Here's the Whole Collection from the Series on the Rosary

I'm putting together all of the articles on the mysteries of the rosary from this past year, as a gift for John for Confirmation. 
First: Confirmation is Initiation, not Graduation.   Congratualations on getting to celebrate this sacrament, we're proud of you.  However, in addition to celebrating, I should point out, now the real work begins. 

Joyful:
First: The Annuciation
Second: The Visitation
Third: The Incarnation
Fourth: The Presentation at the Temple
Fifth: Finding Jesus in Temple
Sorrowful:
First: The Agony in the Garden
Second: The Scourging at the Pilar
Third: Crowning with Thorns
Fourth: The Carrying of the Cross
Fifth: The Crucifixion
Luminous:
First: The Baptism at the River Jordan*
Second: The Wedding Feast at Cana
Third: The Sermon on the Mount
Fourth: The Transfiguration
Fifth: The Institution of the Holy Eucharist
Glorious:
First: The Resurrection
Second: The Ascension
Third: The Descent of the Holy Spirit
Fourth: The Assumption of Our Lady
Fifth: Coronation of Our Lady, Queen of Heaven

In a twist of irony, the first luminous mystery, the one which gave John his name, is one I've not yet written about in this series.  I kept thinking I'd missed one and I had.  However, the piece I linked for that mystery, discusses how Confirmation perfects baptism, and so I thought it fit rather well.

Over at the Register

The final installment in my series reflecting on the various mysteries of the rosary is here at the Register. John gets confirmed next week. Now I need to go buy some printer ink so I can pull all these up and put them in a booklet for him. Mental note, to do a cross reference of all of them as a sidebar. Have a great weekend everyone. The final mystery I did is the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

Over at the Register This Friday!

For those who still feel curious, John has picked a confirmation sponsor. His next older sister will walk with him and be his sponsor for Confirmation.

Over at the National Catholic Register Today

with one of the last pieces in my series on the rosary.   It's on the Institution of the Holy Eucharist.  I've tried very hard not to rush any of these pieces, to let the situation dictate which one came next, but it seems to me very appropriate that the Eucharist would then be followed by needing to write on the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Descent of the Holy Spirit.   I'd love to say I planned it, but the only thing I knew, was Pentecost would be the last in the series, since all of these pieces were written for John as he prepares for Confirmation. 

I have to write a letter to him for his Confirmation retreat, but I'm not sure what I'll say.  I know my own Confirmation retreat included a story which blew my mind even though I lived it. 

Hey it's Friday. Time for an Update beyond Links...

I have two pieces to link up to for you today but I thought I'd start by saying...I'm thinking of redoing this blog because it's not so much a humor blog anymore.  It's not I've lost my sense of humor, it's that I've not found a venue for pure humor.  Instead, I'm using humor like salt on popcorn, as part of articles.   As such, I'm not posting as much purely free content. 

Over the years I've remodeled this blog to reflect the content, and even toyed with switching to wordpress.  Except when I tried, it posted every article as the same one, so that just didn't work. It was a terrifying moment for me when I thought I'd lost over 800 posts.  Imagine how I'd feel if I lost 2,585 of these things!  So I'm sticking with the platform that's served me, but it's probably time to retool the place if only to reflect the content. 

This week's Small Success Thursday  post over at Catholicmom.com is on "Being Joyful." My most recent piece at the National Catholic Register is part of the series on the Rosary.  This time, I'm trying to reflect on the Coronation of Our Lady.  My goal is to finish the remaining four (the Eucharist, the Crucifixion, the Assumption, and the Descent of the Holy Spirit), print them all up and give them as a present to John for Confirmation. (Along with a rosary natch).  I've loved having this series because it eliminated the question, "What are you going to write about?" or at least, gave me easy places to start.  The blank page without a format will prove a tad more daunting.

Perhaps I'll do the Doctors of the Church. I've already done the research, and after all, we should be more familiar with Saint Hildegard of Bingen and Saint Alphonsus Liguori than Matt Smith and David Tennant. 

Over at the Register Today

Today, I'm examining the Baptism at the River Jordan, and what it reveals for a person preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation:  Confirmation is an Initiation, not graduation in faith. 

Two Pieces to Link to Today

I'm taking a break from Facebook, but not writing.  So I'm letting you know where you can find my latest pieces.  One is about what we need to do in the face of being bombarded so often with reckless hate, with a rage that seems to never exhaust itself, and which seems to surround virtually all discourse, all reality right now.  

