Viva Il Papa!

We've had the canonization Mass playing in the background this morning - the kids are thoroughly impressed with the pomp and circumstance, the tuxes of the dignitaries, the presence of 2 living popes, but no one had the attention span for a 3 hour Mass.

In honor of the canonization of two popes on Divine Mercy Sunday, here, yet again, are photos of the new St. Pope John Paul II from our family archives:

Such a change in vitality over 10 years for Il Papa.  First photo: my (future) husband grasping the hand of the pope after pushing little nuns out of the way to say "Ciao" to John Paul II, who a few handshakes later, turned around and said "Ciao" back.  My future husband was a junior in college, spending the year in Roma to study architecture. He and his classmates lived in a hotel near the Pantheon and lived on coffee and pizza.  He sent me letters with illustrated envelopes at least once a week - an old fashioned courtship. Thankful he didn't use email.

The second photo: my husband's hand can be seen again, holding our first daughter aloft under the Wadowice sign while the Pope made a round in his popemobile at the end of Mother Teresa's beatification Mass. She was about 15 months old and learned to love gelato as we spent about a week visiting holy places in Rome and Assisi.

I wish I had other photos to share. JPII and John XXIII, pray for us.

For Easter our nine year old received this book about his namesake:

It is a little young for him, but cute. 

In between the preparations for Easter and staring at the new baby, we forgot to start the Divine Mercy Chaplet. But this week has brought plenty of opportunities to remind myself to "have trust, have trust."  First, I fear for the baby: I had forgotten how irregular little babies breathe. I find myself checking and rechecking for respiratory distress.  Our niece has had pneumonia, which we found out after she had been over to see the baby, so I have been worried by every little snuffle sound the baby makes, and every cough or sneeze an older sibling makes. We've been going through hand sanitizer and soap quickly. So far no signs of RSV or any other sickness. Baby is flourishing. But I find myself googling things like "when do newborns make eye contact" and "at what age do newborns smile." I feel like some of the other kids were smiling at 2 weeks, but maybe that is my historically inaccurate memory playing tricks. We spend a lot of time staring at baby, morning, noon and night. The irregular hours of sleep have started to take their toll. 

It's during the darktime feedings that I have to remind myself to trust and keep trusting, as my wandering mind imagines the worst for each child. It was spring break week, which brought a boating trip for the teenagers - drowning fears! - a trip to the beach - more drowning fears! and sun cancer! The older boys went on an outing with their "special friends" - ach! dating! heartbreak! mine! The younger kids were invited on sleepovers - do we trust these other parents? And on the few days without events, the kids fought over the baby and complained about boredom - what if they never learn to entertain themselves?! Ahh, the never ending concerns of parenting. How little drama we have actually suffered - a good reason to continue to trust in God's goodness instead of fearing that our turn will come. 

And the goodness of the Lord has been manifest in many ways - the beautiful Easter services, the kindness of our Church, school, and military communities in bringing us delicious things to eat, the glorious coastal weather, our health, and the sweetness of new life. We have every reason to trust and give thanks.

Post Easter Vigil

 

Excited about Easter egg hunting

Not so excited about egg hunting

First round of Easter eats

In her New Zealand woolies

Field trip to the Getty Center.  Kids think this sculpture should
be titled "Help I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!"

St. Catherine of Siena receiving stigmata

Cousins

LA skyline

From the illuminated manuscript special exhibit

Part of the impressive gardens

One of my favorite pictures from the permanent collection: Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone at Seven
by Jean-Etienne Liotard

A good egg with her Easter basket toys

Almost 3 weeks old. Developing a second and third chin.

Encounter with holiness

I know a few saintly people, but I've only been in the presence of one true saint while he was alive.  Here are a couple photos from the Vatican Piazza nine years ago - it was at the beatification of Mother Teresa, which happened to be the same weekend as John Paul II's twenty-fifth anniversary and a consistory of cardinals. It was great time to be in Rome - with people from all over the world in attendance, the reality of the universal Church was visibly evident and the joy in the crowd was palpable.


Happy All Saints' Day.
All holy men and women, pray for us.

See the babies? One is my daughter and one is my cousin's baby.

