Faith Formation Begins at Home

Just another fun tradition for our family is sending out shoes the night before Saint Nicholas' feast day. I usually find these chocolate coins somewhere, and then something simple and useful like a new pair of mittens. A friend reminded me that oranges are usually part of this tradition, so I grabbed some of those (and a Reese's Pieces-filled candy cane) for this year. Sometimes I add in a  real gold or silver coin if I'm prepared.  December truly is FULL of Holy Days. It's the reason I don't get hung up on "Happy Holidays" vs. Merry Christmas. Between St. Nicholas tomorrow, the Immaculate Conception 12/8, Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 12th and others, the preparation-purple Advent season is literally and liberally sprinkled with joy and celebration-white! All of these Holy Days are celebrating what Christmas brings: HOPE and JOY! I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful time of hopeful and joyful waiting!

Ever since Emma was a baby, I've been writing Catechesis of the Good Shepherd songs. The first one I ever wrote was a song about genuflection. It came to me in the middle of the night while walking her to sleep in her room when she was a teeny baby. Now she makes up piano accompaniments for me. This song was born from the request of a catechist last week for a way to help the children remember the three great moments of Salvation history (Creation, Redemption, and Parousia). People ask me why I love the Salvation History Chart in level 2 of CGS so much. This song is why! (When I got back from my afternoon walk today, we decided to get this knocked out before leaving for afternoon activities. So it's not the most professionally done music video, but maybe I'll do a Kickstarter someday and get a CD done. I do have about 17 songs, so no small project....) By the way, here's a link to the chords Emma worked up for piano. My friend, Brian, also put together...

"Beauty will save the world." Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Four of my daughters sing in the Catholic Youth Choir in our city. The magician, I mean, director, has the uncanny ability to take my four older children (ages 10-15) and make them sound like angels. Having watched The Sound of Music at least 300 times in my childhood, plus spending years in choir and band, I always hoped my children would love music. I didn't realize they would all surpass my talents before they were ten years old. We may or may not have had to make rules about the nice way to tell Mom that she is flat, sharp, or inadvertently changed key again. Music education has so many benefits which include the development of discipline and teamwork, not to mention fine motor skills,  brain development , and even some seemingly unrelated skills. Until he heard my children hammering out a piece in the back room before performing for my parents, my husband commented that he had no idea that choral singing was a c...

I'm not proud of it. At a Mother's Day event several years ago (but not enough years for me to not be completely humiliated by this story) I was jarred by the experience of watching several groups of women stand up and extol their mothers as the most wonderful, amazing, fabulous women in the entire world. A couple of my sisters and my mom were also at the event, but we did not (as I recall) stand up and similarly wax eloquently about our mom. I must have been in a major funk that day, because as I was driving home, I started having what my dad calls a POME  (loosely pronounced "Poor Me") Party, feeling sad that I couldn't say all of those nice things about my mom like all of those other women could. (Anyone who knows my mom is shaking his/her head in shock and dismay right now). It really was my most embarrassing moment. Sitting alone in the car that day, I knew I was missing something, but I honestly fit the part of "ungrateful child" pathetical...

When I began this parenting journey, I was about as far from a "read aloud parent" that you could be. It wasn't really part of my upbringing, and since reading out loud is so much slower than reading silently, I was mostly frustrated with this supposedly blessed time with my children. What I've figured out over the past 15 years, however, is that reading books and even watching movies with   my children offers an awesome opportunity for formation and reflection that we wouldn't otherwise have.  The stories that we listen to and watch have a profound impact on us, and when we listen together with our children, I think that the impact is infinitely greater. I've been trying to figure out how to write about the movie, The Greatest Showman,  ever since we first watched it several weeks ago. Something in the movie resonated deeply with me, but whenever I try to talk about it, I end up babbling incoherently and finishing up with something like, "You should ju...

After 13 years working as a catechist in my parish, 9 years as Director of Religious Education, I attended a farewell celebration yesterday. It was bittersweet and beautiful. Families who attended were encouraged by the dear ones who organized the party to bring flowers for their children to "arrange" which became the centerpieces for the lunch, as well as centerpieces (and bathroom decor, and kitchen windowsill adornments, as well as pretties for my bedrooms and countertops....) for my home after the event. Each of the flowers represents their prayers for me as I move to new pastures, wherever they may be. A painting was also "commissioned" for me (which one of my dearest friends, Michelle Werner, painted), which was to serve as a summary of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, our shared passion and life's work. I commented that I had never had a portrait painted of me before, but I'm pretty sure I'm the sheep in this painting. It probably would have tak...

Gorgeous babies always stop me in my tracks. Big eyes, adorable smiles, and curly locks usually do me in. Babies also have that fantastic quality of holding your gaze longer than would be socially-acceptable with another adult, and they often look at you as though you are the most interesting person in the world. Babies make us feel like the world is an amazing place and everyone loves everybody. No wonder it is so natural for us to heap heartfelt acclamations of praise on the little darlings. Twice lately, after telling a couple of parents that their adorable babies had stolen my heart, the parents shared with me a great concern that their child will become vain or equate her value only with her looks because of how often she is told how beautiful she is. "I try to tell her she's smart, too." While I have no doubt that their one-year-olds were both geniuses, I tried to help allay their concerns that always telling their child how beautiful she is might somehow turn h...