You have been hired out. Time to get to work.

Second, is the link to Thursday's Small Success Feature over at Catholicmom.com on Facebook.

Have a great day.  Enjoy these dog days of summer, they're fading fast.

Small Success Thursday

I invite all of you to come over to Catholicmom.com, even if you aren't Catholic or a mom, to stop and count your blessings from the past week. We'd love to see the joy you experienced this past week.

Confirmation 2016

Last night, my daughter got confirmed. Somewhere in that mass, in between the homily and the laying on of hands, I knew as one can only know through the Holy Spirit, how much He wants to flood our lives with grace.

My daughter chose Monica as her patron saint, and a family friend she's known since she was born, as her sponsor.   We talked about the seven gifts.  If I were to describe my daughter, I would say she has fortitude, kindness, a thirst for knowledge, and the right judgment to know, talent will only take you so far, you have to will everything else.  

She didn't feel well this morning, but went to school anyway.  She pushes through suffering, as something to simply bear, rather than complain about.   She practices.  She does first and second and even third drafts.  This is a child who despite my parenting, gets how you tackle the academic world.  It's work.

I sat marveling at this person we once worried we'd break because she was so tiny.   I can think of all the forging in her life, the loss of her hair (at 4), the seemingly at the time permanent crossing of her eyes (at 8), not being up to speed in reading when she compared herself to her peers or her siblings. (9).

I know she stressed about her weight, she stressed when her siblings teased her, I know she stressed when friends left the school.  I know when she cried and cried hard, but didn't curse her fate.  She pushed all the harder.   Her sufferings, though seemingly small, could have made her smaller still.  They didn't. They made her kind.  

If there's a motto to my daughter's life, it is "There's a way.  There's always a way.  I just have to keep looking."   She never lost faith, She is Faith.  

Sacraments are an outward sign of an eternal reality.   Confirmation just confirmed what we've watched growing for 14 years, a beautiful soul.  

Faith's Confirmation 2016

So You Want to Be a Confirmation Sponsor...

This is the fifth time I've watched as a child of mine prepares to be confirmed.  Confirmation is my very favorite sacrament, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, my favorite mystery of all the mysteries. Agreeing to be a sponsor, like agreeing to be a Godparent, is a lifelong job of evangelizing the other person, steeping them in the faith.  It isn't a show up on this evening in the Spring dressed nice, sign a paper and we're good.  It's a promise to God and to that person and to the church, to pray for this person, walk with them in faith, and advise them when necessary. To be a sponsor is to be a conduit of the Holy Spirit both now, and from now on, in the life of this new adult in the church.

The big question one must ask, is how do you do this?   Here are some starting steps:

1) Pray. I mean pray for the candidate and with the candidate.  If you can't go to mass with the person preparing for Confirmation, go to mass for them, and call to talk about the readings.  Offer a rosary. Spend an hour in adoration a week.  But do something to grow your own prayer life and fold that person who selected you as a person to guide them, into those prayers.  If you already pray for 30 minutes per day, give the candidate an extra five all to themselves.   (And this is forever so it doesn't stop because they're confirmed, confirmation is the beginning of their adult life in the church).  

2) Sacraments.  Confession and The Eucharist are a must.  Being as free from sin as possible requires vigilance in any soul, and being responsible for an other's formation will require extra graces.   

3) Educate yourself.  For some, the last time they attended a confirmation, it was their own.  Brush up on the sacrament, on the seven gifts, spend some time discerning what specific gifts of the Holy Spirit you most gravitate toward and why.  

4) Think of examples in your own life of when you've known the Holy Spirit acted through you, and begin telling them to the candidate.  Confirmation sponsors are to give testimony to the candidates of the reality of our faith.  The Holy Spirit isn't hocus-pocus.  It's the third person of the Trinity and very real.  You need to be ready to tell your story of your encounters.

5) Ask your candidate why they want to become an adult in the church.  Ask why they chose the saint they chose, what they liked about the service project, why they chose you as a sponsor.  Ask them what they think an adult in the church is supposed to do.  Ask them what they believe and why they believe it.  Be ready to listen and answer questions.  (That's why boning up on your own knowledge of the sacrament and focusing on your own encounters with the Holy Spirit are necessary prep work on your part).  

