My (late) Post for Wear a Veil to Mass Day

I have read a number of testimonies regarding why women wear chapel veils. It’s not something I ever considered important when I was younger, and none of my close relatives choose to wear a chapel veil.

The story as to why I wear a chapel veil is perhaps different from others. I started out trying to solve a spiritual problem that I’d become aware of.

Sometime around Pitter Patter’s first birthday, she started getting a lot more active during Mass. I was still struggling pretty hard against the scourge of maternity brain. And the antics of an adorable little infant did not make paying attention during mass very easy. Not at all.

Why We're Trying Cloth Diapers For The New Baby

When I was still working, there was someone I worked with someone who really liked working from a hard copy.  It wasn't unusual at all for this person to generate 2 reams worth of paper in any given week. (I wish I was exaggerating.)

I tried to show him how to adjust the printer settings so he could print out double-sided copies, but his unfortunate response was, "I don't believe in global warming."

To which I would always, always respond, "That's no excuse not to be a good steward of what we've been given."

Reformation Sunday... Day of Prayer for Christian Unity?

In Daniel’s Small Church, there are a great many people who inexplicably feel the need to celebrate “Reformation Sunday”. In case you didn’t know, it’s this weekend (the last Sunday in October).

For the life of me, I cannot cipher out why people think this is an occasion to celebrate. A run-down of what happened:

One Year Ago...

One year ago, yesterday, a faithful servant went to meet our Master.

This is Wayne King. He was the pastor at Daniel’s small Presbyterian church for ten years, and a very good friend of ours. And before that, he and his wife, Julie, spent 20 years doing Bible translation work in Malaysia, for a language that - I understand - previously didn’t have a written form.

Sursum Corda: Here, here!

Original image from Pixabay.

I don't know if you saw Bishop James Conley's article, Sursum Corda in the National Catholic Register a few months ago, but I've been dying to write a followup on it ever since I first saw it.

The overall thrust of the the 4-page spread was this:
Reading is a lost art in our culture, and reading is necessary to reclaim our cultural identity.

I have two words to say in response:

Never Underestimate the Power of Your Village

Never underestimate the power of your village.

At our annual Mother's Day gathering this past year, my Mom was playing with Pitter Patter (as per usual), and I was not about to stop her.

When her mom, my Grammy, arrived with my godmother (Nanny), Mom immediately started to show Grammy all of the cool stuff that Pitter Patter knows.

She first started out with the things that I had worked on with her, The ABC's, "what's that letter for", counting, "what sound that animal makes", and then she started into the prayers Pitter Patter knows.

What to do When They're Not Sorry

Image from Pixabay.

So, you’ve had people hurt you accidentally, right?

They say they’re sorry and really mean it, make amends, and everybody goes their way. I’ve done that recently. It’s not too hard, even when the damage done is pretty serious.

Have you ever had somebody hurt you on purpose?

Harder, right? Harder, even, to think of a personal example, for most people.

Gratitude for the Small Things

If you've been reading for about the last two weeks, you've probably noticed two things.

(1) I have been incredibly busy.
(2) I have been sick.

Between being sick and having a funeral to attend, it's easy to get caught in the poor, poor, pitiful me's, like I did when I was first diagnosed with Hashimoto's. (Which, by the by, is even harder to eat for when your sick and ALL of your comfort foods are carbs.)

It's a good deal harder when you're dealing with problems to have a grateful heart, to think of all of the little gifts that God has given you along the way while he's been carrying you through your convalescence.

When the Retreat Isn't What You Hoped For

I usually go on a silent retreat in June with my mom. I know a fair few people for whom this would be sheer torture, but I absolutely love the fact that I get left alone all weekend.

On my retreats, there are usually talks twice a day. I’ve been on retreats where there are three or maybe four, but that’s about the limit. These talks are usually interesting and educational, and on a topic that has good application to my spiritual life. I’ve been to retreats on “Praying with Mary,” “Healing our Understanding of God,” “The Practice of Reconciliation,” and “The Beatitudes.” They were all wonderful.

This year was different. This year I found the retreat to be really lousy. I mean really lousy.

