Our Imperfect Family Rosary

Also posted at Catholic Insight, catholicinsight.com

When I was growing up, my immature self believed that the family rosary was something that had to be endured. Through no fault of my parents, the nightly ritual was anything but idyllic. My siblings and I were called into our parents’ bedroom where we knelt facing the crucifix.  My older brother and I would sneak jabs and pokes at each other and then my mother would scold and separate us. I would often rush through the responses hoping that would speed things up but of course that never worked. My parents would add the Litany of the Saints and other intercessory prayers that made prayer time feel like an eternity to a young child. As I got older, I would make the excuse that I had too much homework or had to study for a test and so I couldn’t take time out to pray.

Before we had children, my husband and I would occasionally pray the rosary together. It wasn’t part of our routine but instead was an afterthought if we were not too tired. We didn’t pray together very often.

When our oldest children got to the age where they could repeat a Hail Mary, we attempted to start a very modified family rosary but the lovely, serene vision I pictured in my mind was different from the reality around me. The kids were either too tired or too distracted. My husband I were always tired. Some evenings, prayer would dissolve into frustrated scolding and crying. Other evenings we almost reached that blissful state that artists capture on canvas.

Up until nine years ago, our family rosary was sporadic, but then something changed. I’m not sure what happened and I can’t pinpoint the exact time when family prayer became a priority, but by God’s grace, my husband and I realized that we had to make a better effort to pray in our home. The challenge at the time was tailoring the rosary prayers to fit all our children; everyone from a toddler, a preschooler, young children as well as junior and high school students.

We are less strict than my parents were and the atmosphere is more relaxed than when I was growing up. We sit in the living room instead of kneeling and keep our prayers to a reasonable length of time. In the beginning we started with one decade and a few add-ons such as the Guardian Angel prayer and the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. Over time, we added more decades and included a prayer to St. Joseph and to the Holy Spirit. At one time, my husband read excerpts from the book, Catholicism for Dummies (Fr. John Trigilio and Fr. Kenneth Brighenti, Wiley Publishing Inc.).  He’s also read to us about the lives of different saints. Our prayer time has evolved to three decades of the rosary alternating between the first, second and third mysteries one week and the third, fourth and fifth mysteries the next.  We include the Angelus along with other prayers incorporated over the years. During special times in the liturgical calendar, such as in June which is the month devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we pray the designated Litany. We all have our favourite saints whom we invoke during our personalized litany and every once in a while someone will throw in an obscure saint just to impress the rest of us.

Why only three decades? There are many beautiful prayers and litanies in our Catholic faith and we want our children to pray them too. On the other hand, we don’t want any of the children complaining that prayers take too long; however, there are times when we pray the whole rosary and not include anything else.

Our prayer time is not perfect. Some evenings we forgo our gathering and tell the kids to pray on their own. Older children with part-time jobs or evening classes, and young adults with full-time jobs are not always home. Sometimes there’s grouchiness, distraction, laughing, joking. There’s the excuse of too much homework, rushing to meet friends, or not feeling well. We are a large family and our prayer life, like our family life, is authentically, blessedly, imperfectly human. This too is poverty since without God’s grace we wouldn’t even be able to attempt our family rosary.

In the book, Grace in Every Season, (Servant Publications, 1992) Servant of God, Catherine Doherty, writes a reflection for every day of the year. In her entry for December 30, Catherine writes a lovely story of Our Lady visiting her children. Mary carries a basket as she goes from home to home. In some homes, she leaves very sad with nothing added to her basket. In other places, especially the homes with lively families, she stays for a long time and when she leaves, her basket is bulging. At the end of the day, she returns to her Son and shows Him the contents of her basket – hearts. Beating, happy, Christ-centered hearts. The hearts of domestic churches. These are the hearts of families that pray together.

When our Blessed Mother comes to my home, I pray that she finds a reason to stay for a very long time. I hope her basket is so heavy and overflowing that she has to drag it. When she shows the contents of her basket to Jesus, I pray they both laugh with joy because my family’s hearts beat in unison with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The perfect rosary, like the perfect family, doesn’t exist. Our Lord and our Blessed Mother delight in families who, in love and faith, persevere in gathering together to pray the beautiful prayers. What could be more perfect than that?

