Catholics come home--why I love being Catholic

I love this campaign and I'm so thrilled that the Church has put together such a well-produced, loving, and to-the-point message. It's much needed.

I know far too many people (many of them wonderful people and amazing Christians) with terrible misconceptions about Catholic teachings or even the Catholic religion as a whole. The tough part is that some of these people "grew up Catholic" and have simply written off the Church forever. I've met many people who had a bad experience with a particular person, parish or clergy member. Others have simply believed what people told them about Catholics and have simply never looked at what the Church actually teaches or the surprising (and beautifully, Biblically faithful) explanations behind those teachings. The toughest challenge for the Church is the very humanity of her members. People at every level of the Church have failed it and everyone around them throughout history, but the point is that the Church is still here. With the same teachings. The same call to support life in every way, to find ourselves in the cross of Christ, and to love one another in imitation of God.

I honestly, with-all-my-heart love being Catholic. Since I began to embrace the Church and its teachings in college, God has only brought me closer and closer to Himself and more and more to peace and purpose. The more I learn about my faith, the more I love it. I never cease to be awed by this institution that Christ created to help us know, love and serve Him. Despite all of the richness and complexity of the Church, the Church's teaching and tradition (if not always its human members) point always, always, always to Christ.

Please spread the word about this Website and campaign :)

This Week

What's touching my heart and going on in my life this week...

"Come, Lord Jesus!" -Rev. 22:20

I'm so excited for the start of Advent this week. This year, I am trying to focus on all of the ways that Advent invites us to deep reflection, penance and joy in our life in Christ. 


I'm also thankful for the very first week of the Church using the new translation of the mass--it's beautiful! Thank you Blessed Pope John Paul II for your vision and boldness in making such a major change. You truly let God work through your life to inspire an entire generation of Catholics. And dare I say that it was your pontificate that inspired so many of us to "wake up" to the awesome, solid teachings of the holy Church that Christ left us to help us know, love and serve Him. 


The food co-op I'm doing has been going well. Last week, I had a bit of a flub because the soup I made was so spicy that you could practically use it like Tobasco sauce (my description, not theirs. They were too nice about it). After adding a little milk, it was edible though. This week it's been nice and safe--I made a winning pot of spaghetti and meatballs (thanks for the recipe Nicole!), salad and garlic bread on Monday, and they are bringing over lasagna and salad tonight. It's been working out well for me to have a meal brought to us on Wednesdays, because Thursday is always Family Dinner (I make or buy just one dish for that) and Fridays we generally have leftovers or pizza because we do Family Night at home and spend the evening hanging out with the kids and then watching a movie. So, I don't feel like I'm in the kitchen all the time. Nice. :)


Faith has refused to take bottles or pacifiers, and it's been starting to get a little tough. She is a week away from being three months old, and I've only been away from her for more than two hours one time (and it was a disaster for our poor babysitters and for Faith.) I know it's completely my fault for not introducing bottles frequently enough when Faith was younger. I've been working with her every day though, and yesterday she took an entire bottle and took a pacifier for a few minutes! I am going to continue to introduce a bottle to her every day until she is completely comfortable and familiar with them. I feel like being able to take an occasional bottle is a necessary skill for my babies. Besides several obvious reasons (like wanting to go on the occasional date with my husband), I want Faith to be comfortable with a bottle in case something happens to me. 


I started lighting a little candle at meals--to Gabriel's delight. The candle helps to get his attention and to create some structure and routine for meals, which has helped me to stick to the little prayers and devotions I'm trying to incorporate at meals and all through the day. Lighting a candle has been helpful in teaching him manners, as well as patience in waiting to begin eating and finish eating. He also loves blowing the candle out. :) 


I'm in Christmas music heaven! My favorite CD right now is Dave Barnes' Very Merry Christmas. He's got some classics as well as some beautiful original songs (my favorite is "Family Tree":). We are getting our tree on Wednesday evening, and I can't wait to finish decorating the house, inside and out. Such a wonderful time of the year!

Lately (The photo edition)

I've been making more of an effort to take pictures of my family and chronicle little slices of our life--especially now that I have the nifty new Instagram app to play with! Enjoy;)

My daily joy

Grasping for air, and remembering you said "yes" to a Keeper

I was talking to a friend this morning about the tendency of (some? all? Just me?) women to constantly want to improve themselves and everything around them--especially when it comes to relationships and marriage.

