New Year's Eve at the D. House

New Year's Eve has become a "family" night for us ever since the kids got old enough to want to stay up until midnight. We eat junk food (taquitos anyone? how about some Rotel cheese dip?), play board games and watch movies. Tom and I quaff champagne the whole time ... albeit at a very slow pace. (We're not big drinkers.) Rose has turned down babysitting two years in a row because she doesn't want to miss her New Year's Eve at home.

This year will be different only in venue and some of the people. We're going to be visiting Tom's mom in Houston and are not sure who else will be there. I'm planning on making Mexican food in case there's a crowd. And champagne goes with everything right? We'll certainly find out with that combination! However, we'll be taking our favorite board games (including Risk which may be too involved for that sort of evening) and movies. The moveable party!

PC or Mac?

The answers to my RSS questions lead me to believe that I am waaaaaaay outnumbered because I am a Mac user. For instance, the extensions info was for Windows, a dead giveaway. Is everyone else on the PC or do I have compatriots out there?

Our Delightful Evening

Last night felt more like a weekend and it was a distinct shock to realize I have to go work this morning and actually think! Tom and I were taken to dinner by a couple who we have known through work for some time. Steve has been a client for many years (10?) and his wife, Cathy, has a jewelry design business for which we have provided web work for maybe a couple of years. Both are very enjoyable people but it never occurred to us to get together socially until this invitation.

I sure am glad that they thought of it! We were taken to a tiny restaurant specializing in the cuisine of Veracruz in the Bishop Arts District of Oak Cliff (for any Dallasites reading). This place had perhaps eight tables but wonderful decor, service and, most important of all, food. Although it is surprising that I noticed any of that because Cathy and I were so engrossed in conversation that my Pipian Chicken (chicken breast with pumpkin seed sauce) almost went to waste (almost!). As she later said to Steve, "Oh, were you there too?" I don't think the guys suffered because I heard a steady stream of talking and laughing coming from them.

It was especially fun because Cathy and I connected on soooooo many levels. She's the only other person I know who shops weekly at both the Central Market and Kuby's. She goes to a reformed temple ("it's very reformed") and y'all know I'm a staunchly conservative Catholic, but we agreed on so many intersecting areas of the need for education, intellectual curiousity and the application of those things to child rearing. It also was refreshing to talk to someone who has teenagers (hers are 19 and 16 year old girls) as so many of my friends have very young children. We both understood the idea of being the parents providing the gathering place for kids' friends, had similar "clever" stories about our almost grown kids' views, etc. Steve and Tom? Yeah, they were still there somewhere ...

Before and after dinner they showed us a bit of the area. Tom and I were intrigued and, if we can find our way back, want to go during the day with the girls and explore a bit more. One quirky place we explored was ifs ands & butts, which bills itself as "The World's Most Famous SodaPop & Tobacco Shop". I could believe it. I had no idea that so many old brands of soda pop still were being manufactured. Our conversation with the proprietor about Coca Cola from Mexico versus Holland was so fascinating that he almost couldn't quit talking (a passion for his work, don't ya know!).

As I work my way slowly toward New Year's resolutions (that is a whole other post), this reinforces a life style change that Tom and I discussed last year and that I am going to try to force this year ... we must make the time to entertain more. Ok, let's make that, we must make time to entertain at all! It's too easy to let it slide in the middle of a busy life and then discover you never have any of your friends ever come over. It took us several months just to set the date for last night's outing. Certainly we have to have Steve and Cathy over and continue all that talking ... for one thing, I never got to talk to Steve!

I Love My Butterbell

Do you? It is one of my kitchen essentials and if you haven't heard of it you might be missing something that makes life a little easier.

Also, Monkey has been back in the kitchen.

All over at Glad Gastronome.

