Must Read: A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America

Archbishop Charles Chaput's newly released Heart on Fire:  Catholic Witness and the Next America is a must read!  I highly recommend reading this, regardless of your beliefs.  It is a fantastic perspective on what is happening in our American public square right now.

The best part is that it is available electronically for just 99 cents!  Find it here or here.  Download it and read it!  It is only 19 pages long.

Three Favorite Religous Books

I love books!  Thanks Mary, over at The Beautiful Gate, for tagging me for a meme on my three favorite religious books. While I have many books that I really like, here are three favorites after the Bible:

• My Other Self - Clarence Enzler - This book was recommended to me recently by my Spiritual Director.  I can describe this book best as a practical abandonment to divine providence.  I have benefited greatly from reading this and know I will come back to it again and again.  Here is what Ave Maria Press has to say:

In My Other Self Clarence Enzler—author of the multi-million copy seller Everyone’s Way of the Cross—guides readers in prayerful conversation with Christ wherein the reader is personally addressed as “my other self” and is urged to embody Christ’s love and compassion to others.


Modeled on the fifteenth-century classic The Imitation of Christ, this new edition of a little-known Enzler masterwork has now been reissued for modern Christians after being out of print for many years. This new edition includes an introduction from the author's son, Msgr. John Enzler, pastor of the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, D.C.

In this intimate guide to the spiritual life, Christ speaks directly to the reader, whom Christ admonishes to be his presence of love and service in the world. Through this creative mode of dialogue, Enzler leads the reader through the journey of the Christian life, beginning with the call to live in friendship with Christ and fulfill Christ's desire. He then examines the means of the Christian life: detachment, virtue, prayer, avoidance of sin, and the Eucharist. Finally he explores the goal of the journey: a life of union with Christ as his disciple and complete joy with him in eternity. Each chapter of My Other Self is divided into short, eloquent sections based on scripture and with beautiful prayers for meditation. These convenient divisions make the book ideal for use as a daily devotional, or a guide to prayer.

•  Abandonment to Divine Providence - Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade - I first read this book about 4 years ago and recently read it again for a book club.  It is so packed with spiritual goodness that I believe I could read it again and again.  Each page is densely packed with beautiful wisdom from Fr. de Caussade.  It is very deep and not always easy to read, but so worth it!  This book probably isn't for everyone, but I had to include it here because it has had a profound impact on me. 

• Discernment of Spirits - Timothy Gallagher - It has been many years since I first read this book, and I believe it is time to read it again!  This book opens up Ignatian spirituality to the average lay person and helps give clarity regarding the states of spiritual consolation and desolation.  A friend first recommended it to me, and I remember just being astonished at how much I could relate to the descriptions of various spiritual states.  Before reading this, I did not really know how to discern what was happening and what to do about it.  Hmmmm..... this is why I need to read this again, as I can get spiritually confused sometimes.  I have been trying to give this up in abandonment, but really God provides us with such wonderful tools, especially through the teachings of the Saints, we should use them.  Going to go find my copy right now!

There are so many other books that I love, especially from the Saints.  Even just reading little booklets from TAN books about the Saints has been so beneficial and enjoyable, but the above three are the books that stand out for helping me most in recent years.

I pass this on to:

Jen at Box Full of Blessings
Michael at Reach Paradise
Fr. Andrew at Catholic Vision

Feel free to give your answer here in the comments or at your blog.  Thanks!

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Not sure this post is going to gain me any readers, but that's not what this blog is about anyway.  And if you make it to the end of this post, I will be thoroughly impressed. 

I am reading a great book by Michael O'Brien, Harry Potter and the Paganization of Culture.  This is my first Michael O'Brien book, and I must admit, I love his writing style and am looking forward to reading more, including his fiction. 

In all honesty, it has been over ten years since I have read J.K. Rowling's series, and even then I only read the first three books.  At the time, I found them mildly entertaining, but nothing that really stimulated me intellectually, so I never was too interested in reading more.  As an avid reader and lover of adventure, I looked forward to the series when it was first released, but never really fell in love with the series like so many people did.  And though I was not formed in my faith at all during that time, I was a bit unsettled when I read them, but I did not understand why. 

