In the last six months we have struggled to survive.

Like Robinson Crusoe we are shipwrecked on the Island of Quarantine.

We are scanning the horizon for a friend to show up in the person of the mailman. We order empty boxes to increase the number of deliverymen.

We are sending out smoke signals for friendship. We respond to every story on social media and engage in conversation with the suspicious looking strangers in our DMs.

But it is not working.

We rise in the morning like the rest of the world but we rise a nation in crisis.

We take this crisis to the team during morning standup. Before a silent crowd of stuffed animals, house plants, and the neighborhood cats with nothing better to do, we bemoan our empty planners and lack of invitations.

“Remember group projects?”

“Remember staff meetings?”

“Remember awkward conversations with bus people ?”

Group roles! Submission deadlines! Memories of happier times leave all with tears in their eyes. Only exception is the one rude cat who probably has glass eyes anyway.

Talking.

Thomas Jefferson once said “I cannot live without books” but what he really meant is that he could not live without conversation. It took the Extrovert Team a couple centuries to fix that one for him.

We take his words to heart. As the CDC says, “Be social from a distance.” We are very social. Some might say absurdly so. We strike up conversations with all that has a mouth and with some objects that do not.

Early victims to our overtures of friendship were the neighborhood joggers . But as soon these SwiftFeet caught on they wearied of our desperation and ran from our voices like it was The Corona. Now the sound of our footfall hits them like the approach of the next pandemic and they break for the hills.

Our next victims were to be the deliverers of our dinner. But we can’t get out a “hello” from the delivery people either-although we spend fortunes on GrubHub and DoorDash just to see a friendly face.

Perhaps the answer lies in getting IN the car. Many an extrovert, on a lonely night, has hired an Uber to take them to the other side of town. Silly, you say? The warm companionship of a filled driver seat provided some of our happiest quarantine memories. Half a hundred dollars was too little to pay for the joy of seeing the driver’s bald head bob side to side as we completed our night ride.

Another happy moment were the words we exchanged with the woman selling insurance on the phone. The friendship had gotten to the point where we knew each other’s names and birthdays and was approaching the point of no return-the exchange of instagram usernames- when in the Middle of a Memory our connection was cut short. Only God knows what may have become of our relationship.

The Rest of the World

enjoys facetiming the parents, long hours alone, and cancelled meetings. They take up concerts, church services, and class virtually.

We extroverts will have none of it.

After six months of quarantine, some us have taken to setting up fake countries and throwing rocks in windows. Some have revolted against the Pattern of Systemic Isolation afflicting us.

Facetime the parents? We go upstairs and pull them out of their introvert coves.

Long hours alone? We’ll have time for that once we are placed in jail for violating the rule about not talking to joggers, the rule about keeping the mask on to speak, the rule about not attending a large gathering, the rule about not attending any gathering, the rule about not forming a gathering, the rule about not advertising this gathering to our friends as the “greatest there has ever been”-and all the other rules that have something to do with socializing.

Cancelled meetings? Are we allowed to talk about the time we called an “emergency” meeting at work that was in-person just so we could distribute the brioche we made the night before? No? Well then…

Concerts? The neighborhood better like “Lonely Together” and “On My Own” because they’ll be treated to a performance of those pieces from our garage for the foreseeable future.

Church? You mean the place where we show up before the doors are open just so we can have a word with each parishioner entering? Or are you referring to the services on Zoom where we quickly take over the chat with promises of free coffee if you will just TALK to us? Either way, that’s us.

Class? The extrovert is out of place in virtual class like a grape in a chicken salad. But let’s face it: in the past few of us looked forward to the eternal minutes of our life spent in back-smashing chairs as a Powerpoint melted before our sleepy eyes.

Now instead we can do extrovert school: cut an onion for dinner while simultaneously asking three or four or more friends to hang out while jamming to our favorite beat and taking a quiz for another class while listening with half an ear to the virtual class.

In school we have won. But we need your help in fighting this battle. Our strength is depleted, Friday never comes, and we can’t cut down wood like Robinson Crusoe because we have no friends to do it with. We also have no wood but that’s beside the point.

