What worshiping everyday is teaching me

By Daisy Vanderputt

It is soooo much easier to moan and complain rather than to praise.

This year I have been a travelling missionary for the organisation NET Ministries and the Lord has been undoing a lot of my doings in my heart. One of those is complaining and my lack of gratitude for the everyday things that are in my life. I find myself in an uncomfortable host home, i’m eating pizza again for the 8907th day in a row, someone on my team is tapping the window of the van obnoxiously or my prayer is STILL dry - come on Jesus, I’m doing work for you don’t you see... and most of the time get caught in a whirlwind of frustration that things aren’t comfortable or quite the way I’d like them to be.

One of the ways that we pray as a team is to do an hour of worship every day. At first it was incredible, it was all I wanted...finally I could get the same experience from worship that I had to wait months on end for at the next retreat coming up. As the year went on, in fact pretty quickly I realised that the Lord wanted a lot more for me and for all of us than just to ‘experience’ the high I was looking for in singing praise and worship songs. Yes, he loves to console us but worship is rather something that He is calling me to live out in every single part of my life at all times.

‘The feelings come and go, but God stays the same.’

I was told this at a worship seminar and it hit me hard. God doesn’t deserve to be praised when I feel like it but rather at all times, especially in the times where everything in me just wants to moan, complain and curse God for the things that aren’t going my way. We worship a lot of things in our daily lives, one of the big things being comfort and we as the church are being called out of that into something much much greater.

1 Corinthians 6:19 says:

‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,

whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.’

St Paul even tells us that we gotta do it! You are not your own, in other words - your life is not your own, so praise His name! But wait...catch this... in His infinite goodness he doesn’t just stop there, nope! He even designed our hearts in such a way that we can worship Him at all times. Our hearts were made to be poured out for others and for Christ and to be poured into by Christ.

My brothers and sisters, drop everything for even 5 minutes of your day to fix the gaze of your heart upon Him because you impact Him. You matter. Your humble offering of worship will bring an intimacy with Christ that you have never reached before and will make the difficulty in your life as sweet as honey. Bring your bible, bring your journal sit in your room and be a fool for him (1 Cor 4:10). Sing his name, praise with just the simple words that are on your heart right now. If you praise God through art (which I definitely do not…) do it! If you praise God through your ability to write beautiful poetic words like King David...DO IT! Ask yourself what gifts the Lord has given to you specifically to worship him with. I am not promising that this is going to be easy, because boy let me tell you that you are going to have to fight for this, but HE is worth it. He deserves your little but precious heart.

So to challenge and encourage you all - Look to him and be radiant. Give your whole heart to the King of Kings this Eastertide, worship the one who constantly pours Himself out for you on the cross and let your heart be transformed.

How to live like Easter People

By Paddie Denton

So I know I am supposed to write for all of you, but I'm writing this one for someone in particular first and I hope it happens to be useful to more than just him.  I don't know where any of you are at right now, I don't know how your Lent was, and I don't know if you feel alive in faith or flatter than a shrove Tuesday pancake. The person I am writing this for is deffo a pancake, and I can say this as the person is me, so excuse my occasional bluntness but sometimes, it's needed, sometimes I need to hear truth.

Yeah He just died for YOUR sins, try and be grateful

Marks Gospel originally barely went into the resurrection, just an angel stating He is risen, it’s not that the resurrection is unimportant and the encounter with the risen Christ is unimportant, but its how important the crucifixion is. “It is fullfilled”. All sin of humanity across time is washed away through the precious blood. Christ sacrificed himself as the lamb to make a covenant with us, one that was entirely for us to know mercy forgiveness and being one with God. And to do this he died in the most inhuman way possible, most barbaric, we need to be grateful. This knowledge should fuel our praise and worship of God, even when the thought off it causes agony.

