41: Your Blueprint To Really Grow In Your Faith This Year

Um, I need a fresh start. And so I love the beginning of January. It's also my birthday on, uh, Uh, January 5th. And so that's coming up. So the first week of the year is always just like really fun and refreshing. Um, and I am just very excited about it. I hope you guys are too.

And if your goal this year is to grow in your faith, build a stronger relationship with Jesus and just live a really bold Catholic life, if you have been waiting to do that, let this be your opportunity, your fresh start. Let this be your year that you actually take your faith into your hands and live it out on afraid and boldly and let Jesus be the root and the center of your life. Trust me, if you do that, you're going to see an. Outpouring of graces like never before.

And I am excited to walk with you and to be by your side as you walk through the journey. So I am pumped about this episode because it is such a Mari episode. It is going to be like, to the point, practical ways to actually make this the year that you grow in your faith. I'm going to give you like a step by step blueprint to really focus on your faith, make it a priority.

And I'm going to give you different resources that you can tap into to help you depending on what your goal is in your faith, and the whole theme of it is really about investment. I want this to be the year that you really invest in your faith. It's not just about time spent. And it's about time, energy. Attention, devotion, love invested in what's going to give you the biggest return of your life. And I want you to think about what do you normally invest in? What are you currently investing in?

What did you invest in over the past years? Because I feel like when we hear that word investment, we often think we often think of money, right? Like we often think of how are we investing money wisely so that we get a greater return, we can also invest with our time and attention. And the things that we pour into shape who we are and what we value.

And so the question I always ask is if somebody were to look at your calendar or your planner or your to do list, would they be able to know that God is the priority and the center of your life? Because whatever we write down in those Organizational systems, right, is what we deem to be the most important things in our life that we cannot miss. So if somebody were to look at those in your life, would they be able to tell that God is a priority and center of your life?

If the answer is no, then things need to change. And that's where I come in and I am going to walk with you to make sure that this year is going to be fruitful and faithful for you. So the question is, are you investing in things that will deepen your relationship with God and lead you closer to him and actually making those things happen? a priority, not just something that you can get around to once you're done with what's already on your plate.

Cause I think that's what often happens with our faith. It gets pushed to the back burner. And so this year I want to encourage you to make it different. I want to walk with you in making intentional investments in your faith that will bear eternal fruit because investing is all about getting a return, right? And when you invest in your faith, when you invest in prayer, when you invest in God's promises, he has made you, your return is eternal.

Your return is heaven, eternal life in communion with God. And nothing is more important to invest in this year than your relationship with God. with Jesus, not a new health diet, not a workout plan, not financial goals. All of these are great and are good. Don't get me wrong, but none should take priority over investing in your relationship with Jesus. And I'm just going to be honest with you here. I want to have an honest moment. I have struggled a lot in my faith in the past six months.

So I am 100%. on this journey with you. I am ready to reignite my prayer life and strengthen my faith and draw closer in my relationship with Jesus. So I'm speaking to myself just as much as I'm speaking to you here.

And the reality is that faith is not a. Continual uptick up the mountain, there are hills and there are valleys, there are slumps, and I had just went through one and maybe you're at your peak, maybe you just went through a slump as well, maybe you just feel like you've been in this eternal valley, you know, just like kind of plateaued, kind of just nothingness for a while, um, and so it's, I just want to tell you that it's like, it's normal and it's understandable to be in different places.

Um, and what this is going to look like for each person is gonna vary depending on where you're at in your faith life, but wherever you're at in your faith life, it's okay. And I just like really want to reiterate that I am with you on the journey. Um, I know it can be really easy to look at people that we really look up to in different things. And I know for me, I talk about the faith a lot.

I talk about the faith with, um, a lot of knowledge and authority and experience that I've brought in over the years.

And I know that sometimes, People and they've said it to me before like people will look at my account or hear my podcast or just like kind of Get to know me and be Intimidated by my quote unquote like level of faith that i'm at but I just want to dispel that lie that like i'm like not ahead of anybody else and I struggle as well in the past six months have really, um really been difficult for me in my faith for just various different reasons and i've just been on a journey of just like battling

and like just You trying to fight to keep, um, to keep my trust in the Lord and to keep my prayer life up in the midst of just hardship when it is hard to pray. Um, and so I am so ready to reignite my prayer life. I hope you hear it in my voice and I'm here to encourage you as well. So, like I said, it's going to look different for each person, um, depending on where you're at. Um, but I'm going to walk through different scenarios.

