Monday, March 30, 2015

Did Lent Even Happen This Year?

This is the question I keep asking myself. Is this really Holy Week? Did Lent really happen this year? 

I don't know why, but it feels like Lent flew by yet again. We only have a couple more days of Lent! Then, my most favorite liturgical season of the year: the Triduum!!!! Over the past couple days, some of my friends and I have been discussing this. We all feel like Lent sped by. Did we do what we planned in Lent? Did we actually grow? Are we ready for Easter? Because I know that God hasn't exactly appeared to me in a thunderstorm with a message of "AnneMarie, you succeeded at Lent and are now ready for Easter." But, God doesn't exactly roll like that, either. Take a look:

Thursday, March 26, 2015

A Solemnity, an Anniversary, and the Epicness of the Holy Spirit

Happy Thursday!!!!

I've been off the blog for a bit because of craziness in my life (read: Homework, Thesis, and life in general), but today I'm finally starting to wind back together some order in my life.

Yesterday was the epic Solemnity of the Annunciation! So, the day when we celebrate Mary choosing to become the Mother of God, the day when tiny, little, Baby Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb. The day when the Word became Flesh. It's epic. Each year, I get more and more excited for the Solemnity, consume larger quantities of delicious food, and tell more people that we need to celebrate this day!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

The Epic Maronite Catholic, Who Spent Much Time Knitting

Happy Wednesday, y'all!

So I love knitting. And, it just so happens, there's this epic saint who I've read is called the "unofficial patron saint of knitting." Total win. Oh, and she's Maronite Catholic. So definitely an awesome person in my book (I have a great love for Maronite Catholics). So, here's some cool facts about St. Rafqa:

Monday, March 16, 2015

Mercy Monday: Prayer to the Eucharist

Happy Monday!!!!! Here's some epicness from St. Faustina's diary!

        "O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the testament of God’s mercy for us, and especially for poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus as proof of infinite mercy for us, and especially for poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained life eternal and of infinite mercy, dispensed in abundance to us and especially to poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the mercy of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit toward us, and especially toward poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the infinite price of mercy which will compensate for all our debts, and especially those of poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the fountain of living water which springs from infinite mercy for us, and especially for poor sinners. 

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the fire of purest love which blazes forth from the bosom of the Eternal Father, as from an abyss of infinite mercy for us, and especially for poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the medicine for all our infirmities, flowing from infinite mercy, as from a fount, for us and especially for poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom is contained the union between God and us through His infinite mercy for us, and especially for poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, in whom are contained all the sentiments of the most sweet Heart of Jesus toward us, and especially poor sinners.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in all the sufferings and adversities of life.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in the midst of darkness and of storms within and without.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in life and at the hour of our death.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in the midst of adversities and floods of despair.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in the midst of falsehood and treason.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in the midst of the darkness and godlessness which inundate the earth.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in the longing and pain in which no one will understand us.

 O Blessed Host, our only hope in the toil and monotony of everyday life.

O Blessed Host, our only hope amid the ruin of our hopes and endeavors.

O Blessed Host, our only hope in the midst of the ravages of the enemy and the efforts of hell.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You w3hen the burdens are beyond my strength and I find my efforts are fruitless.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You when storms toss my heart about and my fearful spirit tends to despair.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You when my heart is about to tremble and mortal sweat moistens my brow.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You when everything conspires against me and black despair creeps into my soul.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You when my eyes will begin to grow dim to all temporal things and, for the first time, my spirit will behold the unknown worlds.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You when my tasks will be beyond my strength and adversity will become my daily lot.

O Blessed Host I trust in You when the practice of virtue will appear difficult for me and my nature will grow rebellious.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You when hostile blows will be aimed against me.

O Blessed Host, I trust in You when my toils and efforts will be misjudged by others.


O Blessed Host, I trust in You when Your judgments will resound over me; it is then that I will trust in the sea of Your mercy." 

(Notebook 1, #356)

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Our "Legendary" Trip to Pittsburgh

On Wednesday, my husband and I decided to change up our spring break routine and take a trip. Typically, during breaks from school, the Resident Sanguine (myself) gets into a mode of "OH MY GOSH WE MUST GO EVERYWHERE AND DO ALL THE THINGS AND IT WILL BE AWESOME!" But then, we never actually get around to planning anything or going on a crazy trip. So, it typically results in the Sanguine saying "WE DIDN'T GO ANYWHERE AND THIS WAS THE BEST BREAK EVER!" 

