Lenten Thoughts

Pope Francis (then Archbisop Bergoglio) washes and kisses the feet of an AIDS patient

With the election of Pope Francis there have been lots of adjectives flying around to describe him, all of which seem to be genuinely true. Humble, prayerful, spiritual, holy, truly poor in spirit. The messages he has sent out via his first few homilies have been very focused on love: for our neighbors, for the poor, the downtrodden, the ill, the elderly, the most innocent and vulnerable of us all. All very worthy messages. 

What I find most striking are the images of Pope Francis that have come flooding out that show him living out what he has been preaching. Pictures of the Holy Father (during his days as the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires) washing and kissing the feet of drug addicts, expectant mothers, AIDS patients. Seeing him stop his motorcade in Saint Peter's Square so he can climb down from the popemobile specifically to kiss and bless a disabled man and his caretaker. Standing outside a parish church for twenty solid minutes to greet each parishioner individually, stopping to bless those who ask and kissing the head of every child that goes by. And looking completely serene and joyful in it all. I'm not one who is normally a very emotional person, but these images brought me to tears.

The powerful example given in just the few, short days of Pope Francis' pontificate makes me think he will one day be declared a great Saint of our Church. It also has me stopping to examine the way I live and carry myself. 

This morning it occurred to me, out of nowhere, that I want to be a Saint. I don't care about the formal acknowledgment or having my own feast day or whatnot. I just want to make it to heaven, hopefully with my husband and children, and be able to be in the Presence of the Beatific Vision. I'm not really sure where that came from. The famous line given by Dan Ackroyd when the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man comes plodding down the street, Godzilla-style, "It just...popped in there," is as accurate a description as I can give. Although I know it to be the truth of my heart.

Later on I was reading a blog post that is mostly about how celibacy and sexual issues in the Church relate to our relationship with the Lord when I read this passage:

"How can you tell people you have been saved from the abyss and thus live in state of insane bizarre grace and that you offer up your sexuality out of love? That to manage and control human creation, to the lover of Christ, seems monstrous? That when we say 'I believe in God' we are really saying, 'I view life as a gift, not as a possession'..."

That last sentence especially struck me. "I view life as a gift, not a possession." Do I really? Especially in the West where we view our individuality and our own will as something almost sacred and holy in itself, the idea of our lives not really being our own to do with as we will is cutting, almost viscerally offensive. Of course, that is exactly what the Scriptures say. We are not our own, we belong to God.  Our very existence is completely dependent on Our Creator. Do I live my life like it is a gift?

I start reading through the comments and someone said that what we are all really afraid of is deprivation; we spend all this time indulging in food, drink, sensuality, etc and so on out of the fear that if we don't we will be missing out on something. I admit that is something I struggle with, especially in the area of food. I confess gluttony entirely too often and even in my low carb lifestyle I'm constantly looking for a new recipe to try and create a "guilt free" version of some delicacy that I just can't live without. 

I'm reading this book titled Happy Are You Poor which is all about living out the message of Gospel Poverty, as taught by Our Lord and His Apostles and Saints. I'm having a really hard time getting through it, too. Not because it's hard to understand but because it's hard contemplate. The author, Father Dubay, asks a lot of uncomfortable quests about what constitutes true Gospel Poverty. For instance, is Gospel Poverty all about an internal attitude or is there a real expectation for us to live not just modestly but minimally? The answers have been ones I do not really like hearing. 

But isn't that the case with the Gospel itself? So much of what The Lord has to say turns off so many. In His own day many of His disciples stopped following him (John 6) when his teaching became too hard for people to accept. Will I be one of those? Lord willing, the answer to that will be no. But every day is a struggle. Sometimes I feel like Jacob wrestling with the Lord in his dream. Some days I want to rail against it all. Why?! Why can't I have what I want? Why can't it be about me? 

But every day I get up and force myself to submit to a will that is not my own it molds and shapes me until one day I will wake up and notice that it is less of a struggle. That what the Lord wants is what I want, too, even if it costs me. I can already see some of this progress, although it is certainly not nearly enough. I pray that one day I will arise from my bed, humble myself before the Lord without even the smallest peep of frustration, and be truly joyful about it. I pray that when my time in this world is at an end Our Lord will give me a, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Lord, hear my prayer.

Áve María, grátia pléna, Dóminus técum. Benedícta tu in muliéribus, et benedíctus frúctus véntris túi, Iésus.

Sáncta María, Máter Déi, óra pro nóbis peccatóribus, nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae. Ámen.

