Last Day of JVC in CA

My goal is for my life to fulfill this:

"Love creates in Christians a dynamic that leads us to do all that God wants, spontaneously without even having to think about it, because, by this time, we have made God's will ours and we love everything that God loves." -From Sober Intoxication of the Spirit


Today I am packing my stuff and leaving CMC.  I think the year flew by.  I had a really life-giving time here with my housemates and at my work placement.  I am so grateful for my life. It is strange that I am moving out and will lead a different lifestyle once I get back home to Rockford.  The values will always be present in my life (Spirituality, Social Justice, Community, and Simple Living) as long as I have motivation to remain in peace.  


So much has changed me, although I attribute all growth to God.  He has truly been working non-stop in my life and I have remained for the most part open to new parts of the world through my senses. 


My relationships have affected me the most; I have experienced God most clearly through people I have been blessed to know. Community has been one of if not the most crucial element of JVC.  People have worked together and have come out with common goals.  Love works through support, and community, specifically.  I have been shown a lot about love that I didn't know before, namely, its wonderfully and intensely substantial nature. . . hard to say in words but through experience, love has become a clearer and clearer reality in my life.  


I look forward to spending time with my family and connecting with friends when I am back in Rockford.  I will leave it up to my life's progression in God to come to my next major life decision.  


Thank you for your support and for reading my blog.  I won't be updating it again, unless I move back to California. I will let the currents drive me.




Much love and peace to you

Community Night

Every week, our house of JVs tries to have a community night.  Last week's community night, all our household members wrote and read "This I believe" statements of 500 words or less.

I would like to share my "This I believe" statement, because it is something from deep within.  Thanks for reading.

I believe that we were all created for a reason.  I believe that every single person was, is and will be on the planet for a specific reason.  I believe that everyone was thought of by God and was given the gift of life and of infinite and eternal love. 

I believe my heart responds to people that do not believe in God’s love.  I believe that one of my purposes here is to let God use me to help those in darkness, hope in God’s light.

I believe that faith, hope and love in, for and because of God is our key to eternal happiness and true fulfillment. 

I truly believe with my whole heart that God can do anything, and that nothing can be done without God. 

I believe that in all things, God is our help, our Truth, and our Intimate, Omnipotent lover.   I believe that God can not literally be or do anything that is not PURE AND PERFECT love and Complete and Absolute goodness.

I do believe that God sent Jesus, the 2^nd person in the Objectively Divine Trinity down to Earth.  I believe that Jesus was sent to tell us the Truth about the origin of everything and everyone. 

I believe that Satan and evil are very real.  I believe that God, who is Love and Perfection, will overcome at the end.

I believe that Mary is literally the Mother of us all.  I believe she is the Mother of God.  I believe that all she has is Mercy and Love in her heart and I believe that she turns to God with all of our requests and I believe that Mary protects us very intimately. I believe that her greatest desire is that we get to her son, Jesus, who is Her God and King, and absolutely ours.

I believe that God’s love and natural law are written on each heart.

I believe that sin unfortunately exists in the world.  I believe that it hurts Jesus to witness his lovers turn away from him and reject his love and unfathomable commitment.  I believe that Jesus is constantly waiting with an open embrace to all who seek him and his mercy.

I believe that mercy from God is necessary to our salvation.  I believe that we must accept the saving acts of Jesus Christ incarnated, commissioned, crucified and resurrected in order to be united in eternal love and perfection.

I believe that every single person has had, does have and will have life on this earth for a divine and perfectly good reason.  I believe that God loves each and every single person unconditionally and I believe this is the greatest, most mysterious and conclusively the most important Truth (with a capital T) that we will discover.

God Bless! <3<3<3

Happy Mother's Day and Reflection on JVC Silent Retreat in Tucson, AZ

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there! (And especially to my mom, Linda Zuba, who is one of the greatest gifts to me from God, a woman who is both loving and selflessly strong; I can always, no matter what, count on her. Te amo MUCHO, Mom! <3 <3)

I was reading "Total Surrender" by Mother Teresa today.  This is a beautiful passage that I never want to forget:

"Total surrender consists in giving ourselves completely to God. Why must we give ourselves fully to God?  Because God has given himself to us.  If God, who owes nothing to us, is ready to impart to us no less than himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves?  To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God himself.  I live for God and give up my own self and in this way induce God to live for me.  Therefore, to possess God, we must allow God to possess our souls. How poor we would be if God had not given us the power of giving ourselves to him. How rich we are now. "

On my silent retreat my spiritual director told me that the more we "plan", and "worry", and try to figure out "our lives", the less time we are making ourselves aware of God's presence, and the more time we waste, fretting about our own false self-importance.
I thought this was beautiful.  My spiritual director, Sr. Elizabeth, confirmed to me that our sole purpose in life is to literally surrender to God, to open our entire selves to him so that he can love, think, do and serve through us.  We are vessels, and we are intimately connected to God. Jesus is always with us, and desires to be in closer and closer relationship with us.
At the retreat I was able to really spend some time WITH Jesus, contemplating him and his love and truly expressing my desperate love for him.
I am so relieved, now, that I can stop planning and start being.  As a wise priest (Fr. Nielsen) once said to me, "The goal is to put your urgency [love and energy] into the particular moment that God gives you, and not worry about the BIG picture, that is up to God."
I trust in Jesus, that he will lead me and work through me if I just surrender myself to him:

"Our total surrender will come today by surrendering even our sins so that we will be poor. 'Unless you become a child you cannot come to me.' You are too big, too heavy; you cannot be lifted up.  We need humility to acknowledge our sin.  The knowledge of our sin helps us to rise. I will get up and go to my Father."
-Total Surrender,  by Mother Teresa


The beauty of the world and of the plan of life is indeed a great mystery, however, it is real. We must trust in Jesus because he came down to show us the Father, specifically his love, compassion, and mercy (Mother Teresa, Total Surrender).  We will never know how deeply interconnected we all are, but we must trust that God in his goodness is using us to fulfill his great plan for all humankind.  It is true and we must let ourselves find true peace that is a fruit of God's life in us.  I am in love with Jesus, because he is deeply in love with me.  I pray that everyone finds this mystery and uses it to be all we were created to be.