Will you help the extrovert in your life? Reach out today. You’ll find them in the corner embracing the script of a past group project, hosting yard sales although they have nothing to sell, talking politics to their parsley plant, or climbing over the neighbor’s wall in the hopes of starting an argument. Wherever we are, we are crazy and we need you.

Oremus Pro Invicem

Teresa

The Fate of Our Church and Culture May Rest With Us

The boy was listening to a story he had heard often before.

“They destroyed the churches. Catholics had to go underground. Children watched their parents hacked to death for confessing the Faith. Parents screamed as their children were taken away from their homes and raised elsewhere, away from their religious influence.”

“But,” the boy of the future said, “Didn’t they try to stop them first?”

“No.” The old man said. “It’s amazing what can happen while your eyes are glued to a TV screen.”

— -

Around us, things are getting worse. Cities light up in flames. Cathedrals burn in silence. Catholics fight for the last toilet paper roll but Our Lord they leave abandoned in the churches. The statues of our saints and Our Mother are disrespected, and outright offenses against God like Drag Queen story-times and abortion clinics have become so commonplace in our cities that we forget about them. Which of us thinks about the unborn lives lost more often than he does his next meal?

We complain, of course. We are quite good at that. We fill social media and our dinner tables with head shaking and loud denouncing of the anti-Christian culture that we bow to as soon as we step outside. Once outside we try to remain invisible in the crowd at work, smiling politely as our co-worker boasts how she left the Church and blushing if someone so much as asks if we are Catholic.

But what if we stepped outside and did something?

— -

“I can’t afford to talk. I’ll lose my job.”

“I am a mom, not an activist.”

I get it.

Once you are married, you are busy.

That is why it is up to us. The young adults of 2020. Will we put down our game consoles and take out our EarPods long enough to realize that the Kingdom of Christ is at stake and needs us to fight for it?

To fight. Not to repost. Not to stand silent. Not to play nice. The Church needs an army. A movement of young men and women who will leave their homes and not blend into the crowd but take up space in it. Speak your values. Chalk, flyer, banner, start conversations and set up discussion tables in the public square. Attend, infiltrate, hold counter events, and protest peacefully events harmful to the Church. Journey to defend statues and the Faith under attack. Talk without shame about the Catholic view of dating and marriage. Show your classmates pictures of the Latin Mass.

Fight for Christ. It is nothing more than what you were born to do. It is what, in this moment, you are called to do.

— -

Maybe you have been trying to sabotage the anti-Catholic culture alone. In that case, I ask you to join our team. Our army. Our crusade of young adults who will work together to restore Christ in our culture.

I am not asking every young adult to join this elite force. It’s a call to those young adults who make reclaiming the culture a priority. Those who aren’t slow to give up Saturday night to do some behind-the-scenes infiltration work. Those who will disguise themselves, take risks, and stand hours in the heat or the rain in order to accomplish a mission. Those who think quickly, are adaptable, and can beat the enemy at his game. I am calling on them to see if Christ is asking them to sacrifice for Him in this way.

— -

Prayer. Fight. Suffer.

The choice is yours, young Catholic.

Our Lord needs young daring members for His team: young adults unattached and daring enough to run, with the fire of the martyrs, towards any battle where Christ is being mocked and spit upon again.

Oremus Pro Invicem

Teresa Benedict

Contact Me to Talk. See the “Rules” picture attached and the “Suggested Activities” to understand better this calling.

The College Student’s Practical Guide to Victory

Hello, college student of 2019. You, that scared, silent thing in the back of the classroom that listens to lectures on the Gender Spectrum while covering the PragerU tab open in your browser.

Inside you are not timid. You feel angry and tired of fighting a battle that you are too small to fight. You signed up for a Biology class only to be served Race In America 101.

You’ve considered your options.

I did too. What to do? Jump onto a train? Abandon your degree? Consider taking a class in cow-miking and join the Amish community? Become a housewife (after I find a house)?

No. Don’t run. Take up arms against a sea of troubles and, by yelling louder than the others, end them. Fight. Ride into battle. How? Here is my advice for waging the War Against the Woke in a properly prepared way.

