February 2010 Archives

Dom was wondering,

Are there any kid shows where kids are seen primarily as part of a family as opposed to autonomous, a la Dora or Sesame Street?

Let's see.... Just going down the PBS Kids website, I see:

Berenstain Bears
Caillou
Dragon Tales
Dinosaur Train
the awesome WordGirl
Arthur
Maya and Miguel
Between the Lions
Clifford
Martha Speaks

If you stretched it a bit, Curious George lives with a "dad" (the Man in the Yellow Hat). And Thomas and his friends live in a kind of family situation (with Sir Topham Hatt as the father)

Please remember Pansy and her family in your prayers.

1. Make the sign of the cross

2. Say the Act of Contrition. Ask pardon for your sins and make a firm promise not to commit them again.

Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended you. I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell. But most of all, because I offended you, oh my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen

3. Say the first 3 decades of the Rosary.

4. Make the meditation of the day:

Mary, Beloved Mother, channel of all grace, I return to You today my heart, recognizing that I am a sinner in need of your help. Many times I lose the graces you grant me because of my sins of egoism, pride, rancor and my lack of generosity and humility. I turn to You today, Mary, Undoer of knots, for You to ask your Son Jesus to grant me a pure, divested, humble and trusting heart. I will live today practicing these virtues and offering you this as a sign of my love for You. I entrust into Your hands this knot (...describe) which keeps me from reflecting the glory of God.

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me.

Mary offered all the moments of her day to God.

5. Say the last 2 decades of the rosary

6. Finish with

Virgin Mary, Mother of fair love, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exists in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exist in my life.

You know very well how desperate I am, my pain and how I am bound by these knots.

Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of his children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life.

No one, not even the Evil One himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone.

Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with Your Son and My Liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot...I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once for all, You are my hope.

O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution and with Christ hte freedom from my chains.

Hear my plea.
Keep me, guide me, protect me, o safe refuge!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me

Heard from Pansy the other day. She is in urgent need of prayers.

1. Make the sign of the cross

2. Say the Act of Contrition. Ask pardon for your sins and make a firm promise not to commit them again.

Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended you. I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell. But most of all, because I offended you, oh my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen

3. Say the first 3 decades of the Rosary.

4. Make the meditation of the day:

Dearest Holy Mother, Most Holy Mary, you undo the knots that suffocate your children, extend your merciful hands to me. I entrust to You today this knot....and all the negative consequences that it provokes in my life. I give you this knot that torments me and makes me unhappy and so impedes me from uniting myself to You and Your Son Jesus, my Savior.

I run to You, Mary, Undoer of Knots because I trust you and I know that you never despise a sinning child who comes to ask you for help. I believe that you can undo this knot because Jesus grants you everything. I believe that you want to undo this knot because you are my Mother. I believe that You will do this because you love me with eternal love.

Thank you, Dear Mother.
Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me.

The one who seeks grace, finds it in Mary's hands.

5. Say the last 2 decades of the rosary

6. Finish with

Virgin Mary, Mother of fair love, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exists in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exist in my life.

You know very well how desperate I am, my pain and how I am bound by these knots.

Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of his children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life.

No one, not even the Evil One himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone.

Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with Your Son and My Liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot...I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once for all, You are my hope.

O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution and with Christ hte freedom from my chains.

Hear my plea.
Keep me, guide me, protect me, o safe refuge!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me

Proceeds go to Chawton Cottage:

http://www.onegardenatatime.biz/jane_austen_gifts.htm

Found at Live Catholic:

In March of 1920, a bachelor police officer, decided it was time to seriously look for a wife, so - there being no computers or internet then - he used the current technology and put an advertisement in the newspaper.

"Middle ranking civil servant, single, Catholic, 43-years-old, immaculate past, from the countryside, is seeking a good Catholic pure girl, who can cook well, and who can do all housework, who is also capable of sewing and a good homemaker in order to marry at the soonest opportunity. Personal fortune would be desirable but is not however a precondition."

The ad did not work. He received a promotion at work, and decided to try again. He placed the ad again in July. This time a woman named Maria Peintner, 36 years old and a cook, answered the ad. There was no personal fortune. They met at a coffee shop and were engaged a few days later. The wedding was in November. The last of their three children was born in 1927 and they decided to name him after his father...