Biblical Prayer Themes, Part II

[continued from Biblical Prayer Themes, Part I]

4. Longing and yearning. In its advancing stages the pursuit of God includes a hungering and thirsting for him as though we were a parched desert in need of a soaking rain, or as a doe longs for the running waters of a stream (Ps 63:1; 42:1-2). At times in life we need quietly and patiently to wait for the Lord, who will fill us in due time (Ps 37:7, 40:1). The psalmist seeks to understand better, to celebrate, to love, and to observe the precepts and plans of the Lord (Ps 119:1-176).

5. Prayerful suffering. Since all of us suffer in one way or another, and in diverse degrees, it is not surprising that the biblical word would teach us how to bear our crosses in life and how to use them to come to a closer communion with the indwelling Trinity. Jesus, of course, leads the way: in the midst of his agony in the garden of olives he shares with the Father his inner pains and expresses his desire that the divine will be done (Mt 26:39). We, too, express our heartaches to this same loving Father and unload our burdens before him (Ps 55:4-5, 16-17, 22; 62:8). We may even cry out in our pains and sufferings (Ps 22; 23:4-6; 27:7).

6. Sorrowing for sin. There is need in any honest heart to join David and the publican in begging pardon of the all-holy God, for we are sinners (many psalms; Lk 18:13). The first step in obtaining forgiveness is to confess humbly that we have sinned. Then we renounce the sin, express sorrow, and return to the Father, firmly resolved to profit from our experience and to be deeply converted (Ps 32:1-5; 51; Lk 15:11-24). Since serious sin wounds the sinner profoundly and issues in bitter guilt, he wisely returns to the only one who can heal him fully and he seeks relief from the divine forgiving love (Ps 38:1-10, 17-18, 21-22).

Prayer Primer, Thomas Dubay, S.M.

[Varieties of biblical prayer themes to be continued...]

Glorying in the Eternal Investment - Children

My children can have more far reaching implications for society and posterity than anything else I can do. Having babies and training children for Jesus Christ means my life work will last forever. I hurt for you and those sad, misguided souls who would think of prolific motherhood as reducing women to the status of "baby machine." I refuse to accept the minimizing, selfish, materialistic, and limited vision of womanhood dispensed by the apostles of modernity and relevancy in this generation. My dream is far greater. I reject the options which the world offers. I want something bigger.

I loved reading this spirited and glorious defense of the large family by Beall Phillips over at Doug's Blog. Much thanks to Donna at Quiet Life for the heads up.

What Do We Have to Say for God?

To others pondering senseless suffering, read the comments on this post over at Open Book. Some very powerful answers over there.

The Holy Innocents, Martyrs

Duccio di Buoninsegna. Maestà (front, predella): The Massacre of the Innocents.

Nor must we forget that our greatest happiness and our most authentic good are not always those which we dream of and long for. It is difficult for us to see things in their true perspective: we can only take in a very small part of complete reality. We only see the tiny piece of reality that is here, in front of us. We are inclined to feel that earthly existence is the only real one and often consider our time on earth to be the period in which all our longings for perfect happiness ought to be fulfilled.

There is anguish for us, twenty centuries later, in thinking of the slain babies and their parents. for the babies the agony was soon over; in the next world they would come to know whoom they had died to save and for all eternity would have that glory. For the parents, the pain would have lasted longer; but at death they too must have found that there was a special sense in which God was in their debt, as he had never been indebted to any. They and their children were the only ones who ever agonized in order to save God's life ... (F. J. Sheed, To Know Christ Jesus)

In Conversation with God: Advent and Christmastide

My Christmas by Julie D.

FIRST THINGS FIRST
The church looked gorgeous and really reflected the joyous celebration. We always attend Christmas Day mass. Not only does that make the day itself special but we have learned to avoid those Christmas Eve "crushes" I've seen other St. Blog's folks complaining about (it took a few years of suffering because the girls sang in a children's choir on Christmas Eve before we could get away from those crowds).

UNDER THE TREE
Santa was very good to the Glad Gastronome. I also got many things from my Amazon wish list including Michael (love John Travolta's turn in that movie), The Anvil of the World (some great fantasy s-f by one of my favorite authors), and Thinklers! (I've gotta get material for the weekend puzzlers somhow!). The biggest and most surprising gift was from Tom; a one year subscription to NPR's "Wait, Wait" and "Car Talk" that I can download into my iPod weekly. Woohoo! No more trying to remember to be home to tape it! What a great idea!

