Daily Gospel Reflection - Catholic Mom

May 26, 2017 - Feastday of St. Philip Neri by Meggie K. Daly

Immediately preceding today’s Gospel passage, Jesus and calls His apostles to trust that better times are coming. Jesus knows that His impending passion and death will break their hearts, shatter their dreams, and will surely leave them confused about how they have spent the last 3 years of their lives.

The apostles do not yet understand that Jesus is birthing the kingdom of God on earth and writing our divine adoption papers with His blood. Only after His resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit will the apostles’ nightmare of the next hours, days, and weeks assemble into the glorious, big picture.

Jesus uses the analogy of childbirth to create a glimpse into the apostles’ future. Four of my children were born completely naturally. I still remember the exhaustion and the pain, despite all the proper breathing and relaxation techniques. I also recall the overpowering joy as I first locked eyes with my newborn baby and gush of maternal hormones that held captive my entire being. Somehow the miracle of life overshadowed the anguish and travail of the birthing process.

It is easy to lose our trust in really bad times. We may face the untimely death of a loved one, a devastating mental or physical illness, the loss of home or job, broken relationships, or just come up empty as we search for meaning in mundane circumstances and monotonous routines. It takes trust to get down on our knees to thank the Lord for the crosses of the day and to muster a childlike trust that tomorrow truly is a brand new day. But that is really what Jesus wants us to do. His Holy Spirit is praying for us when we do not know how and turns our anguish to joy.

It takes trust to kneel and thank the Lord for the crosses of the day. By Meggie Daly

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Ponder:

What is the area in your life that you find hardest to place in the Lord’s hands and just let go?

Pray:

Holy Spirit, strengthen me to face each day with joy no matter how the day unfolds; Jesus, help me focus on Your Passion when I am overwhelmed; and Father, help me to trust that You have only the best in store for me.

 Copyright 2017 Meggie K. Daly

BY GOSPEL REFLECTIONS TEAM ON MAY 26, 2017 (SIGN UP FOR THESE DAILY EMAILS HERE.)

Celebrating the Centennial Appearance of Our Lady of Fatima

A year ago at this time, I had no idea that I would be releasing my first book this May in conjunction with the 100 year anniversary of the appearance of Our Blessed Mother, Mary, to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. Moreover, I had no idea that I would be writing a nonfiction book on the Rosary!  I thought that I would be finishing up my much-neglected novel.  But my plans mean nothing—my hands do not belong to me—I am consecrated to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  This means that I am simply an instrument in her hands to do with me as she will.

I am very grateful to ALL the super busy people that took the time to read my book and to the four that have written the endorsements below:

“Bead by Bead is an excellent resource for helping us all better appreciate and pray the mysteries of the Rosary." 

-Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC 
Author of 33 Days to Morning Glory

“In this centenary anniversary of the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mother at Fatima, Meggie K. Daly has given to the Church and the world a beautiful gift in the form of her book, Bead by Bead: The Scriptural Rosary. Increasingly, numerous Catholics have discovered the Holy Scriptures as an encounter with Christ—Meggie has delivered a book which unites the twin gifts of the Word of God and the Holy Rosary—a beautiful and powerful combination leading to holiness. In our turn, we can respond to Our Lady of the Rosary by praying the Scriptural Rosary, fulfilling our Lady’s request at Fatima by bringing to life the teaching of St. John Paul II, “The Rosary is a Gospel prayer.” 

- John Galten
 National President of Militia Immaculata, USA

"Meggie K. Daly’s Bead by Bead: the Scriptural Rosary is more than just a devotional aide; it provides a brief history of the Rosary in addition to her testimony from rosary skeptic to devotee . She shares the fruit of her experience with the Rosary after discovering the richness of the saints and their devotion to Mary. Meggie K. Daly leads the reader into an experience of the Rosary as a prayer experience rooted in the Scriptures. The pages of the Gospel will certainly come alive for anyone who reads and uses this book." 

