Finding Sanctity During Lent

Finding that sanctity, discovering it when I have all those run of the mill, everyday "mom" things to do can get old.  I just read a friend's blog where she hopes to be gentler, kinder, more compassionate.  Don't we all?

My post is intended to focus on two aspects.  First, it is nice to hope, and that is the first step.  Recognizing what it is you desire.  The next step would be to plan.  That's right.  In order to succeed in a wish, planning is vital.  It isn't enough to simply hope, or resolve to change.  Giving myself a specific plan lays out how I will work toward that goal.  In this case, though, my goal is not to come to an end at Lent, but to have allowed myself to live that change beyond Easter.

I would love to just hope for a clean house.  But, unless I plan and then follow my plan, it can't happen.  As much as I would hope that after all these years my house would just figure out what I want and stay that way, it won't.  It can't.  But, I can!

My plan this year is to begin Lent with remembering the letters "CPR" ... in my case, "Continual Prayerful Respiration."  Or, in other words, "praying attention" to what I am doing.  By the conclusion of Lent, my goal is be able to alter the word continual to continuous.  The difference being that continual is an event that is repeated with regularity and frequency.  Continuous is to extend without interruption or cessation.

How am I going to do this?  A prayer that Marion posted to our Little Way list quite a while ago, (and I saw circulating on the internet without mention of her as author) will be my guide.   For me it will be each shirt I iron, I'll offer a prayer for the person it belongs to.  For each dish I wash, I'll offer a prayer of thanks to the farmers who grew our food, the grocers who provided a way for us to purchase, the energy companies for heat to cook it, the easy access to fresh water we enjoy, etc.  For each time I back out of my garage, and return home, I'll offer a prayer for our friends in Peru who don't have security, for my fellow drivers on the road, for safe driving on my part, etc.   The sacrament of the present moment will very much be what I will attentively seek. by living in the here and now, offering as I progress through my day.  And it will be offering not just when I am doing a chore.  It will involve praying for the person I'm speaking to (whether by phone, or email.)  It will include offering up my discomfort at night as I'm moving toward menopause.  It will include remembering to pray for my eldest daughter and her fiance when I touch my wedding band.  All those little, attentive ways to lift up my ordinary day and actions toward heaven,  asking Mother Mary and the saints to intercede for me, my guardian angel to protect me, and for God to guide me and bless those I pray for.   

Just as CPR can be a life saving measure, I seek out my spiritual CPR to not only respire, or breathe out my prayers to God, but to receive the Holy Spirit respiring and breathing His grace into my soul, and guiding my thoughts, words, actions, chores, free-time, conversations, worship, everything in return.  

May your first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, be a positive step on your own journey toward sanctity.

Yvonne -- 

Menu Plans

I wanted to post a quick note letting you know that I have added links to two files that you can download. The first one is my blank menu form and the second is my menu for the week.

When I prepare my weekly menu plan, I make notes along the top about activities that might affect our eating plans for the week. I usually do my plans by hand and as I add an meal, I make a note in the margin of any ingredients I might need to purchase.

For breakfast, you will see veggie omelets and cereal/bagel with fruit. We don't eat all of that every day. I eat veggies/eggs for breakfast while the rest of the family opt for higher carb options. We have some pretty different dietary issues around here, so I try to accommodate them with notes that make sense to me.

I'll try to write more later this week.

Our Vocation

This is from one of my earlier posts to the email group...

Dear Sisters,
I would like to begin by sharing with you some advice that was given to me a long time ago and has had a profound effect on me in the years since.

We had recently moved to Colorado. When we moved, I had all these great ideas for how our lives would be ordered. I had all the plans made! I thought we’d have fewer distractions and we could really just get about the business of focusing our family life on God. I had this entire agenda worked out in my mind and even on paper, of how we would live. I wish I had saved that paper because it would have been a great lesson in humility.