I want so, so, SO much to have an AMAZING marriage, be an AMAZING mother, be an AMAZING servant of God. Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

I absolutely think our desire to improve ourselves, our spiritual lives, and all of our relationships (especially marriage!) is of God. However, I don't think it's healthy to never be able to rest right where we are for a moment.

It's definitely not a healthy everyday state of being for our marriages.

Michael and I have been watching a great DVD series by Dr. Emerson Eggerich called Love and Respect. (And yes, I'm the one who borrowed the DVDs from a friend and bugged Michael about listening to them, which the DVDs good-naturedly poke fun at me about:) Anyway, the DVDs talk about how men and women hear things very differently sometimes.

Something my friend and I discussed this morning was how we have realized that our husbands must constantly hear messages from us about how they are not "enough." That they aren't trying hard enough. That they don't care enough. About the marriage. About work. About parenting. About the house. About their spiritual life. About our spiritual life.

Despite our good-willed good intentions, our relentless grasping for the divine--however right and noble and inspired--may sometimes need to take a couch break.

Maybe literally.

When is the last time you stopped and snuggled on the couch with your husband, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and thought to yourself, "I'm so thankful for this moment, for this man, for where God's brought us, for where He's taking us, for this happily-ever-after, ordinary, quiet moment with the love of my life." Or something like that. :)

I need to schedule one of those sometime soon.

As Thanksgiving approaches, my resolution is to be more restful in my marriage and in my spiritual life. God will be faithful to my prayers, and He will give me all the grace I need to grow into the person He made me to be. While He's working on me, I'm going to work on making sure I take more couch breaks with my great hubby.

I said "yes" to a Keeper after all. :)

The night we got engaged (May 2, 2007)

Is joy worth the effort of trust?

My friend Lucy recently sent me a passage about trust from One Thousand Gifts, a beautiful book by Ann Voskamp.

I don't know why it's so true for me that succombing to some level of anxiety and stress is so much easier than keeping my peace and trusting in my all-powerful, almighty, all-knowing Creator. 

From One Thousand Gifts: 

Belief is a verb, something that you do.

Then the truth is that authentic, saving belief must be also? The very real, everyday action of trusting. 

Then a true saving faith is a faith that gives thanks, a faith that sees God, a faith that deeply trusts? ... That's my daily work, the work God asks of me? To trust. The work I shirk. To trust in the Son, to trust in the wisdom of this moment, to trust in now. And trust is that: work. The work of trusting love. Intentional and focused. Sometimes, too often, I don't want to muster the energy. Stress and anxiety seem easier. Easier to let a mind run wild with worry than to discipline, to reign her in, slip the blinders on her and train her to walk steady in certain assurance, not spooked by the spectors looming ahead. Are stress and worry evidences of a soul too lazy, too undisciplined, to keep gaze fixed on God? To stay in love? I don't like to ask these questions, sweep out these corners where eyes glare from shadows. But this I must ask and I do, out loud...isn't joy worth the effort of trust? 

Because I kid no one: stress brings no joy.

This week

What's touching my heart and going on in my life this week...


I'm starting a one-day-a-week food co-op with another family this week. I will cook and deliver dinner to them one day a week, and they'll deliver dinner to us one day a week. I made a way-too-labor-intensive meal for my first night though (tonight). I'll be checking out blogs like A Year of Slow Cooking for some good ideas for crock pot meals. 


I'm taking a break for a couple of weeks from coffee, chocolate and most dairy. I have a suspicion that my consumption of these three wonderful things is behind Faith's tummy issues lately. 


I've been working on putting more Scripture and family prayer into our daily life. I read a post over the weekend at Joyful Mothering that spoke a lot to me. :)


I've been agonizing this week especially over the number of catch-up phone calls and thank you notes I'm behind on. I feel like I work hard every single day and give so much to my family, and it's frustrating to not have time to love on all of the other important people in my life who just don't happen to be a part of my daily life...I pray that God will continue to guide me on my use of time. I have no idea if I've used every minute of my time this year as He wanted me to, but I've tried my best. Discernment of God's will for your time is an imperfect process. At least for me. 

