NFP Saves Thanksgiving

Also, I reviewed a good book.

Back to NFP: So yesterday I woke up at six (normal), and thought it might be prudent to see if I could sleep until seven, what with having a long day ahead, and having been so tired all week.  Success.  Seven rolls around, SuperHusband’s alarm goes off, and now there’s no more stalling except that old married-lady trick: Reach for that thermometer.

Here’s the thing you need to know, you innocent ones, about women of a certain age: We pretty much know whether we actually need to get a temp that day or not.  Round my castle, yesterday was not that day.

But if you want five more minutes of laying in bed, a sudden diligence in Following the Method is a dodge that even St. Josemaria WAKE UP Escriva can’t get down your back about.

So I got my minutes.  Thermometer beeps, and if you don’t go turn on a light and check and see what it says, and write that down someplace, Josemaria’s gotcha.  So I do that, because I don’t want to be in deep trouble with select saints.

100.0.

Benefit of NFP: You know a fever when you see one, the way baseball fans know a bad batting average when they see one.

–> This caused the surreal experience of knowing I was sick, but since I still only felt like a tired person waking up in the morning, I had no idea exactly what sort of sick I might be.  Also, NFP saved Thanksgiving, because:

(a) If I hadn’t known I was sick, I would have gotten up and prepped for co-op.

(b) I would have felt tired and unmotivated, but I would have chalked it up to a moral failure on my part, made extra coffee, and pushed through it.  Probably grabbed some allergy medicine when I felt a little sneezy.

(c) Well, yes, by 10:30 my throat would have been very, very sore.  But I would have assumed it was from talking too much, not enough fluids, something like that.

(d) My friends at the co-op would have observed my pathetic __insert doubtful behavior here__, but they do that every week, so even they might not have realized I was a walking bio hazard.

(e) Germs.  Incubation periods. Major holidays around the corner.  Doesn’t take a public health official to add it up.

So you see?  Moral of the story: The quest for holiness had side benefits for the wider community.

***

What happened instead is that I called in sick, other people went about their lives happily, and I spent the day mildly ill (not that bad, if you don’t have to talk to anybody and can sleep a lot of the day), read books, and then goofed off on the internet while my children faked doing schoolwork.  Which means two more side benefits for the wider community:

1. NFP related: I discovered Simcha’s new book, print version, is now available for pre-order from OSV.  The book doesn’t include every single NFP Secret, like the one I’ve just shared, but it does cover the most important bits.

2. As linked above, I finishing reading and wrote a review for Fr. Longenecker’s book More Christianity.  It’s a good book.  You should consider reading it, if you are one of the qualifying candidates.

A couple notes re: full disclosure on this one, since no one is pestering me at this very minute to get off the computer:

• I read the first edition (issued by OSV).  The cover pictured above is the revised and expanded edition from Ignatius.  You can still buy the old version direct from Fr. L, but I bet the new one is even better.
• Fr. Longenecker sent me a review copy because I had been so kind in my comments about Catholicism Pure and Simple, a book I paid for with my own money and think was money very well spent.  I’ve also reviewed The Gargoyle Code (loved it), and astute readers may have noticed I tweet an awful lot of Fr. L’s posts from his blog.
• This is because he writes good stuff. My usual rule for when he, or anyone, says dumb stuff, is to take it up privately or else just ignore it.*

I would torment you by saying, “I also read a pretty bad book yesterday,” but that would be unkind, unless I meant to tell you which bad book it was.  I do read bad books, though not usually an entire bad book.

–> If you reach the point where you have read all the very good books, and need a list of books that are pretty good but have a few glaring weaknesses and possibly even some objectionable content, e-mail me.  I know a few.  But I bet you haven’t read all the very good books yet.

*I know this is difficult for you to believe, longtime readers of a blog with a whole category called Rant-o-Rama.  But I assure you, my curmudgeonly powers far exceed anything you witness on the internet.

Small Success Thursday: Not Too Much Jesus

 

1. I’ve been tired lately, mostly because that’s the way my life is.  The first thing that goes is the prayer life, because of excuses:

(a) Tired = willpower AWOL

(b)  The things that make me tired (= my life) are always happening during the times I had planned to pray

(c) Or else tired = sleeping in = whole day thrown off = forget it, too late

(d) and of course the “I just forgot” problem.

So the solution was to buy a new book.  This one.  Which I was resisting valiantly until some knowledgeable person went and said I needed to learn what was in it.  She was right.

It arrived a few days ago, but remember, tired, so I didn’t really succeed at anything until this morning.  Wow.

