A Mary Moment Monday post

I take a lot of comfort from this insight from the pope:

Mary truly believed that ‘nothing is impossible to God’ and, strong in this confidence she let herself be guided by the Holy Spirit in daily obedience to his plan. How can we not desire that same trusting abandon in our lives? How can we not yearn for that beatitude that is born of a profound and intimate familiarity with Jesus? That is why, addressing the one who is ‘full of grace’, we can today ask that she intercede with Divine Providence for us too, so that we might each day proclaim our ‘yes’ to God’s plan with the same humble and sincere faith that the Virgin said her yes”.

Pope Benedict XVI, Rosary Procession, May 31, 2011

As we approach Pentecost, this link between Mary and the Holy Spirit, this way they have of working together, helps me glimpse how I can better lean back into the trust I need to have.

I haven’t thought much about how I need to “desire that same trusting abandon” in my life. In fact, I’ve come to realize, after reflecting on this, how very hard it is for me to trust.

On some levels, I trust way too easily and quickly. On many other levels, though, the ones that matter and are closer to my vest, I don’t trust.

Turning to Mary is not a remote effort. It’s not reaching out to a distant deity.

Mary is right next to me. She’s holding me, as a matter of fact, as I struggle with whatever challenges today presents.

And right next to her, without fail, is her Son, who’s never far from her.

image credit: MorgueFile

Around the house: The girls are up and watching some early morning TV curled under blankets. My boys are sleeping. The washer’s at work across the room and I’m thinking of what I need to do this morning.

In other places:

• A column I wrote for Pauline’s e-newsletter, “A How-To Guide for Catholic Family Fun” just went live.
• Steven McEvoy’s interview of me is up at Catholic Dads Online. It includes my answers to questions such as “When did you know you wanted to be a writer?” and “What does your typical day or week look like?” and an assortment of other questions about writing and reading and life.
• This week, I had some of the most fun I’ve had ever on a podcast. The folks at The FlagShip Galley Table invited me on and wow! I hope they invite me back! Listen to the great conversation about faith in fiction and you’ll find out what NOT to EVER put on a pizza.

In my kitchen: The floor is clean. And now the formerly quiet kids are demanding I make them breakfast. (They know about the stash of new flavors of Pop Tarts.)

In my thoughts: I’m thinking about a fun weekend visit, all I need to do in the coming week, and a host of things I’m grateful for.

In thanksgiving: For the support and encouragement of my family, for the weekly renewal of things horsey, for the weekend ahead.

In my prayers: A very special intention for someone I love dearly and a friend who’s mourning.

Nose inserted: Oh, these are goooood; it was all I could do to go to bed last night!

• Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins (fiction, YA)
• Wish You Were Here: Travels through Loss and Hope, by Amy Welborn
• Walking with God: A Journey through the Bible, by Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins – which I’m using for morning devotional time

Recent reads: I’ll be reviewing a number of these very soon in various places.