And so throughout this episode, you just need to worry about like reflecting on your life and kind of picking out the pieces you feel like really aligned with where you're at. Not everything is going to apply to you. And I don't recommend you to try and apply everything to you, especially not right away. So, for example.

If you are just now rediscovering your faith or discovering it for the first time, or you feel like you're new in this journey, what you'll want to focus on is going to be different than someone who has really been devout and committed to their faith for years, and maybe already has certain prayer habits and spiritual practices built up in their daily routines. However, only you can decide what you truly need and what God is asking of you right now in this season of your faith life.

And if you are newer to the faith and you hear something that might seem like kind of out there, but you feel like the Lord is like challenging you to go for it, like go for it. Like I'm not going to stop you and I'm not going to tell anybody what they should or shouldn't do in their faith. That's for you and the Lord to discern. So let's spend some time reflecting.

First, I want you to take time to pray and reflect on what your faith life looks like right now, what it's looked like the past six months, the past year. Um, and specifically, I want you to focus on what your relationship with Jesus looks like. I think a lot of the times when we get asked the question of how is your faith, we kind of just jumped to the check box. Um, method of like, Oh yeah, have I gone to church lately? Do I pray?

Like you just kind of think of like, what are the things that I actively do to participate in my faith? And we think a lot less about our relationship with Jesus. But what's actually most important is our relationship with Jesus, because from that relationship is going to flow a natural desire and pull to practice our faith in different ways.

And in the end, I mean, you should obviously be going to mass, but in the end, going to mass every Sunday and not having a relationship with Jesus is not really actually going to advance your faith. It's not actually going to push you to know Jesus more. Um, so I really want you to focus on what is your relationship with Jesus? Jesus look like? Answer that question. How do you feel about him? Who is he to you right now? And what role does he play in your life right now?

If you're driving or doing something in your house, just reflect on this. But if you have a second to like grab a journal and write down and just kind of reflect together right now, highly encourage you to do that. Um, And think about also what spiritual practices or prayer routines you already have in place, or that you maybe you've had in place in the past year, but maybe lost those. Um, basically like, where is your relationship with Jesus?

What practices you already have in your spiritual life? And what have you seen the most fruit from in your faith life in the past? Now you might need to pause the episode at this point to like fully reflect on that, um, but I'm not just gonna leave like 10 minutes of silence. So we're gonna keep going. Um, so now I want you to close your eyes and imagine what you hope your relationship with Jesus looks like now. This year. Now we're going to look into the future, right?

We're going to look into the coming year and what you hope and desire your faith to look like. What does it feel like? What does it look like? What is your relationship with Jesus? Like, how does it differ from what it's like right now? What are you allowing him to be a part of? What is he wanting to heal in your life this year? And where is he leading you to?

These are all really good things to reflect on for the future and they're going to kind of drive how we approach our faith this year and our faith journey. to pause right now as well if you want to spend time reflecting on these specific questions. All right, so with a plan has to come practical steps to achieve that plan. Number one thing I want you to focus on is building a daily prayer life. If we don't spend time with somebody, we will never get to know them. And the same goes for Jesus.

He's not this imaginary friend or this elusive figure. He is a real person and you can have a relationship with him and that just takes investment. It takes time invested every day and it happens through prayer. Prayer is this vessel that we are given to be in relationship with Jesus, to share life with Jesus. So what your prayer routine looks like is up to you, but I highly recommend that you do this. And I urge you to include at least 15 minutes of mental prayer into your prayer routine.

What I always recommend is that you work towards 30 minutes of prayer a day. If you can work up to 45, 60 minutes, 60 minutes is my personal goal a day, but we want to start small. If this is something we've never done, which is why I say at least 15 minutes of mental prayer. And if you want to do anything else and maybe add in scripture or a rosary or a devotional, add that on top of the 15 minutes, right? And that'll usually get you to the 30 minutes. So what is mental prayer?

Mental prayer is often called contemplative prayer, and it's a form of interior silent prayer where we engage our hearts and our minds deeply with God. It's less about speaking and saying certain words, you know, and it's more about listening, reflecting, and just like being in his presence. And in mental prayer, we're moving beyond reciting words, um, and we're moving towards meditating on God's truth, his love.

Maybe a specific scripture passage, maybe it's meditating on his face on the Eucharist. It's more like having a heart to heart conversation with a close friend where you share your thoughts, you listen to his voice, and then you grow in intimacy with him. Because in this silence, in this sharing of hearts, you're gonna grow in intimacy. And St. Teresa of Avila, she was a prayer warrior of a saint and she described mental prayer so beautifully.

