Krista Willertz

Retired educator and administrator of 25 years. I married my soulmate, Chris, we have three awesome kids and bonus daughter (Raegan, Alec, Maria, and Natasha).

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

Thank you for his post, Bishop. May Jesus have mercy on us. I will offer my humble prayers for reparation.

[Bishop J. Strickland @BishStrickland]

Something unspeakably vile took place other day – a scene aired on a streaming platform (Apple TV+) in the show “Friends and Neighbors” portrayed actors breaking into a Catholic church, stealing the consecrated Hosts from the tabernacle, mocking the Eucharist as “the Body of Christ,” dipping the consecrated Host in jam like a snack, simulating Communion, and then committing a sexual act in the pews.

This is is not art. This is not edgy satire. This is sacrilege – brazen, calculated, and demonic.

The Holy Eucharist is not a symbol. It is not a dramatic prop. It is not cultural furniture for a godless script. The Most Holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ Himself – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. To violate Him in this way is to crucify Him anew. As the Apostle warns:

“Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord” (I Cor. 11:27).

The silence of Catholics in the face of such desecration would itself be a sin. We cannot, and will not, be silent.

To the producers and platform executives who permitted this blasphemy: You have desecrated the holiest mystery on earth. What you treat as entertainment is what the saints and martyrs died to defend.

To the faithful: I urge you to pray in reparation. Offer a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament. Attend Mass. Pray the Rosary with the specific intention of making reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so grievously wounded again.

And yes, I urge you to remove your support from platforms that mock and defile our Lord. If they will not stop, we must walk away. Christ is not for sale. His Church is not for spectacle. And His Eucharistic Heart is not a script device for ratings.

Let us remember the words of Pope Pius XII:

“The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.”

We see it now in full display. But we also know this: “God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7). He will not be silent forever. And until then, His Church must not be silent either.

Let our cry rise to heaven with the voice of the Psalmist:

“For the zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me” (Ps. 68:10).

To Christ in the Eucharist: we offer our sorrow. To the world: we offer our witness. To the perpetrators: we say – repent, for the day of mercy is still open, but it will not be forever.”

Christ remains in the tabernacles of the world. Hidden, humble, waiting – and still wounded. Let us now draw close, and console Him.

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

Hi folks! We are 10 percent toward our goal of funding our new app: Spiritual Companion! Here is an update of what we are working on. If you would be willing to financially or prayerfully support this work, please click the link below. Thank you! ❤️

https://t.co/9XSNo6REYS

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@Pontifex Thank you, Holy Father, for all of your sacrifices. God alone knows all that you have endured while carrying out the duties of the Chair of Peter. I am praying a Saint Michael Chaplet for you and your intentions today. May Our Blessed Mother be close to you right now. ❤️

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

Beautiful (and lengthy - persevere - it’s worth it!) reflections. Thank you, @SeanBerube4

[Sean Berube @SeanBerube4]

If you enjoyed this thread:

1) Repost the original post below
2) Follow for more threads on life's Truth, Beauty, and Goodness!
https://t.co/QL7VaCkYvn

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@BreeSolstad Yes! Amen!

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@lewisedwardbass As a convert, I clearly remember my very first Mass almost 35 years ago. I was with my boyfriend (now my husband of 33 years) and his family. The best advice is simply to let God speak to your heart in whatever way He has in store for you. Don’t overthink it. Just be present.

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@BreeSolstad Fact!

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@CWillertz86808 - great stuff!!! Simple. Effective.

[Greg Berge @GregBerge]

Coaches, what you say to your players matters.

Words matter.

Here are 5 phrases all athletes need to hear from their coaches.

[THREAD] 🧵

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@BreeSolstad Medjugorje - especially right now. Lots of attention here. 💙

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@BishStrickland Pretty amazing conversion of actor Russell Brand! I love his heartfelt prayer. You can’t argue with what he has said was a total and life changing experience deep in his own heart. He’s not out there condemning or judging, just sharing his own powerful experience. Thanks!

[Bishop J. Strickland @BishStrickland]

Beautiful and profound. Everyone, and I do mean everyone should hear this prayer to Jesus Christ. Thank you Russell for showing all of us a model of heartfelt prayer. May all the ordained Cardinals, bishops, priests and deacons take note.

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

For those who grieve. Which is all of us at different times and for different reasons. This father’s words describe an experience that, while common to all who walk this earth, is borne with pain, grace, perseverance, love, agony and described so perfectly by him. Thank you.

[Mark E. Joubert @mark_joubert]

It's hard to believe it has been a month - 4 weeks today - since my son died. He lived for nearly eight months in the hospital. It felt like a lifetime. Yet, in the blink of an eye, we've already lived 1/8 of that time without him.

I've been meditating lately on my son's transition from a present reality to a transient memory. (For me, it's mostly an intellectual exercise at this point. I'm too burnt out and numb for sorrow and tears - though there is still an element of pain to it all.) My son is no longer here. That is not to say he no longer is. It is only to say that I can no longer experience him as he was. His realness did not cease. But it did change. He left me in the dust.

