The Internet is a Funny Place!

IMG_5343, originally uploaded by AmericanPapist.

I was reading some of the chit-chat about Archbishop Dolan on American Papist's blog when I decided to click through to his Flickr set on Archbishop Dolan - and found this picture of Archbishop Dolan with three of my daughters and two good friends (that's my Bernie getting a hug)!!!!

A Reading for Ash Wednesday

from today's Office of Readings:

Isaiah 58: 1-12 (entire reading, here is just a snippet):

They ask me for laws that are just,
they long for God to draw near:
‘Why should we fast if you never see it,
why do penance if you never notice?’

Look, you do business on your fast-days,
you oppress all your workmen;
look, you quarrel and squabble when you fast
and strike the poor man with your fist.

Fasting like yours today
will never make your voice heard on high.
Is that the sort of fast that pleases me,
a truly penitential day for men?

Hanging your head like a reed,
lying down on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call fasting,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me
– it is the Lord who speaks –
to break unjust fetters and
undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,
and break every yoke,
to share your bread with the hungry,
and shelter the homeless poor,

to clothe the man you see to be naked
and not turn from your own kin?
Then will your light shine like the dawn
and your wound be quickly healed over.

Your integrity will go before you
and the glory of the Lord behind you.
Cry, and the Lord will answer;
call, and he will say, ‘I am here.’

If you do away with the yoke,
the clenched fist, the wicked word,
if you give your bread to the hungry,
and relief to the oppressed,

your light will rise in the darkness,
and your shadows become like noon.
The Lord will always guide you,
giving you relief in desert places.

Well, this certainly seems to be a day for quotes...

I started reading Michael Dubruiel's How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist before Mass this morning (for once we arrived quite early and I didn't have ALL the kids in tow) and fell in love with this introductory quote he shared from St. Peter Damien:

Place upon the altar of your devotion all that you enjoy, all that you are capable of doing, the whole of the life you live, all that you hope for; and then offer yourselves as a sacrifice to God, which is greater than all holocausts.

I read most of the introductory chapter. It's quite good and challenging in a way that I found very helpful.

For Those Who Might Find It Interesting...

I'm keeping a set of links regarding Archbishop Timothy Dolan at the top of the sidebar for the time being.

Another Beautiful Quote for Today...

This was the first reading from Mass today - from the Book of Sirach:

My son, when you come to serve the LORD,
stand in justice and fear,
prepare yourself for trials.
Be sincere of heart and steadfast,
incline your ear and receive the word of understanding,
undisturbed in time of adversity.
Wait on God, with patience, cling to him, forsake him not;
thus will you be wise in all your ways.
Accept whatever befalls you,
when sorrowful, be steadfast,
and in crushing misfortune be patient;
For in fire gold and silver are tested,
and worthy people in the crucible of humiliation.
Trust God and God will help you;
trust in him, and he will direct your way;
keep his fear and grow old therein.

You who fear the LORD, wait for his mercy,
turn not away lest you fall.
You who fear the LORD, trust him,
and your reward will not be lost.
You who fear the LORD, hope for good things,
for lasting joy and mercy.
You who fear the LORD, love him,
and your hearts will be enlightened.
Study the generations long past and understand;
has anyone hoped in the LORD and been disappointed?
Has anyone persevered in his commandments and been forsaken?Â
has anyone called upon him and been rebuffed?
Compassionate and merciful is the LORD;
he forgives sins, he saves in time of trouble
and he is a protector to all who seek him in truth.

The Greatest Threat to the Church Today...

I happened to discover this lovely quote from Archbishop Dolan via an article about him in USA Today.

"Maybe the greatest threat to the church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms."

I didn't really sink in until I heard the same quote in the homily at this morning's Mass! Powerful!

Archbishop Dolan will be leaving for New York

This is a post that's hard to write for me. It's written in the midst of tears because of how much he's meant to us here and how sorely he will be missed.

