Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 38

Homemade wedding cake, DIY wedding flowers, and {bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Hi, it’s Rosie!

I thought I’d pop in with just a few pictures from my brother-in-law’s wedding last weekend, for which my sweet new sister-in-law (who is a GEM, btw) had asked me to help with flowers and a cake. These are the sort of crazy projects I love taking on, so I had a blast.

 

My sister-in-law (Sister Louise Marie) and I joined forces for the flowers — I ordered what turned out to be a ton of flowers from Sam’s Club online (which proved to be the best deal when I was looking this time around, and the roses were beautiful), and she gathered hydrangeas from a friend’s house and a literal truckload of greenery from around the convent.

We spent several hours on Thursday prepping everything and then on Friday made one bridal bouquet, one for Our Lady, seven for bridesmaids, four for flower girls, twelve boutonnieres, five corsages, and decorated my in-law’s barn. It was a marathon, made possible by my mom whisking away the big kids for most of the day and, as you can see, a multitasking Sister. 

 

 

The only photos I have of the finished flowers are the ones I quickly snapped after dropping the bouquets off on the table at my in-law’s the morning of the wedding. They used pink and white roses and spray roses, plus a few pink peonies for the bridal bouquet, baby’s breath, lavender, and lots of greens from the gardens.

 

 

I also contributed two of the flower girls, though all four of them were top-notch.

 

 

The cake was not a full-fledged wedding cake — the bride and groom had cookies too, for dessert, so they just wanted a cake to cut and to supplement the dessert. They requested a Chocolate Hoosier Cake, a favorite in my husband’s family (I’ve talked about this family favorite before and promised the recipe — here’s me upping the talking and promising!).

The only other instructions I was given were to, if possible, make it look “not just like a birthday cake.” So I used 1.5x my usual amount of the batter, making three eight-inch layers instead of the usual two nine-inch ones. A ton of frosting and a few of the wedding flowers, and it looked lovely.

 

 

For the record, and since I often find that I only remember these things later if I write them down on the blog and can search for them later, I made the layers ahead of time, wrapped them well, and froze them. Then a few days from the wedding, I assembled and frosted the cake entirely, froze it until solid, then wrapped it and kept it frozen until the wedding morning.

I brought it to the reception site (my in-law’s beautiful barn) in a happily perfectly sized styrofoam cooler, set it up on its table, and then actually just popped the cooler over it upside-down so it could slowly defrost until the reception. This worked great, despite a warm, humid day. And flowers are great for covering flaws!

On to our links!

The one problem with this wedding was that, at four months postpartum and nursing a four-month-old (funny how that works), I had no-thing to wear. Despite looking in stores around here as well as clicking on every bit of targeted advertising that came my way (result: my feeds are now entirely full of floral dresses), resulting in me looking at every single nursing-friendly dress on the Internet, I rolled into wedding week empty-handed. In one last attempt to find something to wear that was neither obviously maternity nor the one seasonally inappropriate dress I wore to the last two big events in my husband’s family, I started browsing on Amazon. I ended up buying a dress in two prints in two sizes each (just in case… free returns, right?), and lo! I loved them. Cute, forgiving, flattering, sleeves for church, nursing-friendly (it’s a flowy maxi, so could definitely work for most of pregnancy, too), under $30, POCKETS. I would love it more if it were cotton, but beggars can’t be choosers, and apparently I count as a beggar in the dress-buying world. So here, for the collective memory, is the dress I wore to the wedding, in case you want to be twins with me (affiliate links, thank you!). If you click around the related links while you’re there, you’ll find a lot more in the same genre, like the one my sister-in-law wore (desperate nursing mothers think alike!), this floral one, or this one with stripes. I know that Deirdre just ordered a few others to try out for her brother-in-law’s upcoming wedding.


