Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 9

On the Nightstand: Harrowed by Heather King

I was thirty before I had a vegetable garden. My husband and I bought a house thirty miles west of Chicago, which meant a commute of as much as two hours each way per day for me. I was stressed! He encouraged me to start a garden; he knew the joy it brought his beloved father, and I think he knew I needed something that used a different part of my brain (not to mention my back and knees!). I was an avid vegetable and flower gardener for close to a dozen years. But then life changed. I tried a ba...

Don’t Forget the Yeast

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

Remember earlier this year, when toilet paper, paper towels, and the like were in short supply? Well, so was yeast. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to bake bread, sweet rolls, and the like.

Slowly, paper goods returned to the shelves, as did yeast. Now, we’re being warned that the surge in covid-19 cases and deaths could put in particular baking goods in short supply a...

Household of God

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

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually in...

Tarantulas, Blinds, and the Inside of the Cup

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

It was a tarantula, the size of my hand, crawling down my bedroom blinds.

I woke up with a start, got out of bed on the side farther from the window, cautiously, and turned on the light. No skittering varmint. I went over to the blinds and with even more caution, rattled them a bit. Still nothing.

I left the light on and got back to sleep fairly quickly. But the ne...

Brotherhood of Saints–It’s Almost Here!

Seven years ago, I wrote a page-a-day devotional, Sisterhood of Saints: Daily Guidance and Inspiration. It was a privilege to get to know 366 women saints and blesseds (and research several hundred more) and relate their stories to our lives today. While I was writing it, I had the opportunity to hold a relic of Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first saint born in the United States. “Listen, and you will find your vocation,” she told me. And that’s what I’ve tried to do ever since.

I’ve written some oth...

Conversion Moments, Large and Small

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

We understand why Christians might have been taken aback initially by Paul’s conversion. After all, he’d been at Stephen’s stoning. He had seemed to enjoy persecuting people like them. Now, there he was, saying he was one of them, evangelizing in Jesus’s name, he, Paul, who had not traveled with Christ during His time on earth.

But there it was.

They had two choice...

Winning… and Losing

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

I’m reading The Romanovs: 1613-1918 (by Simon Sebag Montefiore, who also wrote the Stalin book I read last summer). I’ve long been fascinated by the tragic story of the last tsar of Russia and his family (and, truth be told, took the confirmation name Anastasia for his youngest daughter rather than the fourth century Serbian martyr remembered in Canon of the Mass)....

Standing Outside

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

Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.”  But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:19-21)

They couldn’t get to Jesus physically because of the crowd, and some...

Of Sorrow and Faith

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

It was a truly sorrowful earthly life for Mary, if you want to look at it that way.

Fleeing into Egypt with her family because an angel told her husband her son was in deadly danger

Image by Zarateman; found at https://bit.ly/2ZulDOI and used under license found at https://bit.ly/2GWkadx

Losing her young son for three days
Hearing Simeon’s prophecy that a sword wo...

Where He Came From, Where We Came From

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

Where did Jesus come from?

The Gospels of both Luke and Matthew offer the genealogy of Jesus. Both appear to be through Joseph, Mary’s husband, though some believe Luke’s actually refers to Jesus. Jewish teaching is that lineage is traced through one’s father.

Call me biased, because I am. Today is the 120th anniversary of my maternal grandmother’s birth as well as...