That In Latin

It was a catch-as-catch can dinner night, so I told the kids to go ahead and pray then eat.

They chose to do it in Latin, because 1) they know how, and 2) they think it's cool.

After grace, 5 year old Nib exclaimed, "We're praying in Alladin!"

Smirk.

Spiritual Direction Questions

Not easy but worth asking yourself:

On p.109, Question 41 re: spiritual direction topics from Dubay's Seeking Spiritual Direction:

• Does my way of going about meditative or contemplative prayer seem to be working? Am I profiting from it? Am I making progress? And how do I determine that? Where am I in prayer development? Am I hitting any snags? Do I have problems I don't know how to handle? Am I faithful to giving adequate time to  prayerful solitude? Is it my top priority, the "one thing" in my life?
• Am I prayerful during the day -- without neglecting others or my work? How can I grow in this recollection?
• Do I waste time? Engage in idle gossip? Indulge in superfluities or in excessive amusements?
• What have I been selecting for spiritual reading? What audio and video? Am I going about this exercise in the best way for me? Am I growing in and through it? Do I read or listen in a prayerful manner? What books should I read now? What books should I avoid altogether or read with caution?
• Am I improving in humility, patience, love for neighbor, obedience, frugality, indeed, in all the Gospel virtues? What are my weak points that need focused attention?
• In my daily round of duties, is my motivation mixed, that is, are unworthy motives mingled with my worthy ones? Am I even aware of this problem? What can I do about it?
• Is my mind in accord with Scripture and the teaching of the Church, which is to say, is it in accord with the mind of Jesus himself?
• How am I using or misusing the mass media? Am I wasting time in my use of them?
• Have I been chaste in thought and reading and speaking and looking (television and actual life) and in my actions? In practical ways am I trying to serve both God and mammon?
• Do I suffer daily crosses like a disciple of the crucified Master, with love and in union with him? Do I welcome these opportunities to unite with the Lord on his cross?
• Have I been warm and cordial toward everyone, even toward unattractive people, including those who are cold and indifferent toward me?
• Is my emotional life balanced? Are my responses of joy or sorrow or fear excessive? Am I oversensitive? Do I live more by feelings than by will? Am I insensitive?
• Am I concerned for the poor, both the materially and the spiritually poor? Do I come to their aid? Do I live frugally and share with the needy?
• Am I handling my time pressure problems properly, so that first things come first?
• Where is my center of gravity: earth or heaven (Col 3:1-2)? Do I seek things for themselves or as a means of leading me and others to God?

Surgery Update

Mrs. Nod's father has been in the hospital since before Thanksgiving with congestive heart failure. They scheduled surgery yesterday, but pulled him off the table at the last minute (literally) to make way for an emergency surgery.

The surgery was successfully performed today with only minor complications. He had a band placed around his mitral valve and chordae repair. This valve had moderate to severe leakage. The doctors also replaced his aortic valve with an organic valve from a pig. If he'd opted for the mechanical valve, he'd be required to be on blood thinners permanently.

Apparently, the calcium build up in his aortic valve indicated several years of problems. The doctor claimed his aortic valve was worst he has ever seen. Unbeknownst to everyone he had a congenital defect of only having 2 flaps instead of 3. As a result his heart muscle has swelled inordinately and his pulmonary (lung) blood pressure is sky high.

Somehow the echocardiogram from six months ago missed this very obvious defect. But it's all corrected now. Mrs. Nod's dad is going to have one heck of a sore chest when he wakes up, but he'll regain his strength and energy by being able to breathe and get some oxygen into his blood. It may take six months before he makes a full recovery.

Thanks to all who offered prayers.

Prayer Request

My father-in-law is currently undergoing open heart surgery to correct a failed aortic valve and problems with his corotid artery.  Recovery time may be on the order of six months.

Prayers appreciated.

One Up, One Down

Mrs. Nod took Nub in for his follow-up appointment to the neurologist following his reported seizure. After examining him and viewing the footage taken by his teacher, the neurologist concluded that Nub was not, in fact, having seizures.

We got corroborating testimony from the eye doctor who dilated his eyes and looked at his optic nerve, and said it looked fine. Apparently, you can see damage there if there have been serious seizures. So that is a big relief. I don't blame his teacher for reacting the way that she did, even though it was incredibly stressful at the time. We had told her that Nub had taken a tumble down the stairs and to look out for anything unusual. Well, rolling your eyes up and shaking is definitely unusual. However, the way he was doing it was -- well, entertainment to him. Weird, yes; dangerous, no.

That's the good news. The bad news is that Mrs. Nod's father is in the hospital with congestive heart failure -- a little something we know about. The echocardiogram shows his aortic valve has become defective and will have to be repaired with open heart surgery.

