Summer

Summer is certainly fleeting as we begin our way into August. Although I adore Autumn and usually feel great peace as it arrives, I am desperately hanging onto the last days of summer this time around. We have had a good summer overall, there's been a lot going on; a lot of unexpected blessings and many new and special memories we can look back fondly upon as we return our thoughts to the summer of 2008. Some of us had better summers than others; our 9 year old son Michael has fought a middle ear infection most of his June and July. It got him down a few times, and it's just not like him to "be down", that's for sure. Still, he's had some very enjoyable times in between that sick feeling. Hopefully, he's "really" on the mend now.

We had a wonderful vacation bible school that produced some lasting fruit for which I am ever so grateful. And here I was worried this VBS wouldn't be as good as last years. Ha! This one definitely had all the charisma as last years, but better with more lasting value.....ah, but then that makes me a bit nervous about next year, doesn't it?!

Well, I'm glad that's quite a ways off. I'm still basting in the afterglow of this one. I hope this inspiration and satisfied feeling lasts a while and even moreso I hope it lasts deeply within those that participated and helped in any way.

What was so nice this year was that our VBS focused on "service" to family, friends, neighbors, community and Jesus (church). The participants brought money donations (small change) each day to donate in a special box, and on one day they brought food to donate to our local food pantry. (Did I tell you this already? If so, bear with me!)....well, the money collected amounted to $91, and was to be donated to a special cause to help the poor.

After discussing this with our pastor, we made the decision to sponser a child with the donated funds, and to continue collecting donations from our parish school of religion children each month to continue the sponsership.

What a great thing. Of course, the food collected was boxed and taken to our local food pantry. The children did such a great service. And they did it all joyfully and willingly. What a wonderful way to instill the Greatest Commandment in our young people.

Anyway, you know I can get very excited about seeing God's power in action. It was one of those monumental moments...

We are nearly prepared for our new school year to begin, I am glad to say. I'm still waiting for a couple book orders to arrive; the shelves are organized and stocked and a schedule is in place. With that out of the way, I can relax a little more through the remainder of summer and contemplate this year ahead. This school year will produce our senior graduate from our home school; our first one. That is both an accomplishment and a nervous ordeal :)

But God has been so good in His blessings to us, I depend on His grace immensely to see us through. I've already begun to fast and pray in earnest as I anticipate His guidance for this particular son.

God bless you all, until later.....

Reflecting Back...and Forward

I've finished work on our parish's vacation bible school, which will begin this upcoming Monday and run all week, and now as August is approaching, I begin to look toward preparing our home education year once again. As I blog this, our oldest son is off to a rising senior picnic at the college he wishes to attend the next year. He has been entirely home schooled with the help of Mother of Divine Grace. We have remained convicted to our belief that formation/education within the family is one of the best routes to take in battling against an anti-Christian culture. Especially while reading: Hold on to Your Kids lately, I'm convinced home education may not only be a viable choice of education, but might very well be necessary to preserve all that is good in our children; I agree with the book (mentioned above), that our children need to remain parent-oriented, and no matter how good a Christian school they may attend, there is still the strong pull toward peer-orientation.

While there is no perfect school situation this side of heaven, we feel we are doing what God has truly marked us to do in raising our children as our own and as His in this fallen world. I pray always for the grace to see us through this awesome responsibility.

I posted this next reflection a couple years ago, and I think it is a good reminder to look upon today.

"The family is the basic and most important unit of society, the one God looks upon as its firmest support. And it is perhaps the part of society most insidiously and ruthlessly attacked from all sides.....Many lost sight of the fact that parents have the right to educate their own children, and, in the face of excessive state intervention, have ended up renouncing an elementary right and this is due in part to these inhibitions - there are imposed certain kinds of teaching dominated by a materialistic view of man. In such methods the pedagogical and didactic approaches, text-books employed, schemes of work, curricular programmes and school materials deliberately set aside the spiritual nature of the human soul....."

In Conversation with God, Vol. 3 Eleventh Week, Friday

Christ Needs You

Christ needs you, and calls you to help millions of our fellow men to be truly human and to work out their salvation. Live with these noble ideals in your soul....Open your heart to Christ, to the law of love, without placing conditions on your availability, without fear of receiving noncommittal replies, because love and friendship do not vanish over the horizon. [JPII Address in Javier, 6 Nov. '82] They always main their plentitude, for love does not grow old.

St. Thomas teaches that we love someone when we desire the good of that person. If, on the other hand, we try to take advantage of the one concerned, either because it gives us pleasure or because he is of use to us, then properly speaking, we don't love that person: whatever we want, it is not his good. When we love, we desire what is the best for the other; our whole person is directed to this love, independently of our likes or dislikes or moods: the payment and the price of love is to receive more love. [St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, 9, 7]

In Conversation with God, Vol. 3 Twelfth Week, Friday

Catholics for McCain

Love it. God bless him for this honor toward our Blessed Mother.

If you're on Facebook, you can find this group at:
Catholics for McCain (click the title to follow the link).

Happy 15th Birthday, darling daughter Jamie!
God bless you on this special day and always!

Love, Mom!

Happy Fourth of July! God bless you all!

And Happy 175th Birthday to my little town of Minerva.