I sorta kinda new how different it was to sing the psalms than to say them, but no, I didn’t really.

Zowie.

2. I’m pretty sure I’m doing it wrong, by the way.  I can’t sight read, and for various reasons the only instrument I had on hand was my daughter’s thumb piano, which means, if you are me, you have to give your best guess on anything that straddles Do.  And thumb pianos make me so confused anyway.  But even doing it wrong . . . what a difference.  Slower, though, but I didn’t mind that.  I even mostly paid attention to the words, which is an improvement.

3. I am not using #3 to complain about anything.

4. I turned in my column for New Evangelizers that is supposed to run one week from today.  It is not about Thanksgiving, so maybe my trusty editor will flip it around with another post.  Or maybe people want to spend Thanksgiving reading what I have to say about the Mass and church-n-stuff.  The thing you need to know:

I linked to Katie O’Keefe’s article about the Christmas Carols & Advent Hymns.

You should go ahead and look at that now.  She even tells you the difference between a hymn and a carol.  I didn’t know that before.

5. If I were to sum up my Theory of Leadership it would be this: Do the things people ask you to do.  I’m puzzled that people keep wanting to meet for the discipleship group, even on busy weeks when we also have a Bible study and a long day at the co-op and Thanksgiving coming up.  But people do, so we will.  You can’t really tell people, “No! Stay Home! Too Much Jesus!”.  Since that would be false and all.

6. The reason I know that people want to meet for discipleship group on Sunday is because I switched to a pediatrician at the clinic in the ‘hood.

7. Yes, that kind.  Where if you don’t have insurance they treat you on a sliding scale, and the New Patient Form doesn’t just ask you whether you’re homeless (they don’t ask you that in the ‘burbs), it has five different categories of homeless for you to choose from.

8. I did not do this out of solidarity with the poor.  I did it out of total exasperation with the reputable practice in the ‘burbs, combined with the fact that my eldest are tweens and teens now so the stakes are a lot higher in terms of the moral values of their physician, combined with the fact that my friend the homeschooling pro-life Catholic pediatrician from our discipleship group is one of the doctors there, and she told me to get off my rear and make an appointment because the kids were due for tetanus shots, ahem.

(She didn’t say it that way.  I am translating for readers here who do not speak Gentle-and-Sweet, which I don’t speak either.  I can understand it though, mostly.)

9.  So the practice in the ‘hood is a whole lot better than the one out in the sprawl.  Not just because my friend is one of the doctors.  (Though she might be having an impact).  The desk staff were both competent and friendly, they got things done, they were efficient, and they didn’t treat you like you’re an idiot.  And no one prescribed weird extra lab work ‘just to be sure’.  I’m sold.  Also, it’s closer to my house.

10.  The kids were pretty scandalized by the routine questions, though.  They don’t ask about whether you use sunscreen in the ‘hood.  They do ask about whether you, 11-year-old, use drugs or alcohol.  Also, “Are you sexually active?”  My children were mortified, sheltered little creatures that they are.  Our parish youth minister would have been nodding her head vigorously — the big problems kids face are not starting in high school, they are starting much younger.

11. So maybe that explains why people are so keen for God more days of the week.

12.  Which point (scheduling discipleship group, Little Flowers, Bible study, etc.) we were able to confer about during the pediatrician Q&A, so that I could go home and e-mail folks to let them know, sort of, what’s up.

13. Also, we discovered #3 child is a little bit near-sighted.  Follow-up with eye doctor scheduled for early December.

14.  Hey, and music!  SuperHusband recorded this from Mass on Sunday, and Dr. Mad Musical Super-Genius set it to a slide show. There’s nothing like an apprenticeship to the mad scientist at the choir lab downtown to make a man quite relaxed about cantoring one teeny tiny psalm back at the home parish.

15. Also, I think I’m going to end up banned at St. P’s, on account of how I kept leaning forward in my pew so I could get a peek at my cutie-pie 11-year-old hanging with the sopranos, who were blocked by a column if I sat back nicely.  I did not wave, though. That counts for something.  I definitely pray better when strangers do the singing.

15.  Look! Advent Rabbits! It’s a convertible set, they turn into Christmas Bunnies on the 25th.

My friend Sandra said she’d bring home Miffy merchandise in exchange for French lessons.  I’m on it.  I think there’s a French proverb that runs something like Lapins de Noel arrivés, leçons de Français commencés. Roughly.

.

