Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

http://www.prayerfoundation.org/st_patricks_breastplate_prayer.htm

Prayer Upon Arising.  Psalm 5 may added.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me for ever.
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river;
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;*
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of the cherubim;
The sweet ‘well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the Prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord,
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Not our righteousness; Christ’s.

This is exactly how I feel most of the time. I love this comic!!!

Living In A Perfect World

“The truly humble soul must sincerely desire to be despised, derided, persecuted and falsely accused. How else can he better imitate Jesus Christ? Oh! how wise he will one day be acknowledged who on earth was happy to be regarded as unworthy of the approval and even the good opinion of others!”
~St. Teresa of Avila~

They are calling for yet another winter storm this weekend.  I think there has been one week since December 18th that we have not had several inches of snow on our back deck.  We had to pay to have the driveway scraped this past weekend (and it was worth every single penny!!).  And now, they are calling for more snow.  Alex is supposed to go snow skiing this weekend with Father Winslow and all of the altar servers from St. John’s. They are going to Sugar Mountain.  Now, it’s looking like that may bet cancelled.  Oh, man, he is going to be miserable to live with if he doesn’t get to go snow skiing. And Faith has Achievement Night for 4-H tomorrow evening, too.  Arrgghh.

I remember as a child fantasizing about snow like this.  As a teenager and young adult I always hoped for snow like this, because it meant the ski slopes would be amazing!  But now, I really can’t find a good reason for it.  It’s cold, it keeps us homebound, and when it finally does melt, it is really muddy!

Snow On Our Back Deck

I’ve made a lot of cracks about Global Warming, and how I think it’s ridiculous.  At this point, I think I might actually clock anyone who tries to tell me that it’s real.

Oh, and one more thing: they are calling for more snow next week, when I go pick Gaylon up in Charlotte at the airport.  I am really praying that it doesn’t happen.

Seriously? Freezing fog?? I checked the Weather Channel online and they had a “Severe weather report” regarding Freezing Fog?? Good Grief!!!

We are in the middle of another major winter storm, and have already gotten what looks like about three inches of snow.  They say there is a lot more coming, too.  But, before it started snowing, Faith went across the road to feed our neighbors’ dogs and discovered the most delightful, delicate little flowers. So, she picked one and brought it home. I suggested she put it in water, to see if it would open up, so she did, and it opened almost immediately.

It is such a delicate little thing, and really lovely.  I took some pictures, and wanted to share.  I’d never seen anything like it before.  Lishi told me it was a “Snowdrop”, which I think is the perfect name, since it’s snowing today!  How wonderful of God to create little flowers, just for the snow. I’m impressed!  (I am posting a couple of pics of the snow, too.)

A potentially crippling winter storm is expected along I-40 from New Mexico to North Carolina through the weekend.  ~weather.com~  1/27/2010

Yeah.  Just what I wanted to hear.  Our Christmas party was canceled due to a blizzard that left over eight inches of snow on our back deck until the rain finally washed it away about a week ago.  Now they are predicting another storm, which will probably force me to cancel my “Catholic Homeschool Moms Night”.

Frustrating.  Very, very frustrating.

From Kendall’s Facebook:

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Okay, so I’m looking at pictures of all my old High School friends on Facebook, and am thinking that I seriously need to lose about a million pounds.  And that I need to exercise for like, six hours a day, all throughout the holidays, so I don’t look exactly like the Goodyear blimp by the time Valentine’s Day rolls around.

But then, I visited People of Walmart again.  I’m feeling wayyyyyy better now!  So, if you are feeling discouraged about the way you look, and need some encouragement, I highly recommend looking at those pictures.  At the very least you will feel better about yourself, and you might even get a good laugh or two!

So, this year I am not having a party, since Gaylon can’t be here.  Instead, I am offering this Halloween greeting from Kendall, Snoopy, and Woodstock. 

Anyone who knows me, knows that Mother Teresa of Calcutta is my hero. She is an inspiration to me in every possible way. I was excited to learn that today is her feast day! The Catholic News Agency has a wonderful article about her, that I am posting here. (See Below).

Please note that ‘Teresa’ is a very popular name in the history of our Church.  I get emails regularly from friends who don’t realize that there are LOTS of “St. Teresas”, (I have found information for 27 different saints named “Teresa”, “Therese” or “Theresa”. There are probably more!)  However, Mother Teresa has not (yet) been canonized, or “sainted”, as it were. She has been “beatified”, so we call her “Blessed”, which is also a very high honor.  The title of “Saint” is sure to follow.

