Our Lady of China, pray for us!

Through one of my internet support groups, I found this rich "Around the World with Mary" study. Click here for the link for the whole study and here for more information about Our Lady of China. Bon Voyage!

And, yes, a few more highlights from a grace-filled weekend: We were able to celebrate First Holy Communion with 3 other families this weekend. We have been praying for all first communicants during our evening family prayer. I found this wonderful quote by Tolkien.

O come, let us adore Him...

After a really wild and wonderful 5 days (dress rehearsal, play, grandparents visiting and Pure Fashion Show), we (mom and kids) all landed in the chapel in front of the Blessed Sacrament for our weekly Adoration and prayer time. We have been going every Monday for this Holy Hour for this academic year. It is a time of peace and guidance.

Playing around, praying hard and blessed by honesty...

My kiddos invented a fun game, "Boo", similar to "Hide and Seek", but in the dark. I hear lots of screaming and laughing downstairs. I can hear my husband playing his guitar from two floors down. It was, all in all, a good week. As I was rinsing the dishes this evening, I had a little inspiration to change my learning notes into "highlights," at least during Eastertide. It is the "Great Sunday", a time for joy and light, love and celebration. I was following, to some extent, the wonderful back and forth prompted in the blogosphere by this post by Melissa Wiley, called "Every Face I Look at Seems Beautiful". It reminded me of a wonderful thing that was said in a homily recently by our good and loving Fr. Mike. He said that to be holy is, above all, to be honest.

Mom begins Latin studies

At our 4pm Family Mass, we sang the Lamb of God/Agnus Dei in Latin, and it was lovely. My parents encouraged me to study Spanish as a youth. After having travelled to Mexico, Guatemala, Spain and Argentina and had some solid courses in college, I am fluent but have, over time, become rusty in my speaking skills. As I embark upon my Latin studies, I understand the concept of inflection from having conjugated all those verbs en espanol; I am curious to see how inflection works with nouns. I hope to stir up some interest at my parish for a family-style Latin study group.

Some quick notes: Dad and son are revisiting our Godzilla movie collection. These have long been a family favorite. Jay loves to draw battles. His two favorite subjects are medieval battle scenes; and, he likes the quirky, slow moving monsters in these sci-fi flicks. M wants to quit the clarinet for a while, after three years of lessons. M read all the Spiderwick Chronicles, and JB, J and I want to read them before the movie comes out. All of us, except Dad, learned so much Friday afternoon at TORCH coop classes. Today, Mom got to have a morning out and met Rach for early Mass, Confession and a yummy, leisurely brunch at this restaurant in our historic district. Then, I came back and took 5 kids shopping and for hair cuts, picked up Jerry, went to Mass and a very fun banquet for our parish Boy Scout troop of which our little man is the smallest member. I had forgotten that I signed the girls up for a game night with our youth group (at nearly the same time) and it was funny how it all worked out.

I am signing off to read my World Book Encyclopedia (I got a whole set at a library sale for $10 just as I decided to bring the girls home for study and saw this as one affirmation among many I received at the time) article on "Latin Language" and "Latin Literature".

Berta and Elmer

Well, I'd sure like to know more about this artistic team, Berta and Elmer Hader, the authors and illustrators of the beautiful picture book, The Big Snow. What is in a name? On another funny note, number 3 child has decided to really suffer this Lent. He has given up corn, yes, corn. No, he does not eat corn everyday. There is no love affair with the vegetable.

I was temporarily in Heaven today as my husband worked from home, and we all prayed the Noon Mass together. Number 2 child kept whispering to me if she could just go to the bathroom for a sec to see how her ashes looked...I quietly whispered back to wait until Mass was over. She was ok with that.

What a sweet life this is. Full of ups and downs and ins and outs. I would not trade it for anything. Just when we needed to step back and take stock, Mother Church opens Her arms wide and receives us as we are. Acceptance and love are intertwined. Our Lord demands so much of Himself and so little of us. At the same time, we must strive to be holy because it pleases Him so much. It is so unoriginal to say this, but....God does not need our effort. It is truly a "love thing" -- meaning that He desires our goodness because He loves us so much that He wants to see us happy and content. As Fr. Mike said as much today, a high price was paid for our salvation. I hope my dear children will grow to understand the compassion of our God.

