Catholic Woman’s Almanac {CWA}
Christ is Risen!
Truly He is Risen!
On this Easter Monday I am…
Grateful For
::my faith
::Chris working so hard planting our small orchard (I really need to update our farm blog. I have decided to let the older children who have been so involved in the planning and planting to contribute over there as well.)
::sunshine
::a new sheet for our bed (I must have shrunk the old one because no matter which way I put it on the bed, by the next morning it was off at the corners. That one little thing would start my day off wrong.)
::giving Chris a haircut
::Leo walking around the yard
Listening To
Simple Gifts
Reading
40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life: Living the 48 Principle
(My soul sister and I are reading through this together)
Holiness for Housewives: And Other Working Women
(Our March book club read that we barely discussed)
Practice of the Presence of God, The
(Our April book club selection)
Cooking
Right now I have a Blueberry French Toast Casserole in the oven. Hopefully it’s good because we’re all waiting patiently for it.
I did not necessarily make a meal plan this week. I shopped for a few things like cheese, milk, frozen fruit…still spent too much money. We have lots of beans, flour and venison burger so my plan is to cook from that and hopefully save some money.
Praying For
Praying for my children…hard. We have an upcoming event which is already causing some of my children some fear and anxiety. Not to mention just how hard this world is on growing children. Satan is moving and working in every corner of the world, the church included or especially.
Working On
In addition to wrapping my children in prayer, I am making Granny Squares to wrap them in.
Pondering
I’m pondering the Scriptures. I hear people use the phrase, “There’s an app for that.” Well I don’t own anything that needs or has “app capability” but no matter the need, “There’s a Scripture for that.”
Wandering Around
Catholic Land Movement
Teaching Children to Pray Scripture
Found on My Camera
One of my children felt the need to capture a bit of real life.
Link up and share a bit of your life.
Book Club::Holiness for Housewives and Other Working Women
Good Evening Ladies. Habemus Papam! God Bless Pope Francis! (Am I the only one who cannot say “Pope Francis” without saying “Pope Saint Francis?”)
Have you started reading our book club selection for the month yet? I remember reading Holiness for Housewives: And Other Working Women
In the introduction, the author states this book is for women, “…although burdened with the cares of the household, are anxious to serve God seriously and advance in the practice in of prayer.”
Hmm…”…anxious to serve God seriously…” I have to say that stopped me quick. I am anxious about many things (Just call me Martha).
But am I anxious to serve?
Am I anxious to serve God?
Am I anxious to serve God seriously?
I am telling you all, this book is coming along at the right time in my life. Have I told you I’m tired? See I can do that here. I don’t have to put on my Walmart face in front of you all. I can tell you I’m tired and your response is not going to be, “Well, you know what causes that (meaning children) and there are ways to stop that you know!” No, your answer is going to be about grace. And I’ll take your grace and raise you some grace and not one of us will fold in this wonderful game of life will we?
“If the mother looks upon her children as obstacles to the prompt response to grace, she is missing the whole point.”
Holiness for Housewives: And Other Working Women
And thanks be to God there is this awesome community here at Suscipio that will make sure to gently remind each other, what exactly the whole point is.
“The only thing that really matters in life is doing the will of God. Once you are doing the will of God, then everything matters…So if God wills that you should be bowed over the sink instead of over the pew in your favorite church, then washing dishes is for you, now, the most perfect thing you can do.”
Holiness for Housewives: And Other Working Women
WOW! How does that change things sisters?
So since God wills I should be changing a diaper–it is the most perfect thing I can do…unless I complain and act grumpy and then there is no perfection in that menial act. Oh get this! My attitude towards the Will of God can either sanctify (Definition:hold in highest esteem Synonyms:absolve, anoint, bless, cleanse, consecrate, dedicate, deify, enshrine, glorify, hallow, purify, set apart, worship) my actions or make them a menial task to begrudgingly get over with and move on to the next unhappy chore of life.
When Emily mops, her act of submitting to the will of God to mop her apartment, glorifies God.
When LuAnne prepares her music, that task becomes worship of God.
I hope we make it through this book in a months time, but it seems like the next sentence is better than the last!