The prognosis is good; after this he will regain the energy he's lost over the last two years and no longer suffer the severe shortness of breath he's been struggling with. Of course, he has lots of complications as you might expect (he's 70, diabetic, gouty, bad back, severe allergies, tons of medications). As with any surgery, there is risk; Mrs. Nod and her mother are understandably worried.

But God is good, and we submit all things to His divine providence. The doctors want to do the surgery soon -- within the next few days perhaps -- so any prayers would be appreciated.

Five Favorite Devotions

Joe at Defend Us In Battle tagged me with a meme to list my five favorite devotions. Thanks Joe!

I take a slightly unconventional approach to devotions, in that most of my devotions are simply Scripture itself. Once I learned about Psalms, they just sang to me. However, in order to comply, here are some of my favorites:

1. The Divine Mercy Chaplet
2. Canticle of Zechariah (Benedictus) Luke 1:68-79
3. Canticle of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis) Luke 2:29–32
4. Psalm 34:12-15
5. Sirach 3:1-30

Now according to the rules, I'm supposed to tag 5 other bloggers. Ah me! so hard ... nobody pays attention to little ol' me ...

1. RAnn at This That and the Other Thing
2. Q at The Q Continuum
3. The Crescat
4. RobK at Kyrie Eleison
5. Mike in CT at Exultet

The Power Of Night Prayer

The Nodlings were a little wild when they came home from the pool last evening and we had trouble settling them down. They were supposed to be tired out and ready to go to sleep.

Finally I pulled out my Divine Office and began Compline, or Night Prayer. I made it to the end and then sang the Salve Regina. The Nodlings became silent until one of them said, "Whoa, that was beautiful." Then they all quietly trickled off to bed without further complaint.

Amazing.

Indulging Is Easy

The Church makes it so easy to be forgiven; she has the keys to open up the treasures of Heaven.

The other day I mentioned how I got 3-4 indulgences in one weekend. I wondered how many other things had indulgences attached to them and what the conditions were.

HOW TO GAIN AN INDULGENCE (Catholic Answers)

To gain any indulgence you must be a Catholic in a state of grace. You must be a Catholic in order to be under the Church’s jurisdiction, and you must be in a state of grace because apart from God’s grace none of your actions are fundamentally pleasing to God (meritorious). You also must have at least the habitual intention of gaining an indulgence by the act performed.

To gain a partial indulgence, you must perform with a contrite heart the act to which the indulgence is attached.

To gain a plenary indulgence you must perform the act with a contrite heart, plus you must go to confession (one confession may suffice for several plenary indulgences), receive Holy Communion, and pray for the pope’s intentions. (An Our Father and a Hail Mary said for the pope’s intentions are sufficient, although you are free to substitute other prayers of your own choice.) The final condition is that you must be free from all attachment to sin, including venial sin.

If you attempt to receive a plenary indulgence, but are unable to meet the last condition, a partial indulgence is received instead.

Below are indulgences listed in the Handbook of Indulgences (New York: Catholic Book Publishing, 1991). Note that there is an indulgence for Bible reading. So, rather than discouraging Bible reading, the Catholic Church promotes it by giving indulgences for it! (This was the case long before Vatican II.)

• An act of spiritual communion, expressed in any devout formula whatsoever, is endowed with a partial indulgence.

• A partial indulgence is granted the Christian faithful who devoutly spend time in mental prayer.

• A plenary indulgence is granted when the rosary is recited in a church or oratory or when it is recited in a family, a religious community, or a pious association. A partial indulgence is granted for its recitation in all other circumstances.

• A partial indulgence is granted the Christian faithful who read sacred Scripture with the veneration due God’s word and as a form of spiritual reading. The indulgence will be a plenary one when such reading is done for at least one-half hour [provided the other conditions are met].

• A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who devoutly sign themselves with the cross while saying the customary formula: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

In summary, the practice of indulgences neither takes away nor adds to the work of Christ. It is his work, through his body the Church, raising up children in his own likeness. "The Christian who seeks to purify himself of his sin and to become holy with the help of God’s grace is not alone. ‘The life of each of God’s children is joined in Christ and through Christ in a wonderful way to the life of all the other Christian brethren in the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, as in a single mystical person’" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1474 [Indulgentarium Doctrina 5]).

Novena For The Holy Father

Knights of Columbus are asked to pray a novena for Pope Benedict, beginning on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 11, and concluding on Monday, April 19, the fifth anniversary of the Holy Father’s election.

CNS photo/Paul Haring

PRAYER FOR POPE BENEDICT XVI

Lord, source of eternal life and truth, give to your shepherd, Benedict, a spirit of courage and right judgment, a spirit of knowledge and love. By governing with fidelity those entrusted to his care, may he, as successor to the Apostle Peter and Vicar of Christ, build your Church into a sacrament of unity, love and peace for all the world. Amen.