A little reflection on Corpus Christi

We are cleaning the house, purging curriculum and getting very excited about our educational and spiritual goals for the coming "school year". I want to reflect a bit so as to remind myself not to get too caught up in the academics. It is easy for me to take on too much because I love to read, I love books and many subjects fascinate me. I love the pursuit of knowledge and deepening my own learning. This often leads to serendipity. Serendipity is the gift of being able to make delightful discoveries by pure accident. On a spiritual level, serendipity in prayer leads to an increase in all seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety and the gift of the fear of the Lord -- a.k.a. awe). In a sense, we control nothing. Everything is from God and everything is pure gift. To know this is to strive for humility and our current culture is lacking in grace because it lacks humility. I spent four years in the ivy league and, while there is a lot of pleasure and learning being pursued, one must ask, to what end is all this self-gratification and learning?

***

This past year has reinforced an idea that I have grappled with for as long as I can remember: we retain what we have learned by putting our learning into practice. We are not doing any service to God or neighbor when we hide our lights. We must communicate our learning. We must apply our learning. We must share our gifts.

***

Years ago my friend, Mary-Gay, introduced the children and I to Sculpey. It is a polymer clay that is available in a wide array of colors. You mold it and bake it, and it comes out of the oven beautifully glazed. We buy it from time to time and alot of Sculpey dabbling gets thrown in the trash, but, this year, the kids started making fake food out of it. Then, while Maggie was hitting the books, the two younger children came up with an elaborate game with the Sculpey food. They created two restaurants, various menus, and role played a variety of scenarios with interesting customers and employees. I was often a customer at "Elizabeth's Deli and Bakery" and the food and service was lovely! We discussed the other customers who frequented their businesses. The bills were elaborate and, of course, you could pay by cash, check or credit card!

I am going to cut this post into my homeschooling journal which I started last August. It really is a tricky business balancing the planned work with what Elizabeth Foss (click on this for more info: Real Learning) and others call "rabbit trails". A huge bonus to home education is all the real-life learning that goes on. You can surround yourself with the finest music and literature, the most rigorous and logical math, science and history. Grammar, reading and writing (and pre-writing) can be bundled into role play, notebooking and, yes, even housework and play time. We get outside alot which is something we have loved all along.

Someone told me that home educators who use various curriculum are called "mixers". I thought this was funny as I was a bartender in Nashville, Tennessee, when I was in graduate school. The analogy is good. You can get too much of a good thing both ways; and, one goal for me is to strive to pray harder for my children so that I strike a good balance between planned work and "rabbit trails". Discerning their gifts and talents and encouraging them to pray is something that must be budgeted in to the work week. We enjoy praying together and do it throughout the day. We pray with Dad when he comes home. When I remember, we ask Dad to pray with us in the morning.

Like an oreo cookie, we are the filling and prayer is the two pieces of cookie. We sandwich our efforts in prayer and the good Lord and His most Blessed Mother will iron out the kinks. That has been my experience for years now, not just in homeschooling. I am not in charge of the vocations of my children. God has this in His loving care. I am an instrument to be used. I must be willing to do as John the Baptist did; I must be willing to decrease my ego and my life so that the young may flourish in the working of the Holy Spirit.

***

My last reflection involves the role of the Sullivan family in our parish community and larger society. This needs prayer and attention. It is hard to balance all the needs and goals here at home with what must also be done outside the home. In my experience, homeschooling families are gems when it comes to lovingly reaching out to their neighbors (We were encouraged to "take the leap" in good part due to other hschooling families -- Alleluia!). We carry Christ Jesus in our hearts, and He encourages us to reach out. We did this, by the grace of God. I know He blessed and increased our small efforts. I also know that the harder we strive to do God's will, the harder the bad angels pummel us. This is a mystery of faith and has to do with the fact that much has been given to us so much (battling) is expected of us. We Catholics possess the weapon against the fallen angels, the world and our own sinful flesh-- and that is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the summit, the peak of God's saving Love, and the other 6 sacraments are fully intertwined in the gift of Jesus's Body and Blood.

Dear Jesus, be with us this summer as we make our preparations for the coming year of living, loving and learning. I ask this through the intercession of the most Immaculate Heart of Mary. All praise be to Him who started a good work in all of us and will give us the grace we all need to live out our vocations on earth. Amen

A Quiet Moment

Our son, Jay, turns six years old this coming Tuesday. He wants to be crowned "King of Mardi Gras," and, thanks to his kindergarten coop teacher, Mrs. Doyle, he is the one person in the family ready and willing to sacrifice for Lent. He made a cross, and, on one side, his teacher wrote his vow to stop hitting his sisters (who often hit him first, I might add). On the other side of this cross, he said that he wants to tuck himself into bed at night. Jay has a talent for drawing that is so beautiful. Jay is a gift!

