Blogroll

I came across this beautiful essay on St. Theresa and decided I now have too many websites that I like to visit regularly. I can't remember them all and no, Favorites, are not a solution. Does anyone else have this problem with Favorites? They're so over-run, so unorganized, so filled with old sites that are no longer favored! Then I realized...that's why people have Blogrolls on their blogs. Not so much for other people, but for themselves to have a quick and easy way to find their favorite sites! So I will now build one.

Talimena

Chris and I spent the weekend on the Talimena Scenic Byway. It's only 3 hours from Tulsa and yet we said to each other a number of times, "I can't believe this is the first time we've come here!" The scenes were breathtaking. God's wonder, displayed as only the True Artist can. The pictures don't do it justice. Suffice to say we were ready to go again this weekend (and take Sarah with us), but thunderstorms are predicted for Southeast OK. BUT we may have my sis and her hubbie talked into coming down for it next year!! Right, mesc?

And we'll stay at Queen Wilhelmina Lodge:

Right, Mary Ellen?

Hmmm...

It's funny how the people I introduced to blogging, like Mary Ellen and Lisa, blog all the time and yet I can't seem to get back into it. I used to love blogging. Anyway. Here I sit listening to George Winston, Enya and John Michael Talbot (playlist.com) while Sarah is baking a cake. She's trying out recipes and I get to be the delighted tester!! :) However! I just received this:

so I don't want to have happen what USUALLY happens when Sarah comes home and bakes things like this: .

This one was for her friend Amy - for her birthday. Here's one she baked for me:

Isn't she talented? Chris just sat down to watch the OU game he recorded and discovered that it didn't record. And guess whose fault it is!!! I saw it was recording on ESPN too so I removed the ABC recording......only to find out that ESPN was blocked out. I remember back in Steubenville I was doing child care at the Cowen's house and noticed their VCR (remember those?) was on. So I did them a favor and turned it off :). It was Super Bowl Sunday. And their team was in it.

Why I Am Catholic 2

World Youth Day. What an inspired and brilliant idea JPII had - to bring young people together from all over the world to pray, learn, and meet with the Holy Father. My own WYD experience was life changing when I went to Rome in 2000 with Sarah and Elizabeth.

Each of our five children went to at least one: Theresa and David(Denver and Paris), Liz and Sarah (Rome) and Mary (Cologne). It was a mission of ours to make sure that each one had an opportunity to go. The strongest message that came across to them, I believe, was how much they, as young people, were loved by the Pope. I remember the air ringing with "JP2 we love you!!" and hearing him respond with "JP2 he loves you too!" The world finds this so difficult to believe. An 80+ year old man being treated like a rock star. The media said it was because JP was so charismatic. Then he died and in his place was a man the media portrayed as a vicious rotweiller, one who searched and destroyed heretics. How many will show for this man? Instead we found a humble, joyful, and loving Pope Benedict. He went to his native Germany (chosen as the location of the 2005 WYD long before he was elected) and greeted one of the largest gatherings - 1.2 million. Now how do we explain it?

There were more than a million at many of the WYDs (5 million in Manila) which take place every 2 (now 3) years. There were 2 million + in Rome - when I looked out over the University of Rome I could see young people as far as the eye could see. Young people singing and smiling. Such a contrast to what we saw in Britain this past month

And this year in Spain, a country where most people see their Catholicism as a long forgotten heritage - the crowds are huge again - 1.5 mm. Just when the world might have been convinced the church is dying - when the sins of its leaders seemed to overshadow all that is good and holy and profound. We see gathered the church's future - vibrant, joyful and in love - listening intently to the beautiful words of "Benedicto" meant just for them in times such as these:

We, on the other hand, know well that we have been created free, in the image of God, precisely so that we might be in the forefront of the search for truth and goodness, responsible for our actions, not mere blind executives, but creative co-workers in the task of cultivating and beautifying the work of creation. God is looking for a responsible interlocutor, someone who can dialogue with him and love him. Through Christ we can truly succeed and, established in him, we give wings to our freedom. Is this not the great reason for our joy? Isn’t this the firm ground upon which to build the civilization of love and life, capable of humanizing all of us?

Beautiful Video

I'm sitting here on the couch with Chris. He's watching Masterpiece Theater (!) and I'm surfing the web. I came across a video of a beautiful singer that Theresa told me about. Thought I would share:

Welcome Mary!

Hopefully my dear friend, Mary, sees this (I just sent her a link to my blog). I don't tell many people about my blog - but she's special! I try to believe no one's looking at it (that's why I don't have a tracker) - that way I can share more from my heart.

