In her book, One Thousand Gifts,Ann Voskamp sets out on a quest for “the fullest life,” a life of daily gratitude to God. She keeps a journal in which she records memorable and mundane miracles she stumbles upon each day – the way a plate of freshly shredded cheese looks in the sunshine or a brilliant harvest moon hanging over a field.

The natural reaction to beauty, to all the good things in our lives, is gratitude. But as her practice of thanksgiving becomes habitual, Ann begins to wonder – what are all the other moments? The moments that are painful, the times when we feel more keenly that life is loss.

How do we reconcile these two very different experiences of God? Who really is God anyway? How can He truly be good? It seems so often that He takes away what is good—in sickness and death, in separation, poverty and suffering.

How can we possibly continue to give thanks when life hurts?

I love words and their meanings and relationships. You might know this, but the Greek word for thanksgiving, as Ann discovers, is eucharisteo.Whoa. That just added a whole other dimension to this.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus stops to “give thanks” before breaking bread with his disciples and the crowds. He gives eucharisteo.What can the Eucharist teach us about giving thanks to God?

Before the Eucharistic sacrifice is offered in the Mass, the priest prays a simple prayer while lifting up first the bread and then the wine: “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you … the wine we offer you.”



We have received … we offer. This is the continual movement of gift—receiving and offering. God’s gifts are given to be given back. What have we that we have not received?

Jesus shows us, in the gift of himself to the Father in his whole life, in his death on the cross, and in his daily self-gift in the Eucharist, that love cannot withhold anything. Love does not rest, love does not keep anything. Love opens its hands in trust.

With only our human eyes, the cross seems an utter failure, a horrific loss. But with the eyes of faith, we see that God works the greatest good out of the greatest evil.

After Jesus “gives thanks” for the loaves and fishes, they are multiplied and thousands of people are fed. I, too, want to live this Eucharistic life – offering and surrendering myself to a good God who I trust provides all I need and desire.

To Ann’s dare to keep a daily record of thanksgivings, I would add a dare to make a daily offering of God’s good gifts back to Him. When we are accustomed to making little Eucharistic offerings each day, little sacrifices for love of Him, we are ready with open hands when He asks for the bigger, harder things.

And, the thing is, He always multiplies what we give, and He can never be outdone in generosity. God is always good and I am always loved,as Ann says.

I want to give thanks,the eucharistof my life – the wheat, the grapes. I want to give every moment so God can fill it with his presence.

For from him and through him and for him are all things.
–Romans 11:36
I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with authority figures.

Strange though that may sound coming from someone
vowed to obedience, it’s the truth. I guess there’s part of me that has a really hard time trusting the good will or competence of those in authority. Though I’ve been aware of this for a while, it has become abundantly clear since I began the 19th annotation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius a few months ago, where one is “on retreat” for several months, going through Ignatius’30 day retreat while remaining in the world.

In the Exercises, you spend a fair bit of time praying about sin – the nature of sin, the sin of the angels, the sin of Adam, and your own sins. As I went through the various meditations, I was stunned to realize that all these sins are profoundly related to one another. This is due to the fact that they are all ultimately rebellions, uprisings against our first beginning and final end, God. I was grieved by the ways I have rebelled against God (and still do so!) in my own life, and felt sorry for my sins in a whole new way, on a deeper level than ever before.

Following this time, the retreatant makes a famous meditation, usually referred to as “The Call of the King”, where you place yourself imaginatively in two scenarios. The first is that of a subject to an earthly king – a good king – who hears the call of his king to join him in bringing all lands into subjection to Christian rule. This king tells his subjects that he will share with them both the hardships of the campaign and its victory and ensuing glory. It is clear as you pray that only a fool or coward (an “unworthy knight”) would refuse to serve under such a king with such a glorious enterprise.

Next, you replace this good king with Jesus Christ, the King of kings. He calls each person to join him in sufferings and trials as he goes about the work of subjecting all things and people to his authority. The upshot of this invitation is similar: who would turn away from such a request? Who could fail to serve such a good king?

