Look at the beautiful sunset in NYC!
It’s one of the wonderful things about the tall buildings in New York City: they provide the perfect dark foreground for a spectacular sunset.
I grew up by the beach. It’s funny how quickly I forgot how soothing a sunset is. I love watching the sun dip down into the horizon. I need to make sure that I watch sunsets more often. They really do help create a more peaceful cutest me. 🙂
This weekend I went to Catholic Underground.
So this week, my Thankfuls include: Adoration.
If you haven’t experienced this yet or haven’t been to this event in a while, I highly recommend it. Catholic Underground is an event that occurs on the first Saturday of the month (excluding a few months during the summer) at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church on 90th St. between 2nd and 3rd Avenues on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Part 1 of the evening involves Adoration of Our Lord in the Eucharist. The Host (the Eucharist) is placed in a beautiful golden stand so that one can easily gaze at the Eucharist. It’s a time for prayer and a time for openness. It’s a time where God can speak directly to one’s heart and you can speaks directly to God’s heart- in the Eucharist.
The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal provide praise and worship music while lights are turned down and candles are lit to further the focus on Our Lord in the Eucharist. Many priests are also available to hear confessions throughout the church during this time.
Some of my best praying moments have been at Catholic Underground during Adoration. 🙂 It’s a very intimate time to spend with God.
On a very simplistic level, it’s also nice to just slow down life a little bit. Life in NYC is so busy that sometimes you feel like your head is spinning. Taking a half of an hour to be still really helps to refresh, rejuvenate and focus yourself.
This month was particularly special because Archbishop Dolan came to Catholic Underground to see what it was all about. He had heard about it for the almost 3 years since he became Archbishop of New York. It was beautiful to see him be so humble before Our Lord – to take time out of his busy schedule to prayerfully spend time with Jesus.
Archbishop Dolan adoring Our Lord at Catholic Underground
It was also quite inspirational to see the Archbishop rise during adoration, walk to the darkened area of the altar, and receive the sacrament of Reconciliation. What a good example for us all to follow. 🙂
The church was overflowing with people – as usual and I think it really impressed and inspired our Archbishop to see so many young people spending their Saturday night with Our Lord.
Part 2 of the Catholic Underground Evening involves going downstairs for music and fellowship. It’s time for 200+ people to enjoy good music and to meet new and old friends.
Yep. I’m very thankful for the opportunity to go to Adoration. After reading about the Christians being martyred in Pakistan, it helps me to appreciate the ease at which I’m able to walk into a church and spend time with Jesus.
Yep. Definitely a Thankfuls moment.
I could have been 15 minutes away from dying last night. Well, technically it was 1 a.m. this morning.
I had been out dancing and was making my way home. I got off the subway and quickly walked down the couple of blocks between the subway stop and my apartment. The cold weather had moved in earlier that day and I hadn’t worn my warmer coat. So, I hurried along, even commenting to a guy who was going into his house that it was really cold.
I got home, readied myself for bed and hopped into bed exhausted after such a long day.
It was only a total of about 15 minutes after that moment when I had mentioned the cold to that guy on his doorstep, when I heard a huge explosion. It sounded like a plane fell out of the sky. (Not that I know what that sounds like, but it’s the thing that comes to mind.)
It sounded sort of like the huge bang sound of a car crash, only 10 times bigger.
I was concerned but figured I was safer inside than venturing out to see what that noise was all about. But now that I’ve seen the damage and have had several hours of sleep, I realized that it was very, very stupid to not venture outside to find out how close the drama unfolding was to my apartment.
Dumb.
Note to self: get up and investigate.
As I was drifting of to sleep I heard numerous fire trucks arriving and figured that they were taking care of things.
Again: stupid! Go investigate to make sure that the fire isn’t coming to your house!!!
I drifted off to sleep and. Few minutes later F.H. got home from his job. He said that there were fire engines everywhere and that he had seen our upstairs neighbor out there checking out what was going on. But he said that it was further down the block and that we didn’t need to be worried.
In the morning on my way to work, this is what I saw:
When I checked the news it informed me that one person had indeed died from the fire. Four others were injured. Three homes were destroyed.
So yep. I’m thankful that I was already safely inside. I’m thankful that F.H. was safe. I’m thankful that I still have a home. I’m thankful for the fire-fighters. I’m thankful that more homes weren’t destroyed- with the houses in my neighborhood being so close together, it could have been an entire neighborhood on fire.
Yep. Thankful. 🙂
Today’s thankful has to be quick. Hurricane Irene is headed for NYC so I’ve got to prepare my household and myself!
But, I wanted to take a moment to be thankful for my wedding and engagement ring.
After one week of avoiding the foods that came up on my food intolerance/allergy test, I am able to put my real wedding and engagement ring on my finger. Yay!
Until now, my eczema was so bad that I had to wear an imposter wedding ring and the ring that F.H. had actually proposed with (which was a little nice in itself).
Ok time to prepare for Hurricane Irene!
The Cutest Me 