Love is a powerful force, a great good in every way. It alone can make our burdens light, and it bears in what is pleasing and displeasing. It carries a burden but does not feel it. It makes all that is bitter taste sweet. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing higher, nothing stronger, nothing larger, nothing more joyful, nothing fuller, nothing better in heaven or on earth.
Continue reading “A Higher Love”
It was important to me that Smitten with Goodness launched last year on All Saints Day. Because saints love God and they love what is good, I felt putting this stake in the ground would be a guiding force for the journey. When we show up and say “Yes” to God, He uses us to touch lives, bring His love to the world, and walk the path of holiness and sainthood.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:7-8
The definition of Smitten with Goodness is being struck by strong feelings of attraction in the direction of being good, holy, and pure. We fall in love with the good. We are smitten, deeply affected, or infatuated with goodness or godliness. A state of being free from guilt and sin, it is being in the presence and flow of pure love.
Continue reading “Celebrating A Year of Being Smitten with Goodness”
Are you ready to have a happy heart to start your weekend?
Continue reading “A Different Kind of Happy Hour”
Living through the pandemic and all its challenges that have been exposed has been tough. From job loss, health crisis, identity crisis and watching the social injustice, it is easy to become hopeless and feel like there is nothing one person can do. But there is. Each and every one of us can say these five words which will profoundly impact our world:
Continue reading “Five Words That Can Change the World”With St. Mary Magdalene, let us accept Christ’s ‘Do not touch me’ with the certainty that His words give us a new mission, and a new way to be with Him, just as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton met the hardships of her life with renewed faith and strength. Written by Lisa Lickona from the Seton Reflection published last year.
This year we celebrate our great and holy Feast, the Resurrection of Our Lord, in the most unexpected circumstances, most of us separated from physical participation in the Mass and the opportunity to receive Communion.
We are cut off from our family and friends and our parish communities. And we wonder: how can we live in this new situation, separated from the Body of God—both in the Eucharist and the living Church?
Continue reading “Shining a Light on Goodness. The Empty Tomb: Easter with Mary Magdalene and Elizabeth Ann Seton”
As was the case last year during the beginning of the pandemic closures, this year’s Stations of the Cross (or Via Crucis) presided over by Pope Francis were held in the quiet and virtually empty St. Peter’s Square. This year, though, the mediations and prayers for each Station were prepared and read by children from Rome and other Italian cities. The faith and hope expressed by these children are profound and moving and are worthy of further reflection during this Easter season. As a complement to the text of the meditations and prayers provided here, you can watch a video of the Stations and hear the children’s sweet voices, as well as see several of the children greet Pope Francis with hugs after the Stations concluded.
Continue reading “Shining a Light on Goodness: We Adore You, O Christ, and We Praise You”Written by Jennifer Stavinoha for Every Sacred Sunday one April 4, 2021
It’s the greatest news to ever hit the headlines of humanity – but the arrival of Easter comes with some surprising emotions.
All will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.
—Julian of Norwich, Showings, chapter 27
Today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which allows faithful Christians to trust that, indeed, all will be well. I like to think of the resurrection as God’s way of telling us that God can take the worst thing in the world—the killing of the God-Human Jesus—and change it into the best thing: the redemption of the world.
Continue reading “Shining a Light on Goodness: A Pattern We Can Trust, A Richard Rohr Meditation”
You, Jesus, love us by dying, by suffering abandonment, by bestowing Your spirit unto us, by doing the Father’s will, by offering everything up for our sins, and trusting in the greater plan of GOD.
Continue reading “Shining a Light on Goodness: He is Risen”
Smitten With Goodness 