7 Takes – Laziness ‘n Liturgical Living

1.  Catholic Icing has an Advent / Christmas planning guide out, and if I were that type of person, I’d get one.  Everything I have ordered from Catholic Icing has been top notch.

2.  But I’m not that type of person.  Which is why this Halloween about noonish my children quick went outside and hung white plastic trash bags in the tree (ghosts) in a last-minute attempt to show the world we were festive.

Most of the ghosts did eventually come back down, but we still have one up, reminding us that November’s the month for praying for all souls.  Handy, eh?  The ghost has to come down by the end of the month though, and by then I’ll have worked up the motivation to firmly insist it be done.

3.  In this same way, you can hold onto the Easter theme all 8 weeks, and not be like those wretched sinners who put the bunnies away after just one or two weeks of Easter.  After 8 weeks of looking at a smiling bunny, even the laziest procrastinators are moved by the Holy Spirit, and/or disgust, into putting the bunny away on Pentecost.

(Some of us are truly an Easter  a Bunny People, and thus there’s a rabbit on the mantle all year.  But we put away the no-doubt-anymore-they’re-dead Easter flowers in mid-June, and leave up just the Ordinary Time Rabbit.)

4.  So.  Advent’s coming.  You might be thinking, “I need to get ready for Christmas!”

Actually you don’t.

5.  Here’s how lazy people are better, following this clever decorating scheme:

First Sunday of Advent: Scramble around your house looking for some kind of Advent-y decoration after you get home from Mass, where you were reminded the season is upon you.  It’ll probably involve re-purposing the purple cape from someone’s Halloween costume.  Go with it.

During Advent:  Stay home from all those obnoxious Christmas events you never liked anyway.  You’ll be happier, and more liturgically-correct, which gives you a Pleasing Sense of Smug Superiority.

Tip: Go ahead and go to the events that you actually enjoy.  You can hold onto your PSSS by telling yourself that either (a) your attendance is an act of charity towards your hosts or (b) this particular event is the perfect way to prepare for the Christmas season.

Christmas Eve: Use the One Day Rule.

6. The One Day Rule is this: Do no more decorating for Christmas than can be accomplished in one day.  You may start as early at the 23rd if your schedule dictates, but the 24th is better.

The One Day Rule is superior because:

(a) You’ll never worry you’re over-doing it and losing sight of the reason for the season.

(b) You won’t get angry at your spouse for sitting around eating popcorn while you slave for weeks getting all the decorations up.

(c) Your home will still be plenty festive.

(d) It will only take one day to un-decorate, come the languid aftermath of the Presentation.

(e) Actually, you’ll probably get sick of most of your decorations before you’ve completed your 40 Days of Christmas, so the post-Presentation clean-up won’t be that bad.  But you do have to put away the St. Nick statue on Feb 3rd. Or else scoot him into a pleasing arrangement with the Ordinary Time Rabbit.

Note: The spouse and children may decorate all they please throughout the Advent season, and you must only scowl at them if they either (a) really go overboard or (b) have the temerity to try to make you put down your popcorn and help.  You’re busy being holy this Advent, you’ll string lights on the 24th, thank you.

Also: You are allowed to remove the batteries / cut the wires from the Singing Christmas Elf at any time during the Advent season, or even before.   Advent may have a penitential note to it, but Dark Night of the Ears it is not.

7.  Wait a minute! You forgot to buy presents!  Never fear, Liturgical Mom is here. You just need a couple cool things for the 25th and 26th, and you probably bought them on impulse because your kids are so cute you couldn’t help it.  The morning of the 27th is the perfect day to go out and acquire your other 10 Days of Christmas Loot.

Tip #1: If you know for a fact that all your kids are getting on the 25th is a shiny box of paperclips, but you *are* planning to buy something bigger come the post-Christmas sales, because you are a red-blooded American, albeit a very frugal one, you can announce that henceforth the family will be celebrating Ephiphany as the big day for gifts.

Tip #2: Some of your days of Christmas don’t have to be Merchandise Days of Christmas.  Around our house we have, among others:

The Baking Day of Christmas.

The Gingerbread House Day of Christmas.

The Going to the Zoo Day of Christmas.

The Eating at Waffle House, yes it’s that rare, Day of Christmas.

And so forth.   This year we’ll have one of these Ornament Kit Days of Christmas, because the girls have one and they mean to use it.

Also, at our home, we invariably have the Naughty Children Day of Christmas, in which our over-festivated youth decide that housework is overrated, and since the living room is a mess, still, we send them to bed early and thus observe the Parents’ Peace and Quiet Evening of Christmas.

