Quick Takes #2 When to stop reading a book.

I have not been reading very much over the past few days.  I am starting to think this is a sign that I am not enjoying the book that I am reading (as much as I try to convince myself that I do really enjoy it).  Over the past few months I have decided that there is nothing wrong with not finishing a book or returning a book to the library unread just because when you got home you couldn't convince yourself to actually open it.  It just seems like a better idea to stop trying to read the book that in reality you don't love and find one that you do love.  So today I though I would list some ways to determine that you should stop reading a book (because sometimes you really think you do like it).
 

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Last night you decided not to read before going to sleep.  And the night before, and the one before that.

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 When you do read before bed you rarely finish more than one page before you can't keep your eyes open.

--- 3 ---

You find yourself siting down to read and when you get up the bookmark has not moved.

--- 4 ---

You have not read in so long that you can't remember what book you are currently reading.

--- 5 ---

You get an email from the library telling you that the book is due but you have not yet made it through the introduction.

--- 6 ---

 Someone asks you what the book is about and you really can't answer them, not because it is to complicated but because you really don't know.

--- 7 ---

Well if this sounds like you (and it definitely sounds like me right now) I would say that its time for you to give up on that book that you are reading (if we could even call it that) and make a trip to the library.  Why waste your time on this kind of reading when you could really be reading?
Next week, How you know when you are reading a book that you love. Hopefully I'll find one by then.

Also keep all the people involved in the shooting in Colorado in your prayers. 
For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

The Our Father- And forgive us our trespasses

Join me as I take a closer look at The Our Father. 

And forgive us our trespasses,

Here we are asking the Lord to forgive us.  We try to live a holy life but we still sin.  We are still human.  We still make mistakes.  We still fall into Satan's traps.

Then what?  

Are we only given one chance?

It is three strikes and you are out?

Is someone keeping a score card of all our sins?

No

We fall but God forgives us.

But we need to ask.

And that is exactly what we are doing here in the Lord's Prayer.  We are asking/ praying for the Lord's forgiveness.  I feel that in asking for forgiveness we are saying that we are sorry, saying that we will try to not sin again and asking the Lord to help us with this.  All in this simple line.  

This is a very simple prayer for forgiveness.  Something that we should ask for/ pray about everyday.

Remember, the Our Father is Jesus teaching the people how to pray.  He tells them to pray/ ask for the Lord's forgiveness.  This is no different today.  We still need to ask for the Lord's forgiveness when we sin.  Every time we say the Our Father we should be thinking of and recognizing our sins and asking the Lord's forgiveness for them.  The Lord will always welcome us back and forgive all our sins but we have to ask.

Dear Lord, Help us to ask for your forgiveness.

For more of my thoughts on the Our Father and on prayer look at these posts.

Prayer

Our

Father

Who Art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy Name 
Thy Kingdom Come

Thy Will be Done

 On Earth as it is in Heaven

Give us this day our daily bread.

 

Joining in with Jen today!

The Our Father- Give us this day our daily bread.

Join me as I take a closer look at The Our Father. 

Give us this day our daily bread.

I have been reflecting on this line for a few days now and there is always one word that comes out to me.

Daily.

Every day.

What are somethings that we do everyday?  Eat, sleep, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed.

These are things that we do everyday.  Some we do every day in order to survive (eat, sleep) and others we do every day to stay clean and take part in our lives.  The day just wouldn't seem right if we skipped one of these things.  Something would be missing.  We wouldn't skip a day if we could help it.  It would not suffice to only do these things once a week. 

Daily.  Every day.  365 days a year.

Just as we need to eat everyday in order to stay health we need to be feed by the Lord everyday in order to be spiritually healthy.

Often times when people hear you are Christian or Catholic they assume all that means is that you go to church on Sundays.  That is not daily, that is weekly.  We can not live on that and we definitely can't thrive.

Often times people will tell me "Yeah I'm Catholic I go to Saint Christopher's on Christmas.  That is not daily, that is yearly.  Jesus does not expect us to be able to live off that!