HE is RESURRECTED, tell ya face that

Maybe this one doesn't apply to people with resting face, but other than that why aren't we smiling? Yeah, life is difficult, my last 12 months would keep a therapist entertained for 12 more. But Jesus didn't die to make our lives easy, an eternal field of spring flowers and Easter rabbits skipping and singing (which, just to be clear is in no way my idea of happiness but could be yours). His resurrection is more reason to praise, and be joyful because despite what it is you may be going through we now have hope, Christ conquered death so there is no darkness to fear.

'“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.”'

Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings)

Be more like Thomas and not like the rest of those scaredy apostles

Okay so Thomas wasn’t there when Jesus appeared to all his fellow apostles who were too scared to leave the room, but that must mean... he wasn't too scared leave the room! He at least wasn't scared to go out into the world and risk still being known as a follower of Jesus, even when he had become the man who was just crucified for treason. In the same way, we should not be scared to be associated with Jesus, who has died for us.

Be more like those Apostles and less like that doubty Thomas

Okay so Thomas, our hero then may of messed it up, just a little. I mean its fair enough the idea of resurrection is unbelievable, but Thomas had seen what Jesus had done (*cough* Lazarus) and Jesus had told him he was coming back, why was he surprised? Now doubts aren't bad, but we should allow our doubts to be overcome by faith. In fact without doubt we can't have faith, and Thomas demonstrated this perfectly.

Eat all the Chocolate -  let's celebrate

Rumour has it Easter is a celebration (we even get to eat meat tomorrow guys). So enjoy it, we have 50 days of the season - that's 10 more than Lent! Now tell me what the Church priorities more: guilt and living potentially or partying, cause there just ain't no party like a Catholic party.

'The Resurrection is more than a party – it’s the source of eternal life'

Pope Francis

Well, maybe not all the chocolate... did Lent teach you anything?

Just to be clear I meant the previous point, but, if we don't learn from Lent then what was the point of it? So if you gave up chocolate what did you learn if you go and pig out on chocolate? This may seem like nothing but what if you giving up some habitual sin, anger, porn, gossip, swearing, gluttony etc. stay free of it. Now that it's Easter, do we start back again? Do we get to take a holiday on the commitments to prayer we made? And do we give less now? I think we should give more. I mean we are celebrating being saved now, let's do something to show it.

Time to delight in Mercy

There is so much mercy over the Easter season (its Divine Mercy Sunday this week) and confession reminds me so much of Easter. As in Lent we enter the sacrament remorseful caring the weight of our life before we encounter Christ's full love and his death on the cross. Then we are absolved and can skip out of the confessional, just as we now get to dance for joy coming out of Lent into Easter. Let's remember to take joy every time we receive this mercy.

Exult in our happy faults

The Exsultlet is a beautiful prayer sung at the start of the vigil mass, in it there is the line

'O happy fault that earned so great so glorious a redeemer'

the happy fault being the original fall that meant Christ had to come to save us. It teaches us what it means to be an Easter people and it's what I have been trying to remind myself: rejoice, you may have messed up, you may feel like giving up, you may not feel like God is in your life, but rejoice for in this brokenness, Christ can step in and bring hope, healing, mercy and redemption. You may be broken and rejected but so was Christ on the cross, and that was glorious.

'The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;' 

Psalm 118:23

Fear of Death & Hope of Heaven

By Isaac Withers

Fear of Death

(Maunday Thursday)

Before I came to university, I wasn’t sure what was going to affect my faith the most when I was there. It turns out, it wasn’t really ‘the uni scene’ stuff I was warned about: the clubs, the occasional stack of mouldy plates (yes, really, mouldy), strange lecturers, stranger landlords, etc. Those things I found I could navigate okish. It wasn’t even the dreaded sleep/work/socialise balance of it all. The things that hit me the most, were the bigger parts of life that I now had to figure out independently. One of those, was death.