And here is a gift.. a beautiful article about a saintly man.

The Holiest of Places

I have returned from the most amazing experience of my life - a visit to the Holy Land. Chris, Theresa and I joined a group of people from our parish and from Denver plus 5 priests, 3 other nuns and about 3 seminarians. The first night we stayed in a beautiful hotel on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. I woke up early the next morning and sat on the balcony watching the sun rise over the body of water that was the site of Jesus's walking on water, the call of Peter, and the calming of the storm. Fr. Kastl mentioned at the end of the trip that it was as if we were Thomas, placing our hands in the wounds of Jesus. Touching the places where Jesus was is a powerful way to elevate one's faith to an entirely new level. I wanted to kiss the ground wherever I went (and I see Theresa experienced the same thing). I'll blog more, but Theresa's blog is the one to watch - it looks like she's planning on blogging about each stop!

Wonderful Family Time

What a week it's been. The kids started arriving on Tuesday - gathering for Mary's graduation from Rockhurst. We stayed in Kansas City from Friday to Sunday. I've been working this week and yesterday and today came home to Theresa showing me a home project that she completed :) Tonight Sarah, who just returned from Mexico, cooked a traditional Mexican dinner followed by Mexican hot chocolate and desserts. Then Theresa, Sarah and I played Rummikub while the rest of the family watched the OKC Thunder play in the tournament.

I've been reading the comments on a favorite blog. The author has just found out she's pregnant with number nine and she posted Snappy Answers to Stupid Comments about Large Families. They're hilarious! My favorite: "Don't you have a TV?" "Yes, and if you think TV is better than sex, you're doing it wrong!" Then there's: "Are you done now?" "Of course not! We're only half way through the Karma Sutra!" And one that I contributed: "Did you WANT five?" "No, we WANTED six or seven, but unfortunately we were only blessed with five." The blessings of a "large" family - I can't be more happy and content. And the kids couldn't be a bigger blessing - to us and to each other.

Mother's Day

It's been a beautiful day already. I'm blessed to have two of mine at home today (Sarah and Liz) - both of whom were cleaning the house and singing when I came downstairs! Then we sat and talked and talked - Sarah talking about how much she missed the beauty, pace, and community she found in Mexico - Liz remembering the same in Honduras and talking about how she intends to return there this summer to show them all how much she continues to love them. Then they went out shopping and I sit here browsing and blogging. They just returned with bagel sandwiches and ingredients for a Happy Mother's Day cake.

You know, we can so easily take motherhood for granted because there are so many mothers in the world. The very fact that I was able to have children and then was abundantly blessed with five and then that they are five of the people I would most like to share a deserted island with! From the bottom of my heart, Lord, thank you!!

Why I Am Catholic by G.K. Chesterton

If I was as articulate as others I would write an essay of my own on Why I Am Catholic. One such person has an entire blog on the subject. Then there are those who rise above us all, like G.K., one of my all time favorites. With thanks to Lisa for posting this on FB, here are segments of his marvelous essay - read the entire article here. I've bolded my favorite part.

The difficulty of explaining "why I am a Catholic" is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true. I could fill all my space with separate sentences each beginning with the words, "It is the only thing that. . . ." As, for instance, (1) it is the only thing that really prevents a sin from being a secret. (2) It is the only thing in which the superior cannot be superior in the sense of supercilious. (3) It is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age. (4) It is the only thing that talks as if it were the truth, as if it were a real messenger refusing to tamper with a real message. (5) It is the only type of Christianity that really contains every type of man, even the respectable man. (6) It is the only large attempt to change the world from the inside, working through wills and not laws; and so on...

...The other day a well-known writer, otherwise quite well-informed, said that the Catholic Church is always the enemy of new ideas. It probably did not occur to him that his own remark was not exactly in the nature of a new idea. It is one of the notions that Catholics have to be continually refuting, because it is such a very old idea. Indeed, those who complain that Catholicism cannot say anything new seldom think it necessary to say anything new about Catholicism. As a matter of fact, a real study of history will show it to be curiously contrary to the fact. Insofar as the ideas really are ideas, and insofar as any such ideas can be new, Catholics have continually suffered through supporting them when they were really new—when they were much too new to find any other support. The Catholic was not only first in the field but alone in the field; and there was as yet nobody to understand what he had found there...

...There are passages in Pope Leo’s Encyclical on Labor [Rerum Novarum, 1891] that are only now beginning to be used as hints for social movements much newer than socialism. And when Mr. [Hilaire] Belloc wrote about the servile state, he advanced an economic theory so original that hardly anybody has yet realized what it is. A few centuries hence, other people will probably repeat it and repeat it wrong. And then, if Catholics object, their protest will be easily explained by the well-known fact that Catholics never care for new ideas...