“The whole business of serving God becomes simply a matter of adjusting yourself to the pressures of existing conditions. This is the particular sanctity for you. You will be tempted to say that it is impossible to serve God while worrying about the upkeep of a house; you will tell me that you get so irritable that you cannot see this principle of substituting your present duty for the envied prayer time; you will point out your inability to direct your intention toward God when you are so exhausted that you cannot think; you will quote your repeated failures, your bitterness, your manifest decline from what you were before you came to be overwhelmed with household cares. You will say you are unsuited temperamentally, physically, spiritually, by training…But none of these things disqualifies. It can only be repeated that your whole business is still to look for God in the midst of all this. You will not find Him anywhere else. If you leave your dishes, your housekeeping, your telephone calls, your children’s everlasting questions, your ironing, and your invitations to take care of themselves while you go off and search for the Lord’d presence in prayer, you will discover nothing but self.” (emphasis mine)
Holiness for Housewives: And Other Working Women
Ok, it’s getting late. So, what do you think about the book so far?
Share your tips on sanctifying your work.
Catholic Woman’s Almanac {CWA}
Welcome to Monday’s at Suscipio. Link up your own version of an online Daybook or journal or share in the comments. Take time to visit each other and offer encouragement to each other for the week. Let’s get started…
Thanking God for
::a warm fireplace to congregate with our God family
::Pioneer Woman’s Spicy Pulled Pork for a very satisfying lunch/dinner
::the dedication of a loving priest who has enthusiastically welcomed and abundantly provided and continues to provide for our parish family
::crochet lessons from my neighbor who is also my friend (Crochet “lessons” sounds way more formal than it actually is. Really we sit at our table and talk and crochet together.)
::Giving a ride home to 2 homeschool boys in our group and hearing the book suggestions fly back and forth across the rows of seats in the van.
::naps to catch up on sleep lost last week when everyone had colds
Reading
The Hermitage Within
(This book may take a while. I had not even made it past the first page and needed to make a call to my spiritual director.)
Holiness for Housewives: And Other Working Women
(I read this book about 10 years ago and have picked it back up for our Book Club.)
Honey for a Woman’s Heart: Growing Your World through Reading Great Books
The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Catholic
The Way of Trust and Love – A Retreat Guided by St. Therese of Lisieux
Pondering, Praying and Thinking Out-Loud
I am in need of a change. Change does not necessarily mean ditching what I’m doing now. In my case, that would be a bad thing. But I do need to make some changes…now.
I started Suscipio last year when I had a 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3 and baby tucked up tight in the womb. I now have an almost 15 year old, high school freshman down to a–now walking–one year old and everybody in between, plus a handsome husband and then there’s me. To say I am needed would be an understatement.
In addition to all that goodness of a growing family–this past year has also worn me down and beaten me up. Friends I thought were life long–kiss on each other’s grand babies life long–openly mocked and maligned me, lied to me and about me, sabotaged my children’s birthday party, publicly questioned our parenting and forced our hand to make decisions we never thought we would have to make.
I’m tired.
I am tired of my children finding me on the computer. This is not entirely Suscipio’s doing, but Suscipio does take some time. I am tired of telling my children, “Just a minute.” I am tired of Leo cruising around the dinning room chairs to get to me at the computer. Suscipio has begun to feel more like a burden more than a creative, communal outlet. And that’s not good.
But getting rid of Suscipio is not a valid answer. I spoke recently with my husband and my spiritual director extensively about Suscipio. These two men know my innermost self. And both of these men were very clear in the fact that Suscipio serves a good. This good is two-fold.
Suscipio has provided a place for Catholic women to come together and share their stories, their prayers and their heart. The body of Christ working together to encourage, teach and learn from each other is a good thing.
Suscipio has also provided me a creative outlet. Without a creative outlet, I become a burden to myself…you understand? I am daily encouraged by the comments you all leave for each other. I am in the front row for each story, pulling out the nuggets I can apply to my own life. And I’m always humbled by your generous prayers for each other. I honestly feel like there is no place else on the web like Suscipio.
So how to reconcile my need to continue Suscipio and my need to respond to the call of wife and mother in my own little Domestic Church?
Well, the first step is to grant myself grace. I say myself, because I know you all already do. Here’s how I need to grant myself some breathing room. If I don’t get a post up…that’s ok. If I get a post up late…that’s ok. If the Book Club post goes up on Thursday instead of Wednesday…that’s ok. If I am the only one talking about the book…that’s ok. If…If…If…that’s all ok. I can walk away from the computer mid-post and pick it back up an hour later, or a day later or two days later. I can post a picture on my personal blog without feeling guilty because I have not done anything on Suscipio for the day.