When we arrived here, we struggled to find a parish that was going to be home. During what was supposed to be a two week visit, my parents had a roll over car accident that left my father with a broken neck. While he would fully recover, they lived with us for several years. Don’t misunderstand me, I love my parents and I know we made the right choices but needless to say, my perfect ordered life went out the window! It seemed every plan I had was thwarted in these areas and others.

And so, I decided to whine to my spiritual director. His words still bring me back to focusing on God.

Here they are as he wrote them:
“You have a nice goal about what would be good for your home and vocation. But as you know, what man proposes, God disposes. Part of your vocation is to put out fires and solve problems. My vocation is one of distractions. And so is yours. The one striving for holiness learns how to use the distractions for the greater honor and glory of God. The ones who want to be holy but do not want to work at it have a fantasy that their particular holiness will be free of hard work and sacrifice and disruption. The lives of saints are full of disruptions, obstacles and sorrows.

Soooo, it sounds like God has given you the perfect environment to become a saint; less than perfect household, below average parish and no time to pray. Saints long for situations like this, because they can see how God will change these situations through them and other people, endowed and imbued with the Holy Spirit. You have to carve out your spiritual life in your day and it may be that you have to due violence to the things and times that you like for it to get done!

But the Lord Jesus will bless you and help and visit you when you are most discouraged. Would you not like to have a visit from the Lord and be discouraged every once in a while or not to have a visit from him and never be down trodden?

Carry your cross and it will carry you to heaven along with your family and parents! This is what saints are made of. I think you already know this. And I have confidence that you can do this with the Grace of God.

God bless you in the Sacred Heart of JMJ
Fr. Mike

It’s important to make a distinction in the type of vocation we are speaking about. The dictionary has two different definitions. The first is in reference to a job. I’m not talking about that definition at all. A job is work that provides temporal goods. The second definition is “An inclination, as if in response to a summons, to undertake a certain kind of work, especially a religious career; a calling.” I really would even beg to differ with that definition because it seems to imply that only religious have vocations and that’s not true either. Our vocation is our response to God’s calling us to a particular state of life. It is what provides for our spiritual well being. My vocation is being a wife and mother as is most that will be reading this article. Sometimes I have other jobs, but they cannot change my primary responsibility to my vocation. Being the best wife and mother through a life devoted to God is my path to Heaven. It needs to be first and foremost in all that I do.

There were three important messages for me in Father Mike’s words. I’m going to use those words as a point to address some of the particulars about our vocations.

The first is that our vocation is one of distractions. This is so true! This is why I don’t believe we shouldn’t try to adhere to rigid schedules. It’s also in many regards the reason this little way came to be a reality in my life.

What we need to learn is that there are distractions that our out of our control and there are ones that are in our control. When you are sitting in your quiet place to pray and your child comes to you sick or in desperate need that is a distraction from prayer that is out of your control. When you overcommitted yourself to ministries that seem good on the surface, they are distractions within your control.

Our children sometimes have needs that will take us away from prayer but we need to return as quickly as we can. We will also talk later about how those distractions can even be turned into prayer.

As wives and mothers, any task or ministry we commit to should be considered and prayed about in view of how it affects our vocation. While I have little children at home, does it make my family holier if I spend 5 nights a week at church meetings? You need to discern this for your own family but I think the answer would almost always be no.

Since I mentioned the idea of children distracting us from prayer, I want to add one more thought on this topic. There is a difference between a child with a legitimate need for their mother and one that has not been trained to understand that Mommy needs time with God. Very few of us have children that have to be constantly attended to. Most of us just aren’t very good at saying, Mommy is going to go pray for awhile so please work on this task or leave me alone for 30 minutes unless it is an emergency. Not only does this help our children develop independent skills, it witnesses to them that Mommy needs God in her life.