- Fr. Edward Looney 
Author of the best-selling rosary devotional A Rosary Litany

"Meggie K. Daly's Bead by Bead: The Scriptural Rosary is a terrific resource for anyone who wants to take their daily recitation of the Rosary to a whole different—and higher—level. Using this book, the reader has at his/her disposal a line of scripture for each bead that will help the reader to reflect more deeply on the mysteries and prayers of the Holy Rosary. Includes background, history, resources and an appendix, as well as the author's journey towards a Scriptural Rosary. Highly recommend!" 

- Ellen Gable Hrkach 

Author, editor, publisher, past president of the Catholic Writers Guild

Bead by Bead: The Scriptural Rosary
is published by Misericordia Publishing

Best Healthy Gluten-Free Bread Recipe

I have been asked for this recipe so many times that I decided to publish it on my blog.  It is a bit off my usual topics, but blogs don't really have hard and fast rules, right?

A Word of Caution

Baking gluten-free in not like baking with wheat flour.  I am a life-long baker and, in many ways, I had to throw out everything I thought that I knew about making homemade breads, cakes, cookies, pies, biscuits, muffins, and pastries and go back to first-grade.

If you have a serious health reason for eliminating gluten, going GF is worth the investment of time, energy, and money. And in that case, finding a great bread recipe is critical, at least it was for me! 

Why Is Baking Gluten-Free Challenging? 
In a nutshell...because GF dough seems harder to work with, initially, and it is more expensive to get your kitchen set up properly.  But to be specific...

1. Gluten is to bakery products what a metal support system is to a skyscraper.  When you toss the gluten out of your dough, it has a v.e.r.y different character.  That lovely shiny stretch is replaced by a gooey substance that is nothing like traditional dough.
2. A professional stand mixer is a requirement which is much more expensive than a hand mixer.
3. A digital food scale is a must for weighing out the various flour ingredients.  I use this one but there are many good ones.
4. A Pullman bread pan will help you be successful.  The higher sides and narrower base to give the bread support as it rises and cooks.
5. A bevy of flours will be required to achieve the taste and texture of a truly delightful baked product.  That, also, means more kitchen space and a greater dollar investment in flours.
6. Many of the all-purpose GF flours at the grocery store are horrible tasting.
7. Not everyone enjoys the slow process of trial and error.  I like experimentation and am disciplined enough to change one ingredient at a time and document what  I did. 

I spent almost 2 years perfecting my healthy GF bread recipe.  I found other bread recipes that were quite yummy but they did not meet the level of healthy that I was seeking.  I was, also, looking for something quick and easy once I got my kitchen stocked and set up.

If you want to bake GF breads, I strongly suggest that you buy Nicole Hunn’s, Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Bakes Bread: (Biscuits, Bagels, Buns, and More cookbook.  Hunn's 'Bakes Bread' cookbook really is the starting bible for breads, in my opinion.  If you follow her recipes EXACTLY you will gain much confidence in your ability to bake amazing GF breads.  BTW, her blog is awesome.

Once you graduate to the level of creating your own recipes, you may want these two cookbooks:  The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook and The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook Volume 2 Cookbook.  It will help you unleash your kitchen chemist because you gain insight into the interactions between the ingredients in GF breads.  The recipes are great, too.

If you want to bake French desserts and heavenly cakes—go directly to Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts without passing go.  Seriously!  Figuring out where to find superfine GF pastry flours is very important.  

Flours for GF Healthy Bread

• Basic bread flour  - This is a blend of all-purpose GF flour (such as Better Batter), unflavored whey protein powder, and Expandex modified tapioca flour.  To get the exact proportions—buy Nicole’s book.  
• There are other basic bread flours but the genius of Nicole’s basic bread flour is the addition of protein powder!  I use Now Sport’s Protein isolate—Thank you, Nicole.
• Better Batter contains white and brown rice flours, tapioca starch, potato starch, xanthan gum, and pectin.  
• Oat flour - I use old-fashioned whole grain GF oats and grind it in my Vitamix blender.   (You can purchase already ground oat flour.)
• Ancient Grains (30% each amaranth, millet, and sorghum flours and 10% quinoa flour).
• I really wanted to use some teff flour, too, because is so healthy.  But the flavor is just too overpowering for me.

