O Night Divine!

This morning we watched some home movies and, what with building a new house, this will be our last Advent and Christmas in this house. Each box I pack up and drawer I de-clutter brings so many good memories. Go to the "O Night Divine" blog and get lots of good ideas. I do not know if it will happen this year for us, but I really want to put a homemade Nativity scene, with an uplight, on our front lawn. I love Advent and the Christmas season.

Stress and Swelling and Shortness-of-breath, oh my!

Often in the course of my lupus-like condition, I have thought of the moment in the film The Wizard of Oz, when they fear they are lost and that reality is pressing, is closing in around them. For anyone who suffers a recurrent, inflammatory condition, like asthma, ra, fibro, lupo, etc..., the world shrinks, the body closes in and all's you can do is slow down and wait to get out of the dark, scary forest. Well, as I was telling some of my dear sisters in Christ today, for the most part, I offer it up and keep it between me and my loving Savior and His Holy Mother....that way I receive the privilege of helping Jesus and Mary save souls. I do not believe I deserve such a privilege. It makes the ills of the body more than bearable. "Redemptive suffering" is a blessing beyond description. I know this, though my feelings may be fickle. So, Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!

Election Day -- Lord, hear our prayer!

Our pastor entertained a question-and-answer-stump-the-pastor format during his homily this past Sunday. One comment he made hit me hard. He said that prayer is not our changing God; but, rather, God changing us. So, we petition. We should repeat our petitions. It reminds us that we need to constantly turn, and return, to God to focus on what is important. I hope to put this blog on my right sidebar. The Acton Institute is a space filled with prayerful, common-sense people. I want to do more to make this country the country it ought to be. The children and I are off to Noon Mass. I am confident that grace will change this country, one heart at a time.

The Day You Have Just Lived

"You will be judged on the day you have just lived," came as an exhortation from a good and active priest one morning this past spring. A group of mothers had gathered to pray and reflect. I wrote this in my notes, and, since then, it has become a simple, yet powerful, prayer.

This morning my husband and I rose before our children and had a little quiet time. I was reading my Magnificat. There is a lengthy quote from Pope Benedict XVI on the souls in Purgatory and here is a good part of it:

With death, our life-choice becomes definitive -- our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred, and have suppressed all love within themselves...In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbors -- people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfillment what they already are.

Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life (emphasis mine). For the great majority of people -- we may suppose -- there remains in the depth of their being an ultimate openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil -- much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur?...[Saint] Paul [says] that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: 'Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw -- each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through "fire" so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast.

Sin is at the bottom of the most profound Mystery of Faith, the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist. So many people do not believe they are in need of salvation. Our Savior is both our hero and our best friend. The doctrines of Mother Church are merciful because they come from the Son of Mercy, our Lord, the Christ. The fires of Purgatory purify us, and we need purification. I think often of the famous quote of St. Catherine of Sienna, "Be who you are and you will set the world ablaze." Our Lord calls us to be grateful for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Fear of the Lord, Knowledge, Fortitude, Piety, Counsel, Understanding and Wisdom) and to use them all at all times. Yet, we are weak and we fail. Then, we stoke the dying embers by our faith in the Sacraments; and, thanks be to God, He, by the request of Our Lady, fans our flame. Father, thank you for giving us Jesus as real food to enflame the fires of our love. Help us to love others as your Son has Loved us.

Links for upcoming "Hallowed days"

Father Phillip Tells a Ghost Story is a must read; and here is a link to lots of other links, recipes and ideas for All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. There is so much to learn!

6 Random Facts

I was over here at my friend Sara's blog and am playing along:

1.) As a young girl, I often thought about getting married and having children. I grew jaded and bought into the American "dream" of money and a career. I found the singles life saping and discouraging and, frankly, thought I'd never marry. I wanted to get a PhD and get paid lots of money to read books and talk and write about them. I thought I might find some ground-breaking topic concerning women and history.

2.) When my husband and I were first married, we were in a dinner club with two other couples, all of us living "in town" Atlanta. We'd go out once a month, either to a restaurant or to a gourmet meal cooked at home. I will never forget the fennel-ladened perfume of a seafood stew made by friend Mary. She served it with pureed, roasted red peppers.

3.) This reminds me of all the lovely foodie movies I've seen, like Babette's Feast. Like Sara, I love movies; and, when I lived in Madrid, it was about exploring cuisine and, oddly, seeing lots of movies.

4.) Oh, and jazz. I love jazz and think I will put some on now to get us going this very chilly morning. I saw Miles Davis in Madrid. And, people think of Paris and jazz cafes, but they were all over Madrid, at least in the late 80's, when I lived there.

