St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church

09/06/2026

09/06/2026

Sunday Devotion: God, I’m Tired

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28

Have you ever been tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix?
I’m not talking about the kind of tired that comes after a long day of work, cleaning the house, chasing kids, tending the garden or running from one thing to the next. I’m talking about that deep-down tired. The kind you carry in your heart.

Sometimes we get tired from simply being strong.
Strong for our spouse. Strong for our children. Strong for our grandchildren. Strong for our parents. Strong for the people who depend on us. We answer, “I’m fine.” We keep going. We make the meals, show up where we’re needed, encourage everyone else and try to keep a smile on our face.

But God knows when we’re tired.

There are seasons when we become weary from praying the same prayer over and over. We’ve asked God to heal. We’ve asked Him to provide. We’ve asked Him to restore a relationship. We’ve asked Him to open a door. We’ve asked Him to help someone we love. And still…we wait.
Maybe you’ve even whispered, “Lord, I’m tired of this
I think sometimes we feel guilty admitting that to God. We think strong faith means we should always be positive, always hopeful and never weary.
But Jesus never said, “Come to Me when you have everything together.”
He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Come tired.
Come weary.
Come when you don’t understand.
Come when your faith feels strong, and come when all you can manage is a whisper.
Just come.

There is something so comforting about knowing we don’t have to explain our exhaustion to God. He already knows what we’ve been carrying. He knows about the things we talk about, and He knows about the things we haven’t told another soul.
He sees the strong ones, too.
Maybe today you are the person everybody else leans on. Maybe you’re the prayer warrior, the caregiver, the encourager, the fixer, the one who keeps everybody moving forward.
But even the strong need somewhere to rest.
And that somewhere is Jesus.
Resting in Him doesn’t necessarily mean our circumstances immediately change. The diagnosis may still be there tomorrow. The bills may still need to be paid. The relationship may still need healing. The answer we’ve been waiting for may not come today.
God’s rest is something deeper.
It’s knowing that while we may be tired, He is not.
While we may not know what tomorrow holds, He does.
While our strength has limits, His does not.

So maybe this Sunday you don’t need another reminder to “be strong.”
Maybe you need permission to be tired.
Sit with God for a while. Tell Him exactly how you feel. You don’t need fancy words. You don’t even need a long prayer.
“God, I’m tired. I need You.”
That’s enough.
And then rest there for a little while.
Because you don’t have to come to Jesus strong.
You just have to come.

Let’s pray.
Gracious God, You know when I’m tired and weary. You know the burdens I carry and the prayers I’m still waiting to see answered. Today I bring it all to You.
Give me strength for today, peace for my heart and the rest that only You can give. Help me remember that I don’t have to carry everything alone. Draw me close and help me trust You with what I cannot control.
In Jesus’ name, Amen. ❤️

The Farm Stand

09/06/2026

🕊️ Holy companion of my soul, pure intellect of heaven's court, I speak to you in the stillness of my heart. 🤍

✨ Before the stars took their places, you gazed upon the uncreated beauty of God. Yet in His astonishing generosity, He assigned your strength and wisdom to watch over my fragile life. You did not ask for a vast realm to govern. You chose to walk beside me through crowded rooms, quiet corridors, and completely ordinary days.

Thank you for the thousands of hidden rescues I was too blind to notice. Thank you for the subtle tugs of conscience that kept my feet from slipping, and for the unexpected courage that found me when sadness was knocking at the door. You never roll your eyes at my human frailty. You never grow weary of my slow progress. While human patience runs thin, your vigilance remains as steady as the morning sun.

Take the prayers I do not know how to speak. You see how easily my thoughts scatter like leaves in the wind. Untangle my messy petitions, take my wordless sighs, and carry them in your hands directly to the heart of Jesus. Present my ordinary routines, my hidden sacrifices, and my quiet hopes as pure incense before the Father.

Refine my interior senses so I can recognize the quiet promptings of Grace. When the world clamors for my attention with anxiety and noise, whisper the peace of heaven back into my spirit. Remind me of my eternal dignity when I forget it, and teach me to love with the undivided devotion that burns within your own angelic nature.