The Benedict Option: It's Attractive, but We Shouldn't Do It!

Original Photo from Pixabay.

I’ve seen a few posts in the not-too-distant past regarding something called “The Benedict Option.” I was intrigued by the the idea, and I did some reading.

• The Benedict Option: Why the Religious Right is Considering an All-out Withdrawal from Politics By Damon Linker @  The Week
• Is it Time To Hunker Down? by Fr. Dwight Longeneceker @ Standing on my Head
• French Religious History and the New American Intégrisme by David Sessions @ Patrol
• Benedict Option by Rod Dreher @ The American Conservative

What is "The Benedict Option"?

As I understand it, the Benedict Option is to withdraw from politics, just like St. Benedict did when he came to Rome, found its morality crumbling before its ultimate collapse, and established the first monasteries.

It’s mostly a response by some members of the so-called “religious right” to the realization that they might no longer represent the way most Americans think about matters of morality (the “moral majority”), because the country’s morality has “crumbled” just as Rome’s did.

This is only a partial characterization, but these were the details that stood out to me. It means that we would focus our evangelistic eyes inward only, and don’t worry about everywhere else.

The Primordial Sacrament: An Encounter With God

Original Photo from Pixabay.

I recently went on retreat on the seven sacraments, and the retreat master closed his first talk with a fairly cryptic statement, which he didn’t expound upon. He said, “The primordial sacrament is an encounter with God.” This is where I thought his talk really should have begun.

Encyclical-Mania

Everybody is ready to take up their colored pen

and mark up where they think Laudato Si' needs corrections.

This is a wrong attitude.

Original image from Pixabay. Text Added by Shannon Ball

I’d love to know how all of those people who had a statement on Laudato Si’ on the day it was released managed to read and digest a 184-page document in the four and a half hours between the time it was officially released and the time the encyclical was actually posted for public consumption on the Vatican’s website.

There’s no way I could actually digest that amount of theological writing in that amount of time.

Publishing something definitive that quickly is for the people who had their minds made up already.

It's Hard to be a Dad

In Holly Pierlot’s book A Mother’s Rule of Life, she identifies the five main priorities of a mom’s life, in this order: (1) Prayer, (2) Person (meaning, “self care”), (3) Partner, (4) Parent, (5) Provider.

I think they apply equally to a dad’s life, and in at least one way, I think Dads have things harder than moms, with these priorities.

Building the Kingdom with Less-than-Ideal Materials

Photo from Pixabay.

So, this weekend, we went on vacation to the Sand Castle Festival in Galveston.

It was a whole world of fun. The weekend included Pitter patter’s very first trip to the beach. She found the waves really captivating, and she kept running into them without any trepidation whatsoever. And she kept trying to drink the water, much to our chagrin.

But the real highlight of the trip was going to watch the early stages of building on Saturday morning (we couldn’t stay all day, because Pitter Patter is really miserable in the afternoons if she doesn’t get her nap)… We hoped to return Sunday to see the finished products, but it poured Saturday night.

The Baby Whisperer

So, we took a trip Easter weekend to visit one of Daniel’s cousins. His wife had their second little one about… a week before Easter? Something like that? (So… if we’ re being honest, we were really going to see the baby!)

Anyway, Pitter Patter, who talks up a storm, really, desperately wanted to communicate with the new baby - and with the best of intentions, she tried to meet him where he was and talk to him in his own language.

Artists Conception of Baby's response: "It's a monster!!!!"

After all, she still spoke “baby” fluently enough. Hasn’t been all that long since she was one. So she got down in the baby’s face, where he could see her, smiled congenially, and said, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

Two Things Love is Not

I’ve spent the last five weeks of reading reflections talking about love. What is it. How it animates our faith. How it should permeate everything that we do. Now it’s time to talk about what love is not.

It’s easy to assume that we know the full meaning of a word just because we can use it in a sentence. You can’t make that assumption with the word “love”.

And let’s exclude romantic love, and loving God, just to make the discussion simpler. Let’s just talk about loving someone as another human being.

