time of their correspondence. Thérèse, a cloistered nun, was asked by her superior to pray for the struggling Maurice, which she obediently did. She adopted Maurice as her spiritual brother, constantly referring to herself as his “little sister”—not because she was younger than he, but because of her great humility. Thérèse had no inhibitions when writing to her brother, and thus readers come to know this great saint, the “Little Flower,” in a deep and beautiful way. 

In the Words of Peter Pan, Here We GO!

For my inaugural blog post, I will detail the importance of living a healthy, well-rounded, faith-filled lifestyle, which you can easily implement in Three Easy Steps You Can Complete in Five Minutes From Your Couch!

Just kidding. Life is not so simple. Life, oftentimes, seems immensely complex and overwhelming. Even the task of typing out this post was monumental for me, despite the facility of creating a blog. You see, anyone can make a blog to write about anything. Social networks are overrun with links to blog posts about fitness, relationships, spirituality—you name it, it’s probably been blogged about. And of course there is very little pressure on me to create a completely original, captivating, heart-rending blog with a substantial readership and regular updates and practical life advice relevant to others. (Hello, innocent new readers. Sit down, buckle up, and enjoy the ride.)