Auntie Leila actually visited St. Stanislaus in Milwaukee when she spoke in that city recently, thanks to a tour from her host. This wonderful tour-by-drone gives you all sorts of views of a church built by immigrant Poles that has been rescued from the worst 70’s wreckovation (including the removal of stunning, irreplaceable stained glass that is now being restored — you can see some of the garish contempo ones that are still in place).


For the poetry lovers (and high school students) among us (or for those who need a little convincing): Burns in Glory – an appreciation of one of the greatest, Robbie Burns.


I would embed this little video if I could (file under: what is the internet for, anyway — answer: cats-being-schooled-by-birds videos).


Have you ever been on this super scary bridge? I have and it’s Not Okay.


We have a map- (and indeed fact-) oriented person in our midst — Pippo. He’s six but he knows that Alaska — even on this excellent map, highly recommended — is not to scale, but is actually bigger than Texas. So… how big is Texas?


Four different types of symbols conveyed by nudity in sacred art.

Today in the Liturgical Year: St. Mary Magdalene! “The feast of St. Mary Magdalene is considered one of the most mystical of feasts, and it is said that of all the songs of the saints, that of Mary Magdalene is the sweetest and strongest because her love was so great. That love was praised by Jesus Himself who said that because much was forgiven her, she loved much.”

From the archives:

Frugality for those who need some basic tips.


Why it’s not a good idea to use up all you have before you buy more.


Just in case you didn’t realize it’s up there on the menu bar: 10 FAQs about Auntie Leila.

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~

Follow us on Twitter.

Like us on Facebook.

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

Rosie’s Pinterest.

Sukie’s Pinterest.

Deirdre’s Pinterest.

Habou’s Pinterest.

Bridget’s Pinterest.

Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.

Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.

Auntie Leila’s Instagram.

Rosie’s Instagram.

Sukie’s Instagram.

Deirdre’s Instagram.

Bridget’s Instagram.

The post Homemade wedding cake, DIY wedding flowers, and {bits & pieces} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

 

Yesterday was the feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. Around these parts, we’re big fans of hers!

To observe the feast, I pulled down this image to set up in our little oratory for veneration. I painted it several years ago when The Artist and I were hosting a party to celebrate the day of her canonization. It was thrown together quickly (on the afternoon of aforementioned party) and so it’s a modest offering, but I like it; I know that if I had thought too much about it, the result would have been that I wouldn’t have attempted anything and we would still be lacking a representation of this beloved saint in our home.

 

This past week was a bit of a whirlwind for us, such that I almost missed the feast entirely! Our car died on Monday (while I was driving it – with all the kids! – on the way to swim lessons). We are a one-car family, so it was fairly debilitating to be without it. Fortunately, by Friday we had a new (to us) one and we seem to be on our way. But woof.

 

This week’s links!

 

Technology: 

How the Humble Index Card Foresaw the Internet From Auntie Leila: A good article for understanding how things were before the internet. Personally, I love index cards (the ones that are heavy stock, not the cheap thin ones). After many years of being dissatisfied with various means of collecting quotes and ideas, online and off, I have fully embraced the good old index card for its flexibility and visual clarity. (If a child is reluctant to commit to a journal or commonplace book, he might find index cards, properly filed of course, more appealing.)


I kicked my smartphone addiction by retraining my brain to enjoy being bored. The thoughts here are worth considering when it comes to children as well. According to Auntie Leila, children should not have nothing to do, but, paradoxically, it’s okay if they are bored — even good for them — within an overall structure of their day that includes productive activities. He touches on some deep matters at the end of the article; it’s a good reminder to think about where we turn when we’re upset and why. Although “turning inward” can help, as the author suggests, ultimately prayer is much more the answer than any social media feedback or distraction!

 

Protecting the Homefront:

 

My friend and I were recently discussing the threat of CPS and how furious we’d be if some official came waltzing into our homes on the offensive (one case under discussion: a police officer upbraided the mother in question and, because he saw that the kids shared bedrooms; he labeled the living conditions unsuitable — can you imagine??). But we were also remarking that getting furious would probably make things worse. It’s helpful to read these guidelines on What To Do if CPS Shows Up At Your Door. Bottom line: no one comes in unless they can produce a properly documented warrant! This is America.

