April 2009 Archives

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/archbishop_hughes_to_boycott_x.html

This breaks my heart. As abortion has become something of a "civil right", it has become rather impossible to maintain both a Catholic identity and "black" one. They are almost mutually exclusive.

St. Katharine Drexel, pray for us.

I can either clean my home really well or have a really good school day, but not both in the same day. When I try to, I just end up doing both mediocre.

READ THE WHOLE THING.

How do we arm ourselves for what is first and foremost a supernatural war?

First: Unless we are living in God’s life we should not go near this battle. I don’t care if you are the strongest and most brilliant and clever person on the planet. The devil – as he has shown over and over again – will turn you inside out. If you are not fortified by the sacraments – frequent confession and worthy Holy Communion – you cannot succeed in an ultimately supernatural battle. We must live – no longer ourselves – but Christ in us. Be always in the state of grace.

Pray. Be a prayer warrior. One modern day saint said when you are going out to try to change someone’s heart determine to make your effort 80 % prayer and 20% words or actions. Prayer defeats the devil. Prayer aligns us with Christ. Pray for the abortionist. Pray for the legislator. Pray for the mother (and father and other family members). Pray for the child in the womb. Pray for yourself and allow God to guide you. Pray that you will be a warrior of faithfulness and love and mercy. Remember that God often chooses the foolish to shame those who are clever.

Use the symbols and instruments of our devotion. Arm yourself with the rosary. Protect yourself with the scapular or a blessed medal. Ask for a blessing as a sign of unity in the Church in what we do: unity with the Holy Father, with your bishop, with your pastor. What I am supposed to do as bishop (teach and lead, and sanctify) I must, in turn, delegate in proper measure to my pastors. They, in turn, need you as soldiers.

Fudgies. MMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

My Fastolph is 10 years old today! Where does the time go? It seems like yesterday I was at the hospital, watching the tragic news about Columbine, and having such mixed emotions: sadness about the then current events and joy with our new little one.

Celebrations to commence with pizza and pina colada cake, and a trip to the Zoo this weekend. :)

This is an entry from an old friend of mine, Rev. James Bhagwan, who is a Methodist minister if Fiji, and an all around great guy. I liked it very much, so I thought I'd share:

Prayer is Action

We all know of the difficult days ahead, the global and local economy is struggling and looks get worse before it has any chance of getting better. There are many reasons to throw our hands up in the air in frustration and give up. We may feel powerless in our own situations but through prayer we can not only receive strength, we commit our concerns to a higher power, a God that moves in mysterious ways. Hearts can be touched, minds can be changed and relationships can be changed by the power of prayer.

Indeed.

As long as we remain sheep, we overcome. Even though we may be surrounded by a thousand wolves, we overcome and are victorious. But as soon as we are wolves, we are beaten: for then we lose the support from the Shepherd who feeds not wolves, but only sheep.

(St John Chrysostom, from Homily 34 on St Matthew)

HT: dylan at phos hilarion

"Cry Me a River" -- cut for a charity album in 1999.

"My first pastoral letter's gonna be a condemnation of light beer and instant mashed potatoes -- I hate those two things." -- Archbishop Timothy Dolan, via The Church Ladies

H/T: American Papist

1. I never know how to get started on my list of Seven Quick Takes.

2. After I finish my Seven Quick Takes, I am going to bake cupcakes using a Wacky Cake recipe. I've been asked to make a birthday cake for a little girl whose baby sister is allergic to eggs, so I'm going to try out the recipe today and have the kids and grownups test them out when Hambet and I go off to a play date later today.

3. I reorganized the books yesterday -- something I've been wanting to do since around June 2006 -- and dedicated a shelf to the books I haven't read yet. I also discovered that we have three world atlases. How did this happen?

4. For Lent this year I tried to give up recreational use of the Internet (with the exception of Facebook and JUST A COUPLE of blogs.) The exceptions kept growing and then about halfway through Lent I was ranting about the Notre Dame situation on IM to a friend, who said, "you should put this on your blog!"

That stopped me in my tracks -- I'd never told her about my Sekrit Identity -- so I tried to be clever and asked, "Now, what makes you think I have a blog?"

"Oh, I thought you did; everyone else has one. Well, you should start one!"

5. I started reading The Hobbit to Hambet the other night. He LOVES it.

6. I like the artwork on Jen's copy of Prayer Primer much better than the artwork on my copy.

7. My rhubarb is starting to come up. Maybe I'll actually be able to harvest some this year!

"... Everyone in this mega-community is a somebody with an extraordinary destiny. Everyone is a somebody in whom God has invested an infinite love. That is why the Church reaches out to the unborn, the suffering, the poor, our elders, the physically and emotionally challenged, those caught in the web of addictions..."

