Big Hearts, Little Hearts 💕

This weekend, I was catching up on Fr. Mike’s homily podcasts and finally listened to his episode from a couple of weeks ago. In it, he said something that stopped me in my tracks:

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When we talk to God, when we have some pain, some kind of thing that’s distressing us, and we think “This is big on my heart, but it’s too small for Jesus.” And so we talk to God about everything but… saying “God you are great, this is great,” instead of being honest.

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Too big for my heart, too small for His…. which is how I’ve been feeling for a couple of weeks now, navigating a bunch of little situations that seem so silly and far too insignificant for Him. And so I’ve been holding them back, and the distance between us has grown.

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On my retreat, someone reminded me that “God cares about the intimate details of our lives.” It made me cry because I finally saw how much I’d been trying to keep from Him while He’d known my heart all along. I became determined to share everything with Him and, of course, He responded in abundance.

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That day, while still on retreat, I found myself really wanting a glass of white wine. I haven’t been drinking recently (thank you Fiat90), but for some reason, I was dying for a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and I shared that desire with God. When we got to dinner at the retreat house that evening, bottles of Sauvignon Blanc were on the tables! It was probably the best glass of wine I’ve ever had.

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The next day, I was craving something chocolatey. I brought it to the Lord again, thinking hopefully of coming back home after the retreat and making my way to Levain. But sure enough, that evening in the dining room there were mini gluten-free flourless chocolate cakes for dessert! I giggled (whoops for breaking the silence) because I knew that this cake was His gift to me.

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As we enter into Lent and also celebrate Valentine’s Day tomorrow, I hope that we all can enter more deeply into the most intimate and perfect relationship we could ever have; the one between us and the God who gives us everything we need, out of His abundant love for us. I pray that while we consider our practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we can do all of those things to grow in intimacy with God so that come Easter we might know and love and trust Him even more.

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Have a blessed Ash Wednesday and a beautiful Valentine’s Day! Please know of my prayers for you as we begin this penitential season (my favorite!) of the year.

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In Christ,

Jane

What I’m loving lately….

You can’t spell Valentine without Lent

I thought this was hilarious so here you go:

Get your ashes early!

For the past few years, I’ve made it a mission to get my ashes first thing in the morning, because the conversations I get to have all day are simply phenomenal. I’ve had people stop me on the street asking where to go to mass, I’ve made new friends, and it’s just the one day of the year when our faith is on display so prominently. I highly recommend a morning mass (or getting morning ashes) if you can make it work!

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​The Next Right Thing podcast: The Liturgy of Lightheartedness​

Oof this was GOOD! I love this podcast, and this episode was especially fantastic. It’s all about abandonment and detachment and it’s so great!

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The arm of St. Jude!

I got to see the arm of St. Jude last week! If you’ve been here a while you know I have a big devotion to him 🙂 The arm is on tour around America right now and thank goodness someone told me it was in Arlington – some friends and I dashed over and were able to venerate it just before the church closed at 10pm. I highly recommend paying a visit if you can, here are the upcoming travel dates!

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Prayer requests

• For the beginning of Lent
• For my friend Kayla who is getting married this weekend!
• For courage to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit!

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