A bittersweet New Year's Memory

Back in high school I had two classmates that were unusually cruel in their treatment of people outside of their social clique. They frequently taunted me and my sister and our other friends by calling us names and jeering at all the unique physical characteristics that come with the horrible jr. high years. To make matters worse, we had to share a bus and a bus stop with them and sometimes we had to wait almost an our with them after school until our particular bus to showed up. It was torture. I remember smiling at the boy named Ron, and he called me an ugly dog. He laughed at my attempt to look grown up by wearing panty hose and he said my sister and I were lesbians. I didn't even know what a lesbian was.

We weren't the only victims of the verbal and psychological abuse either. The other boy, Greg, screamed at his father and on one particular morning, I remember he turned around gave his dad the finger before he entered the bus.

I wouldn't say that these were popular boys, but they did have their own group of friend - the kids that hung around smoking in the bathrooms. I wasn't necessary afraid of those kids, but we didn't have a lot in common either. But these two boys scared me and I tried to stay under their radar as much as possible.

On New Years Eve of our Junior Year, a few weeks after we received our class rings, these two boys were killed in a freak car accident. I have to admit that when I first heard the news my reaction was one of relief. My tormentors were no more. My mother reacted with horror and sadness. She had made friends with their parents and felt devastated for them. I'm not sure she ever knew how deeply they had hurt me, although I'm sure she knew some of it. Nonetheless, mom felt that we should go and pay our respects at the funeral home. I remember kneeling before the coffin of one of the boys, in his suit and tie with his brand new class ring and wondering how that judgment thing was working out for him? And I also remember having the thought that if someone out of class had to go through an untimely death, these two were the perfect candidates as their death absence was going to greatly improved my day-to-day existence.

Yet at the same time I remember the grief and sadness in the eyes of their friends, their siblings and especially their parents. Even the father who had been the victim of his son's public display of profanity was genuinely in pain over the death of his son. One of the mothers asked me if I was one of the classmates. I told her that I was and that I was sorry for her loss. That's all I said.

The first day back to school, there was a heaviness and a sadness in everyone's eyes. Teachers wanted us to talk about it, and girls from the smoking bathroom were weeping throughout the day in classes and in the hallway.

Every year since that New Year's Eve I have thought about those boys. At first as a lesson to not drink and drive and to avoid driving on New Years if at all possible. Then as I became a mother and had sons of my own, I felt a heavy sadness know the loss to those families would never be filled.

My sister always prayed for them at mass at the point where we are supposed to pray for the dead. She did this for 35 years without fail, every time she went to mass. When she first shared this with me I was surprised. She had been tormented by them as much as I was, but she said, "You know, they were only 16. We were young teens ourselves. I'm sure what they said was mean and bad, but I'm also sure that the way we perceived it made it much worse. So I just kept praying for them. "

One Sunday this year she had a special sense that she didn't need to do that any more. That her prayers were answered. It was finished. She has felt a sense of completion ever since then.

This year I found the sister of one of the boys on Facebook and we friended each other. Tonight she is remembering her brother and lots of loving words about how kind and loving and wonderful this boy was are filling up her FB wall. To have that much love shown, all these decades later - there really must have been a kind and loving side. I wish I had gotten a chance to experience it for myself.

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

[Martin Luther King, Jr.]

Some help with scripture and prayer resolutions in 2012!

It's challenging when you have a busy life with kids and work to get the time in to pray and study scripture.  Here are some tools that I have used or have read about that make the best use of my time and  are faithful guides!



Helps for more prayer time.


Using Divine office. com is one of the easiest ways I found to accomplish this. You can listen to it on your computer, get the app for your phone, or download it to an MP3 player! It couldn't be any easier!  It's not just for Catholics either - all Christians could benefit from praying the psalms.

Praying the rosary more your thing?  Come Pray the Rosary, Our Catholic Faith.com, Hail Mary Rosaries. 

Looking for a rosary app?   Here ya go!  and also here!  And a special one for Android(I have this one!)

More old school?  here are two of my favorite Rosary books:

Help for reading and studying scripture!
This is a great guide from that- from the folks at the Coming Home Network - includes the catechism too!

Any of Dave Armstrong's books are excellent for study and education. 
St. Paul Center for Bible Study
Sunday Mass Readings
Agape Catholic Bible Study. 

and for hard copy lovers!

Mr.Pete has this one and loves it!

My Daily Domestic Clips 12/31/2011 (a.m.)

