Author: Maria

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Embracing Advent: Renovations for the Soul

If you’ve ever lived through home renovations, you know how it goes—dust everywhere, constant noise, and the distraction of chaos in what was once a quiet space. We’re tearing down decks and moving walls, all while trying to keep some semblance of normalcy in the process. We haven’t even started painting. It’s messy, inconvenient, and often a frustrating exercise in impatience. But as Advent approaches, I’m starting to see all this chaos in a new light.

Advent is a season of preparation, a time when we ready ourselves for the coming of Christ. It’s kind of like a renovation project for the soul. Just as we tear down and rebuild parts of our homes, Advent invites us to examine our hearts—what needs to be torn down? What needs to be repaired?

What’s the spiritual equivalent of an outdated bathroom? Do I have a shaky deck with rotting boards in my relationships that need mending? Am I mired in emotional clutter taking up space where Christ could dwell?

Setting Priorities

You can imagine how antsy I’m starting to get. I don’t want to enter the holiday season with a house full of unfinished projects. I don’t want to celebrate Christmas out of boxes. While clearing a section of my desk that was filled with scraps of papers, notes to myself, I paused to read the scribbles from scripture that accounted for many of those scraps. Words of encouragement, some of consolation, the occasional observation from a saint. I settled on the following admonition from St. John the Baptist:

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” (Matthew 3:3)

I love this imagery because it speaks directly to the work of clearing obstacles, making things right, and creating space for what’s to come. That’s what renovations do—they disrupt, but they also renew.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in both physical and spiritual renovation. In the house, I keep thinking, When will this end? In Advent, I think, Am I even making progress?

But here’s the beautiful thing: we have Christ, who is the ultimate renovator of our hearts. He comes into our mess, our unfinished work, and makes it beautiful in ways we can’t imagine.

This Advent, as I live amid the dust and noise, I’m letting it remind me to make room in my life for Jesus. To clear the clutter, tear down the walls of my own making, and allow Him to build something new.

Maybe your life feels a little under construction, too. Take heart—this is the perfect season for it. Let’s prepare the way together.

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Pondering Changes and Opportunities

The following first appeared at Catholicmom.com in 2023. A lot has happened in that year and a half. These musings became the inspiration for a book that touches on these themes, A Beautiful Second Act: Saints and Soul Sisters Who Taught Me to Age with Grace.

The Blessing of Growing Old in Our Faith

I remember the moment when I became “Mrs. Vicky’s Mom.” It tickled me when my daughter’s classmate, unable to recall our last name, called me by the best way she could remember me, as her friend’s mom. 

In a time when I was juggling with so many identities, wife, mother, teacher, daughter, coach, and who knows what else, I not only didn’t take offense, but delighted in the child’s ingenuity, and the dawning realization that perhaps, I was merely an abstract thought for these kids.  

It was funny … right up until it wasn’t. As my children got older, and the demands of a growing family got bigger, I found myself struggling with a bit of an identity crisis. Where did these roles end and the real me begin? Acknowledging that the go-go-go of those years were exhausting emotionally as well as physically doesn’t take away from the fact that they were also fulfilling and happy years. I sometimes wonder if making the time for that manicure I passed on or the coffee with a friend I “couldn’t” find time for would have made a small but meaningful difference in the busy-ness of my day as a little stress relief. 

Taking Time for Oneself 

I love talking with young women, especially young mothers, who are doing a much better job of self-care than I did, than perhaps many women of my generation did. I love to see my adult daughters take time for a fun activity, either by themselves or with friends. I delight in their understanding that taking time for themselves is essential for both their mental health and their physical well-being. It is not selfish to take a small break in the day and breathe. To set aside for a moment the many hats and remember who we are. 

It is all the more important to remember whose we are.   

See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. (John 1:3) 

If I came late to the realization that I must take time for myself and my interests, I came much later to the understanding that I must also tend carefully to my spiritual needs. Even in this area, I was focused on learning as much as I could about the faith so that I could pass it along to my children. That time was well spent, but I wonder what impact I might have had if I had taken that weekend retreat that seemed so impossible to schedule or gone to the book club on those Tuesday nights when the allure of the comfy couch and whatever distraction was on TV called to me. 

