Family Life | The Catholic Realist

God Provides. Yes, He Actually Does.

Posted on January 22, 2014 by RRMM

I am 23+ weeks into my pregnancy with our happy surprise Baby #3 (a little girl). When I say she is a “surprise”, I mean just that. We are people who use NFP regularly and though we are pro-life and thus always ready to accept a new little life as God sees fit to give it, we weren’t purposefully trying to get pregnant with this little one (as we were with our other two). So, when, that 2nd little line showed up on a pregnancy test last fall, surprised is the best word to describe my reaction.

When it took 14 months to get pregnant with my first child, I learned quickly that God alone is the author of Life and only HE knows when it is best for a person or family to have a baby. Sometimes our will and His will line up (we were trying for a 2nd child and God deemed it to be the right time and we got pregnant quickly). Other times, it’s challenging to understand why God is or isn’t allowing a pregnancy to happen.

I have never once take for granted the gift of this new little life within me when I know so many people who would give anything to get pregnant and I am so thrilled to be having another little girl. But, from my limited perspective, I wouldn’t have chosen right now to be pregnant again! Read More

Two Wrongs CAN Make a Right…

Posted on January 10, 2014 by ymkbird

My husband and I are both passionate about raising loving, respectful kids whose strong relationships with Christ and His Church are lived out in their relationships and community. Sometimes, though, we disagree on our approach and I wonder if our different backgrounds have put us on completely different pages when it comes to reaching our parenting goals.

I’ve got advanced education in Pastoral Studies, Theology, and Teaching. My husband has advanced education in Administration, Teaching, and Social Studies.

I’m a cradle, Catholic-school girl Catholic. My husband is a convert.

There are times when I seriously challenge my husband to become more comfortable with and better understand the words, signs, and gestures of our faith. Sometimes he makes himself talk about (or listen to me talk with friends about) theology, Church doctrine, and what it means to be Catholic because I’ve shown him it’s an important conversation.

There are times when my husband seriously challenges me to remember that all those words, signs, and gestures mean nothing if we do not live as Christians in the real world. Sometimes I make myself to stop talking about theology, Church doctrine, and what it means to be Catholic because he’s shown me that it’s important to just be a Christian interacting with our world instead of talking about how Christianity interacts with our world.

There are lots of times I’m convinced he’s wrong. There are at least as many times he’s convinced that I’m wrong. Then there are those moments – those oh-so-precious moments when I’m missing the mark and he’s missing the mark, but together we are exactly right.

This week our 1st grade daughter was asked by her principal to represent her school by leading the pledge at the City Council meeting.

My response: I’m so proud of you! Because you are so kind and loving and respectful, you are showing people what it means to be a good Christian in our community, how to show Jesus’ love to everyone around you, and they are obviously noticing! What a great job!

My husband’s response: I’m so proud of you! Because you are so kind and loving and respectful, you are showing people what it means to be a good citizen in our community, how to make our world better, and they are obviously noticing! What a great job!

My daughter, who claims she wants to be either a teacher or a singer when she grows us, was instantly petrified. She didn’t want to do it – she was too nervous because she doesn’t think she knows the pledge well enough, she doesn’t know these people, and she doesn’t know what it’s going to be like.

I responded by telling her I think we should take a few days to pray about it first. I told her that sometimes doing good things and being a role model isn’t easy. We talked about how Mary said “yes” when God asked her to do something big even though she didn’t know a lot about what it was going to be.

So…she went to her dad and told him all the reasons she didn’t want to do it

My husband responded by telling her she should take a few days to think about it first. He told her that it would be a great chance for her to be an example for other kids in her school and that it would give the city leaders hope to see someone her age doing something so big. They talked about Rosa Parks and how little people can do big things that make them nervous if they do them by thinking about others instead of themselves.

My response wouldn’t have been right on its own – neither was my husband’s. But both of them together? We brought Church, State, and family together and I think all of us got a lesson from the ‘school of deeper humanity’…

2 wrong people + God = the right family.

Family communion can only be preserved and perfected through a great spirit of sacrifice. It requires, in fact, a ready and generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation.

There is no family that does not know how selfishness, discord, tension and conflict violently attack and at times mortally wound its own communion: hence there arise the many and varied forms of division in family life.

