Willful Holiness: Saintly Examples

Saintly Examples The Saints were people who used their freedom to choose a path for themselves that the secular world and even the Church of their time found incomprehensible. These movers and shakers of the spiritual life were so willfully determined on the pursuit of holiness that they disturbed the people with whom they came into contact.  Their success in living heroic virtue can be credited to God’s grace guaranteeing their freedom to use their free will and reason to decide what they wanted.  In each case, their decisions led to lives of heroic virtue worthy of emulation. I read … Continue reading

Willful Holiness: I Did It My Way

God given Free Will is a marvelous gift. A godlike gift because it says of every human being that they, in the image and likeness of God, are free to live their lives so that the words, “I did it my way”, are true in ways that no other species on earth can say. Thanks to Adam’s and Eve’s sin, human nature is changeable and flawed.  We are not automatically inclined to true Good.  We do not automatically decide to follow God.  This changeable nature means we must use our free will and our reasoning ability to decide who to … Continue reading

Trust and the Bishops

The following video hit home with me.  The American Bishops have  been defining “social justice” not according to the documents of the Church but instead according to the Democratic party for many years now.  Because of this error, the care of the poor has been shifted from the Church to the government. True charity given freely has been replaced by forced taxation. Subsidiarity has been replaced with big government. The Christian serving Christ in the poor has been replaced by a hireling who follows rules and has little time or incentive to care about the individual.  Human dignity suffers, opportunity … Continue reading

Home School History

Home School is a wonderful addition to my vocation. I have never regretted the work I have put into my children’s learning.  The pioneers of the revival of home education that began not that many years ago.  The above video talks about a beginning of one group that started in the early 1980’s but the movement to home educate began to grow in the 1970’s.  It was a long road to prove to the world that home education was worthy of revival! Basic education in this country in the early years was ALL done at home.  The Founding Fathers were … Continue reading

Applied Moral Theology: Social Media and Silence

Applied Moral Theology is when you take the precepts of moral theology and begin to see how those ideas apply to the modern world. What does moral theology have to do with social media like the internet, twitter, facebook, email, texting, phone calls, etc.?  A LOT. We know that we are to place God first in our lives.  We also know that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  How does that look in practice? What has that to do with social media? First, putting God first means quiet times to pray, and Mass on Sundays and Holy Days … Continue reading

Ordinary Goodness: Soup from Leftovers and a FAST Stew

Over at Sarah’s Diary there is an entry on soup from Leftovers.  I can practically smell how good that must be just from her description of how her leftovers go into the pot and other items are added to cook all day.  Mmmmmmmm! Leftovers can achieve “prime time” by becoming Vegetable soup. Example in point, we served our company a leg of lamb roast.  There were a few leftovers and they entered my soup pot first.  I added little bits of stuff that I found in the refrigerator. These little bits of leftover foods included garlic, onions, celery, cabbage, sweet … Continue reading

Prayer for Government

Over at Fr. Z’s blog he has a number of posts on the current political climate (like this one), but I wanted to quote from this one: Archbishop Carroll’s “Prayer for Government” Let us pray: PRAYER FOR GOVERNMENT We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name. We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, … Continue reading

Good videos: Learning to blow an Ocarina better and other Musical topics

I suspect if someone had explained this to me when I was in 5th grade taking recorder to qualify for band I might not have flunked out!  I never mastered how to blow that thing so it sounded even decent and the band director decided I hadn’t practiced.  I blew and blew on that thing but I sure didn’t improve! Anyway, anyone wanting to learn an instrument should explore Youtube as a resource.  Lots of fun stuff on there for learning an instrument. Here is one for the autoharp I love so much: This is from an instructional video available … Continue reading

Imagination Play and Children

I love the incredible imaginations of Children.  It is amazing to listen to little children and to watch them play. They are truthful in their responses to what they see and hear around them.  They take to prayer with ease because they haven’t the adult’s skepticism.  They are beautiful! A good parent will encourage their children to use their imaginations.  We buy them toys that encourage the use of the imagination.  Pots and pans to pretend to cook, tools to pretend to build things, legos to build whole worlds of imagined spaces, dolls to pretend to be parents,  workbooks and … Continue reading

Day of Penance and Prayer for Violations of Human Dignity Through Abortion

Day of Penance and Prayer to be observed on January 23rd this year. In November, 2001, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the adaptation of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Following confirmation by the Holy See in February, 2002, the following became particular law for the dioceses of the United States of America: In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when the 22nd falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts … Continue reading