I need to get busy typing up the bios for our "Hobbit" playbill. Maggie is working very well on her own. She is a math whiz. She and I want to find time to do more together, especially with literature and writing. Maggie is a gift!

Joy-Beth and I are reading the original Black Beauty, with Jay listening in. Joy-Beth has such a good balance between working with me and doing work independently. Joy-Beth is a gift!

I re-discovered a favorite artist, Mary Engelbreit, and put a free snowman backdrop on my computer. Her artwork is inspiring and delightful.

I want to learn how to post photos on this blog and use flicker, or something like that, to have a slideshow. As I prayed this morning, I realized that I am heavy with worry about many things, as is my temperament. God gave me the primary melancholic temperament, with a secondary dose of phlegmatic. This works out for the good in my marriage as my husband is a choleric. I think he might be primary and secondary choleric <: !!! just kidding, Jerry...Seriously, the Lord guided me at times in my life when I had little thought of Him. He cared so much for my salvation that He really performed some marvelous deeds to keep me from straying too far. He used my willing and good-hearted husband to bring me back in the fold. As Easter approaches, I ought to be more grateful to Christ Jesus as the Good Shepherd. He truly wishes that none should perish. He wants us to cooperate and help Him bring salvation to all. My "worries" are a mixed bag. Feelings of anxiety and worry often accompany persons who "have their fingers in many pies". Faith leads us to prayer, and prayer will help order these feelings and direct this "storm of worries" to God's will for our lives. His will for us needs to be discerned daily, and this cannot be done if the Christian is too busy for prayer. This is a very long-winded admission that I have not been giving myself to the Lord in prayer enough. Well, as always, Mother Church hands out the most potent medicine via her sacred liturgy; Lent is upon us -- praise be to God! I pray now to help myself and my family to live out Lent in imitation of our Savior who wants so much for us to pick up our crosses and follow Him. We carry our burdens lightly because of His saving act on the Cross. He does not ask us to heap pressure on pressure -- we often discern poorly what it is He wants us to carry. I will offer my Mass today for a good and fruitful Lent for the Sullivan family. I am not praying enough for my family. Lord, forgive me my many distractions. Mary, mother of sinners, bring us so very close to your Son. Thank you, sweet Virgin, for bearing all of Jesus's sorrows with Him. I ask the intercession of our most Blessed Mother to carry all our worries to Jesus. Please, Holy Mother of God, take them to Him and beseech Him to show us what He wills for our lives, both in big things and small. I ask this in Jesus's name. Amen.

Superbowl Sunday and Why We Need a Savior...

I shall do everything for heaven, my true home. --Saint Bernadette

God sent us our Savior because we do not need solving, we need saving. Catholics, like St. Paul says, work out their salvation in "fear and trembling"; we are not a "once saved, always saved," people. I think it very misguided to think that the human person can be solved, whether this solving come from secularists or professed religious persons. When I was studying at Brown, I fell into reading a lot of intellectual Marxism: feminist Marxists, literary Marxists, all manner of Marxists. Among my contemporary students were a very small portion of "limousine liberals," alot of well-meaning middle class "bleeding hearts" (myself in this category) and, because of Brown's admirable effort to give lots of financial aid, a good portion of Dorothy Day-type socialists (before she converted, that is), the best sort, really. The common denominator among us all was the fallacy of all social engineering, which is that the human person can be solved. The human person is in need of her God, not of her raising herself to the place of the Godhead. (I am slowly reading Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness, the recounting of an awesome journey. Here is Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Long-Loneliness-Dorothy-Day/dp/0060617519)

Ideas matter. A few months back, I read Raymond Arroyo's authorized biography of Mother Angelica, the foundress of a religious order and the marvelous broadcast network, EWTN. My children and I want to get our hands on a bumper sticker that she had printed in the 1970's that said, "Fight Mind Pollution." Mother Angelica is a prophet, which is not to say that she reads tea leaves, but rather, that she is as close as a human can get to knowing God's will. Over and over, in her words and deeds, she has warned us that American society is falling down the slippery slope -- and if hearts do not change, our American culture will lead the globe into utter moral degradation. The consequence of this immorality is slavery, both political and personal.

