Lent--Week 1--Otherwise Known as "Yeah, I Suck"

Warm, gooey deliciousness.

Yeah.  I suck.  Which, frankly, I think is part of the point of Lent.  To point out to us how completely fallible and inadequate we mortals are.  Remember my lame Lenten penances and plans for devoting more time to specific areas of my prayer life?  Well, so far, I've stayed away from soda.  Pretty sad when you can make and eat chocolate chip cookies and not realize until the next day that you've violated your penance.  And my prayer plans?  Totally shot.  My only hope lies in the fact that there's still plenty of Lent left to get it right.  :-)

And believe me, I want to get it right.  I find myself caught in the rather contradictory position of assigning great importance to this year's Lent.  Contradictory because it's my first Lent, and as such, unlikely to be my best.  But at the end of this Lent comes my first Communion--an important event for us converts, not altogether dissimilar from your wedding day.  Which is an apt analogy, given how often marital imagery is used in describing the relationship of Christ to His Church.  And so, the season of Lent becomes akin to the time of preparation for a wedding.  At least, it does in my mind, on this particular year.

I look with a particular sense of awe on those who seem to give up practically everything for Lent. They've gone vegan for the season, given up sweets of all kinds, given up seasonings on their food, and fast on bread and water every Friday.  Maybe someday.  For now, such severe restrictions on my own diet would require preparing separate meals for myself, which seems pretty impractical, not to mention hard to stick to.  I know, I know.  Hard is part of the point.  But I have a real fear of failure.  And not just the little, "Wait, were those chocolate chip cookies I ate yesterday?  Oops." kind of failure, but the explosive crash-and-burn kind of failure.

Still, I feel like I should be stepping it up a bit.  But, as with choosing a penance in the first place, I'm not sure specifically how.  Something to think on, perhaps.  Or maybe I should leave my penance alone, and give more focus to the prayer end of things, which has already been a spectacular crash-and-burn.

But for now, I'll settle for actually remembering all day tomorrow that tomorrow is Friday, and I'm not supposed to eat meat.

Yeah.  I suck.  :)

Mommy Guilt, Meet Catholic Guilt

Every mom on the planet knows about mommy guilt.  It's that member of the guilt family that tells her she isn't doing enough for her kids.  She could be homeschooling ten kids and making sure each of the ten participates in the art/music lesson and sports team of his/her choice, making her own laundry soap and homemade granola, growing organic produce for the family, and piecing together fantastic birthday parties on a shoestring.  Doesn't matter.  She is never doing enough stuff, and doing it well enough.  Lest you think I come close to this depiction, let me point out that this is, in fact, a description of my personal ideal (though I only have four kids).  And yet, I am quite sure that if this woman exists, she still suffers from mommy guilt.  There will always be something that it seems as if someone else is doing that you aren't, or maybe they just seem to be doing it better.

In my particular world, the sink is full of dirty dishes (every time they hear the water running, all hell breaks loose, I swear), the floor desperately needs to be mopped, and I have been after the children to clean their bedrooms and do their chores for. . . well, ever.  Child #1 can't get along with #2, who can't get along with #3.  I am dealing with PMS, or so my FCP tells me, and they insist on pulling the mattresses off their beds to make a landing pad for flights from the top bunk.  ~sigh~  Nothing I try works, and it is on these days that mommy guilt moves in and gets comfy.

Now, since I began to explore the Catholic faith/culture, I've heard tell of a little thing called Catholic guilt.  But in several months of being a practicing Catholic (am I allowed to call myself that at this point?), I had never encountered it.  Or so I thought.  I realized this evening that I've actually been dealing with Catholic guilt for a while now.  It just disguised itself under the larger banner of mommy guilt.  See, during Advent, we started a little tradition of gathering around the Advent wreath in the evenings to light the candles and do our readings.  It was a nice thing, I felt.  A good tradition, and a way of bringing faith home for my children in a way my family never had as Baptists.  I wanted a new tradition for after Christmas, to replace the prayers, readings, and candles of the Advent season.  So, I made each of the kids a tenner (single-decade chaplet), and began, one at a time, to teach them the mysteries of the rosary.  We started with Joyful, since it was a natural fit for the Christmas season.  And I must admit that I fell off the wagon fairly quickly.

You see, my mother lives with us.  She is not Catholic, and feels (I think) alternately baffled and betrayed by my conversion.  Advent readings were largely applicable even in a multi-denominational setting.  Hail Marys, not so much.  So, I became uncomfortable with the whole thing almost immediately, for fear I was upsetting her.  