First, make a starter that rises for 40-50 minutes in a warm breeze-free area*.  Mix it up really well by hand with a spatula. Then cover the top with plastic wrap secured in place with a rubber band. The mixture will more than double.

Starter Ingredients

• ½ cup Basic bread flour
• ½ cup oat flour
• ½ cup Ancient Grain flour (King Arthur brand)
• 2 tsp dry instant yeast
• 1.5-2 tbsp white sugar
• 1 cup warm water (110 °F)

While the starter is rising, add the following ingredients to the stand mixer bowl, and mix well to distribute the ingredients evenly:

• ¼ cup golden flax seeds (do not grind)
• 1 tbsp chia seeds
• ½ cup unsalted sunflower seeds
• ½ cup old-fashioned whole grain GF oats
• 2 tbsp psyllium husk powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp xanthan gum

Right before you are ready to add the starter, add these ingredients to the stand-mixer bowl:

• 1 cup plain (unsweetened) whole milk yogurt (do not use non-fat)
• 1 tbsp coconut oil plus 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce or 3 tbsp olive oil or 3 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tbsp molasses (you can use honey but I like molasses better)
• ½ cup warm water not hot (<110 °F) 

Now add the starter to the stand mixer bowl.  Pre-mix by hand with a strong spatula just to get everything moist before you turn the mixer loose.  Use the batter attachment NOT the dough hook. (The more air in the dough the better the batter is.)  Run the mixer on 5 or 6 (medium) for 5-6 mins.  Stop once or twice to mix well with the spatula and to redistribute the dough, which will be super sticky.

Have a Pullman bread pan ready (I use butter-flavor canola spray to grease).  Let the bread rise for an hour in a warm breeze free area.  Cover the top with plastic wrap.  Use the spatula to "coax" the mixture into the bread pan.  Wet your fingers to smooth the bread down.  Sprinkle some oats or seeds on top if you desire.  Let it rise* for an hour or until it is just slightly over the top of the pan.

NOTE: I used to use Nicole’s method of scrapper kneading but I found that I really do not need to use that for this recipe.  But if you want a perfectly rounded top on your bread, do knead it using scrapper kneading.  You will need to give it more time to rise if you knead it.  (If I was making cinnamon rolls—for which I use a different dough—it would be a must!)

In her book, Nicole talks about letting the dough rise in the refrigerator for several days to increase the yeast flavor prior to kneading, shaping, and the final rise.  That does indeed work to develop more of a yeast flavor but the bread will not quite rise as high which was more important to me.  You may want to try it both ways.  It will take several hours for the final rise if you go the refrigerator route.

Put into the cold oven so that the pan is in the center of the oven.  Turn the heat to 350 °F.  Set timer for 40 min.  At 40 min take bread out of pan and place on cookie sheet for another 10-15 min.  Have foil ready to cover the top of bread when it is the shade of golden brown you like.  I like my crust crunchy but not too brown.  Because ovens vary you will need to figure out what works best for you.  

Let the bread cool for several hours before you cut it into 18-20 slices.  The bread freezes well but I find that if I just store my slices is a zipper freezer bag and keep in the refrigerator it does fine. But I also consume the whole load in 5-6 days by myself.  I love this bread.

Sliced up in a quart freezer bag.  Note the full-size slices.

I really can’t thank Nicole Hunn enough for the education is getting started and all the tricks that she has taught me in her cookbooks for GF cooking.  Definitely check out her blog: glutenfreeonashoestring.com.

*To create a perfect environment, I first heat a mug of water in my microwave to ~90 seconds on high.  Then I push the mug of hot water to the back of the microwave and place the non-metal covered bowl, containing the starter, in the microwave so that it does not touch the mug.  Then I close the microwave door.  This provides a warm, moist environment for my starter.  I use this technique for the dough, once shaped and in the pan for the final rise, too.

