Up at the Register this morning, I’m talking about ways to not become a person you hate being, in the aftermath of other Catholics being truly horrid:
Bitterness isn’t born ex nihilo. Bitterness is the festering of a spiritual wound, and many Catholics are infected by bitterness because they have suffered real, penetrating, stinging wounds at the hands of their fellows.
When you see someone being rabidly ugly, that didn’t come from nowhere.
When it’s you being rabidly ugly, it often feels like “righteous anger.”
Hmmn. Are you filled with a sense of peace? Do people generally agree that the way you speak and act is gentle and life-giving? Do even some of your opponents speak of you respectfully, because your are well-known as someone who is rational, calm, and has good sound reasons for your beliefs?
Or is it maybe possible that, fault of the hurt you’ve endured at the hands of people who had no right to treat you that way, you’ve started to get a little bitter?
FYI it’s my editor Kevin Knight at NCR who wins the award for my favorite photo caption ever. That’s his genius, not mine, concerning the ducks. But he is so, so, right. Ducks, guys. Make that #5.
A friend shared this fundraiser for yet another young person wishing to pursue a religious vocation, but student loan debt stands in the way. I don’t discourage you from helping. Meanwhile, the problem looms very personally for us.
The other morning, Fr. Gonzo and I were chatting about this and that, the subject of Mr. Boy (now a senior in high school) came up, and Father suggested, “Look into Reputable Faithful Catholic U. I think it might be a good fit for him.”
I was a little taken aback, mostly because I’m too deep inside Catholic circles, so I know some of the dirt on RFCU. But of course, Fr. G. is no less ignorant, he gets around too. The question on further reflection isn’t whether this or that school has problems (it’s a fallen world, they all will), but whether the education and formation are suited to the student at hand. I resolved to give RFCU a good look.
And then I remembered the part about the loans. If the boy goes to an in-state public college, he can get through debt-free. That’s basically a four year walk through Heathens Are Us, but not entirely so. It’s possible to cobble together a decent education if you pick your way carefully.
The boy is smart. He could get accepted at a good Catholic school. He’d have a lot to offer the school, and the school would (if well-chosen) have a lot to offer him, but also there would be debt involved. Un-subsidized tuition plus housing costs will do that to you, even after you knock off the usual discounts for pretty-good-but-not-perfect students who ask for aid.
A little debt if he goes on to be an IT guy (his planned profession) is manageable. If he goes on to be an IT guy, a good solid Catholic education will be well worth the investment. The difficulty is that students who start out with nice secular career plans don’t necessarily end there, witness the fundraiser above. A kid with a religious vocation, if he can be counted on to answer it, would do better to stay out of debt and also live in the wider world a bit — there will be plenty of time for the Catholic enclave later.
So anyhow, all that to say: I don’t know much, just that I hate student loans, and I hate that the standard model for good Catholic education seems to require them.
Photo by Jebulon (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons. Back when universities were first invented, this vocation question wasn’t really a problem. But of course the students still behaved terribly and people complained. I think higher ed is just something we all want to always complain about.
Last night’s report from the corner public high school: “My history teacher explained to the class that the difference between Catholics and Protestants was that Catholics idolize Mary.”
Ah. Well, there’s academic precision for you.
After learning that this particular teacher was a Lutheran, I produced my go-to book for children who have to deal with Lutherans who can’t be nice to the BVM:
If you let your kids out in public, they need to know Catholic apologetics. Parents, don’t count on your local parish to provide this education to your children. Maybe your parish offers excellent religious education or maybe they don’t, but it’s your job to oversee your children’s formation.
A good Catholic upbringing doesn’t erase free will. All the best formation in the world is no guarantee your children will remain Catholic into adulthood. But if you don’t even give them the tools they need to attempt a defense of their faith, you’re kinda asking for it.
As parish programs are starting up with the school year, I want to talk about the necessity of one-on-one discipleship. This is something that many people on parish staff have zero experience with. But it’s just spending time with someone listening to them and providing a type of companionship that is ordered towards helping each other become better Christians.
