Good Friday

Melts My Heart

Coming home from the Costume Parade (no pictures, sorry) on Saturday, the kids were a bit hyped up.

Mr warillever ran into the store for a few things, leaving me in the car with two children on a sugar high. They were screeching, poking each other, and otherwise driving me crazy. I suggested that we sing a song.

Agent 002 opened his mouth, and an angelic 6-year old soprano pronounced:

Oh most holy twinity
Undivided unity
Holy God,
Mighty God.
God imowtal
Be a-door-ed.

Two Questions and an Advertisement

Shannon is hosting a backwards WFMW today at Rocks in My Dryer. I'll take advantage of this opportunity to tap the wisdom of the internets.

1. Read-Aloud Suggestions? My husband reads to the children from a novel every night. Thus far they have read Charlotte's Web, Stewart Little, The Trumpeter Swan, Doctor Dolittle, The Just So Stories, and they are currently finishing up the Little House series. We haven't decided what to tackle next. Any suggestions?
   
   
2. Preschool Prayer Songs? We begin "preschool" every day with a prayer. I have only just realized that a song is a good way to do this and get the kids really involved. Cousin F in particular gets into hand motions and spontaneous riffs on well-known songs. We have been singing "He Has the Whole World in His Hands" and "This is the Day." Does anyone know any good Christian songs that a 1, 3 and 4 yo would be able to sing?
   
   
3. Photographs of Nuns? Sr. Mary Martha and her cohert of sisters are organizing a Nun Beauty No Contest to show all of the good work that nuns do around the world. Sr. Mary Martha asked me to advertise this for her, and since when can I say no to a nun? Even in my 1980s nearly secular Catholic school we learned that much! You can read more about the rules (or lack thereof) at her blog.
   

Morning Prayer

Found some years ago on a prayer card in a hospital chapel:

Help me, dear Lord, to live this day
As you would wish me too --
And if I fail, then please forgive
The wrong things that I do.

Give me the strength to comfort those
Who need a helping hand
Give me a loving heart
That I may better understand.

Help me to solve the problems
That are sure to some my way
But not forget the blessings
That are part of every day.

And finally, Lord, walk with me!
My faltering footsteps guide
For I need never be afraid
If you are by my side.

Alice E. Chase

Smile at Jesus

I remember some time ago a very big group of professors came from the United States and they asked, "Tell us something that will help us." And I said, "Smile at each other." I must have said it in a very serious way, I suppose, and so one of them asked me, "Are you married?" And I said, "Yes, and I sometimes find it very difficult to smile at Jesus because he can be very demanding."

Mother Teresa, 1977

I have been reading Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light with the book club at our parish. It has been a good read, but did not touch me deeply until last night.

It wasn't one section in particular that touched me -- rather it was the way in which Mother handled the constant demands that Jesus put on her, the determination to show God's love even when she herself could not feel it. To smile at Jesus.

She phrased this in various ways throughout her life --

Love demands sacrifice. But if we love until it hurts, God will give us His peace and joy ... Suffering in itself is nothing; but suffering shared with Christ's Passion is a wonderful gift.

to Jacqueline de Decker, 1953

let us love Jesus with our whole heart & soul. Let us bring him many souls. -- Keep smiling. Smile at Jesus in your suffering -- for to be a real Missionary of Charity you must be a cheerful victim.

to suffering co-workers 1955

You must allow Jesus to make you the bread to be eaten by all those you come in touch with.

to Fr. Michale Van der Peet, 1977

In other words, it is never about me. It is always about Jesus. When I am most worn down and impatient with my children is when I am most called to let them "eat me up;" to let the depths of God's love shine through.

Mary Mother of God

On this, the final day of May, I am posting a picture of Mary.

This statue was a Mothers' Day present from my parents. I placed it in the copse of trees visible from my kitchen window and planted blue and gold flowers at her feet.* It makes makes me smile (and pray) each time I glance out the window.