She said, mental prayer is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends. It means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us. So this prayer, this mental prayer leads us to contemplation where we rest quietly in God's presence, just allowing him to transform us from within, from the inside out. And truly it's a practice of stillness and I'll say it takes practice to get used to it because we're not often used to stillness in silence.

Um, and I think in prayer we try to often like feel this. base with words or things to do. So this is a practice of stillness of trust and surrender that will really deepen your relationship with God and help you align your will to his, because when you're spending more time in prayer, just uniting your heart to his, your will is going to naturally align to his will. Next is frequent the sacraments. Notice how these things aren't new.

If you've been listening to the ever be podcast in the past or followed any of my content ever, these are two basic things that I've continually talked about, but they're not going to change because they're the most important. So frequent the sacraments, this is mass Eucharistic adoration confession. These are avenues of supernatural grace. What is supernatural grace? Supernatural grace is a theological term that refers to the free and unmerited gift of God's divine life and love.

And it's just like gift. It's just like grace, I don't know another word to describe it, but like grace, it elevates and it just transforms our humanness and enable us and enables us to do what God's calling us to do, to share in his divine nature, um, and to sanctify us. So there's like a difference between natural and supernatural, right?

As human beings, we have natural abilities, like intellect and free will, that will allow us to live, think, and make moral choices with our, you know, with our intellect and our free will, and these are part of our created nature. Now, supernatural grace goes beyond what our natural human capacities allow. It's a gift from God that allows us to do things that we could never achieve on our own, such as living a holy life. Being a saint is hard, and we literally can't do that alone.

And we need grace to live a holy life, to become saints, to overcome sin and to share in God's divine life. Grace is basically allowing us to share in God's divine life. It does not make us God, but it makes us like God. And the sacraments are avenues to receive grace. Grace, so sanctifying grace, for example, is this grace that dwells within our souls that makes us holy and pleasing to God. And we receive this through the sacraments, especially.

When we receive the Lord in Eucharist, and it remains in us as long as we are not in a state of mortal sin. Which leads us back to the sacraments, right? We receive this grace in the mass, in the Eucharist. Um, at the beginning in our baptism, we are flooded with grace. Um, but naturally we are human and so we do sin. And so we need to go back to the sacrament of confession to give us sanctifying grace, to cleanse us of our sins.

Another type of grace is actual grace and these are temporary interventions by God that help us act according to how he wills us to in specific situations like resisting temptation or doing good or overcoming a fear. An example that I give is last year I gave a Sikh talk at a breakout session and it was my first time speaking at Sikh in 2024, um, and it was the craziest.

Time of my life leading up to that, the last three months of the year, right before January are the most busy times of the year for a small business owner. And on top of that, we traveled for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. And my best friend got married the day before Sikh started. And so I was freaking out about this talk that I had to do. Honestly, um, and I did not think it was going to go well. I literally was like, I have no time to prepare.

I had to rely so much on the Holy spirit and I continually asked for God's grace. I was like, Lord, I literally don't have the human capacity to do everything I'm being called to do right now as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, to be present in all of these roles in my life. And I prayed so much that the Lord would fill me with grace that I would get on there and I would like, just be able to perform well. And I promise you, it was absolutely grace. It was one of the.

Peak moments of my life. That talk went incredibly well. And I remember getting off the stage and feeling like I was called to do that. Like I was meant to be there. Everything flowed smoothly. I literally had pretty much the whole talk memorized. I had no nervousness or stage fright or anything at all when I was on the stage and the room was flooded at 7am in the morning. Like Over 700 people were, were there at 7 a. m. The room had to be cut off because they couldn't fit any more people.

And this is just an example of like grace, right? Like I didn't feel like I had the human capacity to do what God was calling me to do. And I had to rely on God to give me the gift of grace to be able to do what he was calling me to do. And the beautiful thing about grace is that it is a free gift. Grace is completely unearned and unmerited. It is a gift of God's infinite love for us and generosity. It's not something that we earn through good deeds.

It's not just something that because we go to mass, because we check the box, then he gives us grace. It's not conditional based off of our performance. It's a gift that he gives us in our life, but especially through the sacraments, there is just an. overflow of grace because Jesus's true presence is there in the sacraments. So these are your two strong foundations to build off of.

