Catholic Sprouts

A Community For Catholic Families

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J1ST 075: 10 Thing I’ve Learned About Prayer

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Hey there!

The Just One Small Thing Podcast is all new TWO WEEKS IN A ROW! I am so excited and hopeful that we can keep this up!

This week I am sharing 10 things that I’ve learned about prayer over the last two years. Many of the concepts are ones that I have touched on in previous podcasts, but they are all so important! Here is a quick rundown of the list:

  1. Family Prayer is not enough. I need to have private, personal time for prayer.
  2. Starting the morning with prayer, and reflection on scripture, is a game changer.
  3. The little thoughts I have to pray, is God knocking at the door–and I need to say YES to prayer when He knocks.
  4. Satan tries (very hard) to keep me from prayer by reminding me of all the “good” things I need to do instead of praying.
  5. A daily Rosary will change your life. It has changed mine!
  6. Prayer is so much simpler than I thought!
  7. God is right here, in the NOW!
  8. Phone use kills prayer (at least it does for me!)
  9. It is so powerful to connect prayer to scripture. (you can download your Lectio Divina bookmark right here: https://catholicsprouts.com/lectio-divina-bookmark/)
  10. IT ALL COMES BACK TO PRAYER!

#10 is the most important one on the list. As I reflect on the resources I can make for people, or what I can teach and challenge children to do through the Catholic Sprouts Podcast, I have realized that it ALL COMES BACK TO PRAYER! Our good deeds need to be done after, and in an attitude of, prayer. Our relationships need to be filled with prayer. Prayer is everything!!!

For this reason, I am excited to announce that I have created a PRAYER COURSE FOR ADULTS. The course will teach you how to pray, and open up to you the wonders of prayer. I have been working on it for many months and I am excited to start enrolling students after Easter.

To learn more about the course, make sure to sign up for my email list! They hear about things first (and usually get the best deals). SIGN UP HERE.

When you join the Catholic Sprouts community, you not only will be part of a thriving community of over 11,000 Catholic Parents, but you also will get instant access to the Catholic Family Digital Resource Library.  Simply head here to sign up!

https://catholicsprouts.com/catholic-family-resource-library-signup/

Thanks for being here!

Your sister in the small things,

J1ST 077: Faith

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Hey there, friends!

Today we are getting back to a topic I love: The Rosary. Over a year ago I put a little rosary booklet with the help of Annie from Paper Monastery. The Rosary Booklet is a collection of ways to pray and reflect on the rosary. Over 3,000 copies of that book have been shipped all over the world (holy cow!), but more importantly, just putting that book together has had a big impact on the way I pray this incredible prayer.  And through that, of course, changed my entire life!

My favorite thing to reflect on while praying the rosary are the Virtues of the Rosary. Many saints, including St. John Paul II, Mother Teresa and Padre Pio all attached virtues to the rosary and I have found that reflecting on these virtues helps me not only understand the Gospel story, but also helps me apply these things more directly to my own life.

So, today we are digging into the Glorious Mysteries. The virtue for the first mystery, the Resurrection, is FAITH.

Here is a brief summery of what I discuss in this episode:

  • We can talk about Faith (the Catholic Faith, meaning our set of beliefs) and faith, like being faithful and trusting. Both of these are so important, and so deeply connected.
  • Our Faith rests on the reality of the resurrection. We are an Easter People and we really do have to investigate if we FULLY believe that these things happened.
  • I also talked about how we can reflect on the “faithful” with this virtue and pray at all of the divisions in the Catholic Church be healed, and we really become the mystical body of Christ.
  • Finally, I looked at how pregnancy, birth, and raising a baby is SUCH a time fo faith, and how faith and trust are so linked.

I hope you found this helpful! And, if you want to reflect a bit more on the Virtues of the Rosary, I encourage you to download and use these pretty coloring pages I made!  Completely free, just follow the link, sign up, and they will be in your inbox!

Virtues of the Rosary Coloring Pages 

When you join the Catholic Sprouts community, you not only will be part of a thriving community of over 11,000 Catholic Parents, but you also will get instant access to the Catholic Family Digital Resource Library.  Simply head here to sign up!

https://catholicsprouts.com/catholic-family-resource-library-signup/

Thanks for being here!

Your sister in the small things,

J1ST 074: The Just One Small Thing Podcast Is BACK!!

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Annndddd….the podcast is back!

Thank you to all of you that have sent sweet little emails or left encouraging comments! The prompted me to get back on creating this podcast, and once I started recording I realized how much I had missed it!  So, I am very happy to announce that the Just One Small Thing Podcast is BACK!

The plan (God willing, of course) is to get back into weekly podcasts here. I will continue to produce daily content for the Catholic Sprout’s Podcast as well. But, this podcast will be longer (20 to 30 minutes, unless I run out of things to say!!) and come out once a week, on Sunday evenings.