Some good reading

I've been finding so many awesome new blogs lately...here's a sampling :)

Grace Full Mama http://gracefullmama.com/
Joyful Mothering http://joyfulmothering.net/

• http://joyfulmothering.net/2011/11/14/how-we-rob-ourselves-by-skipping-time-with-god/
• http://joyfulmothering.net/2011/11/07/perfectionism-kills-discipleship/

A Holy Experience http://www.aholyexperience.com/
Raising Arrows http://www.raisingarrows.net/
The Better Mom http://www.thebettermom.com/
Doorposts of Your House http://www.doorposts.com/blog/

The apostolate of friendship

My two-month-old daughter and I attended a short morning retreat this past week, and while a nursing infant isn't exactly the most helpful partner on a retreat, it's amazing how God made sure I did get to hear something that He wanted to put on my heart.

One of the meditations was on the works of mercy, and the woman giving the talk spoke briefly about "the apostolate of friendship," the ministry that God calls all of us to within our community of friends.

The term "apostolate of friendship" really put into words some things I've learned and experienced about friendship over the past few years. One of the biggest blessings in my life here in Houston is our amazing, ever-growing community of friends. We celebrate together, eat together, grieve together, play together, and with certain friends have the intimate, joyful bond of praying together. I feel so blessed to have this community, since I didn't know a single person when Michael and I arrived in Houston three-and-a-half years ago!

God puts people into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Moving to Houston and experiencing the process of making friends made me take more seriously the people He slowly brought into my life here. I will never forget how a few of those people reached out to me in friendship. And I will never forget the few friendships that God called me out of my comfort zone to initiate! 

I am no expert in friendship, but I can tell you from my short experience of life that God wants all of us to take a more studied look at the friends and friendly acquaintances that God has put into our lives. Being God's hands and feet in the world comes into play with our family, friends and acquaintances. Be truly faithful in praying for the intentions of your friends. Make meals when new babies come or when tragedies befall them. Meet your neighbors. Make time for Skype or phone "dates." Send an encouraging note, email or text. Invite an acquaintance over for a play date or dinner. Be attentive enough to notice when someone is having a tough day. Treat a friend to a latte. Get a group of people together to help someone with big home projects or a move.

Thinking about friendship as an apostolate also put something else on my heart this week: how lonely motherhood can be, with or without a strong community of friends around you. It's so easy to become lonely in motherhood, no matter if we're working or at home full-time. I've been there. I am still challenged by loneliness sometimes. Children take up so much of our time and energy, and it can be such a feat sometimes to even leave the house. It's also easy to get wrapped up in our own group of friends, and not to be as open as we should to meeting new people or nurturing  new friendships. It can also be incredibly intimidating to try to make friends when you're the new mom on the block. I've been on both sides of that though. It is such an amazing feeling when someone reaches out to you, but it's a lot harder for some of us to take the initiative and reach out ourselves as a leader in friendship. It's also hard for some of us to step out of our comfort zone and take someone up on their offer of friendship. 

I know it's more challenging for some of us to make friends than others. I'm married to guy who has never met a stranger and for whom making friends is as easy as breathing. I'm jealous of that wonderful quality of his in the best way possible. :) But no matter how introverted or shy you are, you have to reach out of yourself a little. Accept someone's offer to get together sometime. Ask to exchange cell phone numbers or email addresses. Maybe you need to talk to your priest about starting a mom's group at your parish. Or find and "friend" someone first on Facebook. Or create a Facebook event to organize a play date at the park. Or bake cookies and send a short a note to an acquaintance who was having a tough day the last time you talked to them.

Just because you may live in an area that doesn't have a lot of people your age or state in life, just because you're new in town, just because all of your friends have moved away or are too busy to spend time with you anymore...don't let excuses, however good they are, keep you from letting God make you bloom where you're planted and let His kindness, thoughtfulness, and love shine through you. Because you have been planted, and that's a fact. No matter where God has placed you, God has good work for you to do, and that work involves others. It may be a small group of people, or you may find yourself in the midst of the blessing of a much larger community. I don't think that God needs us to be friends with everybody, but He certainly means us to develop friendships with somebody. :)

If I may humbly submit, I get to write all of this that because I, for one, am not a natural extrovert. :) Ask my parents, my siblings, and my childhood friends. I wouldn't say I'm exactly an extrovert now; I'm just sort of an enlightened introvert by the grace of God. I think that many experiences God has brought into my life have helped me to break out of my shell a little. (Being married to my outgoing husband has certainly been one of them!)

Blessed John Paul II, when asked the best way to grow in one's faith, said, "The best way to grow in your faith is to give it away." I think the same idea applies to friendship. :)

So how's your interior life?