So you are maybe wondering why I had to make this big long post to say, “Things may look a little different around here, but Suscipio is still here.” I needed to say all this because Suscipio would not be here with out you all and I needed to let you all know what had been rolling around my head for the past couple of months.
Captured
Book Club:: Hallowed Be This House
The last chapter of our February book, Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
As a married woman, mother of 7, my thoughts on the bedroom will look differently than Emily’s and I would hope that Miss Emily would please share all her wonderful thoughts with us in the comments or in a post I can link to. (Yeah! Emily took the bait and wrote about the bedroom from a single woman’s perspective.)
This total self giving, or at least the supposed self giving, can take many forms in the bedroom. Howard begins with talk of conception and comes full circle to talk of death. Both are a laying down of life…or a beginning of a new life. And so the bedroom is rightly called a place of beginnings and ends.
This total giving of self, hhmmm…How many times does our gift of self dissipate before the door even shuts behind us? And our husband, well, he’s left with the crumbs…Oh, and we want the lights out even though we’re already covered by an old gym shirt and years of insecurity?
And when we do have the lights on, what do they reveal? Is our bedroom junk drawer of the house? Laundry scattered, toys strewed, papers stacked here and there and a night stand with a tower of dusty books reaching higher and higher as if infused with the same magic Jack and his infamous beanstalk were?
The saying goes the kitchen is the heart of the home. I contend the bedroom is the heart of the family. If there is discord in the bedroom…there will be discord in the family.
Right before Leo was born I started making my bed regularly, turning on some soft Gregorian Chant and using a candle warmer to set the mood for our bedroom. Now, Chris could care less about any of the stuff. But for me, it made my bedroom a sanctuary. Now, since Leo’s birth, my bed is not made regularly, some days I forget the music or candle warmer…and the bedroom loses its oasis like qualities; it has just become another room in the house. It is not set apart as a mysterious sacred space in which the whole family benefits.
And your bedroom is a sacred space. It is in the bedroom we become co-creators with God. (Without being vulgar, I realize there are other rooms in the house in which intimacy can be achieved.) The bedroom most clearly express the reoccurring theme of laying our life for another in two very distinct ways.
And in the rite of conception, we can see, as we have seen in a dozen other exchanges and acts around the house, the whole story in one little act. Here, life is “laid down” quite dramatically, in order that the life of love may be born anew, and that literal new life may come into being. The exactness of the picture is astonishing, not to say amusing: both bodies laid down, like the corn of wheat; both laid open, like the corn of wheat. Vulnerability, defenselessness, giving and receiving–nay, giving and receiving wholly indistinguishable from each other, for who will keep tally in these blissful exchanges to make sure the score is even? My life laid down for you; our two lives laid down, becoming one life, and in this laying down and union, lo, the springing forth of new life. My service to you turning out to be joy. Your life laid down for me turning out to be joy. Your acceptance of me being itself your gift to me.
Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
And the two distinct ways our life is laid down? One, when we lay down our life, we do so with the least shred of pride. There is not time to think of self, only of the one whom we are willing to sacrifice our very life for. And yet how often do we shun a compliment from our husband? Dress quietly behind the bathroom door or wait until it’s dark? How often do we never fully relax and enjoy the most intimate of moments–two bodies becoming one? And so we have not truly laid our life down…we’ve covered it in thick blankets of wool and darkness. We’ve kept a part of ourselves hidden so as not to be hurt, laughed at or scorned. We assessed the risk and figured it to be of too great a price. The sacrifice of our life has not been made. We kept a part of ourselves back.
We may not be willing to splay ourselves in front of the body we vowed unity, but we push ourselves wide open to bring forth a new life…the second way we lay our life down in the bedroom. Each new soul that enters a family brings its own special set of graces…it also demands its own special set of sacrifices. This pregnancy may demand the physical sacrifice of the very food we eat; nine months permeated with bouts or days or even months of nausea. And yet another pregnancy may seemingly demand very little but the colicky baby more than makes up for the nine months of expectant bliss.
We easily see the need a child has for us to sacrifice all: sleep, comfort, self…in order to care for the defenseless. But what about our husbands? They have the same need of us. They need our complete sacrifice as well. And they are just as defenseless. Just as defenseless as we are when we slip under the sheet in the skin we came into the word. The baby and the grown man, both vulnerable in the skin God gave ‘em. Our men are at their most vulnerable and they cry…only silently. They want to be completely accepted. They want to be totally needed. They want unconditional love. We do not deny these things to a creamy white skinned baby, why deny them to the grown man?