These are the two things to keep consistent throughout your journey, prayer and the sacraments, daily prayer and frequenting the sacraments, and the two things that are going to continue to pour into your soul when things get hard, because they will, when you lose momentum or zeal, because that just happens.

Don't be fooled that you're going to be on this high the entire year because like, this is your year to grow in your faith, no, we're going to have ups and downs of course, um, but prayer and the sacraments are like your bread and butter, no actually they're like your protein, like everything. is about protein these days, right? So protein is what builds our muscles. It's what gives us energy and it's nutritious and prayer and the sacraments is going to be like your protein.

You need it to be healthy and to be strong. Okay. Next I want you to pick a focus. Okay. Let's pick a focus for how we're going to grow in our faith. What might God be asking you to grow in this year specifically. You are the one picking here, but if you take it to prayer, God might give you a nudge. He might lead you towards something in particular, um, and kind of lead you to a certain place. So your focus, is it going to be growing in knowledge of teachings of the church?

Is it going to be growing in relationship with Mary? Is it going to be healing from emotional and spiritual wounds you might be carrying from your childhood or past relationships? Is it going to be growing in devotion to Jesus? In the Eucharist. These are just examples. You don't have to pick from these.

You can pick whatever it is you feel like your heart is pulling you towards, but these are just a few examples of things that you can pick from and picking a focus will help you stay intentional and grounded throughout the year. And it gives you a clear direction for your spiritual journey and your spiritual growth. And it helps you prioritize what matters most in your journey with God. And by having a focus, you can set meaningful goals.

You can choose resources that align with that specific area, and then you can measure how God is working in your life over time. Now, I just want to remind you, it's not about doing everything perfectly, but about taking intentional steps towards the growth God is calling you to. And I just want to like give a little caveat here because some people might push back and might disagree with me and say that faith isn't supposed to be structured or planned or scheduled.

And some people might not like this approach, but here's what I have to say to that, if we just practiced our faith or took time to pray, when we felt like it, we wouldn't do it very often. Unless you are already holy and a saint. Like sure it would be a more natural spur of the moment Heartfelt intention if you did that but what kind of fruit would that actually bear like I think about it like a marriage sometimes because In the end, that's what eternity with God truly is, right?

In heaven, we are married to God. He is our spouse. Um, and on earth, we are preparing for heaven. We are preparing for our heavenly spouse. So in a marriage, what if we said you should only serve your spouse? You should only be intentional with your spouse. You should only be loving with your spouse when you felt like it. Just when you felt like it because that's more authentic and because it came more naturally. Honestly, a marriage like that is not going to thrive.

Because the early stages of a relationship or the early stages of marriage is There's all these butterflies. There's this honeymoon phase. Um, and there's just this like natural desire to, um, be loving and to do things for your spouse and to greatly sacrifice. But as time goes on, the reality is that that wears off. And it doesn't mean that your love wears off, but it means you actually have to choose that person more than just when it feels like lovey dovey and wonderful and beautiful.

So compare that to someone who works hard every day to invest in their marriage, even when they don't feel like it, when it's the harder decision to choose your spouse, to get up off the couch and serve them, to make time with them a priority in your schedule, to date your spouse, to reflect on yourself and how you can grow to be a better wife or husband, to prioritize their needs over yours. That's true love.

And imagine the fruits of a marriage like that, continual investment, daily investment, even when it doesn't feel natural, even when it doesn't feel good. If we do that for our spouses, if we strive to do that for our marriages, why are we not doing it for the Lord? Why are we just saying that we can only go to the Lord when it feels nice? Like life is hard. It doesn't feel nice a lot of the time, and I'm just going to be honest about that.

And so I want us to apply the same concept to our faith, because like I said, it is a relationship with Jesus, and relationships take work and investment. So if you show up to your faith life, even when it doesn't feel like it's the thing that you want to do in that moment, that is love. And that goes a much longer way than just showing up when you feel like it. And I'll say another thing too.

If you're on this journey and you have like this plan of how you're going to approach growth in your faith and then the Lord gives you a completely different inspiration three months in, listen to the Lord. Don't listen to me, right?

Like in the end, God is guiding your journey and what I'm trying to do is help you build a foundation for you to be Open to the Lord working in your life because When we are not investing in our relationship with the Lord daily, it's not very likely We're going to hear him speak to us or feel when he is Trying to nudge us in a certain direction or lead us to something.

So I'm trying to help you Build your relationship and open your heart to the Lord and allow you to come to know what it's like to live a life rooted in Christ, centered in Christ, so that you are hand in hand, partnered with the Lord throughout your life. Now, if you are doing that, right, if you're doing all these things and you are feeling in tune with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit totally takes you in a different direction in March, do that. Like change your focus, right?