That sounds dramatic, but it’s true. For me, when I was around fifteen, my faith came alight, and after accepting Jesus, recognising him in the Eucharist and the Church, accepting Heaven seemed pretty straight forward, and for a few years, death just didn’t bother me. It was a very rational ping-ponging of thoughts that didn’t require much faith at all. And, it left me in the outstanding position of having answered one of the biggest of life’s questions at a time when I could barely grow facial hair. Hah. Take that world. (Not that the facial hair thing has changed much…)

And then, for some completely unknown reason, one evening when I was sat in bed in my first-year box room, something big happened. In the slum of student accommodation they called Maple Bank, at the bottom of a hill in front of the canal with its resident rats and a pretty active train line, the fear of death returned to me.

More specifically, the thought, ‘I will have a last day’. To this day, I don’t know why it did. Something in a YouTube video just twigged it in me, and I had an intense, very physical reaction to that idea, that just seemed so foundationally true and almost physically present. Suddenly, Heaven seemed ridiculous to me, and it was like a rug had been pulled out from underneath me. For the next couple of months, this realisation would come back to me and dwell with me, in my box room, at the bottom of that hill by the canal and the train line. Suffice to say, it was pretty grim and it was massively spiritually erosive.

And I felt really alone in it. I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone about it, I thought it would be way too intense for my freshers, but I was even more uncomfortable with sharing it with Christian friends, because I thought it could do to their faith what it was doing to my faith.

But was I right to feel alone?

Hope of Heaven

(Easter Sunday)

Easter is a highly underrated celebration. One of my housemates doesn’t even go home for it. Another friend described it as ‘rubbish Christmas’, explaining it away with, ‘everyone gets the same present, it’s like ‘oo, is it an egg? Yeah, they’re all eggs, every time.’

The truth is, Easter can only be the explosive celebration of a phenomenal event if we put it into the context of darkness and death. This is the contrast that makes it radical. As Bishop Robert Barron puts it:

‘We’re the first culture they say, in the history of humankind, that is largely accepting a secularist view of the world. ‘There’s just this world, this is it.’ The resurrection is saying in no uncertain terms, that this world though good, is not the final horizon of what is real. It tells us, as the Bible puts it, that God’s about the business of making a new heavens and a new Earth.’

The truth is, we don’t talk about death that much, and Christianity is diminished without that context. I found a talk by Nicky Gumbel, the founder of Alpha, on YouTube that summed our generation up pretty well, he said:

‘The Victorians used to talk a lot about death, but they never talked about sex.

We talk a lot about sex, but we don’t talk about death. It’s kinda just something you don’t mention.

Even in hospitals now they try to avoid using the word death. I heard of one hospital where they said you must never use the word death, they had a politically correct way of describing it, ‘negative patient care outcome’.

The more I have read around this (and I still have plenty to do), the less alone I have felt. Christ, throughout his ministry, preached about Heaven, and described it. This has been the biggest help to me, in terms of hope, as if Jesus is was who he says he was, then his constant talk of a ‘father who art in heaven’ really matters. One of my favourites is John 14:2:

‘There are many rooms in my Father’s house;

If there were not I should have told you.

I am going now to prepare a place for you.’

Easter is big deal, because after three years of talking like that, the son of a Carpenter from Nazareth dies and apparently returns. That’s not a casual apparently, it’s one that demands investigating. Because if true, it means that Jesus stepped through death, and normal men like St. Paul, could then suddenly write something as bold as:

"Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?"

1 Corinthians 15:55

And centuries later, John Donne can write:

‘Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.’

John Donne, Death Be Not Proud

The resurrection changes everything. It radically addresses our most basic human fear, and it is immensely relevant to every single person, to every student sat in their dingy flat and to everyone else. But it’s still ok to experience that anxiety, a lot of faith is dealing with mystery, and it is completely natural to fear the unknown.  And I think we should talk about it more, if only because it makes the whole celebration more real.

But man is Easter so much more than rubbish Christmas. 

(Why eggs are a big deal is a whole other blog I think.)

