It's easy to feel hopeless when life doesn't go as planned. Whether it's a relationship gone sour or the loss of a loved one, we all have our moments when hope seems hard to find. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.” (CCC 1817) Here are seven tips for finding hope in even the bleakest of circumstances:

Grief is a long and painful process. People who are grieving are often told that the first year of grief is the hardest, but I think the second year of grief can be just as difficult, if not more so. This isn’t talked about enough!

Carrying grief is hard, holy work. It has been almost 5 years and I don’t miss my son any less today than I did the day he died. But I have learned to make space for my grief. I have grown and stretched around it, learned so much from it, and become more the woman I am meant to be because of it.

I love the gospel of the paralytic man lowered through the roof, and I decided to pray with Luke’s gospel reading because of its depth. Still, at the end of Matthew’s gospel, he says, “When the crowds saw this, they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to human beings.”

The main lesson I had learned almost ten months into my journey is that grief does not leave. The weight of it stays. It is a forever season. Because it is a forever love I carry for my son.

When you have those hard days, it's okay to feel that way. You don't have to be strong all the time. No matter how long it has been since your child died, it is okay to cry, get angry, or feel like you've lost your best friend. That's what grief is for— to help us process our terrible and traumatic loss. It's not something we can avoid forever, but it is something that we will learn to carry and will, eventually, make room for a new chapter in your story.

Grief is a part of life and a part of love, but it doesn't have to take over your life. If you are feeling alone or lonely, reach out to someone close to you who will listen and care about what you have to say.

My husband and I got married on November 12th, 2021. What was supposed to be the best day of our life turned out to be the start of a nightmare. I remember bits and pieces of our wedding and nothing more. At our reception, I had this aching pain in my stomach. What I thought was appendicitis was an ovarian pregnancy that ruptured. I was rushed into immediate surgery. My brand-new husband and I were shocked, confused, and hurt. We didn’t know what to think. The first time I would ever circle “spouse” on any paper was in the middle of a miscarriage.

I've written about my experience with the death of my son. I know that I'm not alone and that others have had similar experiences, but it's still difficult to find ways to cope with the loss. Recently, as part of my healing process, I've been learning more about grief and understanding what goes on in my mind on the hard days so I can move forward after my loss. I am learning about the many stages of grief you might go through after losing someone close to you, including denial and anger. However, there is hope for healing if you're willing to take time for yourself as well as reach out for professional help when needed.

The Transcendentals are a specific way to describe the natures of man. Because we are made in the image and likeness of God we too mirror his truth, goodness and beauty. You could say that the transcendentals are the ultimate desires of man.

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

It's important to note that the stages of grief are not linear and can occur in any order. Additionally, people often go through each stage more than once, and may reoccur at different times in their lives.

To share in dignity, respect and beauty with the most sacred aspects of Catholicism was truly a privilege. When beginning to do my own research about veiling I simply typed into my search bar “Why do Catholic women veil?” The answer I stumbled upon was that veiling is an external sign of a woman’s interior desire to humble herself before the Lord truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. Wow.

Welcome to the team.

A vow is a sacred promise made to God. The vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are traditional for all priests in the Roman Catholic Church. Vows can be either public or private.

There will be restoration and redemption of broken families and broken hearts. There will be a gathering of all the holy love that was ever poured out. Love is never lost. It is only held in the crossbeam of salvation, held in the space between the nails and eternity, waiting to be glorified and released.

John Paul Raphael. His name was a prayer, a plea for him to reveal himself to me. I held myself in this sacred moment, spinning slowly through space. The veil between what actually is and what could have been seemed very thin and I imagined three alternate realities all at the same time.