But, at the same time, every family is called by the God of peace to have the joyous and renewing experience of “reconciliation,” that is, communion reestablished, unity restored.

Familiaris Consortio #21

(Listen, I know that comparing standing up in front of the 6 people on our city council and reciting the pledge to Rosa Parks or, you know, the Mother of God is a little heavy handed and over the top, but it’s a pretty big deal to her! Plus, I am an English major and hyperbole is a legitimate way to prove a point!)

Epiphany Home Blessing

Posted on January 5, 2014 by ymkbird

Blessing a home recognizes God’s goodness in providing for us a home to live in, invites God to be present within our home, and dedicates our home to God. A blessing isn’t a magic formula that makes our homes holy; our homes become holy because of how we act inside them. Rather, it asks for God’s protection over the mind, body, and soul of those who live there. This kind of blessings bestows what the Church calls actual grace — the divine energy which the soul needs in the countless emergencies and difficulties of our daily struggle with the devil, sin, and our own fallen nature.*

Having our home blessed helps draw us closer to God, to Whom it is dedicated; and acknowledges that our home does more than just benefit our bodies by providing the tangible things like warmth, heat, shelter, etc. A blessed home can benefit our souls as well.

The Feast of the Epiphany has, for centuries, been a traditional time for families to bless their homes. This tradition likely came about because the Three Wise Men visited the home that the Holy Family had established in Bethlehem (before the flight to Egypt – after which they settled in Nazareth). The visit from the Wise Men blessed the home of the Holy Family because they came in humility to honor and pay homage to the Christ Child and because they were the first to not only seek Jesus, but also to recognize Him as the Messiah.

The Epiphany home blessing tradition has been more popular in Europe than in the US, but many American Catholics have taken up the practice as well.

What you’ll need:

Blessed Chalk**
Your Home
A person with spiritual authority over your home to lead***
Incense (optional – frankincense would be ideal!)

How to do it:

If you are choosing to use it, light the incense as a reminder of the gifts offered by the Three Wise Men.
The leader should say the blessing. There are a variety of Epiphany home blessing ritual prayers available (here, here and here). Choose whichever one you like.
Once the prayer is complete, the leader should use the chalk to write the following on the door (or door frame or lintel):

20 + C + M + B + 14

The three letters stand for the three kings who were traditionally known as Caspar, Melchoir, and Baltassar. (The initials, C, M, B, can also be interpreted as the Latin phrase “Christus mansionem benedicat” which means “Christ bless this house”.) The numbers are for the year.

Go through the home and write the blessing formula over each door within the home – especially the threshold, the dining room, and the bedrooms.

Gather as a family and discuss ways that you can seek and recognize God’s presence in your family and your home throughout the coming year!

* from: The Priestly Power to Bless by Ernest Graf, O.S.B.

** Chalk is customarily blessed on January 6, the feast of the Epiphany. Your parish (or another parish in town) may provide blessed chalk after Masses this weekend. If not, you can always ask a priest to bless some chalk. The blessing can be found here.

*** Just as there is a spiritual hierarchy within the heavens (choirs of angels) and a spiritual hierarchy within the Church, there is a spiritual hierarchy within your home. Top down it would be: A priest or deacon of the parish you belong to, another priest or deacon, the father of the home, the mother of the home.

Wise Men Still Seek Him…

Posted on January 3, 2014 by ymkbird

When I was a child, the magi’s story captured my imagination. I remember my parents drawing out the Christmas season through the Feast of the Epiphany. Presents stayed under the tree, decorations stayed up, the Christ candle at the center of the Advent wreath was lit, and even Christmas music echoed in the halls of our home all the way through January 5. Without fail on the day after Christmas, the wise men would begin their journey from the far east (sofa table) traveling a little each night while we slept as they made their way to Bethlehem (next to the fireplace).

One nativity in our house this year – with wise men, wise Calico Critters, wise ninja turtles, wise Batman, and wise Peter Pan… all seeking Him.

