Sunday, September 30, 2012

Ignitum Today: The Flowers of Surrender

New post at Ignitum Today


As some of you know St. Therese’s Feast day is today. St. Therese, known as the Little Flower was known for a simple life lived with great love and her promise to “spend heaven doing good on earth” and “let fall a shower of roses”. I’ve always had an interesting relationship with her and her spirituality. And I know why, because her spirituality involves being overlooked and humble and misunderstood and taking it for the love of God. My pride has yet to get to a place where I want to be like that. And I know I have to be the saint I’m called to be, not St. Therese but there was something that made me want to take her up again, at this time as a prayer partner and intercessor and I didn’t even know exactly why, but she did and here is the story so far...

Thursday, September 27, 2012

7 Quick Takes Friiiiiiday! (vol. 18)

- 1 -

How fantastic was last week's second reading? The emphasis is mine, but go ahead and do yourself a favor and read it and then read it again and then take it line by line and just sit.


James 3:16- 4:3

Beloved:
Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist,
there is disorder and every foul practice.
 

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure,
then peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity.

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace
for those who cultivate peace.


Where do the wars
and where do the conflicts among you come from?
Is it not from your passions
that make war within your members?
You covet but do not possess.
You kill and envy but you cannot obtain;
you fight and wage war.
You do not possess because you do not ask.
You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.




- 2 -

This is another beautiful passage that I found a when I was in Florida. 

Baruch 5:1-4

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on for ever the beauty of the glory of God. 
Put on the robe of righteousness that comes from God;
put on the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
'Righteous Peace, Godly Glory'.


- 3 -



I got invited to go to a Chesterton Society thingy by my friend M. So far she said it's just been her with some guys exchanging good quotes rather loudly at a pub. I'm in. I'll even drink the the beer. 



- 4 -


color studies! 

A girl with a thick neck we shall call Anne!


Me as a hero-girl-waterbender complete with hero body!


A black and white study I did for the 'Twelve Months' project. 

- 5 -

I think I peed my pants when I watched these two thing in a row. How can these things be happening all at once? IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE.





- 6 -

I'm learning this dance for a Flash Mob in Providence and it is sooo cool it involves SPIRIT FINGERS and I'm so excited like 12 year old. 

- 7 -

Please pray for me over the weekend and especially on Monday. A lot of things go down on Monday. There might be crying or laughing or slumping of shoulders. 

Skipidee doo dah. 

~

Please visit Jen whose hair is a nice shiny red @ Conversion Diary

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Sofia The First

My little sister is over the moon about this. Her name is Sofia and she has brown hair and she wears purple. :)


Friday, September 14, 2012

7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 17)

- 1 -

Catching Fire is filming in Atlanta!! Double reason to visit my parents!

- 2 -

I listened to Fulton Sheen's autobiography a second time so I thought I'd post some of his most famous quotes because I love him.




“It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished.” ― Fulton J. Sheen, Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

- 3 -


“We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.” ― Fulton J. Sheen, Life is Worth Living

 - 4 -

 “To tell a woman who is forty, "You look like sixteen," is boloney. The blarney way of saying it is 
 'Tell me how old you are, I should like to know at what age women are the most beautiful.'” ― Fulton J. Sheen

 - 5 -


 “A woman gets angry when a man denies his faults, because she knew them all along. His lying mocks her affection; it is the deceit that angers her more than the faults.” ― Fulton J. Sheen, Life is Worth Living

- 6 -

This SONG:


- 7 -

K! Bye!

~

Please visit Jen @ Conversion Diary


Friday, September 7, 2012

7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 16)

Very, verily busy day.

I will try to give some cogent updates.


-1-

Recently, I had one of those days known by all humans at some point I hope — it consoles me to think so — where I just had an overwhelming disgust and disappointment in myself. Maybe that doesn't happen to you? Well, you must have transcended that temptation by the firmness in your foundation built on the knowledge that God loves The-Person-You-Are, even if you have not yet become The-Person-You-Ought-To-Be.

