đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. Prayer Warriors, I could use your help. The Cincinnati Womenâs Cursillo #190 starts Thursday, 08/20/2026 and we need your payers. Satan and his demons love to do all they can to stop people from living their Cursillo weekends and turning their focus away from God. This Cursillo weekend is no different. So far this week, I was informed that one of our candidateâs husband was in an accident that totaled his semitruck and one of our team members was hospitalized due to heart and kidney failure.
Will you please join me in praying for the ladies and live-in team of the Cincinnati Womenâs Cursillo #190? We also have a 72 hour prayer vigil scheduled from 6:00PM Thursday, 08/20/2026 through 6:00PM Sunday, 08/23/2026. If you would like to sign up to pray at a specific date and time, please send me a message and Iâll add your name to the board. The ladies will have the 72 hour prayer vigil board in the conference room with them, so they will know that you, people they donât even know, will be praying for them. Thank you for your prayers and putting your Christianity in Action as the Body of Christ, for the Body of Christ.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. Today is all about praise and thanksgiving as Brian and I celebrate 25 years of happy, challenging, joyful, struggling, supportive, and argumentative years of marriage. God has been with us from the beginning, when He introduced us at my place of work. He was with us when we were ready to call it quits. He forced us out of our comfort zone and made us rely on Him, in which He brought us back together, stronger than we were before. He is with us now growing us in deeper ways together and one-on-one with Him. He will forever be with us, ever guiding us in how to be the best we can for ourselves, each other, and others.
We each know that God comes first in our lives and itâs because we placed God first that we are together today to celebrate not just today, but every day that brought us to this point and the relationship we share.
Thank You Lord for Your mercy, love, forgiveness, grace, wisdom, friendship, and limitless blessings!
For todayâs song, I want to share our song with you.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. The things you donât know until you know. On our drive to work, Brian and I have been working through Fr. Mike Schmitzâs Catechism in a Year podcast. Iâve tried reading the catechism in the past, but that didnât last too long. Probably because I was just trying to read it, to get through it. Fr. Mike always seems so excited about the sections he reads and explains each day. He very much brings the catechism to life and explores the riches it holds. Iâm going to share the link to Day 208 with you, about the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. This isnât the only day this Sacrament is discussed, but one of the things I learned about on this day was the Apostolic Blessing at the end of the Anointing of the Sick. Everyone needs to remember to ask for the Apostolic Blessing for their loved ones when they are receiving this Sacrament.
To those that will be with me at the time of my death, this is me asking you to have a priest pray the Sacraments of Confession and the Anointing of the Sick with me, and then pray the Apostolic Blessing for me.
I highly encourage you to listen to and take in Fr. Mikeâs Catechism in a Year. You will be richly blessed and enlightened by it.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. I want to thank God that Brian and I are still alive. Driving home from work yesterday, only by the grace of God, did we narrowly escape a major, high speed, multivehicle crash. Things were moving right along in the left lane, until I saw three vehicles piled up along the concrete median, when a fourth vehicle hit a car so hard that both back wheels came off the ground. The four or five cars in front of me were slamming on their brakes and swerving to try to avoid collisions. We could hear the vehicles smashing into each other. A quick look in my rearview mirror told me that the person behind me wouldnât be able to stop in time. I didnât see a car to the right of me and in the passenger side mirror I saw the headlights of a white vehicle just behind me. I thought, âIf I hesitate, we will get hit in the front and the back.â I hit the gas, straddling the line and safely got in front of the white car and passed the pile of crashed vehicles. Iâve said this many times and I even said this to Brian last weekend, one of the things I love about my Lexus is the smooth and quick pickup when you step on the gas. That was definitely a factor that helped us yesterday, but ultimately it was by Godâs divine purpose that we are alive and well to talk about this.
Brian and I have been working on discerning, planning, and preparing for what we think God is calling us to in our retirement years. After that experience yesterday, it makes me want to take a closer look at what God is calling me to and where He and I will work together for His glory. Yesterday evening Brian and I watched the final episode of the TV show âBonesâ, which was originally aired 03/28/2017, but it was the first time for us. After a big explosion at the Jeffersonian, Dr. Brennan was gathering some personal items she wanted to keep. When Dr. Brennanâs husband, Seeley Booth picked up a clock from her bag, that stopped working when the bomb went off, he asked her why she would want to be reminded of a time that everything almost ended. She replied, âBecause it didnât.â
Please join us in praying for those that were involved in that crash.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. For the past week, Iâve had the honor of hosting in our home an 1884 3rd class relic of Veronicaâs Veil, The Holy Face of Christ. Itâs an image on linen and certificate (written in Latin), both with the wax seal of Pope Leo the XIII. When I received His Holy Face, I was told to not leave Him at home, so He went to a few meetings with me and I was able to share Him with our Cursillo Community. What a humbling experience this has been.