• The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (fiction, YA) – I read this because my sister-in-law asked me to, and I was rather surprised that I enjoyed it and even wanted to read the next book in the trilogy. My nieces have started reading it, and one of them told me that the movie is the BEST MOVIE EVER (she’s seen it twice and offered to go with me). I haven’t put my thoughts together coherently, but my early thoughts are that it’s almost like Lord of the Flies meets 1984.
• Style, Sex, and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter, Edited by Hallie Lord – Fun and informative, lovely and hilarious, this is sure to warrant the hype it’s gotten and earn it’s spot as a best-selling Catholic book. I’m reviewing it in length at CatholicMom.com next Friday AND giving a copy away. Stay tuned!
• The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years: The Nuts and Bolts of Staying Sane and Happy While Waiting for Mr. Right, by Emily Stimpson – I met the author at the Behold Conference, and I’ve enjoyed her writing online in various places, so I thought that, although the book didn’t appear to be anything relevant to me, I’d give it a shot. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Not only was it speaking to ME in many ways, but I marked passages and will be sharing more thoughts about it at length. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time, and I don’t say that lightly! I couldn’t put it down!
• The Work of Mercy: Being the Hands and Heart of Christ, by Mark Shea – I thought this book would be a drag, but I love Mark Shea’s writing and I thought I’d make it through it. What a delight to find that this book is the sort of thing I encourage our pastor to use for his Bible study, that I pass on to a good friend, and that I plan to reference and reread many times. Shea made the works of mercy so clear and so relevant that I found myself moved in ways I just never have been. It was touching, even as it was informative. In other words, I loved it.
• Fatherless, by Brian Gail – I picked this up reading all the acclaim and rave reviews about it and was really looking forward to it. After all, it’s Catholic fiction. However, I gave it three stars and found myself a bit disappointed. The story does keep moving and there are many parts that are compelling and thought-provoking. I had the sensation of being a bit preached to throughout, and I felt like it could have been about half as long and twice as effective. Nevertheless, I’ll be reading the other two books in the series (Motherless and Childless), so don’t think I didn’t enjoy reading it enough to continue. Three stars doesn’t make it a must-read in my categorizing, but it is worthwhile and better than drivel.
• Faith at Work: Finding Purpose Beyond the Paycheck, by Kevin Lowry – This is a great book, hands down. Kevin Lowry is approachable and I found that, though he wrote what is undoubtedly a business book, it’s applicable to all of us who work, whether we work at home or in an office or on the road. Lowry taps into his experience and his wisdom, shares his faith and his insight, and tops it all off with a bit of humor and perspective. I really enjoyed reading it and I will be encouraging others to read it as well.

Plea for advice: Anyone have suggestions for sharing links that isn’t FriendFeed? I thought it was going to be a great way to share in my sidebar, but I’ve caught that it’s been dropping the ball. If you have suggestions, I’m all ears!

A favorite thing: My seven-year-old’s penchant for coloring and the many beautiful drawings she is always making.

Food for thought: “Fasting, which can have various motivations, takes on a profoundly religious significance for the Christian: by rendering our table poorer, we learn to overcome selfishness in order to live in the logic of gift and love; by bearing some form of deprivation – and not just what is in excess – we learn to look away from our “ego”, to discover Someone close to us and to recognize God in the face of so many brothers and sisters. For Christians, fasting, far from being depressing, opens us ever more to God and to the needs of others, thus allowing love of God to become also love of our neighbor (cf. Mk 12: 31).” – Pope Benedict XVI, from his 2011 Lenten message

Worth a thousand words: My boy, who spent at least a half-hour a few mornings ago on the front porch, watching the traffic and pointing to all the trucks

The love:

I owe a lot of love, cheering, and a debt of gratitude for my nifty new web design to Dorian Speed of Convolare Design. She has spent more time than she should have dealing with my idiosyncracies, and here we are.

Isn’t that header pretty? And nice? And lovely? And…homey?

She used my actual window for that header. That’s what I see in my backyard. The plan is to update it with the seasons. And maybe I’ll find a way to insert a horse and some kids back there…

I do hope you’ll click through and see the whole new look. I’m still unpacking a few proverbial boxes, figuring out where things fit and all of that. She picked a theme that’s more mobile friendly, which I love.

I love Dorian, period. She was great to work with, did fabulous work, and I can’t recommend her highly enough. She also designed our parish website and does the full gamut of web design work.

You get her sense of humor for no extra charge. (I think it’s worth paying for, myself.)

The links:

Mary can be our Valentine, and that’s just what I consider in the latest Mary Moment on iPadre.

I’m app-happy, in case you hadn’t noticed, but I’m also fed up with ugly in apps. So I gave in to my desire and let loose on a call for beauty in apps in my Tech Talk column at CatholicMom.com.

I’ve asked myself for years if blogging has to lead to podcasting, and inspired by a conversation, I dive into that topic this week in my column at the Catholic Writers Guild blog.

There’s a great new prayer book for children available from the people who brought us our very tattered and loved-to-pieces Beginner’s Bible. My rave review is over at CatholicMom.com.

The folks at the Behold Conference (see you there?) invited me to guest post, and so there I am, talking about the importance of girlfriends.

Leaving you with this thought:

I found this in yesterday’s Magnificat (which I read through the app and which I so love), and I wanted to share it with you.