All these very nice truths were somewhere else while my view became smaller and smaller, darker and scarier. The-Person-God-Wants-Me-To-Be didn't seem all that great and rewarding. A friend called me "thoughtful." I thought, how horrible I'm "thoughtful." I want to be witty and dazzling and preeeeeetty. Nobody will love me and want me for being thoughtful. Nobody cares about being thoughtful. Apparently, it mattered to my friend, but I was too far gone in my muddled headspace. I've written about this battle within the mind to understand where true worth comes from before, so I'll spare you the coming back to sanity details. The only reason I'm mentioning this is that I've been reading a little bit about the philosophical writings JPII formulated on Humanism. During Vatican II he was trying to answer the world's major questions about the nature of the human person. He thought there was a intense need to fight against the widespread ideology that a person's worth was measured by how useful they are to me — utilitarianism— by demonstrating that a human being's value is intrinsic and God-given. And as I've said before, once one is free from trying to gain one's worth by being "useful" one is free to pursue truth and receive grace in order to become The-Person-I-Ought-To-Be and become a self-donating gift to God, Others and Yourself (which is pretty "useful" in the truest sense). Sometimes my vision is narrow, and I do not understand how I am supposed to make a gift of myself without loosing myself. I don't understand how that doesn't lead to misery. The idea of giving myself up entirely to God is terrifying, and he is perfect and awesome. But I know that this "giving" is not the kind of service often equated with Doormat Syndrome. It is much more radical than that. It is service that calls you to act in the most loving way in each circumstance of your life and that love can be manifested in many ways. It might call you to say No or Yes, to stay or to leave. The Image of Self-Gift is Our Lord: "It is in God the Holy Trinity, a "community" of self-giving "persons" who lose nothing of their uniqueness in their radical self-giving, that we see confirmed the Law of Gift and the truth about freedom as freedom-for-self donation." (Witness to Hope, WEIGEL, pg. 176). And it is in prayer that I hope He will teach me to know His Truth better and hopefully, help me become a Good Gift that bears His Love to others. Yay Hurray! To End:

The Love of God is the The Love that sets us free from fear in order to Love, to become true gifts to creation. In freedom we have the ability to seek and meet truth and become truly ourselves; deeply human and amazed by the Grace that animates us.

- 2 -
Hi! If you skipped that paragraph you have to work on your attention-span skills or I have to work on my ability to reach readers with my quasi-confusing reasoning :D Either way I'm happy you are still here! My cat, Toulouse is huge and sometimes I use him when I do squats.... it is very effective.


- 3 -

Anytime I take a trip somewhere I flirt with the city and tell it I will move there soon. But after I'm gone my flaky heart comes to the surface and my promise of forever becomes a maybe.

- 4 -

I was fresh out of ideas of what the heck to to write, when I remembered this anecdote Jason Evert tosses around in his talks and books: 

"In high school, I (Jason) knew I had met my soulmate. We went to a few dances together and I could envision myself with her forever. Today, she's married to a friend of mine. In college, I met a girl and never felt so strongly about a woman before. We dated... until she broke up with me and later married a friend of mine. Then, I met the girl I knew I was going to marry. We knew we were soulmates. We dated for years, talked about marriage, and even tried on wedding rings. But I broke up with her, and she —you guessed it— married a friend of mine. Then, I met another girl and absolutely knew in my heart that she was the one. We dated for years, and talked to her parents about marriage. But we didn't end up marrying. In case you are wondering, she also married a friend of mine... The reason I gave this litany of relationships is to prove that you can't judge the future of a relationship by the intensity of your emotions... Therefore, it is wise to reserve for marriage the forms of affection that belong to it."

- 5 -

This is a freebee since there have been TWO long updates.

- 6 -

This freelance thing is pretty great. If I want to go out and run right now I can!!!

- 7 -

Korra is NOT on Netflix anymore. Mad.

~
Please Visit Jen @ Conversion Diary

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

A Mural in the Land of the Color Coral

Florida is pink; coral, salmon, flamingo. I thought the proliferation of those colors, coupled with baby blue and rubber ducky yellow, were left in the memories of those who decorated their homes in the 80s. Now I know where those colors retired.... Florida. Apparently, pinks don't get their pigment sucked out by the the sun, so everyone paints large buildings pinky shades down there.


But St. Joseph's Church in St. Petersburg is cream and honey inside, and it was there that I spent a few days painting something nice up for a couple arches. They're very simple, but I had a lovely time getting over my fear of tall ladders.


The ladder was so heavy I didn't even help move it. When I tried to help it almost crushed me... for real.


Handy Projector projecting my designs.






St. Gabriel was over both arches, because he visited Mary in the Gospel of Luke and Joseph in the Gospel of Matthew.





See the ladder way on the right? My best friend for the weekend.

Thank you for visiting. 
Love, Fabi