The second comment from Father Mike that hit home for me was the comparison of distractions in the vocation of priesthood and motherhood. This goes back to the definition I gave you of vocation. Where would we be if the only vocations were that of priest and nun? I’ll tell you, we just wouldn’t be! Holy priests come from holy families and holy families come from holy priests. Every vocation has its distractions. It is so easy for us to feel like a second class citizen because that’s what the world tells us but we need to shut the blinders on the worlds view and realize that we are following a divine plan.

The final message for me was that I might have to give up what I want in order to carve out time in my day for a spiritual life. Sometimes we really just want to make excuses for not spending time with God when it is the very thing we need most. Other times, as I alluded to earlier, we are so over committed with seemingly good ministries that we don’t have time.

When I only had one child and she was a baby, it was easier for me to do more at church or in the community but as she grew and more have been added, I have watched many of the ministries I love be carved out of my life. It’s not to say that I might not return to them in a later season of life but, it is to say that my primary job right now is tending to the needs of my family. To start with, I began by eliminating the ones that I could not do with my family or took me away from home more than once a month. As I started to give up control of these things that I wanted to do, God was free to move more toward Him. Isn’t it ironic how we can be doing good deeds and still miss our vocation?

I want to close with a final thought about prayer and our vocation. When we don’t have time to pray, we have our priorities wrong. I don’t believe there are any exceptions to this rule. It as simple as saying God, I know you have a plan for me, but I can do this on my own and I don’t need or want to hear anything you have to say. God has not given us so much to do in our lives that we can’t pray. I don’t think that is the message any of us want to give to God.


Sisters in the Trinity,
Marion

Little Ways

Sometimes it feels like I’m really not following The Little Way anymore, but when I actually stop and review I realize that I am indeed not following it but rather living it! I don’t know if I can explain what I mean very well, but basically, things that need to be cleaned and projects that need to be done are done. I haven’t met every self-imposed deadline or standard but rather they are done in God’s time.

I know I’m a control freak. I’ve always been a very organized person and so, for many years it was all or nothing for me. If I didn’t have things perfect, they were chaos, at least in my mind. Little by little, I learn to let go of this control and to offer my efforts to God.

When I started writing My Sisters, I used to struggle horribly with laundry. On any given day you might find piles on the laundry room floor waiting to be washed. Over the years, with many repeated offerings, God has transformed my ways. I would not go so far as to say that I love laundry, but we have a system in place that seems to work well for getting the clothes clean. I’m still working on getting them folded and put away as quickly as I should, but all those baby steps, led to one big transformation in that area of our lives.

Day by day, I notice little difference, but in looking back over longer periods of time I can see change. I can also see many other areas I need to get busy making more offerings and that’s why I know that I’ll be living the Little Way the rest of my life.

“We can accomplish no great things, only small things with great love.” --Blessed Mother Teresa

A Little Way

Each day we are given opportunities to perform little ways ... those small tasks, that when we do them consciously and with tender love, elevate us along the road to sanctity.  Left undone, they pile up and can make our way treacherous.  Done, but without conscious thought and love, they become burdens that we soon try to avoid.  

Done unconsciously, they become routines.  Some of what I do each day has become a routine.  Some of the things I do involve only little bits of time and taking the next little step.  For instance when I pour my last cup of coffee, the carafe if rinsed, and grounds from the basket emptied.  Before starting to cook the sink is filled with wash water so we can clean as we go.  When I do laundry, once dried it is folded and put away.  It would be nice to say (but I don't lie) I never get sidetracked.  I do.  I've sipped many cold cups of coffee as evidence.  That must come with age.  These help me accomplish needed tasks, and allow me time to be with our kids, teaching and mentoring.  Given that I tend to be sidetracked, as well as over 50 and prone to strong evidence of forgetfulness, routines help me accomplish my bare minimum as a wife and mother.  

But, isn't life supposed to offer more?  You would think so, and that was one of the reasons Marion and I began writing our thoughts and experiences.  It isn't that we believe we have the answer.  It isn't that we believe our "way" is the only one.  One glance through all the posts we've written to "The Little Way" group is evidence that as our lives have adjusted so have our thoughts.  We hope that in the end it is just refinement, but that will be for others to judge, if they feel so inclined.

