Holy Week and Divine Mercy

April 7, 2013
Divine Mercy Sunday

On Good Friday I had the good fortune of coming across Divine Mercy Sunday information that also talked about doing a Divine Mercy Novena. I started the Novena that day which allowed me to finish in time for Divine Mercy Sunday.




The message and devotion to Jesus as The Divine Mercy
is based on the writings ofSaint Faustina Kowalska, an
uneducated Polish nun who, in obedience to her spiritual
director, wrote a diary of about 600 pages recording the
revelations she received about God’s mercy.




On February 22, 1931, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ appeared to this simple nun, bringing with Him a wonderful message of Mercy for all mankind. Saint Faustina tells us in her diary under this date:

"In the evening, when I was in my cell, I became aware of the Lord
Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand was raised in blessing,
the other was touching the garment at the breast. From the opening
of the garment at the breast there came forth two large rays, one
red and the other pale. In silence I gazed intently at the Lord;
my soul was overwhelmed with fear, but also with great joy. After
a while Jesus said to me, 'paint an image according to the pattern
you see, with the inscription: Jesus, I trust in You.'"


"The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous;
the red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. These
two rays issued forth from the depths of My most tender Mercy at
that time when My agonizing Heart was opened by a lance on the
Cross....Fortunate is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for
the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him."

Read more:http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/stfaust.htm#ixzz2PultZtlh

Here are the nine days.....

Day 1 (Good Friday) all mankind, especially sinners

Day 2 (Holy Saturday) The souls of priests and religious

Day 3 (Easter Sunday) All devout and faithful souls

Day 4 (Easter Monday) Those who do not believe in Jesus and those who do not know him.,

Day 5 (Easter Tuesday) The souls of separated brethren.

Day 6  (Easter Wednesday) The meek and humble souls and the souls of children

Day 7 (Easter Thursday) The souls who venerate and glorify Jesus' mercy.

Day 8 (Easter Friday)The souls who are detained in purgatory

Day 9 (Easter Saturday) The souls who have become lukewarm.

Using your Rosary here are the steps to say the Divine Mercy

1. Begin with the sign of the cross, one Our Father, and one Hail Mary, then the Apostle's Creed.
2. On the Our Father Beads pray: Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood of your dearly beloved son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
3. On each of the Hail Mary beads say"For the sake of His sorrowful passion have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 through all 5 decades.
4: Conclude with Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One.have mercy on us and on the whole world (3 times)

I am filled with joy that I had come across this novena just in time for Holy Week. I have said the novena in the past at different times but it was nice to do it during Holy Week. 

Whimsical Wine Wednesday

It started a few weeks back....my sister, her nickname will be Stormy just because that is what our mom wanted to name her but I digress....she and I decided to have a craft night on Wednesday nights. I looooove it. Love spending time with my sister and visiting and being creative together.  Sometimes Ashlee, my daughter shows up to visit and on Monday she actually started working on a craft which she has had sitting at home still the plastic bag that it came in for two years. I hope to share that with you soon. On Monday, we were blessed with my niece, Lil'dancer being home from college and she requested a craft night on Monday instead of Wednesday. But we still kept our regularly scheduled Whimsical Wine Wednesday.

This is what we are up to on our Whimsical Wine Wednesdays

This is our finished first Whimsical Wednesday Craft
Stormy's is the one on the right and mine is on the left.

Stormy was deciding where she wanted to place her precious wedding photos.



While all of this crafting is going on, we are catching up on the week and discussing things that might be troubling us. We live here in the same little town but this is the only time we really can talk and it has become a very special time for me. With the events in the past 8 months or so not even to mention the past years of our lives we realize how important it is to spend time together. There is something special about a sisters bond. Almost magical. Sometimes though I find that I take it for granted and that should never happen. So our weekly visit is something I cherish and am so happy we started it!

I was at the point here where I was still brainstorming ideas but it was starting to come together. We purchased the wood kit from a little store My Favorite Things, she has some fun kits.

We enjoy our wine on Wednesdays.

This is my second craft when it was finished. Stormy is still working on hers but I will be sure to post it when she is done, it will be amazing I can assure you. She takes a lot of time to figure out exactly what she wants and she does it well. My  project found a place in my living room in the prayer corner, I think it fits just perfect.

This is Stormy's wreath

This is my completed wreath that we worked on with Lil'Dancer and Ashlee.

This is Lil'Dancer's finished spring wreath. She is so creative.


Do you like to craft? Do you have someone special you can spend time with and craft?

Have a blessed day!

Ashlee Michelle: Learn About This Girl

Ashlee Michelle: Learn About This Girl: Hey Everyone! Welcome! In this first blog post I am going to tell you a little bit about me! Of course!   Oh boy, where do I start? T...

