R.C. Mommy

Thank you to all of the brave men and women who have fought for our country on any field of battle. If you, like I, have never served in the military, please take time today to think about the sacrifices these folks have made to serve us and keep us safe. Think of the doughboy who made his way overseas for the first time, digging trenches in France, shells exploding over his head. Think of the WACS and Joes who went back 30 years later to fight in WWII, arriving on the shores of France like in the photo above. Think of those who went to Korea to stop the spread of communism. Think of those who served in the steaming jungles of Vietnam and Central America, who sweated in the deserts of Iraq, who climbed in the mountains of Afghanistan, and all other places their President has sent them. They went willingly, bravely, to meet an uncertain future and they returned, asking nothing but for us to every once in a while to stop and say thank you. Ponder the sacrifices they and their families made and I dare you not to choke up a bit.

I love how Veterans Day falls on the feast of St. Martin of Tours. When Martin was 10 (326 AD), over his parents' objections, he wanted to be baptized and began to be taught. He eventually joined the Roman army and was stationed in Gaul (modern-day France) where he was born. One day, by the city gate, he saw a beggar with hardly any clothing. Without much thought, he cut his cloak in half and gave half to the beggar (see picture at right). That night, he had a dream were he saw Jesus wearing his half cloak. He finished his religious training and became baptized. After he left the army, he became a priest, and eventually the bishop of Tours. As a bishop, he passionately defended the Church against the Arian heresy. He died in 397 AD.

St. Martin is the patron saint of soldiers, which makes Veterans Day on November 11 so very cool.

Heavenly Father, through the intercession of St. Martin of Tours, I beg your blessings for those men and women who are veterans of the wars the United States has fought. Please bless them and their families for the sacrifices they have made for our country. Please bless the United States. Please let us be a beacon for freedom and good for the whole world. Mary, the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States, pray for us. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Posted in: holidays, looking for a few good men, Prayer requests on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at at 8:19 AM 0 hooligans commenting    

We have Religious Ed. classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The kids come for one of those sessions every week. We have about 625 kids in RE, so it gets kind of busy.

The Tuesday session meets from 3:45-5:00, so Scott comes to pick up the kids from me at work at about 4:45, takes them home, and gets dinner started.

Tonight's menu was leftover teriyaki chicken (grilled last night) with rice and stir fry veggies. Now, the children will not eat them all stir-fried together because they are my children and are therefore adverse to anything that makes my life easier, such as eating the same meal their father and I enjoy. ("Sauce? What kind of sauce? I don't like sauce. I like ketchup. You stirred it all together! I know it's called stir fry AND it will all wind up stirred together in my tummy, but I don't want my food all mixed up on my plate!!")

Point? Yes, I have one. Right on the top of my head.

So, Scott came home and started making the rice. He measured out 3 cups of rice and cooked it. Which yielded approximately 10 cups of cooked rice.

Lord, I am thankful to you today for the rice pudding I am about to enjoy. Yum.

Posted in: home stories on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at at 9:49 PM 1 hooligans commenting    

Posted in: holidays, home stories, kid stories on Monday, November 02, 2009 at at 1:43 PM 2 hooligans commenting    

Well, hate is a strong word, but I really don't like it. I think I like it even less than that cat over there does. It's not much more to me than a whole big, huge pain in the rear end. Getting costumes together is stressful. Then the inevitable, "I changed my mind. I don't want to be that; I want to be this" the week before Halloween. I set a deadline for the kids to tell me what they want to be on Halloween and then that's IT. Bub tried pulling this last weekend. When I reminded him that it was past the mind-changing deadline and that he wasn't going to be a skeleton, but Mario like he had told me the week before, my six year old son declared that "Fine! I'll wear it, but this is going to be the WORST HALLOWEEN EVER!!!!" To which I replied if he would truly like it to be the WORST HALLOWEEN EVER, he should mention costumes to me one more time and then he wouldn't be allowed to trick or treat.

What bothers me even more than my children's temper tantrums is the decidedly more evil and downright disturbingly scary turn that Halloween decorations have taken in recent years. It's to the point where I avoid the Halloween Aisle at our local Tar-jay. I had to go into a Halloween store last weekend with Curly Sue (looking for Mario and Luigi costume stuff). I should have marched right back out, but I didn't. She's had 2 nightmares since last Saturday and she usually sleeps like a baby. I blame my lousy parenting and the zombies and horror music at the store.

