To friend or not to friend...

This past Sunday (at youth group) we talked about the chain reaction of sin and got on the topic of friends and the struggle they sometimes pose.

Now, lemme back track (I think I backtrack in literally every single post I make. Oh well)

Mary Blenke Timeline

2006: Had my first boyfriend, had my first breakup.
2006: Had my second boyfriend, had my second breakup.
2006: Went to High School (St. Petersburg Catholic High School)
-> now, my freshman year I'm not going to lie, I was pretty dang outgoing. I like to think I had a lot of "friends", as in, people to hang out with, people I knew, just people who knew me.
2007: Was introduced to my third boyfriend through friends.
2007: Had my first heart break (wahh, sob sob sob)

Now comes the interesting part.

In 2008 I started a long distance relationship with a guy who lived in Ohio. Never met him, we started talking through myspace (whats that?).

I still had friends.

But the deeper I got into this relationship the less prevalent my friends became. Over the next two year I had basically lost all my friends.

ANYWAYS, I think the reason it was so devastating was not because I actually liked the people I called my friends or looked up to them, it was the idea that I had no one to hang out with. I had no group to go to prom with, I had no group to be a part of.

I walked into school everyday and sat at the same picnic table with the same people, didn't really talk, didn't really listen, just sat there.

I couldn't decide what was worse: going to school and having no one or being at home on the weekends and having no one.


Now, almost 2 years later, I finally realize why I was so upset about being alone.

I was in mass yesterday and the homily spoke about the lies the devil puts on our hearts because of original sin (there are two):

1. That something is wrong with us. 
The devil puts this lie on our hearts so that it will create an extreme uneasiness. That every time someone says a comment against or even to compliment us we scrutinize it and in the end scrutinize yourself.

and ...... (pay attention!)

2. That you are alone. (moreover that it is not okay to be alone)
A.K.A. the quietness that the Lord calls for we perceive as NOT OKAY. The devil puts this on our heart so that we fill our days with useless things so that we do not have to be alone, with our own thoughts and ultimately with God.

So, this is what I have learned from my last two high school years, especially my senior years. (I broke up with my boyfriend right before my senior year)

Those years CHANGED MY LIFE for the better.

Those years are when I truly found the Lord in my silence. I learned that its ok to have time to myself. I learned that when I spent time alone I actually was with my Lord and Savior because the truth is that YOU ARE NEVER ALONE.

When you feel alone, it is the devil telling you that you are alone. You aren't alone. Never.

I'm sitting in my car writing this right now. Technically I am alone, no one is around or with me. But I'm not alone.

First of all, I'm with you cool cats. Second of all, I'm with my Lord. All that I write is of Him.

I encourage you to become friends with HIM. I guarantee after you do (or even just continuously attempt too) you will NEVER feel alone.

I never feel alone.


xo

Fearfully and WONDERFULLY made. My Beloved.

Let me just tell you, I freaking LOVE the word Beloved.

I long to be called Beloved. I was journaling about it a few weeks ago and said something along the lines of "Lord, when will I find someone to call me Beloved?"

He was straight up like "uh hello Mary, nice to meet you I'm RIGHT HERE".

I mean, it says it in the Bible doesn't it?

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (John 4:1)

Yep, right there.

He calls us Beloved! As if He knew we would be reading this word one day, all of Christianity reading it as a Holy and personal account from the Lords mouth.

Isn't it crazy that the Bible was put together on the premise that one day millions of people would read and learn by it? SO CRAZY.

Ahh, I love being called Beloved.
Lets break it down.

Be-Loved

Be. Be you, Be the Lord. What is our calling in life?  Who knows. There is one calling we all must know is ours and act upon it. The call to be the Lords.

The Lord calls us all to His table. To believe in Him and to love Him.
We are called to love Him through our love to others. Our neighbors.

Be what the Lord is calling you to be, Loved.

Loved. So many different meanings from one simple word. I see it in two ways. Loved, to be a loving and thoughtful member of society so that when people think back to who you are they can say "Mary really Loved the world, the society, and everything God has created for her.". Loved. Loved is a past tense of the word Love, sometimes anyways. It is also an explanation.

She is Loved. She Loved.