Another loaf with poppy seeds on top.

Daily Gospel Reflection for July 29, 2016 - St. Martha

From CatholicMom.com this summer...

Today’s Gospel: Luke 10, 38-42 – St. Martha

“There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

In today’s gospel reading, Martha is overwhelmed with the busyness of her serving tasks and asks Jesus to prompt Mary to help her. Martha has chosen the self-sacrificing task of serving those who are guests in her home. This is a very giving thing of Martha to do. So why does it feel as if Jesus is taking Mary’s side, who sits enraptured at His feet, oblivious to the demanding tasks causing Mary such anxiety? Surely Martha could use some help!

I have pondered this passage for years, especially as a woman, since so much of my life is attending to the needs of others. I believe that Jesus is saying that no matter how busy I am or how hectic my life is, I am still called to make time to spend with Him one-on-one. Spending time at the feet of Jesus, in our time, means one-on-one with him in prayer, worship, and adoration.

As mothers and grandmothers, we are often consumed with the tasks of caring for the needs of others. And that is a beautiful calling. But Christ’s words to Martha make it clear that time with Him is the best thing we can do for ourselves. We need that time to refresh our spirits and rectify our attitudes such that we can to give of ourselves with joyful self-sacrifice. No matter how busy we are, no matter how demanding our daily schedule, Jesus says that the best thing in our lives is building our relationship with Him. From this quality time with Jesus, every other good thing springs forth.

Ponder:

When I help others do I do it joyfully or do I feel sorry for myself? Am I making time with Jesus so that my “love” battery is fully charged?

Pray:

My dear Lord and Savior, give me ears to hear you inviting me to spend one-on-one time with you in prayer, worship, and adoration, no matter how crazy my life gets. Give me a heart of joy that allows me to give to others from the wellspring of my time spent with you.

Copyright 2016 Meggie K. Daly

Maggie K. Daly blogs at themagdaleneletters.blogspot.com. She is the mother of six adult children and three grandchildren. She is writing her first novel ever so slowly between her ministry work and part-time University Math teaching. She is a retired research scientist.

http://catholicmom.com/2016/07/29/daily-gospel-reflection-july-29-2016-st-martha/

A Most Beautiful Wedding

Last evening I attended one of the most beautiful weddings that I have ever witnessed.  The couple was young.  The groom may have been all of 21 years old and the bride was, perhaps, 20 years old.  By modern standards, they were far too young to know what they want out of life and hardly able to enter into a marriage at that tender age.  I do not share that view.

So what made this wedding so lovely?  It was very clear from the words of the priest, who presided over the ceremony, that this was a marriage COVENANT not a marriage contract. The parties were entering into a covenant, with God and one another, that was life-long and eternally binding.  Many non-Catholics attended the wedding which was book-ended by a nuptial Mass.  Although the non-Catholics in attendance did not understand the significance of the Mass, one Protestant woman told me she was struck by the beauty of the ceremony. 

The couple had met two years ago, today, inside the very Church in which they exchanged their vows last night.  They had not lived together prior to the wedding, and, perhaps, the couple had even been chaste prior to their exchange of vows.  What a great gift they would be giving each other if indeed they had waited to become one flesh until their wedding night!  My husband likes to say, “Satan does everything he can to get a couple to have sex before they marry, and everything that he can to keep them from having sex after they marry!”  As a woman in my sixties I am awestruck with the truth of that statement.  

This wedding did not cost the bride’s parents a fortune, perhaps less than a thousand dollars total.  The flowers were artificial.  The wedding gown was simple, as was the bride's veil.  The groom wore his military uniform.  The mothers of the bride and groom each wore simple street dresses (the wedding was not about them, after all). 

The reception was held in the Church’s old, ugly activity center which probably should be condemned by the civil building authorities.  The food was likely in keeping with the simplicity of the other expenditures.  My husband and I did not attend the reception as only a select few were invited to keep expenditures manageable.  The parents are of simple means. 