Well, “He can hurt me like a baby can’t,” we may contend. And yet we carry that same power. Our wicked tongues compare them or tear them down as they lay naked next to us. Or our own bodies stiffen as they approach. The “closed” sign slapped in their face.
Each sacrifice, one of laying with our man and one of laying down to bring forth man–none the more sacred than the other. The process of bringing new life into the world emanates from the sacrifice of being totally known. It is no coincidence the Bible says “Adam knew his wife.” And that one little word brings me back to my initial thought…the bedroom is the heart of the family. This “knowledge” must be rightly ordered or the family will suffer various forms of disorder.
I almost hate to bring this up…Years ago when I would watch Dr Phil, he said something one time that made so much sense. I will paraphrase to make it less crude. Basically, if things are going fine in the bedroom, that part of your marriage equals about 10%. If things are going poorly, it’s about 90%.
The bedroom is the heart of the family.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic, this chapter on the bedroom. I’m sorry this post was so late in coming up, I couldn’t quite get the words together. Hopefully I did now.
Book Club::Hallowed Be This House
Jenny | Big Family Small Farm
So now we’ve made our way into the kitchen. Isn’t it funny, how even in a home where the lady of the house feigns “domesticity,” the kitchen is still where people congregate? All it takes is for one person to head into the hallowed heart of the home, and people follow.
The heart? Of course! The kitchen is the life of the home just as the heart is the life of the body.
When you come in here, you are welcomed into the very bosom of the life here. We do not keep you sitting stiffly on a plush chair in the hall. Welcome to the inner circle.
Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
Thomas Howard is very clear about the function of the kitchen…charity. Where else does one serve so willingly I wonder? It’s not like the service of washing the laundry. No one in my home has ever “MMMmmmed” over clean socks, or “AWwwwed” over spic and span undies.
But make a meal with attention and intention and people take notice. Even a quick weeknight meal is met with appreciation.
“Well, your family may thank you, but my family snorts it down like hogs and leaves me a mess to clean up!” you may be thinking.
But let me ask you this, does the attention and intention you put into a thing depend on the admiration you get out of doing the thing?
HHMmmmmm…
If so, you will not find the sacred in your everyday. It will remain elusive and you will squat right down in self pity.
Preparing food for the table and cleaning up afterward are, like the tasks of the Virgin and Joseph and Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Drama of Charity, obscure and menial.
Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
And without taking note of the sacred, we miss the virtue of charity we could be extending to each person we feed and clean up after. We also miss the opportunity to offer our Lord our joyful sacrifice; an exchange of “My life for Yours” a theme Howard has continued through each chapter.
The bathroom, a sacred place in the home? Of course!
For there we are engaged in tasks that reveal our total vulnerability and mortality, and these things we cannot, in the ordinary run of things, share with everybody. We are precisely too vulnerable…It is too taxing to be totally open, all the time, with everybody. Dear God–I need to get alone!
Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
How many women, and I can only speak for the women, go into the bathroom, close the door behind them, and let it all hang out? I’m not talking about unfastening the garments we mercilessly squeeze ourselves into, letting it all “literally” hang out; I’m talking about the click of the lock signaling the floodgates, “Now it is safe to open.” And open we do.
The day’s thoughts, words and deeds come rushing out, a veritable Niagara Falls gushing down the mountainous cheek bones and furrowing into the crevices of our face. The day has done us in and it may only be 9 a.m. But in the bathroom, where time and eternity seem to meet over the porcelain, we let it all out, suck it all up, dress it up with a smile and make our way back to the other side of the door.
We have let ourselves become the most vulnerable in our own “Come to Jesus” meeting. There on the cold tile, held in place by straight lines of grout, we have regained our direction, solidified our focus and remembered why we do what we do and we offer it up in the name of charity…”My life for theirs.” The constant theme Thomas Howard has interlaced room to room.
I would love to discuss this book with you all. I regretted having this book for so long and not reading it. But I understand the purpose in this was so I could read it along with you and we could discuss.
How’s the book so far? Even if you don’t have the book, don’t let that stop you from sharing your thoughts on Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
?
Do you recognize your home as a holy place? How do make it so or keep it like that?
