Category: Catholic Families

3.5 Time Outs: Vocation Reality Show

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, whose plan for internet domination will no doubt culminate in underground bunkers.  Every indication the  Alvin- and-Chipmunks warning is not an idle threat.

Click the Picture to Learn about the Secret Lair

1.

Byzantine Christmas.  A friend sends in this link to a Byzantine Christmas menu.  Yummy.  FYI for those who can’t get enough of all things Byzantine, she forwarded it from the Byzantium Novum yahoo group.

Double FYI: No, I am not planning to cook all this.  I just like thinking about these things.  My 9-year-old has baked some cookies, though.  That’s a step up from last year, in terms of our ratio of homemade-to-store-bought Christmas foods.  Thank you  nice religious ed family who sent the mason jar of cranberry cookie mix.

Oh, and look what my DRE gave me (and all the other catechists, I’m pretty sure) for Christmas:

Mine is not this exact one. Mine is smaller and has just the Holy Family, and the stable is an arch shape.  But it’s from the same project and very similar. It looks super cool.  Maybe I could get some photographer guy I know to take a picture.

2.

If five-year-olds had to choose their vocations:

“I do not like most boys.  Most.  They make you play army all day.  But there is one boy I do like:  Jesus.”

The boy who makes her play army all day still doesn’t like girls, either.  Except when he can get one to run around the yard brandishing weapons.   In eight years I will have four teenagers.  Seriously enjoying the easy years.

3.

SuperHusband points out that hunting season only lasts two more weeks.  During which he will be designing and building shelving for the living room.  Not shooting things, and maybe his friends won’t be shooting things either?  Maybe the dog does not need her own stock pot from Santa after all?  Also, maybe my living room will not have the “Tornado Strikes Shed, Library, Toy Store, and Art Museum, Deposits Contents in Suburban Home” look?

Okay, no, let’s not overreach.  But at least I’ll be out of excuses.  That’s a start.

3.5

. . . they said she had torticollis.  In a five-year-old?  I’d only heard about the newborn kind.  I had no idea about the sort that makes a small, non-complaining, previously perfectly happy (if resistant to bedtime)  child suddenly start moaning and kicking her feet in intense, intractable pain.  The worst of it lasted through the night, and it took nearly a week of Rapunzel Therapy to effect a complete cure.  But she’s good now.  Next time we’ll know what it is.

***

Remember last week when I mentioned a vague specific prayer need?  This week, pick your favorite saint-who-suffered-slander-from-enemies, and ask for a little assistance on that same job.   Thanks.  Have a great week!

3.5 Time Outs: Jesus Fairyland

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy for inspiring countless countable numbers of bloggers to add structure and scandalous images to their Tuesday.  But not that scandalous — take a look at his 3.5 takes to see not see images far worse than derelict toddlers.

1.

I won a prize!  Oh it cheers me up.  Lisa M. encouraged me to turn out for the Amazing Catechist Giveaway, which I did not want to do, because, well, I didn’t want to be commenting just to indulge my book lust.  But you know what? I didn’t have to fake it.  There’s useful information in that place, and friendly bloggers who answer combox questions, which means even more useful information.  Needless to say, I learned about a pile of new books I want to check out, and look, I won one of them:

And now it is in my hands!  I can’t wait to read it.  Yay!  Check out the Keep Infants of Down Syndrome blog, if you are like me, giving Catholics a bad name by chewing out telemarketers for major charities that seek to “prevent birth defects” by killing off the people who don’t meet spec.  Yeah, I’m cranky.  Killing innocent people makes me cranky.

2.

Respectable Christians are sending Sarah Reinhard photos of their Advent wreaths. I don’t qualify.  Here’s the one we used to have:

That’s Santa and his reindeer, flying towards Christmas.  (Which had not arrived at photo time — observe the recycled candles.  There cannot be a single shade of purple.)

Allow me to explain: I did not donate this item because it was too tacky for me.  It was because, well, look how big it is.  You can store a lot of books in that cubic foot.  My one vice had to give way for the other. But you who own proper Advent wreaths, send in your photos.

3.

Dear Small Children of Mine,

We have been building a model of Bethlehem in our living room every Advent since before the eldest among you was even conceived.  It pleases me greatly to combine Lego, Fischer Price, and Playmobil structures into a giant sprawling representation of the Holy Land.  I am not the least disturbed when the Seven Dwarves turn out for the census.  Presumably the Romans counted even the very short and sneezy.

