[Editing to clarify: It was my much more sensible co-catechist who proposed we do the journals.   Needed to give credit for brilliance where it really belongs.  I was too chicken to mention it myself.]

Peeking in to say an enormous thank you to Dorian Speed, whose  Journal thing we copied wholesale with the 5th graders.  First night of class.  Went beautifully — kids had something to focus on during those first fifteen minutes of class when everyone is still trickling in, and for me as a catechist it was a privilege to have this way of connecting to each student.  Our choices for topics were:

1) What’s on your mind this week?

2) What prayer requests do you have for us?

3) What questions would you like answered this year in Religious Ed.

I will concede we’ve been spoiled — pretty much someone stacked our class with all the best kids.  (Well, okay, I looked at the roll and the other 5th grade class got some of the best kids too.)  Once again proving my end-of-year fear wrong: I always wonder how my next year’s class can possibly hold up to the standard set by the current year.  But they do.  Every time.  Man I love that job.

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H/T to Domenico Bettinelli for this happy little video:

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Upcoming on the blog:

-I owe you my review of the St. Francis DVD from Tiber River.  Draft is on my PC, waiting for me to do a final edit and stick in the necessary links.  Coming soon.

-Still reading The Salvation Controversy by Jimmy Akin. (That’s my current Catholic Company review title.)  So far it’s a recommended read, if you are the target audience.  I have a spare copy, btw, if you are local and a real-life friend and would like to borrow it.  A spare because, of course, I lost the first one, and had to order a replacement.  I assume that was all part of the Divine Will.  In a chaos-redeemed kind of way.

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Foot news: No change.  Getting about 20 min/day of walking out of it, and then it’s all over.  More or less, depending on everything else.  Have a call in to the referral lady to get an appointment with the foot guy.

–>  Discovered that my girls can be very helpful and cooperative in the grocery store when I actually need them to be.  (Well, Squeaky just likes to ride in my lap.)  So that’s nice.  Taught Aria about unit pricing.   Been a little overwhelmed other wise, and must tell you that my attention to blogging responsibilities is about representative of the rest of my life.  Ah.  Go watch that video again.

Welcome Fellow Catechists . . .

I see that Nick Senger has added me to his list of “catechist blogs”, even though I don’t always write all that much about catechesis.  Or about anything, I noticed, scrolling through the blog.  Apparently a lot of things I thought I’d posted only made it as far as my head . . . oops.

[For my non-catholic readers: “Catechist” is the catholic word for “Sunday School Teacher”.  With the difference being that a) there’s a 6/7 chance we don’t actually teach on Sunday, and b) we’re Catholic, so we are required to use as many Greek and Latin words as possible.]

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Since I was just thinking the blog needed some attention, and now we have a topic, I’ll quick toss out my thoughts for what I want to make new-and-improved this year:

-Well, we’ve got to learn those new Mass responses.  So as soon as we get the green light, my kids will start practicing.  Until then, I’m going to teach some other prayer forms, and let the creed and so forth take a back seat until Advent or whenever we’re told to start teaching the new responses.

-Once again, I’d like to try to get the kids singing.  I say this every year.  Small problem being I am not a very good singer.  Enthusiastic?  Yes.  On key?  Not so much.  I keep trying to persuade other people to do music for us.  So far no takers.  So that leaves me.

-Last year I got really bogged down in going through our textbook chapters too slowly.  This year, I want to look through each chapter and prioritize: What are the must-learn items, what are the “just if you need to fill time” items, and what are the “introduce-but-don’t-memorize” items.

–> For example, I’m a big fan of studying the lives of saints.  But as I think through it, really what I want is for the kids to make friends with the saints.  They don’t necessarily need to memorize life stories.  In contrast, understanding the Real Presence or the Trinity, those are some fundamental teachings you need to have straight in order to build a healthy spirituality.   (Inasmuch as any of us understand such things — they are mysteries after all.  But goodness let’s not throw out all the work of so many councils).

So there we go.  A nice catechist post for you.  BTW I have been absolutely hanging on to Dorian Speed’s catechist series.  Go read that.

PS: Wednesday is our start-of-the-year catechist meeting.   So then I’ll *really* know what I’m doing this year.   Which might involve puppets.  Or a note about how I am to never, ever, stage another VBS play involving so many teenagers with swords.  We’ll see.

Milkshakes all around . . .

. . . is what we get if I pull a would-have-drowned child out of the pool, and she gets an all-clear on the lung check afterwards.  Yay!  A certain mother needs to work off a  little adrenaline now . . .

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In the meantime, back-to-back interesting posts by Eric Sammons:

Just say ‘no’.  Hands down this is my number one spiritual problem (in addition to all the others).  And of course he posts these timely words just when I’m trying to goof off on the internet to unwind a little, heh.

And then, 100 things? I’ll consider it, if I get to count all my books as a single item.  Otherwise, I guess it’s 99 books and a toothbrush?  I think everything else maybe I could borrow from someone.

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Funny story about self-denial and materialism: SuperHusband and I are in the market for a new motor vehicle.  Exact nature TBD, but we’re leaning towards a commuter-mobil.  There’s about $5K difference between the car he really wants, and a less-expensive, more practical car that would (we think – haven’t test-driven yet) do everything we’d expect from the dream car.   Poor guy, he’s checking out vehicles on the internet last night, and his wife leans over and says, “$5k would build a lot of houses in Haiti.”

Or, part of a hospital?  Investigate this one, if you are looking for a worthwhile cause.  No personal connection on my part, so do your own due diligence.

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Meanwhile, a funny story from the child-not-drowning incident:

So I’m watching my preschooler from the sidelines at my local community pool, because I am one of those mothers who lifeguards her own children even when there is one lifeguard on duty and three others giving swim lessons nearby, and I see Squeaky go under.  So I walk in and pull her out — real easy, because we’re in the shallow end, and she is right next to the wide concrete staircase so it’s just step in, pick up child.  Hurray.

[Yes, my child was literally one step from where she could have stood up and been fine.  But she stepped down to where it was just over her head, panicked, and didn’t think “oh, just walk up the stairs”.]

I carry her up out of the water, do my check to make sure she’s okay (she is), and I’m standing there with her swim instructor from the previous hour’s lessons,  who had come over both because she saw the incident and because she had some papers to give me.  Then the lifeguard on duty looks over in our direction; the whole incident couldn’t have lasted ten seconds, probably more like three or five — and he didn’t see it happen.

[No fault here: there was nothing for him to hear – neither my daughter nor I made any noise through all this — and this one guy has an entire pool of swimmers to watch.  No one can physically keep their eyes on that much space and that many people simultaneously.  The best a lifeguard can do is scan continuously, and hope he sees what he needs to see when he needs to see it.]

So the poor guy sees me there standing soaking wet in my street clothes, realizes something is amiss, and comes over to speak to me.  And his brain has not connected all dots yet, so it falters on the what-happened-here process:   He kind of hestitates, then says, “Um, we’re supposed to wear swimming attire in the pool.”

I assured him I don’t *usually* swim in leather shoes.

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Have a good week.  And no combox pile-on about my lifeguard.

Hard Not to Like

H/T to Mark Shea.

[It’s the Pater Noster, set to music, with subtitles.  Sing along fun!]

No news is good news on this end. Castle residents are mostly healthy, house-cleanout is progressing nicely, and VBS starts tomorrow. Violated my sewing moratorium to put together some Roman garb for myself, as the ol’ “Bible Voyage” will be wandering the Roman Empire with the Apostles.   Need to get my special-effects in order for a shipwreck on Tuesday.

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Tara Livesay has a guest post by Amie Sexton, looking at inter-racial adoption. Go read it right now.

I had much more to add, but got my finger stuck in the door on the way into Mass this morning.  Not so bad an injury, but it hampers the typing.  So you are spared my deep thoughts.  Happy Sunday.

Book Review: Saint of the Day

Our pastor included  Saint of the Day (6th edition, Leonard Foley ed.) on his recommended reading list this past Advent.   I’ve never gone wrong in taking his advice, so when the book showed up on the Catholic Company’s review list, I saw my big chance.    The result was consistent with Father’s track record: Not something I would have chosen myself, but I’m glad to have given it a try.

Saint of the Day is a compilation of lives of saints spanning from the time of Jesus through our day.  Most entries are about one page front and back, and include a brief biography, a reflective commentary, and a quote which is either from that saint, or which is connected in some way with that saint’s life and teachings.   There are also entries for most (but not all) of the event-related feasts.  (Think: the Visitation or the Immaculate Conception.)

To answer the most common question I received while reading this book:  No, there is not an entry for every single day of the year.  So, for use as a daily devotional, it will meet many readers’ needs far more precisely than we would like to admit.

Because the entries are brief, the editors naturally had to be selective about what information to include.  The general pattern is this: If it is expected that the average reader already knows about the saint, the focus is on analysis and spiritual lessons to be learned.  If the saint is either relatively obscure or relatively new, the entry provides more concrete biographical details.  Certain major saints and events don’t make the book, either because they are too specialized (St. Genevieve – Patron Saint of Paris) or so well known they needn’t be discussed at all (Feast of the Incarnation).