Click over to Marcy's for... the REST of the story!

image: Vintage Traditions

My most recent bloggage at Feminine Geniuses

A short article by Deborah Molinari on the special opportunities that mothers enjoy to assist in the renewal of the liturgy:

Rooting the family in the liturgical year helps to produce lives which are God-centred and continues the formation and sanctification of the Catholic family that flows from the sacred liturgy. This in turn can then be more readily carried into one's adult life, whether as a priest, religious or as a layman, to be fostered yet further in ourselves and in others. Evidently, everyone has an important part to play in the new liturgical movement, but as it relates to the "domestic church," to bringing the liturgical life into the home, it seems to be the case that in most homes it is the mother who plans and organizes the special celebrations, foods, crafts, songs, stories and prayers, along with appropriate catechesis, for her family in accordance with the Church's liturgical calendar. This is why the Catholic mother's role can be understood as so important and vital for the new liturgical movement, for it is in the home that the formative seeds of the liturgical life can be planted and nurtured.

cross-posted to that other place I blog

HT: a Facebook friend

I want to send my pal Iris some good links on the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Have any that you care to recommend? Primary sources especially appreciated. Thanks :)

...only for Mother Assumpta Long: I actually watched Oprah today. I blogged about it over at Feminine Geniuses. (Hint: Did you know nuns DON'T HAVE SEX??!!)

Satellite image of the Mid-Atlantic, taken February 7, 2010.

SNOWMAGEDDON!

Yes, I went to the grocery store yesterday -- I'd lose my DC-Metro cred if I didn't -- and yes, it was a madhouse. It took twenty minutes just to find a parking spot, and inside the carts were almost gridlocked. One of the staff mentioned that it was "worse than Christmas" and that it had been like that since 7:00 AM.

There was plenty of milk, bread, and T.P. -- the holy trinity of pre-snow panic -- but there were some other items that were completely cleaned out:

• bulk garlic


• bulk red potatoes


• packaged white mushrooms


• packaged cremini mushrooms


• any andouille sausage costing less than $16.99/ lb

Seriously, what is up with the garlic?!

What a mean Mommy I am! I made Hambet study all his spelling words as if he would have his spelling test on Friday before I told him that school would be out.

We've been having wet fluffy snow for around six hours now. The real monster snow is supposed to be starting shortly....

Hambet and I started The Horse and His Boy this afternoon. Although I'd read the Narnia books when I was a child, for some reason only a couple of them "stuck" in my mind, so now I'm getting to enjoy with Hambet the one-more-chapter-pleeease! thrill of reading them for the first time.

Is anybody else watching the new version of Emma that's been on Masterpiece Theater? The conclusion is this Sunday. This version's Emma is growing on me -- I like her liveliness -- and Harriet is very good, but I am sorry to say that I am disappointed by Miss Bates.

I've been invited to be part of a new group blog! Feminine Geniuses launches this weekend. So far, I've only contributed some coding and a little collection of feminine-genius readings, but I hope to have a real post up soon.

via Joe Carter at First Thoughts

Great rant from Bride of Rove:

Have you ever wondered why abortion was eventually approved as the law of the land? It did not begin with Roe vs Wade. It did not begin with women’s rights advocates. It began in a far darker corner of the US legal system building precedent upon precedent. In Buck v Bell the following quote is on record:

“It is better for all the world if . . . society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.”
~Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The story is rather horrifying and you can google it yourself, but what I feel is the important thing people should understand if they did not get this in school is that, as the world wondered at the Origin of the Species and all that it meant for mankind and the planet, there were men and women who decided that natural selection was failing the human race and that, as brilliant, sentient beings, we could do better and that we were actually obligated to play god in the face of plague, poverty and hunger. Killing off the non-contributing members of society for the good of the workers was a kindness in the long run. This was common thinking. The class wars were not pleasant. Abortion was the sound of the educated classes winning round one.

She goes on to quote a letter written in 1992 by Ron Weddington, co-counsel in Roe v. Wade, to President Clinton:

“But you can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country. No, I’m, not advocating some, sort of mass extinction of these unfortunate people. Crime, drugs and disease are already doing that. The problem is that their numbers are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies to people who can’t afford to have babies. . There, I’ve said it. It’s what we all know is true, but we only whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we view any program which might treat the disadvantaged differently as discriminatory, mean-spirited and…well…so Republican… . Condoms alone won’t do it. Depo-Provera, Norplant and the new birth control injection being developed in India are not a complete answer… . No, government is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations and abortions…RU 486 and conventional abortions. Even if we make birth control as ubiquitous as sneakers and junk food, there will still be unplanned pregnancies. There have been about 30 million abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade. Think of all the poverty, crime and misery …and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario… . We don’t need more cannon fodder. We don’t need more parishioners, We don’t need more cheap labor. We don’t need more poor babies”

RTWT. Eliminating poverty by eliminating the poor.