Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 63

Returning Catholics FAQs: About Prayer

O n Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics , a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.

Sometimes I get so depressed when I look at what’s going on in the world, not politics or personal stuff, but the earthquake in Italy or flooding here in Louisiana or homes being...

Wednesday’s Woman: St. Maria de Jesus Sacramentado

Note: For the past few months, I’ve been featuring women with a connection to the Americas. Starting next week, I’ll be looking at women like Maria de Jesus Sacramentado (born Maria Navidad Venegas de la Torre) who were beatified or canonized in the 20th or 21st centuries.

The Basics:Born September 8, 1868, in Mexico; died July 30, 1959, in Mexico; canonized May 21, 2000, by John Paul II; feast day, July 30; woman religious, nurse.

The Story:Mexico’s first female saint spent most of her life...

The Inside of the Cup

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.

Who doesn’t love a fun flirt, a sweet crush, a mild infatuation? We stand straighter, dress better, and perhaps are wittier in hopes of capturing the other person’s attention. We try to appear to be more than we know we are.

And then life goes on. Nothing materializes, and we return to being ourselves. Or something does materialize. And the more...

Returning Catholics FAQs: How to Receive the Eucharist

O n Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics , a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.

I’ve noticed that some people in line for communion have it put in their mouth rather than their hands. Is that all right?

Each nation’s Conference of Catholic Bishops decides ho...

Wednesday’s Woman: Blessed Maria Troncatti

Note: For the next several weeks, I’m featuring women with a connection to the Americas.

The Basics:Born February 16, 1883, in Italy; died August 25, 1969, in Ecuador; beatified November 24, 2012; feast day, August 25; woman religious, missionary, nurse.

The Story:This farmer’s daughter never tired of doing service in the Lord’s name. She joined the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco when she was twenty-two, and went on to work as a nurse in a Red Cross hospital during World War I. What she learne...

Giving Up “Everything”

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 know how your favorite scripture reading can change from time to time, depending on where you are on your spiritual journey and what joys and challenges life is tossing at you? Well, right now, at this particular juncture, it’s Matthew 19:27 I find myself turning to again and again:

Then Peter said to him in reply: “We have given up everythin...

Returning Catholics FAQs: Where’s Mary?

O n Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics , a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.

What’s the deal with Catholics believing Mary’s body went to heaven?

Oh, the Solemnity of the Assumption, which we observe today, is one of my very favorite feast days, in part b...

On the Nightstand: August 2016

A friend and I went to lunch recently with a priest friend, who brought along two books from, as he put it with a twinkle in his eyes, “My very small lending library.”

He lent my friend a Thomas Merton work, as they’re both huge fans. Me, I got John O’Donohue’s Conamara Blues. I’m not sure Father Jack knows my great-grandfather Rigney hailed from County Galway, where Conamara is located, but I look forward to reading what the back cover calls a “deeply moving series of poems that exemplifies...

Wednesday’s Woman: Blessed Maria Barbara of the Holy Trinity

Note: For the next several weeks, I’m featuring women with a connection to the Americas.

The Basics:Born June 27, 1818, in Austria; died March 17, 1873, in Brazil; beatified November 6, 2010; feast day, March 17; woman religious, missionary.

By Barbara_Maix.jpg: Eugenio Hansen, OFS derivative work: Eugenio Hansen, OFS (Barbara_Maix.jpg) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Story:The first thirty...

Loving the Strays

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.

By Phillip Medhurst (Photo by Harry Kossuth) [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons

When I returned to the Catholic Church after thirty-three years, I loved today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 18:

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen,...