Moving!

The Skillman's are moving - to a family blog ;-)

http://lovetruthandskillmans.blogspot.com/

There are not posts yet, but Joe is working on it - - - - but the format is similar... same links and sidebar information, plus a few extras.

It is still under construction, but mostly done.

See you over there! Now I just have to work on linking my years of posts from this blog to the new one. Don't want to waste all that information.

Does anyone know how to do that?

Our Lady of the Rosary

Individually, we have prayed the Rosary every day for a few years, and for two and a half months (since we were married), we have been praying it together sometime after dinner and before bed. What a blessing! We hope to do this for the rest of our lives and make it an important family tradition. It might need to be modified a bit when there are tiny people running around. :-)

“All the supreme teachers, the popes, have been unanimous in proclaiming that the devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Rosary are the hope and

salvation of the world in our evil and dangerous era.

They have endeavored, by word and example, to bring

the faithful more closely to Jesus Christ in the

Most Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady’s Rosary.”

From The Eucharist and the Rosary:

The Power to Change the World

More on...the FEAST of Our Lady of Victory (the Rosary)

To commemorate the victory of the Christian Armada over the Turks on Oct 7, 1571, Pope Pius V introduced the Feast of Our Lady of Victory. Christian Europe had been at risk of being conquered by the Ottoman Empire (Muslim). The year leading up to the battle had been declared the Year of the Rosary. At the beginning of that year, each mariner of the Holy League was given a rosary and instructed to pray it daily. The rosary also served to unite the contentious factions of the Holy League during the year of its formation and proved equally important for getting the Holy League to the battle as winning the battle. When faced with unfavorable wind at the onset of the battle, the men picked up their rosaries and began praying. Miraculously the winds shifted and served to be a key factor in the ensuing victory.

The Feast's name was changed in 1969 to “Our Lady of the Rosary” and it is now a mandatory memorial. It is now attached to and starts Respect For Life Month.

Many complain that the Mass and Rosary are repetitious. However, the “repetition” of the Mass and Rosary alike can work a slow but deep transformation of one's heart. One could also point out that repetition is not necessarily a sign of a lack of imagination. It may be sheer exuberant pleasure that makes us repeat an activity. G. K. Chesterton argued that repetition is a characteristic of the vitality of children. They like the same stories, the same words, time and time again, not because they are bored and unimaginative but because they delight in life.

Chesterton wrote:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead, for grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes each daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg."

Pray the Rosary. Pray the Mass.

Exult in the monotony. Transform your heart.

A Day Late - St. Francis

October 4th is the Feast of St. Francis. yesterday it was trumped by Sunday, because Jesus is a little more important. However, the Feast of St. Francis is a great day for me and Joe. Both of us have a great love for St. Francis and St. Claire, (of which the long story will come in another post) and it is the one year anniversary of the day we were engaged (outside of our favorite Adoration chapel with a statue of St. Francis)!

I still receive daily Eucharistic emails, and this was the email on the Feast of St. Francis.

"I beg you to show every reverence and honor possible

to the most holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

in whom all things in heaven and on earth

are set at peace and are reconciled to Almighty God.

Let us love God and adore Him

and offer Him praises by day and by night."

St Francis of Assisi

b.1181 d.1226

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Ste Francis, ora pro nobis!

Little Flower

St. Therese of Lisieux (The Little Flower), born Therese Martin, was a young French girl, passionately in love with Jesus Christ, who became a Discalced Carmelite nun at age fifteen and died of tuberculosis at age twenty-four in a monastery in Lisieux, France.

Therese experienced extraordinary breakthroughs in what is possible in a human being's relationship with God and with other humans. Since her death, she has fascinated countless people. Her memoir, "Story of a Soul," became the religious bestseller of the 20th century. Countless miracles have been attributed to her intercession. She was canonized in 1925 and, in 1997, named a Doctor of the Church. She is often called the "Little Flower."

"My mission: to make God loved, will begin after my death. I will spend my heaven doing good on earth. I will send a shower of roses."

"Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be - and becoming that person."

"Let us see life as it really is... It is a moment between two eternities..."

"To Call God my Father and to Know myself His Child, that is Heaven to me ..."

I highly recommend reading this.

St. Therese, pray for us, that we may be

simple, humble, and love Christ with a child-like faith.

Amen