What we do hope is that you can discover that by doing all those mundane (and sometimes not so fun) tasks that a mother does each and every day, coupled with consciously offering them up with love, you'll find your load lightened, your days flowing smoother, and your domestic church strengthened.

All the little "ways" that I do help me stay on top of the housework.  That is, most of the time.  I've also humbly discovered that when I get slack, things can seem to fall apart.  There are days when I simply don't want to "do" anything, or when I am ill, and simply can't.  If, however, I have kept true to "doing the next little step" each day I can usually afford to take a day off now and then.

Oh!  One note on doing small things with great love.   This requires an act of will.  After all, scrubbing down a shower floor is hardly romantic.  But, if I allow myself to act out of resentment, our domestic church becomes distorted.  If I also allow myself to be exposed too much to that harsh world, whether via on-line sources, newspapers, television my thinking can become distorted.  It isn't out of pride, but I will say that I don't know what Oprah is thinking or pushing, and I could honestly care less about how "wise" Judge Judy is.  I do care about whether I am a loving wife, good mother and I work at being more than just a "nice person."  

That act of will to love can be easy sometimes.  But, usually, I need to pare down my own exaggerated sense of self, and make a firm act of the will to love.  By paring down my "self", though, I don't neglect to take care of my physical, emotional and spiritual needs.  It can be a balancing act, balancing what I need with what my family needs.  We often need to balance family activities with outside obligations.  It becomes easier when you realize you can do a lot, just not all at the same time.   But each moment is precious, and can never return to be used again.  I don't think I can save time, but I can be frugal with what time I do have so tasks aren't relegated to the future to eat up more of those precious present moments.

Now, for accountability.  I'll let you all know right now, I do not feel accountable to anyone except God (of course!), my husband and our children.  If I don't post often, just know that I am being accountable to those to whom I've been entrusted.  I'll share when I can, both on this blog, and my personal one.  But, gosh, don't expect me to be writing every day.  I never have, and I really don't intend to begin now.

What I do hope is to share bits and pieces of my own adventure on this journey, to help you realize what a wonderful vocation we all have as wives and mothers, and encourage you on your own journey.Good prayers for your day!  Your Sister in the Trinity .... Yvonne

Short, Quirky Biography for Yvonne

Background ...  

I'm a Catholic woman, married over 30 years to the same man, a mom to 5 children here, and at least 6 in heaven.  I love to write, work Kakuro puzzles, sew, cook, read and discuss: philosophy, apologetics, and history.  I am drawn to natural medicine, home births, breastfeeding, and gentle parenting.  We are lifelong home educators.  We still have two of our children learning at home.   I think teaching teens is great fun!  I'm working on becoming fluent in Spanish, and will start French soon.    

I am a native Nevadan, and have lived in California, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Peru, and now Canada!  I've visited many other places, and have experienced driving in winter white-out conditions, watched smoky skies from forest fires, gotten shook up with earthquakes, drenched in tropical storms, and thought our house was Dorothy's during Hurricane Ike.   I've attended Mass in huge cathedrals down to tiny missions.  They have been in Latin, English and Spanish, and variously presided over by priests, bishops, cardinals, and Pope John Paul II.   I haven't always been a faithful Catholic, but since returning "home" 23 years ago, I grow daily in understanding, practicing, and enlivening my faith.

Volunteering has been a huge part of our family's ethos, and will continue to be, as we find ways to be of service to those we meet.  We have had a lot of contact with La Leche League, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H, Knights of Columbus, and many, many other organizations.

I enjoy being frugal, but also know how to enjoy life!  Packing and moving is also big part of our life.  So far we've lived in over 20 different houses and addresses in our 30 years of marriage.   We've renovated more homes than I care to recall, though we always enjoy the end products!

Journeying toward sanctity is my ever present goal.  Whether I get there will only be revealed when this earthly journey is concluded.  I hope you'll join me on the journey, because together is how God wants us all to seek Him!

