Totus Tuus

Tomorrow is Consecration Day!!! We've been doing Nineveh 90 and what a blessing it has been. Many are preparing to make their total consecration to Jesus through Mary on May 13, the anniversary of the first apparition at Fatima to the little shepherd children. I have the great privilege of walking with the new consecrators, praying for them, and reconsecrating myself (I made mine on the Feast of the Annunciation 5 years ago). I often go through my little book by St. Louis de Monfort but this time I picked up Fr. Michael Gaitley's 33 Days of Morning Glory. I love it as a companion book because it has some of the reflections of 20th century saints who had consecrated themselves: St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Mother Teresa, Pope St. John Paul II. He beings with St. Louis de Monfort and I will forever be pondering Mary's relationship with each of the Persons of the Holy Trinity: Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, Spouse of the Holy Spirit. I was completely blown away by the richness of St. Kolbe's reflections, especially on the Incarnation (O Jesus, living in Mary!) and what it means to be the Spouse of the Holy Spirit.  And Mother Teresa, in her simple way asks us to exchange our hearts with that of Mary's. And the great St. JPII, whose motto was "totus tuus."

Michael and I are so thankful to Fr. Heilman for starting this extended period for physical and spiritual exercises. I didn't do very well on the physical part but I have gained some strength doing ballet exercises. We've also gotten better at fasting. Prayer life has improved somewhat. But, I must admit that there was much resistance too. So not an easy time, but not impossible either, and now we have some good tools at our disposal.   

I highly recommend this devotion and to take the full 33 days the first time. But if you've fallen away or behind, or just feel like being in a hurry, there is also a novena based on St. Maximilian Kolbe's writings. The next Marian feast day is the Feast of the Visitation (May 31st) so what are you waiting for?  

I'm copying these daily prayers from the novena:

St. Augustine's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Breathe in me O Holy Spirit that my thoughts may all be holy;
Act in me O Holy Spirit that my works, too, may be holy;
Draw my heart O Holy Spirit that I love but what is holy;
Strengthen me O Holy Spirit to defend all that is holy;
Guard me then O Holy Spirit that I always may be holy.

Sub Tuum Praesidium Prayer

We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.

Miraculous Medal Prayer

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee, and for all who do not have recourse to thee, especially the enemies of the Church and all those recommended to thee.

Prayer that the angel taught the three children at Fatima one year prior to Mary's appearance.

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee! I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope, and do not love Thee.

Mary herself gave the children this prayer to be recited at the end of each decade of the rosary.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy. 
 

May Moments

I love May. It's full of joys: Mary's month, singing Salve Regina at the conclusion of every Mass, Dagny's birthday month and our current pets' too -- Sunny St. Helen, Benny and Jules. School is coming to an end and with it, the end of school books, with time for personal reading and playing. Dagny is named after the main character in Atlas Shrugged so she's already begun reading it. There is no saint of that name so I tell her she can be the first :)

My little girl is sixteen! It's unbelievable how quickly the children grow up. Now she's driving *us* to church! I will always be grateful for being able to stay home with them and enjoy the many phases they went through, never to be repeated. And they taught me to look at everything with joy and wonder, essential attributes for a children's writer. 


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have the best friends!!! Just look at this beautiful card, one of a kind for Dagny!!!

Happy birthday Dagny!!! May God bless you and make you a saint! May you always be blessed with good friends on your journey to heaven. Love and prayers, always. Mom and Dad.

The Hum of Angels

This title appealed to me because I have always believed in the guiding hand of angels and wanted to learn more. In THE HUM OF ANGELS: Listening for the Messengers of God Around Us, Scot McKnight gives a Biblical basis for belief in angels and their role.

His main question is that if angels exist, and most of us believe in them, then why are we not more aware of it? He compares them to hummingbirds. Once we learn to pay attention, we are able to tune into them. I'm not sure I believe that reasoning. I believe that God decides if and when we experience them.

The book really shines in compiling many of the Biblical references that show what angels do. For example, the good angels come to console, instruct, guide, announce, fight, intercede and worship. I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in angels. However, the McKnight is repetitious and often confusing, in that he plays the devil's advocate and then comes to the proper conclusion. A better book is Angels of God by Mike Aquilina.

As a Catholic, I am used to asking my guardian angel to guide, protect, and pray for me. I thought it funny that Scot McKnight includes many Catholic ideas about angels from the Church Fathers, like what goes in Mass, but doesn't like the idea that there's a personal angel for each of us, even though it's Biblical.

Thanks to Blogging for Books for a review copy. This is cross-posted to Amazon.

And in related stuff, check out Distracted Angels, Max's ad for safe driving. He didn't make the final cut he was hoping for (thinking outside the box for scholarship $$$) but I thought it both creative and funny and better than some of the other ads. 

Easter Holidays and Prom 2017

We've had a lovely Easter holiday. I think it's the first time we stayed home since we moved to SC and it was wonderful to catch up on household things. We'll have a garden this summer! Michael has built a fence to keep the critters out. We spent our days out in the yard or reading on the porch and our evenings watching movies. Prom was scheduled for Easter Friday.

