Won't you take a moment or two?

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It is well worth taking a few moments today to read The Challenge and Foundations at Castle of the Immaculate. So often, we spend a harried early morning finding collared shirts and matching shoes and checkbooks and envelopes and then we dash out the door and roll out of the van and into the pew. Then for the next hour, we work on keeping them still and quiet. Around us, there are other parents who are genuinely trying to keep children "entertained" with all sorts of playful distractions.  They are well-intentioned, of course.  They don't want their children to be a nuisance to those around them.  But can't we do better?  Can't we bring our children along to a place where they are truly assisting at Holy Mass, instead of merely existing there?

Helen reminds us that it is a continual teaching process that prepares a child, not just a Sunday morning one. Our goal is for a child to "internally engage in what is going on." Throughout the week, we set the stage for a contemplative Sunday.  And, in doing so, we live the Mass every day.

We are a liturgical people--all people are liturgical people.  In a recent conversation with a Baptist who is longing for something she senses is missing, I reflected upon how blessed we are that our Faith embraces all the senses.  Instead of running from the physical aspects of worship, we bring the "smells and bells" of it into our churches and into our homes. Children are particularly sensitive to movement and to sight, sound and touch. They sense the sacred.

Throughout the week, we can remind children that we worship with our whole person, with our whole body. So, on Sunday, it is a treat--the pinnacle of worship--when we are supported in our desire to unite with God with every fiber of our being at the Holy Mass.

So, that wiggly, squiggly active little boy?  The one that won't sit still and must move? Let's see if we can't show him how his body--trained to ride a bike or put a soccer ball upper ninety--can be trained to move and to posture with reverence and a certain degree of skill in order to join more perfectly with God. They can do it. Mass doesn't have to be about goldfish in a cup and coloring books and happy meal toys.  It can be about worship even for--especially for--little poeple.  Don't distract them; disciple them.

The dreaded question

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Says the seventh child (the child born just before the digital camera), looking over the row of baby books:  Where's mine, Mommy!?  I can't wait to see all my pictures.Michael and Kari have lots of pictures.

Sigh.  That's because Michael was the first and because MICHAEL took Kari's pictures.  I'm a bad mommy, Katie. There are pictures,here, somewhere.  I will scrapbook, sometime.  I promise, dear girl.

From where I stand

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Margaret asked that we post the view from the kitchen sink. This is where I stood this morning, Margaret, and offered prayers for you and your baby. 

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the sunroom is on the other side of the pass-through window:

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The big windows overlook a soccer field in the backyard but I can't get a picture without so much glare you can't see anything.

Many of us on the east coast and in the central and mountain time zones will be in our kitchens with lunchtime duties this morning/afternoon when Margaret goes for a sonogram.  Please pray for her and for her baby as you stand at your sink.