We need contact with the Lord daily in order to be a thriving Christian.  We need to have daily contact with the Lord to be able to survive.  We need to be feed by the Lord everyday.  This food does not always have to be the Eucharist, although I do recommend daily mass when you can.  This food could be reading his words in the bible or finding some time each day for real prayer.  The Lord provides us with the Eucharist to be our spiritual food here on Earth but even when we are not able to receive the Eucharist daily we still need to receive food from the Lord daily in order to remain spiritually healthy.

How do you receive food from the Lord daily. 

Dear Lord,  I ask you to feed those who are hungry with your living food. 

For more of my thoughts on the Our Father and on prayer look at these posts.

Prayer

Our

Father

Who Art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy Name 
Thy Kingdom Come

Thy Will be Done

 On Earth as it is in Heaven

I wish I could be there.

The events and travels of the weekend are over.  We are back home now.  Everything is quiet and peaceful here.  But it is not that way everywhere.  As I sit typing on my porch this evening I can hear the hum of neighbors air conditioner units and a basketball game down the street but everything is quiet here.  Here it is peaceful.  But it is not that way everywhere.  Earlier this afternoon I had a very long Skype conversation with my younger siblings and an equally long phone conversation with my parents.  Things are not quite as peaceful there.  There are struggles and there are hard times.  I wish I could be there.  I wish I could do something.  I wish I could help out in some way.  But I am not there.  I am here on this quiet peaceful porch many many miles away.  I feel so helpless, so apart, so guilty.

What can I do?

I really don't know? 

Well, I can give what I have.  I can talk to them, listen to them, even video chat with them.  And I can pray.  Even if I can't be with them I can pray for them.  Even when I am many many miles away I can pray for them.  Even when I do not have any Earthly solution to their problem, I can pray.  Even when it seems hopeless we have faith and we pray to the Lord and we know he hears our prayers and we know that he has a plan for us.  

"Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive."  Matthew 21:22

"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope."  Jeremiah 29:11

Dear Lord, I ask you to watch over those who are struggling tonight and be their comfort and their peace.

Joining in with Jen and the beautiful women of Soli Deo Gloria.

Also linking up with On Your Heart Tuesdays because this is something that is truly on my heart right now.

Quick Takes #1

--- 1 ---

Well this is my first quick takes.  I have enjoyed reading several each Friday so I thought I would try for myself.  So here it goes.

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It is hot.  Not only is it hot but it doesn't seem like it will cool down anytime soon.  Living in an old brick building with no air conditioning I am not sure where it is hotter, out in the sun or in my brick oven of an apartment.  

--- 3 ---

Again on the heat.  I was speaking to my Grandmother and mentioned that the only time that I am really cool is in my car with the AC on.  She agreed with me.  Then she told me that she couldn't remember what people did when they didn't have air conditioning in their car.  I find those first few minutes when you get into the car before the air conditioning gets started are almost unbearable in this heat.  It is interesting to think that something that we have come to expect once was a novelty.  Something that we feel we can't live without was once something that everyone lived without.  Sometimes I feel I am way to spoiled. 

--- 4 ---

Yesterday marked our farthest distance from the sun all year.  In this heat, I can't believe it.  So many people believe that it is hotter in the summer because we are closer to the sun.  This is not true!  This is such a hard concept for my students to understand.  You can read more about this here on Discovery News.  I wish I could show this to all my students as well.

--- 5 ---

I just love the library.  Sometimes I think I get more joy out of going to the library than actually reading the books that I check out.  I could spend hours there just looking through the books.  Pulling out titles that look interesting, reading the back cover, maybe reading a couple pages, looking at the pictures and then putting them back on the shelf.  Often times they are not books that I would read but they are still interesting to look at.  Eventually I will choose a couple books that I think I might like to read and I will check them out and bring them home.  Then I might actually read it, or maybe not?  But I guess that alright.  I still got to enjoy going to the library.