Stay close to me today. Guide my decisions, calm my anxious pulse, and surround my home with celestial light. When my final hour on this earth arrives, stand as my faithful advocate, take my hand, and lead me safely into the radiant presence of the God you behold without ceasing.

Amen. 🙏

09/05/2026

Fifty years ago, Mother Teresa received the Poverello Award from Fr. Michael Scanlan TOR, president of the College (now Franciscan University) of Steubenville, with Bishop John King Mussio standing by. Thanks be to God!

Ten years ago, on September 4, 2016, the Church gathered in Rome as Pope Francis canonized Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Her life had already touched millions, but the Church officially confirmed what her life had proclaimed: this humble woman had allowed Christ to live and love through her.

Mother Teresa did not seek fame, wealth, power, or recognition. She sought only one thing: to love Jesus. And because she loved Jesus, she discovered Him in the poorest, the sickest, the dying, the abandoned, and the forgotten.

Mother Teresa took seriously the words of Jesus:

“Whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

She understood that the poor were not interruptions to her life; they were encounters with Christ.

When she washed the wounds of the sick, she touched Christ. When she fed the hungry, she fed Christ. When she embraced the rejected, she embraced Christ.

Her life teaches us that we cannot truly love Christ in the Eucharist while refusing to recognize Him in our neighbor.

The Jesus we receive at the altar is the same Jesus who waits for us outside these walls.

Mother Teresa reminds us that holiness does not necessarily mean doing spectacular things. It means doing ordinary things with extraordinary love.

We may never care for thousands of people in Calcutta, but we can care for the person God has placed before us.

We can forgive.
We can listen.
We can visit the lonely.
We can care for the elderly.
We can feed the hungry.
We can encourage someone who has lost hope.

The question is not, “What great thing can I do?”

The question is:

“What is Christ asking me to do with love today?”

Mother Teresa’s life also teaches us something profound about faith. She experienced periods of deep spiritual darkness and the painful feeling that God was distant. Yet she continued to pray, serve, receive the Eucharist, and love.

This reminds us that faith is not dependent upon feelings.

There will be moments when God seems silent. There will be prayers that appear unanswered and seasons when suffering makes us wonder where God is.

But the Cross teaches us that God’s silence is not God’s absence.

Jesus Himself cried from Calvary:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Yet the Father had not abandoned Him.

Mother Teresa teaches us: Stay with Jesus.

Stay when prayer is easy.
Stay when prayer is difficult.
Stay when you feel God’s presence.
Stay when you feel nothing.

Remain beneath the Cross, because resurrection follows the Cross.

The Church gives us the saints not merely to admire them, but to imitate them.

So today, Mother Teresa asks each of us:

Where is Jesus asking me to love Him?

Perhaps it is in your marriage.
Perhaps it is in your family.
Perhaps it is in someone who has hurt you.
Perhaps it is in someone who is lonely.
Perhaps it is in someone you have ignored.

There are people who are poor not only in money, but in companionship, hope, forgiveness, dignity, and love.

Mother Teresa would tell us: Do not wait for someone else to love them. Begin yourself.

The Eucharist was the heart of Mother Teresa’s life.

She understood that we come to Mass not simply to receive Jesus, but to be transformed by Him and sent forth to bring His love into the world.

The Mass continues when we forgive.

It continues when we serve.

It continues when we visit the lonely.

It continues whenever we choose love instead of selfishness.

The altar sends us into the world.
Ten years after her beatification, Mother Teresa’s message remains remarkably simple:

Love Jesus. See Jesus. Serve Jesus.

When you cannot do something great, do something small with great love.

When you cannot change the whole world, change the little corner of the world where God has placed you.

When you cannot understand what God is doing, trust Him.

And when the journey becomes difficult:

Stay with Jesus.

May Saint Teresa of Calcutta teach us to recognize Christ in every human person, especially the forgotten and suffering.

May she teach us to love without counting the cost, serve without seeking recognition, forgive without resentment, and remain faithful beneath the Cross.