An Opportunity for Growth

There is beautiful wisdom in growing older and seeing these things, not as a lament or deep personal criticism, but as opportunity. There is the opportunity to share these thoughts with our children, but there is also the opportunity to apply that wisdom to ourselves, too. What I have learned is meaningful to me now. I am still a mother, navigating relationships with adult children who need less hands-on time from me and perhaps more heart-time, to love them and pray for them. I am learning to be a grandmother, to spend time with these little precious ones in a way that delights them and encourages them to grow in all the many ways they do. And to pray for them, too! 

The Importance of Spiritual Growth

As a young woman, I would see the older women in my parish at daily Mass, at daily Rosaries, and suppress a little chuckle at their sibilance in whispered prayers and the jingling of their rosary beads. I laugh out loud today, realizing I have become “the older woman in the pew.” I am happy for it, to be in this new season of life.  

And perhaps this is where the real wisdom comes in: I need to tend to my own continuing spiritual well-being. To seek those groups of women with whom I can share these experiences, with whom I can pray, and learn, and let down my hair, and even explore new devotions and new experiences related to growing in relationship with Christ.  

I am still wearing many hats: wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, aunt. I wear other hats, too: editor, writer, teacher, friend, whatever-somebody-needs-today. But always I am Maria, child of God.  

You can pre-order A Beautiful Second Act: Saints and Soul Sisters Who Taught Me to Age with Grace today!

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Finding Prayer in the Stillness

stillness as an opportunity for prayer

The warmth of the sun on a crisp fall afternoon stirs my soul. It’s my favorite time of day, when chores are done and there is a long break before dinner. I often sit on the porch with a book in my lap, but I rarely get around to any reading. I close my eyes from the glare on the page, and I feel myself relaxing into a waking dream-state.

In those moments, I find myself in the thin place, that state where the line between heaven and earth dissolves, and I feel God’s presence in the quiet and stillness. It doesn’t last very long, as a dog barking or a siren in the distance brings me back to the present, but the peace remains.

I Struggle to Show Up in Prayer

I’ve struggled lately with finding a time to pray. Oh, I have plenty of time. My work is flexible and my obligations few. So why is this such a difficult thing? I think my need for prayer and the practice of it, has suffered in this season of my life. When my family was young and our schedules were busy with activities, I had a robust prayer life. It seems the busier I got, the more I needed prayer.

St. Francis de Sales is often credited with saying that we should pray especially in the busyness of life. I’m no longer running late while trying to get young children out of the house and on the school bus. I’m not fighting traffic to get to work on time. I’m not scrambling to get dinner together after forgetting to take out the roast in the morning.

Making the Time for a Conversation with God

In the midst of the demands of raising a family, I made the time to pray. Now, I put off prayer to focus on the distractions. I think that I will have time later to dedicate myself to a Rosary or spiritual reading, but I rarely get to it, allowing the next distraction to occupy my time.

Maybe that’s the crux of my problem—when life slows down, I find myself in a place where the need for prayer feels less urgent. Prayer is not something reserved for moments of crisis or busyness; it is the quiet conversation with God that sustains us in all seasons.

Therefore, when you make ready to pray, you must say with your whole heart, “God is indeed here.”― Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life.

Today, my life presents me with the opportunity to pray for others, especially my loved ones. I have found praying through my vocation to be helpful. I pray for my husband, my children, and my grandchildren. I pray for my mother, the repose of my father’s soul, my siblings, nieces and nephews, and my aunts and uncles and cousins. I pray for my dear friends. More often than not, it is a spontaneous “God bless my dear one,” whenever I think of someone. It’s not elegant nor eloquent, but it is intimate and special.

Sitting on my porch, bathed in the warmth of the afternoon sun, I’m reminded that prayer doesn’t have to be rigid or scheduled. It can be as simple as a sigh, a thought, or a moment of gratitude. In these still moments, I realize that God is always waiting, gently calling me to Him. It is an opening for praise and thanksgiving.

I used to think that prayer was something I had to make time for, but now I see that it’s something that permeates all time. It’s in the pauses between thoughts, in the fleeting peace of a quiet afternoon, and in the thin places where heaven and earth meet. All I need to do is show up.

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