...Nevertheless, the man who made that remark about Catholics meant something, and ..it is only fair to him to understand it rather more clearly than he stated it. What he meant was that, in the modern world, the Catholic Church is in fact the enemy of many influential fashions, most of which still claim to be new, though many of them are beginning to be a little stale. In other words, insofar as he meant that the Church often attacks what the world at any given moment supports, he was perfectly right. The Church does often set herself against the fashion of this world that passes away, and she has experience enough to know how very rapidly it does pass away. But to understand exactly what is involved, it is necessary to take a rather larger view and consider the ultimate nature of the ideas in question—to consider, so to speak, the idea of the idea...

...Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes. The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making those old mistakes, from making them over and over again forever, as people always do if they are left to themselves. The truth about the Catholic attitude toward heresy—or, as some would say, toward liberty—can best be expressed perhaps by the metaphor of a map. The Catholic Church carries a sort of map of the mind that looks like the map of a maze but is in fact a guide to the maze. It has been compiled from knowledge that, even considered as human knowledge, is quite without any human parallel...

...There is no other case of one continuous, intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years. Its experience naturally covers nearly all experiences and especially nearly all errors. The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence: the evidence of those who have gone down them...

...On this map of the mind the errors are marked as exceptions. The greater part of it consists of playgrounds and happy hunting-fields where the mind may have as much liberty as it likes, not to mention any number of intellectual battlefields in which the battle is indefinitely open and undecided. But it does definitely take the responsibility of marking certain roads as leading nowhere or leading to destruction, to a blank wall, or to a sheer precipice. By this means it does prevent men from wasting their time or losing their lives upon paths that have been found futile or disastrous again and again in the past but might otherwise entrap travelers again and again in the future. The Church does make itself responsible for warning its people against these, and upon these the real issue of the case depends. It does dogmatically defend humanity from its worst foes: those hoary and horrible and devouring monsters of the old mistakes...

...There is no other corporate mind in the world that is thus on the watch to prevent minds from going wrong. The policeman comes too late when he tries to prevent men from going wrong. The doctor comes too late, for he comes only to lock up a madman, not to advise a sane man on how not to go mad. And all other sects and schools are inadequate for the purpose. This is not because each of them may not contain a truth, but precisely because each of them does contain a truth and is content to contain a truth. None of the others really pretends to contain the truth. None of the others, that is, really pretends to be looking out in all directions at once...

...Thus, for instance, Catholicism, in a sense little understood, stands outside a quarrel like that of Darwinism at Dayton. It stands outside it because it stands all around it, as a house stands all around two incongruous pieces of furniture. It is no sectarian boast to say it is before and after and beyond all these things in all directions. It is impartial in a fight between the Fundamentalist and the theory of the origin of species because it goes back to an Origin before that origin, because it is more fundamental than Fundamentalism. It knows where the Bible came from. It also knows where most of the theories of evolution go to. It knows there were many other gospels besides the four Gospels and that the others were eliminated only by the authority of the Catholic Church. It knows there are many other evolutionary theories besides the Darwinian theory and that the latter is quite likely to be eliminated by later science. It does not, in the conventional phrase, accept the conclusions of science, for the simple reason that science has not concluded. To conclude is to shut up, and the man of science is not at all likely to shut up...

...Every moment increases for us the moral necessity for such an immortal mind. We must have something that will hold the four corners of the world still while we make our social experiments or build our utopias. For instance, we must have a final agreement, if only on the truism of human brotherhood, that will resist some reaction of human brutality. Nothing is more likely just now than that the corruption of representative government will lead to the rich breaking loose altogether and trampling on all the traditions of equality with mere pagan pride...

My Dad

On the 47th anniversary of my Dad's death, I'm sitting here with a big ol' grin on my face, listening to him sing! My darling sister digitally recorded a tape that we had of him singing at an Elks Event. I loved him dearly and don't have enough memories of him, so I am so grateful to my sister for this and listen to it often. He was a rock of security, a man who loved God, and a devoted, playful father to his five children. He laughed often and served much. What more could I ask for? Enjoy!

Happy Feast Day, Dad!

I just went to Mary Ellen's blog to get a picture of dad and she has posted his eulogy! Thanks again, sweetie!

UBL and Seder Wine

I rejoiced with the rest of the country when I heard we no longer had to fear UBL and his terror campaigns (others, maybe, but not his). But the celebrations bothered me and I didn't know how to explain it. Then I read a comment on a work-related listserv I belong to and decided to post it here because it perfectly sums it up.