Change, change your prayer plan or whatever it is, you know? Cause in the end. You need to be following what the Lord is leading you to do. And I'm just helping you kind of get kickstarted. I'm hoping that this is like a, ramp to help you like kick off. So here we go. I'm just going to use the examples I gave earlier. Um, cause obviously I can't cater to every single person's, um, thought or focus and I can't even know what you're thinking.

So I'm just going to use the examples that I did earlier. That I spoke earlier, um, and kind of share some specific resources because first, right, we set our foundation with prayer and the sacraments. Next, we choose our focus and discern where God is leading us to and how he wants us to grow in our faith. And then third, we are going to make a plan and find resources to support us. Resources are so helpful. We can't just come up with everything on our own.

In the end, there are so many people who are much smarter than us, much holier than us, much more down the road in their faith life, more experienced that have so much wisdom to share with us, um, that we can tap into to help us grow in our faith. So for example, if your focus is growing in knowledge of the teachings of the church, I'm going to recommend that you study the catechism and you read books written by the doctors of the church.

The Catechism in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz is a great resource if you want it to be broken down for you and you just get to follow along with the daily plan that you have set. And it is also great for accountability because it gives you something to do every day. And then if you don't do it, You're behind, which is fine. You can always catch up. But, um, I did that one year and I mean, truth be told, I didn't get through the end of the year.

I think I did like three or four months, which I'm still really proud of, but it was super helpful. And it did really help me grow in knowledge of the catechism next. I'm going to recommend a few different books that are going to help you learn about Catholic teaching. Um, some are going to be on the doctors of the church. Some are actually not going to be, um, by the doctors of the church, but there are still so, so, so helpful.

So, um, starting with doctors of the church, doctors of the church are saints that are recognized for their significant contributions to theology and doctrine, and their writings are essential for deepening the understanding of the Catholic faith. Um, and they are. Truly amazing. I've read a few of them, especially early on in my faith journey.

And I remember just being so enlightened and realizing that there is Such a depth and richness to the catholic faith that I had no idea growing up regardless of if I like you went to sunday school or catholic school I don't think you learn these things. Like I didn't go to Catholic school, but like, I don't think people are learning these things in Catholic school. I certainly didn't learn them in Sunday school. And so I really, really encourage these books.

Um, number one is Confessions by St. Augustine. It's a spiritual autobiography that dives into the nature of sin, grace, and conversion. So it's very relatable to conversion and just our own humanity. Um, and it's very encouraging to know that he became a saint. Um, next is the Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas. This is a monumental work of theology that systematically explains Catholic doctrines. Um, I haven't read this one, but I have heard amazing things about it. So it is on my list.

Um, number three is the Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, it's a profound guide to the spiritual journey in deepening one's relationship with God. I believe I read this in college or parts of it. I mean, I think I read excerpts of it in college in a, um, theology class that I had once. And I just remember her writings being so profound and so beautiful. And definitely, like, I brought them into prayer with me. Four is a story of a soul by St. Therese of Lisieux.

This is a tender and inspiring reflection on St. Therese's life, um, and her little way of love and humility. And it just, again, opens up a new way of interacting with the Lord and of being able to go to him in littleness and humility and showing him how much you need him. And then number five, I'll recommend, uh, the spiritual exercises by St. Ignatius of Loyola. I haven't read this one, but I have read a lot on it in different excerpts.

Um, and it's basically a framework for prayer, meditation, and discernment of God's will and discernment of spirits. And, um, usually if you have done a silent retreat, or if you do a silent retreat, they're going to walk you through the spiritual exercises. Um, so this is definitely more meditative and more something that you take to prayer and sit with.

Okay. A few books that I recommend that are not necessarily written by doctors of the church but are very helpful is, um, introduction to the devout life by St. Francis de Sales. This is a practical guide to living a life of holiness for lay people. And then Rome Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberly Hahn. This is a compelling conversion story. Scott Hahn used to be, I believe, a Protestant pastor that was out to debunk Catholicism. Like that was his goal.

And in his search to find why Catholicism was the Antichrist, he actually, um, found that it was the one true church and converted. And so it's a amazing story that explains the Catholic doctrines through the lens of his personal discovery and coming to know the truth of the Catholic faith. It's a very short and easy read. And I've heard it's very engaging. And I've also, um, it's again, it's on my list. I have it in my bookshelf, but I haven't read it, but it is my goal to read it this year.