Happy Mother's Day! Mary, Queen of all, pray for us.

Outdoor chapel at the Redemptorist Renewal Retreat center in the Sonoran Desert :)

Our Lady of the Desert Chapel: Holy Tabernacle, flowers and Our Lady of Perpetual Help image

View of the mountains and cacti, behind the outdoor chapel <3

Perfection in truth

Life isn't easy, but
Neither death nor life
Nor angels or principalities or powers
Neither things present
Nor things to come
No force whatever
Neither the height above us
Nor the depth beneath us
Nor any other created thing
Will be able to separate us
From the love of God
Which comes to us in Christ Jesus,
Our Lord.
(Romans 8:38-39)

Nothing will ever separate us from the love of God. How is this less than perfect.

JVC Rocks!

I haven't blogged about my JVC work experience for a while.  I am really enjoying my work. I still have around 20 clients. I have been establishing relationships with my clients and working to develop them in positive and sustainable ways. I have had a decent share of troublesome situations and complicated client situations, but overall I have been managing fine and have been using each experience as a learning opportunity. I feel supported by my co-workers and supervisors. I enjoy getting to know my co-workers a lot. I am so grateful to be working in such a positive work environment. I will have a very high standard for my next job. St. Joseph Center is clearly a very special place. I know God put me there for a reason and that he has great plans for all of us.  I am so happy to have clients that are willing to work through case management. Not all of my clients come to meetings, but the ones that do, really put their effort in. I appreciate this and appreciate their trust in me to manage their case!  I am excited because the weather is just starting to get very beach-friendly. I am so blessed to work so close to the coast! It's only a couple blocks a way from work. How can another job ever live up to this one? I'm going to have to keep my eyes out for something great for next year. My program ends August 3rd.

Next weekend (May 6-9) we go on a silent retreat in Tucson.  I am looking forward to that. It will be a nice time to reflect on the experiences I've had so far and look into the future a bit to try and discern what my next steps may look like. My community and I are also going to camp at the Grand Canyon before the retreat. It will be my first experience camping in a while but I'm sure it will be GREAT.

Last week we had an area visit with our program coordinator and he said that we as a community are doing really well. I believe so too. God's grace sure can bring a group of people together in a very loving, memorable way. Love does not exclude challenge and much of the joy that my community is experiencing is a result of challenging, stressful times that have been endured with support and patience and hope. So much support. Intentional communities are definitely ones I would recommend.

My spiritual life is also advancing as time goes on. I have been fortunate enough to get to mass a few times a week. I also really love the fact that Jesus and Mary are constantly in my presence and that I can remind myself of that every second of every day. They both have been leading me in very wonderful and clear directions. Jesus and Mary are the best!


I am looking forward to moving in new directions. I know that I will always be supported. I feel strength that is from God and love from so many different people, and from God infinitely. I hope that God is using me to be his vessel of love as well.

My favorite prayer

Prayer, by St. Francis Xavier:

O God, I love Thee, I love Thee--
not out of hope of heaven for me,
nor fearing not to love and be
in the everlasting burning.

Thou, my Jesus, after me
didst reach thine arms out dying,
for my sake sufferedst nails and lance,
mocked and marred countenance,
sorrows passing number,
sweat and care and cumber,
yea, and death, and this for me.
And thou couldst see me sinning;
Then I, why should I not love thee,
Jesus, so much in love with me?

Not for heaven's sake; not to be
out of hell by loving thee,
not for any gains I see;
but just the way that thou didst me
I do love and I will love thee;
What must I love thee, Lord, for then?
For being my King and God. Amen

I love this prayer. . . I hope to say it every day from now on. . .

I believe it reflects the heart of our Catholic faith.  Amen!

Saturday Reflections

My friend Ryan shared a link to this website with me. I was navigating it and came across this article.  It's about being versus doing, and discusses balance in every day life.

Balance is something I have been struggling with lately, specifically, I have been really struggling with balancing my work, spirituality, and community life in a life-giving way.

This article really resounded with me. I believe I have a better understanding now of what a balanced life should include. I love this quote:

"Thus, external action should be derived from internal reality, and this requires a rhythm of solitude and engagement, restoration and application, intimacy with Christ and activity in the world."


The main point of the article, I thought, was to describe that first and foremost, we need to develop and foster a relationship with Jesus Christ who is God. 


"Our primary purpose is not to do something for Christ, but to know Him; our activities and abilities are useless for the kingdom unless He energizes them, and this will not happen if they take precedence over intimacy with Him. We become weary and exhausted when we attempt more public ministry than we can cover in private growth."


A very beautiful quote:

"It is easy to become more concerned with good causes than with knowing Christ. As Oswald Chambers notes, “Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ. . . . The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him. . . . We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. . . ."

I feel very renewed after reading this article. It is liberating to know that I must first seek Jesus and all else will fall into place.

Here is the link to the site: Process Spirituality: Being Versus Doing


I encourage you to look at it.


I hope it fills you with hope as it did for me.


God Bless!