A Moral Test in the Darkest Times

Another article for NFP week, as it closes.

A Moral Test in the Darkest Times

TOP 10 Reasons to Use NFP | Theology of the Body Channel

It's NFP awareness week!

TOP 10 Reasons to Use NFP | Theology of the Body Channel

Reconciling who I am.

When I was a 22 year old newly married woman, my husband bought me a book on Dorothy Day. I loved it! She embodied so much of who I was and who I wanted to be. I met people from the Catholic Worker Movement in my time working at The Port, on the Westside of Chicago, run by a few dedicated Franciscans. At the Port, we fed the poor, but didn't stop there, we taught classes on computers and tended their children while they learned. It wasn't so much a hand out as a hand holding. Flash forward a few years, as a young mother trying to find my place in the world of Catholic motherhood, I was told by a friend that Dorothy day was a Communist, and good Catholics shouldn't read her. I listened. I was having an identity crisis, I was 25 mother of 1 with another on the way, I was trying very hard to be "good" and fit in. It wasn't working, I was miserable. I wasn't true to myself or to my somewhat wild self. Reading many great books helped me resolve who I was, so did giving up on impressing others and making them happy. Now, Dorothy Day is back in my life, with a better understanding of her and her ideas, which are without a doubt Catholic.


The Distributist Review » Blog Archive » Where Are the Poor?

Hope and Disappointment

I like to think I'm pretty hopeful in general. I've evolved from a dark pessimistic teen and young adult to what I am today, cynical at times, but in general hopeful. At times it is hard, like right now.

I've been really hoping for something, I can't give details, but that don't matter that much anyway, it is a good think, at least I think it is, and I keep getting no for an answer. It is one of those things that other people are telling me I should do, and I agree, and yet, no. No hurts, it is painful, it is frustrating, it is maddening, yet, I have no choice in the matter but to accept, hopefully with joy, the no God is giving me.

My kids hate me saying no, and I am just about as thrilled as they are to hear it, but I know as a parent, I say it for their good, and God, my loving Father is doing the same for me. I can stomp my feet, like my 5 year old would, but that won't really help. I can cry and complain, but again, what good is that? Or, I can say "Thank you for knowing what is good for me right now" and accept His will. Option 3 sounds the best, even if it hurts. Or better still, I can take option 3, and offer that hurt for a soul in purgatory, who had the same hurt in life, and in return beg their prayers for me.

Finding Help: You Care About Me, Right?

All I can say is Wow.

Does NFP Really Work? | Fathers for Good

Does NFP Really Work? | Fathers for Good

Another really good article from the Knights of Columbus. God Bless them and their consistent pro-life efforts.