Deo Gratias

Original oil on canvas, ‘Prayer’ by Avril Bryand, Ireland.

Linking this to Catholic Bloggers Network Link-up blitz for May

Receiving Communion on the Tongue

One of my fellow Catholic Insight Magazine bloggers wrote a great article on why faithful Catholics ought to be receiving the Holy Eucharist on the tongue…….

“I’m heartbroken to announce that last week, we discovered a crushed consecrated Host beneath one of the kneelers,” the pastor of a small yet devout Californian parish says. He pauses for a moment before he goes on, his voice choked by just indignation and sadness: “This is God, people. God.” Then he drops the bomb. “I’m writing to Pope Francis to do away with the practice of Communion in the hand altogether. I believe most of the abuses and blasphemies that the Eucharist has undergone is because of this practice.”

Since the practice of Communion in the hand has become the common observance in most countries, there has been, whether you like admit it or not, a spike in Eucharistic abuse. Communion in the hand has given those who wish to do harm and those who are careless the opportunity to do what they want with the Body of Christ. Unfortunately, the situation described above is not uncommon. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Furthermore, Communion in the hand has the potential to promote or at least foster a disrespect for the Body of Christ. As Catholics, we believe this small Host does not represent Christ, but is Christ Himself. How can we, then, possibly touch the living presence of God with our bare, dirty, unconsecrated, and unworthy hands? How? How have we even considered this as an option in the first place?

The answer can be given using one word: disobedience. The practice came about in the early 1960s (after Vatican II, though the Council never actually called for it), when certain parishes around the world began to disobey the Church’s rule of receiving the Host on the tongue, making their own rules as to whether or not you could receive on the hand. The Vatican immediately responded in disapproving words, saying that this disobedient practice would lead to “the possibility of a lessening of reverence toward the august sacrament of the altar, its profanation, and the watering down of the true doctrine of the Eucharist” (Memoriale Domini).

When Pope Paul VI in 1968 sent out a questionnaire to every bishop in the world asking if the Church should alter how Communion was being distributed, the answer came back loud and clear: in the hand was overwhelmingly disapproved of and should not be allowed. The Vatican agreed, stating that if the practice of Communion on the hand be allowed, “it would be an offense to the sensibilities and spiritual outlook of these bishops and a great many of the faithful” (Memoriale Domini)……….

Please continue reading at Catholic Insight…..

Running the Good Race

Photo courtesy of globalnews.ca

This past Mother’s Day, I joined family and friends at the starting line of the 10 km (6.2 miles) run for Camp Oochigeas, a camp for children with cancer. It was a brisk morning with gusty winds that made the sub-normal temperatures feel even colder. No matter. Everyone who was there was running directly or indirectly for kids who have had or are living with cancer. Many people were running in memory of a child who has died from cancer.

Our group, Team Bryan, was running in memory of a courageous seven-year old boy whose one year battle with a brain tumour ended one year ago just days before last year’s run. That year, the memory of his fight was very raw and we carried our sorrow with us when we participated. Time has healed some of the pain but this year we ran again to honour him and all the other children affected by cancer.

Twenty-seven thousand people were there that morning, ready and willing to give their time and physical ability to run for children who can’t. I realized that I could look at this as merely a sporting event or I could learn deeper lessons from the experience.  I couldn’t help thinking of St. Paul’s exhortation to run the race as if to win. “Do you not know that in a race, runners all compete but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.”(1 Cor. 9:24 -25) Life, I observed, is very much like this race and not all of us will finish.

There were random acts of kindness from participants as people moved aside for faster runners, smiled and talked to complete strangers and much faster runners slowed down to keep pace with their slower teammates. The overall atmosphere was one of congeniality.

In the race of life, that is as it ought to be. That is how we are to run so as to win the race: with consideration and charity towards our neighbour, putting their needs before ours and supporting their efforts to run the race well.

There were people who were running that had more blind faith that they would finish than actual physical ability to do so. Their race was predicated on the hope that they would make it to the finish line and I’m sure most of them did. After some of our team had finished and were heading home, we saw people still straining towards the finish line. Some were grimacing, some were limping, some were smiling but all of them continued forward towards their goal.