But I draw the line at calling it “Jesus Fairyland”.  It is Bethlehem.  B-e-t-h-l-e-h-e-m.  Get it straight.

Sincerely,

That Catechist Lady Who’s Supposed to be Educating You

3.5

Rapunzel, opiate of the masses. This weekend I shipped the Y chromosomes off to Hunt Camp, Eldest Daughter did homework Friday and then spent the weekend at her friend’s house, and my two listless littles watched our new library find: Tangled. Continuously.  From 9AM Friday until 3PM Sunday, with breaks only to sleep, attend church, and sometimes to eat.  I got a lot of work done.  And hey, it’s a pretty good movie.  Edifying, even. And boy am I glad my 5-year-old is still enthralled, because last night at the ER

***

Relax.  I will finish that story next week.   All is well here.  Offer up your suspense for the half-dozen people I’m praying for who have real problems.  One in particular needs you today, desperately.  God will know which one.  Thanks!

7 Quick Takes: Nday Ithway Ouryay Iritspay

Look! The Post-It Notes! I Finally Remembered! Click to see 7 x 77 Quick Takes

 

Resisted the urge to flee to 3.5 Time Outs, which would have been more realistic, except that Tuesdays aren’t any better than Fridays.  Due to the plague, I didn’t see it until Thursday anyway.

1.

Dear Son Whom I Love,

Please do not make fake retching noises while you do your homework.

Sincerely,

The Person Who Assigns Grades.

2.

An Advent novel!  Back before we had kids, SuperHusband observed that among his colleagues, the parents of young children were constantly getting sick.  Now we have young children.  So I use these special parenthood moments to catch up on my homeschooling reading.  Which is why I read The Bronze Bow this week while other responsible adults were doing things like going around upright, and speaking without coughing.  It’s Mr. Boy’s new literature selection.

Ignore the goofy cover art. This is a super book.

And wow, a good book!  If you haven’t read it, it is awesome, and I mean that with all the italics of a crazy person, awesome Advent reading.  Highly recommended.

3.

I went ahead and bought the Kolbe literature questions.  Pretty useful, and not a bad deal for what will be about a collective decade worth of literature for my kids. And I thought, “Hey, how cool, reproducibles!”  So I made copies.  And then just to be sure before I posted on the blog something like, “Hey, how cool, reproducibles!” I double-checked.  Oooh.  Noooo.  Red all-caps on the back cover: IT IS ILLEGAL TO PHOTOCOPY THIS BOOK.

So I guess I’ll chain it to a desk and bookmark the pages select children (who cannot be trusted with a book — see “retching noises” above) need to view.

Grumble grumble.  Publishers trying to make a living. What, they need to eat or something??

4.

Here’s what happens when you foolishly invite an SCA friend (who said, “I was thinking of coming to your church”) to come to your church:  The choir director chooses a 9th Century hymn for communion.  Ours didn’t sound as impressive as the link (whose does?), plus it was in English (full disclosure: English is one of my favorite languages), but that did not stop me from pointing to the note at the bottom of the hymnal and whispering, “Look!  9th Century!”

So if I get fired, that’s why.

(PS: It isn’t just me. My friend says she kept noticing the Byzantine scrollwork on the Catholic Update pew cards with all the translation changes.  I believe good art may be a near occasion of sin for us.)

5.

Out on the playground after mass, discussing the new translation with a different friend, a realization: To be Catholic is to complain.

–> If we were Protestant, we’d take our protesting seriously and go start our own church.  Instead we stick around.  And that, I think, is why Catholics have such a well-developed Theology of Suffering.  We live with each other.

(Ever notice the heavy emphasis on Not Complaining in the lives of saints?  It is as if the writers of these things wish to inspire us to heroic silence. Apparently one could be canonized, even declared a Doctor of the Church, if only the art of Not Complaining were practiced wholeheartedly.)

6.

Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.

7.

Dear Son Whom I Love,

There is no approved translation of the Roman Missal into Pig Latin.  Nor will there ever be.  Stop.  Now.

Sincerely,

The Person Upon Whom You Depend For Room And Board.

