What Saint or Saints do you admire the most? Feel free to share what you are comfortable sharing on this topic

For me, I admire the Archangels, St. Pope John Paul II, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Joan of Arc, St. Gianna Molla, Sts Louis and Zelle, St. George, St. Peter, St. Matthew, St. Padre Pio, St. John the Apostle and St. John the Baptist

Earlier today, I posted a music track on Your Favorite Music Tracks, which was an example of the use of Gregorian chant in popular music in the late 1960s, which was when the Church was throwing it out. The virtual elimination of Gregorian chant was in direct contradiction to the Vatican II document on the liturgy. Apparently, the world saw the value of chant even at a time when many in the Church saw it as outdated. Then I went to mass at a parish that is not my regular parish. The mass started out with a song (I am hesitant to call it a hymn), which is an obvious rip off of Dave Brubeck's "Take Five." The song borders on plagiarism, except that you cannot plagiarize a 5/4 time signature. I found the use of drums in the song not to be conducive to creating a proper environment for prayer. Fortunately, when the mass began, the priest used Gregorian chant for the Gloria and many of the responses. This was certainly a positive. However, it was too soon back to the mediocre music and the irritating drums. The use of the drums in the Communion hymn was especially irritating, since it made it hard to focus on prayer. Ironically, the best contemporary music in the mass today was a hymn written and originally sung by a Protestant, "He Is Exalted" by Twila Paris. There are parishes that do the mass reverently and maybe the solution is just to avoid this mass at this particular parish in the future. Do any of you struggle with mediocre music and inappropriate instrumentation at mass and, if so, what is your solution?

Hello friends
God has me in a bit of a transition. I have gone back to working with deaf children for the local school district and did so with high hopes of adding some "return to the ways of a child" joy back into my soul. 
I was initially thrilled with the staff that surrounds me.. they literally said "Please pick out a desk, we really want to have you!" when I first visited. Yet its been two weeks and I am struggling with just who people are these days. 

While I was eating lunch yesterday a coworker came to show me a photo of she and her partner. They were enjoying dinner on a charcuterie board however as she pointed out (and God forgive me) it was a "C--- cuterie board".. The board itself was carved in the shape of a mans privates. I am not the person to show that to. I am still disgusted. 
Earlier in the week the lead teacher showed me a series of photos from her daughters birthday party. The ENTIRE party was done in the poo emoji theme. Believe me when I tell you... from the cake to the plungers with the pinata.

I just cant. I want to just check out of this current culture! I hate being the uptight old lady! I dont want these friends and I find that I dont want ANY of these friends. When I volunteered the other night for Compassion International I didnt even talk to the women. I just went off on my own so I feel myself giving up on meeting decent people. 

Rant over. Thank God for our tiny group. I dont see any of you throwing poo themed parties. Please take me back to 1923. 

  charcuterie board 

no sure if other countries have a similar holiday to remember this or when......

we get an early thanksgiving then all that candy and chocolates
then the Christmas decorations begin.......

long list always


there are enough things that are tiresome so this is joyful


babysitting the best grandkids ever
participating with my choir
my family
my parents gorgeous condo that is almost mine
my health
plus a million more

Just about everyone here is or was registered on CM at one time or the other. My subscription ends the last day of this month and I've told them that I do not want to renew. Two reasons, there's so little activity in my age group, but most of all, the deletion of their forums. To be sure, this forum wouldn't exist if they hadn't shut theirs down.

Just out of curiosity, when your subscription expires there, what will or have you done? Three choices, (1) pay and renew, (2) don't pay and revert to "free" status, or (3) delete your profile entirely. The second choice is kind of awkward, you're there but you're not. Your profile is active and you'll get "views", "likes" and messages, but you can't respond with messages until after ten days and only if they sent you a message first. Your objectives may be much different than mine, but I'm tending towards the third choice since any kind of activity there at my age could only be an annoyance. Up to now, all the "likes" I get are from scammers, most are good-looking, 40-50 years younger and thousands of miles away. And when I do a search, I come up with the same small group of women over and over again. And even the scammers are ignoring me lately.