My adult imagination was sparked in a whole new way as I read how the early Church fathers interpreted the magi story in light of Old Testament prophecy:

Justin Martyr

Justin cites Isaiah 8:4, where the prophet predicts that “before the child knows how to call ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.” For Justin, the magi were priests of an eastern cult and practitioners of magic and astrology. The wealth of Damascus and spoils of Samaria represented the sorcery and idol-worship that the pagan magi gave up when they worshiped Jesus. The magi’s visit to the crib was thus their moment of conversion and the renunciation of their misguided, idolatrous practices.*

Origen

According to Origen, after the star appeared to the magi, they noticed that their magic spells faltered and their power was sapped. Consulting their books, they discovered the prophecy of the oracle-reader Balaam, who saw a rising star “com[ing] out of Jacob” (Numbers 24:17) that indicated the advent of a great ruler of Israel. The magi thus conjectured that this ruler had entered the world. So, the magi traveled to Judea to find this ruler, and based on their reading of Balaam’s prophecy, the appearance of the comet and their loss of strength, they determined that he must be superior to any ordinary human—that his nature must be both human and divine.*

Irenaeus of Lyons

According to Irenaeus, the magi offered Jesus myrrh (used for anointing corpses) to indicate that he was to die and be buried for the sake of mortal humans, gold because he was a king of an eternal kingdom, and frankincense (burnt on altars as divine offerings) because he was a god. As the first visitors to recognize who this newborn child was, and what his birth would mean to the whole world, the witness of the magi was not insignificant to these controversies. Their three gifts seemed to demonstrate their understanding of the three distinct persons who shared a single “nature” within the Trinity.*

The wise men did not simply seek Him, they were the first to recognize Jesus as messiah.

As the Magi strove to find the newborn king, may the Feast of the Epiphany find us not only seeking out Christ each day of our life, but actually recognizing Him as Priest, Prophet, King, and Messiah.

As the Magi renounced their magical idolatrous practices in the infant face of God incarnate, may we renounce whatever worldly idols have thickened the veil between us and Christ.

As the Magi blessed the Holy Family with their humility and homage, may our families be blessed humility and may we keep the adoration of Christ at the center of everything we do this year.

* From: The Magi in Art and Literature by Robin M. Jensen

The Cheerful Giver?

Posted on December 19, 2013 by RRMM

“Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor. 9:7)  

A few days ago, my mother came upon a woman in a Facebook group who was collecting donated goods for some families with children who were in desperate need this holiday season. Upon looking at the list, she felt like she could help them out with a good number of items. She contacted me to see if I had anything on the list that I would be able to contribute.

Just like most of us, I have plenty of extra things sitting around that, in all honesty, I don’t really need to keep hanging on to. Not only did I have a few things, once I started really looking, I found that I had a lot of things that I could pass on to these other families.

Giving away the goods was not the challenge of this act of charity. No, no. Physically handing things over to another person, family, or organization doesn’t take a lot of effort. I found where I really need to learn a lesson in giving and that is in my attitude.

Because, what good are all those items given to another if they aren’t given, as St. Paul says, “cheerfully”?
Read More

The ONE Thing I’m Thankful For

Posted on November 28, 2013 by RRMM

It’s that day. THE DAY when we make our obligatory list of “Things I’m Thankful For” and prepare to present it in front of family and friends around the Thanksgiving table.  We all know how the list goes: air, family, friends, health, job, home, football, pumpkin pie (in whatever order is preferable to you), etc., etc. All great things to be thankful for and generally worth mentioning.

I’ve been meditating on the “what are you thankful for question” a bit more this year, though, because I feel like saying, “Duh” when all those general gifts are mentioned. OF COURSE I’m thankful for my family and children, the blessings we have in the form of good health and a job and home and all the extraneous things that make my life what it is. I try to daily live my life as a woman who is aware of my many, many blessings and who regularly tells God “thank you” for them.

But, why? Why do I try to live in this mindset (or, really, HEARTset)? What is it that I am truly the most thankful for that allows me to be a person of thanksgiving, of praise, with a grateful heart?
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Music with Morgan, Billy, and Ylvis

Posted on October 25, 2013 by ymkbird

My kids have now reached the age at which we start having music fights in the car. Our travel playlist has become quite eclectic. For example, tonight we spent an hour in the car and our selections included:

This summer’s VBS theme song (Stand Strong)
Bon Jovi
Billy Joel
One Direction
The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Theme Song
Matt Maher
Elton John
Hakuna Matata
Kenny Chesney
Sidewalk Prophets, and
What Does the Fox Say

One particular song that hit our playlist tonight was Billy Joel’s Summer, Highland Falls. The lyrics of this song are so moving and beautiful that when I was studying poetry in college, I wrote Billy Joel a letter thanking him for the way he was able to evoke such emotion by pairing beautiful imagery with haunting melodies.