1. Assess the danger. We don’t fight swords and shields in this war but shrill cries and slogans. Who is fastest to drown us out with cries of “HER BODY” ? That is on whom we focus the attack.
2. Who leads the foe? Does the professor ride at the head of their army, doling out Fs and Es like sword-blows? Or does he take a passive seat atop a neighboring hill whence he can witness the carnage?
3. Assemble your men. How many are ready and willing to fight? Yes, Sarah says your car looks nice but will she open her mouth to defend the unborn? Or will she be found in the restroom refilling a water-bottle like so many in our time of need? Not all troops need to be warriors, rushing into the Woke crowd with facts-a-flying. Some, especially those in the back rows, can serve as the din of our war, like the the battle ambience heard at Helm’s Deep. When we rush into war, they nod and give a polite grunt of affirmation to our statement: strong but not so loud as to betray their identity as extras.
4. Acquaint your men with the danger ahead. Make sure every fighting man knows that no ones coming out of this with a participation prize. If we leave with a few friendships intact, we will be counted among the lucky ones. Tell them the arrows will come down quick and the enemy laughs will be stunning. But at no point do we betray what we fight for and turn our backpacks towards home.
5. What resources are available? Now is the last hour but it is also the best time to do a quick search of Youtube videos, quick stats, and that article grandma sent in an attempt to accumulate fuel for our victory. Be sure references are easily accessible and then forget about them for the duration of the war as we instead run our battle on the latest sassy response that hits our brain.
6. The time for war is drawing near. We see it happen: The teacher takes the Bark of Controversial Subjects too far and drifts into dangerous waters. Somewhere the word “free” makes an appearance and the Bernie Bros take out their airpods to listen for a moment. The clock strikes a minute that really doesn’t matter. The increasing heartbeats sound the drums of war in our ears.
7. Do we have communication set up? Just Eye rolls? Roger that.
8. What about a backup plan in case we get ejected from the program? Ringing Salvation Army bells outside the store, you say? Slightly safer than my idea of eloping with random men on Tinder.
9. Wait-was that an eye roll? Yes? Do I go first? Wait, I don’t know what to do! What if she gets mad? I mean, …..maybe men are women?

What a time to be alive. What a time to be in college.

Head aches. And eyes hurt.

There are still 16 hours to go before we can think about bed again.

So I get up and go through the day.

—

Friends talk to me but I’m not sure what they’re saying. I drift in and out. How do they have so much energy?

I have a couple hours at home to do homework. It’s due tomorrow. I enlist music and coffee to help me focus. But instead my head falls down and I wake up 45 minutes later, wondering where the time went.

I cannot focus. I used to wonder why.

Now I know because it is throbbingly obvious. I have not slept in days. Sure, I slept last night but did I? I don’t feel like I did. I felt more sleepy waking up than the night before.

— -

Already it’s 11 am and I have done so little! So much still needs to be done, like that pile of laundry I have been staring at for the last fifteen minutes as I try not to fall back asleep.

Of course, I fall back to sleep.

I haven’t done anything.

This keeps repeating over and over in my tired little head until it comes out in sad discouraged tears. The least emotional people can become so if they have not slept.

— -

The dinner needs to be made so I play music in my earbuds at a level that probably is not healthy, only to keep my eyes open.

I go to work but get orders wrong, drop dishes, am constantly looking for a place to sit down. My workload seems suddenly insurmountable.

But the worst part? All the ideas in my head-the articles that I want to share with you, the beautiful ideas I have for Heroically Feminine, the creativity-it is all covered by a blanket of sleepiness and I never get to see it.

So thank you for being patient with me, my friends. Soon I will figure out my fatigue and, until then, may God use His sleep little girl even on days when she is not doing anything.

Oremus Pro Invicem

Teresa

When is the last time we walked into a makeup store or a shoe store or any store and the pictures covering the walls were of older people? Why is it so cringey to be asked ones age or to celebrate another birthday? How many magazine covers feature women models over forty?

The sad truth of our time is that it revolves around the youth: the teens and young adults.

Why? Young people are stupid. Yes but we are also sexy, exciting, and fun. Three adjectives that describe exactly what your grandparents are not. The elderly are useless because sex, risk, pleasure-what more is there to live for in 2019?