This time could include praying together, talking about problems or personal struggles, answering questions about the faith, sharing good resources, doing a Bible study together, or providing practical how-to help – but it isn’t one thing: It’s paying attention to what the other person needs, and responding to that need.
I pause here to note: Discipleship isn’t grooming successors. If you run a parish program, of course you keep your eye out for people who can take on responsibility within your program. But discipleship is about helping the other person to daily answer their individual call from God, even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with your program.
(Indeed: I find it very fruitful to be in mutual-discipleship relationships with people whose work is entirely separate from mine.)
Discipling someone is time-intensive. You have to spend quantity-time being with each other, and at least some of that time has to be one-on-one time, when personal difficulties can be discussed in confidence.
Everybody in your parish needs this.
Parish staff cannot, therefore, meet the needs of all parishioners (unless your parish only has four people in it, maybe).
Therefore a parish communal life that consists of bringing in the herd, giving them a message, and then sending them home to their separate lives will not work.
Parish staff can hope to personally disciple a very small number of people. The goal should be to work towards helping those few people in turn be mature enough Christians that they can disciple others, and on and on.
A culture of “discipleship” is not just a culture where growing in one’s Christian faith is highly valued; it’s a culture where personally spending time helping each other grow is a normal activity for all members of the community.
Furthermore, to be successful, the two people in a discipleship relationship must like each other. Otherwise spending time with each other won’t be any fun.
Therefore blind-date discipleship doesn’t work all that well. As a result, the parish culture needs to be one where people meet each other, get to know each other, and form “horizontal” relationships. It’s not 100 parents who each know the DRE and smile at each other in the car line. It’s 100 parents who form friendships in a crystalline network among each other.
You can easily see that it is also therefore necessary that welcoming and incorporating newcomers into that web of parish friendships is essential. We don’t stop at greeting the stranger. We don’t stop at inviting the stranger to the potluck. We learn the stranger’s name, we make sure the stranger has someone to sit with, we create opportunities to get to know the stranger one-on-one, and now the stranger is no longer a stranger and the process of getting involved in discipling one another is underway.
Finally let me clarify that a culture of discipleship doesn’t mean every parishioner is paired with exactly one other parishioner in a formal disciple-teacher relationship. Some people might have that experience, such as if you are working one-on-one as a catechist with an RCIA candidate receiving individual instruction. But what is normal and good is a network of discipling relationships.
For example: Jane gets out and walks every morning with Sue, and they talk about whatever’s on their minds; Sue meets Keisha once a week for Bible study; Keisha and Ann and Sarah have a girls’ night once a month where they talk about their work and family challenges; Jane and Ann do a monthly meeting where they talk about the ministry they run together; Sarah and Maria having a monthly engineering meeting at work (all business), and then they go to lunch afterward and chat about their faith; Maria teaches religious ed on Sunday nights, and her helper Monica learns from her in class, and also they belong to the same quilting club.
Some will be relationships of teacher to student, some will be clearly peer-to-peer relationships, and most will be a combination, because everyone has their strengths and gifts and struggles.
This is copyright Jennifer Fitz 2017. Permission granted to share it around freely for non-profit educational use; I only ask that you attribute and either share in its entirety or provide a link back here so people can read the whole thing if they like. If you’re a glutton for this stuff, the Evangelization and Discipleship page on this site has links to other articles on related topics.
Something fun if you are in striking distance of South Carolina (you don’t need to be in-diocese to participate): My friend Carol Pelster, who is a tremendous pleasure to work with, is organizing a SC Catholic Quiz Bowl to be held in Columbia, SC in early November. Her daughter Veronica writes:
My mom and I are happy to announce a date for the first annual Catholic Quiz Bowl of South Carolina! The date is Saturday, November 11 at 1 pm at Our Lady of the Hills.
What is a Catholic Quiz Bowl? This idea comes from our experience participating in the RC (Roman Catholic) Challenge in Oregon. This is a jeopardy style game for 5th through 12th graders with questions pertaining to the Catholic Faith, the Bible, the Saints, the Liturgy, etc. My siblings and I all thoroughly enjoyed this friendly competition and benefited immensely from this motivation to study our Faith. As a seminarian in Nebraska my brother started something similar there. Now, we are hoping to spread it to the South East!