I was surprised as I began to pray with this meditation, because it left me cold and fearful. I saw the beauty of Christ and his goodness. I longed to be part of his work, to share his life and sufferings and death. But I was afraid to offer myself to him because I felt I would disappoint him. After all, I had only days before come to a deeper awareness of my sinfulness and untrustworthiness. So I protested when I heard Christ’s call, “Are you sure you want me to be part of your army, Lord? I am not so good, you see. I will probably betray you, disappoint you, and let you down.”

After a week of prayer where I kept coming to this point of the meditation and hitting this wall, I met with my retreat director – who told me to pray with it for another week! I felt, in part, like I had received a jail sentence and was doomed to spend another hour each day for another week feeling awkward and inadequate and embarrassed before the King I loved but could not serve. But as she gave me this assignment, my director said something really important. “Remember to ask the Lord how he sees you in this. What we see and what he sees are often two very different pictures.”

So I returned to the meditation. And I realized that I was uncomfortable with the whole first part of the meditation, focusing on the call of the earthly king. My heart was protesting the whole time, “there is no such king!” Not knowing what to do about this, I continued to the second part, the call of Christ the King. And suddenly, like a clarion call, it was as if Christ stood before me, looked me in the eye, and spoke straight to my heart, “I am the real deal! I am what I appear to be! You can trust me!” So I returned his gaze and asked him, again, if he wanted me to serve him, knowing what I was. Could he use me, the proud? Could he use me, the self-righteous? Could he use me, the lazy? My vices and inadequacies seemed like such an impediment – why would Christ want me?

Out of nowhere, I had a sense of Christ’s joy, and I, too, was joyful. What was the cause of my joy? Immediately, Mary came to my mind, and I thought about her and the Annunciation – her own “Call of the King” experience. She did not offer God any special giftedness. She offered him only what he had given her: her human nature, all empty and waiting to be filled. She gave him her virginity, her childlessness. And he made her the Mother of Christ. Had she filled her emptiness with a human spouse and natural children, she would have given something beautiful to God, but she would not have been able to give him Jesus, his own son. It seemed to me that God was asking something similar of me. Rather than “fixing” myself or finding something nice or good to offer God, he was inviting me to give him my mess, my incompleteness, my emptiness and trust him to fill it with himself.

Jesus is the rightful King of our hearts. In a world full of confusion, with many harmful examples of authority, where it often seems that nobody can be trusted, Jesus calls all men and women of good will to serve under his banner and he promises that he is worthy of trust. As we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ, the King of the Universe, let us make an offering of ourselves, sinful and sorrowful though we are, and let us trust that he will send the Holy Spirit to overshadow us so that he himself may live in our lives.

All-night Adoration

My alarm went off, and I awoke suddenly from my dream. I sleepily turned to look at the alarm on my desk, and the red numbers 12:45 stared back at me.

Yep, it was 12:45…A.M.

My first thought was: “I bet Alex is getting up about now, too.” I stumbled out of my bed, and striving not to wake up the sisters in the rooms next to mine, tiptoed out of my room and through the hallway. Everything was so still.

I quietly opened the door to the dark stairwell and made my way down to the chapel, and as I walked I thought about how my sister Alex and I were both awakened in the middle of the night to respond to a call.

My sister Alex works part-time as an E.M.T, and on Saturdays she pulls a 24-hour shift. She was working on Halloween this year, and she was on call to respond to any emergency that may arise. Working a 24-hour shift means that she can sleep during the night until her team gets a call. As soon as they get a call, they are out the door and into the ambulance in minutes, rushing to the scene. Never sure exactly what to expect, they respond to those who are the most vulnerable, those who are hurting, scared, and possibly dying. Their job, once they stabilize the person, is to rush them to the doctor as quickly as possible. The ambulance speeds through the still night, and the siren pierces through the silence as they rush the person to the hospital. I greatly admire my sister and all of those who work as first responders. I thank God that He has given them the graces necessary to rescue those in emergency situations.
Sr. Agnes Maria with her sister, Alex
On Halloween this year I had a night shift too, although mine was a bit different.