But the children were in LOVE.  However, other things, as they have a tendency to do if you let them, disrupted my routine as well.  So now, I face a new breed of mommy guilt--Catholic mommy guilt--at bedtime many nights.  Like when my sons want their Bible story, candles and prayers (usually brought up during the course of the bedtime wars as a way to put off sleep), and I have to tell them no, because I'm busy with other things that can't really be put off, and I think it's a bad habit to get them used to asking for different things at bedtime just to stay awake.

Don't tell me; I know.  What I need is a genuine bedtime routine that includes their prayer time.  I just seem to have trouble establishing one.  Routines have never been my strong point.  Perhaps it's something I should work on for Lent.

For now, however, I made the mistake of giving #4 a nap today.  Which means we're still awake at nearly 2:30 a.m. on a night when we have to be up at 6:30.  Bleh.  I love that awkward phase where a nap means you will be up all night, while no nap means your sweet child will become a holy terror by suppertime (and exhaustion means you will be babbling and publishing it, lol).  And I'm trying to figure out if there's a Redbull loophole for the person who gave up soda and chocolate (yes, it turns out I really am that lame) for Lent.  Thinking I'll be stuck with coffee, since Redbull is carbonated.  And surely even loopholes are closed on Fridays.  :)

Jokes Only Catholics Get

Maybe it'll become a feature, who knows?  But I was in McDonald's a couple days ago with a friend of mine, and I happened to see this on the menu:

Thanks to a friend for taking the pic for me.  Busted camera and all that.

And I cracked up.  And no one got it.  

Dear McDonald's, are you trying to help us or hinder us?  Really?  Encouraging the sin of gluttony--for LENT?!?

Now of course, many of us will be sensible.  We will order an extra sandwich, perhaps upsize the meal, and split it with someone else.  And some of us will not.  Which is what ol' Ronald is hoping for, I'm sure.  :)

Happy Lent, people!

Ashes and Ice Cream

So.  It's my first Ash Wednesday.  Except that it's actually Shrove Tuesday--more commonly known as Fat Tuesday, from the tradition of eating everything delicious in the house, so it doesn't tempt you during Lent.  I'm familiar with the concept; it's how I've started a fair number of diets.

So, how is it both?  Well, I'll tell you.  For the few who don't realize this I live in a very small town.  There are few Catholics here; in fact, only about three people (aside from myself and my kids) who regularly attend at our parish are unrelated to the core group.  By necessity, we share a priest with a neighboring town.  Obviously, Father Dan cannot be in two places at once for the actual Ash Wednesday Mass, so we got to have ours this evening.

So, we assembled at the church at 5:50 this evening for Stations of the Cross.  I took all my children, which, I think, gets me a jump start on my penance for the season.  ;)  They've been a collective handful today!  Got my ashes.

No, that's not me.  My priest is not so precise, lol.

Just for purposes of clarification, most pictures from this new point in the blog until I actually buy a new camera battery are pulled from the internet via Google.  But anyway. . .

I then decided I should embrace the whole experience and have something decidedly unhealthy and unpenitential this evening for dessert.  Which is how I found myself in the store buying ice cream, and being asked, 

"Oh, my gosh, Cassi!  Who hit you in the head?!?"

Yeah, apparently when you forget to wash your ashes off, and they sit there a couple hours, they become mistakable for a bruise.  :)  My bad.  The question was answered by the lady checking me out faster than I could process what the one asking the question was talking about; apparently I was not the first Catholic to go through G&S tonight.  In a town this size, not exactly surprising, especially since a couple of us actually work there.  But I digress. . .

And I still really don't know what I'm giving up for Lent.  I may end up going with something ridiculously cliched, I don't know.  Now don't get me wrong.  It's not like I have NO Lenten plan.  I do, really.  I've downloaded several works of the Saints that I intend to read (at least some of; I'm not fool enough to think I'll get through it all), I'm going to keep chipping away at the Catechism, and as far as prayer goes, I aim to spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament each week and pray a daily rosary.  Almsgiving is a bit tougher when you're short on cash, so one has to be creative.  Brainstorming ways to actually give, but I haven't cemented a plan yet.  While I aim for some giving in the classical sense (I do have a cause in mind that's near to my heart), I also mean to step up my service to my family.  Some of you may scoff at this notion as not real giving.  If so, you don't know me as well as you think.  