I will get into real content next week.  This episode is a lot about what has been going on around here lately. Here is a little overview:

  • We welcomed George Blaise to the family on February 13th. He is doing great, and I feel like a first time mom! Seriously! I don’t remember anything from my other babies, and I (still) am not a natural mother. Love my babies, but still don’t really know what I am doing!!!
  • I have decided to stop (for now) creating videos for the Catholic Sprouts for Moms Youtube channel. It’s just not something I can really swing during this season of life! You know, being showered and in a quiet house during DAYLIGHT. Yup, not happening!

Finally, I laid out the hopes for this podcast.  Here they are:

  • Create content that lets other Catholic Mothers that they are NOT ALONE, both in life and in their failures. I fail SO OFTEN!
  • Supply listeners with gentle reminders. And I’ve realized the only real reminder that we need is to pray. So much more on this coming soon.
  • And finally, I hope to bring listeners just a little bit of joy. I plan to have on some great guest as well, so when I run out of goodness, I will look to them!

And that’s it!

Thanks for sticking around, and it feels so good to be back!!

PS–if you would like access to the HUGE LIBRARY OF MATERIALS FOR CATHOLIC PARENTS, just head here: https://catholicsprouts.com/catholic-family-resource-library-signup/

J1ST 073: A Year in Review//Embracing Weakness

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I am big on looking back…and then looking forward at the end of the year. I know this is way over done right now, but I find it helpful since I usually am to “stuck in the moment” to really understand what I am experiencing when I experience it.

So, today’s episode is a little personal as I look at the ways I have changed and grown and struggled this past year.  I hope you find it helpful!

With the help of a great book, Fire and Light by Fr. Jacques Philippe, I have been reflecting a lot on why this year of spiritual growth has been also so hard and even a little painful.

I fell like this year, more than any other, I have been forced to confront some hard truths about myself. I know I have taken a few steps in my spiritual life, but I also feel like I have seen, more clearly then ever, just how long the spiritual path is, and how far I have to go.

I was finally able to make sense of all of this with Fr. Jacques Philippe’s book. He wrote an incredible section on the need for spiritual poverty. I read directly from the book, and when I read that something clicked.  Yes, the closer you get to God the more you see your failing…and although I KNEW that, actually living it has been harder than I thought it would be!!

I also have been reflecting on what exactly it means to be hopeful and why hope, rightly understood, is so tightly linked to humility.  Lived through lots of humility this year!

Thanks for letting me share from the heart this week and I hope you are doing some similar self-searching!

Links mentioned in this episode:

Have a blessed final couple days of Advent!

Nancy

J1ST 072: A Year Later

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Hey there friends!

I am taking a break from all of the wonderful guests (I hope you loved hearing from them as much as I enjoyed talking with them!).

So, instead of having a guest, I am taking minute to share personally (yikes!). I am actually an introvert, and would rather talk about other people, but since it has been a year since we lost Max at 20 weeks.  That loss was a tremendously transformative event.  I talk about the amazing experience I had while loosing that baby in this episode: https://www.catholicsprouts.com/2017/12/j1st-022-on-still-being-here.html.

It has been a very full year since we lost Max. Life has kept moving forward, that is for sure! We suffered another miscarriage, and are now about 27 weeks along with another little boy.  I shared about that miscarriage in this podcast episode: https://www.catholicsprouts.com/2018/05/j1st-046-when-trusting-feels-foolish.html

Most profoundly, though, both my husband and I have really grown in a devotion to Mary. We aren’t perfect, but we are at the point where if we slack in our devotion for even a day, we FEEL it. I really feel like we depend on her. I thank our little Max in heaven and St. Maximillian Kolbe for helping me embrace this devotion.

If you have yet to listen into the Catholic Sprout’s Podcast, I really encourage you to tune in! Find all of the listening options here: https://catholicsprouts.com/catholic-sprouts

In the episode I also discuss a major shift that I plan to take in the coming year. I plan to focus more on Catholic Kids and Catholic Families, and will be producing more content under the banner of Catholic Sprouts.  Find all of the listening options here: https://catholicsprouts.com/catholic-sprouts

My first major project is a new Youtube channel! Crazy, right?!?  The channel is called Catholic Sprouts for Moms. It is a channel for Catholic Parents, where I hope to help you raise saints, and answer questions we all have as Catholic Parents.  I would love to have you jump over to Youtube and watch the first couple videos. Head here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC45d_VVnoX-VMYNy7OECo2A

And finally, if you are still looking for Advent ideas, head here! I’m obsessed with Advent: https://catholicsprouts.com/advent

Thank you for all of your love and support!!

Your sister in the small things,