No matter what side you are on in the debate over the Harry Potter books, O'Brien's take will open your eyes to so much more than what is superficially visible in reading J.K. Rowlings popular series.  O'Brien presents his thoughts in a rational, thought provoking manner that touches on what is happening in our culture at large.  In one section entitled "The pacification of the mind", he writes:

In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, media theorist and New York University professor Neil Postman describes how television has reshaped our society.  In the past, when Western man moved from an oral culture to the print-dominated or "typographic" culture, significant changes resulted in our capacity to absorb experience and abstractions.  The volume of information fed to the mind increased while the mind's ability to sort and evaluate the influx of data did not always keep pace.  With the advent of television another quantum leap occurred.  Flooded with powerful stimuli that bypassed the mind's normal faculties for filtering and interpretation, both the rational and the imaginative aspects of our minds became increasingly passive.  As a result, Postman warns, our ways of perceiving reality itself are becoming fundamentally distorted.  We now imbibe a massive amount of impressions in small bites that demand of us neither sustained attention nor truly critical thinking, thus rendering us vulnerable to manipulation.  We are dangerously close, he says, to that condition described by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World.  No longer conscious of our bondage we are soothed by endless entertainments.

Ouch.  That really hit home for me, being practically raised by the television (well, not really, but I did watch T.V. a lot growing up and it has somewhat formed me, for good and for bad).  The good news is that I hardly watch television anymore.  Every once in awhile I like to watch Journey Home on EWTN, but that is about it for me, except when coerced with popcorn by my dear hubby :).  Unfortunately, about 90 percent of the conversations happening outside of my normal circle of friends revolve around television programming of which I have no input.  The bad news is that I must admit to an internet addiction, so I can very much relate to what O'Brien says, "We now imbibe a massive amount of impressions in small bites that demand of us neither sustained attention nor truly critical thinking, thus rendering us vulnerable to manipulation."  There is good and bad on the internet, and as a person who is in love with her faith and a very healthy appetite for learning more (virtue studiositas), I am quite often susceptible to crossing over into the vice of curiositas.

And there is music too.  Sigh.  I love music.  Music is another form of entertainment that can evoke powerful memories and emotions.  But with God's grace, He is helping me to seek the good, the true, and the beautiful of His creation.  So much of my life has been formed by entertainment, but I am thankful for the grace of God's protection and bringing my heart to His, despite some of the bad influences I have had over the years.  And I'm thankful for the gift of imagination and memory, now in light of a conscience being properly formed (it's still a work in progress).  So why do I bring up music?  Well, because I found this for your entertainment (!!!) by Roger Waters (I am a Pink Floyd fan), Amused to Death:

But the Believing Soul....

Such beautiful contemplation by St. Bernard of Clairvaux On Loving God, excerpt from Chapter 4- Of Those Who Find Comfort in the Recollection of God:

In that day those who set not their hearts aright will feel, too late, how easy is Christ’s yoke, to which they would not bend their necks and how light His burden, in comparison with the pains they must then endure. O wretched slaves of Mammon, you cannot glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ while you trust in treasures laid up on earth: you cannot taste and see how gracious the Lord is, while you are hungering for gold. If you have not rejoiced at the thought of His coming, that day will be indeed a day of wrath to you.

But the believing soul longs and faints for God; she rests sweetly in the contemplation of Him. She glories in the reproach of the Cross, until the glory of His face shall be revealed. Like the Bride, the dove of Christ, that is covered with silver wings (Psalm 68:13), white with innocence and purity, she reposes in the thought of Thine abundant kindness, Lord Jesus; and above all she longs for that day when in the joyful splendor of thy saints, gleaming with the radiance of the Beatific Vision, her feathers shall be like gold, resplendent with the joy of Thy countenance.

Rightly then may she exult, “His left hand is under my head and His right hand doth embrace me.” The left hand signifies the memory of that matchless love, which moved Him to lay down His life for His friends; and the right hand is the Beatific Vision which He hath promised to His own, and the delight they have in His presence. The Psalmist sings rapturously, “At Thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore” (Psalm 16:11): so we are warranted in explaining the right hand as that divine and deifying joy of His presence.