What do we need to make this happen? What we need most is volunteers for the day of the game. Volunteers will ask the questions, keep score, time the games, and be door monitors. The more volunteers we have the smoother this will go. If you would like to volunteer please let my mom or me know. . . .
How does the game work? Players will be on teams of 3 to 4 players. Two teams will play against each other with the moderator asking the questions. There will be two types of questions: toss up, which anyone can answer, and bonus questions. For bonus questions the team members will be able to consult with each other to come up with the answer. Each round will be about 20 minutes. Multiple games will be going on at the same time (hence the need for many volunteers). Winners play off against each other until there is champion. More details and sample questions will be discussed at the planning meeting.
How does your child sign up to participate? My mom is working on a registration form [see below]. However, it is not too early to start talking to your friends and getting teams together. Each team will need a name and 3 to 4 players within the same age range (5th-8th grade or 9th-12th grade). This is not just for homeschoolers [parish groups, etc] –anyone in the appropriate age group is welcome. Also, don’t forget to study!
Please let me know if you are interested in helping or have questions.
A Facebook page and other web presence is in the works, and I’ll update this post when that time comes. Meanwhile, you can share this post with anyone you think would be interested. Remember that your team can be put together with whomever you like — it’s a good activity for youth groups, religious ed classes, or Catholic schools, but you can also just create your own mishmash team. If your parish or family or poker club wants to send multiple teams, that’s super.
How to Prep for the Quiz Bowl
Carol writes:
For studying, kids should refer to a good catechism, Bible, Mass Missal, Lives of the Saints, and Church History. For some questions to practice with (though ours will be rather less obscure) you can look at this: http://traditionallearning.com/rcchallenge/.
I would guess (I haven’t seen the question bank, and won’t) that any flash cards or Catholic trivia games you happen to own would be good for practicing. Also brush up on your go-to lists (12 Apostles? 10 Commandments? Gifts of the Holy Spirit?), and so forth — the appendices of most religious ed textbooks contain good starting points.
Good luck, and get your entry forms in early so you don’t have to pay the late registration fee.
Convergence of two happy things: The Catholic Writers Conference is coming around again, and I’m putting together an index of my writing on discipleship and evangelization. In trolling my posts at New Evangelizers, I came across this one that is apropos of the conference season. And yes, if you’re a Catholic who likes to write (fiction or otherwise), you should give the Catholic Writers Guild a good looking over. More on that soon.
Evangelization and the Case for Catholic Fiction
Why bother with Catholic fiction? As I write this, I’ve just returned from the Catholic Writers Guild’s annual live conference (our online conference is held in early spring), and once again I’ve met dozens of great Catholic authors eager to reach a Catholic audience.
I’ve also had a few discouraging conversations with publishers. “We’re really only able to sell retellings of saints stories. We’d like to do other fiction, but we can’t.” “We love that children’s fiction series, but we can’t break even on it, so we had to cancel further installments.” “We want to do fiction, but . . .”
It’s a hard market. Over the past 50 years, Catholics in the pew have taken the notion that anything true, good, and beautiful is indeed “Catholic”, and run with it . . . right out of the Catholic market, and into the secular bookshelves.
And there’s something to that. After all, we Catholics don’t need to decorate every story we read with a crucifix and a Hail Mary in order to be edified. Reviewers like Julie Davis at Happy Catholic mine the treasures to be found in all kinds of strange corners. The Catholic faith truly is universal, and so it’s no surprise that all good literature evangelizes, regardless of the label that goes with it.
Still, there’s a place for explicitly Catholic stories of every genre. Why?
Catholic identity
Our faith is not just a cultural identity, but yes, we’re human, so it does matter to us that we aren’t the only Catholics out there. My daughter is a big fan of the Anna Mei series from Pauline Books & Media. These stories are your basic middle school coming-of-age stuff, and the Catholic faith is part of the fabric, but not the crux of the plot. Still, I love that my daughter can see a Catholic character turn out for Mass on Sundays, or say grace with her family. We all need to know we aren’t the only ones doing this religion thing.
