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Happy Birthday, Mom! And thanks for the prayers!

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I am often amused and thankful for the Holy Spirit in my life!   I thank Him today for the inspiration He blessed me with for my post today.   I was planning to post a happy birthday message in honor and memory of my mom on Facebook, but I didn’t want to post just a simple Happy Birthday, Mom! So the Spirit guided me through prayer to look at some of my early blogs written almost ten years ago right after Mom passed away.  As I read one of the posts, a thought occurred to me:  “I wish Mom was still here so I could get her a gift, she would come to visit the grandkids, and we’d have a great time!”  What irony?  Here I was, trying to come up with a special “gift” for my Mom, and the Holy Spirit hits me upside the head with the realization that she’s already received the ultimate gift from Jesus, Himself!  Then I realized, what better gift could I give her than to remind everyone who knew her of the gift that she herself was?  The post I was reading was a rough draft of what would e
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Happy Valentine's Day 2024 to my Love

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  When I googled the word “love” for inspirational quotes about love to use on a card to my wife for Valentine’s Day, I found so many that It was evident that a great number of the people who wrote the pithy quotes never truly experienced a fulfilling love.   For the most part, they described “feelings” and “emotions” and “romance”.     Love certainly contains those things.   But true love goes beyond romance and feelings and emotions. True love is indescribable. True love must be lived.   You don’t think about it, you just do it. This indescribable love is the love I have for my wife. In October we will celebrate 50 years of marriage.   We’ve never had to “work” at our love.   It just exists.   You hear stories of people who say, “Our love grows every day”, or “We work hard to keep our love this strong.”   I believe God has blessed us in this regard, because my love for Marilyn is just as strong (if not stronger) today as it was when I proposed to her, and it’s never been an effor
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Like Saint Joseph: My mom writes about my grandpa

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  All week long, I’d been trying to figure out what to write about my grandfather Clarence, since his birthday was March 12th and his “Feast Day” is March 19 th (traditionally, in the Catholic Church, the day a person dies is considered his “Feast Day”).   Then, as if the Holy Spirit knew I was struggling, I got a little help. I got a nice call from my Uncle Joe last night.   I haven’t heard from him since shortly after my mom’s 2 nd funeral service in Lodi back in 2014!   He started telling me about his getting more serious with prayer and the sacraments, and how he prays the rosary with Mother Angelica on EWTN.   That led him to reminisce about family rosaries at 7 o’clock (sharp!) every night when they lived in Wilseyville, California.   After that, he told me a story about his father (my grandfather), who was a convert to Catholicism after he met my grandmother.   He said that he thinks Grandpa was even more devout than Grandma (to me, that’s like saying he was more Catholic
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Happy Birthday, Mom! We miss you!

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  It’s my mom’s birthday (February 21) today and of course I’m thinking about her.   I miss her—a lot!   I guess deep down, I’ve always been a “momma’s boy”.   I miss taking her to Mass and bringing her the Eucharist on Sundays.   I miss our weekly visits together when we would discuss everything from faith to family and Facebook.   I even miss going grocery shopping with and for her! I thought I would share some quotes I found on the internet about mothers that convey my feelings about Mom more eloquently than I ever could:    “I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.   They have clung to me all my life.”   ~Abraham Lincoln This is an accurate description of my mother, as well.   My mom’s prayers not only followed me; they led me in most of my life decisions and instilled in me the faith in Christ that is our hope for the world!   “A mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.”   ~Emily Dickinson “’Mother’” is the name for God in the
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A look into a random Sunday years ago

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“He who labors as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands.”—St. Benedict of Nursia When I read this quote today, I chuckled a little bit, because it’s become a relatively new habit of mine to pray a Rosary while washing the dishes after dinner.   And because I remembered an entry in my “man-journal” from years ago that dealt with the same subject matter, but on a personal level.   I started my journal back in 2001 to help me cope with Tom’s passing and my thoughts of my own mortality.   I wanted to have something my kids (and hopefully, grandkids) could read years later to get a sense of what their Dad’s inner struggles were, as benign as they are.   My journal morphed into my blogs, and occasionally, I’ll incorporate earlier entries into them.   Here’s my entry, copied and pasted, of a random Sunday:   Sunday, June 06, 2004   It’s funny, the things you think about when you’re doing things you really don’t want to do.   In my case, mowing the lawn is the one thing I co
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Miss you, "Little Brother"

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  It was 20 years ago today when my "little" brother Tom died on January 5, 2001.   Even though we knew he was terminally ill, I didn't really expect he would be taken from us so early, or suddenly.   I take comfort in the fact that Tom faced his life, his death, and his reunion with our Creator with faith, courage, and a sense of humor.   But, on rare occasions, he also faced loneliness and despair.   I want to use this 20 th anniversary to remember a few of the special memories we shared.      Tom was really accident-prone.   A lot of my earliest memories of Tom involve his hospital or doctor visits.   There were numerous times that Tom would run into the house crying out for Mom, bleeding from either tripping over or running into something!   I couldn’t say the exact number of stitches he had to endure before his 10th birthday, but as we got older, we would joke about it! He was hitting bullets with a hammer in the garage one day, just “to see what would happen”.
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Aunt Jenny

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  January 3 is the feast day of St. Genevieve.   Anyone who really knows me knows of my devotion and reliance on the Saints of the Church to help me through life’s experiences.   Today’s feast day reminds me to pray for my Aunt Genevieve and to remember her influence in my life.   What better way to honor her than to compare her to her namesake!   Most Saints are depicted in special ways through art, or “Icons”.   The use of symbols lets us know the special traits of each saint.   The symbols associated with Saint Genevieve are: A loaf of bread —because she was generous to those in need.   I could tell countless stories of the times Aunt Jenny showed her generosity to others! A coin suspended around her neck —symbolizing her consecration to God.   Aunt Jenny’s devotion to God and His Church was second to none! A candle —which it is said she used as she walked to church at night and which stayed lit despite the devil’s persistent attempts to extinguish it.   Even though she had
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