Rightly too is that wondrous and ever-memorable love symbolized as His left hand, upon which the Bride rests her head until iniquity be done away: for He sustains the purpose of her mind, lest it should be turned aside to earthly, carnal desires. For the flesh wars against the spirit: “The corruptible body presseth down the soul and the earthly tabernacle weighteth down the mind that museth upon many things” (Wisdom 9:15). What could result from the contemplation of compassion so marvelous and so undeserved, favor so free and so well attested, kindness so unexpected, clemency so unconquerable, grace so amazing except that the soul should withdraw from all sinful affections, reject all that is inconsistent with God’s love, and yield herself wholly to heavenly things? No wonder is it that the Bride, moved by the perfume of these unctions, runs swiftly, all on fire with love, yet reckons herself as loving all too little in return for the Bridegroom’s love.

And rightly, since it is not great matter that a little dust should be all consumed with love of that Majesty which loved her first and which revealed itself as wholly bent on saving her. For “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

This sets forth the Father’s love. But “He hath poured out His soul unto death,” was written of the Son (Isaiah 53:12). And of the Holy Spirit it is said, “The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26).

It is plain, therefore, that God loves us, and loves us with all His heart; for the Holy Trinity altogether loves us, if we may venture so to speak of the infinite and incomprehensible Godhead who is essentially one.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux - On Loving God

Have been reading St. Bernard Clairvaux's On Loving God. What a wonderful book this has been, not very long, yet packed with so much goodness! It is one I will re-read again and again. Today at Mass, the gospel was taken from Matthew 13: 47-53 where Jesus uses parable to describe the kingdom of Heaven as a net thrown into the sea. Yesterday, I just read in the last chapter of On Loving God, St. Bernard's thoughts on the heavenly Fatherland. This is such a rewarding chapter that I decided to put the entire chapter here, but you will want to read the entire book:

On Loving God by St. Bernard Clairvaux

Chapter 15: Of the Four Degrees of Love, and of the Blessed State of the Heavenly Fatherland

Nevertheless, since we are carnal and are born of the lust of the flesh, it must be that our desire and our love shall have its beginning in the flesh.

But rightly guided by the grace of God through these degrees, it will have its consummation in the spirit: for that was not first which is spiritual but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual (1 Corinthians 15:46). And we must bear the image earthly first, before we can bear the image of the heavenly. At first, man loves himself for his own sake.

That is the flesh, which can appreciate nothing beyond itself. Next, he perceives that he cannot exist by himself, and so begins by faith to seek after God, and to love Him as something necessary to his own welfare.

That is the second degree, to love God, not for God’s sake, but selfishly.

But when he has learned to worship God and to seek Him aright, meditating on God, reading God’s Word, praying and obeying His commandments, he comes gradually to know what God is, and finds Him altogether lovely. So, having tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is (Psalm 34:8), he advances to the third degree, when he loves God, not merely as his benefactor but as God. Surely he must remain long in this state; and I know not whether it would be possible to make further progress in this life to that fourth degree and perfect condition wherein man loves himself solely for God’s sake. Let any who have attained so far bear record; I confess it seems beyond my powers. Doubtless it will be reached when the good and faithful servant shall have entered into the joy of his Lord (Matthew 25:21), and been satisfied with the plenteousness of God’s house (Psalm 36:8). For then in wondrous wise he will forget himself as if delivered from self, he will grow wholly God’s. Joined unto the Lord, he will then be one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17). This was what the prophet meant, I think, when he said: “I will go for the in the strength of the Lord God: and will make mention of Thy righteousness only” (Psalm 71:16).

Surely he knew that when he should go forth in the spiritual strength of the Lord, he would have been freed from the infirmities of the flesh, and would have nothing carnal to think of, but would be wholly filled in his spirit with the righteousness of the Lord.

In that day the members of Christ can say of themselves what St. Paul testified concerning their Head: “Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more” (2 Corinthians 5:16).

None shall thereafter know himself after the flesh; for “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50). Not that there will be no true substance of the flesh, but all carnal needs will be taken away, and the love of the flesh will be swallowed up in the love of the spirit, so that our weak human affections will be made divinely strong.