• Homeschool Planner
  tags: homeschooling
• Harmony Art Mom: Homeschooling for High School - FAQ Answered
  tags: highschool homeschooling
• Liturgical Year : Feast of the Holy Family : December 30, 2011 - Catholic Culture
  tags: Catholic feast Holyfamily

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

7-Quick Takes - The Holiday Edition

  Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary.


1. When I was a little girl, we had these metal statues of deer around the house. I have no idea where they came from or whether they were gifts to my grandparents or if they bought them themselves.  I just know they were around as knickknacks all the time.  I lost track of them for years, but found them again after mom died.  They had been wrapped and boxed away.  They are now part of our Christmas scene - and yes I know there were no dear in Bethlehem, but I think they still look pretty nice there!





2. A few other odd characters have ended up in our creche seen too.  The fat cow on the left is an ornament that no longer has a hanger.  I couldn't bear to toss him, so he now gets to hang around the manger scene.  The angel is an ornament that they passed out one year at the cemetery mass.  The kitty is one of three.  During one of the leaner years, when I couldn't afford much, I bought the little cats for the nativity set because they were only around $10 or so. They've been hanging with us ever since!
 

3. This year I bought these little tea lights at Big Lots.  I turned them on at Christmas Eve and they have been going ever since.  We also put them out at Mom's grave and the baby's grave.  I just love the idea that all of this week of Christmas the lights have been flickering over there too.


4.  I am addicted to the Huffington Post- all debate, with people who are 180 degrees from me, all the time.  I don't usually have a lot of time for it, but this week I indulged a little more.  I have been a member since December 2008, made over 2000 posts.  For the longest time I didn't have any followers, but in the past six months I have 150 and have even a few of their participation badges. And I expect it to get even higher during an election year when more conservatives join the ranks to take on the bastion of progressive liberal thought - it's going to be great!

 5.  So after a nice get-together with the music ministry folks at church, and then listening to the kid's rock band perform, we had a night of mayhem. Little Rosie's stomach was cramping and she had an accident in her bed. As I was up changing sheets and taking care of her I noticed that Sam was not in his room at 3:30 a.m. He couldn't be reached on his cell phone either.

For the second time in the past month he had left the house and gone over to his girlfriends to watch a movie. And I'm just flabbergasted. When it happened before we told him why this was a bad idea and asked him not to do it again. He said he understood and now he defied us. The sense of broken trust is just so jarring.

This time I'm going to work with her parents to see what we can do about this. But basically, he just earned the right to pay his own car insurance - I'm done with that.

 6. I remember when I thought handling little kids was tough - navigating the teen years is much tougher!


 7. From lessons and carols - the cherub (Rosie's) choir singing, Sing Allelu!

Feast of the Holy Family

Pope Leo XIII instituted this feast in 1892, encouraging societies honoring the Holy Family to be established everywhere. He established this feast day to remind families of the sacredness of the family and to provide the laity with a model upon which to structure their own families.

11. Secondly, the mutual duties of husband and wife have been defined, and their several rights accurately established. They are bound, namely, to have such feelings for one another as tocherish always very great mutual love, to be ever faithful to their marriage vow, and to give one another an unfailing and unselfish help. The husband is the chief of the family and the head of the wife.

The woman, because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, must be subject to her husband and obey him; not, indeed, as a servant, but as a companion, so that her obedience shall be wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since the husband represents Christ, and since the wife represents the Church, let there always be, both in him who commands and in her who obeys, a heaven-born love guiding both in their respective duties. For "the husband is the head of the wife; as Christ is the head of the Church. . . Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things."(18)

12. As regards children, they ought to submit to the parents and obey them, and give them honor for conscience' sake; while, on the other hand, parents are bound to give all care and watchful thought to the education of their offspring and their virtuous bringing up: "Fathers,... bring them up" [that is, your children] "in the discipline and correction of the Lord."(19) From this we see clearly that the duties of husbands and wives are neither few nor light; although to married people who are good these burdens become not only bearable but agreeable, owing to the strength which they gain through the sacrament.

 In 1974 Pope Paul VI wrote, in his Apostolic Exhortation, Marialis Cultus (For the Right Ordering and Development of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary):

On the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph the Church meditates with profound reverence upon the holy life led in the house at Nazareth by Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man, Mary His Mother, and Joseph the just man (cf. Mt. 1:19).

Marriage and family life one of the paths towards holiness and heaven. I guess the pitfalls are in the little everyday things  of laundry, dishes, meals and just getting on each other's nerves. But the benefits and joys of a loving family supersede all of that.