I know, I know, I've got brilliant logic. 

Being our final college spring break, though, I knew that we had to go somewhere extra special. My husband suggested that instead of going on a longer overnight trip somewhere, we could take a day trip to Pittsburgh, PA, and not restrain ourselves to "free" activities and sandwiches from home. Well, I liked that idea. So, after I spent some quality time on my thesis and homework Wednesday, we headed off on our great adventure. 

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Spring Break Musings and Updates!

Happy Tuesday! 

While I take a quick break from my homework, here are some random blurbs about life lately: 

It's Spring Break!!!!!!! And I've been loving it. Absolutely loving it. On Saturday, my husband and I woke up before 5 to take some friends of ours to the airport. On our way back to Steubenville, we started talking about food. Because food is wonderful. And we discovered that Biscuit World opens at 5:30, so we got to spontaneously enjoy a fabulous breakfast (with much coffee) on our way home. If y'all haven't been there, Biscuit World is a heavenly fast-foodish place, where they serve huge, delicious food portions at inexpensive prices. Anyways, after we got home, I had some time to read St. Faustina's Diary before we attended 8 a.m. Mass. After Mass, I finished the Diary (why don't I wake up before 5 more often? So much productivity and fun!)! See more on this below.  

St. Faustina's Diary is crazy amazing!!!! It took me just over a year-and-a-half, but I read and prayed with the whole thing. I completely recommend reading the Diary all the way through. It is so epic! On that note, here's a really awesome excerpt from the Diary (I didn't have time to get it on the blog yesterday). The bolded words are the words of Christ, in case you weren't aware of that. This part of St. Faustina's Diary would, in my opinion, be awesome for a middle school or high school prayer service. I mean, how many times have we said--or thought--the exact things that the soul says in this excerpt? 

                                                Conversation of the Merciful God
                             With a Despairing Soul.

                Jesus:  O soul steeped in darkness, do not despair.  All is not yet lost.  Come and confide in your God, who is love and mercy. 

-- But the soul, deaf even to this appeal, wraps itself in darkness.

         Jesus calls out again:  My child, listen to the voice of your merciful Father. 

--  In the soul arises this reply:  “For me there is no mercy,” and it falls into greater darkness, a despair which is a foretaste of hell and makes it unable to draw near God.

Jesus calls to the soul a third time, but the soul remains deaf and blind, hardened and despairing.  Then the mercy of God begins to exert itself, and, without any co-operation from the soul, God grants it final grace.  If this too is spurned, God will leave the soul in this self-chosen disposition for eternity.  This grace emerges from the merciful Heart of Jesus and gives the soul a special light by means of which the soul begins to understand (83) God’s effort; but conversion depends on its own will.  The soul knows that this, for her, is final grace and, should it show even a flicker of good will, the mercy of God will accomplish the rest.

My omnipotent mercy is active here.  Happy the soul that takes advantage of this grace. 

Jesus:  What joy fills My Heart when you return to me.  Because you are weak, I take you in My arms and carry you to the home of My Father.

Soul (as if awaking, asks fearfully):  Is it possible that there yet is mercy for me?

Jesus:  There is, My child.  You have a special claim on My mercy.  Let it act in your poor soul; let the rays of grace enter your soul; they bring with them light, warmth, and life. 

Soul:  But fear fills me at the thought of my sins, and this terrible fear moves me to doubt Your goodness.

Jesus:  My child, all your sins have not wounded My Heart as painfully as your present lack of trust does – that after so many efforts of My (84) love and mercy, you should still doubt My goodness. 

Soul:  O Lord, save me Yourself, for I perish.  Be my Savior.  O Lord, I am unable to say anything more; my pitiful heart is torn asunder; but You, O Lord…..

Jesus does not let the soul finish but, raising it from the ground, from the depths of its misery, he leads it into the recesses of His Heart where all its sins disappear instantly, consumed by the flames of love.

Jesus:  Here, soul, are all the treasures of My Heart.  Take everything you need from it. 

Soul:  O Lord, I am inundated with Your grace.  I sense that a new life has entered into me and, above all, I feel Your love in my heart.  That is enough for me.  O Lord, I will glorify the omnipotence of Your mercy for all eternity.  Encouraged by Your goodness, I will confide to You all the sorrows of my heart.

Jesus:  Tell me all, My child, hide nothing from Me, because My loving Heart, the Heart of your Best Friend, is listening to you. 

