Christ at the Center: Remembering Eucharistic Love This Lent

I saw this image on Facebook this morning, and it stopped me in the middle of my scrolling. The sunlight streaming through the round window, the white marble rising heavenward, the purple cloth marking the season of Lent, and at the center, Christ with His arms open and His Sacred Heart radiant. It was all so still, so reverent, so beautiful. In a feed usually filled with noise, opinions, arguments, disasters, and breaking news, this image felt like a deep breath. It felt holy. It felt grounding.

What moved me just as deeply was the Eucharistic Christ exposed in the monstrance on the altar. The golden rays surrounded the consecrated Host, drawing the eye and the heart to the quiet miracle at the center of our Catholic faith. Jesus was present not only in statue and symbol, but truly present in the Eucharist. The same Christ whose heart burns with love stands before us in humility under the appearance of bread. In a world obsessed with power, control, and visibility, the Eucharistic Christ reveals a different kind of strength. He remains. He waits. He gives Himself.

It is hard to ignore how fractured our world feels right now. We are divided politically and economically. We are divided racially and culturally. We are divided by ideology, by media narratives, by generational tensions, by distrust in institutions, and even within our own families. Social media amplifies outrage and rewards sharp words. It often feels easier to label one another than to listen.

Beyond our personal and national divisions, the global reality weighs heavily. Wars continue to devastate entire regions, displacing families and claiming innocent lives. Communities around the United States are facing wildfires that destroy homes and livelihoods. Others are buried under historic snowstorms, cut off from resources and struggling to stay safe. Natural disasters remind us how fragile life can be. These are not abstract headlines. They are lived realities for millions of people.

It can feel overwhelming. It can feel like everything is breaking at once.

And yet, there on that altar, Christ stands with His arms open, and in the monstrance He is present, silent and radiant. He does not withdraw from chaos. He does not choose sides in our partisan battles. He offers Himself. To all. To the grieving mother in a war zone. To the family who lost their home to fire. To the farmer buried under snow. To the anxious person scrolling through the news at dawn.

Lent calls us to refocus. It invites us into prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but at its heart Lent calls us back to love. It calls us back to the altar. As I looked at that image, I was reminded that our devotion to Christ cannot be seasonal. The purple will give way to Easter white. The calendar will move forward. The crises will shift from one headline to the next. But the Eucharistic Christ remains. His presence does not depend on circumstances. His love does not fluctuate with global instability.

The monstrance on that altar was a quiet proclamation that Christ is still at the center. Not our politics. Not our fears. Not our disasters. Not our divisions. Christ. When we kneel before Him in the Eucharist, we remember who we are. We are not first defined by our nationality, our race, our economic status, or our political alignment. We are sons and daughters who receive everything from a God who gives Himself completely.

The world does not need more noise from us. It needs more Eucharistic people. People who adore before they argue. People who pray before they post. People who allow their hearts to be softened by time spent before the Blessed Sacrament. If we allowed the Eucharistic Christ to shape our responses to war, to natural disaster, to social division, and to suffering across borders, perhaps our words and actions would look different. Perhaps they would look more like mercy.

That image this morning felt like a gentle invitation. Come back to the altar. Come back to the Eucharistic heart of Christ. Not only during Lent, but always. In a world that feels shaken by conflict, catastrophe, and division, healing will not begin with louder arguments. It will begin in hearts that have first knelt before Him and learned how to love as He loves.

When a Story Surprises the Writer

I recently completed my final personal edits of Light Still Stands and sent the manuscript forward. I expected to feel relief when I hit “send.” Instead, I found myself unexpectedly emotional.

What surprised me most is that I worked on this project for only a little over a month. It was not years in the making. It came together quickly and intensely, almost urgently. Yet in that short span of time, it reached deeper into me than I anticipated.

During those weeks, I was hyper-focused in a way that felt both energizing and consuming. I stayed up late into the night refining chapters and revising themes, sometimes sleeping only three or four hours before getting up to do my actual job the next morning. I would tell myself I was finished for the evening, only to return to one more scene or one more edit. The story followed me into the early hours when I should have been resting.

All of this unfolded while life continued at full pace. I am taking graduate classes. I am producing a Lenten series podcast. I am balancing professional responsibilities. I am also preparing myself mentally for upcoming surgery and the reality of being away from work for a time. None of those commitments paused while I was writing. I simply layered this creative sprint on top of everything else.

Looking back, I can see how much I was carrying.

And yet, I do not regret it.