Having been to many weddings previously, including far too many of my own, this was the first Catholic wedding embedded in a nuptial Mass that I have attended as a practicing Catholic with absolute faith in God and understanding of the truth and fullness of the faith embodied by the teaching of the Catholic Church. 

As the couple stood in front of the giant crucifix that hangs in our little parish church, I thought, "There symbolized is Christ on His marriage bed, the cross."  Our pastor made it clear to the young couple that “The HUNT was over!”  They were soon to become one flesh, thereby embodying their spoken marriage vows, and this was a forever union.  He warned them that they would have good times and bad, really bad, but that they were bound to their spouse in their journey to become saints and help the other attain eternal life.

And, indeed, I have found marriage to be a cross to bear.  Yes, there are more good times than bad.  However, withstanding the bad times—and I mean deeply bad times—without obvious complaint and pleasantly, too—is  a saint making task indeed!  This sweet couple will no doubt find all too soon that “Happily Ever After” is better relegated to fairly tales and that true love requires more work and sacrifice than popular culture would have us believe. 

In Eastern Orthodox wedding ceremonies, the bride and groom exchange crucifixes symbolizing the death that each must undergo to self in their marriage covenant to one another.  I wonder how different our culture would be, and how different my own life would have been, if I had understood that marriage was a purifying cross whose purpose was to make me a saint rather than my achieve own personal happiness!

The good news is that we are never to old to learn!  

Peace and grace be with you, Meggie.

Sweetening the Sorrow

I must confess that I have a hard time praying the rosary.  It takes tremendous discipline on my part to recite that many Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and Glory Bes in a row while focusing my mind on the appropriate mystery for each decade.  Why does it feel so difficult for me much of the time?

It is not nearly so difficult for me to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet as that prayer is a very personal prayer for me.  A good friend of mine was praying a Divine Mercy Chaplet Novena for my return to the Catholic Church between Good Friday and Divine Mercy Sunday several years ago.  It was during the time of her novena that I responded to a mysterious but irresistible urge to go see the Catholic pastor in our area.   I did not know him nor had I been inside a Catholic church for some twenty five years.

I was an on-fire Evangelical Protestant as was my husband.  The Catholic Church of my youth would never be a home for me again—or so I thought.  It turned out that the priest in my little ‘Podunk’ town was also a Roman Catholic Canon lawyer and thus began my return to the Catholic Church. My reversion to the Catholic Church also started an intense study into the teaching of the Church I had dismissed.  My ex-Protestant pastor’s conversion to the Catholic Church took place shortly after I returned.  My husband and I came into full communion with the Catholic Church on the Feast day of St. Faustina about a year and a half after my friend’s Divine Mercy Chaplet Novena.

But it only takes me ten minutes to say the Divine Mercy Chaplet, whereas the rosary takes me twenty minutes or more.

As a child, we had meatless Fridays.  At some point after I left the Catholic Church, meatless Fridays were replaced by a personal penance of our own choice on Fridays.  Although this penance is still obligatory, from what I can tell, many Catholics my age are unaware of this.  I only discovered that we are called to perform a personal penance on Fridays a few months ago.

The perfect penance for me is going to Church to pray the rosary on Fridays during adoration.

I am consecrated to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  This was something I did early on when I came back to the Catholic Church—that is, once I found out about it.  My consecration day is on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which is always celebrated on that Saturday following the Friday Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which both follows the feast of Corpus Christi.  My consecration gives me even more reason to be frustrated with my struggles to get through the rosary.

But why is it so hard for me?  So many people love to pray the rosary.

I love to read the original writings of the Saints in the Catholic Church.  I take encouragement in that even great saints had struggles in their prayer life.  So why should a spiritual weakling, such as myself, expect no challenges?  St. Teresa of Avila wrote about her struggles in her prayer life in The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself.  And for what do we remember St. Teresa?  We remember her for her great prayer life among other things.  After years of slogging through difficult periods of prayer she was given the gift of contemplation where the Lord lifting her up both spiritually and physically (yep!) in ecstasy in during prayer.  Bernini immortalized the ecstasy of St. Teresa in his sculpture.