But penance.  Penance is the one that has me stuck.  To be honest, at first, my plan was to give up yelling for Lent.  I thought it was genius.  I'd challenge myself, and work on one of my spiritual weak spots at the same time!  Then I read somewhere that you can't give up bad habits.  Not that you CAN'T, obviously, but. . . not as a form of sacrifice.  And that makes sense.  A sacrifice is a good thing or pleasure that you give up.  The children of Israel didn't sacrifice their sick or lame livestock.  God would only accept a perfect animal as a sacrifice.  So, back to the drawing board.  But I'm rather afraid I'm going to end up giving up something lame like chocolate.  :(

Of Barf and Benedict

When the first thing you hear in the morning is the voice of your child announcing, "Mom, I barfed in my bed," it's just not going to be a good day.  That notion was cemented by the discovery that he had, indeed, barfed in his bed. . . and on his wall (right where I'm currently doing plastering work), and in between his bed and the wall.  They can't ever make it easy.  :-\  Of course, while I set to work moving furniture and cleaning up the mess, the sick child ambled into my room, curled up in my bed, and went back to sleep.  The upshot is he seems to be doing fine now.

And then I turned on my computer.  And found out that not only is it a lousy day to be a mom, but it's a lousy day to be a Catholic, too.  :(

Pope Benedict XVI announced his retirement this morning--an unprecedented thing, really.  It's been around 600 years since a Pope retired instead of dying in office.  I'm a fresh enough Catholic that I didn't even realize a Pope could retire.  Though I was a Baptist with no thoughts of conversion at the time, I watched the papal election proceedings after JPII died with moderate interest.  I remember seeing the smoke signals from the Vatican, and the announcement that a new Pope had been chosen, Cardinal Ratzinger.  For some reason, I remembered the name, even though, since I wasn't Catholic, the question of who would be Pope really held little significance for me.  But who hadn't felt some affection or respect for Pope John Paul II?  Perhaps that was why I was curious about the man who would replace him.

Since then, nearly eight years have passed.  Three of my children have been born during Benedict's relatively brief pontificate, and last year, after a great deal of study and surprise, I made the decision to join the Catholic Church.  And I read some of Pope Benedict's writings.  I can honestly say I've come to like and respect him, and I truly appreciate the work he has done for the Church.  I hope his successor will continue some of the work he has really only begun.

So, I approach the season of Lent with a renewed fervor and sense of urgency.  All of us would do well to offer our prayers (and sacrifices) for Pope Benedict, for his successor, and for the men who will be charged with selecting said successor.  Oh, don't get me wrong.  :)  I know very well that our Lord always has a plan.  He already has a man in mind for the job.  Still, the members of the conclave will have to listen to the Holy Spirit, and hear His voice well.  And the man himself will have to sit in the chair of St. Peter and lead the Church well.  They will need the prayers of the faithful.  As for Pope Benedict, I give thanks for the years he served, and pray that God will bless him in his retirement.

Still, it's hard to believe that by the time I make my first Communion in just a few short weeks, the Catholic Church will have a new Pope.  Speculation has already begun, of course.  Who will it be? How will he lead?  And, in "news" articles written by those who clearly don't have the genius level understanding of this convert of less than a year (did you choke on the sarcasm?), how will the Church handle the "conflict" of "two popes"?  Well, I don't know.  How is the United States currently handling about four Presidents?  Oh, you mean only one of them is actually President right now?  I had no idea.  I mean, we even call the two Bushes and Clinton "Mr. President" still, don't we?  Yes, this is very unusual.  But I don't see why it should be so difficult to understand.  And for heaven's sake, if you're going to write and publish a national news article about the Catholic Church, do yourself a favor and gain an understanding of how the Church works and what we believe.  Otherwise, you just look like an idiot.

Okay, rant over.

God bless us, every one.

A New Journey--And You're Already Behind!

Well, I haven't been for a run in quite some time, and the body shows it.  My mother's health problems caused me to falter in my good intentions, and though her health has (thankfully) stabilized, my current excuse extremely valid reason for not going running is that my son, who is ten years old and currently sharing my shoe size, has lost my running shoes!  How does one lose a pair of size 8.5 NBs?  The world may never know, but personally, I advocate loaning them to your child.  ;)  IF you actually want them lost, that is.  And a new pair just hasn't been my priority yet.  So, we wait.  UPDATE:  I owe my son an apology.  He did not, in fact, lose my shoes.  I hung a new coat rack down low for the littles, and while I was moving coats from the main rack, I found them in a plastic grocery bag buried beneath 6 people's coats.  Honest mistake, right?  lol

But never fear; the journey is not over, or even derailed, it's just taken a new turn.  And it's that turn, over the course of the past year, that I now intend to write about.  And so, this blog will, for a season at least, become a place for all those who want to know, but are afraid to ask.  :)

In the early months of 2012, I began a new phase of spiritual growth.  I've noticed over the last several years that I seem to grow in this area, as children tend to grow, in spurts of rapid growth and change, interspersed with spells of relative stability or "sameness."  So, this was no particular surprise.  The surprise was where the road would lead.