Solid answers to hard questions
John McNichol is a house favorite at our place, since we have that middle school boy sci-fi / alien-attack demographic sewn up tight. McNichol gets criticized for putting religious conversations in his dialog.
Well, guess what? That’s what teens really talk about. McNichol is a veteran middle school teacher and father of 10 bazillion teens, so he knows that, and he puts real questions teens ponder into the mouths of his teen characters.
But here’s the rub: unless it’s Catholic fiction, those questions aren’t going to get a Catholic answer.
Catholicism is not generic
You know what irritates me on Facebook? Vague “spiritual” feel-good platitudes being spouted by people who should know better.
Oh, I know, I need to lighten up a little. And I’m the first in line to be ecumenical when ecumenical is possible. But sooner or later we need for Catholics to claim their faith as the one and only.
Catholic fiction lays down the gauntlet: our faith is not one choice among many. It’s not just a “flavor” or a “style” of religion. A sincere faith means we’re going to have an awful lot of explicitly Catholic stories to tell, because our faith offers something you can’t find anywhere else.
Are you with me on this? If so, here’s what I propose we do next:
1. Talk about it.
There are lots of folks in the pews for whom this idea is absolutely radical. It’s just not on their brain. At all. So mention it. Drop a line in conversation like, “I love being able to find good Catholic novels for my kids.” Or, “It’s so refreshing to read something that isn’t trashy for a change.”
2. Start buying Catholic fiction.
If you have a local Catholic bookstore, ask them to stock it. Print out the book info for the title that interests you, and ask them to order it. If you have a parish library, donate good Catholic fiction to their collection.
3. When you read a good Catholic book, leave a review . . .
. . . at Goodreads, Amazon, and the publisher’s website. Then mention it to your friends – online and in real life.
People want to be able to practice their faith. Reading good Catholic fiction is a way that many people can be encouraged, inspired, and yes, even catechized at times, in a way that comes so naturally to story-loving humans.
***
Read any good books lately?
What titles would you recommend for the Catholic reader looking for a good story to curl up with on a lazy Sunday afternoon?
#1 Fr. Gonzo finishes strong.I probably shouldn’t call him that, it might encourage him. The man who gave me this thing forty-something days ago decided to launch, his words, the “Mother of All Easter Vigils.” If that man left out even a single speck or jot of an option, as found or legitimately inferred in ye olde Roman Missal, please, not a word. Also next year, I’m having a nap and a cup of coffee before the vigil. Or else just doing like last year and going to the Sunday evening Easter Mass, which was quite nice and ought to be offered more widely.
#2 There was a bacon accident. Sometimes people are like, “Oh you’re a homeschooler? Could you make me a craft and a casserole?” These are the very same people who would squirm if I said, “Oh you work in an office? Could you make me a 1040x and a manuscript proposal?” So anyway, I tried making bacon in the oven Sunday morning, and I did it by following the directions on the package. More or less.
The difficulty is that it came out perfect.
Perfect bacon is cooked to the point of extreme crispiness, just short — but nearly to the point — of crumbing at an untoward glance.
Sadly, the man I married and many of our offspring are under the impression that bacon is meant to be sort of chewy and moist. I’m okay with that. All bacon is good to me. I will totally put on my inner St. Therese and eat wet bacon. No problem. Canonize me now.
But I accidentally cooked the bacon too long, and it was extremely, very, astonishingly good. The difficulty is that there wasn’t any spare bacon to undercook for the other people, and that was kind of sad. I’m open to continuing practice on this art until I nail it. Eight weeks of Easter calling my name.
#3 First child trained in the ways of the IRS! It’s pleasant having Easter after the taxes go in. I literally dropped off four envelopes at the post office on the way over to the Vigil. Mr. Boy got A Real Job last summer, which means he had a real tax return (two – one federal, one state) this spring. I had him do the process step by step on his own, and then I’d check it and show him what he did wrong (if anything — a 1040EZ isn’t that hard, even if it’s more complicated than it used to be), and he’d fix it, and we’d move on to the next thing.