Somewhere in those late nights, something deeper was happening. I was not just shaping dialogue and structure. I was wrestling with themes of steadiness, surrender, grief, control, and trust. Light Still Stands explores what remains when circumstances feel fragile and how light can endure in uncertain seasons. When I stepped back from the manuscript, I realized those questions were not only fictional. They were personal.

The emotional response I experienced after finishing was not doubt. It was release. It felt like my body and spirit finally catching up to the intensity of the past month. Even in a short, concentrated window of creativity, God was doing deeper work in me than I recognized at the time.

Over the past year, I have sensed God inviting me to live more intentionally. Not reactively. Not driven solely by productivity. Not fueled by the pressure to keep producing the next thing. Intentionally. Finishing this novel and feeling its weight confirmed that invitation. I do not want to move directly from one intense season into another without space to reflect on what has changed within me.

Because of that, I am choosing to pause from beginning any new creative projects for a season.

This is not stepping away from writing. It is choosing to steward it well. My current projects will continue moving forward. Commitments already in motion will remain steady. The Lenten series will continue. Ongoing responsibilities will be honored. But I will not be launching anything new while I process what this experience uncovered and prepare both physically and mentally for what lies ahead.

Intentional living does not always mean slowing down; sometimes it means sprinting when called to do so. But it also means recognizing when it is time to breathe. This past month reminded me that even a brief season can carry deep impact. Now the faithful response is not to rush forward, but to pause long enough to listen.

Sometimes the most surprising projects are the ones that shape us the most.

Walking Through Lent with Intentional Purpose

There are moments in life when God invites us to pause.

After Season Two of the Butterfly Girl Podcast ended, I felt that invitation clearly. Instead of immediately planning the next season, I stepped back. I prayed. I listened. I asked hard questions. Was this podcast something God still wanted me to carry forward? Or was it time to lay it down?

I did not want to continue simply because it was familiar or comfortable. I wanted to be obedient. I wanted to be intentional.

So I took time away.

In that quiet space, something beautiful happened. The silence did not feel empty. It felt purposeful. Slowly, the desire to return to the microphone did not come from pressure or obligation. It came from peace. It came from a gentle nudge to keep walking, keep sharing, keep creating space for honest conversations about faith.

And that is how Season Three was born.

This season is titled Walking Through Lent with Intentional Purpose because Lent is not meant to be rushed through or treated as a checklist. It is an invitation. An invitation to slow down. To examine our hearts. To make room for God to work more deeply in our lives.

Throughout this season, we will talk about intentional prayer, fasting, almsgiving, surrender, trust, healing, and discipleship. Some episodes will be quiet reflections. Others will include guests who share their own faith journeys and wisdom. Each conversation is meant to meet you where you are, whether you are strong in your faith, searching, tired, hopeful, or somewhere in between.

This season is not about perfection.

It is about presence.

It is about choosing, again and again, to walk with Jesus, even when the road feels uncomfortable or uncertain. It is about showing up with open hands and honest hearts.

I am deeply grateful for every listener who has walked this journey with me so far. Your messages, prayers, and encouragement mean more than you know. Thank you for allowing this space to be one of reflection, vulnerability, and growth.

As we begin Season Three together, my prayer is simple:
That you would feel less rushed.
More grounded.
More connected to God.
And more willing to live your faith intentionally.

Welcome to Season Three of the Butterfly Girl Podcast. Let’s walk through Lent with purpose together.

You can listen to the Butterfly Girl Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Why I’m Writing Light Still Stands

When I began Light Still Stands, I believed I was writing a Catholic young adult novel about a parish, a bell tower, and teenagers navigating faith and doubt. The book is still in progress. The manuscript is not finished yet. But as the story has unfolded, I have realized I am writing about something much deeper than I first imagined.

I am writing about endurance.

There were experiences in my childhood that introduced fear and confusion far too early. For a long time, I did not have language for them. Silence felt safer than explanation. My body carried tension long after circumstances changed. Those early fractures shaped how I understood trust, safety, and belonging.

And yet, beneath all of that, something steady remained.

Light still stood.

I was raised by my grandparents, whose faithfulness shaped me long before I formally entered the Catholic Church. I was not Catholic until I was nineteen years old. But I was raised around people who believed in God and who showed me what it meant to live with moral conviction and consistency. My grandparents created rhythm, structure, and stability when other parts of my early life felt uncertain.