I've also heard that it is very disarming for, um, people who aren't Catholic to read. It's not like out to attack, um, Protestants or non denominational Christians at all. And so, um, if that's you or if there's someone you know who's exploring the Catholic faith and isn't Catholic, this might be a good book to recommend.

Okay. Next, if your goal is to grow in relationship with Mary, then the number one thing I'm going to recommend is for you to do a Marian consecration and start praying the rosary. So I guess those are, those are two things. Two things I'm recommending, but the rosary, I've talked about it so much. I'm probably going to sound like a broken record. It is so powerful. And yet so many people struggle to pray it and especially struggle to build a habit of praying it often.

Um, but the return that we get for such a simple prayer is so high. Um, the graces of it and the promises of the rosary are. immensely beautiful and powerful. Um, the 15 promises of the rosary is what spurred me to finally take action to pray the rosary every single day. I would pray it often here and there after I had a gorgeous rosary that drew me to prayer, but what actually made me make the step to pray it every day was hearing the 15 promises of the rosary. So Go look those up.

Um, because they are kind of insane. Like you read them and you're like, you're kidding me. If I pray the rosary devoutly and prayerfully every day, like Mary's promising these things to me, like we're talking really, really big promises. So aim to pray it daily. Um, and do a Marion consecration. So I have done the 33 days to mourning glory, and it has been a beautiful devotional.

I've done it multiple times, um, to teach you more about Mary's role in your life and her mission in your life and what the Lord has basically set her out to do for her children. Um, it. teaches you so much about Mary that you didn't know and it helps you really grow in love for her and appreciation for Everything she does as our heavenly mother.

So recommend you do that And then it for the rosary I think specifically if you're struggling to understand It's power or weight of this prayer or even if you're struggling to make it a habit. My recommendation here is going to be Ascension's Rosary in a Year podcast in prayer plan. It's hosted by Father Mark Mary. He's amazing and it literally. This is our first day of the prayer plan. Um, and it's going to start now. Like it started January 1st.

Um, so don't worry if you missed a couple days, um, you can start it on January 1st. You can start it on March 15th if you want. It doesn't matter if you missed the first day. But the prayer plan is set out to start on January 1st. Um, and it goes along with the episodes on the podcast Rosary in a Year, which are not going to be too long. I think it's like 15 max 20 minutes. So that it's going to be really digestible, really doable. And the plan is designed to start small and build up over time.

It's really just wanting to help people develop a meaningful and a consistent rosary practice. Um, and so they break it up into six different phases. That each focus on a different aspect of the rosary, which I think is going to be so helpful because it's actually going to form a lot of meaning and education behind the prayer. And the more meaning we have, the more devotion we're going to have, the more knowledge we have, we're going to be more committed and more devoted to something.

So. For example, like the 15 promises of the rosary, I educated myself on what those were and it increased my devotion a ton to the rosary. So I love that they're breaking it up into these six different phases. It's forming the relationship, biblical roots of the rosary, meditating on the mysteries, finding focus, building up the decades, and then praying together. So the link to the prayer plan is in the show notes, or you can also visit ascensionpress.

com slash Mari. R I Y to download the prayer plan and join the rosary in a year podcast community. Okay. Moving on to the next focus. If your focus is finding healing, this is a big one, but man, this is a fruitful one. Um, and I hope and pray that you have the courage to dive into whatever healing the Lord is calling you to. And so if this is your focus, my recommendation is going to be to attend a retreat and specifically a healing retreat.

And along with that, see if you can find a spiritual director because healing is a journey and it's hard. And you can easily get stuck if you're trying to do it all on your own. Um, and so having a spiritual director guide you through how God is working in your heart, how he is leading you through this healing, um, working through any lies, any fears that come up while you're. Trying to face, um, you know, wounds and everything is going to be really helpful.

So if you're looking for a spiritual director, the first place I would recommend is go to your parish priest and ask if he does spiritual direction or if he can recommend spiritual directors if you don't want to go to your parish priest. Um, there are also lay people, which means not religious, like not sisters or priests. Um, that do spiritual direction. Um, and I should have looked up a resource.

I don't have a resource for this off the top of my head, but I'm sure if you do some Googling or asking around in your parish, in your local Catholic community, there are people who are trained to be spiritual directors. Now these aren't therapists. It's different than therapy and therapy can also be really helpful in your healing journey depending on what wounds you're working through. So definitely seek that out if you need it. Um, but they are different than spiritual directors.