5.2

So what if I gave up complaining?

Wipe that smirk off your mouth.

Seriously.  Do you know someone who isn’t a Doctor of the Church, but pulled it off anyway?  Even half the time?  What do you do when someone asks your opinion of, oh, you know, something?  Do you say, “I’d tell you except that I gave up complaining for Advent?”  Or maybe you just pinch the baby or drop a vase or do something to change the subject?

Smirk.  Off.

Thanksgiving, Franciscans, and All Things In Moderation

Last night we took the kids to burgers then Target to quick buy our Giving Tree gift items before the shopping season began.  Stopped at the liquor store on the way; SuperHusband dashed inside, and then sloowed down . . . they were giving out free samples. [I had no idea that was legal.]  Fortunately most of it was weird trendy froofy stuff he doesn’t drink.

Kids and I sat in the car rehearsing Christmas Carols, though eventually I had to make the boy stand out in the cold next to the car, because he was being so, er, impatient, about our singing.  Then had to pre-emptively save him from injury or death, when I saw he got the bright idea to ambush his father coming out of the store.  That’s a lovely practical joke in the front hallway, dear, but not in a parking lot after dark.  He understood as soon as I explained.

Thanksgiving Eve with the Catholic Family.  Yes.  (And Target was so peaceful.  Amen.)

***

My favorite Thanksgiving book is Squanto’s Journey.  Goodness you can now get in paperback for $7.  I might have to add it to my wish list.

Something cool I didn’t mention in my first review, and that the Amazon Preview doesn’t snow you: The Friars get their credit.

***

We went to Mass this morning, chatted on the playground, then came home and the young cooks put together a batch of shortbread (per the Joy but with whole wheat flour) to bring to dinner later today. Meanwhile, SuperHusband kept showing me ads from the Sobieski website.  I can’t spell it or pronounce it, but if you google “inexpensive Polish Vodka” the ad pops up on top.  If you have utterly failed in your uber-franciscan aspirations, and have resolved just to drink affordably, it’s the one.   Tito’s is a smidge better, and is therefore my second-choice recommendation, but costs a lot more.

***

And all this to tell you a true story, which might be of help to about six people on the internet: You know they say that if you have an irregular heartbeat you should give up alcohol and caffeine?

One Lent the SuperHusband and I, who drink laughably moderately if you were wondering, gave up alcohol as a penance.  I gave it no thought. (Other than: Gosh I like beer.)  Looking back, hey, wait a minute, that was the year I developed a weird skipped-beat heart thing.  Previously had only had it during pregnancy.  (When — get this — I don’t drink.)

So the first thing to do is keep not drinking, and plus give up coffee as well.  Skipping only gets worse. Long drawn out medical investigation confirms it is a benign condition (PVC’s), hurray, go home and don’t worry about it.  Yay!

No sense living the penitential life purely for spiritual reasons, if there’s not gonna be a health kickback, right?  (Bad catechist!  No biscuit.)  Resume life of all-vices-in-moderation, decide to see what happens.

Heart goes back to the ol’ normal, all-beats-per-minute self.

Try not to feel too sorry for me.

***

This Thanksgiving, may you be blessed with problems that can only be solved by doing something you wanted to do anyway.

 

 

 

Advent!

Catching up on my goofing off, and could not agree more with this post by Fr. L on Anticipating Advent.

Our preparation: Yesterday took the kids to Target to get them decent black slacks that reach all the way to the tops of shoes, after the, er, interesting things that appeared on our altar last Sunday.  Yikes.   Had to do that fast before the shoppers arrived.

So I’m reading Fr. L and thinking, yes, yes, yes!  And then I thought, “that theme seems vaguely familiar.” Wow I should totally write down what that lady said on Sarah’s blog, gosh I bet she’s so pulled together.  [See: Things That Appeared On Our Altar]

**********

Advent PSA: If you’re on the fence about darkening the doors of a Catholic Church.

Topic that came up last night:

Let’s say you are a lapsed Catholic or non-Catholic who is looking for a church to attend after a long time away.  Perhaps you have noticed there’s a Catholic parish near you, and you have a vague idea about maybe dropping in sometime.  But you’re nervous.  You’ll stand out.  You can’t remember (or never knew) how the whole Mass thing works.  People are going to laugh at you when you say or do the wrong thing.

