Association Of Catholic Bloggers

Sin: Practice makes perfect "Sin creates a proclivity to sin, it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts.  This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil.  Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense of its root."  CCC 1865 In other words, done over and over again, the act of making a decision and carrying out something contrary to good and moral thinking will make each future act of sin easier.  Practice makes perfect!  For years I would tell my children to practice their instruments each day, "Practice makes perfect, keep playing to get better." I would say.  So they would grumble at me and head off to practice.  Year after year, they would practice after my constant insistence, and year after year, they honed their craft to the point that they began to win awards, get hired to play for events, and find their voices as musician

  I’m going to start critiquing some of the homeschool methodology/philosophy books I’ve read. Oliver Van DeMille (along with his wife Rachel) created the Leadership Education method, also know by the title of Oliver’s first book on the subject A Thomas Jefferson Education . I have garnered much from this philosophy. However, there are several points that I question from my perspective of a Contemplative Homeschool. I will discuss one such issue here: whether we should “push” our children to learn or wait “until they are ready.” The DeMilles take up the question on pages 20-23 of Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning. They are criticizing the work of Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky “taught that teachers should observe students playing and intervene at a sign of interest to push them beyond their comfort level.” The Demilles argue that this works with adults, but not small children. They say that pushing kids teaches these lessons, among others: “Learning is wha

Some religious people would maintain that only an active Christian can act lovingly. Yet Pope Francis and even Sacred Scriptures disagree with this narrow view. St. Paul explains that God will judge everyone by  much  how truth God has revealed to them. If a tribe hidden in a jungle has never heard the gospel, God will  judge them based on what they know and St. Paul assures us that all men have the basic laws of God carved into their hearts. In modern language, we all have an awareness of good and evil or a conscience.  God has inscribed a moral code on my heart. It is  hidden in my deepest self. Actually, if  as an adult, I can block out my own ego and simply stop to listen, I can live a holy life. In fact Christ  offers an easy way to sanctity, to loving God and each other.  A spirituality that a child understands. A spirituality that St.Thérèse of Liseux understood .  Relax. Give up striving. Surrender to His love and let it saturate every cell of your body. Then simpl

I rarely dream, but last night I dreamt that I was worried that a room in a house might be on fire. The room belonged to someone I worried about a lot, who had been perplexing me. I was worried he would burn the whole house down. Instead, someone showed me what was really going on inside. There was a large cylinder filled with liquid. Sparks were coming out of it, like electricity, which had only looked like fire. Inside, there was an animated skeleton at a workbench building other skeletons out of bones. Usually in dreams, it helps to look at a "first feeling" and a "first association" in order to find out how the dream may speak to us. My first feeling was awe and happy surprise in the cleverness and originality. Also, relief that the "fire" was contained and no danger. My first association was of the "culture of death." Seems such a paradox- creative activity as the dead create more dead. Yet, this is what goes on in the ma

View from the Domestic Church: The Miraculous Medal book - Number 1 and releasing soon!

View from the Domestic Church: Summer Reading: The Miraculous Medal!

On this July 4, one truth could not be more evident. Sexual self-determination is fast becoming the most important legal right in the nation. Whether the issue is same-sex marriage or nation-wide health insurance coverage for abortion and contraception, the scales of justice are now tipped in favor of an individual's right to choose with whom to have sex, in what family arrangements, with what contraception, and disposing of any resulting pregnancy however they wish. This development seems reasonable. What could be more personal or private than sexual choice? But it comes at an expense. More...

                                                                 Art by Yun Yi Children are delightful because they are not self-conscious and they really don’t worry too much about their appearance. Little people are too busy exploring the world and having fun just being themselves.   Thomas Merton , a  Trappist Monk ,  once wrote that frogs and trees are holy because they simply are who they are called to be b y  God ,  without masks or false personas. Little children are also simply who they are. . Christ explains this concept in the Gospels. ◄   Matthew 18:3   ► And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." An amusing story illustrates this insight into children. One visit from Grandma Jean and Grandpa Ron occurred when Jean and Ruth were about four and five years old. Grandma apply a touch of make-up each morning and my little girls were fascinated becau

  This can be a frustrating and anxious time for Christians in America. The final version of the HHS mandate was issued on Friday. The Supreme Court overturned DOMA and refused to rule on California’s Proposition 8. Here in Minnesota, wedding vendors are starting to advertise to same-sex couples as the date for the legalization of same-sex “marriage” approaches. Last year, I prayed and fasted and wrote letters to the editor supporting a marriage amendment. I voted for pro-family candidates. I have discussed these issues on others’ blogs and on Facebook. It seems to have made no difference. I sometimes feel helpless. There is one thing we can all do to celebrate this Independence Day, one thing that will make an eternal difference for true freedom. We can give ourselves completely to God. We have had it easy in the USA for a long time. That era is past. We can cave, we can cry in self-pity, or we can change the world. America doesn’t need more politicians.

A Mother’s Love and Witness are Powerful!

