This Moment of June 🌻

Fresh flowers by Emily’s gravestone.

There’s not much more of a perfect description of June than this excerpt from Emily’s June 2017 post:

“There really is just something to love about June. I'm not sure what it is. But it feels like the beginning of summer, of everything just stretching out and opening to vacation season, and summer reading, and just...ahhh.”

Emily loved June and certainly would have loved seeing the her nieces and nephew frolic together in the backyard as Maddie and Jude visited from Colorado to play with Hailey.

Her last June post (2023) was after returning from Pittsburgh to attend her Grandmother’s 93rd birthday party and this weekend we are celebrating her 95th birthday.  Take some time to read (or re-read) that article here!

Her presence continues to be felt and we and can only imagine the heavenly joy she is experiencing. We’d love if you shared your plans for this summer and/or favorite memories of summers passed in the comments below!

“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.” - Ecclesiastes 8:15

Pick up a copy of Emily’s book:
Amazon
Ave Maria Press
Seton Shrine

Ash Wednesday and Lent 2025

Abstract landscape watercolor banner with splatters of paint and a purple cross.

Special announcement for this week: Living Memento Mori is only $3 on Ave Maria Press right now - this is the perfect time to pick up your own copy!

---

Can you believe it’s already time for Lent to begin again?

Emily always loved to talk about the sense of renewal and what is truly means to remove distractions and recommit your focus on the Lord in the weeks leading up to Passover.

This is not a time where we fast to lose weight or post our ashes on social media to gain likes, but rather, fasting is a time rededicated to prayer, reading the Word, drawing closer to the Lord in worship, and volunteering. The ashes area symbol meant to remind us to soberly consider our own mortality. This is not a time to tell the world what you’re giving up and boast or complain of the hardships of fasting, but we should instead follow the words in Matthew 6:16 that say, "When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting".

Remember, fasting is not to be on display for men, but a voluntary offering to our Father in repentance and dedication of our love to Him.

Below you’ll find a couple past Lenten related blog posts, written by Emily, that have resources for your benefit and also a shout out to her other book she wrote, Catholic 101 (learn more in the 2018 post). We pulled a passage (pages 59-60) you can read below as well that goes through the Three Pillars of Lent.

Lent 2017
Lent 2018

Woman with Ash Wednesday cross on forehead.

Lent: Overview and the Three Pillars

Lent is probably not going to win the “favorite liturgical season” contest, but the older I get, the more I like, appreciate, and need Lent. It’s spring cleaning for the soul. The English word “Lent” is from the Old English word lenten meaning “spring season”, so it’s appropriate to think of it this way. It’s the annual time to get the dust, cobwebs, and trash out of our soul, and focus anew on making it a cleaner, tidier, and more welcoming place for God to dwell.

As a liturgical season, Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday to the afternoon of Holy Thursday. Since the date of Easter is movable84, unlike Christmas, Lent can either begin quite early (the beginning of February) or rather late (March). It is 40 days, representative of the time Christ spent in the desert before he began his public ministry. As we’ve seen, 40 is an important number in Catholicism.

But Lent is, first and foremost, a penitential season, which is probably why it gets a bad rap. No one really likes penance—at least no one who is psychologically normal.

But the Bible, and Jesus, are pretty clear on the need for penance. Penance can mean many things, but in Lent the Church gives us the three pillars—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—to help guide us in our practice of penance fitting for the season.

Prayer Lent is an excellent time to improve your prayer life. Maybe that means beginning to pray regularly—in the morning before breakfast, before you go to bed, a rosary after dinner. Maybe it means attending Mass during your lunch hour. You could consider adding a holy hour once a week, or once a month. There are so many ways to deepen your prayer life that you really can’t choose wrong. The only wrong choice would be to do nothing.

Almsgiving means giving money or goods to the poor, either directly (bringing canned goods to a food pantry, donating clothes to a shelter) or indirectly through a 60 charity or church. (putting money in the church poor box, sponsoring a child overseas, donating money or items to help refugees.) This is part of Catholic life anyway, but it takes on a special significance during Lent. We should try to give more, so that it’s really a sacrifice, that we’re really giving something up to help other people.

Fasting means eating less food on a given day. For American Catholics, that means one full meal and two meals that, together, do not equal the one full meal. (We’ll talk more in detail about almsgiving and fasting in the next section, as well as abstinence, the sibling of fasting.)

The forty days of Lent can be a powerful time in your spiritual life—but only if you take the time to prepare for it and think about what you want to do with it. Instead of dreading it, see it as an opportunity to progress in your prayer life, and to get to know Jesus better.

---

We just want to give one more reminder that Emily’s book, Living Memento Mori, makes a great companion to this Lenten season and we hope you’ll pick up your copy to gain a new perspective as you walk through the next 6 weeks.

Pick up a copy of Emily’s book:
Amazon
Ave Maria Press
Seton Shrine

Keeping Faith, Making New Memories ❤️‍🩹

A picture from December 2024 of Emily’s parents and her niece, Maddie.

Here we are. It’s been over a year since Emily’s passing and we continue to miss her. Life has gone on as her nephew, Jude, was born, then her nieces Hailey and Maddie turned 2 and 3-years old so the celebrations didn’t slow down. They are happy and healthy as you can see.  We believe that Emily is with us as we make these new memories, including spending Christmas in Denver.

Here is a throwback post to Maddie’s 1st birthday celebration to give you an idea of how much Emily loved being an Auntie.

We know that no one has control over the future but the Lord, but we encourage you to work with Him in faith and hope of new joyful memories to come while also thanking Him for the ones you already have.

As Emily wrote in her book (which you can purchase below):

“But don’t fear what might happen. We don’t know what God will ultimately ask of us. It might lead to us drawing back, afraid of the pain, afraid of the nails. Sometimes I’ve cowered before the mountain of what I thought God was asking me. But the only way to finish it is to take the first step - and that can be to open your hands and go where God is leading you, even if the path leads us through a place of pain. God might be bringing you to glory.”

Pick up a copy of Emily’s book, Living Memento Mori:
Amazon
Ave Marie Press
Seton Shrine