Is that you?

Come this Sunday!  Everyone will be just as lost!  We’ll all have our eyes glued to the handy pamphlet in the pews!  We’ll be mumbling!  We’ll say the wrong things!  The new (old) hand motions will feel so weird!  The music will be really good or really bad or just really strange . . . to all of us together!

It’s Leveling The Playing Field Sunday.  Come. 

Theology of the Body For Teens: Middle School Edition

The Catholic Company very kindly sent me a review set of the Theology of the Body for Teens: Middle School Edition bundle. Okay, so I begged for it.  They sent an e-mail out to all the reviewers (they are still accepting new reviewers) asking who wanted it, and I gave it my best me-me-me-meeeeee! and made the cut!  Yay!  And then I told my DRE, who explained how she was busy trying to finagle a copy on loan from another parish.  Because yes, it is that good.

What’s in the packet:

  • A student book.  Eight chapters of substantial, readable lessons.  Upbeat format.  Rock solid teaching.  You will need one of these for each student.
  • A teacher’s guide.  It’s the student book page-by-page, with helpful teaching notes.  Includes some lesson-planning ideas, answer keys of course, additional information about the Theology of the Body, and supplemental material on difficult topics.  If you are teaching this as a class, you need this book.
  • The parent’s guide.  This is a small book (75 pages, pocket-size) that explains what students are learning.  It is more elevated, adult-level content, focused on how to parent middle-schoolers — it is not a re-hash of the student guide at all.
  • The DVD collection.  There is a set of videos for each chapter of lesson, plus additional material on difficult topics, and a show-this-to-the-parents chapter that explains what the course is about.  The videos are fun, held the interest of my small test-audience of adults (me) and kids (mine), and add significantly to the content of the course.  You would want these if you were teaching this as a class.

What does the course cover?

Well, the focus is John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, but it comes down to: How do I live?  What will make me happy?  And what do I do with this body I’m growing into?

Most of this is not about sex.  It’s mostly about virtue, identity, and love.  How do I love and respect myself and others?  How do I build good relationships?  How do I know what God wants me to do?  It’s a serious, useful, substantial set of lessons that really teach how to be the kind of person God wants you to be.

–>I read the student workbook first.  I found it helpful for me, personally.  To the point that in my opinion, parishes would do well to offer the course to both teens and their parents.  As in: I myself, a grown-up, NFP-using, CCD-teaching, cave-dwelling bona fide catholic dweeb lady, found this to be a course that pushed me to grow in my Christian life.

What Age Student?

The books are targeted towards middle-schoolers — grades 6th to 8th.  I may be under-estimating his maturity, but I felt that my own 6th grade boy, who lives a fairly sheltered catholic-homeschool life, and is not one bit interested in girls, he was not ready to fully benefit from the program.  I held onto a copy of the student book for us to use at home, and when my parish offers it next year (please God), I will send him then.  But for girls (who mature earlier), and for boys and girls who are more fully immersed in our sex-saturated culture, this is about on target for as young as 6th grade.

Sex-related topics are taught in a wider context.  First students learn how we use our bodies to communicate, how we must make an effort to grow in virtue and purity, and how we should not use others for our own gratification, within the wider context of regular life.  It is only after these essentials are thoroughly explored, many weeks into the course, that students are shown how they apply specifically to sex.

Sexual topics are dealt with directly but modestly.  If you don’t know what porn is, all you’ll find out is that it is “the display of images for the purpose of arousing lust”.  (Lust is “a vice that causes people to view others as objects for sexual use”).   So this is a step more mature than earlier-grades catechesis, where the details of “impurity” are left entirely to the reader’s imagination.  If your student is not yet ready to learn about the existence of pornography, sexting, and fornication, hold off on this course for now.

Difficult topics are not presented directly to teens.  There are some video segments the instructor can choose to present depending on the maturity of the group, as well as supplemental teaching material in the teacher’s manual.  One teaching technique I found very helpful was a script where a teacher reads a scenario (young people gathering in the alley behind a movie theater), but the actual misbehavior is not specified.  The teacher then asks: What do you think was happening there?  It’s an opening for students to share the kinds of things they know are going on in their community, which the instructor can then address as appropriate.

I’m cheap.  Or poor.  Do I need to buy the whole nine yards?