Here is a guest post by a good and brave friend of mine, Peggy Clores whose mother was a Holocaust Survivor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And so we descend further into the abyss of darkened consciences. I gave you more credit, Ladies. Throughout these decades of legalized mass murder-55 million Americans that we know about-I have often spoken and written about the fact that when the pictorial records of Hitler's heartless crimes against humanity emerged, the world was aghast that this had happened "on our watch". Repeatedly I have insisted that the pictorial horror of abortion was a critical component in confronting the reality of the pro-choice argument and eliciting the re-assement of consciences. I was wrong. At least when it came to the consciences of the mob in the Texas chamber and all those in the blogosphere cheering them on. Only months after the Gosnell "House of Horrors" was made known to the world( by those who still have integ

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'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...

The Disrobing of Christ (El Espolio)   El Greco, 1577-79 [ Web  Gallery of Art ] Readings   (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)  Readings  (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)       Gospel  Luke 9:51-62  (Revised Standard Version – Catholic Edition) When the days drew near for him to be received up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; but the people would not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have hol

Finding good books for boys as they get older is always a challenge. Lat fall I put together a list of good books for boys aged 10-14 . You will see that the scope of it is limited.  On my blog, I want to introduce you to some of my favorites in more detail. Not all of these are on the list. A novel-length fairytale The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis are undoubtedly already on your radar screen. The Horse and His Boy is my favorite, and one of my favorite children’s books of any genre. It is the story of Shasta, who has been raised by a Calormene fisherman, but is light haired like the people of the north. When he overhears the fisherman negotiating to sell him as a slave to a lord, he runs away, taking the lord’s horse with him. The horse, Bree, is a talking horse from Narnia, eager to escape back to his homeland. Soon Shasta and Bree meet up with a young Calormene lady named Aravis, who is also running away with her Narnian horse. The foursome eventually get c

The very existence of a joyful mother of nine children seems to confound people. When the words  The Joy Of Mothering  popped into my head as a title for my short stories it was like an epiphany for me because those few words verbalized my experience living with little people. The very existence of a joyful mother of nine children seems to confound people. However, it has been far from easy, rather it has been a long journey through confusion, guilt and public condemnation to reach the point where I can now shout loudly, "This is my call, this is my vocation, this is my witness to the world." After the birth of our fourth child, Michael and I struggled to understand exactly how we were meant to live our lives. We were discussing an article by an author whose main premise was that letting go of control and trusting in God was not some abstract principle but a day-to-day practical call that included the surrender of our fertility. Of course we practised natural fam

"Ding-Dong, DOMA's dead!" trumpeted one of my friends on Facebook at the news that the U.S. Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional a major part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Another facebook friend posted this picture of the rainbow-hued Supreme Court in celebration of today's two decisions that sounded death knells for proponents of traditional marriage. The DOMA decision ( U.S. v. Windsor ) concerned the right of the federal government to define marriage as between one man and one woman for the purposes of receiving benefits under federal law. The Supreme Court held that the definition of marriage should be left up to the states. The second decision ( Hollingsworth v. Perry ) focused on a California state ballot initiative known as Proposition 8.  Through Proposition 8, Californians had voted to amend their state constitution to declare that marriage should be between one man and one woman. The district court declared Proposition 8 to be unco

The folloiwng is the first of a three part series on the Kelly Bowring book The Great Battle Has Begun. When I was a teenager in the 1970s I worked for a home security company. The workers who installed the systems were always in and out of the office for a variety of reasons. One worker in particular scared the daylights out of me. He was a Christian (denomination not important) and he was always talking about Jesus coming back. Although I was a baptized Catholic, mostly I was immersed in the Jewish faith and hadn’t yet made the connection about Jesus being a Jew and knowing that him coming back was a good thing. So, this big, boisterous guy would come into the office and my stomach would rumble and my heart would jump all over inside my chest. After a minute of two of him talking I would lose my appetite for the day and sit motionless waiting for the skies to open up and my life to be over. I simply didn’t know what to make of all of his proclamations about Jesus and repent

Last December, I began a quest to trust God more. It started with my reading The Way of Trust and Love by Jacques Philippe. You can read my original post on St. Therese’s trust here. (I know I link to this post a lot, but that’s because I consider it among my best. Trust is the Lesson from the Carmelite Saints that is changing my life.  If you haven’t read it, I strongly encourage you to do so.) Later, I told you how I was focusing on trusting God in the ups and downs of my day during Lent . More recently, I have worked on entrusting my future to God. This next step began with my reading Diary of a Country Mother by Cindy Montanaro. It’s the journal of a mother reflecting on the life of her young son who has recently died. As I hinted in my review, I have struggled with entrusting my children’s futures to God. I hear of so many parents who have lost a child. Two of my siblings died in childhood. My former roommate’s daughter died at age four.  Some of my readers have

Reading Catholic: A Tale of Two Books About .... Pregnancy : When I review certain books, I have often shared them informally with others--such as medical experts or even kids--to help me discern if t...

I rarely remember even the simplest joke but I have never forgotten this intellectual, theological joke told 30 years ago by a Jesuit priest in front of a U niversity New Testament Class. Jesus was walking alongside of the Sea of Galilee when he turned to Simon Peter and asked him “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Why you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus was pleased with his answer. So, Jesus turns to the modern day theologian and asks, “Who do you say that I am?” The modern day theologian answers, “Why you are the eschatological manifestation in the ground of our being. The kerygma, which finds its fulfillment in interpersonal relationships.” And Jesus says, “What?”