Let me take you back to 2002. Our archdiocese had been lacking in solid leadership for several decades which ended quite suddenly in a grave scandal that personally involved the previous archbishop. Support for this previous archbishop had been quite divided before that time, but everyone was shaken by the scandal.

Every summer in Milwaukee, a city famous for its cultural festivals, we celebrate the largest Irish festival outside of Ireland. The Lakefront Festival grounds overflow with Irish music, dancing, food and lots of other fun cultural stuff. Sunday morning there's a huge outdoor Mass attended by thousands of people. Early in 2002 (many months before the previous archbishop retired), the Festival Committee invited Dolan, then a bishop in St. Louis, to preside at the Irish Fest Mass.

By a lovely "coincidence", Dolan's announcement as new Archbishop took place just before Irish Fest. So he arrived for this special Mass and was greeted by a huge crowd (I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think they had around 15,000 people at the Mass where they would generally expect more like 9 or 10,000). It was an incredibly moving and memorable experience to be there. You'd think the pope had come to town, there was such an outpouring of joy and relief and emotion. He walked around greeting people (before Mass I think) and everyone was cheering and crying. There was such a strong sense that God is good to bring him here.

Archbishop Dolan will be leaving Milwaukee a much better place than when he came and for that I thank him and thank God! He will very much be in our prayers!

There's a Spammer Making the Rounds

You might want to turn on your comment moderation (at least for old posts). There seems to be a spammer making the rounds of Catholic homeschool blogs (left 25 comments on random old posts here and I've seen the same one elsewhere). Ugh, what a pain!

The Illegal Books Meme

(cross-posted from the Love2learn Blog)

No, they're not illegal to own, but a new law that many people haven't heard about yet has recently made it illegal to buy, sell or barter books published before 1985 for children ages 12 and under, because of concerns about lead content in the ink.

It's called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and you can read more about it on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's Website here. In spite of what Snopes.com says (which is uncharacteristically myopic about a very far-reaching law - and doesn't even get into the consequences for used children's books), it is quite clear that children's books published before 1985 are in danger. I've heard reliable reports that some used book stores are trashing all of their pre-1985 children's books. Related effects on other children's items can be read about here, here and here.

In the interest of raising awareness of this outrageous new law, I'm starting a meme (somewhat after the fashion of this post by the Headmistress). I thought it might be a fun way to spread the word and make a difference. Please share your favorite books or book series (five will do, but more if you like) that fall under this law (which currently includes all books intended for children up to age 12 that were published before 1985). I couldn't get Mr. Linky to work, so please leave a comment with a link to your post. After that - contact your congressman!

I don't know about you, but a huge portion of our children's books are library discards. They're a wonderful place to find great old stuff and it's recycling to boot!

1. Angus and the Ducks by Marjorie Flack. Yes, this one is in print, but the old library edition is SO gorgeous and the library binding holds up beautifully. This book means a great deal to me and you could can read more about why here.



2. ...Do the Strangest Things Series The Fish book pictured here was my husband's when he was young. His mom gave it to us when Ria was perhaps four years old and it was an instant favorite - so much so that we soon bought the others from the series from e-Bay. The pictures are a little dated, but the text is very engaging and these have helped charm all of my children into an interest in science and nature.


3. Meet... Series These are published in the same style as the nature books above - detailed, informative, but with reasonably simple language. A few are in print (in cheap black-and-white paperback) but most are not. I picked up about dozen of these on eBay when Gus (now 13) was struggling with proficiency in reading. We now know that he had a developmental disability that made the learning-to-read process particularly tedious. These were a godsend and he gobbled them up!
4. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis Yes, of course these are still in print, and some of the new editions are gorgeous, but I wanted to point out that some of the books threatened by this law are not collectible nor particularly old. I bought this set of Narnia books brand new when I was 11 or 12. That would make it printed in 1981 or 1982. Bad bad bad.


5. The Good Master by Kate Seredy This wonderful story IS still in print, but check out the difference. Not only is the color and the end-papers missing, but the pages are so thin that you can see the text through the picture on the left-hand side.