There are two common fallacies about love that I think need addressing in light of John’s first epistle.

Growing in Humility

Lately, God has put it on my heart that I am not as humble as he wants me to be. I know it sounds like false humility to say it out loud (or in writing, as the case may be), but I really think it’s true.

I have been reflecting on it a lot lately. Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but I think that because humility is a virtue, it can be learned and practiced until it becomes a part of who you are, and hard to remove.

It is often easier to recognize a fault in oneself than to discover what to do about it. I have been struggling somewhat to discover how to grow in humility.

We are Wind Chimes

I thought I scheduled this to post yesterday, but evidently I have a gremlin "helping" me! Sorry about that!

I love wind chimes. Not enough to collect them, but I do think they’re beautiful, and I am fascinated by the amount of science that necessarily goes into making them. There’s a lot more than meets the eye that goes into the choice of pipe width and length, material, where to put the holes and strikers so that the intervals are right, and I’m sure you could get all the way down to talking about the physics of what kind of string will allow the chime to vibrate the most freely.

Wind chimes come in many sizes and produce all different sounds. Some chime, ring, knock, and rattle. Some produce sounds differently in cold verses heat. Some sound most beautiful in the rain; some will be virtually destroyed if they get wet.

Announcements

Today's Pots & Pans reflection will be delayed until tomorrow (sorry about that). I got a spark for a reflection kind of late in the game, and I thought I could write it up this morning, but the subject is proving just a little more involved than I thought. I'll be able to have it ready for tomorrow.

Also, I do not plan on posting a Pots & Pans reflection either next Monday (after Palm Sunday) or Easter Monday. In the chaos of family events, I don't want to have to worry about it. Naturally, if God decides he has something for me to post, I won't argue with him. I just won't be stressing about it if nothing presents itself!


"Pots & Pans"? What's she talking about?
I call my regular Monday reflections about things that God presents to me during the week my "Pots & Pans" Reflections.

I haven't done a real one in a few weeks because I have been posting my Lent series.

The name comes from something my Dad said to me when I was... pretty young. I wasn't in high school yet, that's for sure. He said that you have to be able to look for the Lord "in the pots and pans of everyday life," or else you'll never make time for him - that's really what I try to talk about in those reflections is finding the beauty of God in everyday experiences.

(Just in case you ever wondered, right?)

Post will be up tomorrow at the usual time!

Spring Cleaning

I attended a Catholic high school, and we had school mass once a month. That was back when I wasn’t really interested in my faith, so I wasn’t as excited as I should have been about going to mass.

I apparently was, however, paying enough attention that I still remember the Lenten meditation that we recited after communion during Lent each of the four years I was there. Well - I remember one line of it at any rate: Lent is the Church’s springtime. Lent is a time of reflection and growth. Lent leads us to Easter, and to new life. (I regret that I do not know where they got this reflection. If you do, please let me know so that I can give proper attribution.)

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that of all of the reflections for all of the liturgical seasons, that’s the one I remember. I also don’t think it’s any coincidence that Lent and spring coincide.

Lent is a good time to undertake some life simplification and spiritual spring cleaning. Removing the things that complicate your life also helps to remove the things that take your eye off Christ. I know that I find it much easier to sit down and pray when I’m not distracted by the clutter in my home - much less the “life clutter” that comes with drama.

One of the reasons that “spring cleaning” is undertaken in the spring is because for the first time in months, it not a bad idea to leave your doors and windows open. Before the days of air conditioning, the first warm days of spring meant that you could let a lot fresh air into your home for the first time in a while.

In those days, people would open doors and windows on the first warm, clear days of the year and do a lot of dusting, so that the breeze would waft in and carry the dust away. (You know, in the days before air conditioning and ionic breeze filters!)

How very good of the Lord to give us Lent and Spring at the same time. He encourages us first to open the windows to let a breath of the new life into our spiritual houses, and then to shake the dust from our apathy and get things really moving again.

We do a whole world of different kinds of things for Lent, but it really all comes back to this, we are doing what we can to open the doors and windows in our spiritual lives so that the Lord can breathe new life into it.