Daily Graces

Book Review: My Badass Book of Saints: Courageous Women Who Showed Me How To Live

Published on February 12, 2016 by KateLeave a comment

My Badass Book of Saints #dailygraces #bookreview kktaliaferro.wordpress.com With such a title, who wouldn’t want to pick up this book?! I have to say, it certainly grabbed my attention. Even the cover is great. Maria Morera Johnson, author of My Badass Book of Saints: Courageous Women Who Showed Me How to Live, is a college professor, blogger and radio host who has selected a beautiful and badass group of women that are sure to inspire you. Not only has she chosen named saints (that is, saints with a capital St.) but she has also chosen bold, courageous and devoted women from a variety of backgrounds. For Johnson, to be truly badass you are, in her native Spanish, tremenda. Tremenda means “tremendous, sometimes. It also means terrific, and terrible. It translates to bold. Daring. Fearless. Stalwars. Smart. Courageous…But mostly, it means badass” (xvi).

Johnson weaves the lives of these badass women with her own story, a first generation Cuban-American, military wife and mother. The women, 24 in total, each represent characteristics that Johnson considers “badass.” They are audacious, courageous, missionaries, advocates, selfless, passionate, compassionate, and virtuous, to name just a few. At the end of each chapter, Johnson offers reflection questions on the highlighted quality and how we as people of faith can integrate the lessons from these women into our life.

Some of the saints and women I knew about already. Consider how St. Joan of Arc would be a model of courage, St. Catherine of Siena a model of advocacy or St. Gianna Beretta Molla a model of human dignity. I also knew about Audrey Hepburn and her work with the UN and Immaculee Ilibagiza and how she not only survived but found forgiveness in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

I was blown away by the women I had never heard of. Did you know that Sr. Blandina Segale stood up to Billy the Kid not once but 3 times!? Or how about Nancy Wake, an Australian socialite turned super secret spy for the French Resistance and was so good at it the Nazi’s never figured out who she was?! Or Phyllis Bowman who founded the Right to Life movement in 1998, but started her work on behalf of the unborn in the mid-1960s by forming the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in the United Kingdom?

The women in this book are incredible. They are more than beautiful, they are more than strong, they are more than awesome. They really are badass.

Wants, Needs and What I can Afford

Published on February 9, 2016February 9, 2016 by KateLeave a comment

As John is getting older, he’s 4 and a half now, he is starting to figure out just how to ask for things. I’ve found myself having to correct him a few times a day, saying “John, you don’t need to have that race car/cookie/blanket/etc., you want it. We don’t ask for things that way, can you please try again.” With Lent starting tomorrow – yikes!, all this talk about needs and wants has me thinking – What do I want vs. What do I need, especially when it comes to how I spend my time while the kids are sleeping or napping – my “me” time.

Let’s start with the “Wants” list, because it has all the fun stuff on it =)

I Want to:

Knit/crochet/craft – I just taught myself how to knit and have thrown myself into a project. I also have sitting in the wings a crochet project, 2 cross stitch projects and a new chaplet project for my moms group/bible study.
Write – I’ve got all these ideas for blog posts and lengthier ideas that need development, evolution and most importantly, time to hash out. I’m discerning if God is calling me to a bigger writing project, more articles, etc. All I want to do is write.
Read – I am in the middle of 3 books right now. Yes, 3. And I just volunteered to read a 4th and write a review of it that has to be posted during Lent (not sure I got this gig yet, more to come, maybe God will take care of my craziness for me because let’s face it, that may not have been my best impulsive move of the day).
Go to Mass daily

Now the Needs:

Pray daily – in a calm, collected, designated time that isn’t while I’m talking to all 3 kids at once.
To go to confession, even though I don’t particularly enjoy it (because I don’t do it often enough. I know that if I dedicated myself to the habit, my attitude would change.)
Clean the house, at least minimally, to maintain my sanity.

Breaking down the lists between wants and needs threw into sharp perspective the difference between the two. For my survival, sanity and overall physical and spiritual health, there are things on my needs list that no amount of the wants can fulfill. I could spend every available moment knitting, but it won’t repair my relationship with God. I can read many books, fiction or spiritual, but unless I talk about my day, my experiences, my trials, and even those books with God, I won’t deepen my relationship with Him. And, no amount of griping, complaining or avoidance will clean the bathroom or vacuum the floors.