It is well worthwhile to start doing your taxes on your own right from the beginning, and to keep with it year after year as things slowly get more complicated. Pays off in the long run.
#4 Fedex is a wondrous thing. It’ll be three kids and I on the big trip this summer, and I ordered those three some useful books to prep for the trip and work on their French.
FYI of all the suppliers I found, Decitre.Fr had the best deal on international shipping if you’re looking at many low-budget books rather than one expensive book. Each kid received a book on the Mass. The boy received two history books and an atlas. The girls each received a coloring book on Alsace (primary destination), a second coloring book on a relevant topic (history for one, all-things-Christian-faith for the other — between the two, they’ll have encountered most museum, historical site, and art-related vocab), and a book of personal interest for motivating the reading practice (cats or rabbits).
I went with cheap books because I wanted them physically light and compact, and intellectually not too intimidating. That also allowed for a slight overflow on the order, so duds could be culled and everyone still get good books. –> Not true duds, but a couple of the books that looked nice on the internet turned out to be either too little-kid or else too difficult for a beginning student of the language; I set those aside for me.
Anyhow, on international orders there’s not an option (with Decitre) to have books sent in sub-packages, and I knew a few of the books would take a couple weeks to be ready to ship. So when I got the shipping notice Spy Wednesday, I figured it would be a late Easter? Nope. Packaged Wednesday morning, queued at CDG by Wednesday evening, onto a plane and into my local Fedex office Thursday morning. I went out for a walk Thursday morning, and as I was coming back to my yard at 9AM the Fedex mini-van showed up with a package for me to sign.
You didn’t used to be able to get foreign books this easily. I like the modern world.
#5 Journaling Bibles. So that left one child with no books in her basket, because: Poor planning. The Easter Bunny was pretty pleased she’d gotten to Aldi to pick up Not-Slave-Labor chocolate, thanks. So then the bunny remembered this argument from a month earlier. The girl is in the FCA at school, and apparently all her friends have “journaling” or “notetaking” Bibles. These are Bibles with wide margins or other white space where you can essentially illuminate your own manuscript.
Could she have one for Confirmation please? And how about right now, so the Holy Spirit can get to work ASAP?
The difficulty is this: Apparently Catholics have given up on illuminating, or else we just don’t publish trend-Bibles — I’m sure our publishers are full of good excuses for the lapse. The situation is bad enough that Catholic Icing has a great tutorial about how to convert your Catholic Bible into a journaling Bible by covering up the footnotes with bits of paper.
A girl I know does not want to cover up footnotes with bits of paper
Thus in the spirit of Easter is For Heretics, Too, I caved. On the way home from Costco with all the Easter food, I did check my local Catholic bookstore to see if there was something, anything, that I could pass off as a journaling Bible, but no dice. (There are lots of great Catholic Bibles out there, by the way. Just not ones for coloring in.) But after that, into the breach: Walmart for Bible-shopping it would be.
[Sheesh, guys, I’m buying some unapproved-translation, books-missing Bible for coloring in, I’m not shelling out a lot of money on this, really??]
Walmart is smarter than a Catholic publisher. They carry a mass-market, paperback version the HCSB Illustrator’s Notetaking Bible, and it’s easy to find if you go to the book section — shelved both with Bibles and with adult coloring books, since it’s both a Bible and a coloring book. The inside looks like this:
My child wasn’t looking for one that was pre-illustrated, but we both secretly like it. Some of the illustrations are very apropos, such as the image of Christ Crucified in the margins next to Isaiah’s Suffering Servant prophecy. I could do without Mary With Rosy Cheeks, but Catholics have done far worse to the Blessed Mother and somehow the Church still stands.
My teenager spent her afternoon working on her Bible. Her younger sister said, “We should have brought these to that retreat last month!” I think I can work with this trend.