Isn’t that the way it is in our lives? We fall and we suffer but we continue on. Many times we run with difficulty but often with joy knowing that what is important is that the finish will be truly spectacular and all the sprains, strains and struggles serve to purify and mold us before we receive our winner’s crown.

At the fifth kilometre, a woman held up a sign that read: “Running is a mental sport. You are all insane.” The same has been said of Christians running the race for Christ. The world looks at us as crazy and out of touch. Most people don’t understand our witness to the Truth of the Gospels and it takes courage to live out our beliefs. While our witness, like the race, is challenging and imperfect, we keep at it knowing that Jesus was not accepted either. “If they persecute Me, they will persecute you.” (John 15:20)

By  the ninth kilometre, I began marking my pace from traffic light to traffic light, landmarks that guided me towards the end. I compared this to the lives of Catholics who are called to live from Sunday to Sunday, Mass to Mass, Holy Eucharist to Holy Eucharist. Jesus in the Sacrifice of the Mass, His Real Presence in the Eucharistic Host and Precious Blood is the sustenance that fuels our race and sets the pace of our lives.

On the back of our Team Bryan t-shirts, Bryan’s parents had requested that the words “faith, hope, charity” be printed in white to contrast against the red background. The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity are what we cling to on the race of life. They are what help us to make sense of sorrow, give value to our happiness and enliven our efforts.

When we reached the finish line, we were greeted with cheers and applause from racers who had finished ahead of us. We received a medal and we had the consolation of knowing that we had done our best. Isn’t that what Heaven will be like? We will be welcomed into our Heavenly home by the communion of saints who have gone before us and we will finally receive the Heavenly crown that will not perish. We can then say, like St. Paul, “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

This is an abridged version of an article to be published in a future print edition of Catholic Insight Magazine.

Linking up to Catholic Bloggers Network Link-up blitz for May

Deo Gratias

Honouring Our Mothers and Fathers

Also posted at Catholic Insight, catholic insight.com

He gently leads his dad down the aisle.  Mass is about to begin and he knows it will take a few minutes to get him settled.  The son’s hand firmly grasped around dad’s elbow, they continue slowly, carefully to their favourite pew.  The younger instructs the elder to hold the back of the pew in front of him and he guides his father gently down into the seat.  He places the sturdy cane on the floor and then helps dad remove his scarf and overcoat.  The old man insists on standing when the entrance hymn begins and so his son expertly supports the father’s elbow and helps him up.  Every Sunday the ritual is the same.

“Mom hasn’t been feeling well in the past few days,” the daughter explained as she let the nurse into the house.  “We don’t know what’s wrong with her.  Can you talk to her?”  Two unmarried daughters; one very sick mom.   One daughter is able to work from home; the other daughter works very odd hours so her work day can finish by noon and she can come home to help care for mom.  Mom worries that caring for her is killing the daughters but they say they are only doing a little of what she has done for them.

His responsibilities at the seminary kept him very busy and his dad’s mental and physical health were deteriorating quickly.   Every time his phone rang, he checked to see if it was the nursing home.  It was sometimes very difficult caring for his dad, especially since it was just the two of them, but each time the nurses asked him to come, he dropped everything and hurried over.  Everyone at the seminary banded together to give the father of one of their own a beautiful funeral.

His mom’s Alzheimer’s Disease had progressed and she was unable to remain at home.  Denied a leave of absence, he resigned his position.  Each day, he would go to the nursing home to be with her, feed her, love her.  “It was nice,” he reminisced, a peaceful smile lighting up his face.

Dad had been in the hospital for two weeks, diagnosed with pneumonia which is common in the very late stages of Parkinson’s Disease.  Death was imminent and my mom refused to go home.  The nurses gave her a cot so she could spend the night and I made a make-shift bed from some chairs in the palliative care room.  Exhausted, mom fell asleep as soon as she lay down.  It had been a very long day keeping vigil at dad’s bedside.  I alternated between lying down to rest and listening to dad’s laboured breathing.  “Terry,” said the kindly palliative care doctor, “you have to stop thinking like a nurse now and just be his daughter.”  I cried when he said that because I knew what he meant.  At about 5:30 in the morning, I noted a significant change in dad’s breathing.  The trauma of watching dad die would have been too much for mom in her state of early dementia so I let her sleep. Instinctively, I grabbed my rosary and began praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  At 5:53 a.m. I put my rosary away and went to find dad’s nurse. Then I woke mom up.  In her confusion, she thought she had watched him die.

