Posts by Maggie Martin
All I Can Do Is Pray
When we encounter the suffering of others, often we want to do something for them. We want to send them a great big care package with a billion little thoughtful gifts, a nice hand-written note, flowers, chocolate, etc. We want to stop by the car wreck on the road, get the person home safe and…
Read MoreLoving Wisely
A few years ago, I had the privilege of being trained in a Montessori-style faith formation program called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. In our training, I distinctly remember our Pentecost celebration. We solemnly processed around the classroom with our own individual, unlit candles, sang short, childlike hymns invoking the Holy Spirit, and settled in…
Read MoreGet Off the Fence
During my undergraduate years in college, my honors thesis project was trying to prove the impossibility of holding an agnostic view on God’s existence. I did all right on it, despite my inexperience with academic philosophy jargon, but I think the most disappointing part about it for me was realizing that I was not actually…
Read MoreI AM
Today’s reading is one of my absolute favorite passages from the Old Testament. Particularly in my days as a borderline-atheist philosophy student, God’s response to Moses really knocked me over like a brick. Kind of like the soldiers who fell to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane at Jesus’, ‘I AM. ’(John 18:6). Those…
Read MoreWho is Thine Enemy?
Whenever I read today’s Gospel passage, two things happen. First, I imagine the scene from Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ where the beautiful Jesus is atop the Mount of the Beatitudes wagging his finger with a kind, fatherly look in His eyes, “But I say to you: Love your enemies, and pray for…
Read MoreThe Sunday Blues
It has been happening for years now. In college, it was while driving back up to school after a Sunday spent in peace and recreation with my parents and siblings. Now it is still usually Sundays. After mass, maybe after a family brunch, a hike at a local park, or an afternoon lazily drifting in…
Read MoreThe Eucharist: A Need of the Heart of Jesus
Though overall it is a hard film to watch, there is a scene in Slumdog Millionaire that I absolutely love. The movie centers around a young man and a young woman, Jamal and Latika, who in their childhood help each other get through the incredible hardships of living in Indian slums. At one point they…
Read MoreSt. Patrick’s Lorica
It is certainly NOT a coincidence that I was assigned the 17th for each month just a few months ago, that I started praying this absolutely epic prayer written by St. Patrick just a few weeks ago, and here we are, March 17, Feast of St. Patrick. I have every excuse to gush to you…
Read MoreWatch Your Tone!
It was not until I was forced to read aloud the account of the Fall to my class of first reconciliation students that I realized the Father’s sorrow. He calls for Adam and Eve, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9) With His broken heart He asks, “What is this you have done?” (Gen 3:13). Sometimes when…
Read MoreIn His Timing
It will all happen in His perfect timing. Bleh. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that throughout our infertility journey. I know that it is well intentioned, and I even say it myself sometimes when I have nothing else to say. But the wounded, distrustful part of my heart still grimaces…
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