In case you didn't realize it, Catholics like Mary.** We do not pray to her like a god; we pray with her.*** The statue is a sign of respect and a reminder to us of the most excellent model of human virtue.

This area of the yard will need to be landscaped in the next year because the trees are beginning to lean toward the house. When we do, I think I will have the children help me plant a Mary garden.

Then we can have a May Crowning on May 1st.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Yes, the blue and gold reference is to notre dame -- our Lady, not the university. Blue and gold have traditionally been associated with Mary, and many Catholic schools use this color scheme to honor her. These include my elementary school as well as colleges like Notre Dame, Merrimack, St. Edward's University, College of St. Elizabeth, St. Joseph College (x2), St. Mary College (of Kansas San Antonio, and Maryland, but not the one in Indiana [which is blue and white also in honor of St. Mary]), College of St. Mary, St. Scholastica, St. Theresa, and St. Thomas (x2). If I had included all of the schools that use blue and white to honor Mary this list would go on for pages.****

**Sounds like a future post for Stuff Catholics Like?

***Sister Mary Martha has a post on this very topic.

***Yes, I did do a search for "Saint" on a sports uniform site to find most of the schools on this list.

My Son Rocks

The Unplugged Project theme this week is "rocks."

We did not use any real rocks, but have faith -- there is more of a connection than the bad pun in the title.

I wanted to do an Easter craft with the kindergarten religious education class I teach at our church. Like usual, my first stop for ideas was the Bible section of my favorite site for paper crafts -- DLTK-kids. They have a good selection of Christian and secular Easter projects for various ages.

I really liked the "Angel Rolled the Stone Away" craft. It is simple, fun, cute, biblically accurate, and a good review for the kids. It obviously needed some modifications for our situation, however. We do not have the time or storage space to paint any of our crafts, so we used crayons. Additionally, since roughly half of the kids attend mass after religious ed., I did not think that arming them with loose paper rocks would be such a smart idea.

Now here comes the reference to my rockin' son. Agent 002 and I did a practice run of the craft on Friday afternoon. I played around with the balled up rock, trying to figure out how I could affix it to the plate so that it would not become a projectile. I was okay with making the rock stationary since (according to the Bible) the rock was already pushed aside when the women arrived at the tomb on Easter morning.

Without saying a word, Agent 002 picked up the stapler and produced this:

Then he spent the afternoon moving his rock back and forth, telling Agent 004 about the resurrection. Alleluia!

Raise a Peep to the Lord!

The talk of the Mommysphere this Holy Week is the over-commercialization of Easter. Christian moms are concerned that Easter egg hunts and candy-filled baskets overshadow the life, death, and resurrection of Christ that we should be celebrating.

But you know what? As far as I am concerned, Walmart got it right on this one. This day is about candy eggs, bunny cake, and jellybeans; it is about brightly colored plastic eggs hidden under the couch; and it is about eating an enormous feast.

It is even about Marshmallow Peeps on a bed of plastic grass.

What do Marshmallow Peeps have to do with the resurrection?

Everything!

Easter is about joy. Christ is risen. Did you hear that, people? Christ is risen. From the dead. To save us from our sins. Christ is risen! The gates of heaven are open, and we are saved.

There is no way to express in human words the infinite joy of Easter, so we say it in chocolate. And in marshmallow. And in pork and in mashed potatoes and in hot cross buns. This is our biggest party of the year.

Christ is risen! Raise a peep and praise the Lord.

Good Friday

Lenten Linkage

• Preschooling moms will appreciate Ironic Catholic's interpretation of the Dr. Seauss classic Green Eggs and Ham:

I am Sam
I am Sam
Sam I am

(The narrative opens with a direct reference to YHWH, "I am who am". Sam is symbolically connected to the Ultimate Good using three syllables per three lines, an indirect trinitarian reference. As Sam will be found to be the instigator of temptation, this triplet announces Sam as an anti-Christ figure, and sets up the dark nature of the book. Henceforth, he shall be referred to as Sam/Satan.)

