Association Of Catholic Bloggers

Can We Cana's First Ever Give-Away! Awesome author Sarah Reinhard has generously agreed to donate a free copy of her book  Catholic Family Fun : A Guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative, or Clueless  to the next person to register for my  online marriage enrichment retreat  this February 3, 4, 10 and 11!! So be sure to join in Can We Cana?'s first major give-away by registering for the retreat  here . For those of you who don't already know Sarah, she describes herself as a Catholic convert/wife/mom/reader/writer enjoying the idiosyncrasies of life on a farm with critters and kids. She blogs at the  National Catholic Register  and has written  five books  for amazing Catholic publishers like Pauline Books and Ave Maria Press. She's heavily involved with CatholicMom.com and is always ready to lend a helping hand to beginning bloggers such as yours truly. Sarah's book,  Catholic Family Fun , is as great as the name suggests. It's packed wit

             Looking for ways         to make your marriage                   stronger? Join me this February 3, 4, 10, or 11 in an online marriage enrichment retreat. Spend an hour or two, just in time for Valentine's Day, to make your marriage stronger! Similar to an interactive  webinar , the retreat offers talks illustrated by sacred artwork with a background of Gregorian chant.   If you've never attended an online retreat before, don't worry -- the technology is easy. All you need is high-speed Internet and speakers for your computer. You can ask and answer questions simply by typing in a chatbox. But if you wish, you can purchase low-cost earbuds with a computer mike and speak directly with me and the other participants. You’ll receive a link by email to enter the online environment and a friendly tech will help you get used to all the features. You can participate as an individual or a couple, during the early afternoon or in the evening -- whatever

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

Just in time for Christmas, here are some awesome book suggestions for nearly everyone on your list. For Married or Engaged Couples For Better... Forever!: A Catholic Guide to Lifelong Marriage, by Greg Popcak . This modern Catholic classic has been offering helpful advice to couples for more than a decade. Give a gift that helps love grow all year long. Click here for  my review . For Moms and Dads Growing Up in God's Image, by Carolyn J. Smith.   One of the biggest struggles parents face is teaching their kids a healthy outlook on sexuality. You can start laying the groundwork when your kids are very young by teaching them respect for their bodies. Then, it's much easier to talk to them as they get older. Learn how in this helpful book. Click here for  my review and link to buy . Catholic Family Fun, by Sarah A. Reinhard.   The family fun can last all year round if you use the ideas in this clever book. Imagine always having something wholesome to do that will

As preparations heat up for Pope Francis'  2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family , it's a good time to revisit some ideas for fixing what's broken about the marriage preparation and annulment process in the United States. Catholic author John Zmirak recently asserted that we could  fix Catholic marriage in five easy steps . But can we? Although thought-provoking, Zmirak's proposals underscore the need for more thorough education about the annulments process among Catholics today, say some canonists. Let's take a look at Zmirak's five proposals and see what might work, what might not work, and what's already being done. Read more here...

Tonight found me in an unlikely-for-me place: a glow-in-the dark indoor miniature golf course in a strip shopping mall off a state highway. I proposed the location for a Saturday night date with my husband and he agreed. While we waited our turn at mini-golf, we played skee-ball and a few rounds of Hoop Fever. We had a great time. Our teen sons would be grateful they had not come along since while we played - me cheating and my husband diligently marking his own score with a glow-in-the-dark pencil - I was singing and dancing to the 1970s music that blared through out the facility. Why did we end up here tonight? Keep Reading

I'm only half-kidding.  Australian woman Jodi Rose did in fact marry Le Pont du Diable bridge  (also known as the Devil's Bridge) on June 17, 2013. The union was not blessed by a Catholic priest, however. It was blessed instead by the mayor of the neighboring town. For those who are wondering, here are five reasons why the Catholic Church would never have allowed marriage between this woman and this bridge. 1. The bridge never consented.   Ms. Rose took advantage of the bridge's inanimate nature and married it even though the bridge could not possibly express its consent to the marriage. (Catechism, sec.  1626  ) 2. The bride never agreed to be faithful. "He understands that I love other bridges -- and men -- ours is a love that embraces the vagaries of life, as materialised in the swirling currents of the river that flow beneath his magnificent body," stated Ms. Rose on her blog. She clearly refused to pledge herself solely to her spouse. (Catech

What should we do when people in our social circle abandon their marriages? When they're openly, even scandalously, unfaithful? Kristin Gomez has encountered this situation one too many times, and now she's speaking out about it. A graduate of the University of Virginia and former Spanish teacher, Kristin is now a homeschooling mother of 6 in Manassas, Virginia. She's part of a core team of couples at All Saints Catholic Church who are using the Alexander House resource, Covenant of Love, to help create "a marriage minded community." Best of all, she's  married to a Colombian and living la vida loca, Catholic style! Abandonment is when one spouse leaves the other despite the other's pleas for counseling and healing of the marriage in the hopes to restore love and stability to their family. (I'm not talking about the legal definition of abandonment here, just the common-sense meaning of the word.) Check the stats, but surprisingly this is MANY,

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...