--Archbishop Thomas Dolan, in his Installation homily. H/T American Papist

It can slice a steel pan in half! (Smock, don't go trying this at home now....)

Susan Boyle is sweeping the blogosphere today:

I looked in my little saucepan and noticed that the non-stick coating long ago ceased to stick to the pot (hopefully it's not sticking to our innards either).

So it's time to go pot shopping. I think I'm done with non-stick (too fragile -- I want to use a whisk, darn it) and I'm growing leery of aluminum (reactivity?)

I was looking at this and liking it -- the price is right --

but it's almost certainly made in China, which doesn't have a great reputation for food safety these days.

Of course, there's always All-Clad, but... $100 for a pot? I'm not there yet.

I came across this one...

but when I take another look, it's non-stick.

*sulks*

Colbert takes one of those "the Christians-made-it-up" "scholars" to school.

HT: CMR

"They keep changing the countries so you'll have to buy new maps." -- Wally Cleaver

Did anyone else know that was going to happen?

Apparently, Kal Penn left one House to work in another. The first gig was much cooler.

(April 3) - A healthy woman's desire to kill herself when her terminally ill husband dies -- a plan she intends to carry out with the help of a Swiss assisted suicide group -- has ignited a new right-to-die controversy.

A week ago was Posco's winter sports banquet dinner for wrestling. It was a big deal lasting 4 1/2 hours (they left an hour early). I had no idea wrestling was such a popular sport, but apparently Amsterdam takes it pretty seriously ranking third in the state. Posco was shocked to find out he won a trophy:

2008-09 Amsterdam Modified Wrestling
Ian Alejandro
Most Improved Wrestler

I didn't know, but many of the kids attended "wrestling camp" before joining, so just signing up an learning the sport from scratch-well the kid done pretty good.

I am kind of new to the competitive world of school sports. To me the concept is to have an activity to get exercise, learn sportsmanship and have fun. Many parents seem to think it is, well something else I don't quite comprehend. Either way, we're proud of our Posco.

March 29 was another milestone. It was Rosey Posey's 16th birthday. Imagine that!

We gave her her first cell phone: a prepaid Tracfone. We told her she shouldn't waste minutes on too much texting or use it when she can call from home. And she needs to call home as she was borrowing her friends when she needed to get in touch with us from track practice. So the concept of a cell phone for my child went from the category of "Ridiculous Pointless Costly Show of Capitalism" to something that would serve a purpose. In 3 days she used up all her minutes. She claimed it was calling her father for rides, but closer inspection showed 55 texts making pivotal statements such as "LOL, I can text U!". Here is a good opportunity in lessons of money management.

We were also informed that a prepay is not a "real cell phone". Too bad.

Overall the celebration was nice. I made two pans of one of her favorite dishes, baked rigatoni, and brought it to my folks place (it is much easier for us to go to them rather than they come to us these days). This was good because my mother didn't have to cook. I hate making her cook for us,I know she is tired these days. She did make meatballs, which I think she enjoys doing. (Rosey Posey claims to be tired of red sauce, but the rest of the family needs something red on Sunday dinner.)I also made a cake and brought it. I always ask the kids what type a cake they would like for their birthdays, and she picked a winner. Those of you familiar with the Cake Mix Doctor, it was a simple butter cake with chocolate frosting. We all settled in and watched Twilight, which was a gift from her aunt and uncle. It was truly one of those "does life get much better than this" times.

for my brother Tom in Iraq. From his letters, Iraq sounds incredibly depressing. Two Marines on his base shot themselves in the head this week. He naturally sounds a bit freaked out. TIA.

Rosey Posey: No Mom, wait, do go in there. You don't really want to go in there!

Pansy: Stop yes! I do! I haven't seen Lord of the Rings in a long time. And I want to see it in the living room so I can watch it with surround sound.

Rosey Posey: Surround soun-what? Are you kidding me? What are you, a man? What do you care about surround sound?

So now little Septimus is here, I am thankful to God. Thankful for my sweet, sweet boy, and thankful that physically, I feel good. I felt incredibly crappy for the duration of the pregnancy from morning sickness in the beginning to all the body aches and the inability to walk in the end. No more low iron issues. No more heaviness. I can walk. I can breath. I can eat. It's wonderful.

Before I had Septimus, I had everything ready-the stroller, the swing, the car seat. I just needed the baby. They say a mother forgets about labor after the fact, allowing her to have other children. I think that is a fallacy after so many children-I was in a sheer panic about labor prior to having Septimus. The memory of the pain was front and center. However, I do forget how incredibly sucky this part of motherhood is-the newborn stage. I remember it being difficult, but I forget how incredibly difficult.