6. The Vision Book Series - This is an endangered Catholic series. Even though Ignatius Press is working on reprinting them (and the reprints are very nice!), they've only reprinted 27 so far out of 72 books! Here are a few of the out-of-print ones we've managed to collect from all over. The one on St. Augustine is particularly great!


Note: Many of the out-of-print books recommended in Laura Berquist's Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum was published before 1985 and is intended for age 12 or under. There's a lot of great stuff included in this category.


Some helpful links on CPSIA: (thanks to Melissa Wiley for helping out with the links)

American Library Association, ALA Urges Congress To Correct Law That Inadvertently Targets Libraries, Publishers

City Journal, The New Book Burning

Semicolon Blog, CPSIA: Time to Make Some Calls

The Common Room, CPSIA and Ball-Point Pens (and many other posts too)

Lots of coverage at Overlawyered

Note: For more about the problem with the Snopes coverage, search for the term "Snopes" on this page.

Thought I'd Mention...

...that lately I seem to be posting a little more often at our "Learning Notes" blog than on this main blog. You can find it at Age Quod Agis.

Sharing the Faith and more from Colossians

It sure has taken me a long time to write on last week's catechism discussion. It was delightful to get back after such a long break (we haven't met since before Christmas) and the reading was wonderful. It was one of the sort of readings that doesn't tend to bring about much in the way of disagreement, but is more delightful to bask in as a group. St. Paul offers a great reminder that being a Christian isn't simply about avoiding sin. If it doesn't go farther, it isn't authentic. We were particularly struck by the beautiful exhortations on how to share the faith with others. Here are two favorite quotes. The first is particularly familiar to me as I memorized it as a child when preparing to read it for a children's Mass in grade school.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And over all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

This one was less familiar to me, but I loved the sense it gives of how we ought to mediate the truth for others.

Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.

Girard Family on Extreme Makeover Home Edition Tonight!

My kids are not about to let me forget this one. Thought I'd share it just in case you're interested:

What We're Working on Tonight....

A fun project/contest for an upcoming book by Mary G. being published by Hillside Education. Won't you give it a try too? Deadline is February 15.

From Mary G.:

Margot Davidson at Hillside Education has consented to publish the book I've written, In His Image: Nurturing Creativity in the Home, and we're hoping to have it out this spring.

We'd like to use Michelangelo's Creation of Man image as the cover, but not the original. Would you ask your children under the age of 18, to do a sketch, drawing or painting of the Creation of Man? Ted Schluenderfritz, who will do the layout of the cover will choose the winner for the cover of the book. The winner will receive a free copy of the book and credit for being the artist.

We'd like the submissions by February 15th.

Here are the guidelines:

* anyone under the age of 18 can compete -- public, private, parochial or home-educated
* only hand-done work will be reviewed (no computer graphics allowed)
* the image should be scanned in at high res and sent to Margot at Hillside -- or you can send the original to Margot (Hillside Education, 475 Bidwell Hill Road, Lake Ariel, PA 18436) for her to scan
* the artist can draw all of the picture, or only God and Adam, or just the fingers touching ... whatever they'd like as long as it is clearly a representation of Michelangelo' s original
* any 2-d media may be used for this project -- collage, paint, pen-and-ink, colored pencil, whatever.

This and That

Our Convention Team, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

I've been awfully neglectful of the blog here lately. A lot more of my activity is presently on Twitter (and I'm working on stuff for Love2learn.net and for mater et magistra magazine).

A lot on my mind lately, including the tragic death of Michael Dubruiel. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

I'm also working on setting up a twice-a-month All-Things-Latin study group, which starts tomorrow afternoon. I'm revamping the younger kids' math (ordered a bunch of used SRA Math texts online yesterday) and looking forward to another family birthday next week (Terri turns 11 on Abe Lincoln's 200th birthday!).

In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy this picture of our Latin convention team posing with the trophy.