Catholic Faith

#best09: Most Influential Blog ... and Other Blogs That Inspire

Posted Mon, 12/07/2009 - 19:17 by Anne

Following along with Gwen Bell's the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, the official question for today is:

Day 7: Blog Find of the Year?

Gwen words it this way: That gem of a blog you can't believe you didn't know about until this year.

Hands down the best (sort of) blog find of the year is the Three-Minute Retreat from Loyola Press. I wrote about it earlier this year, and it still holds the same place in my heart. I'm counting is as a blog because the writers and developers send us a new message every day.

My runner-up, newly discovered blogs include:

Et Tu, Jen: Power, real stories that blow me away! I spend several days reading through all of the top posts (scroll down and click through on the conversion story and most popular posts... after equipping yourself with a box of tissues.
The Anchoress: Funny, touching, witty. Some days it feels that she writes exactly what I'm thinking about current events.
Smashing Magazine: So maybe it isn't really a blog. If it isn't, the Smashing folks know how to use RSS to gather regular readers (read: me!). Every post is worth reading.
ReadWriteWeb: Can't believe I didn't start reading this excellent blog until this year. How did I survive?

(Just a note: I can hardly wait to write about tomorrow's topic.... ooiiieee, that's going to be fun! I hope that I can do it justice.)

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Best Holy Week Websites

Posted Tue, 04/07/2009 - 14:44 by Anne

This is Holy Week in the Western Christian Church... Last Sunday was Palm Sunday (of course), and the pastor's homily got me thinking about the "real world" that surrounded Jesus during the last week before the Passion. So I went looking for some web sites that could provide enrich our observation of this most blessed week. Here are a few of my favorites:

NEW! Stations of the Cross for Children from Loyola Press

Once again, the folks at Loyola Press have shown how to use the web to teach the faithful! They've adapted the beautiful work of Catherine Odell to create two formats of the Stations that are perfect for family observances: a downloadable (and printable) PDF file and an interactive multimedia presentation. The language is simple and thought-provoking, even for adults.

Holy Week at Catholic.org

This page describes Jesus' travels during the week leading up to the Passion. The liturgical readings place events out of order, so it's nice to see them listed here.

Easter Cleaning

I had never heard of Easter cleaning ... just spring cleaning ... until I noticed a reference on a page at Catholic.org. After browsing around a bit, I decided that this story of Easter cleaning in a traditional Polish family was the best! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Wouldn't it be great if the priests could come around to all of our homes for an Easter blessing?

Holy Thursday at Catholic.org

Most folks recognize that Holy Thursday commemorates the establishment of the Eucharist, but many don't realize it's also the founding of the priesthood. This article has a very easy to understand explanation, plus much other interestingly cool stuff!

JPII's Stations of the Cross from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops

This version of the Stations of the Cross is based on the 1991 observation by Pope John Paul II. I didn't even realize that an alternate version was available until I noticed them in the Teen Catholic Bible. These stations are "presented ... as a way of reflecting more deeply on the Scriptural accounts of Christ's passion." Very nice for private reflection. I plan to print them and take them with me to Adoration on Friday evening.

If you have any favorite web sites that you'd like mention, add them using the comment link! I'd love to add more to the collection.

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Encouragement from St. Joseph

Posted Thu, 03/19/2009 - 21:48 by Anne

It's been a busy week, so I haven't had time to write... but I had to take a few minutes to recognize the Feast of St. Joseph, the Husband of Mary.

Over the past few months, I've depended on dear St. Joseph quite a bit. We spent about a year rehabbing our house. All those things that got neglected or postponed while the kids were growing up demanded attention. We spent many hours de-cluttering, scraping paint and old tiles, painting, scrubbing, scraping more tiles, more de-cluttering. Whenever I became discouraged or encountered roadblocks, I prayed to St. Joseph.... and always felt immediately encouraged and energized. I feel that I now have two patron saints: St. Francis de Sales (my birthday saint) and St. Joseph.

One of the few books that made it through the de-cluttering purge is My Life with the Saints, by Fr. James Martin. He has a wonderful video on my new patron saint... I hope you like it!