This one is actually from about1993. That's my husband's hand that JPII is holding. He had to knock down a couple nuns to get this close.

An eventful week

What a week of news. Where to start? Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Spring brings new life amid the storms.

This week the kids were on spring break, so we took a short camping trip.  Thursday morning we drove into Natchez to explore this beautiful town on the coast of the Mississippi River. We parked near the river and walked into a “primitive” antique store with a reproduction Confederate officer uniform displayed by the door. The antique owner immediately accosted us, his only customers. He wasn’t nervous about our half dozen children roaming among his goods, because “primitive” antiques are already beat up. But he had a message for us.

Like a prophet of old, he spouted forth predictions of doom and destruction. Towns were destroyed, the floods are coming, darkness will cover the earth.


At first I was confused by his story. Then I realized he was talking about what he had seen on the news the night before – hundreds of tornadoes across northern Mississippi and Alabama. Suddenly I felt the hand of God on my shoulder. We were supposed to be camping outside of Birmingham, but at the last minute Wednesday morning, we had checked the weather and decided to head west instead. I can’t determine if tornadoes struck the campground where we were going to stay, but we would’ve been in for a sleepless night regardless. We have been known to be heedless of weather reports, but this time we are grateful we changed course.


The store owner also was concerned about the course of the Mississippi River. Flooding up north will cause flooding down south. His store may be standing in the river in a few weeks if the rains don’t abate. And he had predictions about the downfall of the economy and the bankruptcy of America. And once he found out my husband was in the military, he had forecasts for him, too, about dangers of becoming embroiled in Muslim politics. But he did not foretell the assassination of Osama bin Laden.


All of these surprises upstaged the long planned festivities surrounding the wedding of Prince William and now Duchess Kate and the beatification of John Paul II. Not to mention the celebration of Easter and the enjoyment of spring break in our own little corner of the world.


So a round-up of the week: First Easter, celebrated without extended family, a rarity for us, even though we live hundreds of miles from cousins and grandparents. But this summer will bring extended travels for us, so we opted to stay home and attend the Triduum masses in our parish here. We did join up Sunday afternoon with some other military families and the Polish priest from the Air Force Base, who reminds me of Blessed JP II, to celebrate a First Communion and the Resurrection with an appropriately rich feast. It was a joyful and sweet day.


I spent the next day prepping for my class on Don Quixote and Othello. All these little dips and dives into the classics for the class are only tantalizing bites of a rich main course, but I’m afraid my students have begun to feel overfull and are no longer indulging. Class ends this week. Hoping they at least are inspired to go back to these works, knowing they are loved by someone, and don’t accept with Mark Twain’s definition: “’Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.” Meaning to collect and record some reading notes into coherent sentences.

A couple days later, we received confirmation of my husband’s orders. The move to Guam will take place this summer after all. More to come on this. If we get base housing, we will still live on a bay, so I won’t have to change the name of my blog. But that’s only if I don’t go crazy before we get there. I can’t even think about what we have to do to get ready. It will get done, but I’m putting off thinking about it for a couple more weeks.


On Wednesday we left for our scaled down camping trip, which was once going to be a weeklong trip to the Smokies, but because of kids qualifying for regional track meets and soccer tournaments, we decided to shorten it, eventually down to a two night trip to western Mississippi. While tornadoes destroyed the area we had picked as a second choice, we enjoyed clear, cool weather, the quick tour of Natchez, and a couple long hikes, the second marred only by a couple stops for the eight yr old to throw up. (She told us her stomach hurt, but we thought it was all the s’mores the night before.) My husband and I had been to Natchez once before for a friend’s wedding nearly 15 years ago, so part of the motivation to go there was to revisit a place of fond memory. Seemed a different place, of course. We had peeked into the antique store because we had always regretted not buying a framed manuscript page from a 17th century missal on our first visit there. And do you know, we found the store, amid the dozens of antique shoppes in Natchez, and a framed manuscript. The same? Authentic? We bought it nonetheless, so to us, the answers to those questions will be yes.



Perfect marshmellow




Alligator mississippiensis




Woodland pinkroot



Fraser Magnolia - huge

Watching for floods and gators.