After Ruth’s and Orpah’s husbands died, their widowed mother-in-law, Naomi, instructed them to return to their families so that they may marry again.  Naomi now had no sons and no husband.  She was elderly and alone.  Orpah did as her mother-in-law told her.  Ruth clung to Naomi, saying:  ” Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”(Ruth 1:16-17)

As the King of the world hung on the cross, he turned his bruised and bloodied face toward His mother and the apostle He loved, John.  ”Behold, your mother,” he said, and John took her home and cared for her.

Looking after elderly, often ailing parents is not for the faint of heart.  It requires courage, stamina, patience, and the willingness to sacrifice many things – time, sleep, career, finances, control, relationships.  These are the same things we sacrifice when we have children but now the children have become the caregivers and the concerns are on a grander, more urgent scale.

It is heartbreaking when parents lose precious memories and devastating when they forget the names of their family members.  Watching the strongest person in the universe transform into a completely dependent state reminds us of our own mortality.  Journeying with a parent at the end of their life and keeping vigil until death matures a person in a way that nothing else can.  In sickness and in death, they continue to teach us priceless lessons of patience, forgiveness, compassion, faith and redemptive suffering.

When we care for mom and dad, we are given, in a unique way, the grace of uniting ourselves to the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross.  We experience our own suffering in the enormity of our responsibility.  At the same time, we are Simon of Cyrene and Veronica, providing aid and comfort to mom and dad as they carry their cross that is too heavy for them to bear alone.

There is no doubt that caring for elderly parents can be challenging and exhausting.  Through no fault of their own, many people break under the strain.  At the same time, it is a great grace to be able to share such a significant part of their life.  It is an honour to show the person who bore us, raised us and loved us that their life matters, their contribution is important, and that their love for us is not in vain.

Deo Gratias

Photo courtesy of guardian.co.uk

To All Moms from the Pure Jerzy Kidz

Tomorrow, Mother’s Day, a group of us, friends and family, will be participating in the Sporting Life 10 km. run to raise funds for Camp Oochigeas, a summer camp for kids with cancer. It will be our second year taking part and  we will be running in memory of our courageous young friend, Bryan, who died of a brain tumour one year ago this weekend.

In thinking about how best to wish all moms a happy Mother’s Day, I came across Mark Shea’s post over at Catholic and Enjoying It on Patheos.  I’m posting it in its entirety here and encouraging you to visit Mark’s always interesting blog.  Thank you, Mark Shea, and happy Mother’s Day to all the moms in your life.  Also, check out the other wonderful links on this post.

Enjoy the video, moms!  Happy Mother’s Day! (especially to you, Catherine)

Producer Julie Linn writes:

I wanted to give you a heads up on a music video that I’ve just finished producing, in collaboration with my good friend and former pastor, Rev. Edward Namiotka.  I think he may be a FB friend/follower of yours.

Father Ed is not only a terrific priest, but a fine lyricist and melody writer.  We’ve worked on several projects, which I’ve either set to music or produced.  The one I am referencing is called the “Mom” song, and it has been recently launched on ITunes, Amazon, several Internet Radio stations, and now, today, on YouTube.

And here Father Ed writes about the human and heavenly inspirations for the “Mom” song on his blog:

http://www.fr-ed-namiotka.com/2013/04/my-mom-song.html

Our collaboration has been in response to a shared zeal for the New Evangelization, and particularly as it relates to the vision of Bl. John Paul II’s call for artists to evangelize the culture through art and beauty.  The “Pure Jerzy Kidz” and all the people in the video are a very blessed group, which was part of my strategy: to show both the look and sound of true beauty —  grace  –  which has been so lacking in Hollywood and all media for decades.

I was a producer for the video, and director/producer for the audio, which, as I mentioned, is on ITunes.  My daughter Christy’s fiance, Kevin S. Rivera, was the filmmaker.  I had enlisted a former voice student of mine, Scott Armato, a music theater director and composer, to write the  Billy Joel-esque accompaniment.  I then auditioned and gathered children from area schools (Southern New Jersey)  who have a connection to Father Ed and recorded them at an Emmy and Telly award recording studio.