Each day I get up and rush into the shower before my husband leaves. When he and the kids all depart the house at 7.25, I have this wave of panic run through me with the unrealistic realization that I have been abandoned. I don't think it is a totally abnormal feeling (right Moms?), and my normal course of action to stifle it is just get started. Get breakfast, get school, get a load of laundry in, clean the house, think of something fun to do later for my therapy (usually sew or bake something or get a work-out in), perhaps shop around on Etsy for a cute pattern to sew. Before you know it, it's 5.30, supper's ready and everyone you missed so desperately is home! And look what you accomplished! Someone read another chapter in their reader, someone has a new dress, the rug is vacuumed, another teeth cleaning is behind us for 6 months!

Now I have my 6th colic baby who screams from the second he opens his eyes until I can get them closed again (actually, I have to hold him while he sleeps or he wakesup screaming no matter where I put him). Or if I put him down. And I don't know why. And I don't care why. In the past we did chiropractors, cutting out wheat and dairy, music, swings, simethicone drops-everything. Now it's get passed the 3 month mark. Nothing else works.

I get about 5% of what I have to get done, done. I know many a wise Mom advises "just let him scream and do what you gotta do", but his screams have an instant physiological reaction in my body that feels like someone taking an egg beater to my nervous system. It's unbearable. So in the meantime, I just watch the house fall apart around me, get the bare minimum of school done, daydream about sewing projects I would like to finish before my kids get hold of the packages of bias tape and use them to tie each other up with.

I know this will pass because it always has, but when? Tomorrow? Next week? Will my family survive until then?

What's frustrating is there isn't a darn person around me who has a clue what it's like. They all notice the laundry piles up, but can't figure out why. They all know I am seriously grumpy, but Mom has issues. It never occurred to anyone that the reason why things ran smoothly before is because I was running things, not because it is in the nature of a toilet used by 8 people each day to simply be clean. My husband who comes home each day after a day of work is done for the day. He doesn't get I am not done. Not at 5.30 or when I go to bed at night. Never.

To counter my ingratitude, each day I do a mental inventory of my life. I love my life. I love my family, I love homeschooling. I love showing off my kids (if it's not the kind when they are screaming in public). I am thankful for a husband that brought me home a bottle of white wine the other night just because, and takes me out for a walk each night. I know each and every one of them is a blessing from God. I can't think of anything else I would rather be doing and I am doing what I always wanted to do for as long as I can remember. And I believe in what I'm doing.

So what's the deal? How can so much joy make someone so miserable? I get through it by offering it up and simply filing it under "Crosses to bear", but there has to be an answer. There is a better way to get through this period without a crying fit everyday at 10 AM because you just want to clean the bathroom without hearing screaming, and you can't. I know the answer is staring me right in the face, but I can't grasp it.

And I know I am not alone.

It's been so cold and gloomy here. I'm having daydreams of rhubarb and strawberries and fresh jam...

This from Bishop Thomas G. Doran of the Rockford, Ill. Diocese:

I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision and so avoid dishonoring the practicing Catholics of the United States, including those of this Diocese. Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the University to something like, “The Fighting Irish College” or “Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.” Though promotion of the obscene is not foreign to you, I would point out that it is truly obscene for you to take such decisions as you have done in a university named for our Blessed Lady, whom the Second Vatican Council called the Mother of the Church.

I sign myself

Very truly yours,
The Most Reverend Thomas G. Doran, D.D., J.C.D.
Bishop of Rockford

As Rosey Posey would say "zzzing!"

Mmmm hmmm, I think he said the cafeteria is cuh-losed!

HT: RC from his Facebook

I just have one question: did his parents know he was going to be a Bishop when they named him Eusebius?

HT:American Papist

Women Deserve Better

Sadly, though, reality is that easy access to abortion not only destroys human life, but also threatens to turn “liberated” women and their bodies into objects men can use and discard at whim...

...Though Gunther had no ethical objections to abortion, she did not want one. She was coerced into choosing abortion, an agonizing decision that negatively affected her emotional and physical health for years afterwards, not because she was a “modern, liberated woman,” but because she was an embarrassingly weak and vulnerable woman, one who wanted desperately to hold on to her man.

The ready option of abortion made Gunther’s unexpected pregnancy “her problem” and one she clearly needed to “take care of” if she had any hope of salvaging her relationship with her boyfriend.

The truth, which came out after I’d expressed my desire to keep the baby, was more simply stated: “If you go through with this,” he said, “I want nothing to do with it.” But I still wanted something to do with him, and I thought if I were to deal with “the problem” the way he wanted me to, we could go back to the way we were. On the day of the abortion I kept envisioning myself getting up off the table at the last moment before the procedure. I knew what I was doing was wrong, not ethically, but personally, spiritually wrong.

She did go through with the abortion. And he broke up with her anyway.