 

 

Habemus Papam!

Pope Francis, the first pope from the Americas and the first Jesuit

Well, we have a new pope! Our family is very excited about this. We were glued to EWTN all day last Wednesday and both kids started dancing around and celebrating as soon as we saw the white smoke. Thus far I am very impressed with Pope Francis. He seems like a very gentle, humble man who is also not afraid to speak the truth. Me likey! We need more of that nowadays.

Boog and Girlie, joyfully dancing

In honor of our new Papa Francesco we made an Argentine Pionono cake. Essentially, it's a jelly-roll style cake, soaked in hazelnut coffee and vanilla, then filled with home made dulche de leche (caramel made with sweetened condensed milk) and shredded coconut. It was divine!

Definitely NOT low-carb

In the mean time, we've accomplished quite a lot in school. Boog aced his quizzes on adding the number one, telling time to the hour, and short /a/. We've also celebrated both the Feast of Saint Patrick (this past Sunday) and the Solemnity of Saint Joseph (today).

Low-carb Irish Soda Bread

We had quite a low-carb feast on Saint Patrick's Day. Irish Soda Bread- made with Atkins bake mix and Splenda- Slow-Cooked Beef with Carrots simmered for hours in Guinness Stout, Dubliner Cheese, Blue Cheese Coleslaw, real Irish Butter, and Shamrock cookies and candies for the kids.

Wooden Saint Patrick Figure, hand painted by yours truly

One thing you will notice is that I have a lot of links to the various crafts, projects, etc, that I use. That would be due to the fact that I am not blessed with even an ounce of creativity. At all. But I do appreciate it when I see it. So once again I have snatched up an idea I saw elsewhere and done my own version of it. The cool little guy you see painted above is designed entirely by me, but the idea came from the fantastic Shower of Roses blog. I wish I had a miniscule amount of innovation that blogger does, but alas it is not to be.

Having a Saint Collection is a fantastic idea to help the kiddies not only remember the Saints but recognize them when they see them in art and iconography. I've also painted a little Saint Joseph to get our collection going.

Boog is very proud of his pasting abilities

So, our art craft for today, being the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, was to make a Saint Joseph altar. Essentially, we printed out the PDF at the link, colored and cut it out, then pasted it to the "altar" which is made of construction-paper-covered boxes. Saint Joseph, as most Christians will know, is the adopted or foster-father of Our Lord. He is the patron of fathers and families. The Church considers him a wonderful example of obedience to God as well as fatherhood and a model husband because he accepted Mary as his wife at the command of the Lord, and he raised Jesus as his own son. Saint Joseph is a very special man for taking such difficult circumstances upon himself. So we honor him on this day of Solemnity.

There is also quite the history of the Saint Joseph altar, which can be found here.

Have a nice Solemnity and Viva Il Papa Francesco!

Conclave and New Stuff

Conclave begins today. So in honor of the upcoming election of our new pontiff, Boog and I will be doing this Papal Lap Book/Unit Study.

Girlie is an artist!

We began by coloring a "Thank you" picture for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. That will be page 1 in our lap book. Then we read about Saint Peter from one of the Saint Stories books by Father Lovasik, as well as the passage in Saint Matthew's Gospel where Our Lord gives the Keys to the Kingdom to Saint Peter (Matt. 16:18-19). We then followed the recipe and instructions here to make Saint Peter's Pretzel Keys, of which I did not partake. The kids say they are tasty, though.

Brushing on the egg wash

Most definitely NOT low carb!

  And, of course, what discussion of the Pope would be complete without a Pope Hat?

Pope Hilarius II

So that was our Papal Unit Study for the day. Tomorrow we'll be checking out Saint Peter's Basilica. Online, of course.

One website I'm really enjoying is Have Fun Teaching. I've been using it to print out free (my favorite word!) materials to help us review work we have covered. Today we reviewed telling the hour on a clock with hands using one of their units. We also reviewed the vowel sound of short /a/, as well as did some addition practice.

Vowel practice

  Boog seems to respond really well to the visuals.







After we did our reviews it was on to the Seton work. The basics of the Seton program are Religion, Phonics, Math, and Handwriting. These are the subjects we do every day, without fail. I like that the lessons are fairly succinct. They do a very good job of making them repetitive enough that the concepts are remembered without being boring or drilling so much that Boog gets annoyed and burned out.

The drawing on the left-hand side, which is supposed to be for the Blessed Mother, likely involves battle droids and lasers. I'm sure Mary loves that.