Now, for retreats, I really recommend that you find a retreat that is specifically focused on healing. And my recommendation are the JP2 Healing Institute retreats. They have three different retreats that are incredible, and I have done two of them, actually. There's a women's one that's called Undone, and they have a book on it. I think they actually might have a book to go along with all of them, but how I got plugged into the undone retreat is because I read the book undone.

Um, and the book along with the retreat walks you through the four identities of woman, which are daughter, sister, bride, and mother. And it wrecked me in the best way. And it brought a lot of healing into my life when I read the book and then even more healing when I went through the retreat. So Um, really encourage you to go on these retreats, but if you aren't able to try and find the book that is attached to it. So for the woman's one, it's called undone.

Um, and I believe the book is by Carrie shoots. Next there's a marriage healing retreat that's called unveiled. Still part of this JP two healing Institute and train. I did this one last year, last fall, and it was so good. So powerful. We went just like two, two and a half years married in. And we went in thinking like, Oh, we are so in love. Like we're newlyweds. We probably won't get too much out of this. You know, like we're going, cause it's like a good thing to do.

But like, we don't have a big, you know, big problems to work through and whatever. And. Yeah, we, we were so wrong, you guys. Like, it focused on core wounds in marriage that are most common for men and for women, and how each gender, like, plays into each other's wounds and fears. And when we went through it, we had a lot of realizations of like, Oh, wait, I kind of relate to that. Oh, I kind of see myself doing that.

Oh, that's why, you know, he shuts down when I say this, or, Oh, that's why she feels unloved when I do this, or I don't do this. And it was so, so helpful. Um, and it really walks you through how we can heal from those wounds. And. And build stronger marriages rooted in Christ. I don't know if they have a book, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did, because they have a book for the other two retreats. So I would look it up. The retreat's called Unveiled.

By the way, all of these retreats, they happen around the country. They like travel around. So you can look up the. The retreat schedule it's already out for 2025 And they fill up fast. They are so widely known and really in high demand.

Um, So if you see one that you want to go to do not wait just book it Okay, and then the last one is called healing the whole person Um, I haven't had the opportunity to do this one yet, but I really want to one day in the future and This one I think ties into the book be healed by bob shoots bob shoots is the founder I of the GP2 Healing Institute. He's actually coming on the podcast next month, um, to talk about wounds in marriage. So I am so pumped for that. Um, definitely tune into that.

But um, he's the founder of this healing Institute and he has written these books that have helped with healing. And so the healing retreat called healing the whole person is tied to the book be healed, which I have heard is amazing. I truthfully have been a little intimidated to read it because It just is really deep and I just haven't been ready to do that. Um, and so I really do want to do this retreat. Um, and maybe my, maybe my goal this year will be to read Be Healed.

Um, but this retreat is for both men and women and people of all vocations and all phases of life. And it's focused on healing personal, wounds. Um, I haven't done it, so I don't really have like a ton more detail to give, but this is what I've heard and I have heard incredible things about it. Um, and if you know, Sister Miriam, she is an amazing speaker and everything she says is just so profound and so beautiful. She makes me cry every single time I hear her talk.

Um, and she goes on these retreats. I don't know if she goes on all of them, but I know she goes on a few. Um, so it's really, truly an incredible team that puts these on, and I really hope to do one one year, but I really encourage you to, to look into these if your goal is to heal from certain wounds this year or to heal your relationship with the Lord. Okay, the last example I gave was growing in devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist.

So for this, my suggestion would be to visit the Adoration Chapel often and to go to Mass during the week as much as you can. To grow a devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist, you need to receive him and be in his Eucharistic presence often. I also recommend that you grow in knowledge of the Eucharist.

And so you can look up different Eucharistic miracles, um, which so many of them actually are backed by science and have been scientifically, like not been able to be explained and have been deemed a miracle. And they are absolutely amazing, um, and really help solidify that belief that Jesus's presence is truly in the Eucharist. I also would recommend that you do the new Eucharistic consecration that just came out.

It's called 33 days to Eucharistic glory, and it is a 33 day devotional that will help you fall in love with Jesus and the Eucharist and devote your life completely to him. Um, so just look it up online. 33 days to Eucharistic glory. I don't know if it's on Amazon yet. It's new. Um, but I would just look it up. It is amazing. I am hoping to do that this year as well. That was a lot that I just spat out a lot of resources for you guys. Um, I hope that those were helpful.

