Friendship Week 8: Friends Reflect on Pondering Prayerfulness

WINE 2018 Summer Book Club

The Friendship Project: The Catholic Woman’s Guide to Making and Keeping Fabulous, Faith-Filled Friends

The power of prayer in our friendship has also manifested itself in participating in a faith sharing group and Eucharistic Adoration. Allison provided the opportunity and extended the invitation for small group bible study, and Karen introduced weekly Adoration hour. Because consistency is key, prayerful friends help with accountability and encouragement, especially when life gets busy or we feel discouraged. An additional blessing of our Holy Hour was the half hour drive to the Adoration chapel, which meant time to enjoy a cup of coffee and uninterrupted girl talk!

Karen is a convert to the Catholic faith and Allison refers to herself as a cradle-Catholic revert. Like Emily’s friend, Karen credits Allison with teaching her, “the invaluable lesson of uniting my prayer with my daily work.” Integrating St. Paul’s lesson of praying without ceasing through prayer while folding laundry, running errands, or taking a walk to pray the Rosary.

Allison credits Karen with introducing her to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially the phenomenal Part IV on Christian Prayer. Shortly after entering the Church, Karen went to the Azores with her family on vacation. She read the entire Catechism － cover to cover. A prayerful friend, one who really knows her faith, becomes a pretty invaluable resource.

Friends Reflect

When developing the WINE companion journal for The Friendship Project,

we thought it would be fun to include reflections on each chapter written by friends.

Our friend-pairs collaborated in their writing and share an inspiring, heart-warming, and Spirit-led reflection

This is a portion of the inspiring reflection by Allison Gingras and Karen Toste on the virtue of Prayerfulness and friendship found in The Friendship Project companion journal, available only through WINE. Purchase here: http://bit.ly/2LiJlEi

***Proceeds benefit the non-profit work of WINE ministry.

Allison Gingras is the founder of Reconciled To You where she blogs, shares and speaks about the Catholic faith in our everyday life and the many opportunities life presents to discover the grace of God! She shares these with great enthusiasm, passion and a sense of humor. She is the creator and one of the author’s of the new Stay Connected Journals for Catholic Women from GraceWatch.media. Her book The Gift of Invitation will be available Sept. 15th. Allison is a WINE Specialist overseeing and facilitating the online aspect of the Between the WINEs Book Clubs for WINE: Women in the New Evangelization.

Since I failed to obtain a picture of Karen and I, for this post, I’ll share instead one of my favorites pics of her and I, with some of our very best friends as we welcome our friend, Leslie, into the Catholic Church!

Karen Toste has been married to her other best friend for the past 28 years, mom of 6 children, ages 11 to 24, Karen is a stay-at-home, home-schooling mom who is rarely at home. Karen was received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil on April 15, 1995. After a 5-year formation process, Karen made her vows to be a Consecrated Daughter of St Francis de Sales on October 1, 2016.