Just for You…A Suscipio Magnet
Hello ladies and welcome to July!
I have a treat for those of you who guest post here at Suscipio, a place on the web for Catholic women to encourage, support and maintain each other.
Beginning this month, when you contribute a guest post, I will send you a refrigerator magnet that says, “I was featured on Suscipio.”
This is my our little way of saying thank you for your encouragement and support.
For those of you who have not written a guest post yet…come on! You know you want to…you know you want a cool magnet for your refrigerator. We would LOVE to hear from you; your story, your voice.
Look around the site and get a feel for who we are and the posts. We are looking for posts to be 300-600 words in length, faithful to all the teachings of the Church and encouraging. We realize life is tough and the day to day can be mundane, but God is there in the midst. Show God’s goodness in your day to day life as a Catholic woman.
Send you post to the email on the website either in the body or as an attachment. If you have pictures you can include those as well. Please add a short author blurb about yourself with a link to your blog if you have one.
I will give as much notice as possible, at least a couple of days as to when your post will run at Suscipio. On the day it is on Suscipio, post a sample of it on your blog and then have your readers follow you over to Suscipio to read the rest. Try to stick around Suscipio and replay to at least a few of the comments, this will help build community among posters and responders.
You all do not see the emails I have received from women thanking me for Suscipio. But it’s not me, it’s you all. It’s each guest post and each comment that keeps us {me included} coming back for more.
?
So tell me, is there something you would like to see or add to Suscipio?
Easter Greetings
Welcome back to Suscipio dear friends! We pray your Lent was fruitful.
Let’s celebrate Easter Monday shall we? In honor of and inspired by the birth of Jenny’s little boy, Michelle, from Just Like Chocolate, handmade a beautiful blue rosary bracelet to be given away.
We’re going to give you two entries…
1. Sign up to receive Suscipio updates in your email.
2. Click over to Michelle’s etsy shop, Just Like Chocolate. Come back over to Suscipio and tell us your favorite(s).
Tell us in your comment if you did both and you are automatically entered twice! That is two chances to win this beautiful blue rosary bracelet! Winner randomly selected Friday, April 13th.
Christ is Risen!
Truly He is Risen!
The randomly drawn winner of the rosary bracelet is Tiffany who blogs from Family at the Foot of the Cross!
See You Easter Monday
We’ll see you Easter Monday with a beautiful giveaway in honor of and inspired by the birth of Jenny’s new little boy…think blue.
Make it a Holy Week…
{Image from Fisheaters}
In Love with Him
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods down it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned.
–Song of Songs, 8:6-7
The Song of Songs is one of those neglected Biblical books. Short of weddings, how often do we ever hear anything from it? Before I really read the book for myself, I was most familiar with it through a glorious choral setting that I’d heard one of my college choirs perform during one of our fall concerts. Since I was in the Women’s Chorus, I got to hear the other choirs rehearse during our run-throughs, and the particular setting of this piece was transcendent. The words are high poetry, and evocative—set me as a seal upon your heart….love is strong as death…heady words, indeed.
But I didn’t really sit down to read this short Old Testament book until a few years ago, as I sat in a monastery parlor, waiting to speak to a cloistered Dominican nun. I was visiting the monastery over the long Labor Day weekend, to see if I had a contemplative vocation. Here, a few miles outside Newark, NJ, was a beautiful monastery tucked into a Leave It To Beaver-like town. As I arrived on that warm September Friday, I could happily have stayed there forever, in the small guest quarters, eating the simple, healthy meals and attending the hours of prayer and Mass in the church upstairs. The enveloping peace, silence, and deep sense of prayer were like sinking into a warm, deep pool. I was in love.
As I waited for the various sisters to come to the parlor to meet me—since they were cloistered, I couldn’t go in to them, nor have them come to me—I did a lot of reading, especially from this book. The book speaks of love between lovers—the bride for her bridegroom, and he for his bride. Right then, all I wanted was to be a bride of Christ.
I have always had deep stores of love to give, and I’ve always wanted a large family. With my medical history, though, that wasn’t going to happen, and even though I’d been engaged in college, the engagement had ended before my senior year. I’d dated a few guys seriously since then, but the thought that maybe I should see if I was meant to be a nun was growing in attraction in my mind. I didn’t want to be active, and most of the active orders wouldn’t take me, because of my medical history. But maybe the contemplatives would. The Dominicans seemed to have a life I could live, and wanted to live. So, this weekend—a “come and see”, to meet with the sisters and discuss myself, the life, and being the bride of God.
All through the liturgy, the talks, the meetings, the camaraderie with the young ladies in formation, I thought of these verses. I thought of being so in love with God that it would be like a brand on my skin, visible to everyone. I thought about the deep security and peace that must come from being a chosen spouse of God.
So when I returned home, I thought it had gone well, and the vocation mistress has agreed with me. I waited impatiently for her email, telling me of the council’s decision. It arrived a few days after I had returned home: the council, after consideration, did not think that my health would withstand the life in the monastery. I would not be going back to that place of peace and prayer, of solace.
The next day was the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. I went to Mass that day, somewhat robotically, because I was a bit annoyed at God. I have all this love to give, I said as I knelt in my home parish, and I never get to give it! Who will receive this love? What am I supposed to do with all this?
I asked that question all through Mass. Finally, the answer came, after communion: Use it. Give it to me.
It’s been almost two years since that visit, and it can be a daily struggle to give all the love I feel, and want to give, to Him. Sometimes I wish I had a man to pour it onto, children to wrap in it. I wish that I could have that outlet for the love I feel.
But I have noticed that there are ways I can give that love—in prayer, for those that I do love (my family and my friends). I send cards on birthdays, and when babies are born. I love to tickle and tease my younger cousins, who are still young enough to enjoy this sort of thing. I try to spend more time in the silence with God, with the One who loves me more than I can understand, trying to call back the silence of the monastery chapel before compline.
Last night, my mom sent me an email, telling me about one of my cousins, who had just celebrated a birthday. My grandmother told my mom that my youngest cousin, who’s four, was looking around the room during the party, asking for me. I had been at his birthday party in the fall. “Where’s Emily?” He kept asking.
Things like that are what make the tough days worth it. Even though he’s not my child, he knows how much I love him, in the way that little children comprehend love. He still thinks that being tickled to the point of turning red is the height of ecstasy. So by turning love outward—whether it’s by cards, or tickling marathons, or putting together Thomas the Tank Engine Lego sets—is how I set Jesus as my seal.
Love, no matter, what kind it is, endures, and is never wasted. The waste is in not loving at all. Just because I’m not an “official” spouse of Christ doesn’t mean that, in the silence of my heart, He isn’t the one I love, the one whose seal is branded upon me, strong as death, quenchless as fire.
See the pretty necklace featured in Emily’s post? That’s our February give away! (The necklace was made by Marcia at Taking Thyme.) Get ready because we are going to give you up to five entries!
1. follow Suscipio on Twitter (if you already do, that still counts, just let us know)
2. like Suscipio on Facebook (if you already do, that still counts, just let us know)
3. say a Hail Mary for the intentions of the wonderful women here at Suscipio
4. subscribe to Suscipio by email or reader (If you already do, that still counts, just let us know)
5. leave a comment on this post (and tell us how many of the 5 you did)
Doing one, will give you 1 entry, two will give you 2 entries, etc…
The winner will be announced in the post on Tuesday, the 21st of February.
Stop By and Thank Our Sponsors
Community Button