We live in divisive times. Sometimes, that grieves me.  How do we reconcile these two perspectives? Can we? A homily I heard yesterday gave me hope. Keep Reading...

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,

Grace comes in unexpected places. After work today, I went to the nail salon for a pedicure. A group of ladies, older and Jewish and lifelong friends, were there. The owner of the salon is a Korean woman, married for years and a devout Catholic. Her husband of many years works with her. They never had children. And so this story begins. Keep Reading....

I posted this yesterday on Bangor to Bobbio. I've simply copied and pasted. The British Parliament  yesterday voted in favour of a bill  that would legalise same-sex 'marriage' in England and Wales. A majority of the Conservative Party that governs in a coalition with the much smaller Liberal Democrats, voted against the bill which still has a few hurdles to jump over before it becomes law.  Three days earlier the French Parliament voted in favour of a similar bill, though it too has some way to go. Hans Christian Andersen It might be good if those who voted in favour of the absurdity of same-sex 'marriage' would either read Hans Christian Andersen's  The Emperor's New Clothes  or listen to Frank Loesser's musical rewriting of the story [video above] for Danny Kaye to sing as he played Hans Christian Andersen in  the 1952 movie  of the same name. Illustration  by Vilhelm Pedersen, Andersen's first illustrator.

Imagine knowing, really knowing the hearts of your parents as teenagers. Imagine hearing their thoughts and feelings, of being right there with them as they courted one another. Chris Vath  had such a privilege. He is part of a family who discovered, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a duffel bag filled with 500 letters his parents (pictured here at their wedding reception) had exchanged during three years of separation during World War II, beginning when his mom was 16 and still in high school and his father was 18 and serving in the U.S. Navy. Although Katrina flooded his childhood home with nine feet of water, the letters inside the bag survived, still legible.  Keep Reading...

From  The Gospel of John  (2003)  Directed by Philip Saville. Jesus played by Henry Ian Cusick; narrator, Christopher Plummer. Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA) Readings   (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa) Gospel  Mark 10:2-16 [2-12, shorter form]   (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) Pharisees came up and in order to test Jesus asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away." But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.' So they are no longer two bu

On Saturday 6 July 1942 John Coyle, a carpenter, married Mary Collins, a seamstress, in St Paul's Church, Arran Quay, Dublin,  ( photo below )  the first Catholic church to be built in Dublin after the Act of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 that abolished most of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws in the United Kingdom, of which the whole of Ireland was then apart. The occasion was to have some impact on my life as I was the first-born of their union, arriving in the world nine months and two weeks later.  The wedding photo above was taken in a studio in Dublin after their honeymoon. So it is likely that I was present on the occasion! Full post here .

Greg is 48 today. He is a magnificent man. Our lives are happy and full. Today our oldest made us breakfast and while Greg and I continued our Mad Man marathon. We started watching the show this year, and a friend has loaned us Seasons One and Two DVDs. Greg went to the 11 a.m. Mass; I will take the boys to the 8 p.m. Mass. When he returned, we kept up our marathon. Read more here...

Ephesians 5 is one of those Scripture stumbling blocks for the modern man... err, woman. Just what did Saint Paul mean by "Wives be subordinate to your husbands"? And what does the Church mean by authority? How do you feel about the roles of men and women within the marriage relationship? Click on over to The Feminine Gift to read our latest post.

**This is a guest post from our Spiritual Father here at The Feminine Gift. Father Adam writes from Rome where the diocese has sent him to study Canon Law for three years (in Italian no less). He will grace our pages with his thoughts every once in a while.** A couple of weeks ago I decided to write an article for the Feminine Gift on contraception, and in particular, on the difference between artificial and natural means of regulating childbirths. However, having been intensely studying canon law for the last few years, and not dealing a lot with all the sound principles of moral theology that undergird the Church’s very wise teaching on family planning, I must admit that I had to make an effort to mentally rearticulate for myself the distinction between the different methods of regulating childbirths (I know, bad priest). Then, once I had all the arguments mapped out nicely in my brain—arguments that could have convinced Margaret Sanger herself—I sat down to write, but then didn’

Here in Ontario we have just observed a rather ironic statutory holiday: Family Day. Ironic because this long weekend is very nearly the only acknowledgement of family we have in public life. No longer is a stable home life with a Father as the head of his household, and Mother at the heart of her family the norm. Instead we have a society of broken homes and blended families of every configuration with little stability or permanence. We have the idea that marriage is desired only by women, and that men are either coerced into it, or trapped within it. Marriage is ‘an institution’ and who wants to be committed to an institution? Wives are ‘the old ball and chain’ holding a man back, weighing him down. At the same time we have the very serious problem of young men refusing to grow up, remaining in an adolescent state while mom continues to cook and clean for her 25 year old boy. When combined with modern women being quite free and easy with their favours, where is the inducement for