“It was by music that the ancient kings gave elegant expression to their joy. By their armies and axes they gave the same to their anger.” – Confucius

Just to give you a brief example:

We are forced to recognize our inhumanity
Our reason co-exists with our insanity
And though we choose between reality and madness,
it’s either sadness or euphoria.

You can listen to the whole song here:

I suppose it’s no wonder that I started thinking about lyrics considering that tonight’s playlist moved us from Billy Joel’s poetic genius immediately into One Direction’s Best Song Ever.

The refrain to that song?

I think it went oh, oh, oh / I think it went yeah, yeah, yeah / I think it goes oh

To say that One Direction is no poetic genius is putting it mildly.

To be fair, I must admit that I sang the “oh, oh, oh” and “yeah, yeah, yeah” with just as much gusto as I did Summer, Highland Falls – and with significantly more dancing. By the time we got to What Does the Fox Say, I had hopped down from my mental soapbox and forgotten all about my concern for modern song lyrics. It could be that I was just too busy trying to make my kids laugh by imitating the CGI fox dance moves at the end of the song without sacrificing my driving.

“Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Then, I got home and found this gem on my Facebook feed:

I listened to these classic actors, with their rich voices, reciting such banal…well…crap… and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Hearing One Direction (and Miley, and that idiotic Chinese Food song) in that context brought the point slamming home again.

“Music exists for the purpose of growing an admirable heart.” – Shinichi Suzuki

The songs whose lyrics are recited in that video (along with a thousand other modern pop and rock songs) make me want to laugh, dance, sing along, and bop my head. But while that makes those songs entertainment, I don’t know that it makes them music in the idealist sense.

“[Music is] the exaltation of the mind derived from things eternal bursting forth in sound.” -St. Thomas Aquinas

Truly good music has been a soundtrack of my life. From the heart swell that begins with the opening bars to “Over the Rainbow” to the short story revealed in Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” to the mind bending insanity of “Bohemian Rhapsody” to the tears that well up each time I hear the “Ave Maria” – in its purest and most ideal form, music evokes emotion.

I can’t say I get much emotion out of

“You a stupid hoe / You a / You a stupid hoe / (stupid, stupid)”

unless you count dismissive condescension as an emotion? (That was Nicki Minaj, btw.)

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents. – Ludwig van Beethoven

Maybe (probably) I’m over thinking it – and I’m still going to sing along with “What Does the Fox Say” – but every time I do, I’m going to imagine Morgan Freeman…

I’m also going to try to be a little more deliberate about including some truly great music in the car’s playlist.

Remembering 9/11: Sharing & Praying with My Children

Posted on September 11, 2013 by ymkbird

No adult can forget where they were or the emotional turmoil of September 11, 2001. Even if the frequency of our prayers or the urgency of our commitment to peace has wavered over the past 12 years, each September 11, we remember, we pray for our country, those who were lost, and those who mourn, and we recommit to working for peace in our homes, our families, and our world.

I sometimes find it hard to believe that while the emotions and images of that day are seared into my memory, my children will only read about it in textbooks and hear the stories second, third, and fourth hand. For them, September 11, 2001 will be like the Pearl Harbor bombing or the WWII concentration camps were for my generation – something understood intellectually, but not experienced emotionally.

There’s a part of me that is okay with that. I don’t necessarily want my children to experience the frightening emotions of that day and the weeks the followed. I don’t necessarily want my children to know the shock of watching the attack on our country happening live on TV or sorrow of watching people fall from building sides and hearing the death toll continue to rise. I don’t necessarily want my children to feel the bitter emptiness of the New York skyline. There’s a part of me that wants to protect them from all of that.

However, if I engage only in an emotionless dissection of the September 11 event, my children will also never know the hope and unity that, if only for a short while, overshadowed the fear, sorrow, and brokenness of those days. I do want them to know the feelings of comfort we got from gathering as communities to pray together. I do want them to experience the unity of “one nation under God” that we were at that time. I do want them to know that divisiveness and partisanship have not always been the name of the game in Washington. I do want them to feel the peace and hope that came from the stories of ordinary people demonstrating extraordinary heroism and compassion.