Soul:  O Lord, now I see all my ingratitude and Your goodness.  You were pursuing me with Your grace, while I was frustrating Your benevolence.  I see that I deserve (85) the depths of hell for spurning Your graces.  Jesus (interrupting):  Do not be absorbed in your misery – you are still too weak to speak of it – but, rather; gaze on My Heart filled with goodness, and be imbued with My sentiments.  Strive for meekness and humility; be merciful to others, as I am to you; and, when you feel your strength failing, if you come to the fountain of mercy to fortify your soul, you will not grow weary on your journey. 
Soul:  Now I understand Your mercy, which protects me, and like a brilliant star, leads me into the home of my Father, protecting me from the horrors of hell that I have deserved, not once, but a thousand times.  O Lord, eternity will hardly suffice for me to give due praise to Your unfathomable mercy and Your compassion for me.

(Diary of St. Faustina, #1486)


Studio Ghibli makes my heart sing. Over the weekend, I picked up The Cat Returns from the library, and we watched it with some friends who are stuck on campus for break. I love this movie. It's really amazing. Even if you don't like cats, you need to watch this. It's short, sweet, hilarious, heartwarming, and just plain awesome. Make sure that you watch it with the English dubbed track, because Studio Ghibli is awesome at that (and one of the main characters is voiced by Cary Elwes. You know, Westley, from The Princess Bride. Which is another reason why you must see this film). 

Food is good. Sacrifice is good. God is funny. On Saturday, I totally had the baking itch. Classes were out, I didn't feel like working on homework, and I had a cookie cookbook from the library. So I made deliciously awesome caramel cheesecake cookie bars, which were fantastic. Then, a couple days later, some of my friends and I decided that we would do a sacrifice of "no cookies" for a week. Very funny, God. But it's really great, for I need to get better at sacrificing. 

Friends are marvelous and a blessing! One of our friends had a birthday party on Sunday, so we spent the afternoon eating ice cream cake and learning how to play "Bang!" Three people "died" before me, but I definitely would re-do some things next time I play. 'Twas a delightful game and afternoon! 



Such a good game!!!
Lent is awesome. I decided to do a  bajillion small fun things for Lent, which of course resulted in me picking so many things that I can't keep track of them all at the same time. But Lent has still been really awesome; I'm focusing a lot on silence, spiritual reading, Divine Mercy, and doing small sacrifices sporadically throughout my days. 

And, being a good student, my homework is coming along. Slowly, but surely. Because sometimes, paper projects (or non-paper projects) are due right after break. And even though I don't feel like working on these a lot, I've been dedicating myself to them a little at a time. I've also had some chunks of quality time with my thesis, and I'm very excited that I'm about a third of the way through draft 1.5. Because I never finished my first draft completely before I started revising it, ergo, I'm working on an in-between draft. 

I'm also getting pumped about creating an NFP presentation to give for some friends of mine. I am a big-time believer that single women should have opportunities to learn about using NFP to know about their bodies and fertility. So, over break, I'm going to put together a little talk to give after break for some of my female friends. That way, they will have some tools to learn more about themselves and how God made them. 

Oh yes--and one of the best parts of break? WARMTH! Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love snow. But, when the ground has been covered in snow from January onto March, and it's been freezing, even I want the snow to move on. A lot of us have gotten a little stir-crazy on campus, because when it's super cold outside, you're less inclined to want to leave your apartment, dorm, etc. And one of my friends has noted that when the weather is nice, FUS turns into a "Catholic Woodstock," with Frisbees flying, barefoot students traipsing across the grass, students pretending to study as they sit on wooden benches and talk with people walking by, and students sprawled out while strumming their guitars. So...I am very excited and hoping that the warm weather will continue to come and stay for my final two months as a student here. 

I should probably get to some more homeworkish activity before evening Mass. Have a beautiful day! 

Thursday, March 5, 2015

The Awesomeness of Cooking in Lent!

Happy Lent, y'all!

I hope that you are having an abundantly blessed and epic Lent thus far, even if it may not seem like it (because we all have those times when we feel like we’re failing Lent—but God continues to bless us through and in it all!).