Litany for America

LITANY FOR THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Our Lady of America, pray for us.
Immaculate Conception, pray for us, sinners.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, deliver us from all infanticide.
Our Lady of Fatima, deliver us from the errors of Russia.
Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs, deliver us from spiritual sloth, undue curiosity and unease of mind.
Our Lady, Help of Christians, deliver us from apostasy.
Our Lady of Refuge, deliver us from Sodom.
Our Lady, Comfortress of the Afflicted, deliver us from moral complacency.
Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, deliver us from a lack of shamefulness.
Our Lady, Health of the Weak, deliver us from vain perceptions.
Our Lady, Morning Star, deliver us from envy and avarice.
Our Lady, Gate of Heaven, deliver us from impenitence.
Our Lady, Ark of the Covenant, deliver us from constitutional manipulation.
Our Lady, House of Gold, deliver us from unjust taxation.
Our Lady, Tower of Ivory, deliver us from incompetent and corrupt leaders.
Our Lady, Tower of David, deliver us from political scandals and malice.
Our Lady, Mystical Rose, deliver us from all scandal and gossip.
Our Lady, Vessel of Singular Devotion, deliver us from mindless entertainment.
Our Lady, Cause of Our Joy, deliver us from needless self-pity and sadness.
Our Lady, Virgin Most Faithful, deliver us from national dissolution and a loss of sovereignty.
Our Lady, Virgin Most Merciful, deliver us from our own worst inclinations in compromise.
Our Lady, Virgin Most Renowned, deliver us from the culture of celebrity.
Our Lady, Virgin Most Venerable, deliver us from cultural depravity and perversion.
Our Lady, Mother of Our Redeemer, deliver us from heresy and persecution.
Our Lady, Most Amiable, deliver us from rudeness and incivility.
Our Lady, Mother Undefiled, deliver us from the all social turpitude.
Our Lady, Mother Most Pure, deliver us from immodesty in daily life.
Our Lady, Mother of Divine Grace, deliver us from contraception, sterilization and experimentation.
Our Lady, Holy Mother of God, deliver us from the rejection of fathers as just heads of families.
Our Lady, O Holy Mary, deliver us from all blasphemy.
Our Lady of Prosperity, deliver us from unjust wages and money speculation.
Our Lady of Prompt Succor, deliver us from socialist tendencies.
Our Lady of Consolation, deliver us from fear and a lack of courage.
Our Lady of Good Counsel, deliver us from the deceit of pride.
Our Lady of Good Succor, deliver us from a lack of due vigilance.
Our Lady of the Dove, deliver us from the schemes of rash and perilous dreamers.
Our Lady of Lourdes, deliver us from medically induced suicide.
Our Lady of the Thorn, deliver us from petty quarrels.
Our Lady of Victory, deliver us from all lying and dissimulation.
Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces, deliver us from lip service.
Our Lady of Tears, deliver us from the removal of Christ the King in society.
Our Lady of Divine Providence, deliver us from ego and false optimism.
Our Lady of Consolation, deliver us from despair.
Our Lady of Good Remedy, deliver us from the tyranny of the self-anointed and their ambitious.
Our Lady of Deliverance, deliver us from broken families.
Our Lady of Confidence, deliver us from imperial courts of sanctimony.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, deliver us from perjurious leaders.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, deliver us from the rejection of the natural law.
Our Lady of the Poor, deliver us from perduring usury and national debt.
Our Lady of Fire, deliver us from God's chastisement, although thoroughly merited.
Our Lady of the Bells, deliver us from silence in the face of evil.
Our Lady of Good Tidings, deliver us from deception in and disinformation by the media.
Our Lady of Great Power, deliver us from foreign entanglements.
Our Lady, Star of the Sea, deliver us from unexpected storms and disasters.
Our Lady of Safety, deliver us from onerous bureaucracies.
Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy, deliver us from faithless priests and prelates.
Our Lady of Ransom, deliver us from legal inequity.
Our Lady, Immaculate Heart, us from unclean hearts and lassitude of mind.
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, deliver us from a reliance on sentimentality.
Our Lady of the Assumption, deliver us from the culture of the body.
Our Lady of the Holy Cross, deliver us from the love of ease and luxury.
Our Lady of Sorrows, deliver us from deadness of soul.
Our Lady of Miracles, deliver us from the conceit of technology.
Our Lady of the Star, deliver us from infidels.
Our Lady of Good Help, deliver us from dependence on false saviors.
Our Lady of Angels, deliver us from paganism, witchcraft and superstition.
Our Lady of Light, deliver us from our self-induced blindness.
Our Lady of the Rosary, deliver us from the neglect of piety.
Our Lady of Life, deliver us from the culture of death.
Our Lady of Peace, deliver us from unjust and meddlesome wars.
Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and Earth, deliver us from the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.
Our Lady of America, deliver us from all enemies.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.

V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
R. And obtain for us our own conversion and that of our country.

It has been forever!

I took a hiatus to devote my time to Facebook. Joking of course, but life has been very, very busy. I had been thinking of abandoning this endeavor, but I still have more to say than 240 characters allow.

I've always been someone who puts her thoughts down, sometimes in a notebook, or in a file on my computer, or in this case a self-indulgent blog. Sometimes, I just need to write out my thoughts so that I can get them out of my head.

I spend all day thinking, sometimes I have great thoughts, often, just random nonsense. Paper is great, and I love the stuff, but it is a challenge with kids to sit and write on paper, after all, finding a pen can take hours any given day! So here I am, until I get bored again, if you'll have me.