Mr. Pete and I have gotten so good at carrying some of the burdens of marriage and children - for instance last night we had to get up at 3 a.m. to change a bed sheet when Rosie told us her tummy hurt and then she had a little accident.  We moved around the house like well-programmed, sleep-deprived zombies, changing sheets and clothes while comforting a squirmy six year old, without saying much at all.  We rule at night time bodily function disasters.  It wasn't always so.

The challenge we still work on are defiant teens and young adults and how we cede our control and governance while still expressing concern and even disapproval  - it's a tight balancing act. But whatever doesn't kill us will hopefully make us stronger and even perhaps holier!

Mr.Pete and I share a bit about our family life to Pre-Cana couples every year. Seems appropriate to share it here today on this Feast Day.

My Daily Domestic Clips 12/30/2011 (a.m.)

• Talks 2011 « New England Catholic Homeschool Conference
  Recorded talks from the 2011 New England Catholic Homeschool Conference. 
  tags: Homeschooling Catholic

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Some pretty Christmas Bell Music

This was from the Lessons and Carols done at our Church. In the procession you might be able to spot Noah, who is carrying a bell, Izzy and Rosie.

 

Feast of Saint Thomas Becket- 5th Day of Christmas

St. Thomas Becket




Here are two interesting sites about the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/THOMBECK.htm

From Catholic Culture: "Given the tempo of the liturgical season with its feasts it is easy to overlook that one saint who for many centuries was, after Mary and Joseph, the most venerated person in European Christendom.
St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was assassinated in his cathedral on December 29, 1170 because of his opposition to his former friend, King Henry II of England, who was encroaching on the liberties of the English Church.
Devotion to him spread like wildfire. He was enshrined in the hearts of men, and in their arts. In statues and stained glass, in song and story this good bishop was everywhere to be found: France, Italy, Spain, Sweden. Many miracles were attributed to his heavenly advocacy. — Excerpted from Days of the Lord"


From St. Thomas Becket's last Christmas Homily.

Consider also one thing of which you have probably never thought. Not only do we at the feast of Christmas celebrate at once Our Lord's Birth and His Death: but on the next day we celebrate the martyrdom of His First martyr: the blessed Stephen. Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr follows immediately the date of the Birth of Christ? By no means. Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and in the Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs. We mourn, for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we rejoice, that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven for the glory of God and for the salvation of men.

Beloved, we do not think of a martyr simply as a good Christian who has been killed because he is a Christian: for that would be solely to mourn. We do not think of him simply as a good Christian who has been elevated to the company of the Saints: for that would be simply to rejoice: and neither our mourning nor our rejoicing is as the world's is. A Christian martyrdom is no accident. Saints are not made by accident. Still less is a Christian martyrdom the effect of a man's will to become a Saint, as a man by willing and contriving may become a ruler of men. Ambition fortifies the will of man to become ruler over other men: it operates with deception, cajolery, and violence; it is the action of impurity upon impurity. Not so in Heaven. A martyr, a saint, is always made by the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. A martyrdom is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom. So thus as on earth the Church mourns and rejoices at once, in a fashion that the world cannot understand; so in Heaven the Saints are most high, having made themselves most low, seeing themselves not as we see them, but in the light of the Godhead from which they draw their being.

I have spoken to you today, dear children of God, of the martyrs of the past, asking you to remember especially our martyr of Canterbury, the blessed Archbishop Elphege;* because it is fitting, on Christ's birth day, to remember what is that Peace which He brought; and because, dear children, I do not think I shall ever preach to you again; and because it is possible that in a short time you may have yet another martyr, and that one perhaps not the last. I would have you keep in your hearts these words that I say, and think of them at another time. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.





The movie about St. Thomas Beckett (starring Richard Burton ) is available on YouTube and on VHS via Amazon.

St. Thomas Becket links on Diigo.

My Daily Domestic Clips 12/29/2011 (p.m.)

• Santorum on CNN poll: ‘Hard work pays off’ – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs
  Dare I hope for the rise of Santorum?  
  tags: currentevents election 2012

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My Daily Domestic Clips 12/29/2011 (a.m.)

• Teenager Jenni Lake Loses Life to Cancer Shortly After Carrying and Delivering Baby to Term | Video | TheBlaze.com
  tags: mothersloveyourbabies
  • POCATELLO, Idaho (TheBlaze/AP) — This is not the storyline you may expect in the case of teen pregnancy. Jenni Lake gave birth to a baby boy the month before her 18th birthday, though she was not destined to become just another teenage mother.

    
    While being admitted to the hospital, she pulled her nurse down to her at bed level and whispered into her ear. The nurse would later repeat the girl’s words to comfort her family, as their worst fears were realized a day after Jenni’s baby was born.
    
