Exhaling at Home (Opus Gloriae)

Really. Love. Coffee.

This is really yum. Even the decaf.

Just thought I'd share with the coffee-lovers among us...

St. John Bosco and real men

Today, as I said before, I am praying that my own boys grow to become real men of God.

Included in that prayer is one that God will put strong mentors in their lives in the years to come, when they begin to  look beyond their own father to see what manhood is all about; mentors like our good pastor, who likes to ask them if any of them are going to take his place because he's getting old, and like their uncles who model hands-on fathering for them.

Someone mature and strong in Christ who will look them in the eye and challenge them to become what they are created to be.

Men who do not hesitate to kneel in God's presence, to admit their weakness and ask for His strength, who know that tears are not a cause for shame, who know that gentleness and power are not mutually exclusive - these are the strongest men of all.

May my sons know men like this, so that they can become men like this.

"Reason and religion are the two springs of my method of education. An educator should realize that all these lads, or nearly all, are smart enough to sense the good done to them and are innately open to sentiments of gratitude. With God's help, we must strive to make them grasp the main tenets of our faith, which, based entirely upon charity, reminds us of God's infinite love for mankind. We must seek to strike in their hearts a chord of gratitude, which we owe God in return for the benefits He so generously showers upon us. We must do our best to convince these boys through simple reasoning that gratitude to God means, concretely, carrying out His will and obeying His commandments, especially those which stress observance of the duties of our state of life. Believe me, if our efforts succeed, we have accomplished the greater part of our educational task. "             ~St. John Bosco

There is the goal. Grace is the means. We are the labor.

So, I'm off to work.

Candlemas is Coming

This Saturday (2/2) is Candlemas, and right on its heels comes Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, fully immersing us in Lent. I want to start planning for this feast now, lest it is passed over too lightly, which can easily happen here on a Saturday.

Let’s not allow any furry beast in Punxsutawney distract us from this beautiful feast day!

40 days have passed since Christmas, and though in the current liturgical calendar the Christmas season ends on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, traditionally it encompassed all 40 days until February 2, the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. Alternatively, it was known as the Feast of the Purification of Our Lady. And in the Middle Ages, when time was marked by days with lovely-sounding names like Michaelmas and Martinmas, it was also known as Candlemas; on this day, candles were blessed to bring home, to remind us of Simeon’s words, “He shall be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people, Israel.” Beautiful.

It’s this intrinsic loveliness and the wisdom of the Church calendar continually bringing these events before us that impel us to celebrate them in our homes. And we choose activities that will help children focus on the important facets of each feast.

In our family, we can always get their attention with food and fire.

There are three mysteries here on which we focus: 

Purification – According to the Book of Leviticus, The priest shall make atonement for her sin, and thus she will be made clean. Mary, of course, did not have an objective “need” to be purified, as she remained a virgin even in childbirth. But her humility compelled her to observe the letter of the law; no shortcuts or bending of the rules.

Presentation – Several prophets had foretold that the Temple’s greatest glory would be the day the Messiah appeared within it and revealed Himself. One of the Antiphons for this feast says, “Zion, prepare your wedding chamber to receive Christ the King.” Today Jesus enters His Father’s house for the first time. According to the Law, every firstborn son was “holy to the Lord” and was to be brought to the Temple and redeemed with an offering. This presentation is aligned with the Offertory of the Mass, as His crucifixion and death is one with the consecration and elevation. Today, the Lamb of God is offered to the Father; 33 years later, this offering will be completed by His death.

Simeon and Anna – These two devout and aging souls have spent long years praying and yearning for the coming of the Messiah, and today they are given the grace to recognize Him in the arms of the poor parents offering turtledoves as a sin-offering. Simeon foretells the sword that will pierce the Mother’s heart; his Nunc Dimittis is part of the Church’s Night Prayer:

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people: a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.

We pray this as servants as well, grateful for the gifts of the day, equally willing to accept our own leaving of this life. Like Simeon, we hold Christ in our arms – in faith, in grace, and in the sacraments.

Candles remind us that we always have Emmanuel – God is with us in Word, in Sacrament, and in grace.