Also, this wasn't really "under the tree" as I had pre-ordered it many months ago, but Amazon got The Simpson's 5th season DVD (released on 12/22) to us in one day and it was a great festive start to the holidays. There's no better way to get the excitement level going than watching "forgotten" or little seen episodes of The Simpsons in their prime.

COOL STUFF OTHERS GOT

• Tom: Postcards from the Boys by Ringo Starr. I never knew that whenever any of the Beatles went anywhere they'd mail postcards to Ringo but here they are collected in this book with Ringo's commentary.


• Rose: a very cool hat from Urban Outfitters. She always looks fab in hats and this one sets off her looks just perfectly. (Although I also liked her Muse cd a lot more than I thought I would have ... to the point of needing it on my iPod.)


• Hannah: a toad house. This summer we had a toad living in the bottom of our Earth Box. I didn't even know we had toads in our yard. She is very into nature and this was perfect for her.

WHAT I LEARNED

• Tom has a real liking for red ribbon ... a REAL LIKING! Practically every package he wrapped had red ribbon all over it.


• Two graphics people wrapping gifts spend too much time making sure the "color blend" doesn't have too much of one color or another (and why did I wind up with so much blue paper I wonder? never again!).


• Around St. Blog's people wrote about buying tons of gifts or limiting gifts to a few to better keep their focus on the season. Here's our philosophy, which I found echoed in an interview by Paul McCartney of all people. We don't buy things for the girls the rest of the year but for Christmas and their birthdays we go all out ... or as all out as we can afford at the time. It is a time of generous celebration and the more the better. We have never had a problem remembering that Jesus is the center of everything ... I think that is more of a family focus than a function of how many gifts are given. After all, I always remember that Jesus gave the village in Cana so much wine the entire village was blasted for three days so who am I do pull back in gift giving?


• Tom's relatives, who we spent Christmas Eve with, tended to be about half Catholic and the other half are either evangelical or Methodist. Occasionally the Catholics would talk about which mass they would attend. Suddenly Tom's Methodist sister-in-law broke into an explanation of why they weren't going to attend any Christmas services at all. It seems the minister whose sermons they enjoy was doing all the services that conflicted with the family's schedule. The services that would have been easy to attend featured a minister whose speaking style is not as good. I know this is not how many Protestants are, simply because of my blogging friends, if for no other reason. However, it stood to point out to us that the Eucharist is the heart of any Catholic mass. That is the point of having all those mass times available. Whether the homily (sermon) will be good is really besides the point. You might internally cheer or sigh when you see who stands up to speak but whatever. As long as you get the Eucharist it's all good.


• I didn't realize how upset our priest was by the low attendance figures this Sunday. For one thing we were moving pretty slowly and wound up at the 12:30 mass which is usually sparsely attended. It was only when talking with Fr. L. afterwards that we realized how many more usually would have been there ... and this was with the vigil masses not held on Christmas evening. He always is cheerful but made some very pointed comments about how many parishioners he wondered were out at the malls at that very time. We're such terrible consumers that we'd forgotten all about the after-Christmas sales ... so we dropped everything and ran right out of the church (just kidding).
  

John, Apostle and Evangelist

Correggio. John the Evangelist (detail).

For John, as for everyone else, his vocation gave a new meaning even to the most ordinary things. The whole of life is affected by Our Lord's plans for each one of us ...

John's whole life was centred on His Lord and Master; in his faithfulness to Jesus he found the meaning of his life. He put up no resistance of any kind to His call; he was found on Calvary when all the others had disappeared. This is what our life, too, has to be like, because even though Our Lord calls some people in a special way, all his preaching comprises a vocation, an invitation to follow him into a new life whose secret he possesses: if any man would come after me ... (Matt 16:24)

Our Lord has chosen all of us -- some of us with a specific vocation -- to follow him, to imitate him and to carry on in the world the work of his Redemption. And from all of us he expects a joyful and unshakeable faithfulness like St. John's -- even in the most difficult moments.