Since neither Michael or I ever went to any high school dances, we've been pleased to see how much more socially adept our children are :) I like that Max, Dagny, and Alejandra have been friends since we began carpooling to go to Divine Redeemer Catholic School. It is a wonderful little school in Hanahan and I am surprised more people don't know about it. The faculty and staff sacrifice much of their time and energy to give the children a safe place to grow and learn. It always felt like an extension of home.

Here they are after a year of carpooling. They enjoyed trick-or-treating together. What's funny is how often we'd have just the girls and people assumed they were sisters. They very well could be ... only time will tell.

Here are the lovely prom pictures, taken by Dagny and Juanita Bustamante, Alejandra's very talented cousin. We had a such a lovely evening with her and Marcela (Ale's mother) and the kids were very patient with us as we took pictures. I know the mosquitoes were busy biting.

 

 

 

An Anniversary, Book Reading, Massacres, and Music

Today we celebrate our 8th anniversary of reception into the Roman Catholic Church. Sometimes I wonder when the honeymoon will end but like our marriage, it hasn't yet. We keep falling deeper and deeper in love with Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And I have so many friends up high. A dear friend introduced me to St. Gemma Galgani. Isn't she a beauty? Today is her feast day. And given that Easter is a moveable feast, it's even more special that she died on Easter Vigil. I always ask her to pray for our family. What a perfect saint for our teenagers!

This past Saturday I had a great time at Barnes & Noble. The children were so attentive and we had a good time together after hunting for eggs and coloring traditional pysanky designs. Parents appreciated that the eggs were sealed. I just loved the baby in purple! She was the first to find the eggs. The little boy who's running off is besotted with my friend Sharon Chriscoe's Racecar Dreams. He wanted nothing at all to do with silly eggs. If only eggs hatched trucks :)  

 

Alas, Palm Sunday brought the terrible news from Egypt, the massacre of Coptic Christians during liturgy. Please take a couple of minutes to listen to Bishop Makar. It is heroic to practice your faith in a place where people want to kill you. Yet, as Tertullian said nearly 2,000 years ago, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Christians are being exterminated in the Middle East but their sacrifice is not for naught. Christianity may be declining in the West but the Church is growing in Africa and Asia. Pray for us, O new martyrs, even as we pray for you and your families. And please pray for Pope Francis as he travels to Egypt in a couple of weeks.

We are busy learning music for the Sacred Triduum. These are not Holy Days of obligation but our priest wonders how people transition from Passiontide to Easter without these extra days of devotion. In essence it is one liturgy beginning Maundy Thursday until the Easter Vigil. There is no dismissal when we go to Mass. We leave in silence and return in silence.  I could never miss it. When our children were in public school, I'd pull them out for Good Friday. And I just love Maundy Thursday because that is when our Lord instituted the priesthood and without our priests, we wouldn't have our Lord in the Eucharist, and without the Incarnation, we wouldn't have anything at all. We'd still all remain in our sins. And so I leave you with O Magnum Mysterium by Victoria.

O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear Christ the Lord. Alleluia!

A blessed Holy Week to all reading.

Ten Easter Egg Giveaway

I can't believe I'm only now posting this here* because the giveaway ends this weekend, but if you'd like a chance to win a copy of TEE, hop on over to a dream** writer's blog and leave a comment there because Ten Easter Eggs is April's Picture Book of the Month. Many thanks to Sharon Chriscoe for hosting.

*I don't even have a good excuse besides being ill off and on :(

**You'll see why when you check out Sharon's books :) 

Ten Easter Eggs in the Wild and TEE and me on Inkygirl

I'm on Inkygirl (Debbie Ohi's blog). Hop on over to see how my manuscript turned into a novelty book!

And here it is in the wild! I hope they have boxes of it in the back because I'm doing story-time and book-signing at 11 am Apr. 8th at the Mount Pleasant Towne Center. See you there!  

Reading Amy Krouse Rosenthal RIP

I've been reading so many good books and have to share a few. 

Amy Krouse Rosenthal died ten days after the publication of her Modern Love essay. Heartbreakingly beautiful. I am thankful for putting into words what I've often pondered myself. I remembered how much I loved her picture books. Imagine my delight at seeing how many more she'd published since Little Pea. It was such a treat to have a AKR read-a-thon. I think my favorite is I Wish You More. Requiescat in pace, Amy. I wish -- no, I pray -- you heaven now and forever more.

Other books gave me much enjoyment. The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon was a delightful love story between a Haitian girl and a Korean-American boy. I enjoyed the conversations the kids had, reminiscent of the conversations Michael and I shared as we ate Ferdinand's ice cream in the afternoons on the campus of WSU. I laughed so hard over the depiction of the Korean family. I think some things are common to all immigrant families.

I love a good historical and The Mapmaker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy was a rich imagining of the life of Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown. McCoy alternates the Sarah chapters with the modern-day story of Eden, a woman struggling with infertility. The two stories intersect beautifully. The book asks what it means to be a woman, to be childless. I kept thinking how much these characters would've appreciated Pope St. John Paul's II apostolic letter On the Dignity and Vocation of Women.