Then the net of charity which as it is drawn through the great and wide sea doth not cease to gather every kind of fish, will be drawn to the shore; and the bad will be cast away, while only the good will be kept (Matthew 13:48). In this life the net of all-including love gathers every kind of fish into its wide folds, becoming all things to all men, sharing adversity or prosperity, rejoicing with them that do rejoice, and weeping with them that weep (Romans 12:15). But when the net is drawn to shore, whatever causes pain will be rejected, like the bad fish, while only what is pleasant and joyous will be kept. Do you not recall how St. Paul said: “Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is offended and I burn not?” And yet weakness and offense were far from him. So too he bewailed many which had sinned already and had not repented, though he was neither the sinner nor the penitent. But there is a city made glad by the rivers of the flood of grace (Psalm 46:4), and whose gates the Lord loveth more than all the dwellings of Jacob (Psalm 87:2). In it is not place for lamentation over those condemned to everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). In these earthly dwellings, though men may rejoice, yet they have still other battles to fight, other mortal perils to undergo. But in the heavenly Fatherland, no sorrow nor sadness can enter: as it is written, “The habitation of all rejoicing ones is in Thee” (Psalm 87:7); and again, “Everlasting joy shall be unto them” (Isaiah 61:7). Nor could they recall things piteous, for then they will make mention of God’s righteousness only. Accordingly, there will be no need for the exercise of compassion, for no misery will be there to inspire pity.