V/ Let us pray for Benedict, the pope.
R/ May the Lord preserve him, give him a long life, make him blessed upon the earth, and not hand him over to the power of his enemies.

V/ May your hand be upon your holy servant.
R/ And upon your son, whom you have anointed.

Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory Be...

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS
In Solidarity With Our Holy Father
Adapted from Manual of Prayers
16000 4-10

Prayer Of Intention

Some things just require prayer; special intention.

Divine Mercy Chaplet
		1. Begin with the Sign of the Cross, 1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary and The Apostles Creed. 2. Then on the Our Father Beads say the following: Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. 3. On the 10 Hail Mary Beads say the following: For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. (Repeat step 2 and 3 for all five decades). 4. Conclude with (three times): Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

[source EWTN]

Good Friday

Today I went to the church and prayed the stations of the cross. It is the worst feeling in the world to go there and see an empty tabernacle. It's just ... wrong.

Forced myself to watch the Passion of the Christ again. It always leaves me speechless.

Good Friday, indeed. Not "fun Friday".

We wait. We hope. We pray.

Superficial Preaching

Msgr. Pope at Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian in DC wants to know what you think of Catholic preaching. The basic problem: 7 minutes.

He links an excerpt of a sermon by Fr. Bill Casey talking about superficial preaching.


There is nothing like a little zeal, sound theology, and a dynamic speaking style to really hook the listener. People are hungry for some meat in a sermon, stop feeding them thin gruel. I know that Jesus loves me -- so what? Challenge me, inspire me, show me how, make me care. Feed both heart and mind.

I can listen to a whole hour of a Scott Hahn lecture and not grow bored. I can listen to 10 minutes of pablum from the pulpit and have trouble keeping my eyes open. Converts from Evangelical traditions are breathing some new life into the Catholic Church at the pulpit. Many former Protestant ministers are coming over to the Catholic Church. I have no problem with the Evangelical style as long as it is informed by good doctrine.

Good preaching comes from a great prayer life, I'm convinced. In the book The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel, the authors tell of a Protestant pastor who knew he was a terrible preacher and so prayed and fasted 10 hours a day while preparing his homilies. As a result hard men wept and clung to the foundations of the church to avoid being dragged to Hell.

That's some preaching.

WBN Joins In Non Nobis Domine

After the unlikely defeat (read butt-kicking) of Martha Coakley in Massachusetts by Republican Scott Brown, Democrats were forced to slow the freight train of the Senate health care bill to a virtual stop. The Senate version of the bill would have institutionalized taxpayer funded abortions nationwide.

Although the fight is not over, God has used the unlikeliest of instruments to gain this victory -- our own enemy, a pro-choice politician. Therefore, WBN joins Creative Minority Report and countless others in saying: Not to us, not to us, O Lord, but to Your Name give glory.

[CMR] In a way that seemed almost impossible, the entire battle has turned. I need not go into detail here, you all know the story. We understand that the war on life is far from over, but today, at least for a while, by the grace of God, we have avoided institutionalized and tax-payer funded abortion. There will be other battles and perhaps they will be very soon, but it is incumbent upon all of us to acknowledge the great miracle that we have witnessed and to thank God for delivering us from this evil.

So what I propose is that we Catholic, Christian, and pro-life bloggers everywhere give thanks to God by way publishing the Non Nobis in gratitude for this wondrous day.

Non nobis, non nobis, Domine
Sed nomini tuo da gloriam.

Not to us, not to us, o Lord,
But to your name give glory.

Nib Endoscopy

Nib is my smart, cute, funny little two year old girl. She's also a pint sized munchkin.

Her growth chart is abysmal, with height and weight starting to fall off the bottom of the curve. So she's headed in to the specialist for an endoscopy to see if there are any upper-GI or digestive issues.

Prayers appreciated.

She nearly choked to death on a little rubber ball yesterday while in the car. --Yikes! That's going in the trash! It's hard to keep all that kind of stuff away from the toddlers in a big family. The older kids have toys with small parts that don't always get put out of reach. I finally had enough close calls with Blynken's bead making kit and threw it out.

Life with Nodlings is never dull. Did I mention that prayers are appreciated?

Nub Under The Knife

Hey all,

My 4 year old, Nub, (who also has Down Syndrome) is having a hernia surgery Monday morning and I sure would appreciate your prayers. This is a complication from his open-heart surgery when he was 1 year old that saved his life.

It's supposed to be out-patient surgery and No Big Deal, but as a parent you always worry. It's in God's hands! Ora pro nobis.

UPDATE: Surgery was quick (45 minutes) with a fast recovery (1 hour as opposed to 2). We left the hospital around 10:30 am. He was walking around and playing almost normally until a little while ago when the numbing agent given during surgery wore off. Now he is getting a little fussy. Tylenol is all he is cleared to have. We expect him to be cranky the rest of the day. Total recovery in about two weeks.