One of these pictures represents the last time he held my finger before our new normal was blown to pieces - Friday, July 19th - the day before he died. The consequence of his absence is that I can no longer perceive him. He now exists beyond the pale of my touch, smell, sight, and hearing. As a result, reality is exchanged with a memory - and that memory is fading. It's like a second experience of death, but it is slower, more subtle, and in a way, more personal: my very mind is being plundered of its most precious recollections.

How can I describe it?

It's like a sandcastle constructed along the violent borders of the ocean. All our lives are built and expended here: on the edge of dissolution. Our lives are but a vapor. We are like the grass that flowers and fades. The best we can do with our fragility is heed the words of Christ and build our undying souls on solid rock (Matt. 7:24-27). But even that doesn't change the fact that death will come - it only changes how we greet it when it does.

As the tide changes and the waves creep up to the base of your castle, the erosion is subtle at first, but in a moment, dramatically, it all comes tumbling down. It crumbles. All that remains is a disfigured lump of sand. Your handiwork is no longer perceptible but the rubble at least testifies to the fact that something was there.

But the ocean makes quick work of that too.

As the tide steadily rushes in, the rubble becomes a mound. The mound becomes a lump. In no time at all the ocean has swallowed it up. By the time the tide retreats, there will be little to no evidence a castle was ever there.

Reality is displaced by memory, and memory, unaided by fresh impressions, is slowly eroded by the passing of time. This itself invites new grief. Am I grieving my son, or am I now grieving the memory of my son? It is likely a mixture of both.

In a strange reversal of the Greek mythology of the underworld, it is as though the living, and not the dead, are compelled to drink from the River Lethe and forget.

Of course, I know I won't really forget Gus. I'm just painfully aware that this memory, increasingly disfigured by the passing of time, is a poor reflection of the reality, of the real him as he was. C.S. Lewis acknowledges this in A Grief Observed. Rightly so, he further acknowledges that the person we've lost is not now locked in the same state in which they left us. Even believing that my son continues to be does not mean he will ever again be what he was; that we will ever again be what we were. Even the hope of heaven does not completely soothe this ache.

At the risk of blathering on to the annoyance of whoever reads this far, I must add a further observation: part of what makes this all so hard is that we never brought Gus home. My son lived and died in the hospital. While that place became a second home and a 'new' normal, his death rudely returned my 'old' normal. This new old is a confusing and bewildering thing.

Sometimes it feels like the last year of my life never even happened. It's as though it was all a dream. It's as though it all took place in a weird, liminal space. It's like I met my son in Elfland. We visited him on the Isle of Avalon. He lived and died in Neverland.

I've discovered that my son's death not only includes this harsh exchange between reality and mere memory, but it seems to bring into question what once was real - or, at the very least, that is how it all feels.

Whatever I forget, my God does not. My son is lost to me - but I know Who keeps him. He cannot come to me, but I can go to him.

---

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

Like flowery fields the nations stand,
Pleased with the morning light;
The flowers beneath the mower’s hand
Lie withering e’er ’tis night.

Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

(Isaac Watts)

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@BreeSolstad I love how this Saint showed up for you! And even more how you listened. We are all, in some way or another, lost and need to be seen and found. What a blessing to encounter a Saint in such a real and powerful way! Much love to you, fellow prodigal sister. ❤️

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

This beautifully expressed post pierced my heart. At some point in our lives, we all experience the pain and companionship of grief. This father’s words describe it so exquisitely. Mark lost his infant son, Gus, recently. He and his wife shared their journey so openly here.

[Mark E. Joubert @mark_joubert]

Grief is an odd thing. In some sense, it is an extension of love. It is distinct from sadness because it is tied so distinctly to loss. Like nostalgia, it is concerned with what once was. Yet, with anxiety & hope, it is preoccupied with the future - a future that will never be.

Grief is powerful and dangerous. Like a sudden gust of wind it can unsteady you. Like a crashing wave it can knock you off your feet. Like a strong tide it can drag you down. It manifests as a passion easily mistaken for rage.

Sometimes, the power of grief is found not in what you feel, but what you don't. This is the power to subdue all feeling; to leave you numb to the very thing you once felt more deeply than anything you'd ever felt before. Once shaken to your core, there is now a barren absence of feeling. Try as you may to rouse yourself, the tears won't come. In vain you try to unshackle yourself from this torpid insensibility.

Here is where grief and guilt conspire together. Confused and dazed, you mistake this new lack of feeling for a deeper lack of love - "did I not really love what I lost?"

Yet, just when its deadening effect seems final, as though it had successfully snatched all the color out of the world or muted every melody, a random sensation leads to an uninvited memory and all of a sudden you feel a somber smile rise up in your soul...

Wait - is it a smile? You can't be so sure.

Like a spark, grief returns (though in truth, it never really left you) as something faint and fragile though it glows with vigor and teases violence. Under all the lifeless ash there is a deathless ember. If you're careful, you can rekindle it into a steady fire and rest beside it awhile, enjoying the warm embrace of tender recollections tinged by the sorrow of loss. Unguarded, however, the same subtle spark can quickly break out into a blazing inferno. In an instant, all the progress gained by peace seems lost, as though you're back again to that cold and lonely place where grief first met you.

