" ...it’s important to remember that your emotions are God’s gift to you, and not the people around you."]]>
A devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots!
Jorge Mario Bergoglio encountered the devotion in Augsburg, Germany and brought it to Argentina, where it's become very popular. An Argentine goldsmith is planning to give a chalice to Pope Francis depicting Our Lady, Undoer of Knots.
When I first posted about this devotion, I had thought that the knots represented the knots of sin and its consequences. But according to this Argentinean website, the image was originally commissioned to celebrate the healing of a troubled marriage. While praying for the couple, Father Jakob Rem raised the ribbon used in the marriage ceremony, "untying all the knots and smoothing it out." The ribbon became smooth and perfectly white. The couple reconciled, and the image was commissioned by their grandson.
Which is interesting, because when we first posted the novena here it was for Pansy's intentions - specifically, the healing of her marriage .
Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, please pray for your son Francis as he works to undo the problems faced by the Church, and please pray for us.
God is very pleased with those who recognize his goodness by reciting the Te Deum in thanksgiving whenever something out of the ordinary happens, without caring whether it may have been good or bad, as the world reckons these things. Because everything comes from the hands of our Father: so though the blow of the chisel may hurt our flesh, it is a sign of Love, as he smooths off our rough edges and brings us closer to perfection. -- St Josemaria Escriva
Papa, I'm going to miss you so much.
Te Deum laudámus:
te Dóminum confitémur.
Te ætérnum Patrem,
omnis terra venerátur.
Tibi omnes ángeli,
tibi cæli
et univérsæ potestátes:
tibi chérubim et séraphim
incessábili voce proclámant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dóminus Deus Sábaoth.
Pleni sunt cæli et terra
maiestátis glóriæ tuæ.
Te gloriósus
apostolòrum chorus,
te prophetárum
laudábilis númerus,
te mártyrum candidátus
laudat exércitus.
Te per orbem terrárum
sancta confitétur Ecclésia,
Patrem imménsæ maiestátis;
venerándum tuum verum
et únicum Fílium;
Sanctum quoque
Paráclitum Spíritum.
Tu rex glóriæ, Christe.
Tu Patris sempitérnus es Filius.
Tu, ad liberándum susceptúrus hóminem,
non horrúisti Virginis úterum.
Tu, devícto mortis acúleo,
aperuísti credéntibus regna cælórum.
Tu ad déxteram Dei sedes,
in glória Patris.
Iudex créderis esse ventúrus.
Te ergo quǽsumus,
tuis fámulis súbveni,
quos pretióso sánguine redemísti.
Ætérna fac cum sanctis tuis
in glória numerári.
Salvum fac pópulum tuum, Dómine,
et bénedic hereditáti tuæ.
Et rege eos, et extólle illos
usque in ætérnum.
Per síngulos dies benedícimus te;
et laudámus nomen tuum
in sǽculum, et in sǽculum sǽculi.
Dignáre, Dómine,
die isto sine peccáto nos custodíre.
Miserére nostri, Dómine, miserére nostri.
Fiat misericórdia tua,
Dómine, super nos,
quemádmodum sperávimus in te.
In te, Dómine, sperávi:
non confúndar in ætérnum.
Te Deum laudámus:
te Dóminum confitémur.
Te ætérnum Patrem,
omnis terra venerátur.
Tibi omnes ángeli,
tibi cæli
et univérsæ potestátes:
tibi chérubim et séraphim
incessábili voce proclámant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dóminus Deus Sábaoth.
Pleni sunt cæli et terra
maiestátis glóriæ tuæ.
Te gloriósus
apostolòrum chorus,
te prophetárum
laudábilis númerus,
te mártyrum candidátus
laudat exércitus.
Te per orbem terrárum
sancta confitétur Ecclésia,
Patrem imménsæ maiestátis;
venerándum tuum verum
et únicum Fílium;
Sanctum quoque
Paráclitum Spíritum.
Tu rex glóriæ, Christe.
Tu Patris sempitérnus es Filius.
Tu, ad liberándum susceptúrus hóminem,
non horrúisti Virginis úterum.
Tu, devícto mortis acúleo,
aperuísti credéntibus regna cælórum.
Tu ad déxteram Dei sedes,
in glória Patris.
Iudex créderis esse ventúrus.
Te ergo quǽsumus,
tuis fámulis súbveni,
quos pretióso sánguine redemísti.
Ætérna fac cum sanctis tuis
in glória numerári.
Salvum fac pópulum tuum, Dómine,
et bénedic hereditáti tuæ.
Et rege eos, et extólle illos
usque in ætérnum.
