Association Of Catholic Bloggers

“From the beginning therefore he [man] is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.” Blessed John Paul wrote these words in his encyclical Laborem Exercens in 1981. I’ve referred to this encyclical many times in my own writings and in attempting to get at the very nature of who I am as a Catholic woman, wife, mother, author, and teacher. I have found in his words a timeless truth—no surprise there!—and a certain sense of peace as well. Whether I have worked outside of the home out of necessity or out of a desire, balancing work with family al

I remember when my first son was in need of his first haircut.  I took him to a professional stylist and, with 35mm camera in hand, clicked away, literally walking around and around his seat, so that, once developed, the pictures would immortalize that very special day in my life, in his life, in the world, I was sure. By the time my third son was in need of his first haircut, I let my mom have at it and, as it turned out, time did not improve her hair-cutting skills.  My youngest son ended up with the same bangs that I had worn some 30 years earlier — a wavy line of hair jutting out all over the place somewhere between eyebrows and the hairline. Things really do change from the first born to the second and then to the third.  And as that is all the children we were blessed with, I can go no further with my experience but my assumptions would be that by the fifth or sixth child, he or she may very well be performing his or her own first haircut. Now, my oldest is now a college

Today our 12-year-old son tidied up garbage in Abuelita's garage, where their spaniel went snacking.  Today he stayed with Grandpapi so I could take Abuelita grocery shopping.   Read more here...

Toward the end of my daily commute to work, as I head 40 miles an hour down a state highway,  I have often seen a white Volvo parked at the edge of a driveway, its motor running and lights on. I often wondered if it was a unmarked police car. But then again, what police officers do you know who drive Volvo cruisers? Then, one day I was running late and a school bus stopped just before the driveway. I stopped too. A little girl got out of the Volvo, the bus drove off and then her father drove out the driveway. Mystery revealed. Dad waits with his daughter in the car until the bus comes, then heads off to work. These family rituals are so important. Our family now consists of two working parents and two busy teenagers. (Boys who do not like their pictures taken) Long gone are the days when my husband and I would load our sons, in their pajamas, into the double stroller and walk to the ice cream parlor for an evening treat. Gone too, are the days when our so

Last night, I bought a frozen Paul Newman pizza for dinner and our 12 year old made a large salad. Since our family comes home for dinner in shifts, I took a tiny slice of pizza and warned the 12 year old to leave enough for dad and his older brother. Guess I should have written a memo to the teen: I returned to the kitchen about 20 minutes later and there was no sign of the pizza. Seems between the two boys, the pizza was gone. Evaporated. A friend who raised four children told me that all pizzas should come with a label saying that one pizza serves half a teenaged boy. I ended up serving really emergency food - cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli. Yuck and Yikes. My husband read on my facebook wall that I was heating it up and said he'd stop by the deli for a sandwich.  Read more here...

 Through our baptism, we're called to be royal, priestly parents to our children, exercising our God-given authority with kindness and benevolence. When we truly understand the essence of our authority, we can be leaders and nurturers of our children and help them to become the nurturers and leaders of the future .~ from Strengthening Your Family by Marge Fenelon, p.176  I did a lot of babysitting when I was young and became quite proficient at handling other people's children. I wondered at some parents' inability to control their children in church and other public places, since I rarely had any problem getting my little charges to listen to me. There was no doubt in my mind that I would someday be a  model parent with model children, all sitting quietly in the pew with rapt attention. However, when I finally married, God in His wisdom saw fit to send me the most rambunctious little girl ever created, the kind of child who loves to perform in publi

Every year since my husband and I started having babies, I have written and mailed a family Christmas letter. The first year, I hand wrote it since we didn't have a home computer and I traced our infant son's hand in the letter. For me, our first letter was a sign I really was a grown up. After all, I now had a husband, a baby, a washing machine and an annual Christmas letter. Today, I emailed this year's letter to a dear friend, a graduate student who has moved home to Milan. "Thanks for the letter!" she emailed back. "Is it an American tradition? I've never read one before." Read more here...

Last night, I awakened at least four times due to tingling hands and feet and, frankly, stinky perspiration. As I live out my fiftieth year on the planet, I am experiencing that change of life that is the trade-off for the miraculous ability to nurture life inside me and give birth to children. As a culture, we rightly celebrate women's fertility. A woman of child-bearing age is considered the most beautiful of all. Think Jennifer Lopez.  I've never looked anything like her, but the thing is, she is beautiful in this picture largely because she looks so fertile. Read more here...

