Holy Spirit Knows Our Needs

It’s such an understatement to say a lot has happened since I last posted that I probably shouldn’t say it. Pope Francis died, Pope Leo XIV, born in Chicago USA, now reigns. I had been taking another break from writing for prayer and discernment when a family member became seriously ill and most of my time since then has been taken to attend to this matter.

During the mentioned illness, there were some very dire times. I often pray to God when I am simply at wit’s end about what to do. In more than a few of these situations which seem hopeless, answers come in such amazing ways, I have to conclude God was involved. In this case, He has done so again, and my relative is now better.

I ask myself why I am not therefore confident He will respond positively each time I ask. I guess it’s because in various cases, the solution can take a long time, or the answer is not what I desire. He can say no to requests but He still cares and supports. Frequently, especially when I'm being selfish, I later realize what I wanted was not as good as what God had planned. My attitude should be one of hope as I try to cope with challenges of my life.

In reflecting on the past few months, it was the times of deepest need when I most felt God leading me, perhaps because of the intense emotions involved. I believe He can and does guide us. The Holy Spirit, one in essence with God the Father and Jesus the Son, is given to those of us who believe in Jesus, as the Bible informs us (Romans 5:5). Right before this severe illness event, I had just read some sections from a book called, The Practice of the Presence of God, by a monk, Brother Lawrence. He asked for God’s grace to help him every day. I did the same and that helped me a lot.

In a related note, I have wanted to do Christian evangelization, but I don’t think I am doing a very good job of it, especially when it comes to personal encounters. I have written, but I’m not well-known or interacting with readers. I pray for the lost, but don’t have much personal contact with them. I’m not complaining about lack of fame—every person’s soul is important and reached in unique ways. I believe in the effectiveness of prayer, and I shouldn’t let the lack of feedback discourage me. Patience is not one of my strong points and I remind myself that we all have gifts to bring and should do our best to use them. Yet I wonder if I am fully doing my part.

While trying to help someone who was very sick, I saw the efforts made for those with physical illnesses, such as first responders, hospital staff, physical therapists, and others. I am even more aware today of those who need critical spiritual life support. The biggest danger for non-Christians is that they could die before they come to believe in Jesus Christ as God and Savior.

God could have created all humans to believe in Him, but He has given us free will to accept Him or not. He has called his believers to action, just as He is the ultimate Healer but uses doctors, nurses, and others to bring about physical health.

The Lord has answers for Christians who are evangelizing non-believers, just as He had answers for me when I thought all was hopeless for my sick relative. For those who have never heard the Gospel at all, the facts of Jesus Christ must be told to them. But also, for those who have rejected Him for whatever reasons, believers need to be keenly aware of the critical risk, pray for God’s help to cope with the situations, and move forward. I hope and pray that Christians, including myself, can follow the Holy Spirit to help people to their only way of spiritual health and ultimate happiness.

Bishops' Synod Final Document

 The sweeping XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Vatican Synod of Bishops 2021-2024 is completed and has produced its Final Document. This project started in 2021 by gathering comments from all aspects of Catholic Church membership, from laity to priests to men and women belonging to religious orders, as well as Bishops, and of course Pope Francis who initiated it.

 The links in various languages of the Final Document can be found on the website for the Synod at this page HERE. I don’t know if it will be available indefinitely at this web address, so you may want to download it soon if you are interested, even if you intend to read it later.

Bishops' Synod 2024

The second session of the Vatican Bishops’ Synod on Synodality 2021-2024 will be held Oct. 2 to Oct. 27, 2024. More information can be found at the Synod website HERE.

Outline Writing

I have been thinking once again about “retiring” from writing, but have had things I’ve still wanted to say. For quite a while I’ve felt I haven’t been able to express myself, and I was ready to quit without a feeling of closure, though I would leave the blog available for as long as possible even if I stopped posting. Then it occurred to me to try writing with an outline, which I had never done. I am glad I have made the effort to do so, because I’ve found it helpful in organizing my ideas. I’m not sure this work will be enough to keep me posting in the blog, but it has still been worthwhile for me.

As I developed the outline, I realized my concerns are directed to different “audiences,” or groups of people with various interests and beliefs, although there is overlap. Some of these groups are: non-believers of any God or religion; those who consider themselves spiritual but not Church members; and Catholics and other Christians who are universalists (basically believing everyone will be saved). There are individuals within all of these three groups that in diverse respects deny that belief in Jesus Christ and Him alone as our Savior and God, along with the Father and Holy Spirit, is necessary for a blessed everlasting life.

I also think about other issues within the Church, for example: strained relationships between and among Catholic Church leadership and laity; the negative effect some prominent theologians have had on the Church; and Pope Francis’s call to synodality with the Bishops’ Synod on Synodality 2021-2024.

I’m not on any social media other than Google blog and don’t interact with other forums right now, so I may be optimistic about reaching any audience at all. But with new AI search engines, you never know what will happen. I started this blog with pretty regular posts, but in coping with various life challenges, my input declined. I shouldn’t compare myself to others, but I felt a little self-conscious about not posting until I read several blogs with inconsistent output. We are all vulnerable to difficult circumstances.

Probably more has been written about Jesus Christ than any other person, and concepts of God more than any other topic. And yet there is more to say. God is new every morning. He is a marvel beyond our full understanding, yet He lets us discover more about His Creation each day. Because God is not completely knowable to humans, we have different ideas about Him, but that doesn’t mean they are all correct or even acceptable. And though most Christians have many of the same basic beliefs, I think our disagreements show we need to work together to better understand and be pleasing to the Lord.