And so we see euthanasia becoming common and accepted around the world.

The very word “nursing home” brings up too accurate images of dirty, neglected patients living in prison-like conditions.

As we place more and more importance on ourselves, we forget the importance of our human brothers and sisters.

Now, if you do not know all about my little job at a retirement home, I recommend you read my article about waiting tables at one here. That will fill you in on how many times I am yelled at and lose my notebook and drop bowls of soup on people’s heads. Below, however, is the sunny side of my job where I learn what is more lasting than fun: wisdom. Wisdom that can be obtained while picking the dishes off the tables of the elderly.

Here are four gems I have learned and now share with you:

1. I learn to slow down. Picture this: Teresa with a cart that is loaded with meals to deliver to residents in their rooms. A member of the fast lane, I take this cart and I run with it down the halls in order to finish my job asap. Wazam- until a slow-moving resident with walker cuts in from the side and slows my speed down to a turtle-crawl. She has turned my fast lane into a school zone and my mind goes wild. I see the clock begin to tick backwards. Dinosaurs are due to appear from the woodwork. Yesterday has not yet happened. I am about to turn into a baby again-Teresa, I say. Calm down. Slow. Look at the sky. The floor. Breathe. Take in this moment. And for once, don’t rush.
2. I learn I am not perfect. Some days, after crushing a workout, making it to mass on time, writing an article, publishing a couple club events, and getting that matcha iced latte recipe just right, I walk into work just thinking, “why do I even serve these peasants?”. I mean, I could get a job anywhere being as awesome as I am. I walk out there like a proud peacock and Ms Mary tells me that my hair is going to get in her food. Mr Bob says he can’t hear me again. Ms Anne says I annoy her in a loud voice to all her friends. Mr Andrew says I need a memory pill. Those old people are like the Yelp Reviews on my life-they say what needs to be said with no filter applied. And I leave work with a much better idea of my many faults.
3. I learn I’ll be old. In a little bit I’m going to be slow and stuttering and unable to feed myself. And that’s ok. Looking at the woman who spills her food everywhere or the old man who talks loudly to himself, I see myself. I see my parents. I see the girls I hang out with and the guys I crush on: we are all ending up in the same place. So, I think, before you marry anyone, make sure you’re ok with marrying him as an old man. Because, in the end, we’re all old people.
4. I learn what everyone who has ever asked “Can I take your order?” knows: the people who treat the waiter as a person are those who, in their younger days, treated their spouse, their employees, the homeless man on the street as people too. And the elderly who treat us as a second cane or as another golf ball on their walker…well, they probably had a lot of other canes before us.

What have you learned from old people? Here are only a few of my favorites but I believe that they have so much to teach us young whipper-snappers if we’d just listen up.

Now, excuse me, I got to go drop soup on someone’s head.
Oremus Pro Invicem

Teresa

What is the Theology of the Body?

• To say “Theology of the Body” is, in fact, just another way of saying we’re made in the image and likeness of God.Precisely in our creation as male and female and in our call to fruitful communion, the human body becomes the greatest sign of the spiritual and divine.

Who is God?

• God is an “eternal exchange of love”.

Why is the man the leader in a Catholic relationship?Why can’t women become priests?

• In the spousal analogy, God is always the Bridegroom and humanity is always the Bride. Why? Because humanity is first receptive to the love of God…The woman’s body primarily tells the story of receiving divine love while the man’s body primarily tells the story of offering that love, of pouring it out.
• A woman cannot be ordained by a priest because she is not ordained by God to be a father; she is ordained by God to be a mother.

What do our bodies or sex have to do with the mass?

• …the deepest meaning and purpose of human sexuality is to point us to the Eucharist, the “marriage supper of the Lamb”.

Why does it matter what Catholic couples do within their own marriages (such as use birth control)?

• When sexual union is oriented against love and life, it builds families and, in turn, cultures that live the truth of love and life. When it is oriented against love and life, the sexual act breeds death…

Rather than imposing rules on us, we must remember that God wants us to not be slaves to our passions. Instead, we must pursue the question:

• What is the truth about sex that sets us free to love?

Aren’t “eros” and “agape” opposed to each other? Since one is more physical and the other spiritual?