How I don't want to enter this debate but I feel compelled to!  As far as I see it you have two ends of the pop cultural media extreme.   One end has the Duggars who because of their faith feel that sex is for reproduction only and have the 19 plus one on the way to prove it.  Then other is Glee, (I don't enjoy Glee only saw one episode and thought it was boring), were Rachel and Blaine have their first sexual experience: Glee Recap: "The First Time" Season 3, Episode 5 Nov 8, 2011 09:00 PM ET by Natalie Abrams In this week's episode of Glee, opening night for West Side Story is approaching but the leading stars have yet to really experience the type of passion they're meant to convey in the show. Blaine and Rachel's journey towards their first times are quite different, but both enlightening. Now both of these examples are exploitative; the Duggars who want to preach to American their version of Family Value when it seems to me that

The Duggars are expecting another child. For most families, that is exciting news, welcome news, joyous news. But beyond close friends and family, that news draws a mild response at most - hopefully of the "Oh, good." variety. The Duggars are not most families though. Jim Bob and Michelle have nineteen children, so decent math skills will tell you that this little one is the twentieth branch on their family tree. The reaction this revelation elicits from some quarters is very negative: outrage, repugnance, mockery. There are comments about Michelle spontaneously popping out a baby every time she sneezes, or Jim Bob not knowing how babies are made. People are snide and cruel - not to mention insulting and invasive with their comments and questions. If you know anything at all about the Duggar family, if you've seen them on Good Morning America, or caught an episode of their TLC program, you know they are good people. They are responsible and civic-minded. Their childr

  Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. ~John Adams We are in the middle of a war. It is a war which involves every man, woman and child because it is a war not only for our culture but for our souls. The main battlegrounds of this war appear to be the minds and hearts of women because it is women who make or break family life. Once family life is destroyed or corrupted then the state becomes supreme with each and every one of us as its puppets. When women are degraded then the entire society loses it dignity and heroism. Once a people lose their nobility of soul and sense of honor then there is nothing left to them but enslavement. We now waver at the brink but all is not lost for we have women who see things as they are and are not afraid to talk about it. Journalist and radio talk show host Teresa Tomeo is one such woman who assesses the fa

By Allison Salerno If you want to experience the vibrancy of the Christian faith, I encourage you to head to Manhattan on Martin Luther King weekend in January.  Hey - if enough of you decide to show up, perhaps we can make plans to meet for espresso. Let me know! The New York Encounter, which begins on Friday, January 13,  is an annual three-day cultural festival sponsored by the ecclesiastical group Communion and Liberation and Crossroads Cultural Center. It is free and family friendly, with plenty of kids and babies and teens and grandparents. The setting is near Penn Station, at  he Manhattan Center. Last year, I was deeply moved by the young adults I met who are the next generation of faith-filled Catholics. I spent hours attending beautiful artistic presentations and stimulating talks. I also volunteered with my teenaged son at the espresso bar, which gave me the opportunity to meet young Catholics from across the United States and the rest of the globe. Thi

Please visit the new Tea at Trianon Forum . It will be a place to discuss the same topics we discuss on my blog, but in more detail. Anyone can join. On the forum people will be able to introduce topics for discussion. Comments will be posted immediately, without having to wait for me to moderate them. Members will be able to post links and pictures and make block quotes, which is so much easier for trying to get one's point across. There are three main rules: 1. Be polite. 2. Be polite. 3. Be polite. The forum is for ladies and gentlemen. If you are not a lady or a gentleman then it is not the forum for you. Courtesy must be observed at all times. Members are asked to refrain from personal attacks, sarcasm, slanderous remarks about ANYONE and general snarkiness. While questions and inquiries are welcome, any attacks upon the Catholic Church or the Pope will be deleted immediately. We also ask that our guests stay on topic. Off topic comments will be subjec

Deep in the night, while most of us are asleep in our beds, the mother of a teenager I know begins her 10-hour shift stocking shelves at a discount store. She starts at 2 a.m. At noon, while many of us are taking a lunch break, she is leaving work and driving to other people's homes to make extra money cleaning them. She's usually asleep when daughter returns home from high school. The daughter has about three hours between returning home from school and heading to a store, where she works four hours every weeknight. Her father's workday begins at 7:30 a.m. and he is home by 6 - after she has left for her job. Her older sister, with whom she shares a bedroom in the family's apartment, works 40 hours a week at the same discount store as the mom and takes one class a semester at a community college. The family rarely is awake at the same time, and seldom eats meals together. Read more here....