Alongside them were close friends and neighbors who became steady souls in my world. They modeled what it meant to live the Catholic faith in practical ways. They showed up to Mass. They volunteered. They stayed in hard conversations. They kept choosing community even when faith felt complicated. From them I learned that faith is not the absence of doubt. It is the willingness to remain.

There were also absences in my early years that left quiet but lasting questions about belonging and worth. Before I could articulate what abandonment meant, I understood what it felt like when someone did not stay. That awareness shaped how I viewed relationships and how I measured safety. And yet, against that backdrop, there were people who did remain. That contrast between leaving and staying lives at the heart of this novel. Light Still Stands asks what truly makes something endure. Is it perfection, or is it presence?

In 2025, I lost a dear friend to cancer. I did not know she was sick. She chose to carry that privately. The loss came with sorrow and with surprise. Grief like that has a particular weight. It leaves you reflecting on conversations you did not know were final. It reminds you how much of life unfolds quietly, beyond what we can see. That experience deepened my understanding of how fragile and sacred relationships are, and that awareness has shaped the emotional landscape of this story.

Forgiveness has been one of the longest journeys of my life. It did not arrive quickly. It did not excuse harm or erase failure. It was not about pretending the past did not matter. It was about refusing to let brokenness define me. It was about releasing what was never mine to carry. That slow work of healing threads through this novel. The characters wrestle with fear, doubt, and the question of whether they will measure the world by its instability or by who stands beside them when it trembles.

For years, I have written for children because I believe stories shape hearts early. I want young readers to encounter courage, virtue, imagination, and faith in ways that feel honest and hopeful. As I move into young adult literature, that conviction deepens. Teenagers deserve good, quality, faith-filled literature that respects their intelligence and complexity. They deserve stories that acknowledge darkness without glorifying it. They deserve narratives where faith is resilient, thoughtful, and rooted in reality.

Light Still Stands is still unfolding. The bell tower in Maple Hollow bears cracks and signs of repair. It is not flawless. It requires tending. But it stands. In many ways, that image mirrors my own life. Structures can fracture. People can fail. Loss can arrive without warning. Yet presence, perseverance, and grace can hold.

That is why I am writing this novel.

Because even when the structure shows its history, light remains.

Light still stands.

Changing the Sails in the Storm

The other day I was scrolling through social media when I heard Father Michael Sliney say, “You can’t change the wind, but you can change the sails.” I can't stop thinking about those words
because the wind right now feels relentless.

It feels like unrest in Minneapolis. It feels like the reported abduction of Nancy Guthrie. It feels like the reality that children go missing every day in our country. It feels like the ongoing loss of innocent and helpless unborn lives. It feels like families torn apart by political, emotional, and spiritual division. The headlines feel heavy. The divisions feel personal. The sorrow feels constant.

The instinct is to react with outrage or to shut down completely. To argue harder. To despair faster. To try to control what is far beyond me. But Father Sliney’s questions cut through the noise: What is God asking of me in this situation? How does God want me to respond with His love right now?

I cannot stop every act of violence. I cannot prevent every tragedy. I cannot heal every fractured relationship. I cannot calm every headline. I cannot change the wind.

But I can change the sails.

For me, one of the first and most powerful adjustments is prayer. Prayer is not passive. It is not avoidance. It is an intentional turning of the heart toward God when everything feels unstable. It is asking Him to bring justice where there is injustice, protection where there is vulnerability, healing where there is trauma. It is placing names and faces before Him instead of just scrolling past them.

And prayer must move into action.

One thing I know I can do is support organizations that walk alongside children who have experienced abuse and trauma. I cannot rescue every child. But I can help those who are already doing that work. That is why 100 percent of the proceeds from my book sales go directly to organizations that support children in crisis. It is one small but concrete way I can change the sails. Writing stories. Selling books. Turning creativity into compassion in action.

Changing the sails might also mean refusing to let anger harden into hatred. It might mean advocating for the unborn with both conviction and tenderness. It might mean choosing conversation over contempt within my own family. It might mean guarding my heart from cynicism when it would be easier to give up.

The wind will keep blowing. The question is not whether the storm exists. The question is how I will respond inside it.

Changing the sails may look small. A whispered prayer. A donation. A book purchased that becomes support for a child who needs safety and healing. A gentler tone in a hard conversation. But even a slight shift in direction can change the course of a journey.

I cannot change the wind. But by God’s grace, I can adjust the sails of my heart toward mercy, truth, protection of the vulnerable, and love. And in a storm like this, that is not small at all.