Prayer to Saint Gabriel for a Marraige Partner

This prayer is a little on the childish side in my judgmental opinion, but brings forth some good points nevertheless. Every person who either knows they are called to the married state or who does not yet know their calling should pray for their spouse and their children. Praying for him/her now helps immensely in your future happiness...not to mention their own as well. Also, when choosing a marriage partner, you are choosing the mother/father for your children as well as your own help mate. Saint Raphael has been invoked as a matchmaker for may years, and is pretty much awesome. If you don't believe me, read the book of Tobias.

Glorious Saint Raphael, Patron and lover of the young, I feel the need of calling to you and of pleading for you help. In all confidence I open my heart to you to beg your guidance and assistance in the important task of planning my future. Obtain for me through your intercession the light of God's grace so that I may decide wisely concerning the person who is to be my partner through life. Angel of happy meetings, lead us by the hand to find each other. May all our movements be guided by your light and transfigured by your joy. As you led the young Tobias to Sara and opened up a new life of happiness with her in holy marriage, lead me to such a one whom in your angelic wisdom you judge best suited to be united with me in marriage.

Saint Raphael, loving Patron of those seeking a marriage partner, help me in this supreme decision of my life. Find for me as a help mate in life the person whose character may reflect some of the traits of Jesus and Mary. May he(she) be upright, loyal, pure, sincere, and noble, so that with united efforts and with chaste and unselfish love we both may strive to perfect ourselves in soul and body, as well as the children it may please God to entrust to our care.

Saint Raphael, Angel of chaste courtship, bless our friendship and our love that sin may have no part in it. May our mutual love bind us so closely that our future home may ever be most like the home of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Offer your prayers to God for the both of us and obtain the blessing of God upon our marriage, as you were the herald of blessing for the marriage of Tobias and Sara.

Saint Raphael, friend of the young, be my friend, for I shall always be yours. I desire ever to invoke you in my needs. To your special care I entrust the decision I am to make as to my future husband (wife). Direct me to the person with whom I can best cooperate in doing God's holy will, with whom I can live in peace, love, and harmony in this life, and attain to eternal joy in the next. Amen.

In honor of Saint Raphael: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be.

Where have all the Good Skirts gone?

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So, many young ladies have asked me "why are there no modest skirts that are NICE, not frumpy!!!!" and my small amount of research has yielded these. You do have to be picky, and some are pretty pricey, but most of these are guaranteed to be good quality, not flimsy, rippy, or otherwise worn out quickly. Personally, I intend to dress myself very nicely someday...that day when I am independently wealthy. ;-)

But, until then, I have taken a vow of poverty to dress myself in 2nd/3rd/4th/5th hand stuff and try to make the results look something like this. It can be done if you've got talent and a good eye. Don't forget to check the clearance racks, as you can often find things for 50-80% less than the original price!

Funky Frum https://www.funkyfrum.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=13 has nice colors and styles...very streamlined puckered type things.

Hannah Lise is rather conservative, you've got to pick through it to find the good stuff, which may not work out for you anyhow. Beware of frump and loose fittingness.

Modest Clothing is just that, and very Amish. (not literally, but almost)

Shade has more tops than anything, but they modest while still fashionable and in good taste. Overall, very nice styles, simple, elegant, pretty and practical. They also have really cute maternity clothing.

J.Jill is one of my favorite clothing lines ever! Natural styles, elegant, fashionable, and great variety. You do have to pick through the funky stuff, and their boots look really silly.

Soft surroundings has lots of really long skirts, sometimes rather bizarre, but always colorful and pretty.

Christa-Taylor Modern, simple, and elegant, though a wee bit pricy. If you buy something from them, they will send some money or blankets or something to widows and orphans in Cambodia.

Eshet Chayil is a definite mix, moderate pricing, some sheik and antique styles. Kinda weird on the whole.