Anyway, that's my choice, how about yours?

Note: Only participating in this thread if you want to


As of this post, I finished Day 271 on both the Bible in the Year and the Catechism in the Year by Father Mike Schmitz

This Tuesday morning I interview for a new job. It is legal services again, about which I have mixed feelings. It is mostly depressing, frequently stupid and sometimes evil. I greatly miss criminal law, which was always depressing, frequently evil, and sometimes stupid. But it was a lot easier for me as I think like a criminal which helped enormously. Both are better than insurance defence which was the most soul sucking, dead head void I ever had to pass through.

If I get this job, it will be a distinct improvement. The three or more hour commute will be gone. No more dark to dark hours. I waste about 18 hours a week driving along dirty and dangerous I-10 and have watched two wrecks occur which were absolutely hair raising. I suspect one was a fatality or serious injury. I've lost any count of the wrecks I have driven past. It is a continuous speed trap. Speed doesn't cause the wrecks. Dumb, distracted and aggressive driving causes those. That isn't policed. Speeding is easier to monitor and the fines are brutal. Dead animals, shredded tires, shed rubbish and pieces of vehicles mark the way. The state every once in a while makes an effort to clear the debris, but not regularly or all that often. I drive 2,000 miles a month, and have for a year and a half.

Anyway, the new job will take about 40 hours a week including the short drive, and pays better, and will put me in court again.

But I am sick of law to be honest. Never liked it much, I just thought the results were necessary, with criminal at least.

What I want to do is sacred art, and to write. Today after sleeping in - my routine and necessary Saturday oasis, I was able to poke around again with gemstones, metal and paint. Presently I have only a few hours each weekend to do what I love, what I hunger for. Hopefully I will recover about ten more hours without the commute.

Hopefully some day I can shift out of law completely, and move entirely into art. That is about the only time I am content now. 

My marriage is mostly remote admin and documentation for now. A necessary thing to cut through a lot of red tape, but scant nurturing of wife and step children, although I do talk to her an hour or so per day, and sometimes the kids peek from behind her and smile, or assess. My art work and reading time is a few hours for two days a week, while about seventy hours a week is driving and explaining to distressed people that pay day loans are bad, not paying rents results in evictions, not paying notes results in foreclosures, not paying taxes results in seizure and tax sales. Of course, when there is no health, no job, and no money, it is hard to pay all these things. Oops. You stumbled? Here. Have a few fines and penalties to encourage more diligence next time.

Fascinating, fullfilling and creative stuff I can tell you.

Give me my family, beads, candles and colors. I understand the whole sweat of the brow thing, but didn't Mary chose the better thing than drudgery, and wasn't that given to her? Most of life is in the rear view mirror and there are so many prayers and sacramentals and paintings to be done.

But life is an aggregate of our choices. We are supposed to shape it, not let it shape us. We bury ourselves when we bury our talent. So the car is out of gas? Get out and push.    Beer emoji, because I can.

If for some reason you want to change your username just contact Joshua or myself and we'll be happy to do that for you. We have had a number of requests where folks had a coded name (such as "Sportsguy") and wanted their real name instead. Easy-peasy, just ask....

Note: Only participate in this thread if you want to  

This just pop up on Hallow by Venerable Fulton Sheen https://hallow.app.link/VaX9JhjsvMb

If the link does not work, here is Venerable Fulton Sheen's quote from the link above: 

"Patience is power, Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "timing." It waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way."

If you notice that directly under our banner at the top of the page is a strip that contains several links to move you around this forum. In case you haven't used them, the two that are really helpful depending on how often you come here are:

View Today's Posts: What that does is when you click on it, every thread with new posts in it from the past 24 hours will be listed for you. This is good to use if you come here at least once a day

View Unread Posts: If you don't come here every day or skip a day, click on this and it will list every thread that has posts in it that you haven't read.

You can just bookmark these link in your browser and skip the portal or main page, depending on how you get here. That's what I do.