Stanford Hall - site of a big party some years ago



Along the St. Catherine Creek

Happy hikers. Guess which one threw up?

When we returned home, after starting the first of multiple loads of laundry, I got online to check out the news. Watched videos of killer tornadoes until I was afraid to go to bed, remembering a recurrent dream I used to have as a child of tornadoes out my front door and tornadoes out my back door. So as a tonic, I watched videos of the royal wedding and read descriptions of all the hats and dresses. Did not love Pippa Middleton’s dress, although 84% of viewers did.


Yesterday’s news capped all: First the pope’s beatification. Several months ago, we thought about trying to go to Rome with some cousins with whom we went to Mother Teresa’s beatification in 2003. We priced out tickets to Roma. We discussed the option of spending our tax return on air fare. Then we decided that was improvident and spent it instead on recent car repairs. Would much rather have gone to Rome.


Photos like this one – our daughter who threw up on the hike is the baby under the E - might be worth a few thousand dollars.

In St. Peter's Square for Mother Teresa's beatification and JP II's 25th anniversary.

Then the death of Osama bin Laden. I fear retaliations and his elevation to martyr status.  Security is tight at the base. This morning I had to flash my ID about 10 times to go about my business at the gym and the commissary.  Bin Laden's body apparently has been buried at sea, but that is a story that seems to invite conspiracy theories. But I also am glad for all the United States, especially the military members, the SEALS, and the CIA operatives we know (okay, not many of the last, I admit) that they have this moment of triumph. Carry on.

Epiclesis

I can’t believe that Pentecost is right around the corner - tomorrow by the time I post this... I wish it would receive a little more fanfare – maybe if I went to a charismatic church. Maybe if I could remember on Ascension Thursday to start a novena, I would feel more celebratory myself. But for now I’m thankful to have registered that the feast is approaching. Sally has an excellent clip of Anima Christi set to music. (I’m so glad other people search youtube for good music, so that I don’t have to.)

One thing that I miss about homeschooling is having the time to spend talking about and preparing for upcoming feasts with the kids. A favorite Pentecost project I learned as a CCD teacher was making a little construction paper dove with a three dimensional construction paper apple (or strawberry) hanging from yarn on which was written the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which I’m always confusing with the gifts.


The arrival of Pentecost marks approximately the half way point of my husband’s deployment – another reason to celebrate. Fifty days before Easter he left, and here we are fifty days after. One hundred days have flown by quickly. I’ve barely had time to be lonely. His frequent phone calls have made this deployment a lot easier than the time he deployed on a ship. The irony is that the more difficult deployment was not during wartime. I try not to read about suicide bombers in Kabul killing 18 people or roadside bombs in Kandahar maiming others, but perhaps one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that I have received is that of faith that he will return home safely.


The weekend after Pentecost we’ll mark our fourteenth anniversary with a telephone call, I hope. If 100 days has flown by, 14 years have expired almost as quickly. It doesn’t seem that long ago that my husband and I were introduced in the college dining hall. I knew shortly thereafter that we would get married, and I believe we’ll continue to celebrate anniversaries until we die, although I’m fully aware of the many trials and threats that exist to derail that faith.

Even without the physical presence of my husband, the ties created by the sacrament are working. If anything, I almost feel more married since he’s been gone. I’m aware of that ring on my figure advertising the fact (as if the six kids in tow didn’t make it obvious) although I'm missing my accompanist, my handiman, my personal chef and chauffeur, and other things all wrapped in one good man.


Marriage is good when you're not sitting around wondering about what your husband can do for you next: when can he fix the toilet, when can he pick up some kids, when can he watch the kids so I can have some quiet time… Instead I’m thinking more about what have I done today to let him know he’s on my mind: have I sent an email, have I written a letter, sent a photo, put together a box…

Since our anniversary is near, I've been remembering our Mass of Matrimony and its numerous invocations of the Holy Spirit to bless the new couple. I learned the word “epiclesis” when we were preparing for marriage, and kept this quote on a handout of quotes about marriage when we were marriage prep facilitators:

“ In the epiclesis of this sacrament [of marriage] the spouses receive the Holy Spirit as the communion of love of Christ and the Church. The Holy Spirit is the seal of their covenant, the ever-available source of their love and the strength to renew their fidelity” (CCC 1624)

There is a couple at our church who attend daily Mass. They stand out because the husband wears a hospital mask over his mouth and looks about 10 or 20 years older than the wife. Each time I’ve seen them lately, he looks more and more frail. He’s lost his hair, his shoulders stoop a little further, he keeps losing weight. The wife guides him by the arm up to receive communion. I wonder how much longer I will see them together at Mass.