During my Evangelical years, I took the verse Matt 6:7 as a forever absolution of my ever praying the rosary again.  At that time I thought, “Why do the Catholics pray the rosary when the bible tells us not to keep repeating ourselves?”  However, I now recognize that my misdirected thinking was taking the verse completely out of the historical context in which it was written.   When I pray the rosary, the rhythm of those repeated prayers and the movement of our fingers quiet down my mind to actually allow me to meditate on the mysteries of the God’s mind-blowing actions in Salvation History.

When I facilitated the ‘33 Days to Morning Glory’ class in my home parish, I recall Fr. Michael Gaitley saying, “I do not know why Mary likes us to say the rosary so much, but she does!” on one of the videos.

Ever since then (and that was a couple years back) I have been asking, “Why does Mary like us to say the rosary so much?”   

The answer came as quickly as a dried up kernel of corn metamorphosizes into a piece of popcorn when the perfect temperature is reached.  My stubbornly empty kernel of ‘wondering why’ was replaced by a soft, fragrant billowy bite of understanding and accompanying peace.  My explanation could be of my own creation but it makes sense to me and has had a profound impact on my prayer life.

The rosary is not so difficult to pray anymore.

I was in adoration thinking about how God is outside of time.  He has to be because he created both space and time.  Now Christ is fully divine and fully human…The Incarnation is this great mystery. Thus events in human history that Christ participated in occurred in time, as do things we do, but Christ's actions exist outside of time, too as God-events.  It is especially helpful to think this way about the to the passion of Our Lord!

Remember the agony in the garden of Jesus?  Jesus so wanted his three best apostle-buddies to keep him company.  They kept falling asleep while Jesus’ agony was so intense his blood became as drops of blood.  [BTW, this is a real medical phenomena, hematohidrosis.]  Remember how when Christ was hanging from the cross and His mother, his Aunt Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene were the only ones who kept him company?

Both those events are actual historical events, but also they are outside of time as God-events. Indeed in the Mass we are united with the sacrifice of Calvary precisely because this God-event is outside of time.  That is what it means, the representation of the sacrifice of Calvary.  When I hear the under-educated complaining about how boring the Mass is--I see the apostles asleep unable to keep Jesus company.  So many are asleep to the meaning of the Mass and the power of the Eucharist even among practicing Catholics.

Now when I meditate on the sorrow mysteries, as I do on Fridays when I pray my rosary, I can make myself present to Christ and console Him during His passion.  I can be there at Gethsemane and at Calvary.

This is the answer that I received.  I can take the struggles of my prayer life, in focusing my roaming mind and my recalcitrant will, to Jesus and unite them to His passion.   Mary has such a sweet way of bringing me into the company with her Son.  This is what it means to me to Console the Heart of Jesus.

Lessons from the Flying Flowers

You call them butterflies.  I call them flying flowers.  They slay me with their delicate beauty.  When I see them alight on my flowers, I am catapulted into my imaginary Garden of Eden by the combined panoply of colors, symmetry, and fragrance.  Which leads me to the topic of flowers…

In the Mid-South it helps greatly to be cursed with stubbornness.  Otherwise how can I explain that I have refused to give up growing on roses in our clay soil and high humidity?  And shall we not forget the summer’s temperamental weather that alternates between drought and relentless heat only to be randomly punctuated with deluge-like summer rains that can take days for the soil to accept. 

The crowning insult for my flowers, and what could be the death knoll for my butterflies, is the visitation of Japanese beetles for the three full months of June, July, and August.  Japanese beetles have impeccable taste, as their favorite flowers are mine as well.  Granted, they do possess an iridescent exoskeleton but whatever loveliness they may possess pays lousy dividends as they decimate my flowers!

