»The Catholic Review Online | Catholic newspaper, Archdiocese of Baltimore, world and national Archdiocese news, CNS

»The Catholic Review Online | Catholic newspaper, Archdiocese of Baltimore, world and national Archdiocese news, CNS

Baltimoreans will experience a special connection with Blessed Mother Teresa June 30-July 2 when relics of the “saint of Calcutta” will be made available for veneration as part of a tour of the U.S. and Canada marking the 100th anniversary of the missionary’s birth...(Click on link above)

Boston Women's Conference

You can see a short You Tube clip to the upcoming Boston Women's and Men Conferences here. I hope I might see you there!

My recent chat with Teresa Tomeo on Catholic Connection

In case you didn't get a chance to tune in to my recent segment with my dear friend, Teresa Tomeo on our "Mom's Corner" segment, you can listen right now. Just grab a drink, pull up a chair and click here! Teresa and I chat about my friendship with Blessed Mother Teresa and my new book about her.

Enjoy!

Donna-Marie

Blessed Teresa's feast day!

"The Church of God needs saints today. This imposes a great responsibility on us. We must become holy, not because we want to feel holy, but because Christ must be able to live his life fully in us"--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

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Here are two previous radio segments where I speak about Mother Teresa My book, Prayerfully Expecting and how I met Mother Teresa,

And Addressing the comments in the media about Mother Teresa's supposed "crisis of faith,"

Radiating Christ

Dear Jesus,
help me to spread Your fragrance
everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your Spirit and Life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being
so utterly that my life may only be
a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me and be so in me
that every soul I come in contact with
may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let then look up,
and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I will begin
to shine as You shine,
so as to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, o Jesus, will be all from You;
none of it will be mine.
It will be You, shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You
in the way You love best,
by shining on those around me.
Let me preach You without preaching,
not by words but by example,
by the catching force,
the sympathetic influence of what I do,
the evident fullness of the love
my heart bears for You. Amen.

Composed by John Henry Cardinal Newman
and one of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta's favorite prayers.
She TRULY LIVED this prayer!

The Miraculous Medal Novena

Today starts the Miraculous Medal Novena. I will be praying this powerful novena and invite you to join me to pray this prayer for the next nine days. St. Catherine of Laboure's feast day is November 28th.

In keeping with Blessed Mother Teresa's tradition of giving out Miraculous medals to all she met, I do the same at all of my talks and book signings. I wear the one that Mother Teresa gave me during my precarious pregnancy with my daughter, Mary-Catherine.

I have witnessed amazing works from the Blessed Mother through her Miraculous medal. Fr. John Hardon S.J. a now deceased renowned Catholic theologian and author and my former spiritual director spoke highly about the Miraculous Medal and told a story about how the Miraculous medal changed his life... (Please go to my "Embracing Motherhood" blog for the continuation)

Discussion about Mother Teresa with Teresa Tomeo on Ave Maria Radio this morning

In case you didn't get a chance to tune in to Teresa Tomeo's show, here is the link to our discussion about Mother Teresa in light of the fact that Mother Teresa is being criticized by the secular media which is saying that Mother Teresa lost her faith.

My interview with Nissa Gadbois of "Simple Gifts" about Mother Teresa

You should probably brew yourself a cup of tea or coffee and have a seat. This will be a lengthy interview with Nissa Gadbois of Simple Gifts who so graciously spoke with me today about our beloved Mother Teresa, the Mother of all the poor now known as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. It was a blessed time recounting memories of my relationship with Mother Teresa and sharing the blessings with Nissa to be shared with all of you. I hope you enjoy Nissa's podcast and I pray that it will bring you many blessings!

Let us also pray together that we can help to light the way for others. Mother Teresa's work of caring for the poorest of the poor can and should be continued through you and me. Let us strive to open our eyes and ears to the plight of the poor around us. Mother Teresa so often spoke about the poor in our affluent nation here in the United States who are not poor in riches perhaps, rather they are poor in love. Can we allow our Lord to love through us to them? I certainly hope so.

Please dear Blessed Teresa look down upon us and hear our prayers for ourselves, our families and the poor and please intercede for us before the Blessed Trinity. Amen.

To hear my conversation today with Nissa, click here.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta's tenth anniversary of death tomorrow

I'm sure you have all heard about Blessed Teresa's dark night of the soul that she suffered through while she ministered to God's poorest of the poor. Excerpts from Mother Teresa's private letters have been brought to light which reveal her interior struggles and sufferings. Of course, the secular media has misconstrued and distorted everything suggesting that Mother Teresa had lost her faith - how ludicrous! I will be speaking about that in posts and interviews in the upcoming days.

Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of Mother Teresa's death. It's hard for me to believe that it has been that long. I will be posting a link here at "Daily Donna-Marie" to an interview with Nissa Gadbois of Simple Gifts by tomorrow sometime. She will be interviewing me later on today about Mother Teresa whom I was privileged to know.

Also, I will be featured on the "Catholic Connection" show with Teresa Tomeo on Ave Maria Radio this Friday, September 7th at about 9:30 AM EASTERN time. Please tune in to that which you can do from your computer.

My book, Unlikely Saints about Mother Teresa will be out early in 2008 published by The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Additionally, I wrote a cover story for the September issue of Canticle magazine titled, Mother Teresa and Me: Remembering the Mother of All the Poor. My son, Joseph (as a baby) appears on the cover in Mother Teresa'a arms.

It begins...
Sheer sweetness filled my heart as I watched my little girl bend down on one knee to genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament while making the Sign of the Cross on herself. A Missionary of Charity nun caught sight of her too, and felt compelled to run up behind my child, lean over and wrap her arms around her in a warm embrace. How kindhearted, I thought.
It happened so quickly and then I felt like my heart stopped when I suddenly realized who that nun was. Touched to see a small child remember to reverently say "good bye" to Jesus before leaving the chapel, Mother Teresa had hugged my daughter, Chaldea! That blessed hug was the first gesture of love from Mother Teresa that would touch my family.
This beloved moment came after we attended a Mass at the Missionaries of Charity chapel in Washington, DC...

The Feast of The Immaculate Heart of Mary

"O name of Mary! Joy in the heart, honey in the mouth, melody to the ear of her devout clients!"--Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)

"Mary is our mother, the cause of our joy. Being a mother, I have never had difficulty in talking with Mary and feeling close to her."--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

"The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary. In a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the months that followed she began to sense his presence and to picture his features. When at last she gave birth to him in Bethlehem, her eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she 'wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger' (Lk2:7)."--Pope John Pail II, APOSTOLIC LETTER ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE


Father, you prepared the heart of the Virgin Mary to be a fitting home for Your Holy Spirit. By her prayers may we become a more worthy temple of Your glory.

Two days and counting...

I will be launching my newest book, Prayerfully Expecting: A Nine Month Novena for Mothers-To-Be this Saturday, May 26th at Borders (details at "Appearances")! I wrote this book while on complete bed rest during a high risk pregnancy with my fifth child, Mary-Catherine. Blessed Mother Teresa whom I knew at that time, gave me a foreword for the book. Pope John Paul II blessed it. It is a book to celebrate pregnancy as a wonderful time of anticipation as mothers await childbirth and it offers the expectant Mom the opportunity to transform her pregnancy into a novena of prayer to God. It's a "baby book" for the unborn baby! An expectant Mom will be able to follow her baby's progress and record her thoughts and prayers as well as save her ultrasound pictures to cherish in years to come.

Jesus in the poor

"We begin our day by trying to see Christ through the Eucharistic bread. Throughout the day we keep in touch with him under the appearances of the shattered bodies of our poor. In this way our work becomes a prayer, as we accomplish it with Jesus, for Jesus, and toward Jesus.
The poor are our prayer. They carry God in themselves. Prayer is in all things, in all gestures."--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Where are the poor around us? Do the "poor" live within our own homes, perhaps someone needing a little extra love? Are the "poor" in our communities? Are the "poor" our elderly relatives wishing a visit from us? Are the "poor" our unhappy co-workers in need of Christ's love through our time we can give them and our listening ears? Where are our poor? Are we seeking to console them this day? Let's remember that Blessed Teresa told us the there is "Calcutta all over the world for those who have eyes to see."

Did we forget to laugh?

Did you ever get so serious about life and living that you forget to laugh? I know it's Lent and we need to be serious and prayerful during this penetential time. However, our good Lord wants us to have deep joy of heart. He wants us to experience it fully in our lives. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta used to say, "Joy is a net to catch souls." So, just how many souls do you think we're going to "catch" with our seriousness or grumpiness? Even throughout our earthly trials we are called to joy. We can have joy when we pray to Jesus asking that He unite our small sufferings to His. We are called to share our joy with others in our smiles, in our extending our hand to someone, in our care to our family members, our associations in the workplace, in our help to the needy, the lonely, the poor, the forgotten. Love and joy can convert hearts! Is there someone we are forgetting to show love and joy to?