In Conversation with God: Advent and Christmastide

St. Thomas Aquinas Church

No photos can ever do a place justice but I thought I'd bore everyone anyway with my church in its "holiday" garb.

View from the choir loft





A closer view of the altar




Altar details (the angels only come out for Christmas ... and possibly Easter; they're new so I'm not sure)

Nativity scene

St. Stephen - The First Martyr

The Martyrdom of St. Stephen, Rembrandt

We have only just celebrated the birth of our Lord and already the liturgy presents us with the feast of the first person to give his life for this Baby who has been born. Yesterday we wrapped Christ in swaddling clothers; today, he clothes Stephen with the garment of immortality. Yesterday, a narrow manger cradled the baby Christ; today, the infinite heaven has received Stephen in triumph. (St. Fulgentius, Sermon 3)

The Church wants to make us realize that the Cross is always very close to Jesus and his followers. As he struggles for perfect righteousness - sanctity - in this world, the Christian will meet perfect situations and attacks by the enemies of God. Our Lord has warned us: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you ... Remember the word that I said to you; a servant is not greater than his master: If they persecuted me they will persecute you. (John 15:18-20) Since the very beginning of the Church this prophecy has been fulfilled. And in our days too, if we really follow Our Lord, we are going to suffer difficulties and persecutions in one way or another and of different kinds. Every age is an age of martyrdom, St. Augustine tells us. Don't say that Christians are not suffering persecution; the Apostle's words are always true ...: All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Tim 3:12) All, he says, with no one being excluded or exempted. If you want to test the truth of this saying, you have only to begin to lead a pious life and you will see what good reason he had for saying this. (St. Augustine, Sermon 6, 2)

In Conversation with God: Advent and Christmastide

Feast of the Holy Family

Between Joseph and Mary there existed a holy affection, a spirit of service, and a mutual desire for each other's happiness. This is Jesus' family: sacred, holy, exemplary, a model of human virtues, ready to carry out God's will exactly. A Christian home must be an imitation of the house of Nazareth; a place where there is plenty of room for God so that He can be right at the centre of the love that members of the family have for one another.

In Conversation with God: Advent and Christmastide

Welcome, Lord Jesus

Adoration of the Shepherds by François Boucher, 1750

For a child is born to us, a son is given us;
upon his shoulder dominion rests.
They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.
His dominion is vast and forever peaceful,
From David's throne, and over his kingdom,
which he confirms and sustains
By judgment and justice, both now and forever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this!

Isaiah 9:5-6

May God bless you richly and may you recognize the blessings He sends you. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Riddles

What do elves learn in school?
[The Elf-abet!]

What was so good about the neurotic doll the girl was given for Christmas?
[It was already wound up.]

Did you hear that one of Santa's reindeer now works for Proctor and Gambel?
[Its true, Comet cleans sinks!]

Mom, can I have a dog for Christmas?
[No, you can have turkey like everyone else.]

What nationality is Santa Claus?
[North Polish.]

What do you call a cat on the beach at Christmastime?
[Sandy Claws!]

What kind of bird can write?
[A PENguin.]

Waiting in Joyful Anticipation

Jerusalem, turn your eyes to the east,
see the joy that is coming to you from God.
Look, the children you watched go away are on their way home;
reassembled from east and west,
they are on their way home at the Holy One's command,
rejoicing in God's glory.

Baruch 4:36-37

The Gospel According to Cats and Dogs

A dog thinks:
This man feeds me, loves me, lets me in and out and cares for me. He must be God.

A cat thinks:
This man feeds me, loves me, lets me in and out and cares for me. I must be God.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "It's funny because it's true." Thanks to Kim at The Upward Call for reminding me of this one!

Great Study Resources

READ THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
My Daily Catholic Bible-RSV: 20-Minute Daily Readings

My Daily Catholic Bible offers the only reading plan that …

• divides all of Sacred Scripture into 365 segments, one for each day of the year
• features two small, manageable readings for each day, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament
• tells you the Catholic saint or feast for each day, and provides an insightful quote from a saint for that day.