Think about it like this: in the Bible, God asks for sacrifices that are of the first-fruits, the cream of the crop, the unblemished lamb. The Israelites were to give to God first, then to themselves. In this way, God’s blessings would return to them 10-fold because by offering their best to God, it returned to them increased. Today, we can think about it by considering what we give to support our churches, charitable organizations and other worthy causes. A true biblical tithe is 10% – before taxes. Give to God, then give to Caesar. It is interesting to take a hard look at your finances and see where your money goes, especially percentage-wise. Take that lesson and look at your day. Are you giving God the first-fruits of your time, or is He getting what’s leftover? This is tough friends, and I am as guilty as anyone of giving to God what’s left, instead of what is first.

As Lent starts, I am going to be taking an honest look at how I am spending my time, making sure to prioritize my needs over my wants. I need God to come first, to prioritize my relationship with Him before anything else. For me, this means that before doing anything else during naptime, I will prioritize my God time. I expect most days I will still have time for my wants and hopefully, they will bring me even greater pleasure because I have taken care of my needs first.

Crunchy Christians, Crunchy Christ [Special Post]

Published on February 3, 2016February 3, 2016 by KateLeave a comment

Dear Readers,

I was greatly inspired this weekend by the pastor at our church. Each week, he writes a “From the Pastor” for the bulletin. What follows is his message which I found to be bold, moving and above all, so true. I hope you do as well. We are so blessed to have Fr. Jeff as our shepherd!

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Crunchy Christians, Crunchy Christ. Pastor's Reflections on Daily Graces Blog - kktaliaferro.wordpress.com — Coffee Granola by Migle via Flickr (2013), CC

Catholicism has to be the earthiest of Christian Churches. We keep our eyes on heaven, but there’s mud between our toes. We make water holy, then we sprinkle it over cats and dogs, gymnasiums and geraniums, cars, farms and football teams. We bless incense and then we waft its smoke over crowds and altars, above bread and wine, before crucifixes and religious practices. We pour oil upon heads and hands, spread it over brows, necks and other body parts. Bishops even spread it over altars. We bless palm leaves on Palm Sunday, and later make ashes of the for Ash Wednesday – then we smear them across our foreheads! We wear scapulars, carry rosaries, grasp medallions, touch icons and statues, dip hands in water, mark houses with chalk, add holy salt to holy water. We pour water into wine, burn charcoal with frankincense, bake bread with no yeast, make fires to light candles to dip into baptismal fonts. Then we deny ourselves food, sleep, chocolate and wine, money and whatever else – not because they are bad but because they are so good. We protect fetuses, parent orphans, feed the starving and pray with the feeble minded; we find life in the dying and we bless the dead.

Even our bodies are earthly instruments of worship. We kneel, we bow, we genuflected, we prostrate halfway or fully; we cross ourselves, then we cross our foreheads, lips and hearts. Priest bow their heads at the Holy Name, they raise their hands in prayer; they hold their hands over unconsecrated bread and wine, then they point towards the same bread and wine as it’s being consecrated by the Lord.

Most other Churches worship God in a more sanitary, ‘soulish’ manner. They commune using pasteurized grape juice with individual, disposable cups, while hundreds share the same cup at our Mass. While their souls attempt to leave their bodies behind in worship, we Crunchy Catholics drag our bodies kicking and screaming into the holy presence of God. They seek the Spirit of God in the Bible, and we find in those same words the Body and Blood of Christ dripping from every page of Holy Writ.

Catholicism is so crunchy! It snaps, crackles and pops with the products of harvest and rain and metal. What do we hope to accomplish with such a crunchy approach to God? After all, Jesus said, ‘Those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4.24). Does’t all this ‘touch and taste and smell and hear’ stuff distract us from the God-Who-Is-Spirit?

Such would be the case, but for one important historical reality: Christ himself became crunchy. Before the Incarnation, Jesus was God-Who-Is-Spirit. Then he entered our crunchy, squishy, earthy world. He said ‘I will be crunchy, too.’ By his Incarnation, Jesus made it clear that we will find heaven on earth. Our Crunchy Christ suffered the indignities of being jostled in a crowd, he felt the sweat upon his brow, he smelled wheat roasting naturally on the stalk in the hot summer fields in Palestine. He sanctified all water by his baptism, consecrated bread and wine in his Last Supper. He shed hot and holy tears upon rocky earth; His bleeding body smeared divine blood over the wood of the Cross – the same blood that fell upon his Roman executioners. Finally, wonderfully, he rose from the grave, making his crunchy body eternally spirit – never to die again.

If you wish to find Christ, you can’t leave your body behind. Remain crunchy. Your salvation is a lifelong journey of taking crunchy footsteps whereby God takes your daily experiences and makes them holy and ‘spirit.’ Join the fun – give yourself to God this year and see what crunchy adventures God has in store for you!

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How rockin’ is my priest?!?! I hope you are uplifted by Fr. Jeff’s message and you have a renewed, super crunchy day.

Reposted with permission