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Life's Joyful Mystery
A Catholic Retreat in Your Inbox
James Berigan
December 13, 2024
An email newsletter produced by Our Lady of the Fields Camp & Retreat Center in Brighton, Michigan.
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Welcome to the 1st Issue of “Life’s Joyful Mystery”
Greetings! My name is James Berigan. I work at Our Lady of the Fields Camp & Retreat Center in Brighton, Michigan.
We are a Catholic organization that hosts spiritual retreats for youth and adults on our 258 acres of rolling, wooded hills.
Here is a recent aerial photograph of our facility.
The goal of this weekly email newsletter is to be like a “Catholic Retreat in Your Inbox”.
With a joyful tone and spiritually uplifting content, “Life’s Joyful Mystery” will celebrate the great aspects of our faith.
We wish to create a community of readers - of ALL ages - who look forward to opening our newsletter each Friday morning. The content will be wide-reaching: anything that touches the lives of Catholics in positive ways will be covered.
FEATURE POST: Responding to the Call of Holiness
When I think about all of the things God wants for us and from us, one of the first thoughts that pops into my mind is that God calls each one of us to be holy.
Personally, I find this request/expectation to be quite daunting because when I think of holy people, some really important folks top my list – Mother Theresa, Pope John Paul II, and Blessed Solanus Casey, to name just a few. I certainly don’t belong anywhere in the same area code as these Saints.
However, I have to keep reminding myself that despite my very strong feelings of inadequacy, God has high hopes for me. (He does!)
With the right attitude, devotion, prayer, and support from our brothers and sisters in Christ, each one of us can please our Heavenly Father in the way that He desires.
Therefore, I did a little digging online and found some ideas that might be able to help us on this path to holiness. I’ve listed them below. I pray that some of these bullet points speak to you.
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If you’d like to keep reading this FREE article (They’re ALL free!) and discover all of the INSPIRED IDEAS contained therein, please follow the link below. 😉
Catholic Vocab Word of the Week - “Charism”
Thanks to Merriam-Webster for the definition!
In the Catholic Church, a “charism” is a special gift from the Holy Spirit that can be used to help spread the faith and benefit the Church.
There are many such gifts mentioned in the Bible that cover a broad range of charisms. For example, you can find them mentioned in the following books:
Acts 2
1 Corinthians 12
Romans 12
Ephesians 4
As I launch the very first issue of this email newsletter, I pray that I have the God-given talent (“charism”) to do a good job and not mess this up.
After having worked for several years in Catholic organizations, I've had to write many letters, articles, advertisements, emails, and so on. I haven’t been fired yet, so I must be doing ok at it so far.
It turns out that “writing” is a charism mentioned in scripture, and either I’ve been blessed with it or my co-workers just really hate writing!
So, anyway, this is why the word “charism” has been on my mind lately and why I chose it to be our inaugural “Catholic Word of the Week”.
Which charism or charisms (plural) do you have? Are you using them to grow the Church and bring glory to God? How so? I’d love to hear from you about it!
To see a list of the 25 charisms of the Holy Spirit: (in alphabetical order), click the link just below.
Why is St. Christopher the Patron Saint of Travelers?
Credit to The Educated Traveller for the information below!
Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers because of a legend about him carrying a child across a river.
Spoiler Alert: I didn't see “height” on the list of 25 charisms above, but it sure did come in handy for old St. Christopher in the story below!
The legend: Christopher was a Canaanite. He was very tall - more than seven feet in height (!) - and very strong. He worked for the King of Canaan and asked how he could best serve those around him. The King sent Christopher to consult a hermit, who suggested that Christopher should help local people to cross a large and treacherous river that flowed through the region - a river, which flooded frequently and was notoriously dangerous to cross. Christopher settled into his new job helping people across the river. One day, a young child approached him and asked to be carried across the river. Christopher agreed immediately. However as he waded across the river bed and the waters rose higher and higher around him, the child seemed to get heavier and heavier. It was a struggle for Christopher to get to the other side. When he finally made his way out of the water, exhausted and panting, he laid the child down on the river bank and said ‘I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders’. The child responded by saying that in fact he was the Son of God, and that Christopher had indeed carried mankind safely from one side of the river to the other.
Suggested Links You Might Enjoy:
Fruits from the Fields video podcast on YouTube, which is also produced by Our Lady of the Fields Camp & Retreat Center and features great Catholic content.
Song of Mary - a new music ministry that some folks at OLF have recently started.
If you like what you see at either one of these sites, I encourage you to please subscribe to their YouTube channels, so you can see all of the new videos!
To learn more about the mission and the needs of Our Lady of the Fields Camp & Retreat Center, please click the link below.
How to get in touch:
It is very important to me that we create a community around this newsletter. I want you to know that I am a real person sitting at this keyboard!
If you would like to reach out and communicate with me, please feel free to do so.
There will be plenty of times in the near future, where I will be asking you, the readers, to share your ideas, thoughts, questions, and concerns with me.
So, the best way to get in touch is by email. My address is:
See you next week!
If you enjoyed this first issue, please make sure to subscribe to “Life’s Joyful Mystery - A Catholic Retreat in Your Inbox” by clicking the button below.