There’s never been an easier way to read the Bible. You don’t have to start on January 1. Begin reading on any calendar date and twelve months later you’ll have made your way through all seventy-three books of the biblical canon. And a place for a check mark next to each entry makes it simple to keep track of your progress. Plus, you’ll know exactly where to start in again if you miss a day or two!

CATHOLIC BIBLE STUDIES FOR WOMEN
I found these on an Amazon list by a woman who is Catholic & an aspiring Carmelite. It's pretty hard to find Catholic Bible studies, much less specifically for women, so I thought I'd pass these recommendations along.

Woman of Grace: A Bible Study for Married Women
For married Catholic women. 9 lessons.

Courageous Virtue
For Catholic women. 8 lessons based on the moral and theological virtues

Courageous Women
For Catholic women. 8 lessons on holy women of the Bible.

Courageous Love
For Catholic women. 8 lessons on topics such as holiness, prayer, obedience, dignity, etc.

READ THE CATECHISM
Don't forget that Living Catholicism is taking us through the Catechism a bit at a time. This is the easy, spoon-fed way to read the book that I have heard is second only to the Bible as a "must read" for Catholics.

Jesus, Son of Mary

Matthew 1 details the genealogy of Jesus starting with Abraham and showing how Joseph descended from the line of King David (of the house of Judah), hence fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies about the lineage of the promised messiah (and explaining why Joseph had to register in Bethlehem).

Here's the twist...Jehoiachin (he has some other aliases I forget), the last surviving king of Israel (reigned shortly before Israel went into Babylonian captivity), was evil and was told by God that none of his descendants would be king. Now we have a little problem. Joseph descended directly from that king, so if Jesus were his son, he couldn't be the promised king.

Marla at Proverbial Wife has some very cool info about Jesus' genealogy and, not incidentally, about Jewish mothers.

Biblical Prayer Themes, Part I

... many people think of prayer mainly as asking for help in our sundry problems and needs. Fewer still think of it as being in love with God and expressing that love in many diverse ways, often in touching and tender terms. But such is the scriptural reality. In order to handle clearly this extraordinary abundance of interpersonal beauty, I think it best to sample these biblical prayer themes under several headings. Your own use of the Bible and participation in the eucharistic liturgy will furnish you with many more examples of these themes.

1. Petitionary prayer. We begin with a type of prayer that is familiar to everyone -- even to the former atheist in the foxhole. We are to ask and it will be given to us, seek and we shall find, knock and the door will be opened (Mt 7;7-8). We are to call on this God who works wonders for those he loves (see Ps 4:3). Just as infants turn with complete trust to their parents for all of their needs, so we also cast our cares on the Lord, because he cares for us tenderly beyond our imagining (1 Pet 5:7).

2. Adoration, praise, blessing. Filled with joy, we worship our Origin and our final Destiny, purest goodness and beauty (Ps 16:5-11). We join with "everything that lives and breathes" in a hymn of praise (Ps 150:6; 96:1-2, 98:4-8). We bless and praise this God, not simply once in a while, but at all times (Ps 34:1). We glorify him as the worker of marvels on our behalf (Ps 31:21), as we celebrate his lasting love in outpourings of tribute and thanksgiving (Ps 136:1-26). All this occurs in an atmosphere of blessing and rejoicing in the tender love of the Creator toward everything he has made (cf. Ps 146:1-2; 150:1-6)

3. Thanksgiving. Closely akin to adoration and praise, and yet with an added dimension, is heartfelt thanksgiving. Repeatedly the psalmist and the Church hearken to our privilege and duty of expressing gratitude to the Father for every good and perfect gift that descends from him (Jas 1:17). All of us are to declare to this God an endless proclamation of thanksgiving (cf. Ps 28;7; Col 3:15).

Prayer Primer, Thomas Dubay, S.M.

[to be continued...]