I worry over how much time I spend writing and reading in the blogosphere. This morning in the mailbox came a thank-you letter that brought me to tears of joy and made me realize the time I spend is not wasted. Jamie and Kim Arpin-Ricci thanked me for standing beside them during their adoption journey and shared pictures of their new family. I never have met any of these people face to face. I have never even spoken with them on the phone. And yet, because of this new and crazy place called the blogosphere, I have been able to pray for them. Read more here.

Joachim and Anne.  Parents of a child conceived without sin.  The smug in me might like to think, oh, fortunate Joachim and Anne...to raise a child without sin!  But a moment of reflection reminds me that Joachim and Anne battled sin.  Just like me.  Just like all of us. Would I trade places? What might that be like?  While the idea of my own children being sinless sounds so...peaceful; the idea my children being sinless and me still in my present state ...sounds...disastrous. Such a high calling for Joachim and Anne .  Little Mary, always sweet, always obedient, always kind.  Joachim and Anne, sometimes tired from toil, sometimes anxious about their future, sometimes perhaps short tempered.  How any small acts that fall short of holiness might appear beside a sinless maiden.   "Of what small spots pure white complains." No, I would not trade.  Anne and Joachim were given their particular task.  And the grace to fulfill it.  I was given my particular task.  Mothers

I will sing of thy steadfast love, O LORD, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations. ---Psalm 89:1 These uncertain times we live in feel like when my dad used to ask me to go down in the basement alone to do chores. It was always a dark descent even when the lights were on ...even in the daytime. I'd fight him and pitch a fit..but he'd still ask me to go. My memory plays back the hollow sound of the wooden steps with each click of my shoes on the way down. I can still hear it and feel the fear. It's almost as if the Lord has resuscitated this memory to help me remember the faith of a child and how He strengthened me to do what I was asked even though I was afraid. We need to know how to courageously continue on in our faith even when it appears the bottom is falling our of our country and the church. Dad...I can't go down there. How will you know if something happens to me? He would say, I'll be right here in the kitchen. But I can

  By Allison Salerno "Mom. Stop blaring your music. I'm trying to read."  So said our 11-year-old yesterday as he lay on the comfy blue couch, reading, and I sat in the nearby armchair, listening on my macbook to my new favorite music: Iron and Wine. His sassy comment was its own kind of music. If you know our son in real life, you know what a triumph this comment is. You see, our son struggles with a language-based learning disability. When he was four, his speech was unintelligible, even to me, his stay-at-home mom. The only person in the world who could understand L. was his older brother, who for years served as a translator for him to the rest of the world.

By Allison Salerno  The creature emerging from our nearly 12-year-old younger son is something we already are raising: a teenager. Living as a peri-menopausal woman with two instead of one moody boy in a family, however, is different than coping with one. Already this morning they were bickering before breakfast over who had to walk the dog. Later, a hungry 14-year-old walked by and grabbed waffles off the breakfast plate of the 11-year-old, who is hungry All. The. Time. ("Mom, you've been telling me for years I am about to have a growth spurt"). And it wasn't even 9 a.m. As any parent knows, every child is different. The teen years of our first, a reflective, artistic soul, are going to be much different, I imagine, than that of our family's lone extrovert, who always has had a posse of pals and "met" the principal on his first day of middle school. (The details are dim but something about storming the cafeteria doors when the students

(This was originally posted on the website of one of our country's leading newspapers, the Philippine Star . Feel free to follow my posts there every Tuesday, Philippine time. Or you can also follow my blogs: www.trulyrichmom.com and  www.teachermamatina.blogspot.com . Thank you and God bless you all!) Couples for Christ , our Catholic community, just celebrated its 30th anniversary. CFC’s Main Anniversary Celebration was held at Rizal Park last Sunday, June 26. It was a very busy  week  for a lot of us, myself included. I was tasked to be part of the Documentation Team, heading the CFC Writers’ Guild. It was a fun but tiring job, and I missed my two kids a lot during the entire week, as we had to go home late many nights. Typhoon Falcon came and threatened a lot of our activities, but thank GOD for answering our prayers! People still came to the conferences and were blessed by the messages. One such conference that we thought would be greatly affected by the heavy rains and f