family

Heartstrings

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: This is the latest in a collection of daily posts outlining my journey to the Sacred Heart over the past year or more. See an overview and links to past posts here.

It’s been a long week, headed into a working weekend and another long week, and I’m short on sleep. Rather than write a long, rambling, and unfocused Sacred Heart post, I think I’ll share this little piece instead.

As a kid I remember my sister and I spending a week in the summer at the farm where my mom grew up. I remember exploring the barn and watching the painted turtles in the water tank dive to the bottom when the cows came to drink. I remember Dziadzi’s dog King, and the screech of Guinea fowl, and Busia’s big, bountiful garden. I remember the big tire swing in the willow behind the house, and the mystery of Sunday Mass just up the road at St. Michael Catholic Church in Wilmot. (Yet another St. Michael parish in my life, along with this one and our current one.) Continue reading →

“Jesus, I Trust in You”

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Blogger’s Note: This is the latest in a collection of daily posts outlining my journey to the Sacred Heart over the past year or more. See an overview and links to past posts here.

In yesterday’s post on spiritual fatherhood, I mentioned the loss of one of my Poland daughters following ski accident last January. Bethany, I learned, had a deep devotion to St. Faustina. That knowledge, coupled with discussions in my new men’s group about the number of families in our community in need of God’s love and healing, rekindled my own previous interest in Divine Mercy.

Then in February, while I was at a conference at St. John’s University, I received a text from a friend to pray for her brother,  a relatively young husband and father who had gone missing that morning. Continue reading →

Spiritual Fatherhood

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: This is the latest in a collection of daily posts outlining my journey to the Sacred Heart over the past year or more. See an overview and links to past posts here.

Yesterday was Father’s Day. Providentially my re-consecration readings in 33 Days to Morning Glory were focused on Mary’s gradual discovery of her vocation not just to be the mother of Jesus, but the mother of the whole Church and all Christians. The book drew my attention to one scripture passage in particular, Matthew 12:46-50.

While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

Fr. Gaitley explains that, among other things, this passage indicates the primacy of spiritual realities over physical realities, and in particular, spiritual parenthood over natural parenthood. Although the focus of his writing was Mary, on Father’s Day I couldn’t help but think in terms of St. Joseph and spiritual fatherhood. Continue reading →

Love In the Present Tense

/ J. Thorp / 6 Comments

Already last night’s timeline is incomplete: today I was reminded that my first real, in-depth exposure to St. Faustina and Divine Mercy came in February 2016, five months before we left for Poland. Fr. Chris Allar of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, keepers of the Shrine of Divine Mercy here in the United States, came to St. Michael to lead our annual parish retreat, and despite having a full agenda, managed to infuse the occasion with enough about St. Faustina, the Divine Mercy image, and the revelations of God’s boundless love and mercy that my curiosity was sparked.

His message seemed almost to good to be true: God loves us and wants us all to be saved. To do so, we must A) ask for His mercy, B) be merciful to others, and C) completely trust in Him.

That’s it, in a nutshell. Hope swells in the heart at the thought it might be that simple, doesn’t it? (Too simple, some would argue–where’s the judgement and justice in that?) Of course, trust in God is not always easy, nor is humbling ourselves to ask for mercy or extend it to others. Continue reading →