8. Bonus Take: Equal Exchange is a very good source for stocking-fodder.  You can sign up as an individual customer or as an organizational customer (a small, private buying cooperative counts as an organization) depending on the quanities you’ll be buying.  The cool thing about this is that in addition to the PSSS that comes with buying all fair-trade chocolate, you won’t be tempted to pick up those horrid overpriced impulse-candies at the store.

9.  Bonus Take, Easter edition: If you live in the southern US, you have to order your Easter chocolate before Lent begins, because it may be too warm for the chocolate to survive the 5th week of Lent.

Piety Alert: Everyone will know you broke your Lenten penance if they end up with horrid grocery-store Easter candy in their baskets despite having seen the expensive stuff arrive at the door in March.  Which terrifying thought will give you an infusion of self-control to help you through the long month and a half looking at the duct-taped box from Equal Exchange.  (Your box does not arrived duct-taped.  But, tip: Duct tape can really assist your quest for personal holiness.  Just sayin’.)

Small Success Thursday – Halloween

1.  I made it through the interview sounding mostly like myself.  Which is accurate if not always flattering. I haven’t listened, but I have it on good authority that’s how it panned out.

2.  Wrote this post to follow-up: Halloween, Playfulness & GK Chesterton.  I’m not sure whether my new approach at the blorg,of doing part essay – part book review (or snippet), is going to make my boss happy, or irritated, or nothing at all.  But it’s more fun than straight reviews.  I almost always have a book to go with a rant.  I’m reliable that way.

3.  We’re painting pumpkins.  Which means we:

(a) Obtained pumpkins.

(b) Attempted to carve them.

(c) Realized it was futile.

I like the painted thing better, honestly.

4.  Not only did I deskavate last week, I fully cleaned the entire study.  Yes.  For who don’t know, my study was sort of like that situation with the trash barge full of hazardous waste being parked in international waters waiting for someone to accept it.  And then, one day, cleaning fairies came and made all the garbage magically disappear, and left an organized work space in its place.   Not a small success.  But I cheat and post it here anyway.

5. I keep forgetting to write my seven takes for tomorrow’s giveaway.  Luckily it’s a feast day and I don’t have to be anywhere until noon.  So I can do it last minute.  If you find yourself take-stalking, just be patient, there’s no advantage to entering early.

7 Takes: Staying in Sync with the Church – and why I hate these spontaneous fast days.

This week: 7 takes, domestic Church edition.

Next week: 7 takes, Sinner’s Guide to NFP Giveaway edition.  More at the bottom.

***

Here’s what: the Pope and US Bishops are driving me nuts with their spur-of-the-moment fasting gigs, called as only bachelors could call them.  Reason #2 of course is that I’m a whiner when it comes to fasting.  But reason #1 is legit: It takes advance planning to stay in sync with the Church.

1. Sunday.  Ha, Sunday.  Day of rest, right? Which means you need to:

• Get the shopping done ahead of time, so you aren’t running out on Sunday for that One Thing You Really Need.
• Have a meal plan in place that isn’t going to drive you nuts with drudgery.  See #7.
• Do the chores.  By Saturday.  Or wait till Monday.
• Get the laundry off the line, if the line is in the middle of some place you also have R&R.  Or if you’ll worry about it.
• Schedule hectic, energy-draining social engagements for Saturday.  Because Sunday = Rest, right? Not Birthday Party with 20 Seven Year Olds.  That might sometimes be fun, but it’s never restful.

It’s not actually that hard to do this, btw. But you have to train yourself to do it.  The pay off is huge.  Not at all like those other things you make yourself do, where it’s a lot of work and then things are just normal or something.  You work for Sunday, and then you get happy relaxing time.  A whole day.  It’s good.

2. Friday.  Friday was the hardest thing about reverting, until we remembered Sunday and pushed the cycle forward not quite 48 hours.  In the world I grew up in, Friday was Party Day.  Early in our marriage (pre-reversion), Friday evening Jon & I would slap steaks on the grill, open the bottle of red, and celebrate another week over, another weekend under way.  Festive Friday.  Feasting Friday.  Never Fasting Friday.

3.  So you move forward Friday’s feast to Sunday, and it works.  Grocery shop on Saturday (so you have good stuff on hand for Sunday), and by Friday you’ll be down to leftovers, dried-out bread, and the choice between fish sticks and mac-n-cheese.