Our community held a prayer service and an all-night vigil on Halloween, praying throughout the night to spiritually combat any evil that may have taken place. We began with praise and worship, interceding through our praises for all of the Lord’s little ones who were hurting. Our praises pierced through the silence of the night as we sang to Jesus. We sang His praises to repair for any curses that may have been uttered against Him. We brought to Him souls who were lost and searching for Him in the wrong places.

Many of us also signed up for an hour to pray in the chapel with Jesus in the Eucharist; we kept watch with Him through the night and prayed until the first ray of sunshine broke through the windows of our chapel. My hour was 1 am. At the sound of my alarm, I awoke to respond to the cries of souls, souls who were spiritually and physically hurting, alone, scared, and possibly dying. I knew that I couldn’t heal them, but I rushed them to the One who could. In prayer, I brought them to Jesus, the Divine Physician, and I placed their broken hearts into His pierced Heart. Just like my sister Alex, I knew that it was not my job to fix these souls. It was my job to rush them as quickly as possible to the One who could.

It was a beautiful experience of spiritual motherhood.

A mother is the first responder to her child. She awakes in the middle of the night to the cry of her child who is hungering, thirsting, and feeling scared and alone. I was waking up in the middle of the night just like a mother to care for souls who were hungering for love, thirsting for mercy, feeling scared and alone. In prayer, I immersed them in the fountain of blood and water flowing from Jesus’ side.

I know that the Lord worked miracles that night through our prayer service and all-night vigil that night. He poured out his love and mercy into many hearts, and many received healings that night.

As Christians, we are all called to be first responders (although we may not all have a night shift).Whether priests, religious or lay people, every baptized Christian is called to be a first responder. When we hear a story of a person who is physically or spiritually hurting, whether that person lives in our neighborhood or halfway across the world, we are all called to rush them to the Divine Physician who binds up every wound.

Just like the men in the Gospel who lowered the crippled man through the roof to Jesus, we are all called to bring those most in need of healing to the One who not only has the power to heal us of our physical wounds, but even more miraculously has the power to heal us of our sins.
-Sr. Agnes Maria Kilonsky, novice
Dear Friends and Benefactors,

It’s been almost 3 months since Sr. Agnes Thérèse, Franciscan University of Steubenville student Morgan Gilchrest and I completed our wonderful and grueling trek through Raccoon Creek State Park.  Before I get down to the business of formally thanking you for raising more than $15,000 for the sisters, I’d like to relay a couple stories from the day of the hike.

I must admit that Sr. Agnes Thérèse laid the hurt on me.  At about mile 20 we were praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet and I was jogging every 50 meters or so just to keep up with Sr. Fitness.  Thinking that my running was actually an encouragement for her to go faster, she kept picking up the pace.  Finally, mid-prayer I had to ask her if she was trying to make this hike an object lesson for me and force me to beg both God and her for mercy.  Thankfully, Sister took the hint and mercifully slowed down to a more leisurely pace.

One of the other great memories of the hike was the lunch that Sr. Miriam O’Callaghan prepared for our group, including Sr. Maria Clare Smith and FUS student Marissa Bella, who hiked with us to the halfway point.  We were already feeling fatigued and it seemed that 13 miles was plenty long when we stopped to enjoy the delicacies filling the back of the TOR mini-van.  The hearty sandwiches, homemade chocolate chip cookies and plenteous Gatorade helped put some bounce back in our step, and that excellent meal couldn’t have come at a better time.

I believe that Our Lord Jesus, through the ministry of the sisters at Samaritan House Thrift Store and LAMP Ministries, likewise nourishes many people along the arduous journey called “life.”  I know from first-hand experience that their presence in downtown Steubenville is invaluable for many.  The light of Christ shining through the sisters and many wonderful volunteers gives hope to many and brings joy to folks whose pilgrimage through life can feel like a marathon hike on a regular basis.  Thank you for donating and helping to make their presence in Steubenville sustainable.  I trust that the sisters will continue to be good stewards of the money you have donated.  May God reward you for your generosity!  Thank you for supporting the Helping Hike for the Poor.


In Jesus Christ the icon of God’s Mercy,







Fr. Matt Russick, T.O.R.
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