6) Spend time with your candidate.  Not just in prayer, not just at the sacrament, but on going, at lunch, at holidays, after masses over coffee and donuts.  You'll deepen your own faith even as you forge a lifelong friendship over what matters most.   

7) Lastly, ask your candidate to pray for you on a permanent basis.  

Good luck, and thanks for taking on this vital role in cultivating the faith of others.   

7 Quick Takes Friday

1. Last week was the Erma Bombeck Writer's Conference.  I didn't attend because I'd just spent time in Miami with my husband the weekend before and that would have been too much too much. But I missed it when I heard what all my writer friends were doing. It sounded like a blast. The next one is in 2014 so maybe I'll get to go then...and be a speaker. 

Back in 2008 when I did attend, I did stand up.  I'm putting it here for those who didn't get to see it.  Warning: It is rough (first and only time doing stand up), and bawdy so my kids have not seen it, but it was fun.  And it's permanent, so my kids can laugh at me when they're adults or be mortified that it's still on the Internet.  

2.  Planning a change.  I host Small Success Thursday here on Thursdays (Natch), but it hasn't taken hold. I've asked to move the venue to Catholicmom.com where it seems, it would be a good fit.  I'll let you know if that happens and then we can all go there to post our week's triumphs over minutia.

 I can't work under these conditions...heh.  I just wanted an excuse to post this picture of my Diva Queen.

3. On a more serious note, my daughter is getting confirmed next week. 

Before my sister got confirmed, she'd written me a letter asking "What is an experience of the Holy Spirit?"  The question seemed bigger than anything a new mom at the age of 26 could muster so I asked lots of people to answer the question as best they could. The question still stands because even with all the answers (which were lovely and brilliant), there are still more answers because the Holy Spirit is infinite and speaks and breathes through all of our lives as much as we permit.  

So what generically is an experience of the Holy Spirit? It is a moment of grace, a moment when we know, we have somehow stepped out of ourselves for others and that this is a gift, a moreness than we would have given if left to our own devices. 

The how of that experience is as diverse as our lives, as our needs, as the world around us.  Being called to prayer, to serve, to listen, to ask the right question, to go be with someone, to live out the beatitudes in that moment, to be present, fully present as the Eucharist is fully present to us, that is an experience of Holiness, and that Holiness is the Holy Spirit at work in us.  Pray for my daughter as she prepares this last week before Confirmation, and for all receiving this sacrament.  It is a beautiful day for them and the beginning of adult Catholic life. 

My daughter at Easter, a gentle heart and modest spirit.

I don't have many pictures of her because she prefers to be the one behind the camera.

4.  Day 6 of South Beach.

So naturally, I'm hosting a party this weekend and will be surrounded by

and

However, I'm down 7 pounds so I am bragging here to steel myself for the weekend.

5. Momentary distraction/rant.  Memo to Hollywood: GO READ A BOOK ALREADY!

Because movies like this:

And this:

are just not going to get me to fork over 20$ to sit by my lonesome, let alone spend valuable date night time not eating popcorn, sitting through CGI created mayhem based on games that I spend countless hours picking up off the floor for fear of a child choking. 

When Hi Ho Cherrio and Checkers make it to the big screen, I'm going to just declare Hollywood dead, host a Cinematic wake using good flicks and microwave popcorn with real butter and wait for someone with a brain to start working in tinsel town.  These sort of films exist because teenagers no longer can afford to go on dates at the movies. I'm sure of it. Bring your own Junior mints.

6. Now I am a visual person. Movies stay in my head forever. So I don't watch scary films because they stay in my head.

My brother gave us a series, Firefly. It's good. We like sci-fi and as such looked forward to watching one show a night to go through the series as a home date. The other night however, the episode focused on one of the villainous races, Reavers, men who go psychotically mad in space and become self mutilating murderous savage raping cannibals. It took hours for my brain to settle down enough to allow me to rest.

Sci-fi is to me one of the most difficult genres, because many people think sci-fi is about the technology. It's not. The technology should be like the technology in my house even though it is futuristic or in space, it should be a source of almost no interest in the same way, I'm not interested in talking about my dryer as long as it's working. The story is humanity carving out meaning and purpose and identity in a universe that threatens to dwarf and diminish the soul by its immenseness. 