6 obscure saints you should know about

Saint Drogo  & Saint Vitus

(patrons of coffee houses and oversleeping)

Kirsten Brown's choice

Whilst reading about the many wonderfully bizarre saints out there, I chanced upon St Drogo and St Vitus - two individuals I think every student probably needs to show some love at some point in their lives. St Drogo is the patron of ‘coffee houses’ and St Vitus the patron of ‘oversleeping’. As a student (okay, even now) I frequently indulged in both - whether it was the first cup of steaming, black coffee or snoozing my ambitious 5am alarm. Coffee/oversleeping are quite mundane for most of us, yet I can’t help thinking ‘first world problems’  when I contemplate how most us would react if we had to give them both up. I could probably live with not oversleeping, but no froth-filled, chocolate-sprinkled cup of hot goodness? Doubt it.

Since they’re 'obscure saints' not that much is known about them. St Drogo was predominantly dedicated his life to pilgrimage, eventually becoming a shepherd then a hermit. St Vitus converted to Christianity at a young age against the wishes of his father, and was consequently martyred.

So next time you enjoy that extra hour or treat yourself to Nero’s remember to send a little arrow prayer to St Drogo/St Vitus - they’ve got your back!

Saint Robert Southwell

Megan James's choice

As an English Student, I’m currently neck deep in my dissertation, which is on poetry during the Reformation period; so, I am currently living and breathing Catholic history, which is kinda cool (but also pretty darn overwhelming.) 

As read poem after poem, one poet who has stood out is Robert Southwell, a Jesuit who wrote some really beautiful religious poetry that he secretly sent over to England while living in exile. He is also one of the canonised forty martyrs of England and Wales. He stands out to me because not only did he stand by his faith when so many converted or hid, but he also continued to use his God given gifts and talents to proclaim his faith and attempt to convert those who were persecuting his brothers and sisters in Christ. 

By reading about his incredible life and faith, and reading his vivid writings, I was ashamed by just how little I knew about the martyrs who fell to defend our faith. I was also incredibly aware, by looking so closely and intimately at one single figure, that all those martyrs were all individuals with individual lives, hopes, dreams and families. They all lived differently, but stood and died for God, and I was struck by the thought that they were not just these historic figures, but people like you and me. It’s really blown me away. 

“Christianity is warfare, and Christians are spiritual soldiers.”

St. Robert Southwell

Through reading about St. Robert Southwell (who I really recommend you check out, he’s pretty great) I have been given a whole new appreciation for the freedom and gift of my faith, and I pray for those who live in fear and oppression because of their love of God. St Robert Southwell, pray for us.

Saint Felicity

Martha Harrold's choice

I debated as to whether these this Saint qualified as ‘obscure,’ as she is mentioned with St. Perpetua in the Mass and probably is a name that you are familiar with, but how many people actually know what Saints Felicity did to merit sainthood? Well, let me tell you…

Felicity and Perpetua lived about two hundred years after Christ and both became Christians illegally. Perpetua was 22 years old, and Felicity was her (pregnant) slave girl. Both women were found out to be Christians and, unwilling to renounce their faith, were sentenced to death.

Felicity gave birth just before she went into the arena to be martyred and in the pain of childbirth said of her impending martyrdom: ‘Now it is I who suffer what I am suffering. But then, there will be another in me who will suffer for me, since I will be suffering for Him.’ Wow. This woman had unwavering confidence in the providence of the Lord in the face of suffering. *As a midwifery student – I have a newfound admiration for St. Felicity. She is a strong lady if ever I saw one!*

Both Felicity and Perpetua were said to walk ‘joyfully as if to heaven’ as they went to their death. I think these women are wonderful Saints to pray to, for the grace to suffer trustfully and joyfully.

Saint Felicity and Saint Perpetua,

Pray for us!