Those of you who have attended a seder may remember that one of our traditions is to dip our fingers into the wine glass & remove a drop of wine as each of the plagues is recited. The explanation given for this is that no matter how joyous our triumph may be, we must always remember that we cannot fully rejoice when it comes at the expense of the lives of others - no matter how well deserved that cost may be.

Just Walking By, And...

I've worked on the 35th floor since October and walked by this framed poster every day without really looking at it. Then one day recently I turned and read it. I laughed out loud!

A Happy Easter Gift

It doesn't get much better than this!

The Holy Land

Chris, Theresa and I are going to the Holy Land! We're SO excited. It will be a pilgrimage led by a scripture scholar and Fr. Kastl from our parish. We attended our first preparation meeting today and came away convinced that this will be a beautiful, life-changing experience. Will tell you more as we progress...

Try Again

I'm trying again, but this time will save every 30 seconds :)! We had a wonderful time last weekend when Theresa and her postulant friends, along with Sr. Rebecca, their formator, came to visit (the picture includes all + two other sisters who didn't visit - I really need to take and upload pics!!). They stayed on their way back to St. Louis from Texas and sold books at our parish.

They arrived very tired on Saturday and went to sell books at the 5:00 Mass, which we also attended. We got home pretty late and ate a wonderful meal that Chris had made. On Sunday they left to sell books at the 8 and 10:30 Masses. I went to hear Theresa speak at the end of the 10:30 - she called up all the postulants and very dynamically told us about the sacrifices they had made (one PhD, a nurse, a violist who played with Yo Yo Ma, a web developer). Then she said they weren't the only ones who were called to give their lives to God in a dramatic way - we all were. Hmmmm... When folks were talking later about the number of people buying books Fr. Kastl said it was due to Theresa making them all feel like slackers! :)

We ate a brunch of calzone (that's right, Shea family, and it's NOT Easter!) and fruit salad. In true family tradition, no one was allowed seconds unless they LOVED it! Later we went to see The King's Speech (save! - almost forgot!) that afternoon and then came home for an Oscar party. Dinner included Elizabeth Taylor's chicken simmered in wine, Ronald Reagan's macaroni and cheese, Robert Redford's olive salad, followed by brownies and ice cream with Jeff Bridges' (he was nominated!) hot fudge sauce. Then we watched the show while playing Oscar bingo, with cells marked off for things like "winner interrupted by music". Such Fun!!

Unfortunately, they left the next morning and we miss them all! BUT Fr. Kastl told them he would like them to return twice each year!

$%@#$!@

SAVE BLOGS! I just lost a looonnnggg one when the site shut down. And now I'm heading to Mass, so will re-write later :).

Mom

I have an almost tangible sense of solidity at my core – a sense of well-being and a knowledge that I’m loved. It’s been there all my life and I know it came from my mother.

She wasn’t a bake-you-cookies, give-me-hugs, what-can-I-do-for-you kind of mom (at least by the time I came around as the surprise! fifth of five, born when she was 40). She was a practical, I’m-always-here-for-you, let-me-at-anyone-who-hurts-you, you’re-more-than-OK kind of mom.

Despite losing my father to cancer at age 8, I know that life is good and I have that core – that unmistakable, irreplaceable core that only a parent’s unconditional love can give. Even though she struggled after his death and dealt with a lot of anxiety, her stability and commitment to us was So. Much. Greater.

I mourn for those poor children and former-children that do not have that core. They must search all their lives to find it. I had the blessing of being able to search for God instead. Today is Mom’s birthday – it is the 96th anniversary of her birth. Thank you, Mom. You were the best!

I'm Back Again!

OK,OK,so I wasn't really back. I have no idea why I can't seem to get my blogging groove back, but oh well, here I am for another post and possibly not another one for who knows :). In looking back over the posts it looks like I went into seclusion after sending my daughter to the Daughters!

I'm sitting in my living room looking out over the close to 18 inches of snow out there. This kind of weather is so rare here! Liz had to go to work Thursday and she and I both ventured out to work yesterday. The expressways are fine, but the city roads are amazingly horrible, and this spoken as a Michigander! There were holes that we called snowholes instead of potholes where steam from a sewer hole maybe had melted away the ice, leaving about a foot deep hole in the packed snow. Liz and I got out of work at 2 (due to 4-6 more inches coming) - Chris came to get us - but we didn't get home til 4!

Sarah has been baking up a storm. Last night she and I made cookies with peanut butter centers, covered in chocolate dough. Yum! She's heading back to Mexico on Wednesday :( I will miss her a bunch!