I can't wait till it's over. What are you (or your kids) going to be?

Posted in: kid stories, ranting and raving on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at at 7:50 PM 3 hooligans commenting    

"True works of God always meet with opposition and are marked by suffering. If God wants to accomplish something, sooner or later He will do so in spite of the difficulties. Your part, in the meantime, is to arm yourself with great patience." Fr. Michael Sopocko, spiritual director and confessor to St. Faustina Kowalska, from the Diary of St. Faustina, paragraph 270.

Posted in: Divine Mercy Novena, random, religion on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at at 11:25 PM 2 hooligans commenting    

This week, the Holy Father made it easier for Anglicans who want to be united with Rome to, well, unite with Rome. There are many people more knowledgeable than I who wrote about it. Among them are: Father Z., Matthew Archbold, Rocco Palmo, Fr. Longenecker (who was once Anglican himself). I'm not going to try to dissect the pope's message. So many others are doing that, and I don't have the real energy it would take to do that well. I don't even have the energy to write down my navel-gazings for this blog, let alone take on a major project like that. I will just say not to believe everything you read in the papers, secular and otherwise. There are people who just don't like the pope. And I don't think he's poaching congregations from others. He's just responding to their request to come home. What good father wouldn't find a way for his child to come home (See the Prodigal Son)?

But today Father Z. posted this good bit about B16 being the Pope of Christian Unity and food for thinking about what Ecumenism truly is. And my brain took that food for thought and it satisfied something my brain has been trying to chew on for years.

I firmly believe, and was taught, that the Catholic Church is the only Church founded by Jesus Christ. Our popes and bishops trace their line (through ordination) all the way back, unbroken through history, to the Apostles, whom Jesus commissioned. Presbyterians can trace their lines back only so far as John Calvin, Anglicans to Henry VIII of England, etc..

By our baptism, we are called, among other things, to go forth and make disciples of all nations. We are all called to mission. Maybe some of us are called to go out and evangelize in extraordinary ways, by going to other countries and to proclaim the Good News to those who have never heard it. Maybe some of us are called by God to evangelize in our parishes, in catechetical ministry. Maybe some are called to evangelize by blog. But all of us are called to live as Jesus taught us, keeping the 10 Commandments: loving God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our strength, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In this way, with the joy that comes from living as the Lord intends us to live, we draw others closer to God. They see how joyful we are and they draw closer to God by our example. This is how the ordinary person is an evangelist.

Not to get off track, but think on this: How full of joy are you? Are you feeling the joy that comes from life in Christ? Why or why not? Can other people tell? Are you giving anyone a reason to consider the Church?

So, if we can accept that the Catholic Church is historically the Church founded by Christ Himself (see third paragraph above), and we can accept that Christians are called to mission, what should the true purpose of ecumenism be? Should it be about fact-finding? ("Ah, I see that you believe in the Real Presence. So do we! But you really don't have it since your founder broke away from the Church and interrupted the line of Apostolic succession. Hmmm...what else have we got?")

And what of the "one, true Church" argument? The Catholic Church is the only Church founded by Christ Himself. In Lumen Gentium, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council said that other Christian churches are only true churches as far as they subsist in the Catholic Church, or are in union with the Catholic Church.

I read somewhere recently (and I cannot remember the source) that someone said that through interreligious dialogue should be like laying down a two way street so that we don't crash into each other. We learn about each other so we can stay out of one another's way. Consider: is this true to what we understand our mission as baptized Christians to be? Especially in light of Jesus' prayer that all are one in Him?

If we consider the highway analogy above, it works for us, to a point. After dialogue with those of other faiths, the example of the Catholic Christian should be so compelling, and his ways of explaining the Faith so good, that others are led to join the Catholic Church, not through any direct, coercive effort of the Catholic Christian, but through the work of the Holy Spirit, who draws us ever closer to the Lord.

So, can ecumenism truly be about fact finding? I don't think so. By being a true Christian, by loving God and others perfectly, those who belong to other faiths should want to join us. Father Z. used the analogy in his article about the members of the two faiths stretching, which is an image I find particularly apt. One person is about to fall off a cliff. The other, on top of the cliff, stretches his hand, scooting himself to the edge, reaching as far as he can to save his friend without falling over the edge himself. The other, clinging to the rock for life, stretches his hand as high as he can. Their fingertips brush, they stretch more, reaching, reaching, until they clasp hands, and the one at the top is able to pull his friend back to the safety of the solid rock, the Rock upon whom Jesus built His Church.