Per síngulos dies benedícimus te;
et laudámus nomen tuum
in sǽculum, et in sǽculum sǽculi.
Dignáre, Dómine,
die isto sine peccáto nos custodíre.
Miserére nostri, Dómine, miserére nostri.
Fiat misericórdia tua,
Dómine, super nos,
quemádmodum sperávimus in te.
In te, Dómine, sperávi:
non confúndar in ætérnum.
They were wronged is an understatement. We were wronged, and they were treated like animals. The stark realization hit me as I pondered another thought: unwritten histories lie waiting to be discovered in archives all around the country, and all throughout the world. Things known to God and to man, but forgotten by the “march of progress,” and by generations uninterested in learning the secrets of the democracy of the dead.... As it turns out, North Carolina had the third highest number of enforced sterilizations in the country. And this sad chapter started in 1907 in the state of Indiana. The state with the most documented cases? California, which started their program in 1909 and kept it cranking up until 1963. In the Golden State, the conservative estimate is that at least 20,108 people were sterilized though, “because of the sensitive nature of sterilization records, many are difficult to access or have been altered.”
...Am I alone in thinking that this historical information is relevant in light of the HHS Mandate and the push for “preventative services” that include sterilizations, birth-control pills, and abortions to all, regardless of whether some, such as the Catholic Church, and her allied hospitals and colleges, and Catholics in their own right, object to these practices?....How is this new level of coercion by the Federal government any less ham-handed than what is being described.... above?
A commenter, whose immigrant mother was pressured (at best) into being sterilized, writes, "As tears stream down my face, I know that I will have justice someday! They took my family away…"
]]>The Man Who Remade Motherhood
Joanne Beauregard is nothing so much as she is a mother. When she and her husband had trouble conceiving, Joanne quit her job as an accountant to focus full time on getting pregnant. When she did, she chose to give birth at home, without pain medication. Then, for months, Beauregard sat on the couch in her Denver-area living room, nursing her infant from sunup to sundown. She nursed much of the night as well, since the baby slept in bed with Beauregard and her husband Daniel, a software engineer.When Beauregard got pregnant with her second child, she continued breast-feeding her...
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2114427,00.html#ixzz1uYPAuXw5
Where shall we begin? Let's go backwards.I didn't get to read how Joanne's story ends, but she clearly is a nut with the home birthin' and picking a lifestyle that CHAINED her to her couch. I agree. Did her husband get those chains at Home Depot? The really strong ones? Does he padlock them before he goes to work? Oh yes, when you have a newborn nursling, your life changes and is pretty much about the baby, and nursing makes that harder, especially ecological breastfeeding. But isn't that life with a new baby? Child? It changes things. What exactly is supposed to happen in our lives, especially is we choose to have children? We stay 21 year old young adults forever? The imagery here is ridiculous.
All right, I'm going to skip ahead. The whole idea is that AP is extreme. I never found it to be that way, it was simply mothering. Of course I'm going to breastfeed, it's more convenient, cheaper, easier. I'm not even getting into the medical benefits etc, because we're talking about how it affects the mother and competing for the "who's the better Mom" nonsense award or some crap. It's just EASIER. Of course I'm going to co-sleep. You think I want to get out of my bed a bazillion times at night when I could just roll over, pop a boobie in the kid's mouth and everyone is happy? Of course I'm going to stay home and take care of my kids, that's my job. Every core of me being says so. They need me and I'm the only person who can do this for them. Of course I'm going o extended breastfeed because if you ever breastfed a baby, six months, one year or someone, jump in and tell me, what's is "normal" isn't that long. I think I said this. I have seven kids who all pretty much weaned themselves, except the last. I pushed that a bit. After 17 years straight, I was a bit sore. One was done at 7 months, one at 4 1/2 years. The rest, about 2 1/2. I will say this-you cannot force a child to breastfeed. Who would want to?
Home birth-better experience. Ecological breastfeeding-child spacing. Cloth diapers-cheaper. Baby wearing-getting dinner done. Not really a movement. Just going with the flow. Look, this Mom thing is hard. We do what we can to get by while doing our best to enjoy this experience, to love and nurture them, to get by, to try not to warp them too badly. I don't have much of an opinion how other mothers operate, because I know how rough this job is.
See, but these days we must redefine "normal". A healthy woman blessed with normal fertility taking poisons to destroy that gift. A mother having a child ripped from her womb. These are normal, and OK. Now we are labeling and rewriting normal mothering practices and saying some doctor "remade" it and calling it "extreme" "whacky" "bizarre". Whatever.
The perfect mother is one who isn't a mother, I think.
Via.
]]>via the Dark Lord
]]>"In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world." --John 16:33