So, I will remember 9/11 with my children – not with clinical facts, but with all of the emotion those memories raise in me. I will be honest with them about what it was like to witness evil that day, and I will delight in sharing with them the many, many ways we saw good overcome evil, light overcome darkness, and hope overcome fear.

My grandfather was a POW who recorded interviews and about his horrific experiences in the German camps in WWII, and he presented me the model of how I plan to remember these events with my children. He never forgot the evil of that time in his life, but each time he shared a dark or frightening story, he followed it up with a story about goodness, about the human capacity for compassion and generosity, about the power of prayer, and about how he managed to find moments of true joy in the midst of tortuous pain and overwhelming fear.

Tonight and each year on this date, I’ll spend time remembering and sharing with my children the story of how we witnessed the Paschal Mystery of suffering and death leading to resurrection – of many tiny individual acts of good triumphing over a few big acts of evil. And then we’ll pray together – for those who were lost, for those who mourn, for those who still suffer from acts of terrorism, for our country, and for peace in our world.

Father,

We pray for all of the people who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. Comfort them and continue to guide them in your hope. Help us to honor the lives of those who died, through our thoughts and our actions, and grant them the happiness and joy of heaven with You. Fill us with love and forgiveness, and help us to live peacefully with each other.

As we see pictures and hear memories of the suffering and confusion of September 11, help us to remember all the good that you have put in Your world. Help us, most of all, to share Your love and promises with those we meet that are suffering and confused.

Amen.

adapted from
Peaceful Remembrance of September 11, 2001
Forty Days of Prayer for Children

(download PDF)

Do you talk about the events of 9/11 with your children? Why or why not? If so, how do you remember that day with them?

Television and Faith Through the Eyes of A Child

Posted on August 12, 2013 by ymkbird

About a month ago I had a conversation with my 8 year old son that went something like this:

Son: Mom, I know what the most important thing in the world is.

Me: Yeah? What is it?

Son: God

He didn’t say “duh,” but it was implied. At this point, I’m feeling pretty good about my Catholic parenting skills.

Me: Absolutely!

Son: Do you know what the least important thing in the world is?

Me: What?

Son: I don’t know, I thought maybe you could tell me.

My, how quickly those good feelings are replaced with much more familiar feeling that I am blindly groping through this whole raising children thing.

Me: Ummm…well…what do you think it is?

Let’s be honest: This is a classic parenting technique that should be known as “I have no idea, but am hoping you will talk some more so I can have time to think up a good answer.”

Son: Maybe money? But…even if money shouldn’t be the most important, it still is kind of important because we need it to buy food and gas and our house and stuff.

At this point, still floundering for an answer, I’m just grateful he didn’t include video games or Legos on the list of things we need money for.

Son (continuing): For a while I thought maybe the Devil was the least important…

Wait?! He’s been thinking about this “for a while?”

Son: …but even if he’s bad, he’s still important. I mean, he shouldn’t be important – we should just be able to ignore him all the time. But, we can’t, and we have to watch out for him – so I guess that means he’s kind of important too.

At this point in the conversation, I’ve ceased trying to come up with a good answer and am just soaking up the kid’s theological wisdom (and wondering why I paid so much for a Master’s degree in Theology when I’m getting totally owned by my 8 year old in a theological debate I wasn’t prepared for). I really don’t want him to stop, so I make an intelligent response intended to encourage him to continue and affirm the thinking he’s done so far. Read More

I Am Not Fearless

Posted on August 2, 2013 by RRMM

This morning, I brought my two children to a large playground that is in a more urban setting than most of the playgrounds by our home. Okay, it’s not like it was in the middle of downtown, but it’s right next to a large, busy intersection bordered on one side by a very upscale neighborhood and on the other side by less-than-upscale apartments. It’s a playground that is frequented by families with children, people of various ages and races, runners and bikers, and…….the people who make you nervous.

You know what I mean when I say that. And, I don’t say it to be mean, rude, or unloving. It’s a reality that all of us are familiar with, especially if you have children. Sometimes in public areas, there are people who put you a little on edge, who cause you to watch your children a little closer, who’s movements you watch out of the corner of your eye.

It happened twice today.    Read More