Posted in: conversion stories, looking for a few good men, religion on Friday, October 23, 2009 at at 8:37 AM 1 hooligans commenting    

Hey. Did you miss me?

I have had some things going on that I wish I could blog about, but since it involves one of my children and he has asked me to respect his privacy and not blog about it, I can't. But it's all good. No one is in the hospital or anything. Everyone is healthy and well. But the thing is that it is kind of taking up all of my time and mental energy. But whatever. This isn't his brain dump, it's mine and I just will have to talk about it endlessly with Scott instead of you.

So, here's some things that are happening that are not the 700 pound gorilla in my life right now. In no particular order:

1. My Curly Sue is sleeping under my desk at work right now. Poor kiddo has to get up with her brothers so we can get them to school on time. If left to her own devices she'd sleep until 9:00 instead of 6:45.

2. I am teaching 7th grade CCD on Wednesdays and I love it. That is why I got into this job in the first place. Nothing beats being in a classroom.

3. Going to see Bruce Springsteen at Giants Stadium tomorrow night. I'm really psyched. He's going to play all of the "Born to Run" album! And our tickets were only $33 each!

4. Went to the pumpkin patch with Bub's kindergarten class on Monday. What a bunch of fun that was! It was nice to spend some time with just Bub. I don't get to spend a lot of time with him when his siblings aren't around. He's a funny guy.

That's all I've got. Happy Wednesday!

Posted in: kid stories, random, school daze on Wednesday, October 07, 2009 at at 1:32 PM 2 hooligans commenting    

At Catholic Teacher Musings is Bad Haiku Friday. My submission:

To live in N. J.
Is to take thirty minutes
To drive but 6 miles.

Posted in: bad haiku on Friday, September 25, 2009 at at 11:10 AM 6 hooligans commenting    

Happy Birthday to my boy, Bubba! Bub turns six today and we are so blessed to have this boy with us.

Here is a Bub-crostic poem to describe my middle child:

Bubbly
Uproarious
Beautiful
Buddy
Awesome

Bub likes: music; They might be Giants; Star Wars; video games; snuggling; hugging; his brother and sister, and of course, his mom and dad; he likes to play with his friends.

Bub dislikes: tomato sauce, lima beans.

Happy birthday to my funny, sunny, Bubba. I can't believe it's been 6 years since you were born. You are a delight and you warm my heart with your hugs and silly songs and stories. I am so glad that God sent you to us.

Posted in: kid stories on Thursday, September 17, 2009 at at 8:36 AM 2 hooligans commenting    

I remember that Sepember 11, 2001 dawned clear and bright. The cloudless sky was a brilliant shade of blue and the sunlight hadn't seemed so clear in a long time.


Primo (almost 8 months old at the time) and I were at home. I was watching TV. Scott and my mom (who was living with us at the time) had left for work already. I was watching a morning news program when they reported that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. What a horrible accident, I thought. Then, a few minutes later, another plane. My mom called, "This is not an accident," she said. I tried calling Scott, but he was working out in the gym, watching everything from an exercise bike.


The Pentagon. Pennsylvania. I called my girl friend, who was living on a Marine Corps Air Station at the time. They were fine.


I thought back to how I had interviewed for a couple of jobs in New York City in the year before. How one of those jobs was at a dot com in the financial district. I was glad I hadn't been offered one of those jobs. I remembered watching the coverage, watching those two towers-which I could see from the nearby highway overpass that I drove almost daily-collapse into dust and smoke. Watching papers from the office buildings fall like snow from the sky. Watching desperate people jump from the windows of those towers. Thinking about the firefighters, police officers, and civilians who were trapped in the rubble. Rejoicing at the recovery of one of the victims.


I remember how in the next couple of days, everyone walked around, numb. I remember how the wind shifted, blowing into our town in New Jersey from the East, from Manhattan, only 15 or 20 miles away as the crow flies. How hazy everything was and the smell that came in through our open windows. The smell of death.


I remember how six months afterward, the pain was lessened and there were two bright lights in the night sky which brought more comfort than I could have guessed as I looked up at them from my house, or anywhere I happened to be in our area.


I remember thinking about how life will never be the same again. This innocence, naivete, that we all had about how safe we were-how what happened in Israel almost every day could never happen here-was gone. How my child, my children to come, would always have September 11 in their history. How Primo would never remember a time when the Twin Towers stood tall, a symbol of American prosperity and our engineering ingenuity.