Grief is a puzzling thing. The same thing that inflicts so much pain has now become the guardian of your most precious memories. You'd rather have the company of grief than suffer the alternative: forget. Here we put Tennyson to the test. For me, his maxim proves true. It is better to have loved. Grief, however odd, however dangerous, however puzzling, is welcome here because it is the pallbearer of my most cherished experiences. It bears them to me over and over and I would rather have this than welcome the silent abyss of oblivion.

Is grief a companion or am I its willing hostage? Does it matter?

In the end, grief will only travel so far. One day grief may give way wholly to gratitude - even now the two are intermingled. If that day never comes, I know for certain that grief will and must surrender to glory. The Apostle Paul guarantees as much when, relaying God's promise to us, he writes that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Elsewhere he reasons that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." If this suffering appears so great, then how much greater the glory of the beatific vision will be.

Until that day, grief will persist, and it is only right that it should. It is a timeless reminder that I have known "the goodness of the Lord in the land of living." If what I lost was not so good, why would I grieve its absence?

With that, grief and gratitude continue their elaborate dance.

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

Well written! This is not a popular opinion but it is true. Truth itself is also not popular because it causes us to see the worst (and also hopefully the best) in ourselves and others. Homeschooling is not always accessible (or well done)but I do see the benefits! Thank you!

[Bree Solstad @BreeSolstad]

Parents,

Many of you may not know just how pervasive porn has become. The average age of a person first being introduced to it is now 10-years-old.

The world tells you that your kid should be in front of a screen and have a smart phone. The world is wrong.

Your child is going to say, “but everyone else has one” and they will be correct. It doesn’t matter! Giving them that phone or that iPad is like giving them crack cocaine.

Girls are not only becoming addicted to porn at growing rates, but they are being groomed into an unvirtuous & immodest life by the culture. Once they start posting pics and videos on TikTok and Instagram, they will soon be hit with a wave of affirmation and applause as men from around the globe click and like their posts. This is not something a young girl can comprehend or deal with. They will unknowingly show more skin & be more provocative in the content they post so they can keep experiencing the high that comes from those clicks and likes. So many girls who are now selling themselves on OnlyFans or creating interactive pornographic content started by posting immodest content on social media. If you search TikTok and Instagram, a large swath of the content posted is soft pornography. It is ubiquitous.

Conversely, we have all seen the negative effects the lack of clicks and likes also has on young girls. It leads to suicide, depression and all sorts of disorders.

When you give them that smartphone so that they can be like everyone else in school, you are giving them unfettered access to porn, and a device that often leads them to creating pornographic content of their own.

Boys, on the other hand, are being bombarded by highly addictive pornographic images everywhere they look. It’s in the games they play, the films they watch, the group chats they engage in and is easily accessible on thousands of different websites. Those behind the porn industry, the free porn websites & the subscription sites like OnlyFans know exactly what they’re doing to young boys and they don’t care. The average 14 year old boy has seen more porn already than almost anyone else who ever lived prior to the inception of the Internet. And today’s porn is not your grandfather’s porn. It is slickly produced, hypnotic, fast-paced and created with the clear intent to entrap and addict its consumer.

This is going to decimate boys as they grow into manhood. They will be sexually disordered, unable to form healthy relationships with girls, have a corroded view of sex and beauty, and will be more likely to be isolated, antisocial and addicted to more and more extreme porn.

I urge you to hear me. If possible, homeschool your children or find small group homeschooling pods. And I implore you to keep smartphones and other devices away from your children until they are at least 16 years old. They will likely resent you in the short term, but when they’re happily married with a couple of kids of their own at the age of 25, they will thank you for keeping them away from one of the most dangerous drugs known to man these days.

Stand against the trends. Stand against the culture of acceptance and affirmation. Stand with Christ!

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@johnkrasinski In a world of darkness and chaos, a world where we force kids to grow up way too soon, I’m so glad @johnkrasinski is standing up for imagination and the beautiful minds of young people ❤️

[John Krasinski @johnkrasinski]

Not in my wildest imagination! Completely and totally blown away by all the love for our movie! To each and every one of you who have gone out to see the movie, who have celebrated the movie and who have written the most beautiful messages about the movie, thank you thank you thank you! You’ve brought my imagination to life!!!

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

#DreamAchievedBTI

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

Great post! Chat GPT is here to stay and teachers will all need to learn how to leverage it for good purposes. Thank you!

[Academics Write @academicswrite]

I did a thing this term where I told my students they were allowed to use ChatGPT. The catch was, they had to tell me about it in a reflection when they handed in their paper. This is a thread about how it all went.

[Krista Willertz @kwillertz]

@academicswrite Thank you for taking the time to post your results! ChatGPT is here to stay (just like the cell phones that invaded classrooms 15 years ago). This is great information to have!