by Joyce Coronel | May 9, 2022 | Tidbits
“We have received threats to bomb the church, burn it down, hateful and vile messages,” the pastor of the parish said. “We are on high alert to make sure that the church and our people are protected.”
No, Fr. Brian Graebe wasn’t referring to a house of God in Nigeria or India or Egypt where attacks on Christians worshipping are commonplace enough that they hardly raise an eyebrow in the U.S. (We’re apparently too busy with more pressing matters.)
by Joyce Coronel | May 2, 2022 | Tidbits
The Soulful Catholic has been silent for a while now. There’s a reason for that and some of it is because of joy. The deep kind. The kind that swells your heart and fills your brain and carries you over the days and nights.
Our son, an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, is serving at Okinawa and was finally home for a brief visit after two and a half years.
We did at least a month worth of living during those halcyon 10 days of leave. Hiking, bowling, poker, barbecues, belly laughs and heart-to-heart talks. It felt like a dream having him beside us at Mass two Sunday mornings in a row.
by Joyce Coronel | Mar 7, 2022 | Tidbits
Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My mercy. That stark appraisal was spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ to St. Faustina, a humble nun in Poland on the eve of the Second World War, a war that in the end, took the lives of tens of millions of human...
by Joyce Coronel | Feb 7, 2022 | Tidbits
One of the ways you know you’re getting older is that you start getting solicitations from the American Association of Retired Persons. The Soulful Catholic is nowhere near ready to surrender her mouse and keyboard, so these AARP letters generally go straight to the recycle bin.
Nevertheless, a wonderful benefit of having more birthdays behind you than before you is the realization that God’s plans are AWAYS superior to our own. It may not always seem like it when we’re in the midst of heartbreak and disappointment, but as we mature in faith, we realize that God truly does have our best interests at heart. We can trust Him 100 percent. Ourselves? Not so much.
by Joyce Coronel | Jan 31, 2022 | Tidbits
The formerly majestic orange tree in The Soulful Catholic’s backyard provided a powerful metaphor for the current malaise in America.
From a distance, the little tree in our backyard looked healthy, boasting an abundance of dark green leaves. Upon closer inspection, the branches were covered with sharp thorns and there wasn’t a single orange to be had, even though our other citrus trees were covered with tasty fruit ripe for picking.
This sad state of affairs began two years ago when a disease attacked our orange producer and slowly drained the life out of it. That spring, a few “sucker” branches began shooting out of the base of the once-magnificent tree. The next thing we knew, they’d taken over the entire shrub.
