sandra @sandraand - Tumblr Blog

“Say to yourself every morning when you rise, and every night when you lie down, “The fashion of this world passes away. The life that I now live is not all. There is something besides business, and money, and pleasure, and commerce, and trade. There is life to come. We have all immortal souls”.”

— J.C. Ryle

that-catholic-shinobi

Humans desperately crave spiritual connection, ritual and belief, but with today’s society’s lack of self discipline, truth and responsibility, people are turning to witchcraft, occultism and paganism where they can make up their own religion and worship themselves rather than be transformed by truth

bloodofthemartyrs-deactivated20

theinwardlight

Illustration of the Works of Mercy, from Sarah Fuller, LA Catholic Worker.

gratiae-mirabilia

Lust is a weak, poor, whimpering, whispering thing compared with the richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.

C.S. Lewis

admaioremdeigloriam

Okay hear me out, 2000's First Gen Catholic Aesthetic, or is that just getting too specific?

I can't be the only one who experienced this.

artthatgivesmefeelings

Eugène Romain Thirion (French, 1839–1910) Joan of Arc listening to the voices, 1876

orpheuslament

Meditations in an Emergency, Cameron Awkward-Rich

starlosers

thinking about my siblings a lot lately

electricheart

a little reminder! by annalaura_art

annaslapek

good friday

momentsbeforemass

Good Friday

This is where it was heading.

Remember all of the wonderful stuff at Christmas? Angels, shepherds, wisemen, a newborn king?

This is where it was going the whole time. Good Friday.

All that “God with us” stuff? It sounded so sentimental, so warm and fuzzy back then.

This is what it really means.

God with us, when we can’t see a way out.

God with us, when we did it to ourselves.

God with us, at our worst.

God with us.

God with us, carrying our load.

God with us, though we don’t deserve it.

God with us, doing what we could never do on our own.

In everything, especially the worst things, we are never alone. God will never abandon us.

Even if we can’t feel it in the moment. Even when it hurts too much to feel much of anything. Even when we’re angry with God. Even when we doubt God.

That changes nothing.

God loves us too much to abandon us.

There’s this idea that too many of us have, that Faith means nothing ever goes wrong. That if you believe hard enough. That if you’re good enough. That if you’re holy enough, nothing bad will happen to you.

I don’t know where that idea comes from. It certainly wasn’t Good Friday.

Because today, we see the perfect person. Sinless. Someone who raises the dead, heals the sick. Fully God and fully man. Someone who is literally as good as it gets, as holy as it gets.

Murdered. In the public spectacle of a government-sponsored torture killing.

And here’s the thing – being fully God and being aware that all of that was going to happen. Being fully human and being terrified by all of the suffering that would entail.

He went through with it anyway.

This is why I say, this is how I know that God loves us too much to abandon us.

One more thing.

All of this is personal. He did this just for me. He did this just for you.

If everyone else was sinless. If you or I were the only person who ever needed saving in all of history.

Good Friday would still have happened.

Because God loves you too much to abandon you.

Today’s Readings