Faith is a little like salt. We often go through life avoiding it when in reality we need a little very day for our health. Salt is such a common thing. For Americans salt is cheap and easy to come by. You can find it in all sorts of forms from table salt to kosher salt or even fancy gourmet versions. You can even get in little packets at every fast food resturant and convenience store. It's easy to think that something this common is unimportant, but our bodies are made up of salt and with out some in our diet, our physical health would suffer. Sometimes we treat our faith like salt. We avoid it, or limit our intake. Sometimes we think it's only ok in a certain gourmet form. It's easy to to be fooled into thinking that our faith life does not impact all areas of our lives. We can probably think of lot's of situations where we don't think it applies at all. Maybe when you are at the Post Office or DMV, maybe when you go for drinks after work, in the polling booth, school program, dressing room...... Many of us think it's only for Sundays with maybe a occasional Wedneday night or meal time prayer thrown in. Well heres something to consider , When you make Chocolate Chip cookies, the recipe calls for a pinch of salt, some people leave it out, they swear it isn't needed, but if you leave the salt out they just aren't as good. The salt enhances the flavor. The same is true for life. Our faith can be a little bitter sometimes but if we sprinkle it about in our daily lives and don't just leave it for certain things everything will be enhanced

be Mary

This has been a year of Mary for me. At times I seemed to stumble over her almost daily. Don't get me wrong, I think of Mary, I say my Rosary, and I see her image as Our Lady of Guadalupe at mass every week, but this year I seemed to stumble over her too. Here's and example: On the trip to find my MOG dress We stopped at B&N to rest, I picked up a book with Mary on the cover, it looked pretty good, but I was not spending big money on books that day. I put it down and walked away. While standing by the check out waiting for my daughter to make her purchases, I looked down at the clearance books, you know the $2 book table. There it was. The same book, marked $2.00 not $25.00. Of course I bought it, and I loved it. Things like this have been happening for a year. Every time I turn around, God has put Mary in my path. I have had to rethink my image of her, I have felt comforted by her as I went through the changes that have been happening this year. I have re-introduced her to friends, who are not Catholic and through her, I have felt closer to her son, my Lord and Savior. All and all. it's been a very Mary year

Christmas day has come and gone and now we prepare for the new year. There are times when we get distracted by the focus on, how we will spend the eve. At these times we forget we are preparing for the coming year and all that it will hold. Perhaps, we should spend the eve contemplating how we spent the year we are leaving behind. 2006 was a big year in our household. I had an premonition of this as we gathered to decorate our tree in 2005. We celebrated a graduation, a confirmation, an engagment, a wedding, another engagment, a child moving overseas an empty nest (if you don't count pets they left behind) and the announcment that we will become Grandparents in 2007. I think you can say this adds up to a great year. We also had sickness, sorrow, andger and hurt, but I think in the end the joy has far outshone the tears. I hope that 2007 brings much joy and little sorrow to us all. I will mark the year with friends and family of all ages to toast to life and pray for the future. I will pray that I remeber to let joy win. My favorite quotes of the year was from St Augustine "God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering"