~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~
{pretty}
{pretty}
I thought that Theresa's hair looked very pretty on Sunday with the mini Hawaiian Flower flexi clip in it. I know that I have already mentioned this, but I really like these pretty clips. I know that I am not the only one. My friend, Cathy, shared the following after receiving her order:
I'm so excited to tell you that our order arrived today! I can't believe how quickly it came and I have to tell you that it was packaged beautifully. It was very secure and the calla lily clip looks stunning in person! Rebecca is trying new hairstyles as we speak with her new Roman Cross flexi and the color looks great in her brown hair!Cathy's comment about the calla lily clip confirms in my mind that the clip would make a great bridesmaid's gift. I also think that it would look pretty in a bride's hair. I hope that my niece and some other young girls who are graduating from high school this year like their gifts from Lilla Rose as much as Rebecca likes the clip that her mom gave to her.
Thanks again!
{happy}
The children were happy to have our assistant pastor over for dinner to help us celebrate Pentecost.
They had fun playing badminton with him.
Fr. V., Finnian, and Patrick took great joy in singing, "Happy Birthday to the Church! Happy Birthday to the Church! Happy Birthday Holy Mother Church!" together.
{funny}
The children and my wonderful husband thought it was funny to see Fr. V. shoot an egg. I probably would have thought so too, but I was doing dishes. Am I more like Mary or Martha?
{real}
Mary, Queen of the Clergy, pray for us; obtain for us many holy priests. Amen.
The last picture is really funny! There are no young priests around here. How refreshing!
ReplyDeleteI love our FSSP priests. Unfortunately, Fr. V. will be leaving us for a new assignment soon. I debated putting the real under funny and the funny under real, but the children found the egg hilarious because our two year old was saying, "He gonna shoot the egg." As he started to say "egg" the second time, Fr. V. hit it. We are blessed to be able to have our children spend time around good, holy priests.
DeleteFunny, with the egg I mean! When we were at Notre Dame, we had younger priests too, but out here in the country, there are mostly older ones. Buffalo has younger ones too, but no FSSP priests. We used to have a Latin Mass, but our pastor could not continue because he is pastor to four parishes, the only one that is. Doing a Latin Mass in addition to all the other Masses, was just too much for him.
DeleteI wonder why there aren't as many young priests in the country. I think that if possible, it is good for children to see priests of various ages. May God bless our priests for all they do!
DeleteMaybe out here it is too boring for them? After all, they are still young and most of the congregations out here are dying. Maybe the bishop is afraid an assignment our here would put a damper on any vocation.
DeleteHow sad. I just returned from a wonderful homeschool graduation party and some of the guests were talking about how sad it was that there are so few children in their parish. I was surprised by this because we have a lot of young children in our parish.
DeleteIn our old parish our children were basically the only children. Now in this parish, there is one family with six children, about the ages of our family, one family with two children, one family with three children, and one family with one child, but that is it. The local protestant church has lots of young children and many large families.
DeleteMy pastor thinks that the decline in Mass attendance at some parishes is due in part to a loss of the understanding of the sacred. A woman at the party said that she felt that it is directly related to the fact that Catholic schools no longer start their day with daily Mass like they did when she was a girl. Another woman said that it was because parents were no longer catechizing their children. She shared that for the first time ever in her Catechism class this past year, some of the children hadn't heard of Adam and Eve. Priests need to interact with families. They need to encourage families to be open to life. They need to be supportive of large families. My pastor was so excited when I told him that I was expecting our baby. He's the first pastor that I have had who showed such joy at hearing that I was pregnant. Priests need to make sure that parents are catechized, so that the parents can catechize their children. They need to pray for their parishioners. More importantly, they need to love God and desire that they and their parishioners become great saints.
DeleteI think that is a wonderful observation, about the sacred. But this is not just a phenomenon of the church, but of all society. The sacred is banished to churches and the churches don't know what to do with it either. But the same thing is happening in Germany. I think most churches don't know what to do with children and families. They don't show any interest. They don't realize that parents don't know anything about religion anymore. How are they supposed to pass it on? The churches don't teach them anything, they don't help them at all. Most pastors live in their own world or are so overworked that there is no time to take care of some kind of education of their parishioners. Our local protestant church has all these programs for children and adults. Nothing in our church. Religious education is handled by lay people who mean well, but don't know very much. There are no good educational materials out there anymore either. When I was still in Germany, I taught religious education at the American Catholic church in Bonn. This church was connected to the embassy. Their religious ed books were so sad. I supplemented them with many German materials. So nice to hear that your pastor is so supportive of children and large families. Our diocese has a shortage of priests and has started to have lay people take over some of the Sunday"s liturgies, i.e. there won't be a Mass every Sunday anymore, just a prayer meeting. The same thing is happening in my home parish in Germany. They only get a Mass every other Sunday I believe. The prayer meeting are led normally by a woman because most men don't go to church anymore anyway. I don't get it that the churches don't try to explain religion anymore. That is what people need! I am not surprised that children don't know who Adam and Eve were. How are they supposed to? There is no help, no knowledge! Germany is exactly the same, religious education in a Catholic setting is not much different from one in a protestant setting. Children don't know about the real presence, they don't know what a rosary is, they don't know about the saints. My children were shocked when they saw how little their cousins knew. I was not allowed to give a rosary to my godson to his first holy communion because I was told by his parents that people don't use rosaries anymore and the little boy would not know what it was for. I see the same trend in this country. I think we homeschooling families can set good examples, but even within the church we are considered kind of "odd", at least in this area.
DeleteMay God bless our priests! May our priests always remember that the most important thing that they can do each day is offer Mass. May the clergy and the laity take St. John Vianney's words to heart, "We should consider those moments spent before the Blessed Sacrament as the happiest of our lives."
DeleteMary, Queen of the Clergy, pray for us; obtain for us many holy priests. Amen.
Our old parish always had a prayer for vocations at the end of each Mass :).
DeleteWhat a wonderful practice! I keep wanting to do this.
DeleteWould you have to do this for a specific person and let the person know?
DeleteNo, you would not need to do this for a specific person. :)
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