The danger of Catholicism is its power to help. It is a faith that even to those who do not believe seems to carry with it comfort and reality. Yet it is not wise to come to the Catholic Church because you need comfort. It is never wise to join any cause or any ideal for what one can make out of it or get out of it. We should come in for what we can give…

I think that the best thing of all is your devotion to our Lord. It is to give ourselves to him that we must come. It must be under the inspiration of his unselfishness, of his service to God in man and of man in God, that we seek to join ourselves to him: there were those who followed because they had been fed in the wilderness. This wasn’t enough. “Signs and wonders” are not good enough proofs; the only great proof is that people have followed him down narrow lanes and over uneven paths and wearing thorns and carrying their cross. It is along that line then that you must pray that he would help you to give yourself to him, patiently, indeed serenely. You won’t then bother about arguing or the need of it. You will just follow where he leads you, sure that all will be well: “Be not solicitous.” For the past, remember his injunction to let the dead bury their dead; for the future, remember that the morrow, so he said, would take care of itself. All that’s to be done is to hold oneself in the Everlasting Arms or rather be held by them. The rest is peace that comes of having nothing left.

- Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.

Around the house: There’s a pile of people–Daddy and girls–on my couch, watching a movie. The boy is dragging a stool around the kitchen counters, seeing what fun he can find.

What I’ve been writing: I’ve been treading water and keeping up with my weekly commitments. I have plans for a book proposal, though, and need to work on that soon. The idea is THERE, even sort of fleshed out, so it’s time to ACT.

In my thoughts: The HHS Mandate and the “compromise” that’s really a bait-and-switch. And Rick Santorum. And changing my blogging frequency.

In my plans: I have to get my PSR lesson done for next week. We have a few weeks off soon, and I’m hoping to get ahead, but no guarantees. There’s also rumor of a date sometime soon, and hey! Ministry scheduling next week should take some major time off my purgatory…

In thanksgiving: For the cuddles of children. For laughs with friends. For nieces who text me. For online games with extended family.

In my prayers: For a woman who’s expecting to deliver her encephalitic baby soon. For a woman whose five-month-old baby recently died. For some special intentions.

Nose inserted: I’m finishing Unbridled Grace: A True Story about the Power of Choice, by Michael Norman, this weekend. I’m debating which book is next. I’m trying valiantly to also read The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II–The Struggle for Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy, by George Weigel, but I’m not doing so well. I’m still in the first chapter. I need to set a goal of one chapter every couple of days, I think.

Links I like: (You can find more in the sidebar or on my FriendFeed)

• Canterbury Tales has a post that I used for an upcoming parish bulletin explaining the rules of fasting and abstinence. Now’s the time to brush up and get ready!
• Suscipio is doing a “Moments of Grace” link-up every Friday, and I’m so inspired by it! I’m hoping to join in next week.
• Karina Fabian shares five things writers shouldn’t do. Great advice and good reminders.
• Melissa Wiley cracks me up…and so does her husband.
• Brandon Vogt shares a video and considers what the most powerful tool for evangelization really is.
• Darwin looks at the fallacy food stamps as living poor.

Pick of the week: Pat Gohn’s “A God with Toes” at Patheos this week.

Food for thought: In my inbox this morning, courtesy of BenedictEveryday.com:

It is certainly not by chance that people are nowadays turning again to Mary, in whom Christianity becomes loveable again and close to us, and we really do find the door again through the Mother.

–Pope Benedict XVI

Worth a thousand words: From Jon Fitz

Courtesy of Jon Fitz

The road pointed out to you

is not a long one;

you do not have to cross the seas

or pierce the clouds

or climb mountains

to meet your God.

Enter into your own soul

and you will find him.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

via WordofGodEveryday.com

Mary, give me your heart:

so beautiful,

so pure,

so immaculate;

your heart so full of love and humility

that I may be able to receive Jesus

in the Bread of Life

and love Him as you love Him

and serve Him in the distressing guise of the poor.

