All Hallows Eve

We didn't do too much for Halloween this year, but I did make the kids costumes!! My sister in law sent me this link for making the Mother Teresa costume. The habit Michael is wearing was a quick sewing project for me! I made the mistake of not measuring his head, so the hood is too small!

Feast of the Guardian Angels

I went to the Abbey this weekend with Jon and little Michael because Father Abbot was giving a conference on the document Christifideles Laici called "Salt, Light and Leaven". It was a great conference! One of the things that struck me most about the day though, was the homily given at Mass in the morning by Fr. Peter.

Saturday was the feast of the Guardian Angels and so Fr. Peter preached on this topic.
He began by saying that the reason we have a guardian is because we need to be guarded against something. "Against what?" you may ask. He said there are 2 types of enemies you fight against and that your guardian guards you from. 1. yourself. 2. demons. He said they often work together.
It was so refreshing to hear Father speak about this so plainly and without reservation. We don't often hear about the spiritual battle spoken about with such a sense of reality devoid of an almost "Hollywood horror" type of exaggeration. Again, so refreshing!

Fr. Peter mentioned the seven deadly sins and the demons that tempt you to those sins and said that the one sin that attacks you most is sloth. He explained sloth in a different way than most people tend to think about it. He said that the demon of sloth doesn't so much tempt you to laziness as he does to busy-ness. He said it can tempt you to be busy doing bad things and even good things. But the goal of this demons temptations are for you to be so busy that you are inattentive to your relationship with Christ. So basically, you're so distracted that you've neglected your one end. You are tempted to be lazy about your life in Christ while being so busy.

This was so important to hear. While it is important for us as lay persons to get things done in the world, even while praying and offering everything up, it is more important that we remember our reason for being, our reason for working, our reason for life. Our beginning and our end is Christ and we must not be allowed to be tempted to be lazy about our relationship with Him. I often find so much difficulty making time for this relationship with Christ amid daily activities and the routine. So this for me was a wonderful wake up call. One that I've been receiving a lot lately, "Make time for Jesus! He's the most important part of your life! You can't give what you don't have!"
These messages have been said to me recently a lot in homilies and Masses and those words have been popping out like crazy.

I don't blog very often, but I felt such a push to blog about this. I think it's a message I need to hear often and I thought it'd be worthwhile to share.

So to sum up:
We have guardians for a reason.
We need to guard against sloth, which can be different than the sloth we normally think about.
Our relationship with Christ is our primary obligation.


Otherwise, I'd highly recommend checking out the Apostolic Exhortation written by JPII on the laity. It's very important that we recognize our vocation as lay persons and how we are an integral part of the life of the Church. We literally make up 99.9% of the Catholic Church today. If we depend on the .01% alone to sustain her, then we're not really fulfilling our role as "priest, prophet, and king". Good stuff!
The Church is so amazing. Being Catholic rocks!

Pain vs. Harm

Today I was poking around on the cosmetics database website, which tells you about toxicity levels in different self-care and cosmetics. I was wondering about the toxicity levels of the new soap I bought for Clare at Babies R Us and how it compared to the soap we previously used, Avalon Organics Baby. I stumbled onto the listings of least toxic baby shampoo and soap and read one of the labels from the third least harmful soap. It said, "We do not add numbing chemicals, so this is not a tear free soap." I was shocked! At first I was stupidly shocked because I thought, "who makes soap that isn't tear free for babies?" then I realised how backwards this was and then freaked out realising, that if a soap isn't tear free it contains numbing chemicals and is actually interfering with my child's nervous system!!! WHAT THE HECK??

So I have to ask, when did this become acceptable? In my mind, allowing something to disrupt a natural pain reaction is pretty harmful. This is of course unless we're talking about having surgery or something like that. Usually our bodies react to pain because the stimulus is hurting us in some sense. So if we're numbing the pain stimulus isn't something wrong? Aren't we teaching our bodies to stop reacting to harmful things?
Furthermore, when companies say things like, "our products are mild, pure, and gentle" are they really being honest with you? Is something that numbs your baby's nervous system really gentle and mild?

So I guess I should probably just be more careful about getting soap in Clare's eyes when I give her a bath instead of getting soap with numbing agents that disrupt pain receptors. Heh!

This just got me thinking a lot about how our society deals with pain and how we've really become wimps, to the point of actually hurting ourselves more so that we don't have to deal with pain. I might eat my words in a few days if I totally cave and scream for an epidural in labor. Hopefully this doesn't happen and all that reading about natural childbirth and practicing relaxation techniques will actually work. But seriously, back to the pain and harm thing. Is pain really harmful? Not usually. Can we harm ourselves by numbing everything? Yes definitely.
At least I think so.


There's my random rant for the day. Yikes, numbing baby eyes!!!
Still makes me cringe to think about it.

Clare's singing debut

Clare really enjoys singing along to just about anything. I think Unforgettable is currently her favorite.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is so awesome.

So every time I help prepare teens for Confirmation I rekindle my friendship with a great book called the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I'm currently doing some prep for a talk on Theology of the Body this weekend. Here are the latest gems....

----------------------------------
I. "In the image of God"
356
Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and love his creator." He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake," and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundatmental reason for his dignity:
What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her, for my love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good. (St. Catherine of Siena)

--------------------------------

Rarely can you read something where every phrase is important. The catechism is so packed with knowledge! I don't know, I just love it. Gives me goosebumps.

------------------------------


Each for the other "--A unity in two"

371
God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." None of the animals can be man's partner. The woman God "fashions" from the man's rib and brings to him elicits on the man's part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Man discovers woman as another "I," sharing the same humanity.

372
Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones...") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that by forming "one flesh," they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work.

----------------------------------

The Catholic Church is so beautiful. What an amazing vessel of grace Christ has left us.

Michael Benedict

We had the ultrasound yesterday! Here he is! Almost halfway there!



Facing forward.

There's a foot.

Another facing forward. I think you can see a hand.

And my favorite, profile. So cute!

Olympics

Clare and I went up to Vancouver to check out some of the Olympic festivities. Sadly, Jon had to stay at work. At first I didn't want to go anywhere near Vancouver while the Olympics were happening because I figured the border lines would be horrendous. There were in fact no waits at the border!!! I think this was due to the fact that every lane was open at the crossings. If only it could be like that every day.

In any case, I realized what an idiot I would be if I missed out on the Olympics being in my home town. So off we went!


The Olympic Mascot ice show.

Clare and I in front of the Olympic Cauldron.

Clare waiting for the train.

Bobsled!

Canada pride everywhere!

Lent, scripture and the office......of readings (not the show).

It has been way too long since I've blogged. Often Advent and Lent bring on more blogging because of the Divine office. It's just to cool not to share.

Lately I've been loving the book of Exodus. I think this is mainly because it's much easier for me to understand the foreshadowing in this book and it's relation to Christ and the sacraments especially Baptism and the Eucharist. There's a great second reading from St. John Chrysostom today(Monday the 2nd week of Lent).

Check it out HERE