I hope you will be blessed by it, and if you are, I would be so appreciative of anything you might advise or any help you might give in getting the word out.

We’re asking that people “Like” and “Rate” it on its FB pages and especially on You Tube and ITunes -

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/mom-single/id635902235

https://www.facebook.com/momsongandvideo?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/purejerzykidz?fref=ts

- because it’s our hope that its joy be spread – well,  everywhere!!   I know this sounds ambitious, but the response we’ve had so far has been tremendously positive, so who knows how the Lord might use it ?

Deo Gratias

St. Therese and the Canticle of Love

When I recently met with my spiritual director, I told him about the restless desire I have been experiencing to go deeper into my faith life and the feeling of wanting more.  He identified what I described as being spiritual poverty which theologian Johannes Baptist Metz explains “is a necessary ingredient in any authentic Christian attitude toward life……Only through poverty of spirit do we draw near to God; only through it does God draw near to us.” (Poverty of Spirit, Paulist Press, New York. 1968, 1988)

For my results driven, type-A personality, the solution to my longing was one of action:  more prayer, more spiritual reading, more doing.  My spiritual director thankfully had other ideas.  He saw that I needed to strive to be “little” and to open my heart to whatever the Lord wants to give me.

“So how do I do that?” I asked.

In response, he gave me the example of St. Therese of Lisieux who in her short but full twenty-four years lived a very simple and hidden life.  Her “little way” was so spiritually profound that Bl. John-Paul II, in 1997, gave her the title Doctor of the Church. In his Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, he called her an expert in the “scientica amoris”, the science of love.  In his book, Holy Women (Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 2011), Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said that she “is one of the ‘little’ ones of the gospel who let themselves be led by God to the depths of His mystery”.

As part of  his usual wise counsel, my spiritual director advised me to read and pray the hymn, St. Therese’s Canticle of Love, written by Sr. Marie-Therese Sokol, OCD.  The words of the hymn are taken from the Little Flower herself.

“It’s all there,” he said. “No homily needed.”

And he’s right.

St. Therese’s Canticle of Love

How great and tender is our God,
who has smiled on the lowly,
eternally my heart will sing a new canticle of love.

Come all who hunger, all who thirst,
all who long for fulfillment,
the God of mercy waits for you,
as a mother her child,
oh come to the living water,
fear not your weakness,
forever trusting in God’s merciful love.

Through the shadows of this night,
love will be my guiding light,
presence hidden from my sight,
till the clouds are put to flight,
beneath your gaze, I’ve blossomed forth
as a rose in the sunshine.
With joyful heart, I give it all
to the mystery of love.

In peace, I will come before you,
with empty hands,
relying solely on your merciful love.

Through the veil your face appears,
beauty shrouded bathed in tears,
bread of sinners I will share,
rose unpetaled everywhere.

Oh, My God, I will sing of your love,
for this one eternal day,
for this one eternal today.

Transformed in love’s consuming fire, lifted up in glory,
her fragrance filling all the earth,
drawing us unto her,
until in eternity,
we join in one chorus,
forever singing of God’s merciful love.

Canticle of love, song of love,
this eternal day, I will sing, sing of your love.

Deo Gratias

Linking this to Catholic Bloggers Network Link-up blitz for May

Your Spiritual Idiolect

One of the greatest things about blogging is getting to meet (albeit on-line) wonderful people who passionately blog about their Christian Catholic faith.  Our unique personalities and experiences are evident in the way we write and even in the design and layout of our blogs.  We are different bloggers expressing the same message: God loves each and every one of us and He is calling us to live in His Love.

Connie Rossini @ Contemplative Homeschool had the inspired idea of gathering us all together and forming a new blogging community – Catholic Spirituality Blogs Network.  I’ll let her explain:  Everyone has an idiolect–a collection of personal speech habits that is different from anyone else’s. Have you ever thought about your spiritual idiolect? Since your soul is unique, you have a personal way of speaking to God that no one else completely shares. Today I am announcing the creation of a new blog that will help you find and fine-tune your spiritual idiolect.  Read the rest here:

Deo Gratias