Book Club::Hallowed Be This House (or Splendor in the Ordinary)
Hello Ladies. Today I want to discuss the dinning room as read in Hallowed Be This House or its alternate title, Splendor in the Ordinary.
A certain theme struck me as I reread this late last night, after figuring out what our Mass plan was for Ash Wednesday. This chapter on the dinning room spoke about the room itself and the happenings there more formally than I would have expected, and yet it made sense–even in my somewhat chaotic feeling life at the dinning table with small children.
Many years ago, my husband had the opportunity to dine with some cloistered monks. After the meal, I asked how it was. I was so excited to hear him say he really enjoyed it. I of course asked for more details, hoping for some supernatural stirrings. He replied it was so nice…no one fell out of their chair, no one spilled the salad dressing or their milk or their brothers water. No one needed their meat cut up or cried because the meat was cut up and they wanted it whole. No one complained or had to be coaxed into eating.
Perhaps for all our zeal in the pursuit of spontaneity and innovation, we are missing the stark truth about what we are: highly ceremonial, even ritual, creatures who move at the tag end of a millennial-long procession of humanity who have all ceremonialized things.
Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
This idea of “ceremonialized” and “ritualized” seem a bit stuffy and cumbersome to me, a mother of many young children. But this is a necessary in their development–spiritually, physically and emotionally.
We were created from the Author of order…not confusion or fly by the seat of your pants or let’s just mix a pinch of this with a smidge of that and see what we come up with. He is a God of order. We are made in His image and likeness so we are a people of order.
I was thinking the other night about some of the memorable moments from 2012. Of course Leo is at the top of the list. But as I thought harder, or maybe deeper would be the word, I thought of a memorable experience related to his birth, or rather his arrival home.
My best friend had come and stayed with the children while I was in the hospital that day, and then my sister came and stayed the night while I was in the hospital and for almost a week later. I can still vividly remember the day we brought him home. The last day at the hospital always leaves me a bit stressed and antsy…ready to get home, but not ready to leave the care available at the press of a button.
The day we brought Leo home, Chris pulled the car into the garage and I slowly climbed out of the back seat of the car holding my new baby son. I opened the familiar creaky laundry room door. The laundry room which had laundry piled ready to be washed when I had left, was now neat and tidy…no trace of dirty laundry waiting. The late afternoon sun was streaming through the back door and windows and it smelled fresh and clean. I continued into the kitchen/dinning room. The kitchen was bright and sparkly and the dinning room orderly. The living room was freshly scrubbed; the sun did not have to fight its way through sticky finger prints left on the back door. My bedroom was clean and neat as well. The blinds were opened to let the sun in and the bed was smartly made.
I walked into a house of order.
And that homecoming felt almost ceremonial as I walked from room to room, christening each room with the presence of a new little soul meant to grow in wisdom and in grace in its confines. My children proudly showed us what they had accomplished under their aunt’s watchful eye. An eye for order that had been sorely missing the last long months of pregnancy.
The recollection of that day a couple of nights ago, pricked my conscience. ”Chris should have that same experience each and every day he walks through the creaky laundry room door.” The world he moves and breathes in is a disordered place. He should come home to harmony and peace.
There are preparations needed for a ceremony or a ritual. These do not have to be harsh or formal. They do need to be consistent. They do need to have for their ultimate good, the message of sacrifice.
The ritual of the Holy Mass, is a ceremony of sacrifice.
The ritual of welcoming guests or more importantly daddy, should be a ceremony of sacrifice.
This idea of sacrifice is clearly established at the dinning room table. Father gave of himself to provide the furnishings and the food. Mother and children gave of themselves to provide the atmosphere of the room and the preparation of the food. This mutual exchange is a reflection of the the sacrifice on the altar. Jesus’ life for ours…our life sacrificed for life with Him. There is an economy at work here, the economy of supernatural sacrifice built upon a heavenly order.
One of my broader goals this Lent is the proper economy of order, not only in my home, but more importantly in my soul.
My life for theirs. A continual recognition of Christ’s life for me. An appreciation of Chris’ life for me. A greater awareness each time my children make an offering of themselves.
**Please go read one of my all time favorite Elizabeth Foss posts on keeping a home, Why Bother?
Book Club: Hallowed Be This House (or Splendor In the Ordinary)
Emily | A Year of Living Adventurously
I was so excited to read Hallowed Be This House: Finding Signs of Heaven in Your Home
Howard, a convert, has an elegant writing style that befits his profession (he was an English professor), and I have to admit, this is part of what draws me to him. I know that might not be for everyone.