And may we never be afraid to ask God for the grace to become saints—not famous saints, necessarily, but faithful saints in the ordinary circumstances of everyday life.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

Teach us to see Jesus.

Teach us to love Jesus.

Teach us to serve Jesus.

And teach us, every day, to do something beautiful for God.

H/t St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish (adapted)

09/05/2026

✨ The Unshakable Shield of a Mother's Tears: A Traditional Prayer to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows for Family Protection

🙏 O Queen of Heaven and Mother most tender, whose Immaculate Heart was pierced by seven mystic swords of grief, look upon the fragile treasure of my home.

The world seeks security in walls of stone, yet heaven reveals that the safest fortress on earth is the heart of a mother who stood unbroken beneath the Cross. You know every unspoken tremor of a parent's soul. You know the quiet ache of watching those we love walk through a world that so easily forgets the beauty of goodness.

By the sword of Simeon's prophecy, sanctify the innocence, the beginnings, and the future of my children.

By your hurried flight into the desert, conceal my family beneath the veil of your protection. Make our dwelling a quiet sanctuary where confusion cannot enter and malice finds no welcome.

By the three days of bitter searching in Jerusalem, keep watch over every step my children take. If ever their hearts wander into shadow or spiritual doubt, seek them out with your gentle gaze and bring them home before any harm can touch their souls.

Most Sorrowful Mother, the world fears suffering as defeat, yet in you, God transformed holy sorrow into an ocean of invincible, vigilant compassion. Because your heart was pierced so deeply by divine love, it became a refuge wide enough to shelter every cradle and quiet every sleepless worry.

Stand as a faithful guardian at our door. Bless the bread we share, the words we speak, and the rest that falls upon our home each night. Hold my children close to your maternal mantle, where no snare of darkness, illness of spirit, or hidden snare can reach them.

Turn our trials into grace, keep our love pure, and preserve my entire household in the radiant peace of your Son.

Amen. 🤍

09/04/2026

Psalm
PSALM 37:3-4, 5-6, 27-28, 39-40
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will make your vindication shine like the light,
and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
Depart from evil, and do good;
so you shall abide forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his faithful ones.
The righteous shall be kept safe forever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
he is their refuge in the time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and rescues them;
he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them,
because they take refuge in him.

09/02/2026

September opens with a woman who had spent nearly a lifetime waiting for one moment. Saint Anna the Prophetess had known marriage, widowhood, age, and the long passage of years, yet her heart remained fixed upon God. She made the Temple her home, filling her days with fasting and prayer, watching for the Messiah while generations came and went around her. Then one ordinary day, Mary and Joseph entered carrying a Child, and Anna knew that everything she had been waiting for was before her.

How beautiful that Anna recognized Jesus while He was still small enough to rest in His Mother’s arms. Others saw a young family bringing their firstborn to the Temple. Anna saw the redemption of Jerusalem. A lifetime of prayer had taught her eyes to recognize God when He came quietly. And beside her stood Our Lady, herself carrying promises she could not yet fully see, presenting to the Father the Son who had been entrusted to her.

On September 1st, we stand at the doorway of a month given to Our Lady of Sorrows, moving toward September 15th and the Mother beneath the Cross. Anna met Mary near the beginning, with Jesus held safely against her heart; the Church will soon ask us to contemplate Mary years later, standing before that same Son crucified. Between those two moments lies an entire life of trusting what God has promised.

Saint Anna teaches us to become people who can wait without allowing our hearts to grow cold. Some prayers are answered quickly. Others accompany us through years, losses, changing seasons, and lives that look very different from what we once imagined. Keep watch. Keep praying. Christ is nearer than we know.

Saint Anna the Prophetess, pray for us.
Our Lady of Sorrows, teach us to wait faithfully for your Son.

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09/01/2026

For every mother carrying life, and every family still praying for a baby.

Today, August 31, we remember St. Raymond Nonnatus, patron of expectant mothers, unborn children, childbirth, and families longing for a child.

May he intercede for safe deliveries, protected little ones, grieving hearts, and all who wait in hope.

St. Raymond Nonnatus, pray for us.

Offer one Hail Mary for an expectant mother today.