Joseph of Nazareth has been a trusted confidant, beloved father figure, and favorite saint to me over a span of many years. Researching his life, I am reassured; I have chosen my mentor well. The same sterling characteristics – faithful, compassionate, humble, hard-working, obedient, strong, protective – reveal themselves over and over again in his story. Those, and countless other positive adjectives, make up the portrait of a righteous man whose life was centered on God and family.
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Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan in 1888 (Photo courtesy of Wikicommons)
By Ellen Mongan
“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks, as if they were great and noble.” Who do you think said that? St. Therese, the little flower of Jesus? St. Teresa of Calcutta? St. Teresa of Avila? No! The correct answer is Helen Keller.
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Declared Venerable by His Holiness Pope Saint John Paul II on December 20, 1999, Concepcion Cabrera de Armida (Conchita) (1862-1937), born in Mexico, into a pious Catholic family, was a married woman, mother of nine children, foundress of the five Works of the Cross and a great mystic of the Mexican Church.
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by Judy Clark
The Situation
Tom and Maribeth are college sweethearts married 29 years. They feel they have a stable marriage that has involved raising four children. It has been a wild ride of parenthood with a few hair-raising experiences. Still, they both agree that all four have been successfully launched into adulthood. And now that their youngest has recently married, they are truly an “empty nest” marriage, not just the “shifting nest” of college years and a few years beyond.
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by Lauri Przybysz
They say that when a man marries a woman, he thinks, “She’s the one I’ve been waiting for. She’ll never change.” – and she always does. And a woman looks at her man, and thinks, “He just needs a little work; after we’re married, I’ll help him change” – and he never does.
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Everything about the young girl named Bernadette Soubirous spoke of humility. If anyone had told her struggling parents how widely her name would become known, they never would have believed it. Yet it was this simple, virtually uneducated girl who had been chosen to receive the highest of privileges.
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By Kathleen Beckman
Scripture reminds us, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Christ chose the Twelve (Apostles) to do the same.
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By Ellen Mongan
Every Christian faith walk takes you on a journey; journeys where you are asked to take Jesus’s nail-scarred hand and trust Him to lead you. Jesus leads you to the very heart of our loving Heavenly Father.
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Each year around this time, reality hits with a dull thud. Decorations have been taken down and stored away. Living rooms have that bare, denuded look that only the departure of a festive tree can create. Those much-anticipated gifts – the ones that haven’t been returned, that is – have already lost their luster.
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“Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart!” (I Samuel 16:7)
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