The hospice people came to pick up their equipment yesterday.  The hospital bed, side table, commode, wheelchair, and a few other things are now out of the house.  It was a hasty change when we came home from the hospital in December and the house was in an upheaval as we prepared for hospice.  The bed and dresser and other things were thrown int to the spare room.  Now, hospice is done and there is a hole in the house.  The empty bedroom is just a different reminder that Dave is gone. 

It surprised me that when I walked into the bedroom that I  broke down into tears.

A bedroom is an intimate place.  Not just for what you may think.  It has been for us a place of so many meaningful moments.  I thought about the times of laughter and tears in that room. 

Conversations that take place in the dark have a special closeness.  We would often watch movies or comedy shows when we went to bed early and it is the place where our kids would climb into bed with us when they were little and sit at the edge of the bed as they grew.  It is the place where they told us about their day or if Dave and I were in a fight or argument it is where we would talk through our difficulties.  

When Dave first got ill and his illness went on, his depression set in and he hardly left the bed. One evening I laid down in bed with him and tried to talk him through his deep depression and help him to see a light at the end of the tunnel.  We talked and I played some of his favorite praise and worship Matt Maher music.  He and I sang along.  It was a turning point and he moved from depression to fighting to regain his health. 

The room is empty now and the practical side of me is taking this opportunity to repaint the room.  My sisters are coming this week to help me put a fresh face on that room. In the meantime, I am still sleeping in the guest room. I may just stay there.  

We celebrated Dave yesterday too.  We ended the day with dinner at one of Dave's favorite restaurants in St. Paul.  Grand Catch and the seafood menu is a newer place we had found during the last couple of years and Courtney and Dave could plow through the crab legs by the bucketful.  

Yes, we mourn but we celebrate Dave too and are grateful for the memories.  

Last week I satarted a new blog.  I am calling it 60 X 60.  The premise is that I am plaining to loose 60 pounds before I am 60 years old.  I am not going to tell you what I weigh. (Mostly because I am too embarrassed to admit what I weigh) but I am going to use this space to log my journey.  

Something I realized as I started thinking about this was that it is about 60 weeks until I turn 60.   Cowinkidink huh!?

So this will not be just a weight loss blog but a life journey blog.  

I recently heard Rachel Hollis from “Girl Wash Your Face “ fame and she challenged anyone and everyone  - “If you have something to share with the world - you have an obligation to put it out there” and so I will.

I promise that I will be honest and put it all out there. My highs, my lows and everything in between.  Sometimes I may talk about my weight loss, but I also plan to talk about my life, family and work struggles.  This transition to 60 and the next chapter in my life has much more to do with walking that journey than loosing that weight.  

I believe that 60 is the new 40 and I want to prove it!

Want to come along?  

Follow my blog and share with me your thoughts.  

Look for the blog every week. I hope to post on Fridays.  My 60th birthday will be Friday January 1, 2021.  

For those of you who have done the math, it will acurally be over 60 weeks until I am 60 and that is because - I am sure I will miss a week or two and this gives me an excuse to not be perfect.  BECAUSE I AM NOT!

I started a blog a while back when I was laid off from my job at the Archdiocese.  It helped me with healing and moving on. My favorite post from that time was the very true look at my grocery cart of the junk food I was indulging in.  That blog was followed by quite a few people and I think it resonated with people because it was raw, honest and from the heart.  I hope this to have that same spirit.  

I will probably steal shamelessly from Rachel Hollis, Brene Brown and some of my favorite Catholic writers Colleen Connell Mitchel and Leticia Ochoa Adams.  Both of these women have such courage to share from the heart.  (chest bump, finger kiss and point to the sky) 

Since I will be sharing about my weight journey, I may refer to meal plans and initiatives that may help me to achieve my goal. I will not be selling anything but if I am doing something that works - I will share it. If I fail, it is probably more my fault than the product.  

Sign up to follow me!

So, take your time, look around, and learn all there is to know about me. 