He is currently at his normal post looking out the window, playing his musical caterpillar. Thanks for all your prayers.

Hey There, Flabby

You're flabby, complacent, and despite a regular prayer life and involvement in the parish ministry you still haven't attained to the transforming union with Christ; although you're basically a good Catholic, going to Mass and avoiding serious sin, you're more or less just getting by.

If you can identify to any degree with these statements, I'm talking to you. If you emphatically believe that this does not apply to you, I'm most definitely talking to you. I know that I'm not excepted from this, and very few of us are saints or near-saints; ergo, you could use a few spiritual push ups.

This book, Temptation & Prayer, will kick your butt. It will challenge you like books many times its length will not. It's short. Really short. Chapters are about one or two pages each. It's also easy to understand. It's -- how shall we say it? -- practical, incisive, cuts to the chase.

[Joseph I. Cisetti] Grounding himself in the thought of Ignatius of Loyola and John of the Cross, Galilea offers brief, even pithy chapters, seldom more than two pages, that are sharp, practical and insightful.

Acknowledging that temptation is part of any human as well as Christian life, Galilea observes that those with a mature spirituality generally resist temptation to intentional evil but instead face the temptations of mediocrity, tepidity and stagnation.

Often these evils can appear as good and hence the need for greater discernment. After initially reflecting on discernment as a type of salve applied to the eyes so that we might see, Galilea divides the book up into two sections regarding ministry and prayer. Each concise chapter concerns itself with a "demon" of ministry or of prayer.

Galilea first describes sixteen demons of prayer that include activism, sectarianism, entrenchment, pastoral envy and losing a sense of humor. In his analysis Galilea shares some succinct but sharp wisdom.

The second section lists twenty-one demons of prayer ranging from discouragement and neglecting one's lifestyle to putting quantity above quality and not putting sensations and feelings in their proper place.

I have this book and I periodically refer back to it to shake myself out of complacency. Galilea doesn't leave you much wiggle room. Everyone can find something to benefit from in this little book.

RIP Ted Kennedy

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) died today.

Now is not the time for politics, but the time for prayer.

May God have Mercy on his soul.

Don't Shoot The Horse Just Yet

I feel terrible - physically, anyway.

After a month of killer stress, my shoulders are in knots, my neck is out of whack, I got circulation problems / tingling in my legs and feet, and ringing/pressure in my ears.

Man, get out the shotgun, the horse is lookin' lame. But hold, wait! All is not lost.

I was going to say I broke down and went to the doctor; then I changed my mind; now I realize that is exactly what's going on: my body broke down and I'm going to the doctor's office.

Went to the witch doctor chiropractor already and he - pardon the pun - put me straight. My C1 and T12 lumbar were so obviously out of whack they were painful to the touch. Crick! Crack! Not nearly so painful now. Getting there.

The tingling pain is caused from sitting forward in my chair too much, cutting off the circulation to my legs. Some running and exercise will lessen the stress (yay, endorphins!) and get the muscles loosened and the blood flowing.

The ear pressure / ringing will be a bit harder to fix. It's basically caused by swollen eustachian tubes which are really hard to treat empirically. In the past when this happens, a nasal sterioid has done the trick. Now, not so much. It makes ANY sound painful to hear. Not what I need right now with a house full of Nodlings.

Already been to Soul Doctor via Confession:

My son, when you are ill, delay not, but pray to God, who will heal you:

Flee wickedness; let your hands be just, cleanse your heart of every sin;

Offer your sweet-smelling oblation and petition, a rich offering according to your means.

Then give the doctor his place lest he leave; for you need him too. -- Sirach 38:9-12

Going to the ENT doctor tomorrow. Put that shotgun away for another day, this one's going to make it.

Experience The Stations

SpiritJuice has been among the forefront of Catholics in the digital age using the New Media to bring the faith to young people everywhere. They are hip, relevant, and real.

One of their latest projects promoted is Experience the Stations which looks promising.

Experience the Stations is a High Grade Mulitmedia Event that has been occurring every Lent for the past six years. It is a modern look at the traditional Catholic prayer, the Stations of the Cross. It consists of Video Clips, Secular Music, Testimonies from Youth, Live Special Effects and More.

Grace Before Meals

I've been meaning to brush up on my Latin; specifically Grace before meals, which is something the kids can learn too. Sometimes we do "Bless us O Lord" and for the Littles we do "God is Great". Now we can do it in Latin, too.

BENEDIC, Domine, nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

BLESS us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

And the Blessing after meals:

AGIMUS tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus, pro universis beneficiis tuis, qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

WE give Thee thanks, almighty God, for all Thy benefits, who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.