If someone paid me a million dollars per week to not be snippy with my husband or lose my temper with my toddler ever, I think I could do it. And so could most of us I think.:)

When it comes to getting through the little (and bigger) challenges of everyday life as God calls us to, maybe we just lack incentive sometimes. :) I think that a major part of the kind of incentive that I, for one, need, is a strong interior life. For me, having a strong relationship with God is a constant reminder of how worthy He is of my love, my faithfulness, and also my sacrifice. I shouldn't need a million dollars to help me seek holiness in my daily life.

Big talk. Tough walk.

While writing this blog post tonight, I stumbled upon this helpful passage on Wikipedia (of all places) about the concept of the interior life. The passage quotes Blessed John Paul II:

The interior life is "a life which seeks God in everything, a life of prayer and the practice of living in the presence of God. It connotes intimate, friendly conversation with Him, and a determined focus on internal prayer versus external actions, while these latter are transformed into means of prayer. According to John Paul II, Jesus' statement 'without me you can do nothing' (John 15:5) is a truth that 'constantly reminds us of the primacy of Christ and, in union with him, the primacy of the interior life and of holiness." 

 

My interior life hasn't been what it should be for a little while now. Part of that certainly has to do with the fact that I had a baby about nine weeks ago, with all of the transition and upheaval that generally accompanies precious new babies. And that's OK. :) Not that I haven't been praying a lot. I think that most mothers with new babies do quite a lot of that. It's just that I haven't kept God quite at the center of my life as much as He has asked me to.

These last weeks--and honestly, the past 48 hours in particular, have reminded me that I can't hold things together by myself. Not even a little bit. The verse in John 15:5, roughly translated to my life, says, "I need God's grace just to get out of bed in the morning." And I do, most days. Probably every day.

Even though many days, I ask God to just help me make it through the day, I know I'm called to more. I'm glad I'm called to more. I don't want to just "make it" through motherhood and parenting young children in this season of my life. I want to do an amazing job! And coming to know, love and serve God more fully each day in my vocation--growing in holiness--is part of that.

I think that God has a different spiritual walk planned for each of us. I think that the passage above does a good job of generalizing what a dynamic interior life looks likes: intimate, friendly conversation with Him, with a determined focus on internal prayer versus external actions...these latter are transformed into means of prayer."

Big talk. Tough walk.

It's hard to remember I'm trying to be a holy woman when I'm about to explode with frustration at Gabriel after a tough morning at mass (or at breakfast). Or when I'm having a painful disagreement (about the same thing we disagreed about last week and the week before that:) with my husband. The unglamorous labors of my daily life don't seem like the best birthplace for the world's newest saint-in-training. But I'm going with it. Call me idealistic. Call me unrealistic.

But if everyone in the world was trying to be a saint, the world would be a much, much different place.

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. -St. Francis de Sales

Rough morning at mass;( two year olds and hungry babies and mass is quite a volatile mix.

CSI needs to hire my son as a set designer. They should see what he can do with a bottle of bright red nail polish in my bathroom. Argh :(

Lately

If you follow me on Facebook, you have probably seen all of these pictures and videos over the last couple of weeks or so. I feel like I've "discovered" my iPhone over the past six months, and lately I've been posting updates and photos to Facebook to the point where I probably need to abstain from using it periodically to nip in the bud any inordinate attachment. :)

Even if you've seen some of these before, however, I personally think that several of these are definitely cute enough to look at over and over and over and over again. And put as my desktop background. And email to the grandparents. Twice.

Snug as a bug on her very first "cold" day (it was in the 50's and 60's)

That face. 

Tummy time!

We attended a Halloween-themed birthday party for a little one-year-old friend of ours, Evelyn Rose. Faith wore a little pumpkin onesie that someone gave us, and was mistaken for a baby boy about five times because I forgot the humongous black bow I had to help with her outfit's gender-neutral faults. I didn't take offense though. :)

I love her in purple. 

Bright eyes

Gabriel LOVES the old baby swing we put up in the backyard. He wants to swing in that thing all the time. 

Yes, I know I am slightly obsessed with taking pictures of my baby girl. I'm still in the I-can't-help-myself stage. My apologies :)

Goodnight;) LSU beat Bama. Babies ate sleeping. I drained my margarita and spent a great evening with friends.