(read the whole "Twisted Lenten Drama" at Ironic Catholic)

• Becky responds to Mary about non-Catholics "doing" Lent. They both initially see Lenten devotions as empty ritual, but are coming to understand the power of ritual, discipline and symbolic suffering in bringing us closer to Christ. Becky closes her post with a very interesting question:

Is a religious habit a bad thing? Initially my thought is that as long as it isn't just a habit or ritual and something done with seriousness and observation and reflection to better my relationship with God, it couldn't be wrong. It could be beneficial.

I have been using this question to frame my prayer-time for the past few days. My thoughts are far too complex to reduce to a blog comment, but I will try to have a post-length formulation of my answer soon.

Mortality

Our luncheon conversation about mortality on this Ash Wednesday:

Agent 002: When I die, will my skin fall off like the dinosaurs in the museum?
Mama: Yes.
Agent 002: I won't have any skin?
Mama: No. It will decay.
Agent 002: But I will still have hard bones?
Mama: Yes.
Agent 002: Will my eyes decay?
Mama: Yes.
Agent 002: And my heart and my muscles?
Mama: Yes. They will all decay.
Agent 002: Does Jesus send every person a note?
Mama: Huh?
Agent 002: A note to say that I will die and can go to heaven. Does Jesus send them in the mail?
Mama: Every living thing dies. Jesus doesn't need to send notes about it.
Agent 002: But how do you know that people can go to heaven with Jesus?
Mama: There are no notes, but God wrote a book about it -- the Bible.
Cousin F: In the living room?
Mama: Yes, our Bible is in the living room.

Three Things I'd Like my Kids to Believe

MamaBlogga is running a Group Writing Project this week. The theme is “Three things I want my kids to . . .” You can finish that infinitive with whatever verb you like (do, say, be, wear, have, get away with), and add any qualifiers you like (today, this summer, before they drive me crazy).

There have been some great posts about teaching your children to be polite, three things for kids to know about their mother, and what one mom hopes her sons will find in a bride.

I decided to go a bit more basic, and enumerate those things that I would like my children to believe:

1) ...in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

2) ...in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end

3)...in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

Once we get those three down, we can work on the rest of the Nicene Creed, and all of the nice things that flow from it, like faith, love, and hope.

Can I Join?

Ironic Catholic reports on the Mary over Martha support group for women who feel that "listening to Jesus beats doing housework," because "Jesus Christ said there was only one thing necessary, and I'm guessing it wasn't Lysol."

It's good. It's really good. Read it.

Sr. Mary Martha Says

heh.

Sr. Mary Martha on the saints and homeschoolers. And mental illness.

Really.

The Trinity According to Preschoolers

Conversation between children when I told them to "go play."

Agent 002: Let's play with Jesus.
Agent 004: I play with Jesus, you play with God.
Agent 002: Jesus and God are the same thing. I play with Jesus.
Mama: What about the Holy Spirit?
Agent 002: making ghost noises: Hol - y Spir-it. Just like God!

...and I just wanted them out of my hair for five minutes.

Good Friday

Spritual Benefits of Blogging

As my time on the internet has become more precious, I have spent less time seeing the sites or reading new blogs. I have fallen into a blog-rut. Curt Jester and the Catholic Blog Awards (link broken?) have cured me, however. In his awards post, Curt Jester recommended scores of blogs. I have not yet worked through the entire list, but have already found a new favorite -- Ironic Catholic. In a recent post, he describes the "unexpected spiritual benefits of blogging."

• You get to practice patience as you spend way too much time... a. trying to size a picture through the Blogger program, b. waiting to see if the post will publish, c. tweaking with one sentence so that it makes sense, d. all of the above
• Faith in the everyday: seek, and ye shall find something to write about.
• Great opportunity to jam to excellent Christian music while you write, like, say, Ashley Cleveland. Um, or Gregorian Chant. (OK, that was a shameless plug. She's so phenomenal.)
  