Blesssed Mother Teresa

via Women of Grace Daily Grace Lines

“I’ve heard people say that forgiveness is for wimps. Well, I say then that they must never have tried it. Forgiveness is hard work. It demands diligent self-discipline, constant corralling of our basest instincts, custody of the tongue, and a steadfast refusal not to get caught up int he mean-spiritedness of our times.

- Marietta Jaegger-Lane, mother of a murdered child

via Women of Grace Daily Grace Lines

image credit

Around the house: It’s me and the boy. I finished doing the bills (which should have been done yesterday, but…weren’t, and I had a delightful reason why, too!) and nothing says “procrastinate folding and let the dishes sit a bit longer” like doing a weekend daybook, wouldn’t you agree?

In my thoughts: I have Mary on my mind. I’m struggling in an extra-special way today, and though I’m doing my best to put a good face on Advent, I’m sort of failing, and, well, Mary’s in my thoughts.

In my plans: Ah yes, my plans. They seem to be upended by a series of circumstances that could have me laughing or crying. I’m holding on to the reality that I can choose my response.

In thanksgiving: For work. For family. For chocolate.

In my prayers: Those who grieve, those who hurt, those who struggle with forgiveness.

Nose inserted: I’m juggling two books, though I have hopes of finishing one of them today: Ten Universal Principles: A Brief Philosophy of the Life Issues, by Robert J. Spitzer, and Fatima for Today: The Urgent Marian Message of Hope, by Fr. Andrew Apostoli.

Recent reads: Michael O’Brien’s The Father’s Tale. I’m planning to write a review yet this week about it. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year (though it is, admittedly, VERY long).

Links I like:

• Advent History: The Nativity Fast – Now here’s something I didn’t know about the history of Advent. What would it be like, I wonder, to go through a Nativity Fast of 40 days, a “Lent” before Christmas?
• Feel the joy! – This picture of Mary and Elizabeth is one of my favorites. I almost made it the background on my desktop, it moved me so much. I love the Visitation, and this image is now the one I’ll be using and reflecting on when I’m praying.
• Mary’s Last Words – This column considers the depth and meaning in Mary’s last recorded words in Scripture, “Do whatever he tells you.” There was a lot I hadn’t considered before and, as usual with Dr. Ted Sri, a thorough examination of Scripture in a way that, I think, will change my prayer and approach to it. Amazing stuff.
• Gay, Catholic, and Doing Fine – I just came across this link this week, though it’s from a while back. Who says you can’t be gay and Christian? My experience (in other matters) has been very similar as what’s recorded here. Our pastor has worked with Courage, and I was shocked–SHOCKED!–when, as a new Catholic, I found out that the Catholic Church has an apostolate to help those who have homosexual tendencies. I consider this a must-read.

A favorite thing: Bare baby feet.

Food for thought: “Particularly in our faith, we do not stand alone; we are links in the great chain of believers. Nobody can believe unless he is supported by the faith of others, and conversely, through my faith, I help to strengthen others in their faith.” Benedict XVI

Worth a thousand words: The Birthday Boy

We all need Mary’s help and comfort to face the trials and challenges of daily life; we need to feel that she is our mother and sister in the concrete situations of our lives. And so, that we too may one day be able to share in her same destiny, let us imitate her now in her meek following of Christ and her generous service to the brethren. This is the only way to have a foretaste, already on our earthy pilgrimage, of the joy and peace which those who reach the immortal destination of Paradise life to the full.

Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus Address
Castel Gandolfo
August 15, 2007
Via BenedictEveryday.com

Because I needed this:

We may well believe that the most sacred Virgin Our Lady received so much pleasure in carrying her little Jesus in her arms, that delight beguiled weariness, or at least made it agreeable; for if a branch of agnus castus can solace and unweary travellers, what solace did not the glorious Mother receive in carrying the immaculate Lamb of God?

- St. Francis de Sales

I also needed Karen’s little thought underneath:

With Mary as my guide, may I always let “delight beguile the weariness” that may accompany my vocation.

So instead of noticing, with every single moment, how much I’m feeling wearing, burdened, tired, and, well, icky, I’m going to try to notice the sunshine and the bright smiles, the precious moments and the song of the birds, the glitter of daily joy and the hilarity of life in the present moment.

Or something like that.