Lent provides a chance for extra prayers, sacrifices, and giving of alms (or other such things) to others. It also becomes a time for me to think about food. I love food. When I was a young girl (we’re talking six years old and up), my favorite books all had pictures of food, descriptions of food, or many important occasions that included food. Want to know how I learned about St. Edith Stein? I was in a Catholic bookstore, and thought, hey, I’ll totally buy a saint book. Hmm…this Stein lady looks a little intriguing, I’ve never heard of her, but maybe I won’t like the book. Let me flip through the book and see what I think. I then proceeded to flip through the pages of the book, some of which were illustrated. I stopped. One of the illustrations featured a picture of Edith Stein and chocolate. Yes. I am totally buying this book. TRUE STORY. I bought this book solely because of the food picture.

I have found simplifying meals to be a cool Lenten sacrifice. Sacrifice-ish. We still eat delicious food, but it’s just not over-the-top extravagant or fancy all the time. Prior to Lent, I realized that in order to intentionally simplify our meals, planning ahead would be imperative. Usually, I try to meal plan a week ahead of time. But I decided to try something a bit crazier. A couple days before Lent, I decided to meal plan for the entire season of Lent. I sat down one evening, and planned out one main meal for every day, figuring that the other meals would come from sandwiches or leftovers.

We’ve been in Lent for about two weeks, and I have been extremely grateful for this meal-planning binge that I went through! I honestly didn’t know if planning out a whole Lent of meals was beneficial or a waste of time, but so far, it has been awesome. 

I’ve been able to simplify our meals, yet make them creative. Instead of getting caught with an “OH NO! I have no meal planned, um, spaghetti again!” I can know and plan ahead for meals, so that they can always happen when they need to. And prior planning allows me to be more creative than just throwing on a pot of noodles or rice for dinner.  

Over-planning has broadened my meal scope. So, I planned one big meal for each day of Lent. Already, there are at least three days where we didn’t eat the prescribed meal, because we were still enjoying leftovers. Our Lenten Meal Plan is extremely flexible, and open to change.  There will also be days where we may be out of town and unable to have the meal we pre-planned. And that’s awesome. It means that I have a whole host of scheduled meals which we never ate, that I can use on days where we need more food in addition to the main meal. Also, since I didn’t want to schedule repeat meals very much, I got to hunt through all of the recipe documents on my computer, which I have rapidly been acquiring over the past couple years. And I got to pull out a bunch that I have never used, so that I can experiment with them this Lent!

Grocery Shopping is so much easier. Instead of thinking, Well, we don’t have any beef in the freezer. I should buy some beef in case I use it in the next couple weeks, I can, with all surety, think: We don’t have any beef in the freezer. But we’re not scheduled to eat beef for another couple weeks, so I won’t buy it yet. Instead of mentally creating meals for a week and jotting down the ingredients on a grocery list, I can look at the Lenten Meal Plan—on our freezer—and focus on buying the necessary ingredients for those dishes.

It takes a huge load off my mind. Meal planning has never been a huge stressor for me, but there are times when I’m trying to focus on getting meal planning over with so that I can work on homework. And on these occasions, I usually blank out and start pulling meals off a list that we have of about 10 basic go-to dinners. And while this is fine, having meal plans for the next month already typed, printed, and ready-to-go has been a fantastic relief. I can focus on other things more, like enjoying time with my husband and friends, doing homework, playing games, reading books, and making crafts.

It forces me to clean out the freezer and refrigerator. I figured that if we’re trying to simplify meals during Lent, it would be worthwhile to find all of the hidden containers of unidentifiable, once-edible stuff in our fridge and freezer. Now I have a much better idea of what leftovers must be eaten, what ingredients we do or do not need to buy, as well as more fridge space in general.

The basic structure that I used was the following:

~Do something fun and special on Sundays; whether it’s a full-on brunch, or a meal of chicken, potatoes, and fritters, it doesn’t matter—but have fun with it!

~Include a dish with rice and beans every week. Get creative with the rice and beans, changing up how they are made—make a rice pilaf, do enchiladas with refried beans and rice, or go all southern with red beans and rice.

Carrot soup! Paired with fresh-baked french bread, it's a
lovely, brightly colored meal for a snowy day! 
~Make a soup and homemade bread one day a week. I’ve been trying to do this early on in the week, since Mondays and Tuesdays are typically slower for us, and allow time for sitting at home with a simmering pot of soup or stew. And there’s nothing better than a hot bowl of soup with bread fresh out of the oven when it’s cold outside (and it has been cold—it’s still snowing over here in Ohio!).

~Try to do one noodle dish a week, since they are easy to make and manipulate, and go a long way!

~Fit in new recipes, or ones that I haven’t used much, where possible!