• In God’s original design, man and woman’s sexual desires were not driven by instinct as with the animals. They flowed precisely from the freedom to love in the image of God. In other words, eros expressed agape. This is what makes human sexuality not only a biological reality but a theological reality.

How can anyone see God in a marriage? How can we strive to reflect Him in one?

• man images God “not only through his humanity, but also through the communion of persons which man and woman form right from the beginning….seen this way the couple’s fruitful relationship becomes an image for understanding and describing the mystery of God himself.
• not only is man taken by himself in the image of God, but also man and woman, as a couple, are the image of God. The difference between man and woman is…for communion and procreation, always in the image and likeness of God.-Pope Francis

If our bodies are good, why do we cover them?

• [Eve] covers her body because it’s good (very good!) and she fears that her goodness might be violated. She covers herself to protect her own dignity from the stranger’s “lustful look”-a look that fails to respect her God-given dignity as a person.

Why don’t homosexual unions reflect God’s plan for human sexuality?

• A man’s body doesn’t make sense by itself. Nor does a woman’s body. But seen in light of each other, sexual differences reveals the unmistakable plan of God that man and woman are meant to be a gift to each other.

So we must be married to imitate God?

• Marriage and procreation, of course, are not the only ways to love as God loves. They serve as the original model, but whenever we imitate Christ in giving up our bodies for others, we express the body’s spousal meaning.

But how can you embrace your sexuality in the celibate life? Isn’t it dormant?

• Celibacy for the kingdom is not a rejection of sexuality. It’s a call to the ultimate purpose and meaning of sexuality.

Isn’t Christian sexuality repressive? It asks that you kill all your desires.

• As we allow our lusts to be crucified with Christ, sexuality can be experienced as sharing in the full life of the resurrection.

How should we look at our friends and strangers of the opposite sex we meet every day?

• In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ words are “an invitation to a pure way of looking at others, capable of respecting the spousal meaning of the body.”

Eww…purity. What’s that?

• Purity is the glory of the human body before God. It is the glory of God in the human body, through which masculinity and femininity are manifested.

What is a good prayer for when I am struggling with impure desires?

• Lord, I thank you for the gift of my sexual desires. I surrender this lustful desire to you and I ask you please, by the power of your death and resurrection, to “untwist” in me what sin has twisted, so that I might come to experience sexual desire as you created it to be-as the desire to love in your image.

How can you every make erotic love good and pleasing to God?

• The person who is truly master of himself will be able to to direct eros “towards what is true, good, and beautiful so that what is “erotic” also becomes true, good, and beautiful”.

Can sex seen in a Catholic understanding make us perfectly happy? Is that what we are “looking for”?

• That “something” we’re all looking for is the eternal bliss of being one with God.
• When we lose sight of the joys of heaven, we tend to view sexual union and its physical pleasures as our ultimate fulfillment. Welcome to the world in which we live.

Why do Catholic wives have to “submit” to their husbands? What does that mean?

• “Wives, put yourself under “sub” the mission of your husband.” What’s the mission of the husband? “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church.” How did Christ love the Church? He “gave Himself up for her”-unto death!…When Paul writes, “Wives, submit to your husbands” he is saying, “Wives, allow your husbands to serve you…unto death.”

What is a Catholic marriage?

• If men and women are to speak the true language of their bodies, they must learn continually and ever more deeply to open themselves to Christ’s love, letting it bear fruit in them, so that they can, in turn, share this same free, total, faithful, fruitful love with each other….Committing to love in this way has a name: it’s called marriage.

How should one view his/her spouse?

• Authentic marital love always recognizes one’s spouse as a brother or sister who shares the same humanity…the normal man recoils at the idea of lusting after his sister-and so should a man recoil at the thought of lusting after his bride!

Why can’t you “escape” from marriage? Wouldn’t an open marriage be more free?

• The Church does not impose on us the idea that love should be permanent. Permanence is what the heart longs for.

Why doesn’t a marriage that uses birth control imitate God?

• Does an intentionally sterilized act of intercourse image God’s free, total, faithful, fruitful love or does it miss the mark?
• Rather than proclaiming, “God is life-giving love,” the language of contracepted intercourse says, “God is not life-giving love”.