Follow my new adventure here: https://sharonagneswilson.com/60-x-60

Today's First Reading

God created man in his image;
in the divine image he created him;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them, saying:
"Be fertile and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air,
and all the living things that move on the earth."
God also said:
"See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth
and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food;
and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air,
and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground,
I give all the green plants for food."
And so it happened.
God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.
Evening came, and morning followed–the sixth day.


I sometimes get real ticked off when people tell me the Church or Chrisianity is anti woman.  Some focus on the passages in the bible that look like they put women down. Other focus on the fact that women cannot be priests.  I try to remind them that God created Man AND WOMAN in HIS image.  We are meant to be together. It takes two to tango as they say.  

The oher thing about today's reading is that it puts the other things of the world into perspective. God gave us dominion over the "things' of the world.  Work is to be put into perspective. It is a gift from God and as such - it should neither rule us or demean us. 

Finding a work balance can be hard, but keeping it in perspective when things get complicated takes prayer.  
In my current job, I am blessed to be less than 10 feet away from the adoration chapel.  I have to admit that I have walked through that chapel sacristy to get to my office and promised myself that I would return to pray after I have settled in.  I get busy of course and soon the day is past and since I am "working" for the good of the Catholic Church raising money for the Catholic school, I excuse myself from praying.  

Not a good thing.  

If I kept the work relationship with God into perspective - I would realize that it is God first I should greet in the morning.  

Pause and reflect on this beautiful reading today.  
How do you see God's balance in your relationships, work and prayer life?  

Mary of Magdala

July 22 -Mary of Magdalene

Mary of Magdala is my patron saint and today is her feast day.  She is the saint name I took for my confirmation.  Through the years and through my reconversion to the faith, I have come to love Mary Magdalene and embrace her as my patron saint.  She is often associated with the woman caught in adultery, (John 8:1-11) but there is no biblical reference that the woman was Mary Magdalene.  She is mentioned as the women whom Jesus has cast out seven demons (Luke 8:2, Mark 16:9) and of course she was one of the women who stayed at the cross of Jesus even when others fled. Maybe the most important role she played as the apostle to the apostles is to be the first to witness Jesus after the resurrection!

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. John 20:1

When Mary of Magdala stood outside of the empty tomb, she thought that her savior’s body was stolen. Scripture tells us it was dark when she arrived at the tomb.  This detail, that it was still dark, has haunted me over the last year. 

My usual routine in the morning is to wake up early and grab my bible and a cup of coffee.  This is the only time of the day, when everyone is sleeping still, that I can find time to pray.  As soon as the house is awake, I can only hear the TV and the conversation in the house and even taking refuge in a bedroom – I find little enough peace to remain in prayer. 

Over the last 6 months or so my routine has been upset.  Job changes, adult children living at home and rotten weather that has kept me in doors has meant I need to find an alternate time to pray or I need to wake earlier to find the quiet I need. 

When I find that prayer time, that time with Jesus, I find that I am a softer person. By softer I mean I find it easier to love and to just be. I am calmer and dare I say it, I am probably easier to be loved!  Without that prayer time, I notice a hardness about me.  My friends and family probably notice it too. It usually around that time I feel a nudge to get back to confession and reestablish my morning prayer routine.  I need to enter into prayer while it is still dark, even if that means a 5:00 a.m. alarm.

Last summer I was blessed to meet my daughter as she was backpacking through Europe.  We met in France and toured Paris and the south of France.  Since the purpose of the trip was to be with my daughter, it was far from being a pilgrimage, but our travels did include some sacred sites.

While in Aix-en-Provence we visited the Saint Sauveur Cathedral which contains first-century church archeology and pillars of a Magdalene shrine. Streets of Aix once formed a Magdalene abbey. Archeological digs are still uncovering convents and churches dedicated to her. Tradition tells us that it is in France that Mary Magdalene fled to continue to evangelize. It is here that she taught about the transformative power of love and converted the Provence and the royal family to Christianity.

It is said that Mary Magdalene retired to the wooded cliffs near Saint Victoire Mountain where she lived out the rest of her life.  I didn’t get the chance to visit there but it is a popular pilgrimage site to this day.

