Starting to do daily home schooling. I am taking advantage of the ipad and some apps that build skills that will translate to handwriting. I can see that the younger set want a turn with the fun educational programs. That is good, will give them a turn later. The main goal at the moment is to gently build a habit of schoolwork in the mornings. I will be pulling out the curriculum bit by bit and we will be using the workbooks in the various subjects. Right now, the preliminaries are being honed so that the math and language arts … Continue reading
Category Archives: Virtues
LECTURE MODE: Everyone has met someone who gets onto their favorite subject and goes into so much detail you want to scream and run away. Some of us share our families with people like that. In our family we have learned to laugh at what we call “LECTURE MODE”. We are all brainy, and we all tend to get into a groove with our favorite subjects, and so as a family we’ve worked on learning to control this tendency. The trick is learning to see it happening and do something to cut it off before the other person begins to … Continue reading
Several friends were discussing the the changes in our education system which even the parochial schools are embracing. We discussed a book assigned to middle school children written in first person from the perspective of a pedophile and everyone felt that it was not appropriate reading material for a child who is barely entering puberty. They were wondering what the agenda was that caused the writers of this program to select a book about sexual deviancy for children who do not yet have their own healthy sexuality set solidly. We agreed that the pornographic sex education was just wrong and … Continue reading
Fr. Z shares about a ministry to retired priests who have fallen through the cracks and are not being supported in their old age. Opus Bono Sacerdotii help for priests who have nowhere else to turn is filling a need that I did not know about until Fr. Z shared about them. Please visit their web site. I feel heartbroken that good priests, men who have been spiritual fathers and faithfully served Christ and His Church are forgotten in such a way! Apparently not every diocese has done what they ought to have done to prepare a place for these … Continue reading
I experienced a marvelously refreshing silent spiritual retreat last week. This quiet time to be focused on God and not on the everyday stuff came just in time to help me find my center for Advent. Besides giving us deep messages from Scripture and Church teaching to ponder, daily Mass served faithfully and reverently, this priest spent several hours in the confessional so that if in our examinations of conscience we found anything requiring confession, that was available to us. This priest was so dedicated he was in the confessional so long that every participant in the retreat could have … Continue reading
The last two blog entries on vocation (Progressing In My Vocation and Unsticking My Vocation) have led to my thinking about the woman of Proverbs 31. She is, in the ideals of her time period, a very capable woman whose thrift and hard work make it possible for her husband to join the important elders of the community. “There are so many ways!” you told me dejectedly. There need to be many, so that each soul can find its own in that wonderful variety. Bewildered? Make your choice once and for all: and the confusion will turn into certainty. (THE … Continue reading
Gratitude is an essential part of the worship of God. Without gratitude for the gift of grace there is something lacking in our acceptance. Without gratitude for the Holy Spirit there is a lack in our openness to receive what God wants to give us. Gratitude opens us up for ever greater blessings. Gratitude is what makes accepting gifts from God an act of worship. Dear Lord, thank You for Your grace, thank You for the Holy Spirit, thank You for the opportunity to worship you with gratitude in the Mass and in my prayers. Please help me to become … Continue reading
I recall as a child sitting down to the TV with my parents and siblings and the family dog. Even with only the three stations our antennae could pull in, there were shows that a family could watch together that did not include gratuitous sex, violence, or swearing, lots and lots of swearing, and adult themes were very limited until after 8 or 9 when the kids could be expected to be in bed. I’m not anti-Television. I am a kid of the TV generation who grew up watching family shows in the evening before being sent off to bed … Continue reading
My vocation includes making our home exude comfort and simplicity. I grow spiritually and in the virtues when I work on my home with those things in mind. It is a battle ground for me. I look at clutter that has accumulated and ask myself, yet again, what does or doesn’t belong in this space? I look at my office because this was the room to which I first applied MY personal ideas of simplicity. At the moment it is a bit cluttered with stuff for the baby. Yet the bones of this space are still right. Every piece of … Continue reading
Divorce strikes at the heart of our vocations that include marriage. Divorce is a symptom of flaws in how we develop ourselves and in the way we choose our spouses. More study of those flaws and what needs to be done to correct them will go far in the effort to decrease divorce. Over at the Register they have an EXCELLENT article about the damage divorce causes children. This article highlights a conference focusing on the experiences of the children from marriages that break up. Divorce causes them emotional problems and while not insurmountable, the damage is real. By severing … Continue reading