Now around here, candles are always big news; their enchantment never seems to wear thin, nor does the clamor about whose turn it is to blow them out seem to become less animated. On Candlemas, everyone gets to blow out a candle, because everyone has a candle of their own. That they made. With their own hands. They are simple and don’t last that long, but that’s ok. We like these. Sufficiente. I love crafting, but I can't always get myself ready for the noise and mess (and often frustration) of 7 or 8 of us creating elaborate things that we can't give as gifts! So I often opt for quick and simple, especially when there are a lot of other activities in a week (we DO have easy and unsupervised access to drawing, coloring, cutting, gluing and claying in this house though).

So on Saturday, Mom will (God willing) get up and go to early Mass and be home to make pancakes for brunch, because for some unknown reason, pancakes are traditional for this feast. We will do some reading and discussing of the event of the Presentation, pointing out the three mysteries above. Then we will make our own candles and set them aside for dinner, where they will be accompanied by turtledoves from the craft store for our centerpiece.

During dinner, we will share with Dad what we know, for review.After dinner, we will pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary and bedtime prayers by candlelight.

And then everyone will get to blow out their own candle ;).

Maybe you have ideas for this feast that you'd love to share?

More on Ordinary Prayertimes

Because children are so visual, we try to surround them with the kind of images that will enrich and inspire their imaginations. And hopefully, open them to the grace that alone can lift them up to become all they were created to be.

Plenty has been said about filling our homes with "loveliness" and pointing our children toward true beauty, so I need not chime in with my own version here. I'll just say, "Ditto" to all that.

Here I simply want to share a few of our favorite things, like this porcelain Jesus and children (that I found at a discount store for under $20! You never know what you might find during the holidays, and you've got to seize the moment!). My photo leaves much to be desired, but you can see why this would attract the attention of the littles. The faces are very nice. Isn't that the first thing you look at before you purchase a statue or a picture?

Last year, I also purchased this statue of the Divine Child, simply because the beautiful face drew me in and I hoped that it would affect my family in the same way. I did not know until recently that this is a replica of the miraculous statue in Bogota that turned to Mother Angelica and asked her to "build a temple" for Him.

This statue is always on our family altar - during Ordinary Time, He reminds us of His simplicity and littleness; during the weeks of Christmastime, He seems to remind us that He was born because He loves us; during Lent, we are reminded that even as a child, His love impelled Him toward the cross for us; in the weeks following Easter, we look on Him risen and glorified, yet still willing to become small for us. So that we are not afraid to draw near to Him.

It is this statue that I had in front of my mind when we composed this song, which we sing every morning before breakfast:

Jesus, Jesus, come to me;

all my longing is for Thee.

Jesus, Jesus, come and stay;

use me as You want today.

Jesus, Jesus, I love You

and I know You love me too.

Jesus, though my heart is small,

help me bring Your love to all.

Jesus, while I work or play,

help me always to obey.

Jesus, Brother, Lord, and Friend,

help me be good to the end.

Dad likes to sing extra loud on the words "to obey" and "be good," which gets all the kids grinning for some reason...

This week in Ordinary Time

This week has several feast days to celebrate, and as I am planning our week's activities it seemed right to look ahead together.

Monday (1/28) is St. Thomas Aquinas. Dumb Ox Day.

Patron of students and teachers. That's us! He is also the patron of booksellers and pencil-makers. Let's not forget those; where would any of us be without booksellers and pencil-makers?! Symbols: dove, chalice, ox.

We love GK Chesterton's biography, The Dumb Ox, almost as much as his hagiography of St. Francis. When we study the Middle Ages, we read this in January, but right now we are neck-deep in Ancient Greece, so this year we'll have to simply read this brief article on Light from Aquinas and discuss. There are so many books to choose from, I'll leave that to the many book-listing bloggers out there!

As for us, we will content ourselves with a little reading, a discussion of why he is called the Dumb Ox, and what that might tell us about how we judge other people. God has something specific in mind for each of us, no matter what others think.

We will also pray to him for our own little learning endeavors. And for booksellers and pencil-makers.

Thursday (1/31) is St. John Bosco.

He is also a patron of students (especially BOYS) and also of laborers. It's a good week for student patrons, it seems. A good week to think about our heavenly helpers in this schooling adventure.

We will watch the movie, A Mission to Love, which will be a good break for us. We will also read this article on Seeker of Souls. We like these short articles from Catholic Culture - they teach a great deal but take little time.

Maybe the boys will want to work on their juggling when they are reminded that St. John Bosco learned a lot of interesting tricks to get the attention of the young boys so that he could reach out to them and teach them how to be men.

