Together for Life Online Team

By Emily Jaminet When you are feeling overwhelmed, confused, and burdened, Jesus wants to set your heart on fire with his love. He desires to come into your heart and home to deepen your faith and provide hope, healing, comfort, and love. One of the most meaningful devotions we can practice is enthronement to His Sacred and Merciful Heart.  In our lives, stress and personal trials are inevitable but there are graces in the Sacred Heart that help us respond to life’s challenges. This devotion was once known, loved, and honored by most Catholic families and served as a bedrock, especially in the 1940s and 1950s in America. What did parents of this era know and experience that we can learn from? I believe they learned how to live and let go and experience the freedom that comes from loving Christ and entrusting your family to his heart.  We can…

by Catherine Fowler Sample “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 I moved to Southern California when I was a fresh-faced twenty-year-old. I was transferring to a new college, but it may as well have been a transfer to another planet. The West Coast was radically different from my landlocked hometown in the Heartland, and I barely knew a soul there aside from Great-Aunt Patsy. This early January in SoCal was unlike any other I had experienced: The sun was warm. The sky was blue. Jacaranda trees were filled with amethyst blooms. Although it was winter, it smelled of spring, and the world was full of possibility—a mingling of trepidation and hope. In a new environment, I couldn’t help but take in the world with fresh eyes and live differently. When I was outside, I slowed down and stopped to smell the roses (quite literally!). For…

By John Bosio When I was a young boy living in northern Italy, one morning after Mass my pastor asked me to go with him to bless homes. Early that afternoon we set out. I walked along carrying a container with holy water and a big empty basket. The pastor said, “Today we will visit the farmhouses just outside of town.”  At each stop the priest gathered the families living there, whoever was not in the fields, and explained that he had come to bless their homes. This is something he did each year and they were expecting him.  The people living at the farm assembled in the largest room. “Remember that we bless your house each year to rededicate your homes and your families to God. God lives here with you. Let’s make room for him,” the pastor explained.  The message to his flock still resonates with me today, especially as…