It's been a tough week with relentless migraines. I hate losing writing days. I don't think Jules minds though. It's easier to rub her pretty belly than write. Praying for relief. Michael wonders how I manage to read but at times like these, when taking a shower seems like a major accomplishment, books like these make me happy. Thank you to all the writers who tell their stories. Never give up!

 

Meets, Movies, and Music

How convenient! The three or four things I wanted to write about all start with an M. I have a fondness for alliteration. I'm finally caught up for a little while ... until the next deadline and it feels wonderful.

It's been busy with track season in full swing. Here's my girl! I'm so proud of her. I can no longer run so I take pleasure in the kids who do. This is what we do Wed. evenings. We miss Stations, soup, and choir practice, but we are able to pray and practice at home. We'll be singing Byrd's Mass for 3 voices again for Laetare Sunday.

 

Max is finished with robotics and they did so well in their competition, placing 20th out of 70+ teams. Each year they have improved. Right after, he participated in the intergenerational forum/debate. I was so impressed with the young men and women who competed and was very pleased with Max's points even though he did not win first place. Later he had a chance to speak with Senator Grooms and he complimented Max highly.

 

 



This Sat. we all slept in with robotics behind us. Rugby is still in session but we had a bye week. So Michael announced he'd like to take me out on a date! We went to see La La Land. The kids had already seen it and assured me I would love it and I wouldn't get a migraine. I've been doing so much better in Feb. so was game. It's been a couple of years that I've stepped into a theatre. La La Land is a modern love story but with the timeless theme of chasing our dreams and what it costs. It could be our story. It's a musical and reminded me of older movies of the 1940s. I may get sheet music for this. The theme song was beautiful but the song I choked up on was when Mia goes for an audition and has to make up a story. She talks about her aunt who inspired her. At first, her voice falters but then it turns into a song, strong and confident: "here's to the dreamers, here's to the heartache, here's to the mess we make." Indeed.

Coincidentally I read a few thoughts by Christopher West in the Catholic Miscellany. He said, "We’re often afraid to feel that deep “ache” of our hearts because we intuit that to feel it is to lose control of our nice, orderly lives. Yes, that is correct. In Christian terms, it’s called surrender or abandonment to God. Those who have the courage to feel the abyss of longing in their souls and in their bodies and open it up in complete abandonment to the One who put it there will, indeed, have “messy” lives … but messy in a beautifully hopeful way." 

I have always believed that our deepest regrets come from not pursuing the dreams God has placed upon our hearts. Falling in love complicates things. I've always believed that people are more important than things but to follow a person, you should have lifelong commitment, like marriage. For when it comes to dreams, it is far better to chase them together than apart. I think this is why my writing dreams are so sweet, because I am doing them with my family. As the children predicted, I did not get a migraine. Thanks be to God! Later we went out for Vietnamese Pho. Heaven!!! I've missed this so much. 

This is how I usually watch a movie: at home with a kitten purring on my lap :) I have to  entice them with their favorite toy because that's what they love best. We've watched many good movies but the big screen is a thrill, especially when there's beautiful choreography.

I've also been reading a lot of good books but I think this is enough for one post. But I must mention TEN EASTER EGGS. It's Lent, but if you wait until Easter, the books will be gone, even though the Easter season lasts 50 days. So if you have little ones in your lives, might I suggest it for their Easter basket? Happy Pi day :)
 

Writing and the Spiritual Life

In my email box I receive some choice quotes from the Bible and from the saints on a particular topic daily for Nineveh 90. Fr. Heilman has been including a meditation and in the past few days they've been from the writings of Fr. John Hardon. I'd never heard of him but his meditations are so beautiful, I decided to look him up and what a treasure I find in his archives. I recently bought a book for Max: How I Stayed Catholic at Harvard by Aurora Griffin: 40 Tips for Faithful College Students and one of her tips includes daily spiritual reading and writing (mine usually includes the pets). She references an article online by Fr. John Hardon. I love how God makes me pay attention. There are no coincidences. So without further ado, some quotes from Fr. Hardon on Why Write?


We have in life to master our minds, to control our thoughts. Writing disciplines the mind.

Writing controls and enables us to master our thinking. With our thoughts in control, as we know, every thought leads to a desire. Every desire leads to an action. Every action leads to a habit. Every habit shapes our character. And our character determines our destiny. It all begins in the mind.

Cardinal Newman explains why more people do not write. The reason, he explains, is that “I have to read what I have written. I must look at myself as I really am.” Writing is a mirror of our minds. And what we see, we blink [at]. What fool wrote this? I must see the vagueness of my thinking, the inconsistencies of my logic, the triviality my life; and the experience is humiliating.

Writing cultivates the memory.

Writing provides us with a moral inventory. St. Ignatius Loyola stressed the importance of a daily review of our conduct and it put into written form.

...writing in the spiritual life is so important to cultivate the art of speaking.

Too often we speak without first thinking. But we cannot write without thinking.

...“why write?” For the practice of charity in sharing our souls.

Oh dear. So many quotations. I cut out a few. Do yourself a favor and read the article. God bless and happy writing!