A house full of love....

I am a 41 year old woman who has a wonderful husband and two great children. Two dogs, Bam Bam and Autumn who keep me entertained daily. I also have three grand-dogs, yep grand-dogs and they are as spoiled as my grandchildren will one day be. :)

I spent the past several years homeschooling my children and now both are out on their own so I am taking this time to discover "the best version of me" the one that God intended me to be. I have even found a fantastic book, Rediscover Catholicism, by Mathew Kelly to give some guidance and it is a great read.

As I do most times this blog has been started without a real concrete plan. This is just how I roll. I just dive in and start doing it not knowing exactly what I am doing, but I can almost always say that anytime I choose to learn something new I have fun doing it, yep....even with all of the struggles and frustrations of figuring it out. I seem to enjoy the challenge of figuring it out from scratch.

At this time I have started college classes. Again, jumping in and not knowing exactly what I want to be growing up just felt I needed to be taking classes and see where it leads me. I work at the catholic church in our community and love it! What a better place to spend my days then to be working for God at the church?!?

So, I hope you will take the time to read my blogs, leave me a comment because I would love to get to know you. It is such a blessing to have ways to get to know others outside of the community you live in and I hope to make lots of friends!

Me with my son for his prom 2012

This is Autumn, she is an Australian Shepherd and the best dog ever! She is actually my son's dog, but while he is in college she is mine, all mine :)

This is Lainey, our grandchild. We can expect one of these sweet loves any time, she loves the attention and giving loves. I never knew a dog who hugged until my daughter got Ms. Lainey. That handsome man getting all the loves, you guessed it, is my sweet husband.

                                                       

This is Bam Bam with my hubby. He is watching it snow outside. He is our little fugitive.  I actually found him on the way out of town and picked him up. He was so happy to see us and so thirsty!  With all his little quirks and cuteness he fit right in. He is a bit high maintenance and as you can see I don't always keep up :)

We do have two more dogs to add but I think I have gone into picture overload and will blog another day with more pictures.

As you can probably guess when the grand dogs visit there is never a dull moment in our home. Just love them and they keep us entertained without even trying. The grand dogs don't live with us but visit us daily. :)

My Happy Space

Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good. (ccc 2288)

I exercise for many reasons, to lose weight being the most obvious but I am working on making my health a priority because I know it will be pleasing to God. I am so thankful everyday for the ability to exercise daily.

I spend alot of time in my happy space. I need to spend time here everyday to keep my sanity. When I need to blow off some steam, get my mind off of something or just to get my blood flowing this is where I end up....

This treadmill has many miles of use. It has seen me happy, angry, frustrated, sad. I love to hop on the treadmill and break into a sweat and leave the outside world behind. Its just me and the treadmill, doesn't matter how fast or how slow I am.  It has seen me go from walking, to walk, jogging then running. It is now watching me pick myself back up and start running again after a 8 month hiatus.

I love to run, but I love most any workouts. I have a large selection of FIRM workouts, LOVE, LOVE them. They work wonders on my thighs, where the running works my thighs, waist and buns. I can't wait to get my buns back where there were 8 months ago. ;)

This happy space of mine used to be two bedrooms, and I just couldn't wait to turn it into a workout room. My daughter calls it the easter egg room because of the colors. I was looking for a combination of cheery and calm so this is what I decided, and I love it!

This was a closet that I just added shelves to hold mats, videos, magazines etc.

Here are most of my videos that I love to workout with. Chalene Johnson is by far my favorite, but I love to hate Insanity for the quick results.  

This is the other side of the room where I do the videos. Soon I will replace old t.v. with bigger new one. But this works great for now.

and of course mirrors to watch and make sure I am using good form.

This is my favorite room in the house and I hope you enjoyed a tour. I think I will leave it at that so that I can get some sleep and wake up to enjoy a morning run on the treadmill, and maybe short Turbo Fire before work.

I love reading blogs, so now I want to see if I love writing one

I just recently started reading blogs and can't seem to get enough of them. I have toyed with the idea of starting up a blog myself but was pretty nervous about it. Tonight though it was different, I thought to myself there is no reason to be scared of it, just dive in and get learning. That's the way I learn is by just doing it.

I will keep this post very brief with a couple of introductions until I really figure this out.

My name is Toni and I am a wife of 13 years and mother of two, daughter is 21 and son is 19. We are a Catholic family that try to put God first in everything we do. My husband and I have two dogs, an Australian Shepherd, Autumn  and a Shih Tzu, Bam Bam.

                                            19 Year old Son and Autumn as little puppy

My husband and I in Hawaii 2012

Because it is so late and I have a lot to learn about blogging, I am going to play it safe and stop here.