I had long been aware that I held certain disagreements with the Southern Baptist faith in which I was raised.  It's hard to buy, for instance, that all alcoholic beverages are evil when Christ's first miracle was to change water into wine for a wedding celebration.  And how does one justify an obstinate disbelief in things which science or even personal observation shows compelling evidence for?  Let me be clear:  my faith in God was never in question.  But my belief in the teachings of the church of my childhood certainly was.  For a long time, I was okay with that.  These were, after all, relatively minor details.  Surely one could agree to disagree.  It was all about Christ, after all.  As long as the correct core beliefs were in place, the rest was just icing.  Right?  I was a firm believer throughout most of my life that the main reason different denominations even existed was so that people could worship God in an atmosphere and a style that best suited each person.  So, while I believed that my denomination's teachings held their flaws, I saw no reason not to stay put and, to borrow a phrase, bloom where I was planted.  But, long story short, during this particular spiritual growth spurt, I was inspired with the desire to find the denomination, if such a thing existed (and I felt it must) where the full truth of Scripture was accurately taught.  So, I searched, and I learned.  I picked up some new nuggets along the way, but I was getting no closer to finding a denomination that didn't have its flaws.  It became the focus of my prayers.  "Lord, show me the truth.  Lead me to the place You'd have me be."  I entertained the notion that I might be meant to start a new church (laugh it up, ye who know me better than that), but that seemed like the craziest idea of all--which to be honest, was the only thing that gave it credibility, lol.  God has a tendency to ask His people to do the insane impossible.  Think about it.

"We've been fishing all night, and we've caught nothing."  "Throw your net out on the other side of the boat."

"These 5,000 people must be getting hungry.  Let us send them home so they can eat."  "Why send them home?  Just feed them."  "Uh, Lord?  We don't have that much money, and if we did, where would we buy that much bread?"  "What do you have?  A kid's sack lunch?  That'll do."

"Lord, if that's you, bid me to come to you on the water."  "Come on."

Obviously I'm paraphrasing, but you get my drift.  It seemed as if the church I was looking for simply didn't exist.  God had given us His Word, the Holy Scriptures, containing everything we could possibly need to know, and we had screwed it up.  No one out there was getting it all right.  Now, of course I understand that we're human.  In practice, not a one of us is always going to get it all right.  But I wanted a church that taught it all right, and held the faithful accountable for at least striving to uphold Christ's ideal.

Remember how I said that finding that church had become the focus of my prayers?  Be careful what you ask for.  :)  When God lifted the veil, the answer was the last thing (almost) I would have expected.  I've likened it searching all over the house for your car keys, and finding them in the butter dish.  Though with four boys, I suppose that's not as odd a scenario for me as it might be for others.  :)  I have found the Church of my prayers--and she is Catholic.

Now, as some of you scratch your heads in puzzlement, while others gasp in horror, I offer you these words of wisdom from Archbishop Fulton Sheen:

"There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church.

There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church--

which is, of course, quite a different thing."

This sums up things quite succinctly, actually.  The more I learned, the more I realized my preconceived notions of what the Catholic Church teaches, and what it means to be Catholic, were, to phrase it mildly, not entirely. . . accurate.  Much could be said in this regard.  Much has been, by others, but this blog is for a different, smaller audience.  So, much will be re-said, here.  Questions are welcome, and will likely become ideas for future posts.

Am I biting off more than I can chew here?  Most likely.  :)  I'm no genius, or theology expert.  And I'm still fairly new at this.  Anticipate links to the writings of those who are smarter than I am. The potential certainly exists for this to become overwhelming.  I recall my first months exploring the Catholic Faith.  I went from swimming in a pool to being dumped in the ocean.  Translation:  I went from thinking I knew pretty much all there was to know about Christianity to realizing I had actually understood VERY little of the depth and richness that truly exists in my own faith.  My desire is to eventually share some of that with you (after, of course, we get past the "But Catholics worship Mary!!!" humdrum), but I also fear that I will fail miserably at articulating the true beauty and complexity of it all.  I am, you see, much better at learning than I am at explaining that which I have learned.  :)

But, if you're curious, and willing to take a chance on us all sitting around twiddling our thumbs, come into my virtual living room, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or your beverage of choice, but I recommend caffeine), and get comfortable.  We have a lot to catch up on!

Just a Favor for My Mom

Okay, so it's been almost a year and a half since I've used my blog. . . and now the only reason I'm doing so is so my mom can have some photos from Facebook on her Pinterest.  Sigh.  Such is my life.  :)