I Co-Wrote a Book! /Rise Up--A devotional on virtue for kids!

Over a year ago my eldest daughter mentioned to me that she was interested in having a new prayer book for devotional reading. This lead to my idea of collaborating with Blessed is She to create a beautiful prayer book for children rich in the Catholic tradition of becoming holy through growth in virtue. Further, I wanted to have a book for my children that taught them how to pray by learning to place themselves in God's presence, make an an examination of their daily lives, and then received inspiration from the Holy Spirit. 

After a lot of writing and editing and waiting, this book has finally come together. I am pleased to introduce Rise Up:Shining With Virtue. It has 15 chapters broken down in seven days--with Scripture or a saint quote and a reflection for every day. Each chapter is written by a different Blessed is She writer and covers a different virtue.

My role in Rise Up was to choose the virtues and then explain them to the reader. The book begins with my introduction, which explains what virtue is and how to grow in virtue in general. Each chapter focuses on an individual virtue. I based the introduction for each chapter on St. Thomas Aquinas' explanation of the virtue in his Summa Theologiae taking the language down to the level of a child. 

It starts with the three Theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. These are followed by the four main Cardinal virtues prudence, justice, courage/fortitude, and temperance. The other virtues are parts or subvirtues of the Cardinal virtues: gratitude, generosity, obedience, perseverance, patience, humility, studiousness, and honesty. The book is written in such a way that children can unpack and apply growing in virtue to their daily lives, but also decode the more abstract ones that are more difficult to understand.

Then comes my favorite part in each chapter: a passage from one of the Gospels which demonstrates this virtue and a reflection on that Scripture leading the reader into imaginative prayer. Fifteen different Blessed is She writers wrote the five middle days of the week for each chapter based on a short Scripture selection or Saint quotation. On the final day of the week, the reader is encouraged to reflect, pray, and make resolutions on how to live this virtue out.  

We were super excited to get an Imprimatur for this book. The Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat means that a Church official has read over the book at the bishop's request and has declared that nothing in the book contradicts or is opposed to the defined body of Church doctrine or goes against the moral law. As a parent, I look for this on Catholic books for my children. It helps me to know they are reading the truth.

It is so, so beautiful. If you have a kid in your life ready to grow in holiness or who has just received a Sacrament and needs a great gift. Check out this book. I can't wait for my kids to pray with it. 

*This post contains affiliate links. 

Life These Days

 Somehow we have hit a rhythm that is working this semester. Maybe it is working for me because I get to sleep until my Lyme diseased body is ready to wake up, and the professor is doing the work of getting the children up for the day. But I think that perhaps he is okay with things as well, especially since we put our feet down earlier this year and made all the children ages 5 and up responsible for getting themselves ready and fed in the morning.

I have been waking up around 8 am most days to the sound of my children laughing and playing outside my door. By the time I am dressed and out of my room, the school aged children are hard at work at the dining room table, and the professor is working beside them. His sabbatical has become a semester of studious contemplation for us all. Once I am able to manage the school and teach the subjects that need teaching (about half of their work is independent requiring very little one on one instruction), the professor disappears to do his work away from the chaos of four children.

I guide the children through school until lunchtime at 12:30pm. We have fourth grader, second grader, kindergartner, and a three year old bundle of energy this year. Mostly the younger two entertain themselves with continual reminders to play somewhere else when they intrude upon school space. I do make time to work on math, reading, and handwriting with my kindergartner, and my preschooler is gleaning all sorts of things like counting, colors, playing blocks, building duplos, coloring, from his older sister.

We have found our rhythm in the elementary school level as well. I am used to our curriculum for each subject now (though fourth grade singapore math is getting intimidating--I can't remember at what grade level I learned the order of operations...but we just covered it!), so teaching is going smoothly.

Lunchtime has become super easy as well since we instituted the "make your own lunch" rule. To clarify, we have guidelines about this for them--they choose from a small variety of healthy options. The older children then move the dishwasher along after lunch while listening to a fairy story from the Andrew Lang Fairy Books (which we learned recently were actually compiled by his wife and some of her friends!).

After lunch is nap time for the three year old and quiet time for the rest of us. The girls and I start of each quiet time with a short prayer time where I read the daily Mass readings to them and then we reflect quietly (or look through saint books or children's Bibles) for ten minutes. They go off to their quiet time spots for an hour and I settled into reading theology for about an hour (trying to get through St. Gregory the Great's Morals on the Book of Job before Christmas), and then whatever writing or editing work I need to do for that day.