She Loved is past tense
She is Loved is present tense.

Be-Loved; be loving.
Be-Loved: be loved.

Beloved: what the Lord calls us and what we are called to act as.

We are HIS Beloved.

We were fearfully and WONDERFULLY made.

He Loves us above all else.

Beloved.

I can't get any holier.

I once heard someone say "I'm as Holy as I need to be, I don't think I can get any better". Truth be told, up until a few years ago I agree. Now that I know better, my heart truly aches at the thought of not being able to dive deeper, to become Holier.

When I joined the Life Teen movement almost 6 years ago my whole world twisted a little. The more I've been involved with this movement, the more I realize that statement up there is completely false. Thats something that I find different about the Catholic faith, there's always room to grow more. I have a friend-boy (I did that on purpose) that is Presbyterian Protestant (I think that's how you say it) and we talk a lot about faith. If I may explain his position without his permission I would say that he longs to go deeper but just doesn't know how, like he's stuck.

Stuck? Stuck where? Mary, what in the world are you talking about.

Well, reader, I am talking about this. The Catholic (and Christian) faith in general is full of mysteries. The mystery of the Virgin Mary, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the mystery of the Eucharist.

I mean, look at the rosary! There are the Joyful mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries, the Glorious mysteries, and the Luminous mysteries.
Whats the key word here? mysteries.


Ding Ding Ding!

We have all these mysteries that cannot be solved other than by the Lord. I can't explain to you why or how or when Mary ascended into Heaven. I can't convince you with my own words who the Holy Spirit impregnated a 14 year old Virgin girl with the Savior of the world. I just don't have the words or the power. Sure, I can tell you about them, but I know no root. I just know what I read and what I have faith in.

This brings us back to my post on the Eucharist, kind of. God doesn't call us to understand everything about our faith, but he calls us to have faith in it. To believe in it and hope to one day understand it better (not fully). That is why they are called mysteries.
If we did not have mysteries, there would be nothing to dive deeper into. Our faith would just be cut and dry, with explanations to everything and understanding of everything.

What fun would that be?

Dive a little deeper, I promise you'll never reach the bottom. (until heaven, and once you're there pray for those seeking to go deeper on earth!)

Peace and God's love.

Merry Christmas!

"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be."




Not your Ipods and Dvds. Not your perfume, not your video games. None of it came to be without Him. He is the Savior of the world. 

Is it sometimes hard to focus in Mass?

An hour?!  What? I have to spend one whole hour every Sunday at some huge place that has random flowers on it and stuff? Uh.

I feel as though we all have though this at one time or another. Right? That was about the first 18 years of my life. I really wanted to enjoy Mass. I really wanted to dive deep. But how? I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. I was tired, bored, distracted, oh hey there's a cute boy over there let me send vibes so he turns around. It was one of those kinds of things. yah know?

Well, I recently purchased a beautiful leather journal from barnes and noble. (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/home-gift-brown-leather-antique-lace-embossed-lined-journal/22817764?ean=9781616807078)

Its actually kind of a sad side-note, the paper part disconnected from the binding. 

Anyways, I started journaling through the Mass. 

I write down the 1st reading, the verses, and a reflection or verse that really sticks out to you.  Then do the same thing for the 2nd reading. 

During the gospel I write down the verses and listen. Usually I journal through the homily just awesome things the priest is saying and stuff like that. Its pretty legit. 

Its making me dive deeper into Mass. I've legitimately felt more in love with the Lord over the past few months that I've been journaling. It opens my mind up and helps me focus on what I'm reading and listening too. 

So, if you have a problem focusing and hearing what the message of Mass truly is, I propose that you go out, get a beautiful journal, and pray through it during Mass. 

Its helping me become more in tune with the Word and with the Lord. 

Remember, they are one in the same. 

Merry Christmas!

Tweet Tweet

So, I have a twitter. (@homerun_mary if you care)

Yep, I said it. I admit. I'm a twitter-holic. Well, not really. But I use twitter mostly to talk about one of my favorite past times (baseball). So you can imagine how down my twitter feed gets during this part of the year. Yep, the off season.