Most people use an insecticide, called Sevin, to control these pests that so far only torment those of us who live east of the Mississippi River.  I cannot use Sevin because I love my butterflies and honey bees.  Sevin is an indiscriminate killer, and although it is very effective, I cannot sacrifice my butterflies or bees upon the altar of my rose bushes’ health.  Thus I must settle for twice-a-day slap-downs on fifty-two rose bushes and weekly (or more applications) of neem oil, which is not nearly as effective as Sevin.  Neem oil does not harm sucking insects only chomping ones, like Japanese beetles. 

I love butterflies for so many reasons.  

Let’s start when they are in their ugly caterpillar stage.  They are a reminder to me of how I was before I believed with 100% certitude that God existed.  That was before the Lord showed me how much He loved me...even when I was dead in my sins!  I did not give God the time of day and did not even obey the Natural Law let alone His commandments.  Stubbornness incarnate…aka me.  Perhaps that still describes me, but now I attempt to direct that stubbornness towards my sanctification. 

Did you know that if you try to help the butterfly as it emerges from its chrysalis, thereby interrupting its struggle, that it will never be strong enough to fly?  Once we become true believers we'd like to believe that we can run the spiritual marathon without pain and struggle.  But this is not how we are sanctified.  It is only thorough great travail that we are remade in the image of Christ.  Our spiritual muscles grow as we suffer.

The butterfly gives glory to God by doing the same things over and over again.  Yes, it is in the butterfly’s nature to do so, and by simply living according to its nature, the butterfly gives glory to God.

The first two humans were made in the image and likeness of God, once God breathed an immortal soul into them. In the Hebrew, saying that someone is created in the image and likeness of a person means that they are his children.  Thus we are told in Genesis that Adam and Eve were sons and daughters of God in that first "Garden".

Once the first parents committed a very personal sin against God, that direct kinship was broken both for them and their offspring.  Yes, we are all God's creatures; the butterfly and I have that in common.  But just because one is human does not make one a child of God.  All of humanity would have to wait to become adopted sons and daughters of God for the graces that were poured out through Christ's Passion and Death, our Redemption, made available in the sacrament of Baptism.  Perhaps this does not seem politically correct to you, but God is not bound by our notions of fairness with are frequently distorted and out of alignment with God.

I relate very much to this adoption scenario because my own adoption, as an infant, that left me hungry to know who I was and to discover my biological parentage.  Eventually God used that ravenous hunger and emptiness to bring me to Himself but only after I had sunk about as low as one could go—which is the inspiration for my novel (in progress).

The butterfly trusts that when it goes from flower to flower that it will find food not poison (like Sevin).  Oh, how I wish I had such dependable trust in the goodness of God to meet my daily physical, mental, and spiritual needs!  I put on my own butterfly wings, as I pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, attempting to cloak myself in the simple unquestioning trust that my little butterfly friends demonstrate.

Occasionally I find butterfly wings after my little friends have finished their lives.  I see little broken parts here and there on their wings.  They are still beautiful but they no longer look perfect.  Such is the curse of time outside the "Garden".  As we age, our physical body undergoes the metamorphosis that heralds our own mortality.  We call that swan song by despised names like wrinkles, saggy skin, grey hair, and pain.  

What about our souls? 

If we do things God’s way, our souls acquire beauty as we run through the gauntlet of our mortal life.  We can unite all our heartaches, disappointments, pains, and sorrows to the cross of Christ and ask the Father to use these very things to conform us to the image and likeness of His Son.

This is the much misunderstood process of sanctification.  Sanctification has been largely ignored in many non-Catholic Christian faith traditions.  And many Catholics, due to poor catechesis, do not understand the process of sanctification either.  I believe that the failure to understand sanctification is at the heart of Christians who support same sex marriage and abortion.  Such people, who in many cases love God deeply, have both misplaced mercy and undue trust in their own powers of spiritual discernment.  Why? Because they have no concept of sanctification through the gift of redemptive suffering!

Sanctification is that process that, as we step into immortality at the point of our deaths, enables us to understand what true beauty really is and allows us to be drawn to it!  We will have the capacity to understand and, ultimately, to be united with the beatific vision!