And how do I answer the questions of the 4th graders I taught in CCD that year? "Mrs. G., how can God let that happen? How could he let those bad guys kill all those people," when I wasn't entirely sure of the answers myself?


I also remember how we all came together, proud to be American. I remember that we were all going to show this new enemy, Osama Bin Laden, what we were made of and how we were not going to be bowed; we would not quake at his shaking fist. We live in the greatest country in the world, damnit!


Looking back now from the distance of 8 years, I wonder, where has that feeling of one-ness gone? Where has the feeling that we really DO live in the greatest country in the world gone? Where did all of that goodwill go?


September 11, 2001, was a day of senseless cruelty, of mass murder. It showed us how we needed each other. It showed us how truly selfless most of us are. Remember those firefighters and policemen, clergy and laypeople, who all rushed into the burning skyscrapers with no regard for their own safety? Where is that sense of selflessness now? Where is the unity?

Will it take another disaster for us to get it back?

Posted in: holidays, Politics, ranting and raving on Friday, September 11, 2009 at at 10:01 AM 0 hooligans commenting    

Well, it's her birthday too, yeah!

Happy birthday to my pink Princess, Curly Sue. She's three now, which means, in her own arbitrary terms, that she is now big. She wasn't big yesterday, but she is today. She starts school in about 3 weeks. She will also start dancing lessons. She will also continue to boss her big brothers around and generally try to run everyone's life. what else are little sisters for?

As my dad says, she's our little ray of sunshine. We love you, Curly Sue. Happy Birthday!

Posted in: home stories, kid stories on Sunday, August 30, 2009 at at 9:34 AM 3 hooligans commenting    

You can find a nice reflection on St. Monica's life here at American Catholic.

Found this great three day novena at the St. Monica Sodality of Michigan:

TRIDUUM (THREE-DAY) NOVENA in HONOR of ST. MONICA

For an INCREASE of FAITH, HOPE and CHARITY

This Three-Day Novena may be begun three days before or on the feast days of St. Monica August 27 (Traditional Calendar May 4th), St. Augustine - August 28, St. Augustine's birthday - November 13, St. Augustine's Baptism - April 24

FIRST DAY

Prayer for Faith

O glorious St. Monica, transfixed with sorrow when you saw your beloved child Augustine living in the dark and gloomy abyss of error and vice, and straying far from the right path which leads to true felicity in the possession of God and His holy grace, hear our prayer, O afflicted mother. By that cruel sorrow, which with so much patience you did bear, and by those earnest sighs and bitter tears with which you did appeal to God to change the heart of your prodigal son, and by your wondrous confidence in God, which was never shaken, O grant to us, your children, that we may, like you, place all our trust in God, and in our trials and troubles be ever resigned to His holy will. While we ask you, O glorious mother St. Monica, to supply for us our special needs, we here earnestly ask you to pray for the erring children of Jesus, so many Augustines, straying from God and hurrying to ruin. Let that earnest prayer of yours go forth once more for us and for sinners, that we may live in the light of divine grace and be united again thereafter to bless the bounty of a loving God for eternity. Amen.

LET US PRAY. O God, look graciously down upon Your children who sigh in this valley of tears. With hope we pray for our daily bread, for the forgiveness of our sins, for the never-failing help of Your grace, and for the faithful fulfillment of Your promises: to find life everlasting and a happy abode with You in heaven, through the merits of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.

May God, through the merits and intercession of Saint Monica, increase our faith, strengthen our hope, and enkindle the fire of charity in our hearts. Amen.

Our Father . . . Hail Mary . . . Glory Be. . . Saint Monica, pray for us.

SECOND DAY

Prayer for Hope

O glorious mother, St. Monica, although the many means you employed to accomplish the conversion of your son Augustine seemed fruitless, and for a long time God Himself appeared deaf to your earnest prayer and unmoved by your ever-flowing tears, you never lost confidence in obtaining the long-sought grace for Augustine. You lovingly and tenderly admonished your erring son; you watched over him ever with all a mother's love, and fearless of danger and heedless of fatigue, followed him from place to place in his weary and wayward wanderings. In a word, all that a mother's tender love could suggest, all that a mother's anxious solicitude could inspire, all that a wondrous prudence and true wisdom could dictate, you, O great St. Monica, cheerfully did to effect the return to God of your firstborn and darling child. By all these generous efforts, so happily crowned in the end, hear, O mother, the petitions we make to you. Pray for us, too, and pray especially for those who are unmindful of and ungrateful to God. To you, O dearest mother, we are especially dedicated; look upon us, then, as your children, and win for us the grace we need. Regard mercifully the most destitute among us, that sin being diminished, the number of the faithful may increase, and greater glory may be given to Him who is the best of friends, the truest of benefactors, our first beginning and last end, the source of all our hope, our Savior, our God. Amen.