We have streamlined dinner meals to be shorter an easier these last few years, so I can usually get away with working until 4:30 or so before I cook dinner (which I have been able to do these past two weeks...this Lyme will be beaten!).

At dinner we will often have a discussion topic. We cover one painting and one work of music a week. Lately, we have been reading through the Constitution and discussing it. About once a week we watch Ken Burn's National Park's documentary with dinner, and that sparks discussion as well--our kids are turning into environmentalists! Sometimes we will discuss a question from St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. Then the professor reads to us from the Bible--a chapter of the Old Testament and a chapter of the New Testament in order. We have been doing this for over three years and it is so great to hear it, and for the children to learn salvation history in a family setting.

After dinner, I take my crazy amount of meds (had a morning dose as well), and help the professor clean the kitchen.

We get the kids to bed in a leisurely way with family prayers, stories, and lots of "last drinks" and visits to the bathroom. The professor reads to the older kids from a chapter book. They just finished Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and are reading The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle. It is the second time through for King Arthur, but the younger kids do not remember it.

Once everyone is in bed, the professor and I have been indulging in Star Trek: Enterprise. We were both into Star Trek in high school, gave it up in college, and tapped back into it our first years of marriage. This series is new to us, and has been a good way to enjoy the evening quiet while I have been sick. We usually have time for reading as well. I just finished Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, and am now plowing through my second reading of Framely Parsonage by Anthony Trollope.

So, despite the annoyance of being sick since we got back from our wonderful trip Out West, I am finding a peaceful enjoyment in the studiousness of our life these days. I think it is good for the kids and for us to spend our days in study, even if my two afternoon hours does not seem like that much, it does wonders for me. This is the home school life I dreamed of, and I wish the professor's sabbatical would last forever...and maybe we could avoid all the extra curricular activities that have not yet started...

NCRegister: Chastity, for Each and All, is Central to the Life of Holiness

I know I am not alone in my sorrow over the reports of sexual immorality among the clergy of the Church from the scandals of abusive priests of the early 2000s to the more recent revelations of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s notorious predatory behavior, the letter of the Honduran seminarians about homosexual activity in their seminary, the stifled report of priestly abuse in Pennsylvania, and so on. The actions of abuse of children and clergy using their power to intimidate those below them into sinful actions and to covering up immoral acts are sins that cry out to heaven for justice.
The words of Jeremiah to the unfaithful Israelites in the readings recently ring true to us today:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ [...] ‘Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Ba'al, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ — only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, says the LORD. (Jeremiah 7: 3-4, 8-11)

Clergy and lay people in the Church have covered up these sins for too long. One of the many things that need to be improved is the understanding of the virtue of chastity as central to a life of holiness. I think it is not too much to expect that ordained clergy actively seek holiness, and along with holiness comes the formation of all the virtues. We are all called to live chastity; but it looks different in different states in life.

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register...

NCRegister: St. John Cassian, Gluttony, and Internet Intemperance

...While gluttony is certainly a temptation in my life, though my vocation has not lead me to the austerity of the monastic life, this monk’s account of his battle with gluttony rang very true to a different form of intemperance in my life. The truth is, and I am certain I am not alone, that I struggle daily to have self-control in my use of the internet and social media.

The more I have tried to limit my use of the internet, the more I realize that this tool is a necessary part of the life I live. It is central to much of my work, managing my children’s home school, cooking meals, keeping up on basics like weather and news, staying in touch with out of town relatives and friends, and my prayer life. Yet, I can never seem to come to terms with it, especially since I got my first smartphone a few months ago (and I still call myself a millennial)...

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NCRegister: How I Keep my Children Clothed and Build Up the Body of Christ

As in all callings, raising children is full of Sisyphean tasks, and the acquiring, ordering, and cleaning of their clothes is probably the most Sisyphean of them all. Thanks to Adam and Eve it is an unavoidable task as well. Children need to be clothed (in public at least), and in Minnesota where I live, for most of the year it is a necessity to keep them warm. This aspect of a parent’s vocation is a topic that comes up fairly often in my conversations with other parents. We discuss laundry routines, trying to get a better handle on our own. Whether we realize it or not, but doing this we are actually helping each other on the path to sanctification—when Christian parents help each other do even the smallest of necessary tasks we are building up the Body of Christ.

Managing of the clothes of multiple little people (or even one) can often be an overwhelming task. Recently, a good friend of mine shared her exasperation over it on social media, and we commiserated over the drudgery of it all.