4.  You have to make the kids clean the house on Saturday, even though you’re tired from all week.  Or else it’ll be a wreck come Sunday.  Which isn’t restful.  (It’ll still be a wreck come Sunday night.  But you can at least give yourself those minutes before the kids wake up Sunday morning, right?)

5.  Feast Days.  Feast Days are like Sundays tossed into the middle of the week.  So suddenly the vigil becomes, chore-wise, a second Saturday.  [Saturday, recall: Jesus spent it in the grave, but you spend it doing twice as much work so that you can put your feet up on Sunday.  Your end of the deal isn’t that bad, actually.]

6. Fasting.  When you have a pile of kids, or a pile of work, or a pile of real life, so that you are completely stretched to your limit most of time, fasting takes work.  It takes planning. It takes a stockpile of mental energy so you have the will not to eat when your body says otherwise.

The trouble being, you’re already doling out your reserves of energy and patience and motivation bit by truly needed bit.  You’re already figuring out how to maximize your “go” so that you can get done what needs to be done.  You know how retired people have clean houses and sit around doing hobbies and stuff, in between sitting around resting from their hobbies and stuff?  Middle-aged people aren’t there (I hope for your sake).   Kicking back for a quiet day of meditation and scrabble is lovely and and all, but it’s not something you the married lady with young children and no servants can organize on a moment’s notice.

Bachelors.  They need more toddlers in their lives, to help them with this.

7. Leaving that dreadful reality behind and getting back to a tip for a happy Sunday:  If you want to eat something good on Sunday, but it will require you to cook a bit on the day, make it something really, really good.  Make it something that you don’t get eat on other days.  Then you’ll find cooking it to be relaxing and exciting instead of just more work.

7.5.  Or bacon.

7.55 Or coffee cake, acquired on Saturday night.

7.555 Or coffee cake and bacon.  Sunday food.

***

So like  I said up top, this same time & place next week, I’ll be hosting a giveway for Simcha Fisher’s new book, The Sinners Guide to NFP.  FYI: It is absolutely acceptable to come here for the sole purpose of trying to win the book, and then never come back again.  Doesn’t bother me.

–> Since it’s all so awkward, deciding whether Friday November 1st ought to be spent goofing off online (feast day!), or staying unplugged (holy day!), and then All Soul’s on the 2nd isn’t much easier to figure out, and then there’s Sunday . . . the combox will stay open until midnight Monday, and the winner will be announced Tuesday the 5th.  At which time one lucky person will get the secret information about how have it all: Nine children and expertise on periodic continence.

Teen Boy Develops Alzheimers Prevention Program

Citing a family history of dementia, and mounting evidence that his 40-something parents “are losing it,” a South Carolina teen decided it was time to intervene.

“I got the idea from those animal enrichment exercises they do at the zoo,” the boy explained, “Like putting the treat inside the toilet paper tube, and that stuff. Research has found that mental activity can delay the onset of dementia, so I thought: That’s what I need to do, for the good of my parents.”

Noting that aging parents are generally not motivated by normal rewards, like pop tarts and video games, he encourages other teens to “think like a boring person — what’s important to them?”  For example, “When I put the dishes away, I never put them away in the same place.  That way they have to using spatial problem-solving skills to consider what places the bowls might fit, or what might be hiding inside that large stock pot on top the fridge.”

An essential part of program is helping parents develop long-term persistence at challenging tasks.  “My mom’s been looking for that blue lid that goes with the baking pan for weeks now.  It’s really cute watching her try to guess more places it could possibly be.”

For the elderly, regular routines can help them remember day-to-day tasks.  “My program uses visual cues to help parents remember what they are supposed to be doing.  For example, the main thing my parents do around the house is give orders.  So I fill the sink with dirty dishes as a visual cue that it’s time to tell a kid to do the dishes. If they didn’t have that cue, they might forget.”

He encourages other teens, “Even if it seems like your parents don’t really have anything to do, it’s important to give them that feeling of ‘contributing’.  Letting them be the person who wakes you up in the morning can give them a sense of accomplishment they’ll never get from whatever else it is they do all day.”

Is it hard, caring for aging parents?  “Sure, sometimes it takes real persistence and patience.  The other day, I had to lay in bed pretending to sleep until 10 o’clock, before my parents finally noticed and did their ‘getting the teenager out of bed’ chore.  But it’s worth the sacrifice.  If you love your parents, you’ll sleep in as late as necessary.”

 

That was fast.

Whoever prayed for the SuperHusband’s ribs, THANK YOU.  It worked.  Now please apply your efforts to Hathaway’s lungs.  Thanks.

