Posts by Joanne Huestis-Dalrymple
St. Joseph
Today’s gospel reading is the story of the angel coming to St. Joseph in a dream and assuring him not to divorce Mary, but to take her as his wife. The angel explains that the baby, who is to be named Jesus, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and will save the world from their…
Read MorePerseverance
Today’s gospel from Luke is a story from when Jesus is walking through Jericho, the crowds are following him, and on the roadside is a beggar. He is not only poor, he is blind. He hears the crowd and asks what is going on. Once he finds out Jesus is passing through, he calls out…
Read MoreA Message and A Mission
Years ago, I was on the hunt for a journaling bible; a bible that allowed notetaking on the margins. A bonus was if it had commentary at the bottom of the pages as well. A dear friend showed up at my door with her journaling-commentary bible that she thought I would get more use of…
Read MoreIt All Comes Down to This
Everything begins and ends with love. It all comes down to this. I recently read a short story by an author I enjoy very much, What Men Live By by Leo Tolstoy. While this is a work of fiction, Tolstoy has some interesting points and left me thinking about them more than once. I will…
Read MoreOn Suffering and Thanksgiving
In May, I fell and broke both of my wrists. Other GVM contributors have graciously stepped in to fill my Day 18 reflections for the past few months. To them, thank you! The long story short is that I quite literally was without use of my arms and hands for a bit. I learned very…
Read MoreWill You Pray for Me?
Will you pray for me? These are five of my favorite words. I love to pray for people. In my circle, the phrase Prayer Warrior was coined as a description years ago. It is comparable to a love language for me. Today as I was sitting in carpool to pick up some of our children,…
Read MoreThe Bread of Life
Today’s gospel discourse is on The Bread of Life; the Eucharist. As a cradle Catholic who happens to love music very much, my mind cannot help but erupt into song while reading these bible verses. “I am the Bread of life, He who comes to Me shall not hunger, He who believes in Me shall…
Read MoreWalking with Jesus
I read this quote on Franciscan Media, “it should be no surprise that saints, indeed all Christians, will experience the same difficulties as their Master.” The responsorial psalm for today also reminds us that we are not alone in our sufferings. “Even though I walk in the dark valley I fear no evil; for you…
Read MoreInto the Desert
Today’s gospel account from the book of Mark is a very short, to the point, account of Jesus going to the desert, being tempted, and returning ready to minister. If we look up the definition of desert, some synonyms for the word are barren land, wilderness, and dust bowl. Dust bowl stands out as we…
Read MoreSoak
I shared with you last year that every January I choose a word and a saint to focus on for the year ahead. You may recall that last year the word was Gift. This practice of honing in on the word “Gift” helped me tremendously to acknowledge that even my crosses are gifts. Sometimes I…
Read More