LET US PRAY. O God, look graciously down upon Your children who sigh in this valley of tears. With hope we pray for our daily bread, for the forgiveness of our sins, for the never-failing help of Your grace, and for the faithful fulfillment of Your promises: to find life everlasting and a happy abode with You in heaven, through the merits of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.

May God, through the merits and intercession of Saint Monica, increase our faith, strengthen our hope, and enkindle the fire of charity in our hearts. Amen.

Our Father . . . Hail Mary . . . Glory Be . . . Saint Monica, pray for us.

THIRD DAY

Prayer for Charity

O glorious mother St. Monica who can conceive the consolation that abounded in your heart, so long the home of brooding sorrow, when you saw your child Augustine rising in the light of grace and giving himself generously to God. When you folded your converted son in your arms and tears of every joy streamed forth to tell the glowing jubilee of your heart, Oh, how in that moment God in his mercy recompensed your years of sorrow and anxiety, your long and weary days of racking suspense. It was impossible that a child of tears like yours should perish and when your son Augustine heard the call of God he obeyed it, and his life and his deeds flung a luster all their own on you, St. Monica. O fortunate mother, twice mother of your child, deign to listen to our prayers and present our petitions to God. Look lovingly, and with all a mother's interest on us assembled here, under your protection, to honor you. We love you and let us become, as St. Augustine of old, the objects of your maternal love. Pray that we, too, like St. Augustine, may have strength to cling to God, and triumph over sin and temptation. By your prayers break the fetters of sin that hold in cruel bondage the souls of your sinful children in this world. O mother, pray that the miracle of grace in the heart of Augustine may again and again be repeated in these day of universal sin, and that the erring children of Jesus may be led back to the fold so that united here on earth, we may securely go through the dangers of life and be united with you, our mother, in heaven forever. Amen

LET US PRAY. O God, look graciously down upon Your children who sigh in this valley of tears. With hope we pray for our daily bread, for the forgiveness of our sins, for the never-failing help of Your grace, and for the faithful fulfillment of Your promises: to find life everlasting and a happy abode with You in heaven, through the merits of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.

May God, through the merits and intercession of Saint Monica, increase our faith, strengthen our hope, and enkindle the fire of charity in our hearts. Amen.

Our Father. . . Hail Mary . . . Glory Be . . . Saint Monica, pray for us.

Posted in: feasts on Thursday, August 27, 2009 at at 10:40 AM 2 hooligans commenting    

"With sincere apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning," by Amy Giglio

Moon Sand, how do I Hate thee?
Let me count the ways:
I hate thee with the depth and breadth of my soul.

I hate thy granules of superfine
Mold-able sand which
Permeate every crevice in my home.

I hate that thou dost not come with
thine own storage containers
(Dost not the Play Doh do as much?).

I hate that when my children blend thy colors
Thou turnest an ugly shade of puke.

I hate that mine offspring cannot keep from
Spilling thee all over mine carpet,
Grinding thee into oblivion until thou becomest one
With the fibers of mine wall to wall berber.

I hate that because of thee I have run mine Hoover
Repeatedly over the same places on my rug,
Desperate to extract thee
To no avail.

To those who might ponder bringing mine children
More Moon Sand into mine hearth and home,
I beg thee, please, leave it at the Toy R Us or the Target.
Offer them a gift of Play Doh instead, I pray, lest
We burn out the motor of mine despondent Wind Tunnel.

Else bring me a Dyson.

Posted in: kid stories, random on Sunday, August 23, 2009 at at 8:15 PM 2 hooligans commenting    

Last night, as we tucked Curly Sue into bed, she pointed to a sign above her bed which reads:

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice!

After Scott read it to her, Curly Sue exclaimed, "I'm not made of that stuff! I am made of Kid!"
100% kid

Posted in: kid stories on at at 6:03 PM 1 hooligans commenting