Easter Egg Wreath by #3. Leaving a child alone with a hot glue gun has its advantages. For more on the cost of becoming a Pinterest Parent, see here. Okay, I see the photos aren’t loading anymore. I’ll fix that and update. [Update: Okay – all fixed now, I hope!] The text explains the less-pretty parts of the crafting life.
Something a lot of people involved in the pro-life movement do is to stand up for the unborn by praying outside of abortion clinics. Happily, this effort has gone in a much more positive, loving direction over the last 15 years. It’s not even accurate, in most cases, to call these “protests” anymore. Make no mistake, this presence is intended to bring attention to the defense of the most vulnerable in our society. To take an innocent human life is objectively wrong. To take the most innocent of all human lives is unacceptable. There should be no minced words about that. To be silent is false compassion – it’s spiritual and emotional euthanasia.
However, it is incredibly important to heed that ancient axiom to ‘hate the sin, but love the sinner’. We all have an obligation to point out injustice and wrongdoing. However, none of us has any right to condemn the person carrying out that act, as only God knows their heart. So, if you see or hear someone telling a woman considering an abortion that she’s going to Hell, then they clearly don’t understand the point here, nor do they understand Christ-like love.
The much more common scenario these days is people calmly and quietly standing outside abortion clinics praying. Sometimes they hold signs with slogans like, “Pray to End Abortion”, or “Adoption: The Loving Option”. We’re there to provide women in unplanned pregnancies real choices (having literature on alternatives to abortion available) and to let them know how much they (and their babies) are loved.
This reality makes it that much more bewildering when you’re standing there peacefully praying and someone drives by and gives you the finger. Admittedly, there was a time when such actions irritated me. They fed a desire deep down in my heart to give that person “what for”. While I knew that wasn’t the proper reaction, it seemed instinctive.
Then, I read Abby Johnson’s book, “Unplanned” a few years ago. For those who don’t know Abby, she was a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic. Then, one day (through some fluky circumstances), she ended up witnessing an actual abortion at her clinic. (This was the first time she saw the product of the business she was running.) She had a visceral reaction and knew she had to quit. And she did. Since then, she’s been an outspoken voice for life, and she wrote this book.
What “Unplanned” showed me (much to my surprise) was the humanity of abortion clinic workers. Honestly, I had never given these people much thought, other than as some kind of faceless monsters. That caused my praying for a culture of life to take on a much broader focus. Only then did a human face start to appear on these folks for me. These are real human beings who deserve our love, who deserve MY love, because to cast them aside would mean I just don’t get what it means to be a Christian.
That realization also helped my attitude towards the bird flippers driving by. (You know who you are!) J All of a sudden, my immediate response when being flipped off was to have compassion. I’d immediately think to myself, “What kind of pain must that person have suffered to feel this way?” “What is the source of that anger?” And by making that pain and anger clear to me, therein lay the ‘blessing’. By having a reaction – of any sort – that person gave my prayer a target. I would launch into a ‘Hail Mary’ or a Divine Mercy chaplet asking God to rain down His love and mercy on that person. I’d pray that they find healing, peace, and the presence of God.
So, if you see me (or any of the 1000s of other regulars) standing outside an abortion clinic praying and encouraging others to choose life, it’s okay if you feel the need to tell us we’re #1 with your middle finger. But know that prayer is powerful, and that I’m calling for all God’s truth, mercy, and love to come showering down on you very soon. And I thank you for giving me that blessing – that reminder of your humanity. Please pray for me, as well. I need all I can get.
And for all you awesome pro-life prayer warriors out there, please consider this unsolicited advice. Arguments don’t help. Love, prayer, and genuine compassion (and the willingness to listen) do.
Vincent married up more than a quarter century ago and is a proud father of 5 wonderful daughters. He teaches business classes at a college in Greenville, SC, but thrives on discussing controversial topics, especially as they relate to Church teachings on sexual morality.
St. Patrick may have declined on the green candy, but St. Joseph came through with Krispy Kreme. He came Monday afternoon, in the guise of our crazy-happy-Catholic friends who stopped by to pick up a child from a homework-date, and held out a dozen hot-doughnuts-now. Can I help it if the Church in her wisdom made Monday a solemnity?