But this little book is definitely for everyone, because we all have some place we call home, whether it’s a bedroom, a dorm room, an apartment, or an estate. Howard takes each room in the house and methodically addresses the things we do there, and how we can incorporate our faith into things like dusting, bathing, and sleeping.
Howard acknowledges, early on, that this may sound preposterous. “It is hard to see ourselves as walking daily among the hallows–that is, as carrying on the commonplace routines of our ordinary life in the presence of mighty mysteries that would ravish and terrify us if this veil of ordinariness were suddenly stripped away.” Somehow, Howard says, “we have gotten swept into a millrace, and it’s nonstop flailing and thrashing just to keep ourselves from drowning.”
I can relate to this. I live alone, but even then, the housework piles up. How can one person, for example, have so many dishes? How can there be so many trash cans to empty? How can the papers breed and multiply all over my kitchen table, like the brooms in Fantasia? Has some Sorcerer’s apprentice bewitched my house?
I don’t think so. I’m caught in the millrace Howard talks about. But how do we get out of it?
Howard has gentle answers for these questions. He takes us slowly through the house, starting with the door, and ending with the bedroom, and, with his unique perspective, talks about how we can hallow our houses–how we can make them holy.
Howard suggests that a closed door, for example, protects us from “mere randomness and clutter.” The living room is a place where a family practices charity to each other; we learn the rules of order for living together in a household.
I found a point in the living room chapter to be rather evocative. It’s when Howard talks about the purpose of rules. The example he uses is Peter, the son, wanting several pieces of chocolate. The parent says he may have one. Peter protests this. Who hasn’t seen this happen? Who hasn’t been that child, wanting more chocolate?
But the chocolate isn’t just chocolate: it’s a lesson between love and making someone happy. The child thinks that more chocolate will make him happy. The parent knows it will not lead to good results. Howard brings this to bear on religion, and our relationship with God. “Left to his own way, he will choose the bogus, and land in surfeit and slavery (hell); led in mine, he will deny the bogus and choose the real, and find mastery and liberty (heaven). His way will lead him to the pestilent bog, mine to the glittering summit.”
All this from a discussion about the living room!
In the chapter on the Kitchen, Howard talks about housework and the daily routines of life as acts of love, which, of course, they are. Laundry is done because people in the house care about the others, so they have clean clothes to wear. The dishes are done so that people have clean plates and cups to use when they are hungry or thirsty. Food is cooked to satisfy others. Everything in the daily routine is really an act of love, either for the family, or for the place, or for both. “Nobody,” Howard writes, “supposes for a moment that it will be all ecstatic. Learning to love is like learning anything else: A great deal of it is a matter of fumbling through the steps until they become automatic and habitual…the saints would tell us that their freedom and joy stand at the far end of long years of getting into habits of Charity. It is not all ecstatic….but handed to us from hour to hour, year to year, in muted, plain forms.”
That’s what my dishes are tonight–muted, plain forms. So is the sweeping and the vacuuming and the dusting and the mopping, and the changing of bedsheets, and balancing the checkbook. Is it all fun? Well, no. We all know that unlike playing house, actually keeping house is not as lovely as Disney’s Snow White would make it seem.
But Howard tells us that the things we do every day are things of eternity–God is in them all. St.Teresa of Avila said she found God amid the pots and pans, and Benedictines have ora et labora–prayer and work–as their motto. Members of Opus Dei commit their every action every day to God. When St. Paul tells us to “pray constantly,” this is what he means, what Howard presents to us here. We can pray constantly by doing these small things with great love (as Bl. Teresa of Calcutta often exhorted).
So now I’m going to unload the dishwasher, then load it again, and start another cycle. And then do battle with the papers on the table. Because that’s part of housekeeping, and they’re my responsibility. Service, as Howard writes, is behind the scenes, and so is all this. But God, and our families, see it.
Another Look at St Therese
Good Morning Lovely Ladies. Miss Emily is sick today, so it’s me again.
I’m not quite ready to end our month of being little.
I’ve been reading some of St Paul’s letters in the New Testament and wondering
?
How can one be little for Christ and yet preach Christ boldly?
Are they contradictory?
I came across this sweet little quote of St Therese and thought I’d share it with you.
Isn’t that a lovely mental image she paints with her humble little words?
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