 

Where I have been, am now and might be going

Dear Sisters,

I’m Marion. I’ve been married to Dana for over 24 years and a mother to Christina who is 18, Catherine who is 15 and Charlene who is 11. I have taught the girls at home since Christina was in kindergarten. I’m at a very different place in my life now than I was when I started writing for the “little” yahoogroup that Yvonne and I started in 2000 and there are many people and events that make me know I am. Below, you will find a highlight of the ones that seem significant for you to know at this moment in time, but I suspect as time goes on, you will learn much more.

I was born in Torrance, California. My mother is Catholic; my father is not. Growing up, I attended church but not as frequently as I should have. Since I was born in 1966, my catechesis was a product of uncertainty in a post-Vatican II era and therefore, severely lacking.

I didn’t really begin to scratch the surface of understanding my faith until I was 16 years old and met Dana. Dana wasn’t Catholic. His faith formation had consisted of his grandmother taking him to a Baptist church occasionally or joining his girlfriend at her church.

I had been playing guitar at Mass and singing in the choir. Dana began attending church with me. He also started asking questions that, because of my own lack of formation, I was not equipped to answer. I had read something in the bulletin about a meeting where people could come and ask their questions about the Catholic faith. We decided to go. The meeting turned out to be the precursor to RCIA. To make a long story short, Dana was baptized into the Catholic Church at Easter in 1984. The classes I attended with Dana helped me be more knowledgeable about the Catholic faith, but having it in your head isn’t the same as having it in your heart.

Dana and I got married in Las Vegas in August1984. At that time we weren’t as familiar with Church teachings as we thought we were and so we were surprised to learn that our marriage wasn’t considered valid in the eyes of the Church. In 1985 we had a church wedding to sanctify the union but other than attending Mass on holidays, we stayed away from church until Christina was born in 1990.

I don’t think we made a conscious decision to stop going to church. In hindsight, I was hurt that the marriage I was so excited about was somehow less than perfect in the churches eyes. I didn’t understand and I was young and arrogant enough to think I could pick and choose regarding matters of faith. We had our church wedding but that was as far as I was going.

When Christina was born we decided to have her baptized. The Holy Spirit was working in spite of our weakness. Before we could have her baptized, we were required to attend a baptism preparation class. At the class we met a couple who became our friends and were instrumental in our return to the Church. God was bringing healing to the wounds I didn’t even know had existed.

Over the course of the next several years we experienced many major changes. We became more and more involved at our church. Soon our parish became the center of our lives. In 1993, the same year Catherine, our second daughter, was born; we shared our home with a family including 4 children, for almost a year while the father worked to secure a steady job. In 1994 I began a 2-year program to be certified by the Archdiocese as Director of Initiation and Liturgy. In 1995, Catherine was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis.

I was finally beginning to see that God really is in charge of my life. I also came to a place where I could completely accept the teachings of the Church. The desire to pick and choose what worked for me was gone. I managed to all but finish the certification program between trips to the doctors and caring for Catherine. I began to homeschool Christina. I was offered a part time staff position as Liturgy Assistant at our parish. I worked with the Liturgy and Initiation Director in whatever needed to be done.

Inspired by the examples of Blessed Anna Maria Taigi and Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora, I became a Tertiary in the Order of the Most Holy Trinity. I continue to explore the meaning of this commitment in my life.

In early 1997 I learned I was pregnant with Charlene. Two weeks later, Dana was informed that he was to be laid off from his job of 12 years. This would turn out to be another test of our faith. I spent most of the pregnancy sick or in bed. Dana looking for a job proved fruitless for what seemed like an eternity. One week before I gave birth to Charlene, Dana began a new job.

