Sacrifice and May 19th Family Activity Suggestion

I've had a general post in my draft box about the othercott to The Da Vinci Code for two weeks. Now I know why I didn't post it earlier. I just heard that one of my dearly loved ones is tempted to see TDVC. My general post has just gotten personal.

Sacrifice it. Yes, "Curious," sacrifice seeing TDVC. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. It really is that simple.

I'll let others explain the nitty gritty of why TDVC is a "frontal assault on Jesus Christ and all of Christianity" according to Teresa Tomeo, Host of Catholic Connection. You'll appreciate their thorough and intelligent research. I'll speak to you. I know you love movies. I also know that you enjoy being in the know and in the now. But I also know that you have worked so hard to straighten your path and seek the truth. This is a perfect opportunity for you to sacrifice.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

2099
It is right to offer sacrifice to God as a sign of adoration and gratitude, supplication and communion: "Every action done so as to cling to God in communion of holiness, and thus achieve blessedness, is a true sacrifice."16

Not only is this an opportunity to sacrifice, it is an opportunity to trust the Catholic Church and to trust fully evangelized Catholics to speak the truth about this movie.

Here's an idea. I know a way that you can see a good movie AND have fun with your family AND avoid having to discuss this topic with me ever again. The movie, Over the Hedge is getting good reviews and just so happens to be opening on the same day as TDVC.

Sony and Dan Brown urge us to SEEK THE TRUTH! I wholeheartedly agree. Let's seek...

...whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Seek...and find...the Truth. You bet!

Open to Life

The area of the heart where I have grown most in clarity since my reversion to the Catholic Church is in openness to life. This is largely due to the wonderful families that I have come to know through online friendships and local Catholic homeschooling families. In Elizabeth Foss' article, In Praise of Big Families, you can see an example of the loving hearts and clear minds that have highly influenced me. Lovingly said and lived, Elizabeth.

In her article, Elizabeth quotes another friend, Bridget,

It is hard to explain to a young couple just starting out or even to an older couple who has not had this openness how married love can grow from the challenges of many children. Indeed, the openness may be key here, rather than the actual numbers of children. The openness is up to us, the number is up to God.

Lovingly said and lived, Bridget.

Last week I had a follow-up conversation with a new friend at a local Catholic homeschooling event. Previously, Christy had told me that her family was caring for her husband's grandmother at home. The grandmother was in hospice care, facing the end of her life. Now Christy informed me that grandma had responded so well to being in their loving home care that grandma is no longer with hospice, which according to these experts means she is no longer looking at near death. Christy went on to tell me that she quit her part-time job to be more available to grandma. She talked about the privilege of caring for grandma and shared with me tender and funny ways that the family helped grandma to receive their care and keep her pride in tact. With a pretty smile, she told me that caring for grandma fits right in with being the mother of four young children. Then she quipped, "You could say that we're open to the END of life, and what that brings to a family." Lovingly said and lived, Christy.

Lack of Love

Or Pope says low birth rate is due mainly to lack of love.

It is children and young people who are often the first to experience the consequences of this eclipse of love and hope. Often, instead of feeling loved and cherished, they appear to be merely tolerated. In "an age of turbulence" they frequently lack adequate moral guidance from the adult world, to the serious detriment of their intellectual and spiritual development. Many children now grow up in a society which is forgetful of God and of the innate dignity of the human person made in God’s image. In a world shaped by the accelerating processes of globalization, they are often exposed solely to materialistic visions of the universe, of life and human fulfillment.

Yet children and young people are by nature receptive, generous, idealistic and open to transcendence. They need above all else to be exposed to love and to develop in a healthy human ecology, where they can come to realize that they have not been cast into the world by chance, but through a gift that is part of God’s loving plan. Parents, educators and community leaders, if they are to be faithful to their own calling, can never renounce their duty to set before children and young people the task of choosing a life project directed towards authentic happiness, one capable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, good and evil, justice and injustice, the real world and the world of "virtual reality".

Amen.

Article Find: Rejecting Modern Materialism: The Rise of the Crunchy-Conservatives

Rejecting Modern Materialism: The Rise of the Crunchy-Conservatives gives a taste of the book Crunchy Cons. This book first came onto my radar a few months ago. After reading this article, I'm ready to read this family-centered book. It looks to be an interesting follow-up to It Takes a Family.

Article Find: Penance Begins at Home

Penance Begins at Home by Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle is a gentle reminder that the Church,

insists first of all that the virtue of penitence be exercised in persevering faithfulness to the duties of one’s state in life, in the acceptance of the difficulties arising from one’s work and from human coexistence, in a patient bearing of the trials of earthly life and of the utter insecurity which pervades it.

The Author goes on to describe concrete ways in which parents, especially mothers, can find ways to be more connected to their children during Lent.

Thank you, Donna Marie, for the reminder and permission to stop and truly be present for our children.

Speaking of American Politics

I continue to read It Takes a Family and am enjoying Rick Santorum's strong Orthodox Catholic voice. I appreciate his clarity about the family, not the individual, being the smallest unit of society. Against the Grain by Mark Shea is a much shorter read that also places the family at the center of political decision-making.

Food for Catholic, family-centered, political thought.

Have a blessed Sunday!

It Takes a Family

I'm currently reading It Takes a Family by Rick Santorum. I'm just getting started and wanted to share this.