Importance of Fathers - repost

Love is Larger than the Walls that Shut it In

+JMJ+

Since many of you are newer readers, I thought that I would repost one of my first posts when I had just started to blog:

~~~

How beautiful and pure is the relationship between a loving father and his daughter. Such a father instinctively wants to guard and protect his daughter while teaching her wisdom, courage and grace. More and more I am encountering places where this relationship is degraded, either by a father that does not guard and protect his daughter or by a society that mocks a father who is strong and courageous enough to do this for his beloved daughter.

At a recent talk I attended by a nationally known feminist, a very brave and courageous young woman stood up after the talk and defended her pledge to purity after the speaker roundly mocked this type of pledge, particularly when it involves the father's vow of love for his daughter. So this incident inspired me to write a post about the importance of fathers and how much they mean to their daughters.

None of us have perfect relationships with our fathers, and some have hurts that are so deep that healing seems impossible, but NOTHING is impossible with God. My heart is filled with so much gratitude for all fathers and for those especially that guide us to Our Father in Heaven. Thank you to my dad for his love for me and for giving me life and for teaching me true compassion for others. Thank you to my husband for his devotion to our family and for sharing his love with me, flowing out of God's Love abiding in his own heart and demonstrated by his dedication to passing on our faith to our sons and daughters.

It is very difficult to describe in one blog post the profound impact that one father, Casper Ten Boom had on his daughter Corrie Ten Boom, but I want to share a few quotes from the book, The Hiding Place, that so touched me it still stirs my heart years after reading Corrie's memories of her father. Casper's words and actions so formed Corrie's heart, that she was led to bring God's Healing Love and Mercy to the horrifying darkness of a Nazi concentration camp.

In an amazing witness of courage and Love that can only come from God, Corrie Ten Boom recounts growing up in Holland and her family's experiences helping protect Jews escape imprisonment by Nazis. Eventually Corrie and much of her family are imprisoned themselves. This Love originated with our Father in Heaven and flowed through Corrie's father Casper Ten Boom, a kind, strong and humble watch repairman whose words and actions resonated deep within his daughters' hearts. I hope these memories touch your heart as much as they do mine:

Corrie's thoughts about "childhood scenes from the past":

Today I know that such memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.

Casper's words to Corrie when she asked about "sexsin" as a young girl. They were travelling together, so he showed her the burden of this by talking to her about the heaviness of her suitcase:

It’s too heavy. Yes, and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.

Casper to Corrie about death:

“Corrie,” he began gently “When you and I go to Amsterdam, when do I give you your ticket?” I sniffed a few time considering this,”Why, just before we get on the train.” “Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we are going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need – just in time.”

Corrie recalling her father's words while listening to her beloved Tante Jans speak just before her death:

“Dear Jesus, I thank you that we must come with empty hands. I thank you that you have done all– all – on the cross, and that all we need in life or death is to be sure of this.” It was Father’s train ticket, given at the moment itself.

Casper and Corrie having a talk about Love:

“Corrie,” he began instead, “do you know what hurts so very much? It’s love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked, that means pain. “There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill the love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies too. Or, Corrie, we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.

“God Loves Karel – even more than you do- and if you ask Him, He will give you His Love for this man, a Love nothing can prevent, nothing destroy. Whenever we cannot love in the old, human way, Corrie, God can give us the perfect way.” I did not know, as I listened to father’s footsteps winding down the stairs that he had given me more than the key to this hard moment. I did not know that he had put into my hands the secret that would open far darker rooms than this- places where there was not, on a human level, anything to love at all.

The following quote can be used for a future post about the beauty of motherhood, but I really want to include this reflection of Corrie about her mama to show the major influence she had on Corrie as well:

Mama’s love had always been the kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away, the love seemed as whole as before. She sat in her chair at the window and loved us. She loved the people she saw in the street – and beyond: her love took in the city, the land of Holland, the world. And so I learned that Love is larger than the walls that shut it in.

Corrie's thoughts on Love:

How did one show it? How could God Himself show Truth and Love at the same time in a world like this? By dying. The answer stood out sharper and chillier than it ever had before that night: the shape of a Cross etched on the history of the world.

Through her amazing story, Corrie expresses how her father taught her and loved her by relating all back to Our Father in Heaven, Our Father Who pours out His Love for us by giving His Son, Himself, for us. This Love given to Casper for his family brought Corrie and the many lives she touched in the Nazi concentration camp through an unspeakable horror with Faith, Hope, and Love perhaps broken for a time, but not destroyed.

If you have never read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, I highly recommend it. There is so much more contained in her story, so read the book. If it has been awhile since you told your father how much you love him and how thankful you are for him, do so while thanking God for adopting us as His sons and daughters.

Book Giveaway at Careless Catholic

Kelly over at The Careless Catholic is hosting a book giveaway for A Little Way of Homeschooling by Suzie Andres. She also reviewed the book, so go check out her review too. This book sounds awesome! If I don't win, I think I will have to buy a copy :)

Thanks for hosting Kelly!

Fatima for Today by Fr. Andrew Apostoli

Just started reading a great book, Fatima for Today by Fr. Andrew Apostoli. The message from Fatima is so relevant to what is happening today. I am only just beginning this book but have already recieved many graces just in the first several chapters. Fr. Apostoli does an excellent job of describing historical events leading up to the apparitions of Our Lady to Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta and putting it all into perspective for a message of hope for what we are facing in our world today. I am thankful that God led me to reading this book because it is helping me to trust in Him and in Our Lady's guidance during these troubled times. One of the ways that God prepared Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta was to send an angel ahead of time to teach them how to pray. The first time the Angel of Peace appeared, they were taught The Pardon Prayer:

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope
and I love You! I ask pardon of You
for those who do not believe, do not
adore, do not hope and do not love You.