• You get multiple opportunities to resist the temptation of looking at your SiteMeter stats. And when you do look, it's often an exercise in humility. A win-win!
• You get to practice non-violent conflict resolution when you wade into the occasionally turbulent waters of the comment boxes.
• You get to contemplate the beauty of nature as you look out the window in search of...a point....
• St. Jude has a more-than-passing familiarity with the Christian blogosphere. I'm jus' sayin'.
• Finally, always remember: we live in the blogosphere, but not of the blogosphere.

Update (2/2/07): I apologize for the pronoun confusion -- Ironic Catholic is a woman.

Happy Catholic makes me Happy

Happy Catholic posted this:

"The funny thing about lottery tickets," Mary mused as we waited in line at the cash register, "is that people keep buying them even if they never win. Week after week, month after month, year after year, still they never give up hope. But if they pray for something two or three times, they expect immediate results, and if it doesn't happen, then they say that God is unfair, disinterested, or dead. Why is it easier to keep believing in the lottery than in God?"

Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship
by Diane Schoemperlen

Check out the weekend joke as well.

March for Life 2007

March for Life 2007
Originally uploaded by warillever.

Mr warillever, the agents, and I joined up with friends from college and their children for the March.

Nothing went according to plan, but that itself was a blessing. By the time we arrived at the Verizon Arena (an hour before mass), the building was over capacity, and we could not attend the Youth Mass. We were instead directed to a local parish, which was already at standing-room-only itself. In all, 3 churches, a lecture hall and a professional sports arena were filled with worshipers. I was brought to tears by the mass of humanity gathered in prayer.

The weather was miserable -- it was colder and snowier in DC than it was in New Hampshire -- but if anything the adverse conditions intensified the experience. Thousands of people coming together to stand up for justice is always an incredible thing, but to see people who traveled hundreds or thousands of miles stand in the cold for two hours in order to find a space in line to trudge a mile in the slush was inspiring.

This is our third trip time marching, and I think that we will continue to do so, even with small children. The kids were real troopers and really seemed to enjoy the experience. They do not comprehend abortion (nor should they at this age), but it was nonetheless educational. Agent 002 was reading letters off of the signs around us, and pointing out each picture of Jesus he saw. He understands that we love EVERY SINGLE human being, no matter how small or how weak. I hope that all of the children will understand how important it is that we stand up for things that we believe in.

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Today is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (EWTN, Wikipedia, About.com). Even though the obligation was transferred to Sunday this year, we had planned to attend daily mass as a family anyway. A nasty little ice storm, however, deterred us from leaving the house. We figured that God would prefer to have us alive at home than sliding off the road on the way to church.

Instead, all five of us -- both agents, me, Mr. warillever, and Janice the cat -- tried to pray the rosary together. We chose the Joyful mysteries because of they celebrate Mary as mother.

The agents were impressively attentive, patient, and respectful, but by the time we got to the fifth mystery -- Jesus is found in the temple -- the only family member under 50 pounds who had remained prayerful was the cat. She was curled up peacefully on my lap with wooden rosary beads around her neck. Agent 002 (who had placed the rosary beads on the cat), was giggling uncontrollably and Agent 004 was in full wiggle mode. My mind was starting to wander a little as well, and I could not get Eamon Kelly's Christmas Eve in Ireland out of my head.

My father, with his mind a thousand miles away, was doing eleven Hail Marys to the decade and twelve Hail Marys to the decade. My mother said 'Glory Ned,' and he, taking that for encouragement did thirteen to the decade.

Yes, that quotation is entirely from memory, and it too is from Paddy Noonan's Christmas Time in Ireland.

If I were to make a New Year's resolution (which I promised myself that I would not do), I would resolve to say the rosary daily. Maybe I'll start out by promising to do so tomorrow. And maybe, if I make that same promise every evening, I will make a habit of it.