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The garden. There are people who take long summer vacations. Serious gardeners are not one of them. We finally got everything planted by early June and now we are in what I like to call "maintenance-mode" which basically means, keep the good plants growing taller than the bad ones. To beat the heat, I go out about three times a week at sunrise and work at it for about two hours. I love it. The cool mornings, seeing the garden change daily, and having that quiet time to myself does me a world of good. Each of our two older boys has their own garden this year, too, and I am encouraged to see their enthusiasm increasing a little every year as they take ownership in their own little patch of dirt. Now, if I could just get them to pull the weeds...
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Related to my last blog post and all that's going on in our country today, I guess you could say that this photo represents my form of protest.
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And this. He has recently developed a love of "saying mass" at home. He walks around and hands out the host to anyone who will take it, saying "Body Christ". He says he's making his own "home church", which isn't surprising because...
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...we are now on week number 15 of having "home church" instead of going to mass at our church. Because of the social distancing requirements, there isn't room for everyone to fit in our little church now, so we are trying to give others the opportunity to go, plus, ever try to keep a mask on a 3-year old? My husband has done a beautiful job leading our "dry masses" at home, and then when we wrap that up, we all load up in the car and drive to our church where the priest gives us holy communion in the parking lot. He is also allowing us to make appointments for confessions and hears them outside as well. Strange times.
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About a week ago, the boys and I joined with two other families and participated in the "Rise Up and Run" 5K organized by Melody over at The Essential Mother. It was so much fun! We were lucky enough to have a cool weather spell and took advantage of it to complete the run. Before we did our run/walk/bike, each of us talked about who or what we were praying for during the run, and I was touched by how thoughtful our little ones were. One child prayed for her grandparents who had lost jobs due to COVID-19, one for his father, one for a recently widowed friend, etc. It was such a beautiful moment and I thank Melody for encouraging everyone to "Rise Up and Run", united in prayer.
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This past week, we marked the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, which is a very special occasion in our family. My husband and son both share St. John the Baptist as their patron saints, and it is also my husband's birthday. St. John the Baptist has interceded for my family on at least two very important occasions, and I truly believe I have him to thank for two of my children. I keep meaning to write a post on the subject and maybe I'll get one up in time for the Memorial of the Passion of St. John the Baptist on August 29. |
| Our little John with his name-day gifts. |
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In the coming month, I will have been a parent for ten years. Ten years! It is not lost on me that my little ones are already half grown. From the time that they turned eight, it seems like my two "twibling" boys have just grown up before my eyes. It does break my heart, and scares me a little. Last night, while helping me wash the dishes, my oldest began to explain to me his interpretation of heaven and hell and I really had to stop and listen to him in order to understand it all. His thoughts were so profound and complex (he's been trying to read CS Lewis lately) and all I could think was, when did he learn all of this? I focus so often on my failings as a mother, but moments like that remind me that God will redeem anything that I offer up to him, including all of my parenting mistakes.
Now, hop on over to Kelly's blog to check out some other quick takes of life in the Catholic blogosphere. Thanks, Kelly!
Once your small one outgrows his felt mass kit, I have a friend who paints wooden ones. (https://worthyofagape.com/product-category/mass-sets/)
ReplyDeleteI totally hear you on home churching it for so long. I think our last in-person worship service at my Episcopal church was March 9th, and before that, the last "normal" Sunday was February 23rd. (We had two Sundays of modified restrictions before the bishop closed churches.)
Thank you. I will check out the link. He loves his little mass kit. And yes, this separation from our church community is so sad. Many churches here (not Catholic) are not social distancing like ours.
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