This was also my first introduction to the Holy Face Chaplet. I included a link below for you. I really like the prayer prayed on the small beads. I couldnât help but raise my hands and arms in a lifting motion as I prayed these words aloud in a commanding tone. âArise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee Flee from before Thy Face.â Iâve also found myself just randomly praying these words. I would encourage you to pray this prayer as well. If you ever have the opportunity to host Veronicaâs Veil, The Holy Face of Christ in your home, I would strongly encourage you to sign up for that opportunity. If you would like more information, please send me a message. I would be happy to share.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. Are your faith and religious practices a transfer of information or a transformation? Do you show up to Mass to check the Weekly Obligation box and grab a bulletin as proof or is the Word of God proclaimed during Mass challenging you to speak and act in better ways? Is the Holy Eucharist just a wafer or the true body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ? Are you living and growing in a transformational relationship with Christ or are you just participating in a religion?
Life in a loving relationship with the Lord is too precious to not pursue. No matter where you and I are at in our relationship with the Lord, there is always immeasurable growth opportunities and possibilities. Ask the Lord what He would like your friendship to be and share with Him what you would like your relationship to be. So often miscommunication is because there is no communication.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. While having dinner with my parents last Friday, I learned some interesting history about our family. I imagine just about every family has some things they do, which they think are completely normal until someone from outside of the family is like, âWhat are you doing?â We have a few of these things in our family. Some stories of my girlsâ experiences with non-family members reactions to our family traditions and sayings crack me up, but the one we discussed last Friday was a prayer.
The customary Catholic before meal payer is: âBless us, O Lord and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.â
At the end of that prayer, our family adds an additional prayer. âQueen of Peace, pray for us.â Growing up, I thought those two prayers were all one prayer. Prayer before meals with Catholic, non-family members, I realized they didnât pray the last part of the prayer. It took me 58 years to ask why we add âQueen of Peace, pray for us.â to our meal prayer. I received an interesting answer. My parents said that was how they learned the prayer and it went back to their grandparents. It was a generational thing. It was a prayer for peace during WW I. Through our generations, I guess our family felt it was important to continue to pray for peace.
Turns out that in a letter dated 05/05/1917, during WW I and feeling all his other avenues had been exhausted, Pope Benedict XV ordered the invocation, âQueen of Peace, pray for us!â to be added universally to the Litany of Loreto. (see link below)
Just eight days later, on 05/13/1917 Mary first appeared to LĂșcia, Jacinta, and Francisco in Fatima, Portugal. Mother Mary spoke with the three children, scheduled future return visits with them in the same location, AND asked them to âSay the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.â (see link below)
Iâm really glad I asked the question. Praying this prayer means even more to me now. Will you join in this prayer for peace and add âQueen of Peace, pray for us!â to all of your meal prayers? I pray that you will and also ask others to do the same. We need peace in this world and it can start with me and you.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
#VinceGill&JennyGill â Let There Be Peace On Earth
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. This past week Iâve still been reviewing my notes from the Glory: Womenâs Gathering and working on unpacking how the words the Lord spoke through those ladies were meant for me. Michelle Benzinger spoke about trials, which got me thinking about them differently. For instance, we canât go over, under, or around our trials. We can only go through our trials. I think there is a lot of truth in that statement. The more we try to avoid or work around our trials, the more we are moved back into the heart of them, where we need to address them.Â
Have you ever noticed that when you say âNoâ to what God asks of you, He will give you a little bit of time, then come back and ask you again, and again, and again, until you finally say âYesâ? He doesnât do this to be a total pain in your side. His persistent pursuit is for the purpose of preparation. Your preparation and anointing for your next purpose. It may seem like a lot to give God your complete âYesâ, but why should we expect that He would want anything less from us. Seriously, Christ gave YOU His complete âYESâ. This is what His âYESâ for YOU looks like.
Is He asking that much of you? NEVER! He will NEVER ask that much of you, which is exactly why HE DID IT FOR YOU!