I was so heartened to pick up the current edition of the National Catholic Register. Here is their website: http://www.ncregister.com/. There is an article about the priest who celebrates Mass for the Chicago Bears. We are off to a Superbowl party this afternoon, even though we do not normally watch football games. Jerry and I both were competitive swimmers. When we were first married, we hiked alot: Kennesaw Mountain, the Smokies....Now, my husband has to put up with a cripple (which he handles better than I do). I have severe arthritis in my neck, back and hips. I was diagnosed in 2003 with Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD) which is similar to Lupus. I live with chronic pain and disability, as do the rest of my family. Faith is stronger than fear (see today's Gospel, Luke 5: 1-11) and, it is my experience, that faith gives a purpose to our sufferings, both emotional and physical. Flannery O'Conner said that illness before dying is a gift, and I wholeheartedly agree with this. I have twice been on my deathbed, so I do not take for granted that I will live a long life. What freedom there is in enjoying the small and simple pleasures in life like watching the sun set, drinking your tea really hot and relishing a buttery, toasted English muffin with that yummy Dickenson's blackberry jam<:! This is not a popular idea, but I believe it to be true: the media often tell us to chill out and not "sweat the small stuff," so we will not pay attention to our sin. If our purpose is to get ourselves and our family members to heaven, then everything matters. We Catholics actually believe in "sweating the small stuff"; we call this venial sin. Our view toward life is utterly countercultural. We look to love as Jesus loved which means seeing the weak, the small, and the quotidian as all being significant. Look at the spiritual exercises of the great Spanish saint, Ignatius of Loyola. He teaches us how to examine our consciences everyday. We can help God whittle us down, trim our pride and banish our vanity. Our Heavenly Father is the perfect father. He would do anything for us, including taking on human flesh. We converts tend to truly appreciate the Eucharist as the Real Presence of our Lord and Savior. We believe that we "are what we eat". God does not mind this. He freely gives Himself to us as food. Wow! We are so in need of our Savior! We ought to approach that altar in holy fear (awe) and trembling. Praise be to God.

The Habit of Being

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

God put this book, The Habit of Being, in my hands during a very difficult time in my life. It is a collection of Flannery O' Conner's letters which shows her wit and sense of humor. In the summer of 2002, I was diagnosed with Addison's disease (which ended up being an incorrect diagnosis) and O'Conner's strength of character inspired me to persevere in spite of crippling fatigue. Like many books I love, I gave it away. Now, as I attempt to discern God's will for my life, I recall the comfort I first experienced upon realizing that God works wonders through those who persevere in faith.

I have here on my nightstand a gem of a magazine, Magnificat. Part of the evening prayer is from Psalm 127 and it is one to be mindful of in any endeavor, but most particularly for us homeschoolers:

If the Lord does not build the house,
in vain do its builders labor;
if the Lord does not watch over the city,
in vain does the watchman keep vigil.

In vain is your earlier rising,
your going later to rest,
you who toil for the bread you eat:
when he pours gifts on his beloved when they slumber.

Mary Flannery O'Conner understood grace. I am no theologian, but, like her, I have experienced the laughter and joy that comes from being in full communion with our merciful Redeemer. I was seized by her short stories when I was in college. Oddly, even though I was from the South, my roommate, Sophie, from Connecticut, introduced me to FOC. Reading "Everything that Rises Must Converge" was like having a bucket of cold water dumped on my head. I had this inkling that what was wrong with man was not so much societal as it was an interior thing -- that something was broken inside of man that could not be fixed. I realized that society could never free itself from racial prejudice or murder or plain ole loneliheartedness as long as the heart of man stayed the same. At the same time, I had missed O'Conner's answer. Her answer was not just her faith, albeit a steady faith she had. Her answer was Mother Church. Her answer involved the steady and steadfast reception of all seven sacraments.

I am glad I took the time to wonder about FOC's vigorous stories. Her art planted a seed in me. FOC was a holy woman. She loved her sweet Savior and rejoiced in her salvation. She did not use such language. Why did she not? Why was she not overt in stating her confidence in Catholicism. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit were present in her daily writing and in her daily living. She was like C.S Lewis when he wrote Screwtape Letters (please see Joseph Pearce's encouraging book, C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church). She wrote a defense of the Faith by demonstrating humanity in it's loss of true religious practice. Wormwood and his minions are all over FOC's characters. They are all broken with no Eucharist to fill them.

There is no substitute for the Holy Eucharist. God so yearns to fill us with His love, and it is a great mystery that He does not force Himself upon us.