Association Of Catholic Bloggers

14th century:Holy family and the Presentation … Since preschool, society has pushed you to excel, to rise above your peers.  You were groomed for success, to get into the best universities and snatch the most prized careers. Well, it is nice to have confidence, to fulfill your dreams, and have a sense of satisfaction in your chosen field of work but that will not make you happy. Just take a look at the generations that have gone before you.  The all too common mid-life crisis is a testament to the failure of a life focused on career advancement to the exclusion of family. Men and women bemoan the fact that they did not have time for nurturing and loving their spouse or children. All too often, family life crumbles to ashes, sacrificed on the altar of success. As for childcare, society relegates this arrangement to women who are often treated as second class citizens. I want to yell out as loudly as I can  that raising children is definitely not a default chore for women wh

On the Feast of the Holy Family, December 29, 2013, Pope Francis invited all Catholics to pray for families as the Church prepares for an Extraordinary Synod to examine the troubling disconnect between Church teaching and the reality of modern family life. In his  Angelus address  given to the crowds in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis recited for the first time his new Prayer to the Holy Family. (Full text available  here .) The prayer seeks the help of the Holy Family while at the same time revealing Pope Francis' vision of the family as it is and as it could be. It paints an ideal portrait of family life and yet acknowledges the severe difficulties faced by many. It concludes with a heart-felt petition for the renewal of the sacredness and inviolability of the family. Pope Francis' prayer is a short primer on the theology of the family and deserves careful contemplation. Let's see what he says. The Splendor of True Love Jesus, Mary and Joseph, in you we cont

I'm not sure where I got the idea that if my husband and I did all the "right" things parenting, our boys would glide through childhood and adolescence and smoothly into adulthood. I'm not sure where that idea came from, or how it is I came to believe that watching them glide is preferably to the reality of watching them experiences the ups and downs of growing up and learning, often the hard way, how to make mistakes. Keep Reading...

Victory, O Lord by Millais (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons). Sunday’s Mass readings were all about prayer–winning battles through prayer, supporting each other in prayer, and never giving up. I love encouraging people to grow in their prayer life!  But today I want to ask a question that might seem odd to you: Can you pray too much? There are three ways in which I believe you can. Don’t let prayer keep you from living out your vocation   Again, this might confuse you. Haven’t I said before that prayer helps us live our vocation better ? That’s true. But you still need balance. If you are a stay-at-home mom with small children, you should not be spending hours a day alone in your room praying. If you are the father of a young family, you should not be spending most of every evening at Church. If you are a college student, you should not normally miss class to go to adoration. St. Francis de Sales, instructing lay people in Introduction to the Devout Life, wrote,

Tonight at the 5 p.m. Mass, our high school freshman was trained by an older woman to become a lector. He sat beside her, a few pews in front of us, and listened as she whispered directions and instructions. In a few weeks, he will share the lectoring responsibilities with her and then, if all goes as hoped, he's at the ambo on his own. It was moving to witness her sit beside him during Mass, passing on the faith. Keep Reading Here

It felt as if someone had taken a load of bricks and thrown them onto my chest. Tomorrow marks the 12th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center. My husband, who walked out of Tower One 11 minutes before it fell, still is with me. He's alive to help me guide our two boys to adulthood, to make awesome chicken wings, and to coach middle school basketball. So why did I cry - no why did I  sob  - so many tears today? Keep Reading...

If my children could  remember only three things to take with them into their adult life, what would I want them to be? 1 .  I love you ,  believe in you. Let that love be your foundation and your springboard into life. 2.   God loves you,    just as you are. Relax in that  Love, let it sink in , heal you, strengthen you and  release you into freedom and joy. Don’t try to save  yourself and  everybody else on your own because  He   is the only Saviour . Notice that I called  God   Lord.   Let  God be the Lord and don’t steal His job. 3.   Reach out and allow that   Divine Love to flow through you  to your partner, children, neighbours and in doing so discover your unique vocation, your work in the world. A child rooted in love becomes a secure, warm, giving adult who attracts as much light as he reflects. He can live in relative peace with himself and others. With his basic emotional needs fulfilled, he is free to love and serve other people and to develop intel

As anyone who has been married for a while knows, marriage has seasons: the early years, the years with babies and toddlers, and so on. Right now, my husband and I have two teenaged boys and no travel soccer on our family calendar any more. This means our weekends are wide open. Keep Reading...

I love Marie Barone in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond . Sure she’s a bit meddlesome. Admittedly she’s even a tad overbearing. Maybe she’s even off-putting to some. But her motivation is pure. She’s committed to her family. She really never puts herself first—even if we are led to believe that she does. If we are really paying attention, her scheming is done to ensure that her family is safe and sound and well-fed. No matter what, it is always important that they eat. As a mother of three sons, I get how my own feeling of peace is tied to the care and feeding of my boys—and so I instinctively understand why Marie is forever handing food to whomever walks through the door. “Are you hungry, dear?” she asks while handing over a plate—without any regard to the answer. Now, as my own sons grow older and the prospects of one day becoming a mother-in-law myself become a real possibility, I take note of mothers-in-law in a new way. And Marie Barone is at the

I have always heard that the mother is the heart of the family, especially a stay at home mother with a crew of kids, who also helps with a hobby farm. So Why was I not missed when I spent hours locked in the chicken coop? You must first understand that even if this was a subconscious belief, I behaved as if  I  was the most important member of the family. It took a drastic experience for God to shake me out of my arrogance. Ten years ago on a very cold winter day, I decided to go with my husband to the barn. I bundled up in Michael’s extra set of warm boots and coat. Since I am a size 2 in women’s clothing and he is an X-Large in men’s sizes, I looked quite comical trudging after him to the barn. We divided up the chores and rushed to finish them as quickly as possible because the wind was fierce.My last task was to water , feed and gather eggs from our laying hens. Michael passed in the bucket of water that he had hauled for me and then left me so he could complete his

I'm a half-century old and have been a practicing Catholic most of those years. And yet, until yesterday, I had never visited a shrine.  I never really understood the point. As a Christian, I believe that Mystery entered human history and settled among us. As a result, Christ is our constant companion. He is with us in every moment, in the circumstances of every person we encounter. So what's the point, my thinking went, of traveling many miles to a shrine of people who lived out their destinies with an eye on the One who made them? Keep Reading...