I knew very little of her legacy in that area of the world until I had the chance to visit there. It seems Mary Magdalene is everywhere in the south of France. I This may sound strange, but I could feel a softness in the air while visiting there.  The same sort of softness I feel in myself when I spend time with Jesus in scripture or adoration.  Maybe the softness comes from the Lavender fields, but even the fragrance of the hills seems to point us to a greater love. 

Modern film, fiction and feminists would have Mary portrayed as a romantic love interest of Christ.  Not only is this portrayal inaccurate, it loses the point of the greater love that Mary of Magdala had for Jesus.  Mary’s love is of the “agape” kind.  The highest form of love, charity, and the love of God for man and of man for God. It embraces a universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. 

Part of my haunting over the last year has been a longing to return to the place of Mary Magdalene. I feel like there is something my patron saint wants to teach me. Most likely it is something about love. 

This seems to be the time for Mary Magdalene to become anew a role model for women in our church.  In 2016, Pope Francis elevated her feast day to a major feast day marking women as the first evangelizers. The decree that was issued by the Vatican, says that this woman, “recognized as one who loved Christ and who was very dear to him,” can be considered by the faithful as “a paradigm of the ministry of women in the Church.”

Mary Magdalene has also been at the center of the ministry of WINE: Women in the New Evangelization, which is also “a paradigm of the ministry of women in the Church!”

I hope to bring a pilgrimage to this part of France someday. To learn, to explore and to know more about this apostle to the apostle, but mostly to discover more about myself as I learn to love.  But for now, I need to learn from her example to enter the tomb in search of Christ – even when it is still dark.  I need to learn of the love that persists regardless of circumstance.

If you are interested in exploring the idea of a pilgrimage in the footsteps of Mary Magdalene in France, please contact me at Sharon@CatholicVineyard.com.  

Check out this video of me from last year’s WINE summer book club taken while I was in Aix-en-Provence

https://www.facebook.com/sharonagneswilson/videos/10213575510163643/?t=48

Prepare the Way

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,

to give his people knowledge of salvation

by the forgiveness of their sins.

Canticle of Zechariah

Today is the feast of St. John the Baptist. We are reminded of him every time we say morning prayer and pray the Canticle of Zechariah.

“You, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.” 

It seems sad that John, who is called for such great things has a life that is cut so short. He is known for eating honey and locusts.  We are first introduced to John when we hear the story of Mary and Elizabeth and this prophet is so key in the coming of Jesus he is destine even in the stars!

One fascinating fact about John the Baptist is his feast of his birthday.

 In the Churchs’ wisdom, the feast of the birth of St. John the Baptist falls near the summer solstice, that is when the tilt of the earth marks the longest day of the year.  In contrast, the birth of Christ falls near the winter solstice – marking the shortest day of the year. 

After the summer solstice the days get shorter.  The long sunny days start going away,

that is until the winter solstice.  After the shortest or darkest day of the year, finally our days start get longer again.

He must increase; I must decrease. John 3:30

It seems the heavens even knew of the place John had in the coming of Christ. 

I have been hanging out in church circles for some time now and learning about the faith. Others occasionally come to me and ask me questions about the church or their faith journey.  I love interacting with people and it is a privilege to chat about our faith and I feel especially privileged when people share with me about their own spirituality or prayer life. I often say people are more likely to share about their sex life than their prayer life. It is or can be such an intimate thing. 

Being asked my opinion or being sought after can boost my ego and I need to always remember – “It is not about me.”  Humility and remembering that my job in these situations is always to point to Jesus.  Like John the Baptist, I need to decrease so that He may increase.

I do have one caveat in this lesson of humility though.  Humility does not mean that we think less of ourselves. John the Baptist was sure of himself and in who he was and what his mission was. To prepare the way of the Lord.  No easy task. Humility is not that you think less of yourself – It means to think of yourself less.

To me – John the Baptist is a great example of humility and of doing God's work.  I will strive to point the way to Christ. (I just hope my head never is served on a silver platter!)

How are you called to prepare the way of the Lord? What are your gifts to bring?  How do you view humility? Do you think less of yourself or of yourself – less?