About a year later Dana’s new company offered to move us to Colorado in order for him to work on a new project. We moved in September of 1998. We searched, and finally, found a parish we could call home. It was a small parish, just getting started, with only about 350 families. W didn’t even have a building then!
In August of 1999, Dana’s work took the entire family to Japan for nearly 8 months. Japan was another challenge. It is very strange and difficult to be a minority. Christianity is less than 1% of the population of Japan. Nonetheless, we found a Catholic church there and made many friends.

Upon our return from Japan we found that our parish at home in Colorado had doubled in size. Since then, we have built, and moved into, a new church with about 2500 families. It still feels like home, just a bigger home. I have had many different roles at Our Lady of Loreto as I try to let God lead my ministries and actions. I am so thankful for a holy pastor and pastoral staff.

While the move to Colorado provided a better environment in which to raise children, it was difficult to leave our family, friends and beloved parish. I often felt as though I was being led into a desert. Living in Japan only deepened those feelings. Looking back now, I can see that He was pruning me into what HE wanted. He wanted me to be totally dependent on Him and Him alone. I know I haven’t attained that goal but perhaps I’m a bit closer than I was 20 years ago.

Colorado was good to us. We had an awesome parish, a great group of friends from dance, my parents were close and I learned that teenagers and young adults were pretty fun to work with. It also afforded a couple of opportunities to meet up with Yvonne when they traveled there to see family or one occasion to work on the book that continues to elude us.

Yvonne and I began working on The Little Way after my return from Japan. During the four years we’ve been writing, I’ve had two miscarriages and three surgeries. With the first surgery, I was in a wheelchair for 4 months and unable to walk into my kitchen. My daughter Christina, then 10 years old, managed to take over the majority of the food preparation for our household. The miscarriage I had in August of 2003 was probably the most difficult thing I had ever gone through. When I had my first ultrasound, it was so exciting to see the two little babies I was carrying. Two short weeks later, it was equally devastating to see the ultrasound clearly show that my babies had died. It took almost another year before I could even think of holding another baby. Even to this day, I still feel sadness when I see the babies of the two friends that were due about the same time. The lesson I learned through these events is that while I am a control freak, there are some things in our lives that our out of our control. I have learned to allow others to help me and to accept that help as a gift from God.

In 2006, after almost a year of unemployment, God relocated our family to Iowa. Dana was pretty excited about the move. His family is from Indiana, he has fond childhood memories of summers there and from his perspective, and we were just taking another step toward Indiana. I wasn’t as excited about the move but realized it was where the job was that God was offering him and we weren’t in a position to be picky.

It has taken me the better part of two years and some rather direct comments in spiritual direction to help me to embrace Iowa as my home. There are still things that I would rather were different here, but there are many things I have come to love. I don’t know what our future will hold here. I know my husband loves his job and it seems as secure as anything can be these days. Our oldest daughter, Christina, has graduated high school and found her dream job here. Catherine and Charlene are also finally starting to settle in. I think all of us know that where we live really isn’t up to us anyway. God’s got a plan; we just have to figure it out.

As far as hobbies, our family loves to dance. You might have already figured that out! I met my husband through square dancing and I still enjoy it. I have been very involved with my daughter’s dance team. In July of 2004 the team traveled to Ukraine to perform and play music for two international folk dance festivals. Dana and I started taking ballroom dance lessons that eventually have lead to Christina’s job. We all continue to square dance at least a couple of times a month and Dana and I teach round dancing one night a week.

When we aren’t on the dance floor, you might find me playing Everquest 2 or at a gym. I think I’ll leave the explanation of how that fits in my spiritual journey for a post some time. For now, I will suffice to say that it can be both a distraction and a blessing, and the scale often tips.

Well, there you have it, the short story of Marion Moreland. The pages that have been compiled into this Little Way, will probably tell you more about me than any introduction I could ever write. They have been written over about 8 years which means I have continued to grow and learn. They share with you my heart and my imperfections. My prayer for you is that you will learn to discover God in your vocation and through all the dignity and joy that comes from being a wife and mother He will transform your life.


Sisters in the Trinity,
Marion