I decided, however, that at the end of the baseball season I was going to try and "follow" more Catholic people. More inspirational people so that I could dive a little deeper each and every day on one of my favorite social media outlets.

Insert: the key to twitter is to have something to talk about.

Anyways, I was on it today, as I am every other day, and I follow some pretty awesome people. But someone retweeted this verse and it really hit me.

hard.

it said:
Jesus said, "Stay awake and pray so that you won't enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Mark 14:38)

Now if you remember this part of the bible, Jesus was speaking with his disciples who had already fallen asleep once. This was one of Jesus' last moments as a "free" man. It was right before he was fully betrayed by Judas. It was His last few moments with our Lord before he was taken to suffer. Yet, was he worried about himself?

Well yeah, a little. But it wasn't all about him. He told his best friends to "Stay awake and pray so that you won't enter into temptation"

hmm. "so that you won't enter into temptation" that sounds familiar.

 "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. ¹⁰Your kingdom come, your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread,¹²and forgive us our debts,
   as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³And lead us not into temptation,
   but deliver us from evil.^"


Matthew 6:9-13

oh yeah. thats where I remember it from. In the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples to pray it says "Lead us not into temptation". But how do they connect? In the Lords prayer, Jesus is telling us to pray to the Lord so that we will not be tempted by the evil one. In the passage, Jesus tells his disciples (also us) to stay awake so that we may not be tempted.

aka; he tells us how to pray to not be tempted and how to act to keep from temptation.

But what does stay awake mean?

Stay awake, thrive. Be aware of your surroundings. Jesus didn't want his disciples to fall asleep because He knew that He was about to be handed over to evil. He knew He was about to die. He wanted his disciples there with him, fully alert, fully ready to see the power of God be strengthened by the most powerless act of courage.

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak".

We are human (in case you weren't sure. We are.). Therefore, we are weak. We can build up all the adrenaline our bodies can handle but it doesn't mean we are necessarily strong. We, in our human form, are weak when it comes to this kind of stuff. Jesus, in his human form, was weak. He was afraid, but his spirit was willing to complete the prophecy put into place. He hoped his disciples to do the same.

This saying is kind of like a moral code. Its kind of like the famous St. Jerome quote "Practice what you preach". The spirit is our soul. The spirit is our moral compass, and sometimes our flesh, our humanity, causes us to go off of our moral compass. But Christ calls us back on track. Just like Christ pulled the disciples back on track.


Amen.

Mary, whats your faith like?

 My faith can probably be described in a few words.

For one, it’s ongoing. I will never be able to dive deep enough into my faith because it’s a never-ending pool. I am constantly learning and growing, deepening my knowledge about scripture and the Lord. Over the past year I have come to yearn for a deeper knowledge of what I, on a daily basis, call my faith. Which brings me to my next word.

My faith is a struggle. A constant struggle that I believe will last for the rest of my life. Probably because I’m human (well, definitely because I’m human). I used to try and deny my struggle, saying things like my faith is awesome and Jesus is my best friend. Over the past years I’ve tried to be honest with myself about my faith and the most honest answer I discerned about was that it’s a struggle. I have trouble believing in things I can’t understand. The Catholic faith is called a mystery. Although a struggle, this past week at youth group kind of opened my eyes to something. I was asked to speak on the Eucharist and I was reading different stories in the Gospels. I read John 6:60-68 (which is quickly becoming one of my favorite passages ever!) which, and I quote, says:

“Many, therefore, of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can hear it?’ When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, ‘Does this offend you?...’ From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Will you also go away?’ Then Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.’”

 I get a lot from this passage. Mostly, however, that this passage kind of describes my faith. They’re talking about the Eucharist as a hard concept, hard to understand, therefor hard to believe. The people who came from all ends of the earth to see him had trouble understanding and many left. His best friends, the 12, had trouble understanding. But when Jesus asked his 12 “Will you go away also?” will you leave too? Simon Pete said “Whom shall we go?”. I read this and my faith, in a way, made sense. My faith is a struggle because Catholicism is full of hard concepts and I don’t always understand them. I have learned, however, that I’m not called to understand them, just to believe in them. If I don’t believe in what is so clearly written for me, what has been so clearly passed down for me, then where else would I go?