I would like the littles - who are very much into puppets and claymation - to plan a puppet show or an animated short that teaches some kind of lesson or virtue. This would mirror St. John Bosco's way of using what is easy, at hand, and gets the attention of others to teach something meaningful.

I will be praying to him for my own boys to become real men of God.

Friday (2/1) is First Friday. It is also the Memorial of St. Brigid of Ireland.

Of course, we will read Brigid's Cloak, and weave St Brigid's crosses. 

We will have Colcannon for dinner (my Nana's recipe) and listen to Celtic music. Not because it has anything to do with St. Brigid herself, but because we love it and we turn it on for every Irish saint! Any excuse to pretend that we know how to Irish dance!

We are also looking forward to Candlemas, but that's another post :)

Conversion of St. Paul

(Forgive the delay in posting - "the Internet guy" just left, having rigged a temporary antenna of some sort, saying we would have to wait for warmer weather before he would climb to the roof to check the problem with that one. I am grateful that he did not want to climb my roof today, and grateful that I have any Internet connection at all today.)

from a homily by St. John Chrysostom -

Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue this particular animal is capable. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him.  He summed up his attitude in the words: "I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies ahead."  When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: "Rejoice and be glad with me!" And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: "I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution." These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them.

Thus, amid the traps set for him by his enemies, with exultant heart he turned their every attack into a victory for himself; constantly beaten, abused and cursed, he boasted of it as though he were celebrating a triumphal procession and taking trophies home, and offered thanks to God for it all: "Thanks be to God who is always victorious in us!" This is why he was far more eager for the shameful abuse that his zeal in preaching brought upon him than we are for the most pleasing honors, more eager for death than we are for life, for poverty than we are for wealth; he yearned for toil far more than others yearn for rest after toil. The one thing he feared, indeed dreaded, was to offend God; nothing else could sway him. Therefore, the only thing he really wanted was always to please God.

The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.

To be separated from that love was, in his eyes, the greatest and most extraordinary of torments; the pain of that loss would alone have been hell, and endless, unbearable torture.

So too, in being loved by Christ he thought of himself as possessing life, the world, the angels, present and future, the kingdom, the promise and countless blessings. Apart from that love nothing saddened or delighted him; for nothing earthly did he regard as bitter or sweet.

Today is Dad's nameday (Robert Paul), so we will celebrate with a special dessert. The kids were disappointed that Dad wasn't home to share our snow ice cream on our snow day, so we will have that again. We have plenty of fresh snow and enough maple syrup and half-and-half. Yum.

We will also choose one of the Readings from today's Liturgy of the Hours, and use the Intercessions and Prayer from same during our dinner prayers.

"Willingly I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me."                                   ~ Saul of Tarsus, zealot, world-renowned evangelist, and author

Ordinary Prayertimes

Lest I mislead anyone, I should clarify that our prayer times are very simple and brief; never more than about 3 or 4 minutes. Nothing complicated here, and no one is walking around eagerly anticipating the next opportunity to "be still and know that I am God." It's just what we do, and it's part of our routine.

I hope this post helps give a more accurate picture. The breakdown is something like this:

• Breakfast: we sing a little Morning Offering, Guardian Angel Prayer, St. Michael, one Hail Mary and then sing the invocation "O Mary, conceived without sin...", the Angelus, then a little song, and Grace.
• Lunch: Angelus, short examination of conscience, Act of Contrition, Grace.
• Dinner: Angelus, occasionally a seasonal/feast day prayer, Grace.
• Bedtime: "Now I lay me down to sleep...," Guardian Angel Prayer, "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, bless the bed I lie upon...", a rhyming prayer we wrote for our parents, examination of conscience and Act of Contrition.

Our examination of conscience is very kid-friendly. At that point of our prayers, someone blurts out the customary cue: "Now let's close our eyes and think about Jesus." Not everyone manages to keep their eyes closed or even hold still, but it is quiet enough for everyone to remember what they should be working on. So I let them offer their own points for the examen, adding my own when I need to make a POINT. Someone will say something like, "Were we good today? Did we say 'please' and 'thank you'?" "Did we grab things from others or did we wait our turn?" "Did we remember to help somebody today?" "Did we stand in front of the TV when somebody was trying to WATCH something for SCHOOL and then NOT GET OUT OF THEIR WAY when they were asked NICELY?" and then the retort, "Did we examine our OWN conscience and not somebody ELSE's?!" So that Mom has to say, "Did we forgive everyone all the way if they irritated us today?" When we've examined enough, I say, "Now let's tell Jesus we're sorry." Here's our Act of Contrition, revised for littles:

O my God, I'm very sorry for all my sins, because they hurt You and others.