No I cannot. If you’re going to observe the fasts, be in on the feasts, too, or you aren’t so much a Christian as a Stoic.
So I was obliged in Christian duty to welcome the doughnuts with delighted gratitude, and you’ll be glad to know I did my Christian duty wholeheartedly.
Would St. Joseph Bring Home Krispy Kreme?
There are of course wrong-headed people in this world who have been deceived into believing Some Other Doughnut is a better doughnut, but that is not the question I mean to address. All we can do for those people is pray; reason has nothing to do with it.
We can, however, reason out the question of: Was St. Joseph the kind of father who’d bring home the doughtnuts?
[Insert for the word “doughnut” the 1st-century counterpart: Some kind of scrumptious but utterly uneccesary low-budget treat that young Jesus would have jumped up and down when He saw it coming, and the Blessed Mother wouldn’t have minded if she did, thank you Joseph, what’s the occasion?]
I argue that he was.
Mary, being preserved from sin, would have been careful with the money. When she shopped, she would have had in mind the hours and strain of the work Joseph did to support the family. She would have looked for ways to make the feasts festive, yes, and she may well have had some small savings from her own work that she used for the odd splurge for the family. But I don’t imagine the Holy Family was overloaded with junk food.
And that, in turn, would give St. Joseph his opening for bringing home the doughnuts.
He who put in the long hours, and worried about savings, and was well aware he’d need money for lumber to patch the roof next autumn — he was a normal man. Mostly he’d want to make his wife and child happy by providing the daily necessities; but sometimes he’d want to show up at the house at the end of a long day and pull out the donuts.
Photo by Neil T [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons. FYI if you like less-sweet doughnuts, when the “Hot Doughnuts Now” light is on you can request a dozen “Original Glazed” un-glazedand they’ll pull them off the line for you at the point shown in the above photo. Take them home and top them with whatever you like.
Child climbs in car, we’re driving to the Catholic homeschooling co-op for drama class. Late and having rushed out the door, as per usual. “Mom, are you wearing green today?”
“Yes I am. I have my green sweater on.”
“Shoot. I’d better find something green.”
Mother, feeling resourceful: “Want to borrow my green scapular?”
“Um. No thanks. I’ll clip this green hand-sanitizer holder to my belt loop. That’ll work.”
More St. Patrick’s Day:
Same child, having solved the green problem and moving on: “St. Patrick was supposed to come last night and leave us candy.”
Skeptical mother: “Oh was he, now?”
“Or green toys or something. Or a leprechaun comes.”
Mother, still skeptical: “Oh I see.”
“It’s okay. He can come tonight instead.”
Then, Saturday morning . . .
“Mom. St. Patrick forgot to come last night.”
Mother: “St. Patrick doesn’t come to our house.”
“Or a leprechaun. All my friends get candy from the leprechaun on St. Patrick’s day.”
“All your friends, eh? What are the names of those friends?”
Hems and haws for a moment, then clarifies that it’s actually her sister’s friends. “All of A’s friends at St. Urban’s get candy.”
“Oh do they? What are the names of those friends?”
“Um. Well there’s Benedicta.”
Mother is not surprised. Benedicta’s mother is like that. “Anyone else?”
“And Assumptua.”
“Isn’t she Benedicta’s sister?”
“Well, yes. But they both got candy. The leprechaun comes to their house.”
“The leprechaun doesn’t come to our house. Good try.”
Good problems, Catholic School edition: When your child is sobbing and begging to be allowed to go to school, and swears she really isn’t that sick.
Weird problems, Saint Books edition:
Bored child: “Mom, do we have any of those little saint books but that aren’t about someone who becomes a monk or a nun and all they do is pray?”
Mother chooses not to argue, though there may have been a slight eye roll. “Um. Let’s go look.” Thumbing through the shelf that contains middle-grades saint books, Mother pounces on St. Isaac Jogues, who was neither a monk nor a nun. “How about this one?”
Child frowns and shakes head. “No. I want one of these saint books.”
Ah. Well. In that case . . . “How about this one?”