Doesn’t contraception empower men and women?

• What purpose does contraception really serve?…In the final analysis, contraception serves one purpose: to spare us the difficulty we experience when confronted with the choice of abstinence…contraception was invented because of our lack of self-control.

If you enjoyed this article and the excerpts, then I highly suggest you read “Theology of the Body for Beginners” by Christopher West. That is where the direct quotes are taken from.

As always, may you live with Christ this week and always.

(Tell me what you think of my articles and I will love you forever!)

Oremus Pro Invicem

Teresa

“Oh, so we’re just friends.”

How many times have we heard that? How many times have we said it? How many times has our radio played it into our car?

Sometimes said with relief, sometimes with sadness: the safe, boring, and un-exciting phrase of “just friends”.

And that’s the problem.

Why? Because Friendship is not boring.

It is exciting in as much as life, death, pain, joy, and sacrifice car excite the human soul.

To be a friend is to give of yourself to another. It is to foolishly, with no reason other than love, to take on the sufferings of your friend. It is to devote your hours, your money, and your natural hair color to deliver your friend from these demons he faces. It is to see his life as you see your own: as an all-important and beautiful struggle that is worth fighting until it is won.

“Just friends”.

“Just a soul who will stand by your side until I have walked with you to the joy and peace you were made to enjoy. And, when you’re too tired to fight, I’ll single-handedly strangle the demons we meet along the way.”

“Just friends.”

My friends, in our hyper-sexualized culture, be a friend.

Today, it is the boyfriends and the fiancées and the spouses that get all the attention.

But always remember this:

You are not useless. You are not less valuable. You are the brave soul each of us needs fighting alongside us. You are the most precious possession we have in this life. You are a glimpse of what comes after.

You’re just a friend.

Thank you for reading! Let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you like this topic, be sure to read “As Brothers and Sisters in Christ” about male-female friendship. Oremus Pro Invicem-Teresa

My Catholic Friend,

Our life is a war. But what are we fighting?

I’ll tell you what I’m fighting.

The fight is not against the diocesan parish. It is not against the priests who say mass facing God.

The fight is not over whether JPII or Pius XII deserves canonization.

The fight is not against the evil army of Bishop Robert Barron or the malicious content of Angelus Press.

The fight is not against the Catholics next to us on the Planned Parenthood sidewalk who go to a different mass than us.

The fight is not against the local Catholic church till it closes down just because they said mass differently there.

The devil is not infiltrating our ranks through the Divine Mercy devotion or through the Latin at mass.

What is today’s fight?

Today’s fight is not Catholic against Catholic. It is Catholic against his oldest enemy: the world.

The fight today is between the love God made us for and the lust the world attacks it with.

The fight today is between the life-giving culture that promotes children, pregnancy, and natural death and the death-centered culture of birth control, abortion, and euthanasia.

The fight today is between the beauty of loving God through our gender and the confused ugliness of drag-queens, Pride parades, and the declaration that a man who “feels” like a woman is as much a woman as I am.

This is your fight, Catholic. The fight of St Peter, Thomas Aquinas, and JPII: to defend the Church of Christ. Defend it; don’t break it into pieces.

I have two types of friends on social media and in real life: one type debates whether the skirt should fall below the knee or at the ankle and whether the proper neckline is two or three inches below the collarbone. The other friends are referring to guys as “she” and don’t know a Catholic apart from a pedophile.

The first type are Catholics. When I look inside the Church I see the long-skirt clan shunning the SEEK clan. And I see the more liberal Catholics calling the veil-wearers “rigid”. Meanwhile the half-sedes post pictures of the Praise and Worship Catholics as examples of why the mass is no longer valid. Then some fool brings up the pope and all hell breaks loose.

My friends, what if it is hell?

What if the devil divides us so that we cannot focus on that second type of friend?

The second type being our friends in the world. Our co-workers, classmates, and family who don’t know God. Who live for pleasure and the temporary high. These friends who don’t even know the difference between a man and woman anymore. Friends who can’t see a difference between a woman’s body and her fully grown fetus.