I  found the book most helpful for learning about new saints — especially those newly canonized, but also some of the more obscure historic saints.   I found that if I already knew quite a lot about a saint, invariably the editors had chosen to leave out some crucial detail I thought terribly important.    I was also frustrated with some entries that omitted even bare biographical details such as where the saint lived, in favor of more reflective commentary.  For example, the entry for “Teresa of Jesus” never tells us that this Teresa of Avila — I was only sure they were one and the same because I happened to have The Way of Perfection sitting on the bathroom counter,  which work was mentioned in the “Teresa of Jesus” entry.

I was very happy to confirm the commentary is all 100% straight Catholicism — neither to the left nor the right.  Because the book was assembled from the work of many contributing authors, and because my mood is highly changeable, sometimes I found the quotes and reflections a little wanting, other times they seemed to be dead-on.  For many entries, the related quote comes from a papal encyclical or other modern church document. I found myself  frustrated at times by their ponderous style, but also glad the editors chose to introduce the reader to these momentous and undeniably relevant works.

I’m still looking for the perfect one-volume, general-interest saints book.   Saint of the Day takes an honest stab at that effort, and if it isn’t perfect, I wasn’t able to find another book on the shelves of my local catholic bookstore that did as well.   For the fairly informed catholic adult looking  for a combination devotional and historical brush-up, this is a sound choice.  It probably will not be the one book that meets all your needs, but it is reliably catholic, and certainly does what any good saints book will do:  it points you in the right direction.

Interesting article re: witchcraft, the church and the state.  Quick, readable, specific enough to be useful.  Can’t comment myself, but gives you some fodder for further study.  Will say that the info Mike Flynn gives does seem to coordinate with what I have read elsewhere.  (H/T to Mark Shea for posting the link.)

Grammar & Apologetics

Picked up Living Your Faith by Robert Nash, SJ at my local thrift store the other week.  A lenten-quality kick-in-the-pants, published by Prentice Hall in 1951, originally published in Ireland under the title Is Life Worthwhile?.

So the other day Fr. Nash is onto me —  point after point about sin and salvation, our helplessness, God’s love for us, etc. etc.  And I think:  How on earth could someone (protestant) think Catholics are not Christians?   Next thing I know, I run into a line about when a Christian feels the “immense strength he has in Jesus and Mary”.

Ah.  Yes.  I can see where that would not sit quite right with the protestant soul.  Indeed, it initially struck me, rosary-pray-er that I am, as a bit off.   Then, corrected, I realized our problem is not theological, but grammatical.

The accusation of some protestants is that Catholics make a goddess of Mary.  A sentence like Fr. Nash’s seems to point that way:  Mary appears to be positioned as equal to Jesus.

Now Mary certainly holds a privileged place among God’s creatures, and Catholics do believe that the saints in Heaven are given an active role as co-heirs with Christ.  We are the Body of Christ here on earth, and we aren’t suddenly demoted to uselessness when we arrive in Heaven.  God doesn’t need us, but He lets us help him anyway.  But any role that Mary plays is of human type — appropriate to the kinds of work that God has allowed men to do.  We do not worship Mary as a goddess.  We just don’t.

So what about that sentence?   Do we have to do some kind of literary gymnastics to exonerate Fr. Nash?  Not at all.

When we see two people paired in a statement, it does not automatically mean the author considers them equal.  Everything depends on the actual relationship between the two.

So, if we read, “Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones are in surgery”, we get one idea.  We imagine two physicians, doing about the same work.      In contrast, if we read, “Dr. Smith and Nurse Jones are in surgery”, we imagine the scene differently.  We know that nurses and physicians have different roles, so we envision Smith doing what doctors do, and Jones doing what nurses do.

There is nothing contrived about this reading.  In English, we can pair two equals, we can pair two opposites, and we can also pair two related but unlike people or objects.  Doctor and doctor, doctor and patient, doctor and nurse.

Knowing nothing at all about Catholic theology would be something like knowing nothing at all about the practice of medicine.  When you read about “Dr. Smith and Nurse Jones” working together, or “Jesus and Mary” working together, if you truly don’t know what role each plays, as the reader you may have some confusion about what is being stated.

Can the reader of ill-will choose to intentionally “misunderstand” in order to make false accusations?  Certainly.  But as Catholics we have to consider that ambiguous grammar on our part  may be confusing and misleading for readers, listeners, and friends of good will.