But again, where do we first learn to trust? From government regulators? No. Trust is first created within and then nurtured by healthy families. The seedbed of the social trust that forms healthy societies is the confidence and trust a child has in her parents. A child's experience of trustworthy parents in her formative years not only influences her ability to establish trusting relationships in adulthood, it will also act as a basic glue within her own eventual family. This is one of the reasons for concern about the widespread breakdown of the family in America: for too many children, family disharmony and divorce shatters their self-confidence. When the primary social bonds between parent and child are broken, trust forever after is almost always hard-won.

Trustworthy parents are basic glue. I like that.

Family Learning Quote, Charlotte Mason

Example is better than precept, and more convincing than the soundest reasoning.

~Charlotte Mason

Found in Learning for Life: Eduational Words of Wisdom, compiled and edited by Teri Ann Berg Olsen.

St. Anthony

"Dear St. Anthony , we do pray, help us to find Mom's glasses, right away."

It had already been a tough day. In fact, I had gone out for a quick walk up the street to calm myself down, taking my glasses off and placing them at my shirt collar. I returned home from my walk, continued directing traffic at home, only to eventually realize that my glasses were missing. They could be anywhere. My heart sunk. Then...

I heard my children pray to St. Anthony for me. While I was struggling with my own discouragement, they prayed. Their words pulled me from my self-pity. We began our search. We looked up and down the block. Nothing. We went through the whole house. Nothing. We looked up and down the block again. Nothing. We asked our neighbors if they had seen my glasses. They laughed and tried to cheer me up. Nothing. I emailed my prayerful friends at 4Real and asked them to pray to St. Anthony for me.

Seven hours into my lost glasses saga...FOUND! They were found by our live-in St. Anthony, my son who has had the knack for finding things and recently took Anthony as his confirmation name. The glasses were in front of our home in the desert decorative rocks...rocks that look a lot like my brown wire rimmed glasses. I never would have found them on my own.

Praying to St. Anthony is one of the sweetest family habits we have formed. Sweet and efficient! Here's another really sweet version of this prayer that my friend Victoria shared: Tony, Tony, look around, something's lost and must be found.

I am so grateful our family knows we are part of the Communion of Saints. Here's a shorter explanation and an even shorter explanation. I am also grateful that my children, friends, and St. Anthony care about something as small as my missing eyeglasses. Reminds me that we are to bring all things, big and small, to God.

First Friday

A few months ago my husband was able to arrange a change in his work schedule that allowed him to attend morning Mass with me and the children on the first Friday of each month. We drive to a church 30 minutes away and go over our examination of conscience for children on the way. After Mass we receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, then we go to the church gift shop and purchase a little something for the children and ourselves. Finally, we go to Rubio's for fish tacos and bean burritos, (eat your hearts out East Coasters!) All of this gels to make for a very special morning, one that we look forward to each month.

When I was growing up, we didn't eat meat on First Fridays or any Fridays, but I had no idea why. I thought it had something to do with pizza. Really. I grew up in NE Pennsylvania and we take our pizza seriously. A little town near my childhood home is the pizza capital of the world. Now you know. While attending parochial grammar school, first Friday meant...pizza. Yep, delivered to the school. This was truly the highlight of the month! After walking to church and going to Confession (phew!) we ate pizza.

Guess what? First Friday isn't necessarily related to pizza, it has to do with abstaining from meat. Guess what again? Catholics are STILL supposed to abstain from meat on Fridays. Read on..

The Code of Canon Law indicates that Catholics are supposed to abstain from meat on all Fridays during the year, not just during Lent:

Canon 1250 -- All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the universal Church.
Canon 1251 -- Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Canon 1253 -- It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

We will add one more level of richness and fullness to our First Friday outings this year. We are striving to complete a Nine First Fridays Devotion to the Sacred Heart .

My hope for our children is that they grow up thinking First Friday is something special, a highlight of the month. We'll make sure they don't think it is necessarily linked to fish tacos and bean burritos:).

Make Amends

Learning the skill of making amends has been a gift to our family that keeps on giving. Making amends is a skill and habit that builds virtue and unites family members. Here's our formula:

1. Make amends as quickly as possible.
2. Show remorse.
3. Say, "I'm sorry I (describe mistake.)"
4. Describe how you will make things right.
5. Ask for forgiveness.

Tips:

*Don't say, "I'm sorry IF I blah blah blah." This defeats the purpose of owning our mistakes.
*Don't skip the description of the mistake. This keeps the amends specific.
*Try to avoid simple saying, "I won't do it again." Pay for the broken vase. Clean the mud off the floor. Give mom a neck rub:).
* Don't demand forgiveness! Give people the time they need to soften and forgive.

We began this habit formation over twelve years ago with the motivation that we wanted to teach our then two year old how to go beyond a flippant "Sorry!" Little did my husband and I know that WE were the ones who would most benefit. It is so very helpful when a whole family agrees ahead of crisis on what constitutes a true amends.

Ironically, at the time that we were developing the amends formula and reaping wonderful rewards from implementing it, I also believed that the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession, Penance) was unnecessary. Spiritually speaking, I thoughtlessly held the position that being sorry for my sins was something between me and God. Now I see the lack of fullness with this approach and the temptation toward a flippant "Sorry" to God.

This link on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Sacrament of Reconciliation , is worth a complete read. If you are short on time, scroll to the bottom for the "In Brief" summary. From the link:

1485 "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week," Jesus showed himself to his apostles. "He breathed on them, and said to them: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained"' (Jn 20:19, 22-23).

1496 The spiritual effects of the sacrament of Penance are: - reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace; - reconciliation with the Church; - remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sins; - remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin; - peace and serenity of conscience, and spiritual consolation; - an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle.

Make amends within your family. Make amends within your holy family, the Church. The effects are bonding.