Catholics know these ideas are erroneous and do not glorify God. We have the truth. Even while debating whether this particular devotion is “saturated with the Spirit of Vatican II” or whether altar girls should be allowed to serve, we are all walking the same path to God: the path of His Holy Church.

Be grateful. Then look around.

Wouldn’t it be too bad if, while walking down the one safe path, we were all squabbling too much to notice everyone else taking wrong roads and falling off the cliff? If we had to tell their Maker, “I could have saved them. I could have pulled the towards the safe road.”

When did that happen, we say?

While we were shunning the local parish because of the SJW spirit of their secretary and missed the opportunity to volunteer with them and bring Christ to others. Maybe when our campus ministry needed more young men but we hesitate because they do not completely reflect our own beliefs.

Let’s stand strong in what we believe is worth fighting for but never to the detriment of souls.

I’m asking Catholics with guitars, Catholics with veils, Catholics with a phone wallpaper of Pope Francis, Catholics who listen to Ascension Presents on the way to work, Catholics who wear Our Lady of Guadeloupe t-shirts, Catholics who use a missal older than the moon landing, Catholics who study in the Campus Ministry office, and Catholics who have the entire diocesan collection of statues located in their house-

-let’s come together.

Satan is trying so hard to tear us apart. And, yes, let’s debate which way the priest should face at mass. Let’s talk about the impact of Vatican II and the latest thing Pope Francis said.

But it should never get in the way of saving souls out in the world. They need us. They need a strong united Catholic army. What they do not need are Catholics who will go into the workplace and say “while, I’m not that type of Catholic” or “He’s not really my pope” or “I hope you didn’t meet the wrong type of Catholic”.

God requires a strong army for His saving mission. Reach out, take your brother and sister in Christ by the hand, and accomplish the work He has entrusted to His Church.

With, not without, your Catholic brethren on the other side of the issue.

— -

(I’ve written on this topic before here. Yes, I’ll probably write on it again. Make sure your ideas get into the next article by leaving me a comment.)

Oremus Pro Invicem

Teresa

1. Yo, I have NO idea who this fool is or why his posts are coming up in my feed. Like, are we friends? WE ARE? Since when?
2. This picture of a flower could have been taken by my dog but since you liked my picture I have no choice but to like yours.

3. After looking at my feed, I realize the family picture I was going to post just doesn’t cut it: there is no boyfriend, plane ticket, or blooming flower in it.

4. So I’m hoping this article I just liked agrees with my political position because it’s not like I actually READ it.

5.Sending me a “poke” on Facebook or a wave is the modern equivalent of shooting pebbles at my window: if you want to come in, there’s the door. If you want to talk to me, there are words.

6. Twenty-five picture photo dump? Like, do you think I have time to look through all those? I mean, I’m busy…scrolling on Facebook.

7. Haha, that made me smile…oh, no, I already liked one of his pictures this morning. Quick-undo!

8.Oh, how sad, someone died. Stop scroll. Pray. Moment of Silence. Continue on to cousin’s picture of a jumping frog.

9. Jeez, when did everyone become so pretty? I haven’t been able to face a mirror since Monday.

10. The Taco Meme page has more likes than my club’s page!!!!? Where is justice, O Lord? Do you really care about us down here!!!

11. I was going to comment on your photo but last we texted, you left it at LOL…so no. My friends don’t LOL me; maybe this’ll teach you that.

12. STOP-a baby picture! I want nothing more in life than to look at your soft cheeks for forever. Can I share, please, can I share your baby’s picture???

13. Thank you, O Facebook Gods, for a long-awaited notification! Sometimes I feel like you pass over my cell when doling out notification rations. Or that I only get the ones talking about events near me-you know, the events I can’t afford to attend.

14. Your name is Mary. No, you didn’t need to tell me how to pronounce it. Or that you’re single. Or your MBTI type. If you like to fill out obvious information, go to a waiting room at the doctor’s office.

15. Omg, a looong block of text. What you tryin’ to do, write a book here? No pictures? Don’t you know I should still be in second grade? Leaving your story on the fast train to go like more pictures of flowers.

Remember to be kind on Facebook and the ‘gram and snap and most importantly in your real life!

Oremus Pro Invicem

Teresa