I know You love me and want me to be happy with You in Heaven.

Teach me to love You and my neighbor as I should and

help me to be good always. Amen.

This comes tumbling out quickly, as memorized prayers do; our pastor says our family prayers sometimes sound like a boulder rolling downhill. Hmm. Gotta work on that, but for now I'm content with working on the habit of prayer.

And just because I'm typing out prayers this evening, here's our prayer for parents, said at bedtime:

Dear Lord, bless my parents; may they live long with me.

Protect them and help them to be like Thee;

Repay them for all the good that they do,

working and loving the whole day through.

Teach me to be a good child for them

and we'll all live together in Heaven. Amen.

There are a few more prayer-songs we've written. But that's another post, I think.

Ordinary Time - breathing ordinary days; the basics

Ordinary time. At least for a few weeks.

After the wonder and warmth of Christmas, the bustle of guests and gatherings, the rich aromas of warm sweet treats and pine, we step back into the simple rhythm of ordinary days. On the horizon looms the starker weeks of Lent (when we focus on a different facet of giving and forgiving than Christmastime) and we pack up the last of red and green, eager for our "normal" schedule.

There is nothing "normal" about a normal day in a homeschooling household of 9! But we all need something predictable in our unpredictable days, some anchors for all the activity in which young hearts and minds engage. So, where do we begin?

There are meals. Without fail, we must eat, so we start there. At every mealtime, we gather in the same place and our focal point is our "Angelus display." To every meal, we've attached a prayer time and a chore time:

• Before breakfast, we say and sing our morning prayers. After breakfast, we do "table, dishwasher, teeth, and clothes;" we clear the table, empty the dishwasher, brush our teeth/hair, get dressed and hang our pjs. Whoever's "laundry day" it is begins their laundry.
• Before lunch, we say the Angelus, make a brief examination of conscience and pray an Act of Contrition (we all need to repent of something by noon!) and say grace. After lunch, we clear the table and do our "after-lunch chores." This is just a quick pick-up or move the laundry forward; the job varies by day of the week.
• Before dinner, we say the Angelus again, set the table and sit down. If it is a feast day or special season, we say prayers from the Liturgy of the Hours (that's another post on breathing altogether!), then we hold hands and say grace. This began as a way to get the attention of the littles and keep their fingers out of the food, but now that the "baby" is six, we've continued this tradition. It's the one time of day we're all "in touch," and as I foresee the day when there are fewer of us around this big oversized table, I like it even more. After dinner, there is table-clearing and dishwasher loading, of course!

(Side note: We had guests last evening, a couple who had never met all our children. When the Mrs. asked Samuel if he was the baby, he paused and answered diplomatically, "Well, I'm the youngest.") 

The final "gathering time" is just before the youngest four children head upstairs for bedtime. This gets a little messy some days - we have guests, Dad is busy, oldest daughter is gone, there is a concert, Grammy needed help - but we try to kneel as a family and say/sing our night prayers. This includes another examination of conscience and Act of Contrition, which is an opportunity to remind everyone again of the things we should be focusing on ("Did we remember to act calmer than we felt? To speak kindly? Did we say "only the good things people need to hear"? Did we remember to ask ourselves, 'What can I do, how can I help?'?" are some of the questions Mom asks aloud. Sometimes, the kids add their own, until someone reminds them they should be examining their OWN conscience, not their neighbor's! There is no lack of comedy during prayer time, I assure you!).

We have written our own songs and versions of some prayers to make them more kid-friendly; as a child, I never understood how to be "heartily sorry" or how to "dread the loss of heaven," much less "amend my life." We find music easy around here, so we sing a lot of prayers or write rhyming versions too.

Where does all this get us? Well, we pray four times a day. Our children automatically think to pray when it is time to eat, which is better than Pavlov's dogs salivating at the sound of a bell. We examine our consciences twice daily (which is surreptitiously used as character formation time by Mom!) and pray the Angelus three times. All this sets the background music of our lives - the background music the Church has been singing for centuries - and gives us predetermined moments of quiet when we "think about Jesus." It's a start.