Every day is the perfect day to thank Christ for His COMPLETE YES. But donât stop there. Thank Him and then ask Him what you can do for Him today. Donât wait for Him to ask you. You have no idea how much pleasure and joy your sincere ask will bring Him. With that ask, you must be prepared to act. Donât shy away from His ask. Remember those trials I mentioned earlier? They have prepared you for Godâs next ask of you. God has a purpose, but itâs not pain. His purpose is pure joy and love of being in communion with YOU.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. You had me at lament. Itâs all about to change. Today will be my last day at my current job. Next Monday, I get to embark on an adventure with my new employer. This past Friday â Sunday, I had the pleasure of engaging in the 2026 Glory: Womenâs Gathering at Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH. The theme was Graves into Gardens. So, so appropriate and relatable for this transition taking place in my life this week. On the surface it may seem like simply a job change, but itâs much more.
My older sister asked me what changes I was most looking forward to in my new role. I replied, âLearning new aspects of HR. Being onsite with my team. Actual in person team interaction. Mostly, Brian and I will be able to spend more time together, especially discussions as we work toward developing our retirement plan.â
Brian and I worked remotely from home, for different employers. We both were then required to work in a physical office location, which after drive times and different schedules, only left us about two hours together on work night evenings, as long as neither of us had some other meeting that night. Over the past 13 months, this separation took a toll on our marriage. As Iâve told people, I like Brian too much to not want to share time with him.
The first talk Saturday morning at the Glory: Womenâs Gathering was about lament. Iâd never really thought about lament in my life. The Biblical meaning of lament is to express our deep regret, grief, and sorrow directly to God. Lament is different from complaining, which is turning away from God. During that talk, I realized I had been lamenting my relationship with Brian. In my act of lamenting with God, I was having conversations with Him and really pressing into Him for help and guidance. The speaker, Debbie Herbeck shared with us the four aspects of lament.
1) Turn to God.
2) Pour out ALL of your troubles to God.
3) Ask God boldly for help.
4) Trust God to the depths of your core. âJesus I Trust In You!â
As conferences do, each talk kept building upon the previous talks. So many great enlightenments and God moments poured forth, which are relevant to this transitional time in my life. With the intercession of the Holy Spirit, more and more Iâm learning that God really wants us to have the blessings He desires for us. The problem is that we donât trust in Him, therefore we donât ask and we especially donât ask for abundance. God is not a genie that grants you your first three spoken wishes, but God does want to bless you with all that He has set aside for you. As we talk with God and grow our relationship with Him, our hearts and minds are open to His will and desire for our lives in communion with Him. With the knowledge of His desires for us, we can then boldly ask for the abundance of what God desires for us.
Think about it for a moment, wouldnât someone that intimately knows you be able to give you more personal gifts, than a stranger you sporadically or never speak with?
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
đđ«đ€ Christâs peace and presence be with you. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” â John 1:1. Even before the Father brought creation to life, the Word was with the Father. But not just with the Father, the Word was and still is God. In that one sentence from John 1:1 we are given just a taste of the incredible power and awesomeness of the Word. Is it a coincidence that Christ is referred to as the Word? No. Is it a coincidence that the Word was present and engaged from the very beginning? No. The Father chose His words very intentionally when brining life to all of creation.
So then, there should be no surprise that words are powerful, with the ability to raise someone to life or mortally wound someone for life. Words spoken to us, can play back in our minds over and over again like a broken record, wounding us or building us up every single time we hear them. We have all been hurt and have hurt others to different degrees by words and they can hurt worse than any physical pain, which is why prayer should come before words. We cannot control how others will respond, so all we can do is discern our responses and filter out all those words that donât bring forth life. The desire to always be right, by proving the other person wrong, should not be our go to response in a situation. In the movie Bambi, we hear Thumper sharing his fatherâs wisdom when he states, âIf you canât say something nice, donât say nothinâ at all.â Even a fish wonât get caught if it keeps its mouth shut.
Right here, right now, you have the ability and power to turn our culture around by willfully accepting guidance from the Holy Spirit, responding and speaking with words inspired by the Holy Spirit, and starting these God ordained conversations and restoration within the walls of your home, with family. As long as the family is broken, the rest of the world will be broken. The God ordained change and conversion will come when we speak life into our family, that will flow into the church and community.
Start right here, right now! Donât focus on how someone else hurt you. Focus and act upon how you have hurt someone and the reconciliation and restoration only you can bring, with and through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
If the Lord has touched you in some way with His message today, I ask that you pay it forward by sharing this message, so that you and He may also bless others. Click subscribe to receive your message every Wednesday via email.
