Remember the sabbath day — keep it holy. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God. You shall not do any work, either you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your work animal, or the resident alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh…
Lent begins tomorrow! Ready or not, the season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is upon us. Are you ready? Or not? I am mostly ready. God has given me a very personal invitation to spend more time in prayer, so that is going to be my focus. And with my ongoing struggle with Hashimoto’s (an autoimmune disease that attacks my Thyroid) and the various symptoms that accompany it, I am also going to pay closer attention to my diet by…
O, God, we earnestly ask you to bless this archdiocese with many priests, deacons, brothers and sisters … At every Sunday Mass, my parish prays two special prayers for vocations. We begin with a prayer for marriage and family, asking St. Joseph to intercede for us. After the Prayers of the Faithful, we pray another prayer that begins with the words with which I began this blog post. It has been a long-standing tradition to pray for and foster vocations…
It is 8 AM. I walk into my quiet house, and I stand in the kitchen. Breakfast dishes are piled next to the sink, waiting to be loaded into the dishwasher. The stools around the kitchen island are pushed out, a reminder of the people sitting on them an hour ago. I can hear the hum of the refrigerator; I can hear my own footsteps. When is my house ever this still? With no one around, I wonder what I…
For as long as I can remember, December 13 has been an extra-special day in our family. It is the Feast of St. Lucia, which is my daughter’s name-day. She has loved this day and the saint we celebrate ever since she could grasp its specialness. We have cinnamon rolls for breakfast and read a favorite book about St. Lucy. Since her birthday is in the summer, she usually brings treats into school on this day. But six years ago, a…
If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. (1 Corinthians 12:26) My daughter tends to go with the flow. She cheers on her sister at volleyball games, plays cars with her little brother, and helps out in the kitchen. She is pretty low key, not demanding a lot of extra attention. She does receive extra time and attention because of her Dyslexia, though—tutoring twice per week, help with homework, comforting when her…
When my daughter was in Kindergarten, she often cried in the mornings, and I didn’t understand why she dreaded going to school. From my perspective, Kindergarten was fun, creative, and colorful. What could possibly induce tears? Because I didn’t understand what my daughter was feeling, I often got frustrated with her. Her overwhelming emotions added stress to an already-busy morning routine. I had to walk her into the building, when her friends were walking into school independently. She clung to…
Today’s post was first published on CatholicMom.com. Looking back on her preschool years, I now recognize the early warning signs, such as difficulty hearing rhyming words, like cat, hat, and mat. Throughout Kindergarten, I saw her struggling, but I wasn’t worried, until I started receiving notes from her teacher that she falling behind. In Kindergarten? Really? No amount of phonetic worksheets would catch her up, though. Nor would a repeat of Kindergarten. You see, my daughter has Dyslexia. She is the one…
Since June, I have sat in on most of my daughter’s tutoring sessions. To think back to her first few sessions and how she struggled still breaks my heart. But observing her has increased my compassion for how truly difficult reading is for her, as if I can feel her pain now more than ever. It also has taught me how I can support her. As I reflect back, I also see the progress she has made. To witness her breakthroughs and pure successes, I am so very proud…
As a parent of a Dyslexic child, I have suddenly been immersed in a topic I never thought I would know about. Like many things, if it does not affect us personally, often times we don’t have much knowledge of it. But when my daughter was diagnosed with Dyslexia, I wanted to know what she was going through. I wanted to grow in empathy, so I could help her, encourage her, and support her in this journey. I wanted her…