Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 57

Friends in Faith: Emily Borman

Emily Borman and I met a little over a year ago at a Blessed Is She brunch, but I’d known abouther work long before that. She is among the founders of Conversation with Women, a safe place for women to share the joys and challenges of their faith journeys. I admired even before I knew Emily in person the sensitivity and care with which the stories are shared.

Since that brunch, Emily and I have provided each other with prayer support (and Emily has provided me with quite possibly the world’...

On the Nightstand: January 2017

Is it just me, or do women who are writing today about spirituality totally rock?

I’m excited this month about reading Created to Relate: God’s Design for Peace and Joy by KellyWahlquist, the founder of WINE: Women In the New Evangelization.

Created to Relate is about women’s special gift for relationships–with others and with the Lord. I’m planning to attend the WINE Catholic women’s conference in the Minneapolis area in February (that may be a cross country skiing opportunity!) while my sis...

Wednesday’s Woman: Blessed Francisca de Paula de Jesus

The Basics:Born about 1810 in Brazil; died June 14, 1895, in Brazil; beatified May 4, 2013; feast day, June 14; social worker.

The Story: To many, Francisca was a nobody, a cipher. Her parents weren’t married, and the

Paulo JC Nogueira [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons

child was born into slavery and poverty, joining a half-brother who had a different father. She was freed when she was ten or so, about the same time her mother died. Francisca...

So That Our Joy May Be Complete

Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me atYour Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

They are perhaps some of the most human passages in the Gospels, the times that Peter and those sons of Zebedee are bumping up against each other. Clearly, before the coming of the Holy Spirit, there’s some tension and conflict there. Who will sit at the right hand? Who gets to the tomb first?

Who does Jesus love best?

That’s what it comes down...

Wednesday’s Woman: Blessed Zofia Czeska-Maciejowska

The Basics:Born in 1584 in Poland; died in 1650 in Poland; beatified June 9, 2013, by Francis; feast day, April 1; woman religious and educator.

The Story: At the age of thirty, Zofia found herself widowed and without parents. As part of his will, her father left her a share of a

By RadLes (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons

family house in Krakow, about two hundred miles from the village where Zofia had grown up. Over the next several years, she arranged to buy out her siblings’ i...

Wearying the Lord

Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me atYour Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

Ahaz was the king of Judah, which sounds pretty mighty and powerful. But taking care of neighboring forces that opposed the young king had a cost. He aligned with the Assyrians, which left Ahaz with less autonomy. To him, it was worth it. To the prophet Isaiah, trusting in the Assyrians rather than in the Lord was a monumental mistake, and he tol...

Wednesday’s Woman: Blessed Seraphina

The Basics:Born in 1238 in Italy; died March 12, 1253 in Italy; never formally canonized; feast day, March 12; laywoman.

The Story: Seraphina’s early years were much like those of other girls in the town of San Gimignano. She was born into a family of the nobility that had fallen into hard times. The child learned to sew and spin to help with household funds. What was perhaps unusual was that she gave away half her meager rations to people who had even less than she did.

The last five or so y...

Fact vs. Legend

Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me atYour Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

Spoiler alert.

Near the end of my favorite Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) finishes his confession to a newspaper editor that Stoddard, a U.S. senator and likely vice presidential nominee, was not the one who shot the evil Liberty Valance a lifetime earlier. It was the act for which Stoddard had become f...

Wednesday’s Woman: St. Etheldreda

The Basics:Born 630 in England; died 679 in England; precongregation; feast day, June 23; noblewoman and woman religious.

The Story: Etheldreda’s relatively short life was full of intrigue and conflict. The daughter of a ruling-class family (four of her sisters, including Withburga, also are saints), her first husband agreed to her condition of virginity, but died after just three years of marriage. Etheldreda then retreated for five years, spending the time in prayer in a secluded area. When...

Pausing for the Glory of the Lord

Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me atYour Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

You can keep your “Hallelujah Chorus,” Georg Handel.

Really. I mean, it’s lovely and all, and tons of fun to sing. (Whether you sing it poorly or well, and for most of the past twenty-five years or so, I’ve been in the former at annual Advent Messiah sing-alongs.) The words and music are stirring and the reverberation on that “jah” is amazing. Fo...