There is purpose in writing about the Trinity: Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit. There are many people still to be reached and much to learn for us all. As long as authors proclaim the True Lord, I applaud their efforts, whether I continue writing or eventually feel called to a different task.

Synod Second Session

The dates for the second session of the Vatican Bishops’ Synod on Synodality are Oct. 2 to Oct. 27, 2024. I had previously given the Vatican News site (HERE) as more informative of the Synod than the actual Synod website. However, there are now new documents posted at the Synod website which are pertinent to the second session. I have the Synod home page link HERE, and the documents are under the link “Towards the 2024 Assembly.”

After this, I do not plan to be posting as many links to news and publications leading to this Synod as last year, assuming that those who are interested have caught on to finding information.

Sixteen Candles

On March 8, 2024, I celebrate anniversary number 16 of my womanatwell blog. In my youth I had vague ideas of wanting to be a writer, but couldn’t put together what to write about, unlike so many writers who started making up stories at a young age. On the other hand, a load of life experiences can be helpful to feed the writing fires, and I have had plenty of those.

My parents stressed education and I had always liked animals, especially horses, so I thought I might like to be a veterinarian. Nothing stopped my progress and I indeed graduated in that field and practiced for several years. But in the meantime, I had experienced several very difficult personal situations and spent quite a few years searching for some kind of grounding. I thank the Lord that I eventually came back to my Christian religion. This experience made me aware of how likely it is that others may be in the same condition I had been, and it led me to learn more about theology, the study of God and religion, and evangelization, which is proclaiming the Truth.

As I try to explain aspects of my life, God is at the top of importance, and of course human relationships are a major part. But for interests, theology and evangelization are main categories, you could say. One result of my early theological study was writing the booklet called Heaven’s Passport. It’s small enough to produce on my own printer and I have distributed it in various places. Once I started my blog, I added the booklet digitally, offering it for free. Though the term “theology” sounds heavily academic, my booklet describes various facets of Christianity in what I think to be an understandable way.

Womanatwell has not had a lot of traffic like some, and I don’t have any other media sites. When I’ve commented on a few other websites, I have noticed an increase in visits here. I’ve mostly been happy doing the blog and am glad for an outlet for my writing.

When I started the blog, my overall desire to evangelize could probably be further categorized to three of my general interests: women’s issues; Latin America; and Creationism (which started in the form of Intelligent Design Theory).

I still am interested in women’s place in the Catholic Church, which is probably why I have posted so many links to the current project of Pope Francis, the Bishop’s Synod on Synodality. During this process, women have had a chance to express what they think and feel in a much freer atmosphere than previously. As I expected, many say that Catholic women need a much larger role in decision making and influence. I could write much more about this subject, but have found it is even more of a hot-button issue for me than the other ones and I know there are many very capable women out there working to improve this situation. I have made some comments along the way but have mostly felt it better to let cooler heads prevail.

My concern for problems in Latin America was expressed in a creative way in one of my fictional books, Unto Others. I care about people there, many of whom have such a hard life, and in real life I sponsored children from Colombia and El Salvador for some time through Christian agencies. I was able to make a few trips to Mexico and one to El Salvador, and I’m grateful I had these opportunities.

However, a person can only do so much, and I feel I was pulled toward the evolution controversy in order to use my gifts, at least for a time, to the best effect. As years passed, I shifted attention from the first two subjects much more into the scientific improbability of evolution. I figured my academic degrees in animal science and veterinary medicine would come in useful for this subject, and they certainly did. I even gave a few presentations to groups, although not everyone I approached would have me. The science can be difficult, but as in Heaven’s Passport, I have tried to explain the topics as simply as possible. I wrote two non-fiction booklets about Creation Biology and a fictional book, Biotech Swirl, to provide relevant information and perspective. They are all included on my blog.

But that time to study and promote Creationism came to a close and I wanted to focus more specifically again on theology, which includes studying philosophy as well. I have a certificate in theology (one year of college), but know that there is so much more to learn. I have worked on theology itself for the past few years, reading St. Thomas Aquinas and other authors, and have learned a great deal on my own. However, once again I’m feeling some kind of shift coming which may draw my attention elsewhere.

In the Book of James in the Bible, it warns against announcing what we will do today or tomorrow since we have no idea what will happen in the future. Instead we should say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15, NIV). In other words, we should always keep our eyes on the Lord, since situations can change in surprising ways. I’ve had a tendency to project whether I’m going to write more or not on the blog, but at this point I need to say, “I want to do what the Lord wills for me.”

The first book I wrote, Mission Faithful, was printed before I started the blog. I suspected it would not be accepted by a publishing house, so I self-published it. The story is about a secret group of Christians who pray together about various situations, seeking God’s direction for their actions.

In a way I feel like I’ve come full circle, because this first book still sticks with me. Though I’m not a member of a secret prayer group, or any prayer group, at this moment, I pray to discern God’s will for my path from here.

Catholic Women's Webinar

The World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations (WUCWO) is starting a webinar series about Synodality in the Catholic Church called “School for Synodality,” February 27-29, 2024. The First Session of the Synodal Assembly 2021-2024 resulted in a synthesis document to which I previously linked (a direct link to the document is HERE). The WUCWO school will focus especially on Section 9 of the document, which concerns the role of Catholic women in the Church. The link to the website for registration is HERE.  

I’m sorry this post is so late but I only noticed this announcement today, Feb. 27, 2024, on the Vatican News site (and as far as I know today is when it first showed up). The first two days of the webinar are in Spanish and French respectively. The February 29 presentation is in English. I hope you can still register and watch if you are interested.