In the tenderness of the wife for her husband, it’s obvious that the comforts of marriage are much more than physical. Missing my husband’s smile and touch for six months is a small sacrifice compared to saying goodbye to him for life.



This couple is a great example of the kind of selfless love described in Humanae Vitae: “[Conjugal love] is a very special form of personal friendship, in which husband and wife generously share everything, without undue reservations or selfish calculations. Whoever truly loves his marriage partner, loves not only for what he receives, but for the partner’s self, rejoicing that he can enrich his partner with the gift of himself.”


To pray for this couple, so obviously loving each other for the other’s sake, is no chore. I also pray for the preservation of my husband’s life, and for the preservation of the life of our marriage, that “partnership of the whole of life” (CCC 1601).
What more eloquent way of expressing love than this:

“St John Chrysostom suggests that young husbands should say to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us. . . . I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you” (CCC 2365).

And what more elevated way of describing love than this:

“From the desire for the ‘unlimited’ good of another ‘I’ springs the whole creative drive of true love -- the drive to endow beloved persons with the good, to make them happy. This is, so to speak, the divine aspect of love. In point of fact, to desire ‘unlimited’ good for another person is really to desire God for that person: He alone is the objective fullness of the good, and only His goodness can fill every man to overflowing. . . . The great moral force of true love lies precisely in this desire for the happiness, for the true good, of another person. This is what makes it possible for a man to be reborn because of love, makes him aware of the riches within him, his spiritual fertility and creativity: I am capable of desiring the good for another person, therefore I am in general capable of desiring the good. . . . Even when I am ‘bad’, if true love awakens in me it bids me seek the true good where the object of my love is concerned. In this way, affirmation of the worth of another person is echoed in affirmation of the worth of one’s own person -- for it is awareness of the value of the person, not of sexual values, that makes a man desire the happiness of another ‘I’. When love attains its full dimensions, it introduces into a relationship not only a ‘climate’ of honesty between persons but a certain awareness of the ‘absolute’, a sense of contact with the unconditional and ultimate. Love is indeed the highest of moral values.” (Love and Responsibility)

Praying for the Holy Spirit to teach me to love.

A break

A blessed Holy Week to everyone. We are off to Texas to see family for the week, since the kids are on spring break. The car is mostly packed, the laundry is mostly done, directions printed out, kids excited to see their cousins. ..

I’m reposting this prayer for my friend, a mother of five young kids, who has terminal kidney cancer. The fifth anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s death is Good Friday, so she and family and friends are increasing their prayers and offerings that day. If anyone wants to add a prayer for her and her family, here is the prayer they are using:




O Holy Trinity,

We thank you for having given to the Church Pope John Paul II,

and for having made him shine with your Fatherly tenderness,

the glory of the Cross of Christ and the splendor of the Spirit of love



He, trusting completely in your infinite mercy

and in the maternal intercession of Mary, has shown himself

in the likeness of Jesus the Good Shepherd

and has pointed out to us holiness

as the path to reach eternal communion with You.



Grant us, through his intercession,

according to Your will, the grace that we implore,

in the hope that he will soon be numbered among your saints.

That he may seek a miracle healing for K. H. - mind, body and spirit.

Amen

John Paul II named Venerable

My friend who has cancer told me the news today about Venerable John Paul II.  She is praying for his intercession and recently received a relic from some Carmelite sisters - a fragment of one of JPII's vestments. She also got a call from Cardinal George offering his prayers! So Heaven is being stormed.  I'm sending her a medal of JP II that we picked up in Rome when we were there for Mother Teresa's beatification and JPII's 25th anniversary - a whirlwind week when we were greatly impressed by the catholicity of the Church.  We have other mementos of that trip - our favorite being a little boy with the middle name Karol.