Prayer to St. Anthony

O Holy St. Anthony, gentlest of Saints, your love for God and Charity for His creatures, made you worthy, when on earth, to possess miraculous powers.

Miracles waited on your word, which you were ever ready to speak for those in trouble or anxiety. Encouraged by this thought, I emplore of you to obtain for me (request). The answer to my prayer may require a miracle, even so, you are the Saint of Miracles.

O gentle and loving St. Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, whisper my petition into the ears of the sweet Infant Jesus, who loved to be folded in your arms; and the gratitude of my heart will ever be yours.

http://www.catholicwalton.com/prayer-to-st-anthony/

Mother And Child a Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,

when you embraced our nature

in the womb of Mary, Your Mother,

the first to greet You was

the unborn child, John the Baptist.

He danced for You,

and You made him holy

with the life of Your Spirit.

Jesus, Lord and Saviour,

protect the children of Ireland.

May they never be evicted

from that warm, safe place

beneath a mother’s heart. Amen.

Prayer to St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace; 
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; 
Where there is injury, pardon; 
Where there is doubt, faith; 
Where there is despair, hope; 
Where there is darkness, light; 
And where there is sadness, joy. 

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console; 
To be understood, as to understand; 
To be loved, as to love; 
For it is in giving that we receive, 
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. 
Amen.

Prayer for Serenity

O God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time. Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace. Taking, as he did, the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to His will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever. 

https://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=2176

Prayer before mass and communion

Prayer Before Mass

Heavenly Father, help me to appreciate that every time I go to mass, I am in the presence of the angels; Also that I am in the presence of our Blessed Mother; Help me to hear your word speaking to me in the readings (and the homily); Above all help me to unite with Jesus in His eternal sacrifice to You, in intersession for  the conversion of the world, including the conversion and spiritual development of my own family and loved ones, especially (mention who you would like to pray for here)

Prayer before Communion

Lord Jesus help me to recognise that it really is you, my Lord and my God, that I am receiving. Help me to receive you with great reverence. I receive you today Lord not just for myself but for my family and my loved ones especially (mention who you would like to pray for here) and for those who do not know You or do not love You.

Sometimes you have to just step away

Did you ever just go on social networks and feel like it is nothing but a barrel of negativity? Yes? well you are not alone. The last few weeks I have been finding this more so on Twitter than Facebook. I just scroll through my feed looking for news and see things like someone has punched someone else for whatever or no reason, someone mistreating an animal, the BLM debate, the coronavirus etc. These are all very important topics to talk about but I think we have to ask ourselves is this really worth taking up our whole day to write 10 or 20 posts about a particular topic or will 1 or 2 posts do and then move on to something more positive.

The reason I am writing this post personally is because sometimes I scroll through twitter to find out some news and more often than not when I am finished scrolling I am left feeling more anxious and sad especially about the coronavirus. It seems to be everywhere. That is one of the main reasons I rarely post on this topic. I did recently but before that I didn't in a long time. I think during this difficult time especially we need more good news in our lives and newsfeeds. We be doing something positive in our lives like maybe gardening or even putting up a positive post on Facebook or Twitter.

Yes serious topics need to be talked about but do they have to be talked about so much that it nearly takes over our lives and our news feeds? These topics will all fade away in time but negative thought and feelings from these topics can last years. When I 1st started Facebook and Twitter back in 2013. I used to write lots and lots of posts every single day that would mostly be about the Catholic Faith or the abortion issue. It was like I was on a crusade to convert people and I had to do whatever I could to convert people to Catholicism and if they disagreed with me I wouldn't just leave it I would respectfully as I could try to direct them in the way of Truth but that became so unhealthy for me and possibly for others too and often times I would spend many hours going around in circles with people who disagree with me and I would nearly take their comments personally. I know now they were never personal attacks on me. Now I rarely answer comments that disagree with me because it is ok to disagree with people. It would be a boring world if we all agreed with each other all the time. 

I remember I would put up loads of posts on the 1 topic and looking back on it now and sometimes seeing it in my memories on Facebook I wonder how I did such things and how my friends didn't unfriend me or become sick of my posts because without intending to my posts came across as pushy and radical and had no balance what so ever now thank God I have changed that a lot and I post about my many different interests now with the odd post being about my Faith and where I stand on life issues because that is still part of me. 

That is why I just stepped away from social networks for a short time. Today is the 1st day of my break and it has done me wonders so far. When I was on Twitter I felt it was pushing the coronavirus topic too much which I don't think is good. Yes we need to keep up to date with the virus but not to the point where it is taking over our whole lives. I tried to get up some good news in Ireland today and the latest good news I could get was from April or May and it is a pity because there is so much positive thinks going on in the world but it is overtaken by coronavirus and BLM. It is so hard to find good news but I think if we don't see good news we should try and post something positive that is going on in our lives. It could be anything from what you see, what you smell, what you hear, what you feel, a picture anything at all. You would be surprised as to how it would make you feel and how it would make others feel. Go on just try it post something positive on your social network and/or blog. I will start now and I might keep posting positive things on my blog as much as I can. It is great to have it so bright up to 10pm at night time now. Now it is your turn. It is easy.

                         

Animal Crossing New Horizons my thoughts so far

I have played 185 hours of Animal Crossing new horizons so far since April. I share my island with my brother and togther we own and run Kolbe Isle named after St. Maximillian Kolbe. I love the graphics in this game and the different personalities of the different animals staying on the island. Currently we have Phoebe who is an ostrich. She my favourite, Biff who is a hippo, Barold who is a cub, Patty who is a cow, Merengue who is a rhino she is probably my least favourite, Pietro who is a sheep that looks like a clown, Lucha who is a bird, Alli who is a alligator, Truffles who is a pig and finally Lopez who is a deer.

One of the 1st things i generally do when I 1st start the game is shake all the trees on my island because bells or items can fall from the trees. When doing this make sure to have you net in hand as some trees can have a wasps nest and when the tree is shaken the nest can fall and you can get stung by wasps unless you catch it with you net. Another thing I do everyday is to check around for money rocks. 

I think the update this month came just in time because the game for me was getting a bit boring with doing the same thing every day. The events can be interesting with the bug and fishing events. I did the bug one but not the fishing one.

I generally keep any bugs I catch in my inventory until I see Flick around because I think he buys them at a higher price than if you would sell them in the shop. I do the same with weeds and wait for Leif to come and I can sell them to Leif.

I find some to the dialogue's very long for example Blathers in the museum and Orville in the dodo airlines. I like the swimming, I only caught Perl so far though.

In my opinion I think the hype of animal crossing new horizons is beginning to go down now. I love the game and I play it everyday but I feel it is starting to get repetitive and a bit boring now so hopefully with the 2nd update in August it will give some more oomph to the game again.

I really like the fact you can visit friends islands. Typing can be tedious on the switch so messaging friends can be a hard and slow process in my opinion. 

I love the flowers in this game. They are beautiful

Animal Crossing New Horizons is definitely one of the best games in a long time and I think it has really brought out people's creative side at a time when creativity is most likely at an all time high due to the current pandemic. The game came out at the right time in my opinion with more people at home and playing games. It is a game that I hope will last a long time.