Favorite Catholic Prayers

My Midwestern neighbor, Therese, has tagged me for this special Catholic edition meme.


Here are the rules:

"Name your three most favorite Catholic devotional prayers, and explain why they're your favorites. Then tag five bloggers - give them a link, and then go and tell them they have been tagged. Finally, tell the person who tagged you that you've completed the meme. The Liturgy and the Sacraments are off limits here. I'm more interested in people's favorite devotional prayers."


1. St. Michael Prayer
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do though O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell, satan and all the other evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

2. Act of Spiritual Communion
My Jesus, I believe that You are in the Blessed Sacrament. I love you above all things and I long for you in my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my soul. As though You have already come, I embrace you and unite myself entirely to you; never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.

3. Prayer to St. Anne
Good St. Anne, you were especially favored by God to be the mother of the most holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Savior. By your power with your most pure daughter and with her divine Son, kindly obtain for us the grace and the favor we now seek. Please secure for us also forgiveness of our past sins, the strength to perform faithfully our daily duties and the help we need to persevere in the love of Jesus and Mary. Amen.



The first two prayers are favs of mine since they are two that I have memorized and have become part of a series of prayers I pray when I wake up in the morning, before my feet even hit the floor. We also invoke St. Michael for all sorts of things and I pray it frequently throughout the day.

The prayer to St. Anne was added a year or two ago to my morning prayers when I try to read the daily readings and meditation for the day. I just kind of began to like the prayer and began praying it after I saw it posted on another mom's blog.



Let's see, I'm going to try and tag some ladies I haven't tagged before and are relatively new blogs to my list I read:

1. Mrs. Bubbles at Adventures in Mommyville

2. Mrs. B at Joy Beyond the Cross

3. Hope at Memoirs of a Hopeful Housewife

4. Kim at Falling on His Grace

5. Holly at Falling Upward

Wordless Wednesday: Papa Edition

With Expectant Joy

These were sent in the mail last week to our family and I couldn't wait to share it with you!

*SURPRISE* Bloggy Friends!

Vocations Camp Rewind

It's back to normal in our house today. And let me say, after a whirlwind couple of days, I'm glad it's Friday and looking forward to the weekend. Yes, the camp was wonderful and went really well, but it can be draining. And all we do is the cooking! Still, the camp has a way of blessing more than just the campers. After just two years of doing this, I must admit that we've really come to look forward to it as part of our summer.

The campers have gone back home, so I thought I'd share a brief glimpse of what Vocations Camp looks like around these parts.

Of course, there is Faith and Prayer

Plenty of time for Fun

And Food!!

(Cake was courtesy of a very talented lady from church. Quite Creative!!)

Obviously, a lot of time is spent contemplating this

By the end, we're all very tired

Some of us more than others

When all is said and done,

13 campers + 5 seminarians + 1 priest/Vocations Director =

A very successful Vocations Camp

Gone Camping

Well, actually I'm not Gone Camping or Gone Fishin'. We are however anticipating around 10 teenage boys, 4 seminarians and 1 priest to be going camping. We'll stay in our nice house with the A/C on and they can camp.

Starting tomorrow afternoon, we'll become cooks for this little camping trip just down the road from us until Thursday afternoon. It's time for Vocations Camp! Keep the campers in your prayers so they will all have a good time, be safe and be open to what Christ wants to speak to them during their time of camping/retreat.

I'll probably be back later this week, unless of course all of this cooking wipes me out. That's a lot of males to feed, but I've got plenty of help too!

Friday Garden Tour

Stopping back in with garden updates from my little corner of the world. Some of these photos are from late last week that I didn't get posted and some are from this week.
Lilies of all sorts are in bloom in my garden and a new one is bursting open almost every day lately. Unfortunately, many of them I do not know the names of or they were ordered as a random mix from the seed company so there's no telling what the color actually is. Enjoy the blooms, despite the fact that they aren't quite as gorgeous as all of these gardens were!

Petite Daylily

Petite Daylily

Peach Fairy Lily

Our vegetable garden is doing pretty well, despite a couple of tomato plants having a little bit of blight already. Otherwise, the green and yellow beans are just starting to be harvested this week and I've already picked several bucketfuls and froze them for winter.

How does your garden grow? How are things looking in your yard? Share photos and leave a comment so I can stop on by your garden.

Sunny Summer Days, Vol. III

There's nothing quite like summer in Minnesota. And there's nothing quite like the gardeners who make it their passion to cultivate their winter-hardy perennials. Being that my gardens have gradually grown over the years since hubby and I have been married, I can truly appreciate the endless labor of love another gardener puts forth. I also understand how those beautiful flowers help someone begin their green thumb and a hobby emerges.

My mom and I decided that a self-guided garden tour in a neighboring town would be worth a portion of our Saturday and would allow for a nice outing for us together.



So many of the gardens were in their prime and were flourishing with blooms. Gardens like these could almost make one envious, don't you think?



This raised vegetable garden has now made it to my 'dream garden' list and I think I will keep carefully prodding hubby about this one. Perhaps in a few years we could have a really neat gated, fenced in garden like this one.



This unique sitting area at a home in town especially caught my eye. I loved how they just raised it one step to take it off of ground level and it was just enough to create something different and serene. Of course, it also helped that this area looked out into another garden where there was a small fountain in the corner of their yard that gurgled softly. The only places I can picture this in our yard would be so infested with mosquitoes that we'd never get to sit there and enjoy it. Ah, a girl can dream.



This garden I appreciated because of the height of the flowers. Coneflowers and daylilies filled this garden and nestled there amidst them all was a simple birdbath/fountain. Very cute.



Remember that envy I mentioned earlier? Well, you can't help but have it when you go to strangers houses and you see so many neat ideas. So I took a few photos for the ideas and also to inspire my creative and handy husband for future projects. Yup, he really likes that. Well, he doesn't mind really. It's just that his list is so long of 'cute projects' that I have for him that he could spend until well beyond retirement age fulfilling them all.

The cascading and vining of this ivy over a homemade arbor was especially breathtaking. I can easily see several spaces in our yard that I would love to see this type of arbor.



I do think that this bench would make a very nice Christmas gift. Don't you?



At the end of the day, it was the perfect way to spend some mother-daughter time. We both really enjoyed ourselves. Thanks Mom!