So Firefly so far, is wrestling or trying to wrestle with bigger questions than whether the warp conduit is needing a complete overhaul and thus, I'm intrigued. However, I'm just going to keep my Wikipedia spoiler page open before each episode to see if it is compatible with sleeping after night time viewing.

7. Pinterest and me.

This week, I tried Pinterest.  I do not yet get it, but I see other people's pages and I'm thrown back into high school mentality, when everyone else had things much more figured out than me and not only that, what they had figured out was so very cool.   So I'm going to do what I did in high school, hang out near the cool kids and easedroop until I get the hang of things...it may take 4 years.

 

Small Success Thursday

1.  It almost didn't happen and not because she wasn't ready or prepared. Her dress was beautiful. She was beautiful.  We were all ready to go, we had a babysitter and the pizza had arrived and even the two draftee volunteer altar servers were even moving at the right speed to be there on time for when the DRE wanted us to be at the Church.  Getting into the car, the zipper completely split.  After managing to jam it back up, we got in the car.  But halfway there, she began considering what had happened.  "I can't do it Mom."  Now my normal default setting is grit your teeth and tough it out but I'd fixed the split. I'd seen how bad it could be.  I didn't want my daughter's memory of her Confirmation to be one of humiliation, nor did  I want her to spend the whole evening worrying about her dress. 

I offered to stop at the mall, run into the store where we bought it and grab a same dress and worry about the return later.  "No!"  I offered to let her wear my dress and I'd just wear gym scrubs and sit in the back.  "No!"  I prayed for wisdom.  "We have to at least tell them.  But we can do the bi-lingual in June."  She nodded.   Flagging down her teacher to give the news, the teacher went out to offer a shawl or a wrap to mask the potential flaw but Bonnie gave me a pleading look and I said, "I know she wants to be confirmed, but none of us want her to worry about modesty."  She got back in the car.

Driving home, she cried and I said, "I wish I could make it better."  "We'll hold a giant party after the one in June." I was grasping for anything.  We got home. She went in my room to ask for help getting changed.  "Do you want to try on any of my dresses?"  She nodded.  The purple bridesmaid dress was too big but not by much.  The black and white gown from an Inaugural Ball however, was perfect.  "Let's go Mom!" she said and marched out.  I followed.  Mass was starting in ten minutes.  "Hopefully, the candidates are following Mrs. Shelley's advice to walk slowly." she joked.  We were silent for a time.  Then she said the prayer of her patron saint, Joan of Arc. 

"In the face of your enemies, in the face of harassment, ridicule, and doubt, you held firm in your faith. Even in your abandonment, alone and without friends, you held firm in your faith. Even as you faced your own mortality, you held firm in your faith. I pray that I may be as bold in my beliefs as you, St. Joan. I ask that you ride alongside me in my own battles. Help me be mindful that what is worthwhile can be won when I persist. Help me hold firm in my faith. Help me believe in my ability to act well and wisely. Amen." 

Then she turned to me, "I've said a decade of the rosary and my prayer to Saint Joan, I'm going to be confirmed. Too bad I couldn't wear armor to be confirmed, that would have been easier."

"Saint Joan would understand." I joked back and she gave me a smile and flipped through the Cd's to put on the Eagle's "Life in the Fast Lane." We had just come to a red light.

"Not exactly music to prepare for Confirmation hon." I mentioned.

"Mom, it's not music for Confirmation, it's music to GET ME TO IT!  TURN GREEN ALREADY!" she shouted at the light.   The light turned.

"Think we'll make it?"
"Well, it is 6:08.  If they started on time, they've done the procession, maybe the servers are a bit nervous and so my brother and sister will be moving a bit slowly.  Maybe they've sung all the versus of the opening hymn and just finished the opening song." she reasoned.

I turned into the parking lot and air dropped her at the front.

Any story with a happy ending is a funny one.  She made it. She even made it in time to correct our pastor who thought she was not attending and was just announcing that she was not attending.  Confirmation happened and she looked beautiful.   My husband joked, they should tell us things start two hours before they do to allow for the things that happen to us to unfold as they always do.  "Just think about weddings."  I cracked back.  Both our hearts did somersaults at the mere thought of how fast time passes in an instant when we consider where her life was now going.  It is breathtaking to watch one's daughter grow up. But she got confirmed.  It counts!  We offered to celebrate.  She asked if we could go home so she could change into an old t-shirt and shorts and if Dad could pick up KFC for dinner.  So maybe, growing up isn't so fast after all.  I'm so glad.