Aside from all that, we made sure to take some time out this morning to watch the beginning of the conclave, and after lunch we kept an eye on EWTN's coverage of that chimney on the top of the Sistine Chapel. Alas, black smoke today. Maybe tomorrow. 

Veni, Sancte Spiritus!

Checking out the Cardinals as they process into the Sistine Chapel

Taking a time out for some sibling love!

Ooh. My first post.

Alrighty. I have decided to follow the example of my most excellent friend Mary and start a blog about my adventures in homeschooling my rug rats. To begin, we are very Catholic. I'm a convert (2 years confirmed on May 1) so I'm not some mindless goober just doing what my folks did because of culture or whatnot. I hate that I have to even say that but I do actually get that reaction quite a bit. Anyway, the point in mentioning my faith is that a lot of what I post about is likely to be related to Catholicism, and our curriculum is a solidly Catholic one (Seton Home Study). So don't be surprised by references to various Saints or the Blessed Virgin or whatnot. And yes, I am paying attention to the conclave so expect excitement when our new pope is announced.

My Papa is awesome!

The second essential thing about me is that I am very conservative, to the point of being a borderline libertarian about a lot of things. Just be forewarned that if my political opinions make their way into my posts- and they are pretty much guaranteed to do so- they are going to come from that viewpoint.

Filibusters are cool.

 Oh, and I like Grumpy Cat.

A lot.

And there will be pictures.












So. Now you have been forewarned and no one can say they are surprised by any content here.

On to the family stuff. Hubby and I have two children. My oldest, who we will call "Boog," is a rambunctious six-year-old boy who is obsessed with Legos and Star Wars. I am fairly convinced he will be an engineer some day. My youngest, who will be referred to as "Girlie," is a three-year-old princess in training. And I don't mean that in an "I'm spoiling her rotten" way. I mean she actually wants to be a princess. As in tiara and ball gowns. This is a fairly constant source of consternation for me, as I am and have always been sort-of a tomboy. As bewildering as this is for me, my poor husband (one of three brothers in a family that has one girl born in every generation) is completely lost when it comes to the super-girl stuff. It is quite the domestic conundrum.

We are also the proud owners of two pets. Ein is our loyal pup. He is a 12-year-old tricolor Pembroke Welsh Corgi and is the sweetest dog in the history of dog-kind. Our feline companion, on the other hand, is the spawn of Satan himself. His name is Max, he is about 15-ish (hubby adopted him, and he was already full grown so this is our best guesstimation), and is an American long hair. Most likely an albino as he is all white with one blue eye and one yellow eye. Beautiful cat but mean as a snake. So we've got an interesting little dynamic going on in my crazy household.












Ok, so homescholing. What? Why? How? I am a firm believer that it is my job, as the parent of my children, to be their primary educator. Hubby and I are primarily responsible for preparing my kids for life. It is also my foremost goal as a Catholic parent to raise my children to be Saints in God's Kingdom.

So. The reason I decided to home school is multi-faceted. The first factor is general dissatisfaction with the public schools- which have gone completely insane. I have absolutely no confidence that my children will come out of public schooling as well-rounded and morally grounded individuals prepared for life in reality. I know there are kids who survive public schools. I am one of those people. But I don't want my kids to merely survive, I want them to thrive. I just do not see the public schools regularly producing those qualities, and in fact, I believe the public school experience actively works against the best efforts of parents to instill those qualities in their children.

"No one comes to the Father except through Elementary School Number 15." From Stuff Jesus Never said, Volume III.

The second factor was a one-year experience with private Catholic schooling that was underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, Boog learned quite a bit in preschool and his teacher was fine. The problem, for me, is that even most private schools are ate up with the PC at this point and that translates into some policies and practices that are, in my opinion, ridiculous. Like no-tolerance policies for "finger guns" (one example of MANY!!). Threatening severe consequences to small children for just being kids involved in harmless, imaginative play is absurd. Plus, the expense is a bit overwhelming. When we looked at the finances of it all and saw that we could send the kiddos to the parish school for a whopping $5K a piece per year versus between $3-500 per child per year to get the complete homeschooling kit....well, there was not exactly a whole lot of deliberation to that really. And taking on the burden of education at home is right in line with my parenting philosophy anyway, so it wasn't really that hard a step for us.

There are quite a few other things that came into play here, but in an effort not to bore you to tears, I will save those for some other time. And with the basic introductions out of the way, I will end this post so I can work on my lesson plans for tomorrow.