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NCRegister Blog:The Humility of True Obedience

I hesitated for a moment in my reading aloud to my daughters as I came across Laura Ingalls Wilder’s discussion about wifely obedience with her fiancé Almanzo Wilder:

Almanzo, I must ask you something. Do you want me to promise to obey you? [...] I cannot make a promise that I will not keep, and, Almanzo, even if I tried, I do not think I could obey anybody against my better judgment. (These Happy Golden Years, “Wedding Plans”)

It is interesting how Wilder’s understanding of obedience was right and wrong at the same time. She was right to acknowledge that we owe our obedience to certain persons who have authority over us, but wrong to think it involved obeying against her better judgment. I went ahead and read the passage to my girls, and then we talked about how we are never to obey those who have authority over us if it means that we violate God’s law and our own conscience. But nonetheless obedience is a virtue that we are all called to have a Christians; disobedience to God was part of the first sin of the human race. God wants us to obey him and his commandments, but also obey him through our acquiescence to the wills of other people who have authority over us.

Obedience is a part of the Cardinal Virtue of Justice with which we give other people what is due to them...

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NCRegister Blog: All I Want for Christmas is a Thankful Heart

Have you ever received a gift and immediately criticized it in your mind? You said “thank you” on the outside, but inside you thought of all the ways that it was not ideal. With Christmas almost here, I find myself hoping to avoid this pattern of ingratitude. My desire to be in control makes it hard for me to accept graciously something picked out by anyone else. Instead of being thankful to the person who was thoughtful towards me and was trying to express love, I feel a twinge of yucky ingratitude, which is contrary to the love I should have for them. When I fail to be properly grateful, I lack true charity towards others, and demonstrate my lack of gratitude. Yet, now that I have seen this failing in myself, I am determined to make a change.

It was not until recently that I realized that my ingratitude was not just me be picky, but it was a vice. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that ingratitude is a habitual act that leads us to not respond justly to the gifts and good things we receive from others. (see Summa Theologiae, II-II, 106-107) When I fail to feel and give proper thanks to another person, I am acting unjustly. And every time I do a thorough examination of conscience I find that my ingratitude (surprise!) extends to the way I respond to the things God has given me. All too often I complain about the blessings in my life that I see as inconveniences.

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NCRegister Blog: Hell is for People Who Are Too Distracted to See the Face of God

It was happening night after night; my husband or I would decide after the children were in bed to “do a quick email check.” The other would join in and before we knew it half an hour had passed and all we had done was give into the temptation to idle curiosity and lose ourselves in distraction.

We have fought this vice our whole lives—distraction, the bane of a recollected life. It pulls one from one thing to the next, never allowing a task to be completed well, never giving one time just to think. The philosopher Dietrich Von Hildebrand in his book Transformation in Christ described distraction as the “exact antithesis to recollection” and “a state of being dragged along from one object to another, never touching any of them by superficially” (Ch. 6). The time sap of social media and the gossip-ridden sites of the internet are just another symptom of this fallen human state, one that we came into when we first gave into the vice of curiosity.

What is Von Hildebrand’s solution to being distracted? Learn how to become recollected.

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register...

NCRegister: "Inloveness," Virtue, and NFP

The professor and I co-wrote this one:

We began to fall in love in the early spring during college.

The chemistry was quite obvious. During the summer before we got engaged, we read A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, in which he tells the story of the deep “inloveness” between himself and his wife, Davy.

We, too, like Davy and Sheldon, wanted to preserve and deepen our inloveness. In our marriage, our use of natural family planning, with all of its struggles and suffering, plus the joy of our children, has been a key instrument in deepening our inloveness; it has aided our growth in virtue...

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NCRegister: How NFP Makes My Life Like a Jane Austen Novel

The fact that my husband was making just over the equivalent of ten thousand (modern British pounds) a year when we got married is not the real reason that Natural Family Planning makes my life like a Jane Austen novel. Neither is the fact that I have several very silly sisters, nor the fact that I am not going to be left a very large inheritance. The main characters in Austen’s novel and Catholic couples practicing NFP face the world in a similar way. Both combat the worldly temptations to self-love and self-indulgence by recognizing a higher good. They know that one’s every act forms one’s character, and that to be fully human one must act according to reason through the pursuit of virtue and the resistance of superficial worldly charm.

If you have ever read a novel or two by Jane Austen (I allow myself the pleasure of all six whenever I am pregnant), you may have noticed that in each of her novels, a heroine is pursued by a charming man of the world...

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