2. Proof I am crazy but it's treatable because I called my sister.  Today, the day after Confirmation, my daughter has a special presentation where she's supposed to teach about one of her heritage cultures.  She chose France. She's supposed to bring a food. She asked me to make Chocolate moose.  Having ruined my first attempt this morning, I called my sister.  She's the smart one in the family.  "Sherry, go to the store. Buy Crossiants."   Going to the store after I finish this. 

3. Had a piece in the Catholic Standard today. 

http://www.cathstan.org/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=19&ArticleID=3846

Have a success?  Go Share it at Family and Faith!

What is an Experience of the Holy Spirit?

It's a question that has stayed with me over the years.  What is an experience with the Holy Spirit?  My sister asked it of me when she was preparing for confirmation, 17 years ago. What she was asking was essentially, how do you know when God is using life to instruct you and offering grace if you aren't fortunate enough to see flames or begin speaking in tongues or see the Spirit descend?  How in this scientific empirical world, can we know God is with us? 

The Holy Spirit has always been to me, my closest touch to God.  When I was very young, my parents took me to a charismatic retreat.  They told me they would pray for my throat to be healed.  That weekend, I remember there being a pool and wanting to swim.  I remember my mother cleaning my tracheotomy and bandages in the hallway of our home.  She didn't tell me she had plugged me up.  It was the first time I was ever able to talk and not turn instantly blue after having the artificial airway closed.  It was a healing that hadn't happened in six years of trying until we asked once more. 

Two years later, when the tracheotomy was finally removed, my father took me to a jewelry store and bought her a golden sand dollar necklace with the date engraved on it.  He told me I could pick out anything I wanted.  There were bunnies and butterflies and flowers and hearts.  I picked a descending dove.  I still wear a replica of that medal today.

My oldest daughter is receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit on Wednesday.  And I am still seeking a means to tell her the answer to that question my sister asked of me so long ago.  It is hard to explain except in context, for the Holy Spirit is always infused into our lives, always permeating everything, always seeking to saturate our lives with the fullness of God's love.   When my sister asked this question, I farmed it out to all the people I knew who held their faith lives dear. 

The result was a collection of letters including a story by my dad about his brother who through and despite his madness, was used by the Holy Spirit to serve the hidden poor with his generosity. My Uncle loved deeply and suffered greatly but he was fun; he could take in the poor even as he was being taken in by the poor.  This man with the tattoos also put up reminder notes in the bathrooms for his brothers and sisters to pray for me when I was first born.  He also made everyone get up in the middle of the night to say the rosary.  He was also my sister's Godfather.  The Holy Spirit specializes in tapestry weaving of our lives.  What we see as loose ends, God uses to tie others into our lives and all those in Heaven hope we will recognize the patterns of this great tapestry and seek to follow along.  

There are seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; wisdom, understanding, good counsel, courage, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.  We can know we are of the Holy Spirit and acting from the Holy Spirit by the fruits of our actions; charity (or love), joy, peace, patience, benignity (or kindness), goodness, longanimity (or long suffering), mildness, faith, modesty, continence, and chastity. The fruits cannot come except through the gifts and all reveal God's love and our love for God and others.  We can know when we are not acting in the Holy Spirit if we encounter ourselves engaging in the opposite of these fruits.  It's not difficult to recognize, though it is often difficult for us to comply.

The impulse to think of someone else, to do something, to say something, to offer a compliment when none is called for, to pick up the phone to speak to someone we love just because we love them, these are the whispers of the Holy Spirit to us, calling us to be luminous to others. We do not need to be sane or well or young or old to hear and follow those whispers; only listening and obedient.  Anytime we act beyond what we wanted to, serve more than we wished to, did more than required but with willing hearts, we are being luminous towards others and we are following the whispers of the Holy Spirit. 

So I'll ask for your prayers for my daughter and all the daughters and sons that prepare for this sacrament, and that there lives may be luminous mysteries, permeated with the Spirit.  For it is only in the weaving of all of our lives with God's love, that we will make the world into a cloak of pure beauty. 

Thanks.

P.S. And if you want to share an experience of the Holy Spirit to help flesh out the fullness of what it is to experience the whispers of God, I will present these to my daughter along with my own.