~Try to use chicken once a week, but also try for a non-Friday, mostly meatless day.

This is a very basic, very loose structure, but that’s how I roll. Also, since I’m the second oldest of six kids, I only know how to cook big family meals. So, our meals stretch a long way, either by eating them as leftovers, or tossing them into the freezer for a future meal. This has been a very handy aspect, since several means are already pre-made! My thoughts on the Lenten Meal Plan may change as the days go by, but so far, I am quite pleased with how things have turned out.

On that note, I’d like to share one of my top-favorite meals to make and eat with my husband: Falafels on Pita Bread with tzatziki sauce. The falafel recipe is fantastic. Falafels are super easy, very economical, healthy, and all-around epic. To make the falafels, you just throw all of the ingredients into your blender, mold it into balls, and deep fry it. How easy is that??? The pita bread recipe I use was sent to me by a friend, and is way better than most pita bread recipes I had come across. There are a plethora of tzatziki sauce recipes on the internet, and I don't follow any of them perfectly, but blend ingredients together and hope that it works out.  I recommend giving it a whirl if you want to change up your cooking routine! 


What are your favorite Lenten recipes?

Sunday, March 1, 2015

"Welcome to the Nerd Lab." The Epicness that is "Big Hero 6"

On Friday night, after enjoying a leisurely dinner with my household sisters, I trekked over to “Disney Friday” (an event created freshman year by one of my friends, which, as you may guess, involves watching a Disney movie on Friday). I had been invited to watch Big Hero 6. I saw a preview for this movie several months back, and I thought it looked weird. And somewhat dumb. I wanted to watch it, but was not too sure about how good the movie would be. But, my friends were showing it, and I wanted to hang out with them (and watch it), so I scurried through the chilly night air towards Trinity Hall. The enthusiasm and joy of my friends was contagious, and I could not help but be excited for this movie. I didn’t know the plot, I had no clue what to expect (except a gigantic marshmallow-looking thing that I remembered from the preview), and I didn’t even know if I would like this movie.

Well.

I laughed crazy hard. I nearly cried. The epic soundtrack resonated in my heart. And I was blown away by the beautiful exhibition of sacrificial love in this movie.

This movie hits you hard. It is hilarious and uplifting, but it gets raw and real, forcing you to watch things that hurt so bad—because you see the good, the bad, and the ugly in fourteen-year-old Hiro’s life, and you can realize,“hey, I go through these same things, in slightly different ways.” This movie helps you to look not just at Hiro’s life, but at your own life, and to see how hope, redemption, healing, and sacrificial love can always shine a bright light into the darkness of suffering.   

If you haven’t seen the movie, please—go watch it. It is well worth your time. It has a bit of darkness that took me back to Up, so if you have young children, you may want to be sensitive to this fact. There are also a couple of sexual references in dialogue, but it overall is a very clean, wholesome film. And hey, if you screen it before showing the movie to your kids, you have an excuse to watch it twice! So leave this post behind, watch the movie, and come back later if you so desire.

If you have seen the movie, then feel free to continue reading.




SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SO MANY SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Healing. So Hiro doesn’t have parents (because hey, this is a Disney movie, and since when do they let a main character have both parents for an entire film?), and then he loses Tadashi, his brother. He shuts out the world, his aunt, and a college career (and the nerds from college!) and doesn’t want to tell Baymax of his deep pain. Before Hiro has worked through his sorrow, grieved, and started to heal, he acts out of vengeance, rage, and deep pain. He has no mercy for Callaghan, and certainly no love or justice. But Hiro ultimately sees the importance of admitting the deep pain and loss that he has experienced. It isn’t until he has let himself grieve and admit his need for healing that he can be healed. Then, when Hiro has begun to heal, he can find true peace and properly battle Callaghan out of true justice and mercy. The true strength that Hiro finds when he has more peace in the midst of the craziness of life totally reminds me of something cool that I read the other day. So, for Lent this year, I’m praying through this epic little book that a friend of mine gave to me a couple weeks back: Searching for and Maintaining Peace, by Fr. Jacques Phillippe. And there’s some coolness that Fr. Phillippe speaks about regarding the interior peace that we must strive for: 

 "The Christian fights, then, against sin, with violence sometimes, called as he is to keep fighting to the point of death (Hebrews 12:4), but he fights with a peaceful heart and his struggle is that much more efficacious, because his heart is more peaceful. For, as we have said, it is exactly this interior peace which permits him to fight, not with his own strength, which would be quickly exhausted, but with the strength of God.”