Two of our most popular saints are also called “Teresa”: saints Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux.  The emails I get usually have mixed up Therese of Lisieux with Mother Teresa.  I am sure that neither of them minds much, so long as we are encouraging one another to pray!  But in case anyone is interested, St. Teresa of Avila is one of the “Doctors of the Church”, St. Therese of Lisieux is also known as “The Little Flower”, and Blessed Mother Teresa is sometimes referred to as “Teresa of Calcutta“.

Here is the article from Catholic News Agency:

CNA STAFF, Aug 30, 2009 / 05:08 am (CNA).- This Saturday, the Church will celebrate the feast day of Mother Teresa, a universal symbol of God’s merciful and preferential love for the poor and forgotten.

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, the youngest of three children. She attended a youth group called Sodality, run by a Jesuit priest at her parish, and her involvement opened her to the call of service as a missionary nun.

She joined the Sisters of Loretto at age 17 and was sent to Calcutta where she taught at a high school. She contracted Tuberculosis and was sent to rest in Darjeeling. It was on the train to Darjeeling that she received her calling – what she called “an order” from God to leave the convent and work and live among the poor.  At this point she did not know that she was to found an order of nuns, or even exactly where she was to serve. “I knew where I belonged, but I did not know how to get there,” she said once, recalling the moment on the train.

Confirmation of the calling came when the Vatican granted her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and fulfill her calling under the Archbshop of Calcutta. She started working in the slums, teaching poor children, and treating the sick in their homes. She was joined a year later by some of her former students and together they took in men, women, and children who were dying in the gutters along the streets and cared for them.

In 1950 the Missionaries of Charity were born as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta and in 1952 the government granted them a house from which to continue their service among Calcutta’s forgotten.

The congregation very quickly grew from a single house for the dying and unwanted to nearly 500 around the world.  Mother Teresa set up homes for AIDS sufferers, for prostitutes, for battered women, and orphanages for poor children.

She often said that the poorest of the poor were those who had no one to care for them and no one who knew them. And she often remarked with sadness and desolation of milliions of souls in the developed world whose spiritual poverty and loneliness was such an immense cause of suffering.

She was a fierce defender of the unborn saying: “If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God’s love.”

Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 and was beatified only six years later, on October 19, 2003.

Mother Teresa once said, “A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.” She also said, “give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.”

This is funny on so many levels!  My wonderful, amazing husband, the love of my life, is completely left-brained.  It reminded me of the time we bought a “fixer-upper” and decided to do some light renovations before we moved in.  By light renovations, I had new carpet and paint in mind.

One morning, Gaylon and I were standing in the kitchen, which was, without question, in dire need of repair, and I said (out loud, but mainly to myself) “I guess we are going to have to do the kitchen first.”  Then, I walked out the door and drove down the road to go have coffee with my friend, Lisa, while our kids played.  Three hours later, Gaylon called me and said “You wanted the kitchen gutted, right?”  Uhhhh. . . .think fast, what does he mean by ‘gutted’. . . “Ah, yeah, honey.  What do you mean?”

Well, to make a long story short, what he meant was that I could stand in the basement and look up, through where the floor and ceiling of the kitchen used to be, and see the roof!!  There was literally nothing left in the kitchen.  His ‘left-brain’ had kicked in.  This woman tells of a similar, but less expensive, left-brain experience.

Kendall holds up his first published article.

The Blue Banner is the student-run newspaper of the University of North Carolina – Asheville (UNC-A). Yesterday, the first edition for this semester hit the stands, and Kendall’s article was the front cover story!! We are all really excited and proud for him, especially since this was his first time being published, and he made headline news!

As part of his Journalism degree plan this semester, he is working on The Blue Banner.  If you would like to read his article, “Despite Enrollment Growth, Cuts Persist” for yourself, click here.

I am looking forward to reading more of his articles in The Blue Banner.  Who knows what may follow?  The New York Times?  U.S. News and World Report?  It doesn’t matter.  As my friend Kathy T. always says, this is a “proud mama” moment!

This is from Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News.  Please watch this!  It is terrifying!  The government really wants to control everything and everyone.  WHY??????  Seriously, ask yourself what it is they are trying to accomplish, and what the end goals are, of this sort of privacy invasion.