The materials are made to be used together.  For a knowledgeable parent wanting to teach at home for the minimal investment, purchasing just the student book would provide a substantial lesson for the least cash outlay.  Note however: The other items do add to the overall content of the course. This isn’t a case of the videos just repeating what the book says, or the parent book being a miniature version of the student book.  Each element contributes new and useful material.  If I were teaching this in the classroom, I would want the whole collection, no question about it.  As a parent, I would want my children to view the videos.

Is it Protestant-friendly?

It’s a very Catholic program.  (Don’t let the “Pope John Paul II” thing fool you.)  You’ll hear references to saints, to the sacraments, the Catholic faith.  BUT, keep in mind, this is all just normal healthy human life.  Love, virtue, modesty, chastity — these are for the whole human race.  The message is right on target with what any Christian youth program would want to teach.  So if you are comfortable with Catholic-trappings,  you could work with the whole course as-is, and just explain to your audience that it was made by Catholics.  If not, you may want to get the materials for yourself, and use them to train yourself how to teach these topics to your teens.

Summary:  I give it a ‘buy’ recommend, if you are responsible for teaching a young person how to act like a human being.  Thanks again to our sponsor The Catholic Company, who in no way requires that I like the review items they send, but would like me to remind you that they are a fine source for a Catechism of the Catholic Church or a Catholic Bible.

Simmering.

Thank you to Bearing for linking to this free pdf booklet by Fr. Longenecker on St. Benedict for Busy Parents.  I have been so desperate for something to read . . . desperate enough to crack the pages of White Fang, which does not interest me in the least, but it’s on my shelves for certain schoolchildren, and what else was I going to read?  Now I’ve got 25 pages of reprieve from that monster.

–> The library is right out, because I absolutely cannot keep track of one more thing right now, and the library means about twenty more things, all hidden under mattresses and stuck behind dressers by the time the third renewal comes around.  Sometimes, being a person who is simply not interested in television is maybe not all it’s cracked up to be.  Even if actually Eric Sammons is right.  (He is.)

****

In other news, if you had were one of the people (contacted privately) praying for the best dog in the world in her recent illness, she is home and looking  a little better.  Looks like a case of thyroid gone AWOL, guess that happens to middle-aged ladies of many species.  Venison and rice and a big bone boiling on the stove for her now, the rest of us I think are having frozen pizza.

Writing today — Good Friday — is nerve-wracking.  It cannot be done well.  It is the day we remember we are small and weak and mostly useless, and that if God Himself were to come and take us by the hand, we’d probably still screw it up.  (And, happily: God knows this, and will come do it anyway.  Lamb slain since the foundation of the world.  It is His nature, to pour himself out for us.)

But anyway I want to point today to the battle in front of us.  Darwin gave us a snippet yesterday, and if you read the combox at either of his blogs, you get the picture.  You already knew about it, of course.  If you are catholic and you can fog a mirror, you know that our church is a giant jumble of bickering and snippiness.

It is a battlefield.  Our Church.

When the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I found it curious to learn that Peter Jackson’s specialty was horror movies.  Then I thought: Yes, of course.  War is always horror.*  

And so, our church is festooned with all the horrors of battle — the injured, the angry, the bitter, the violent, the sadistic.  And all the wonders: self-sacrifice, obedience, heroism, love unto death.  Jesus has promised the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us.  The implication is that those gates shall certainly give it their best in trying.

It is thus not surprising, that having so thoroughly torn apart American families, having so successfully pitted parents against their children, even to the point of murder, having made every virtue the object of social scorn, and every sin the object the great praise, Satan should now set his sights on our Catholic schools.  It is not enough for him, to attack our parish schools where he will.  He must incite us to civil war, pitting catholic families against the schools and, where he is able, catholic schools against families.

This is nonsense.

Refuse.

Refuse.

Do not be the infantry and the cavalry taking shots at one another.  Fight the real enemy.

***

I wish you a very good Friday.

And if, like me, you are perhaps not so successful at being good, then may it at least be a very grateful Friday.

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*A similar case:  Mel Gibson and The Passion.  A most violent day.  Who else could render it so clearly, except someone who specialized in bringing violence to the theaters and living rooms of the world?  God can use anyone.  Anyone at all.