Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 33
August 1, 2018
On the Nightstand: The Benedict Option
we’re not 100 percent in agreement. I’m excited about reading The Benedict Option because it promises a path to living a faith-filled life in an increasingly secular world. It seems to have a positive message based on the book jacket copy: “… learn not just to give a resolute ‘no’ to the false gods of this...
Wednesday’s Woman: St. Theodora of Alexandria
The Basics: Died about 491 in Egypt; canonized precongregation; feast day, September 11. Penitent.
The Story: There are any number of stories of women who went on to become saints passing as men for great swathes of their lives. Many are difficult to document. One of the more believable accounts is that of Theodora of Alexandria, who lived in fifth-century Egypt. A young, beautiful, married woman, another man began to romance her and attempt to convince her that God could only see behavior th...
Friend in Faith: Mary Shea
Mary Shea and I have been working together on promoting this year’s Future with Hope women’s conference as well as gathering auction
items for an upcoming benefit gala that honors Cardinal Donald Wuerl. Mary and I both have backgrounds as journalists, and that established an instant bond when we first met two years ago. But collaborating on these projects also has illumined for me her deep love for her family and her devotion to the Lord through evangelization activities including the Legion...
July 31, 2018
Whoever Has Ears…
Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
“Whoever has ears ought to hear,” Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew 13:43 after explaining, in painstaking detail, the parable of the weeds. Good sower = Jesus; good seed = God’s children; weeds = evil one’s children, and so on.
Check, check, and check. Honestly, it makes you wonder if the disciples could have found their way home without Jes...
July 25, 2018
Wednesday’s Woman: St. Margaret of Antioch
The Basics: Born in 289 in Turkey; died in 304; canonized precongregation; feast day, July 20. Martyr.
The Story: Margaret’s story is by turns fantastic and comforting. Her mother died when she was young, and she spent a fair amount of ti
me with the woman who nursed her, even as Margaret aged. Eventually, she became a Christian and was disowned by her father. When she was fifteen or so, an official, struck by her beauty, wanted to marry her, which would have involved the renunciation of her f...
July 24, 2018
A God Like Him
Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Who is a God like you, who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but instead delights in mercy,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our iniquities? (Micah 7:18-19, NABRE)
Sometimes, it’s one particular comment or incident. Other times, 
it’s the...
July 18, 2018
Wednesday’s Woman: Blessed Angelina of Marsciano
The Basics: Born in 1347 in Italy; died July 14, 1435, in Italy; beatified March 8, 1825, by Leo XII; feast day, July 13. Woman religious.
The Story: Angelina may hold a place in religious community history; some credit her as the founder of the Third Order Regular Franciscans for religious women. How she got there is a story full of twists and turns.
Angelina was born into a family of nobility, but like so many others, noble and otherwise, of that era, tragedy struck repeatedly. By the time...
July 17, 2018
Standing Firm
Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Let’s be honest. Firm faith is a lot easier to have when everyone’s healthy, when you have enough food and money (and maybe even more than enough), and when your world is tooling around just as it should. It’s easy to give thanks and spew out platitudes about the Lord’s goodness.
But when people you love are in hospice, you’ve been out of work f...
July 11, 2018
Wednesday’s Women: The Martyrs of Orange
The Basics: Birth dates varied; died July 9-26, 1794, in France; beatified on May 10, 1925, by Pius XI; feast day, July 9. Women religious; martyrs.
The Story: When the sixteen Ursuline nuns arrived in May 1794 at the Orange jail in southern France, they were greeted by thirteen other religious sisters, some of whom had already been imprisoned for more than a year. All were jailed for refusing to take a revolutionary oat
h they believed would have amounted to a renunciation of their faith.
The...
July 10, 2018
Idol Whac-A-Mole
Oh, the idols in our lives.
It seems like every time we manage to tear one down, another pops up its little head. It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole, and the seeming futility can be really wearing.
This year, I ended my at-least-once-and-sometimes three-times-a-
By Mcal2015 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://bit.ly/2ryhTgk)], from Wikimedia Commons (https://bit.ly/2u1cLjV)
day iced venti decaf skinny mocha habit (yes, in excess of fifteen dollars a day on the three timers; go ahead and judge). My new food idol...