Community. Yes, Baymax is a robot. But he’s awesome—and he helps Hiro experience community. Baymax shows us that things get rough in life, and when we go through suffering, we should surround ourselves with a community of love, instead of isolating ourselves. Let’s pause and take a quick look at St. John Paul II’s words (I bolded some text for added emphasis):

“In itself human suffering constitutes as it were a specific "world" which exists together with man, which appears in him and passes, and sometimes does not pass, but which consolidates itself and becomes deeply rooted in him. This world of suffering, divided into many, very many subjects, exists as it were "in dispersion". Every individual, through personal suffering, constitutes not only a small part of that a world", but at the same time" that world" is present in him as a finite and unrepeatable entity. Parallel with this, however, is the interhuman and social dimension. The world of suffering possesses as it were its own solidarity. People who suffer become similar to one another through the analogy of their situation, the trial of their destiny, or through their need for understanding and care, and perhaps above all through the persistent question of the meaning of suffering. Thus, although the world of suffering exists "in dispersion", at the same time it contains within itself a singular challenge to communion and solidarity. We shall also try to follow this appeal in the present reflection.”
 (St. John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris #8)

Big Hero 6 continues to show us the communion and solidarity in a world of suffering. Baymax contacts Hiro’s nerdy friends, and we see that with them—and Baymax—Hiro is able to heal and reorient his life.

The witness of sacrificial love. As the movie begins, we see Hiro in the bot fighting rink. Hiro, acting like any typical genius teenager might, goes to the bot fights and makes money, adding to his own personal glory. On the other hand, we begin to see Tadashi’s self-sacrifice as we meet Baymax: the healer robot that Tadashi has spent many hours creating, in order to help other people. Hiro sees how amazing (and weird) Tadashi’s life, work, workplace, and friends are, and due to the witness of Tadashi, he is encouraged to seek more in life than bot fighting. Tadashi is a witness of what sacrificial love is: he works to help other people, and he ultimately gives up his life for Callaghan. Later on, we see how Tadashi’s sacrifice was for Callaghan seems to be in vain, since Callaghan started the fire (and survived). But the witness of Tadashi’s sacrifice remains.
Hiro, following in the footsteps of his brother, ultimately grows in this sacrificial love himself. Risking everything, he dives into the portal to save Abigail. Yes, she’s the daughter of the villain, but Hiro and Baymax recognize her dignity and worth, and give all that they have to save her. When they try to get out, not only does Baymax offer up himself to send Hiro and Abigail out, but Hiro makes a huge sacrifice as well. He has to accept the sacrifice of Baymax, knowing that he has lost yet another close friend. How many times have we experienced something like this in our own lives? We’ve already gone through so much suffering, lost so much, and then—BAM. We lose something or someone very dear to us. And we’re left wondering what we’ve done to deserve this.

“But in order to perceive the true answer to the "why" of suffering, we must look to the revelation of divine love, the ultimate source of the meaning of everything that exists. Love is also the richest source of the meaning of suffering, which always remains a mystery: we are conscious of the insufficiency and inadequacy of our explanations. Christ causes us to enter into the mystery and to discover the "why" of suffering, as far as we are capable of grasping the sublimity of divine love. In order to discover the profound meaning of suffering, following the revealed word of God, we must open ourselves wide to the human subject in his manifold potentiality. We must above all accept the light of Revelation not only insofar as it expresses the transcendent order of justice but also insofar as it illuminates this order with Love, as the definitive source of everything that exists. Love is: also the fullest source of the answer to the question of the meaning of suffering. This answer has been given by God to man in the Cross of Jesus Christ.”
(St. John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, #13).


There is hope in death. We see Hiro setting up his new life after losing Baymax, and we’re trying to pull ourselves together. He’s just a robot, we try to remind ourselves. Obviously, the sacrifice was the most admirable thing. But this is so, so, lame. But we try to wipe our eyes and take joy in the fact that Hiro has accepted his many losses and is starting out his life anew and with purpose. And then we have that glimmer of hope, which bubbles up into deep joy, peace, and elation: Hiro discovers the identity chip of Baymax. Plus, it’s a Disney movie, so of course they wouldn’t kill off the cute, giant, marshmallow character. In all seriousness, we can remember that just as Hiro discovers this new life and hope after all of the sorrow and death, so too, shall we. God is continually blessing our lives, and desires to bring us to the fullness of joy.