--- 6 ---

Source

Today is the feast day of St. Maria Goretti.  She is an amazing saint.  She died as a result of an attack and rape.  As she was dying she was able to forgive her attacker.  And this all happened when she was 12 years old.  It is truly amazing that such a young girl was able to act in such a way.  When she was canonized in 1950 her attacker was there.  Her ability to forgive is truly amazing and provides us with some inspiration.

                          --- 7 ---

Well I guess now I have officially finished my first quick takes.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  I guess I'll try it again next week.  Have a great weekend.

 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

The Our Father- On Earth as it is in Heaven

Join me as I take a closer look at The Our Father. 

On Earth as it is in Heaven.

Yesterday I was listening to the radio and I heard Help Pour Out The Rain by Buddy Jewell.  This is not the first time I heard this song but this time one line sent a shiver down my spine. 

"And I can't wait to see my family and meet Jesus face to face."

On Earth as it is in Heaven.

In Heaven I believe all things are perfect.  There is perfect beauty, perfect peace, and perfect light.  There is no sin,, only truth.  No suffering, only joy.  And we will be in perfect communion with the Lord.  We will meet Jesus face to face.  I can not think of anything better than this.  Just thinking about it sends a shiver down my spine.  Heaven is going to be amazing.

On Earth as it is in Heaven.

But in this line we pray to bring the rule of heaven to Earth.  We know that Earth is not heaven but maybe we can make it a little more like heaven.  We pray and work for peace.  We try to teach truth.  We try to bring people joy.  And we try to grow closer to the Lord.

meet Jesus face to face

Can we really do this on Earth??

Yes!!!

In Holy Communion.

In adoration.

In the tabernacle.

Jesus is really there!

I spent a little time in adoration today and was again reminded of the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  He is really there.  There is an awe inspiring wonder that came from siting in the true presence of Jesus in that church today.

Sometimes it is so easy to forget that he is really there.  Ever time you drive by a church he is really there.  Do you drive past the house of a good friend without stopping by to say hi or at least giving them a quick thought?  But so often we do that to Jesus.  We drive right by him without even giving him a single thought.  But yet we look forward to seeing Jesus in heaven.

On Earth as it is in Heaven.

Kind of like a preview to heaven we are given chances to meet Jesus on Earth.

Dear Lord, Help us to make Earth a little more like Heaven.  Help remind us to meet Jesus face to face every chance we get.  Thank you for giving us that amazing gift when we are still sinners on Earth.

For more of my thoughts on the Our Father and on prayer look at these posts.

Prayer

Our

Father

Who Art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy Name 
Thy Kingdom Come 

Thy Will be Done

Linking up with On Your Heart Tuesday.

 

Enjoy your day!

Back to Blogging?

So I haven't been posting a lot recently.  I don't really know why but I miss it.  So I'm going to try again to get back into it.

I have been trying lately to live deliberately.  Not to waste hours of my day doing 'nothing'.  I am enjoying summer vacation now.  Now I have the time that I wished for all year long to do everything that I wanted to do then but didn't have the time (read, write, exercise, knit, spend time with friends).  But sometimes I feel like I'm not doing anything or I don't like the free time.  I think I am just getting used to having time and not knowing what to do with it.  For example, during the school year I have to put aside time to pray, now I have all day to pray but often I never get to it.  

So I am trying to live more deliberately.  Today I probably spent 2 hours reading a book for fun, something that I have not done in a long time and I really enjoyed it.  Let see how tomorrow goes?

Back to blogging.  That is one of the other things that I am going to try to get back into this summer.  I have still been reading many blogs but I haven't been writing much lately.  I feel like I am having a hard time coming up with topics.  I really enjoy reading series of articles.  I have been reading The Honeymoon Series by Kate at Real Catholic Love and Sex.  (Check it out, its worth the read for all Christina women.)  So I thought I should work on finishing by series (if you could call it that) on The Our Father.  It has been something that I have been thinking about recently as I have been praying for His will to be done.  I have been praying about it, writing about it and reading about it so it seems like a good place to start back blogging.

So for tomorrow (hopefully) , The Our Father- on earth as it is in Heaven!