5.) By far, the best thing to happen to me was to meet my husband, settle down and have children. Becoming a mother was like fireworks for me. I had travelled alot, as a youth and young adult (Mexico, Europe, South and Central America, many US cities...), but the journey of family life has, beyond my wildest imaginings, been the most profoundly beautiful journey.

6.) Being a Catholic has helped me overcome, in part, my natural tendency to ingratitude. I think we live in an ungrateful culture. If everyone could feel the depth of God's sacrifice for humanity, there would be world peace. As a young "ivy-leaguer," I was a "bleeding heart liberal," meaning I pined for the suffering in the world and was young enough to think I might just stop it all, on my own, or, with a little help from my friends.

Thanks for this exercise, as 1.) I want to read and watch "the ultimate gift," and 2.) you blogging moms show my tired bones that it is time to perk up and save the world, one day at a time!

So lovely here...

The weather here is glorious. I just took our dogs out because a tree hit our fence in the back, and I cannot just open the back door as I so often do. As I sat for a moment out front, I thought how glad I am that my husband and I are aging. Growing old together is sweet stuff. I have a personal history of being very high maintanence. I think my husband would agree that I have melted into him and acquired some amount of his ideal, low-maintanence approach to life, especially things material. The house we are "building" up in Cumming is coming along. Jerry snapped this photo yesterday and sent it to me via email.

I would love to just write and write, because my heart is so full of delight. I really need to go organize some things for our week...okay, maybe just a little...the homily today at Mass was all about love being in every little thing. Because of the many good things said, I felt deeply how much our Lord loves us. I often feel so inadequate in my love for Him, so distracted and prone to fault. This holy, Vietnamese father expressed so simply that it is really not so much about our love for Him, which will consistently fail to be adequate. If we are so proud to think we love God well, we often lie to ourselves and to Him, who is perfect in His Love. I am not doing the homily justice, but it is something to which I have given alot of thought, since I was 33 when I made my first Confession and Eucharist.

Possibly unlike some "cradle Catholics," I am acutely aware of how bad life can be with so little access to sanctifying grace. As I heard Christopher West put it, a person gets used to "eating from the garbage dump" and garbage begins to taste good. This, of course, is a deception, and is the spiritual poverty for which so many Americans have fallen. When we signed the contract on the Cumming house in July, I begged our Lord and His Mother to help keep my natural inclination to comfort and luxury in check. Funny thing, marriage -- what grace flows from this Sacrament. My prayer is answered in my husband and his good common sense. All's I have to do is listen. Lord, help us hear your words of life: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind..."

Movies your Mother would approve of...

With the cold and flu season upon us, I am going to sign up for Pius Media, a Catholic version of Netflix, so we can learn wrapped in blankets and sipping hot tea.

Another round of flu snorts, please!

Dad has been working from home most Mondays. We decided to have some real family fun and head down to Walgreens to charge up a bunch of flu snorts. Years ago, as a lay in bed reading and trying to recover from a prolonged illness, I read this book about the development of a vaccine for smallpox. I have mixed feelings/opinions about vaccines. Now we have snorts to contend with!

My Confirmation saint!

Go over here and see some of her amazing wisdom. St. Teresa of Jesus, pray for us!

Seasonal Books

I am glad to report that I fanned our waning flame for quality literature by reading the inspiring story, Brother Bartholomew to J and JB. The artwork in this book is lovely. We have the October pages of the Provensen's book displayed, as well as a lovely autumnal water color on pgs. 26-27 in The Seasons, an absolutely lovely book combining art and poetry. It is part of the Poetry for Young People series that I buy, from time to time, at our nearby Barnes and Noble. Here are links:

The Year At Maple Hill Farm by Alice Provensen, Martin Provensen

Frankenstein, from Barnes and Noble Classic Starts series

JB finished the Pauline biography of St. Ignatius Loyola. We need to get to the library and re-fuel on Henry and Mudge. I am reading the Ignatius Critical edition of Frankenstein.

Here is a "Vagabond Song," by Bliss Carman from The Seasons:

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood--

Touch of manner, hint of mood;

And my heart is like a rhyme,

With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry

Of bugles going by.

And my lonely spirit thrills

To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;

We must rise and follow her,

When from every hill of flame

She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

Good reads!

No I haven't read this yet, but I hope to. And, if I remember, I will post a related bumper sticker that I am thinking of purchasing for our e-van-gelizer.