Next Tag is basically a search engine for literally thousands of items from different suppliers and allows you to search by style, brand, price, fabric, etc. You have to sort through for the nice things, but there are alot mixed in to hundreds of different skirts.

Style J has modern, long denim skirts, with options for petite and tall and extra-tall too! Moderately priced and will match many different tops and go with several styles.

Aimcraft.com

contains scores of skirts, shawls, tunic type shirts, and home décor strait from India. Very colorful and moderately priced.

Shopstyle.com : yet another wonderful source for comparing things from several sites. Prices vary, but it alows the freedom to sift through a lot of different styles, prices, etc.

Babel Extended

Being a nursing student tends to get a bit bogged up in the technical aspect of things, so I decided to audit a Theology course not only to spice up my schedule a bit but also to learn more about my faith just so that my theology center of my brain did not dry up and go completely sour, especially in lieu of the fact that I have recently been having difficulty recalling logic and doctrine for moral and theological issues. That, by the way, is simply a compound sentence with several dependent clauses attached to it and is not a run on. If anyone feels compelled to correct me on this point, please do so as I would rather know that I've messed up instead of continuing in my error.

Anyhow, Babel. Dr. John Bergsma is an assistant professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and specializes in Biblical theology. His class it totally awesome! Among many things cover in the first 16 chapters of Genesis (which I am unable to expound upon at this time due to time contstraints and general inability to keep thoughts flowing logically on more than one topic at this time), one of the things that struck me the most was the bit about Babel. God has already destroyed the earth through water, causing a "re-creation" and once again bringing the land out of the sea as at the creation, and once more setting up a covenant with the man, which is just as quickly by Noah and his sons as was the original covenant broken by Adam. The Lord God swears that he will never again destroy the earth through water, but we can see just how quickly that man becomes depraved and shrinks back into sin. To take a step back, Genesis 10 contains the names of all the peoples of the earth, all the ethnic backgrounds of the world: Chinese, Slovak, Italian, Egyptian, African nations, Aztecs, Asian and European nations, every nation and ethnic people is here represented. The names given by this text are very ancient and are not in common usage anymore, but they are the names representing the entirety of the race of men. Anyhow, Genesis 11 contains the account of Babel:

Then they said, "come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower...And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now beimpossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." So the Lord scattered them abroad...and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel.

After the tower of Babel, the Lord makes a covenant with Abraham in 12:2-3 (actually a promise which is later extended and ratified as a covenant). In it he promises 3 things:
1. I will make you a great Nation.
2. I will give you a great name. (implies royalty)
3. in you all the families of he earth shall be blessed--> a universal blessing extended unto all the nations (families) of the world that will be given through you.
Therefore, Abraham, whom St. Paul and the Church refer to as "Our father in Faith," is the channel through which the blessing (grace? eternal life?) is to come to the nations, to all the people of the earth.

So, back to Babel. All of these nations are descended from Adam first, and then from Noah, so we are all related: Germans, Dutch, Italians, Moroccans, Arabians, Chinese, Russians, etc. That is a pretty cool gene pool if you think about it. Anyhow, at Babel you have the confusion of language, they can no longer understand each other. Now, God fulfills his promise to Abraham in God becoming Man in the person of Jesus Christ. In Acts 2:5 we see again men "from every nation under heaven," and they are later listed, giving names more modern than those in Genesis 10, but nevertheless taking in all the nations of the world. Here, all of these men listen to the preaching of Apostles, and are confused in their ability to understand! "They were bewildered because each onn heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, "Are not these men who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?" Each is able to understand the words of the apostles in his own language, and we thus have a reversal of Babel: a common language. The common language is the language of the Holy Spirit.

Interesting to note that this is like Latin, the common language of the Universal Church. That the tangible language of the Holy Spirit is Latin, for the faithful from Israel, Germany, United States, Vietnam, Russia, South Africa, all communicate in this common langage...but that is a thought for another time as well.

If I've left anything out here, please tell me.