    “She told the nurse, ‘I’m done, I did what I was supposed to. My baby is going to get here safe,’” said Diana Phillips, Jenni’s mother.
• Hip Hats With Hair Are Cool And Comfortable Wig Alternative Hairwear!
  I think this is a pretty good resource too.  I remember that SLO was very uncomfortable with her wigs, probably most of the time.  What a great alternative. 
  tags: cancer
• Making a wig from my own hair
  This is pretty cool - a way to make a wig with your own hair.  It would also work for a friend or relative that wants to donate their hair to a specific person.  Great idea!
  tags: cancer
• Free e-book on the 12- days of Christmas!
  tags: Christmas ebooks

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Carnival of Homeschooling – Passages | Corn and Oil

Carnival of Homeschooling – Passages | Corn and Oil

The Holy Innocents - the fourth day of Christmas

The Liturgical Year by Adolf Adam:

Even the oldest liturgical calendars already have a series of saints' feasts directly following on Christmas. The Middle Ages saw these saints as a crotege of honor accompanying the Christ-child, and gave them the name Comites Christi ("Companions of Christ"). In the Roman liturgy these companions are Stephen the first martyr on December 26, John the Apostle and Evangelist on December 27, and the children whom Herod slew in Bethlehem on December 28 (cf. Mt 2.13-18). These three were regarded as representing the three possible forms of martyrdom: voluntary and executed (Stephen), voluntary but not executed (John), and executed but not voluntary (Holy Innocents).

HT Jenn of Feast and Feria









Today is the commemoration of the Holy Innocents


When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi,he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under,in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet:


A voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation and bitter weeping:
Rachel Weeping for Her Children
Refusing to be comforted for her children,
Because they are no more.
Jeremiah 31:15






************


Another sad day during the Christmas Season.


I think in every Catholic Household, throughout the rich liturgical year, you should choose to celebrate the feasts and commemorations that have meaning for your household. The Feast of the Holy Innocents is one of those for my household since I lost my own baby in 2002. It speaks to me as a mother in grief over the loss of my child in "lamentation and bitter weeping, refusing to be comforted for my child because he was no more."




But more than that over the years, it reminds me to pray for the mothers and children who are victims of abortion, children lost to miscarriage and stillbirth, and other disasters. It is a day to remember the children, lives cut short, and to remember them and ask for their prayers too. Today in a special way, I remember Dana at Roscommon Acres whose little boy died in a home accident just before Christmas.

For me it will be a special day. It is true that the home in a mother's heart will always be there after the loss of a child. But I think it is also true that a new baby is the salve that makes the pain from that injury bearable. I didn't realize how much I still hurt until I compared my Christmases from 2002, 2003, and 2004 to the Christmases since Rosie was born. Certainly time and distance has helped, but the deep ache and emptiness I felt previously is not as severe. It's like remembering what it was like to be very hungry compared to being very hungry. It's that different. But going to mass today always helps me to heal some more. Tomorrow I will be attending a funeral mass for a little baby from our parish, and I hope I can bring some comfort there.




If you have lost a child, a son or daughter, sibling, little friend, today would be a good day to remember him or her. Join your prayers with the ones at mass today and ask your little friend in heaven to be your intercessor with the Father.





Today is also a special day to remember all of the little children who have died through abortion.
A Prayer for the Victims of Abortion.

Grave site of Baby John - found dead and alone at a construction site. Given a grave and Christian burial in 2005.

Blessing of Children on Feast of Holy Innocents:

Leader (Mother and/or Father): Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, because of a dream, you escaped being killed with the other babies of Bethlehem. As an adult, you embraced and blessed the little children who came to you. You wanted them to come to you and used them as examples in your teaching. Look now on the beauty and innocence of these children. Bless them, their parents and all who care for them.

The leader signs the forehead of each child with the sign of the cross.

In Your grace and goodness let these children advance in age and wisdom, aware of your love for them and desiring to love others in your name. Help them to be faithful to the gospel and to live lives of compassion. Then they will surely come to their heavenly home where they will live in perfect happiness forever. We ask this in confidence in your holy name.

All answer: "Amen."

Leader to the children: "May God bless you and keep you. May your heart and mind be open. May you live a life of love and caring for all of God’s people and all of creation. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

All answer: "Amen."

The Leader then sprinkles the children with holy water.


Today is also a good day to make a donation to theChurch of the Holy Innocents in New York.
The Shrine is a great source of comfort to mothers who have lost babies to miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death and abortion.


Mr. Pete, putting the finishing holiday touches on the grave of our son, Raphael last year - when we had snow!






Other links for the Feast of the Holy Innocents in my Diigo links.