Battenkill Catholic Lifelong Faith Formation

12/11/2024

"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy."
-Thomas Merton, who died on this day in 1968 (artwork by Be A Heart)

03/22/2023

Registration is now officially open for Camp Breakaway! The premier Catholic Youth Camp for the Capital Region. Click the link below to learn more about Camp Breakaway, including how to register: https://www.pyramidlife.org/breakaway2023/

08/13/2022

06/29/2022

The Vatican reveals the official Logo of the upcoming Jubilee Year due to be held in 2025 on the theme 'Pilgrims of Hope' and reflects on some of the ...

06/22/2022

Midday Meditation: A Prayer to Begin Summer
by Vinita Hampton Wright

For more light in the day, we thank you,
For gentle mornings, we thank you,
For nighttime conversations, we thank you,
For friends and family, we thank you,
For gardens and all manner of creatures, we thank you.
Help us, Creator and lover of our souls.
Help us love this earth.
Help us dwell wholeheartedly in our lives this day.
Help us pray as we walk, work, play, rest, and create.
Amen.

06/22/2022

For you on this summer solstice. (And a blessed winter solstice to friends in the Southern Hemisphere!) This is a blessing I've shared before, but on this day, in this time, it feels especially important to say it: how much your light matters, how beloved you are. I am so grateful.

BLESSED ARE YOU WHO BEAR THE LIGHT

Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.

Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons

Image: “Holding the Light“
© janrichardsonimages.com

06/21/2022

Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity by James Martin. Kindle Edition is now available for $1.99. This is a limited time offer.

06/21/2022

Follow Father James Martin on his journey to make the Catholic Church more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community despite loud opposition from both inside and outside the Church.

Building a Bridge premieres Sunday, June 26 at 10pm on SundanceTV.

06/02/2022

Midday Meditation: “Philip got out of God's way. He remembered that what makes the gospel offensive isn't who it keeps out, but who it lets in. Nothing could prevent the eu**ch from being baptized, for the mountains of obstruction had been plowed down, the rocky hills had been made smooth, and God had cleared a path. There was holy water everywhere.”
― Rachel Held Evans

How might you need to “get out of God’s way” in relation to someone else’s experience of these everyday baptisms, too? We may not necessarily be trying to keep anyone “out”, but we often find ourselves wanting to protect our loved ones from the pain, the tears, the small deaths, don’t we? But what if these are exactly the spaces God is inviting them into—to see and be-seen, to know their own lovedness even as something dies in them or their story in the process of awakening to new life and invitations into their next? What if there is "holy water everywhere" just waiting for them?