My high-school vocabulary teacher would be proud of me. We were all required to take a once-a-week vocabulary enrichment course until January of senior year. Apparently, it paid off.
H/T Michelle at Rosetta Stone, who also has a genius-reading-level blog
1. It’s not a good idea to decaffeinate yourself, even gradually, during the week that includes Halloween. I think I counteracted my “half-caff” with all the Whoppers, Snickers and Butterfingers I consumed today.
2. I’d better move that candy bowl. It’s very dangerous to keep my bowl of Kids’ Halloween Rejects near my desk. Very dangerous indeed. How dangerous, you ask? Well, I’ve emptied the trash basket under my desk twice today to hide the evidence.
Courtesy of faithmouse.
A wonderful reminder on All Souls’ Day, don’t you think? Take a moment today to pray for the Faithful Departed. God loves them this much, too. And as Father H. reminded us this morning, God wants all of us in Heaven with Him.
Tomorrow is the feast of All Souls.
I’ll be in church tomorrow–but for a funeral. I’ll be honoring one of our parish’s Faithful Departed. Her name is Helen, and she passed away Sunday morning after a long illness.
I met Helen when Big Brother was 4 or 5, and I was working at the school’s Bingo. She and I worked in the Bingo kitchen together, every 5th week. I’m sure she had well over 40 years on any of the parents in that kitchen, but she worked circles around all of us. If there was a break in the action of selling coffee, tea and hot dogs with sauerkraut, she’d get out some Brillo and start scrubbing the 9-burner industrial stove. That thing got a good cleaning once every 5 weeks thanks to Helen.
At the church carnival, Helen was a fixture in the Polish kitchen, dishing up pierogi, kielbasa, and other favorites. Again, she never stopped moving. She taught half the parish how to pinch pierogi.
Her hard work wasn’t limited to kitchen duty, either. After Mass, Helen would tend to the flower arrangements and make sure that nothing in there was wilted or drooped. She was on the Monday-Morning Pew-Cleaning Crew, and she scrubbed those just as hard as she did that kitchen stove.
I enjoyed working at Bingo with Helen. While we scrubbed the stove and filled the coffee urn, she would tell me stories about raising her young family, about growing up in rural Pennsylvania, and about what the town was like 50 years ago. Every time we worked together, she would tell me about her annual trips to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
Helen is one of the Faithful Departed now. So it is very fitting that her funeral will be held on All Souls Day.
Tomorrow I will pray, for Helen and for all the Faithful Departed:
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Everyone who knows that my children attend Catholic schools was surprised that they have school today. But their schools made sure they got to church. I went to church with my younger saints-in-training at the church attached to their school. It was so full of students and parishioners that my children didn’t know I was there, but that was OK.
I enjoyed hearing a homily that was geared toward the children but not insulting to the grownups in the assembly. The deacon compared “being a saint” to “getting into the Hall of Fame.” Sports analogies are useful tools when talking to kids, and this was no exception. He talked about how Hall-of-Famers aren’t athletes who had ONE good season; they are the ones who were great through their whole careers. The same goes for the saints.
The children learned that the saints worked hard to live the Beatitudes–which they heard in today’s Gospel. They were encouraged to do their best to live the Beatitudes in their own lives, so that they, too, can become saints.
After Communion, the third grade presented their own litany of patron saints. The children had done reports on their patron saints in preparation for this day. They brought along their illustrations for the reports, and as the names of the saints were read (and we responded “Pray for us”) the children would hold up the saint’s picture. Very sweet! I know how hard these children worked, since one of the third-graders is my godchild and she told me all about her saint report.
It was great to celebrate the Feast of All Saints in a standing-room-only church full of aspiring saints.
TheDad just left for work, after whipping Little Brother into an anticipatory frenzy about the evening’s activities and the likelihood of collecting a lot of chocolate.
(Little Brother’s teacher will not be pleased, as I’m sure the other 27 kindergarteners are similarly excited.)
So Little Brother bounced over to me and said, “I’m going to say ‘Trick or treat! Trick or treat!’ That’s like ‘please’ in Halloween! And then you say ‘thank you’!”
TheDad is helping Middle Sister prepare for a math quiz. She was absent from school for a few days, and her teacher recommended that Middle Sister review a few lessons. Middle Sister resisted the review, but TheDad said that they were going to keep at it until she mastered the concepts.
Finally, she seemed to get the hang of it. “Very good, Middle Sister! I’m so proud of you,” TheDad said.
“If you were proud enough, we’d be done,” she responded.
Big Brother is telling me all about the Haunted Hayride he went on with some friends last night.
“And then you got to go in the corn maze, only it wasn’t really a maze. It was only a path.” (this in a disappointed tone)
I reminded him that if it were a real maze, someone might get lost in there, in the dark.
“Right! That would be awesome!”
Sponsored by Serra USA (a group dedicated to fostering priestly vocations), Priesthood Sunday is a day to honor our parish priests for the work they do for the Kingdom of God.
No big event at your parish? Start planning one for next year. In the meantime, thank Father on your way out of Mass today. Offer a rosary for his intention, and one for priestly vocations as well.
I’m sure that at my parish, Father H. would not want a big event calling attention to himself. He is an example of humility, prayer and reflection. He wants his parishioners to know that the Gospel is not only for people 2000 years ago–it is for us, today; it calls us to change our lives.
Are artists, like prophets, not accepted in their own country?
Middle Sister is very busy making a ghost out of a white trash bag. She’s using a Sharpie marker for the features.
I asked her what she was planning to use to stuff it, and where she’d hang it.
Turns out she doesn’t think she will need stuffing, and she’ll hang it somewhere outside.
“But we just cut the tree down,” I reminded her.
“People never appreciate my work,” she sighed.