Saint Monica

(Saint Augustine's mum)

Isaac Withers's choice

Born 331 AD, St. Monica is mainly known for being St. Augustine's mum, but her story is really interesting. Raised Christian, at a young age she was married to a Roman pagan, which is tricky. Apparently, her husband was still respectful of her attempts to live her faith but her mother in law was less keen on the whole Christianity thing. All the while, Monica prays for their conversion. 

She has two sons and a daughter, but none are allowed to be baptised. More relentless prayer from Monica, and when Augustine reaches the age of sixteen, he and his father convert to Christianity, However, it's not smooth from there out as a mere year before his father dies, and then Augustine goes more than a bit off the rails. He is sent to Carthage to get educated where he has a son outside of marriage (not what most mums expect when their son returns from uni). However, she receives a vision telling her to reconcile with Augustine, seeks him out, and a year before she dies, she sees him reconvert. Also, her two other kids entered the religious life. She had some seriously powerful prayers.

There's something about that lifetime of unrelenting prayer from a mum that I love. Monica loved a difficult family. In my experience, that's what prayer looks like, a long time, waiting on the change, but worth waiting on, and that's what Monica lived. There's a strength there, and a depth of love, that even when Augustine goes totally off the path, she seeks him out, never giving up. 

Saint Maria Goretti

Ben Hince's choice 

St. Maria Goretti is a virgin-martyr who was murdered at the age of 11. Her story is a humble one which radiates both the love she had for Christ, and Christ’s love for her.

Born into a farming family in Italy, her love was simple but deeply profound. One of my favourite stories from her life surrounds her first Communion. She was uneducated, and being of a poor family could not be spared to receive instruction. The situation seemed hopeless, but she committed herself to finishing her work early, and doing everything possible to gain the right instruction by visiting learned people who could help her. Her conviction and her desire to receive the Eucharist was so strong that she overcame the seeming insurmountable obstacles that were before her and received Christ for the first time on the feast of Corpus Christi in June 1901. This story is a beautiful image of poverty which is permeated by trust and hope in God’s providence.

It was during the sermon at her first Communion that the priest exhorted the children to “preserve their souls pure and innocent, and to die rather than commit a mortal sin”. These words were to take a particularly deep root in Maria’s heart. In 1902, aged 11, Maria Goretti was stabbed 14 times by Alessandro – a young man on the farm – for not responding to his sexual advances. She knew the gravity of sin, and she choose death over separation from God.

In an excerpt from the Homily at her canonisation,Pope Pius XII asks:

“Why is it that when you read or listen to the story of her brief life, which reminds you of the limpid narrative of the Gospels in the simplicity of its details, in the colour of its circumstances, in the sudden violence of death with which it closes – why does this story move you even to tears. Why has Maria Goretti so quickly conquered your hearts?”

He went on to say that,

“The reason is that there is still in this world, apparently sunk and immersed in the worship of pleasure, not only a meager little band of chosen souls who thirst for Heaven and its pure air, but a crowd, nay, an immense multitude on whom the supernatural fragrance of Christian purity exercises an irresistible and reassuring fascination.”

I believe that St. Maria Goretti can be a beautiful model of Piety and Purity to each one of us, and indeed a great intercessor for all young people who desire to be Saints. It’s incredible to think just how much truth was lived and exemplified during her mere 11 years of life!

Venerable Matt Talbot 

Paddie Denton's choice

I know he is not quite officially a saint yet, but Matt Talbot is very important to me, in fact he is why i chose Matthew for my confirmation name. Ver Matt was an alcoholic, he struggled with drink and caused great pain in many of his relationships, that was until the day he met Jesus. He turned his life around through prayer and has work. He would go to mass daily, adoration, confession and often pray the rosary, followed by working hard to help feed his sisters and family. He wore chains around himself to remind him of his sin and alcoholism. He died on the streets of Dublin and he was only recognised due to people seeing him at daily mass and his devotion of prayer throughout the city. He inspires me as he is a normal man, a lay person that had a major cross to bare but perceived in his work and prayer. He is someone to aspire to.