Pregnant with my seventh child, I was bedridden in the high-risk, neo-natal wing of the maternity ward for a week while waiting for a housekeeper to come to run my home and help tend my six children. I faced 6 months of bed rest but that one week gave me perspective and kept me from sinking into self-pity. The other two women in my room were desperate to keep their babies in uteri and finally become mothers. One of the two had suffered five miscarriages. She was stuck in a ward room for months, only going home after the birth of her baby. Secretly we all feared that we would lose our babies. Suddenly our fears materialized as a high-risk woman’s baby died in her womb. That poor woman had to endure an induction and labour for hours, only to push out a dead baby. The pain in that wing of the hospital was tangible. Tears ran down women’s’ faces as they grieved with their neighbour. It did not matter that none of us had even glimpsed her face. Nurses as well as patients mourned for

I’ve always watched I Love Lucy . Lately, though, I notice that there is something about it that speaks to me in a very personal way. It sort of tugs at me. I can’t say that the show takes me back to anything in particular because it isn’t from a time in my personal life; but, rather, it seems to address a desire for simplicity that lives at the center of my heart. Despite the fact that in real life the marriage of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did not survive, I have found in talking with friends that the show really taps into something that exists at the core of many women. We love the quaint Ricardo apartment. There isn’t a lot of furniture or tons of space. It is as neat as a pin and we can totally imagine living in that space. When Lucy and Ricky host a card game they need to move the couch out of the way to bring in the folding table and chairs. And yet the card games are always fun despite the tight space. The sparse kitchen is behind a swinging door and, upon close inspection,

I gave up processed food for Lent. If I want to eat bread before Easter, I have to bake it. Except, of course, on Sundays, which being Sundays, do not count as part of Lent. After 11 a.m. Mass with my son we headed next door to the Barnes and Noble because he said he needed a new sweatshirt. As I was walking over I thought: Oh! It's Sunday! I can have something sweet with my iced soy latte. The Rutgers B&N has a Starbucks inside. In line at the cafe, I spied blueberry scones. And ordered one. And sat down to sip my latte and eat my Sunday scone. It looked nothing like the scone depicted on the corporate website. Keep Reading...

"The Lord was baptized, not to be cleansed himself but to cleanse the waters, so that those waters, cleansed by the flesh of Christ which knew no sin, might have the power of baptism. Whoever comes, therefore, to the washing of Christ lays aside his sins" St. Ambrose of Milan This morning we all went to the 9 a.m. Mass, an early one for us. Today is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, the day in which the Church commemorates the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. Today was also the day where several eighth graders in our parish, including our son, participated in a Confirmation Commitment ceremony during Mass. Since Confirmation seals the sacrament of Baptism, the timing could not have been better. Read more here...

Yesterday while driving out of the Home Depot parking lot,  I began to tear up. Our 16 year old son's words kept me going. See, I had checked my facebook before heading into the store. I discovered two CL friends are homeless. The boiler in their apartment building in Manhattan's financial district blew up as Hurricane Sandy plowed through. They are scrambling for a warm place to sleep. (They have temporary lodging in New Jersey). Then, as we walked into the store, I was puzzled by rows of people sitting in cloth folding chairs by the customer service counter. Some were reading books; one woman was asleep. Why were they sitting there? And then it struck me: they have no heat in their homes thanks to Hurricane Sandy. Keep Reading....

This morning, I am sitting in the family room, reading a memoir and nursing a sore throat with cough drops. Boy turning 13 tomorrow comes  bounding down the stairs in bare feet, wearing jeans, a white tee and black suspenders. He is dribbling a soccer ball.  Keep Reading...

When a passenger plane carrying 87 people from Boston was deliberately flown by five al-Quaeda hijackers into Tower One of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001, my husband was standing his desk on the 68th floor. He was knocked to the floor by the impact. Right now as I type this, he's sitting next to me on the family sofa.  Keep Reading Here...

The Lord's Prayer in Filipino Sign Language Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)  Gospel  Mark 7:31-37   (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) Then Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech; and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And he charged them to tell no one; but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were asto

I glanced at the clock when I heard my husband say to my oldest son, “Call me when you get home.” “Where is he?” I asked. When my husband replied, “He’s on his way home from work,” my stomach began churning. Not the hunger-type churn but the worried-mother-type churn. Our son had purchased a home just months before and was still getting a handle on things but between work and other demands, it wasn’t easy. My husband and I—and his brothers—had all helped out with painting, cutting the lawn, some electrical and lighting things and so on. It took all our willpower (my husband’s and mine) not to completely take over, but to just be available to help if and as needed. We wanted to take care of our son, get him set up in his new house. Mostly, I wanted—needed, really—to know that he was “okay” and that he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the demands of new home ownership. The point of the call was to set up a date and a time that my husband would be able to come and help wit