The children were taught to trust in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary and to pray for a renewal of faith, hope and charity in the world, which is needed just as urgently now as it was in 1917. The second time the angel appeared, the children were asked to pray the Pardon Prayer even more frequently and to offer sacrifices. The Angel of Peace told the children:

Make of everything you can a
sacrifice, and offer it to God as an
act of reparation for the sins by
which He is offended, and in
supplication for the conversion of
sinners. You will thus draw down
peace upon your country. I am its
Angel Guardian, the Angel of
Portugal. Above all, accept and bear
with submission, the suffering
which the Lord will send you.

The third time the Angel of Peace appeared, He taught them a prayer to pray before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament:

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly,
and I offer You the most precious
Body,Blood, Soul and Divinity of
Jesus Christ, present in all the
tabernacles of the world, in
reparation for the outrages,
sacrileges and indifference with
which He Himself is offended. And
through the infinite merits of His
most Sacred Heart, and the
Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of
You the conversion of poor sinners.

Fr. Apostoli reveals in great detail the meaning ofeach visit and has helped me to learn how to apply the angel's instructions to the children at Fatima in my own daily life. Fr. Apostoli says:

"Through the angel's three visits, the children were instructed in the ways of prayer; the importance of reparation, intercession and suffering; and the beauty and power of the Eucharist. Over the course of the next six months, the children put into practice all the angel had taught them. They were then ready to receive the first visit of their Blessed Mother."

I am so thankful that God has provided Fr. Apostoli's wise words in this book to help us as Catholics today find hope and solace in Our Lady and her messages to the children at Fatima. Read this book, you will be so thankful!! Another benefit of this book is to learn more about the fascinating history of Portugal and the Catholic Church's role in their history. Thank you Fr. Apostoli.

Forgiveness

Having recently read Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth, these words of the Holy Father still resonate deeply in my heart, and I want to share them with you. This is the part of the chapter where our Holy Father discusses the petition of "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" and how we encounter the mystery of the Cross of Christ in this petition (from Ch5 - The Lord's Prayer, pp 158-160, emphasis mine):

If we want to understand the petition fully and make it our own, we must go one step further and ask: What is forgiveness, really? What happens when forgiveness takes place? Guilt is a reality, an objective force; it has caused destruction that must be repaired. For this reason, forgiveness must be more than a matter of ignoring, of merely trying to forget. Guilt must be worked through, healed, and thus overcome. Forgiveness exacts a price- first of all from the person who forgives. He must overcome within himself the evil done to him; he must, as it were, burn it interiorly and in so doing renew himself. As a result, he also involves the other, the trespasser, in this process of transformation, of inner purification, and both parties, suffering all the way through and overcoming evil, are made new. At this point, we encounter the mystery of Christ's Cross. But the very first thing we encounter is the limit of our power to heal and to overcome evil. We encounter the superior power of evil, which we cannot master with our unaided powers. Reinhold Schneider says apropos of this that "evil lives in a thousand forms; it occupies the pinnacles of power...it bubbles up from the abyss. Love has just one form- your Son" (Das Vaterunser, p. 68).

The idea that God allowed the forgiveness of guilt, the healing of man from
within, to cost him the death of his Son has come to seem quite alien to us
today. That the Lord has "borne our diseases and taken upon himself sorrows,"
that"he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities,"
and that "with his wounds we are healed" (Is 53:4-6) no longer seems plausible
to us today. Militating against this, on one side, is the trivialization of evil
in which we take refuge, despite the fact that at the very same time we treat
the horrors of human history, especially of the most recent human history as an
irrefutable pretext for denying the existence of a good God and slandering his
creature man. But the understanding of the great mystery of expiation is
also blocked by our individualistic image of man. We can no longer grasp
substitution because we think that every man is ensconced in himself alone. The fact that all individual beings are deeply interwoven and that all are encompassed in turn by the being of the One, the Incarnate Son, is something we are no longer capable of seeing. When we come to speak of Christ's
Crucifixion, we will have to take up these issues again.

In the meantime, the idea of Cardinal John Henry Newman may suffice. Newman once said that while God could create the whole world out of nothing with just one word,
he could overcome men's guilt and suffering only by bringing himself into play,
by becoming in his Son a sufferer who carried this burden and overcame it
through his self-surrender. The overcoming of guilt has a price: We must
put our heart- or, better, our whole existence- on the line. And even this act
is insufficient; it can become effective only through communion with the One who bore the burdens of us all.

The petition for forgiveness is more than a moral exhortation- though it is that as well, and as such it challenges us anew every day. But, at its deepest core, it is- like the other petitions- a Christological prayer. It reminds us of he who allowed forgiveness to cost him descent into the hardship of human existence and death on the Cross. It calls us first and foremost to thankfulness for that, and then, with him, to work through and suffer through evil by means of love. And while we must acknowledge day by day how little our capacities suffice for that task, and how often we ourselves keep falling into guilt, this petition gives us the great consolation that our prayer is held safe within the power of his love- with which, through which, and in which it can still become a power of healing.

God, thank You for these words of the Holy Father. Please watch over him and protect him in his travels. Thank You for giving us a wise and holy shepherd. Jesus, thank You for Your Love and Mercy. Open our hearts to receive You and all You give us. Open our hearts to forgive as You forgive and to Love as You Love. In Your Holy Name, Amen.

Curriculum is here!

We are going to be spending the next several days getting our homeschool together. I would like to post some info about what we are doing with our homeschool, so I am not going to blog until we have all of that together and our school is up and running. This has been extra challenging this time around because we are still trying to unpack and get back to our Family Rule. This is something we have done from reading A Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot, which I highly recommend. Another thing I plan to do is post info on books I have read that have been helpful to me in my vocation as wife and mother.

Please pray for us as we embark on this new adventure, and God willing, I hope to be back blogging about all of that in a few weeks or so.

May God be with You always. Thanks for visiting!

God, help us as we prepare for another school year. May we all grow closer to You in all that we do. Watch over us and protect us. In Your Holy Name I pray, Amen.