(PS: People tell me the radio thing sounded good enough.  So double-thanks on that one.)

And two things to read:

Chris T. on when and how to give to a worthy cause.

Pope Francis on just about everything.

Verse and Censure for the Feast Day + Chris Tollefsen at Public Discourse

Since we’ve been speaking of wealth ’round here lately . . . a limerick for today’s feast:

When faced with a room full of clutter,

I’ve been known to piously utter,

“Help me to know,

what should stay, what should go?

Oh blessed Teresa of Calcutta!”

Your house is 25% cleaner, Jennifer. Don’t stop now.

In other news: Chris Tollefsen writes brilliantly at Public Discourse today.  I’m a shameless Chris T. fan, so no surprise that I like the message.  But I don’t get to say it as often as I’d like: This is far and away his best piece ever.  That I’ve seen, anyhow.  Go take a look.

In places NOT to look: Front Porch Republic, which I subscribe to but very rarely read, because publishing just a snippet for the feed reader is a very effective way to discourage me from reading your work, recently ran a piece about liturgy and limericks.  The idea was spot on, unfortunately the chosen limericks were dreadfully lewd.  Really? Was that necessary?  No it was not.

To which end, perhaps not the most incisive wit, but making the same point as the FPR piece:

The rabbit who traveled by plane

said, “Security can be such a pain.

They opened my baggage,

and out fell my cabbage,

and I had to re-pack it again.”

The point FPR was making?  A good genre, delightful in its context, is not necessarily the right genre for the holy liturgy.   And another example, same rabbit theme, we have quite the collection growing*:

To my door came a poor little bunny,

who needed to earn some money,

“I’ll cut your grass for a dime,

one bite at a time–“

But in the end, the lawn looked quite funny.

See?  Perfectly moral, g-rated limericks.  It can be done. And the argument FPR wants to make is stronger when you acknowledge the genre isn’t used soley for smut. Show tunes are wrong at Mass not because Hollywood’s a den of sin, or because the cabaret / jazz / pop sound is always and everywhere associated with immorality.  It’s because these types of music are about something else — something that can be beautiful and true and good and inspiring — but it’s something other than the worship of God.

And thus a final contribution for today:

On the feast of Teresa of Calcutta,

this pundit is likely to mutter,

“You’re housed and you’re fed,

but your brain is half dead,

’till you rescue your wit from the gutter.”

Happy Feast Day.  Straighten up and fly right, FPR.

*The limerick fest began because, to my genuine shock and surprise, no irony there, my teenage boy does not love his poetry course for literature.  I was stunned.  A teenager? Not like poetry?  Really?  It’s all about love, death and self-centered dramatizing . . . that should be just the thing!  Certainly was for me at that age.  SuperHusband wisely suggested we begin with something a little lighter.  And thus I succeeded, not in converting my skeptical teen, but in launching a festival of animal-themed verse among the the two youngest.

I’ll take my victories where I can.

Meanwhile, any poetry recommendations for less-romantic, very modern boys, who mostly read Dr. Boli?

Prayer, Fasting, Birthday Parties

Dear Pope Francis,

You have vastly simplified the menu for my birthday party.  Thanks!

Jennifer.

PS: I suppose you will not be amused if I get medieval, and suggest a beer fast? To combine both events into one?

PPS: Another possibility: Since I invited everyone I know, most of whom are not Catholic . . . Maybe I’ll put out food, and put a sign up that it’s for non-Catholics only?

PPPS: Or we could get canon-lawish, and excuse ourselves. But then what would that say about us?  Other than, “sent out invitations before day was announced”?

PPPPS: How about if I quick invite some people I *don’t* like, and thus convert it into a penitential event that way?

PPPPPS: Having a hard time thinking of many.  Plus, would they even come? Or would dread alone make it penitential enough?

PPPPPPS: Or what if I plan to host a children’s birthday party in the morning, prior to my party in the evening?  For two children?  Yes?  How would that be?  The parents coming are all Catholic, so we’d be set, then?  A morning of penance about the time you’re busy praying in Rome?  Yes?

PPPPPPPS: Yes, you caught me.  We’re cheating by hosting the kids’ party off-site, so someone else has to sweep after.  Plus, tiny event, just a few friends.   It would have been commendable to host both parties at my house on the same day, with the usual massive number of guests, instead of just a couple.  I’m not so commendable.  Hence my note.

PPPPPPPPS: It not necessary to call and chat about this.  I’ll figure it out.

Modesty in a Nutshell

If it’s rude for me to talk about it, it’s rude for you to show it to me.