So the last piece of the puzzle is going to be committing to a plan and scheduling a and scheduling out intentional time to grow in your faith. So this brings me back to my first question of if somebody was able to look at your schedule, your planner, your to do list, would they be able to know that Jesus was the center of your life and the first priority in your life? Now that you have your focus, your goals, your resources that you're going to use to grow in your faith.

Now you need to actually schedule time to spend with the Lord and schedule time to grow in your faith. So I recommend. in your calendar or your planner, wherever you plan your days, your weeks, your to do's that you literally write in or in your Google calendar, literally schedule in your daily prayer time and your Sunday mass time. And any weekday masses that you want to go to and add on to your week for me, if it's not in my schedule, it's not likely it's going to happen.

And like I said before, the things that are on my calendar on my schedule are deemed the most important to me and are continually top of mind because I don't want to forget them. And I want to get around to doing them. Hopefully at the scheduled time that I have it at the same goes for prayer. Prayer should be the most important part of our life. Mass, the sacraments should be extremely important in our life. And so schedule them.

Do not be afraid to put them in your calendar, to put them in your daily schedule of the day, treat them as if they were a work meeting, a class at school, a practice, something that you can't skip because it's that important.

For me personally, I like to take my mornings for prayer because if I don't do it in the morning, it's not likely that I'm going to get around to it because I get distracted with things in my day and other things end up, you know, taking priority even though they shouldn't. Um, and so I like to prioritize prayer as the first thing in my day, um, give the Lord my first fruits of the day. day. And so I have it into my morning routine to spend some time in prayer.

now, if how you're growing is going to a retreat or reading books or any of the other resources I mentioned that are not like a daily prayer type thing, schedule those in as well. Like actually look up their retreats. Find the dates that are, that they're available and schedule them in your calendar, buy the flights, save up to go to that retreat. And if you're wanting to grow in knowledge and read different books, actually buy the books. I have all of these books linked in the show notes.

I have them on my Amazon storefront so that you can find them. easily and put them into your cart and then cut out time to read every day. My goal for 2025 is to have 30 minutes of reading at the end of the day and incorporate that into my evening routine right now. It's not, and it is a huge desire that I have to spend time actually reading, whether that's a spiritual book. or a fiction book or whatever.

Now we're getting off topic with my own, um, new year's goals, but this is all to say, schedule it, schedule it, schedule it. The Lord is a priority. Show that he is a priority and help yourself make him a priority. We're human. We're not perfect. We're weak. We need boundaries. We need motivation. We need structure, at least. I do. I don't know about you, but I do. So this is really helpful for me to schedule it and actually put it in my to do list.

Um, and make a tangible plan of how I'm going to grow and achieve different goals that I have. Wow, guys, I am so fired up right now. I know this doesn't cover everything, Everything or every focus that you could have, but it does cover a lot.

And I hope that it was helpful in getting your wheels turning and helping you reflect more intentionally on how you can approach your faith life and relationship with Jesus with intention and make a true investment into the biggest jackpot of your life, heaven, which is eternal life with God. This is the biggest return you're ever going to get and the most important investment you could make. Please feel free to reach out in my DMS and tell me more about your journey.

I want to know how it's going. Or feel free to ask me any questions. If you have specific questions that I didn't cover, if you have a focus, I didn't cover that you're wondering resources for, I do try my best to get to every DM and I love walking with you in your faith life. So feel free to send me a DM and I am happy to chat with you. Okay. And last, if you found this episode helpful, would you please drop a five star rating on Spotify or Apple podcasts or send it to a friend?

This helps us grow the kingdom. I want everybody to hear this episode, to be encouraged, and to be a part of it. Be inspired to really invest in their faith, because when you do that, your life will be transformed. Make this the year that your life is transformed, um, and make this the year that you do it along a Christ centered front. So send this podcast to a friend, be on the journey together, and help me spread the message of the gospel and grow the kingdom.

Um, you can also drop a review on Apple podcasts. Um, or in our ever be podcast, Instagram DMS, and I would just appreciate it so much. Um, if you are a returning listener, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you. And I just want to give you the biggest hug and thank you for supporting ever be and for listening in and for trusting me to walk with you on this journey. And if you're a new listener, hi, I'm Mari. I should have introduced myself.

In the beginning, um, but so happy to have you here and have you be part of the ever be community Can't wait to see you back here next week and to connect with y'all and my instagram and my dms and just hear how the Year is going for you This is your year you guys this is a year. You're going to be transformed In christ, I know it and I will be praying for you