 

The Odyssey is about more than a good adventure story! “Harmonious Household:” Homer’s Odyssey on the Breakdown of Marriage and Family. (Incidentally, the car we just got – [see above] gently used! for a good deal! – is a Honda Odyssey. Now I’m wondering if the designers at Honda had some insight into the idea of giving this name to a quintessentially Family car… )

 

Church related:

 

At the intersection of Church history and archeology: Scientists have apparently uncovered St. Columba’s cell on Iona.

 

From my mom: “Maybe you’ve heard of Fr. James Martin, SJ; either as kindly purveyor of Catholic news and commentary in his role as America Magazine editor, or perhaps as single-minded promoter of LGBT concerns and author of Building a Bridge (a recycling of tendentious political propaganda repackaged for the age of Pope Francis and “who am I to judge?”). In this compact essay, Fr. Mankowski clarifies not only Fr. Martin’s intentions but the perennial teachings of the Church: Pontifex Minimus.

 

In the Liturgical Year:

Today is the memorial of St. Bonaventure!

 

From the Archives:

It’s a good time of year for a Salade Composée

 

Nature Table Ideas (I love digging way back into the deep cellars of LMLD!)

 

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~

Follow us on Twitter.

Like us on Facebook.

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

Rosie’s Pinterest.

Sukie’s Pinterest.

Deirdre’s Pinterest.

Habou’s Pinterest.

Bridget’s Pinterest.

Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.

Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.

Auntie Leila’s Instagram.

Rosie’s Instagram.

Sukie’s Instagram.

Deirdre’s Instagram.

Bridget’s Instagram.

The post {bits & pieces} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

Thoughts on getting the reluctant child to read, with 7 practical suggestions.

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Dear Auntie Leila,

I am reading through your library project posts and wholeheartedly agree with what you write, but am trying to pinpoint where I went wrong. I have saved hundreds of books from library book sales and thrift stores and garage sales. I have used various Catholic homeschooling book lists as my guide (and even tried homeschooling some of my kids at different points), yet my kids ignore or refuse most of them as boring (like Heidi), and constantly come home from the library and from school with cotton candy.

They are enrolled in Catholic school with Catholic teachers in our very solid diocese, yet I am often disappointed. I quietly donate most of the Scholastic books they pick from the treasure box or receive as gifts from their teachers. I refuse to read most of them aloud (once at the most) because they are “not very good” and suggest a different option (either something I checked out or something from our shelves…maybe shelves that need to be purged because I have too many books, maybe books that are not good?).

My 13 and 14yo girls are only interested in fantasy (the teen section is off limits), my 9 and 11yo boys don’t like reading, and my 6yo daughter is firmly entrenched in “character” — i.e. Disney books and Dora — books. Two more coming up in the ranks… both boys, an infant and 2 year old. Where am I losing them and how do I get them back?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Reading Mother

 

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Dear Reading Mother,

I think that even in good Catholic schools we really have a problem. People just don’t know what good literature is. Let’s face it — teachers are from the generation that was raised on Disney. They themselves simply don’t know a good book from a bad one, and they also don’t know anything about developmental stages in reading.*

It’s really hard to get people to understand that simply having “good doctrine” does not equal “building a civilization.” Yes, it’s a necessary prerequisite. But it’s not sufficient.

And it’s not enough to say — as we do, all the time! — “at least X is not bad.”

When it comes to what our children read, everything needs to be excellent. Yes, many children will need lots of books, because they read quickly and are hungry for more. But even the books they read for entertainment need to have a certain standard. And the fact is that before the publishing industry got monetized, there was a standard in even pulp fiction (although there has always been bad literature, no doubt about it — I’m speaking of what made its way into schools).

Now, the issue is that not only are the mores of the content corrupted, even the language is not good quality. Not to say that every book from the past is good. Not at all. A lot of it was silly and ignorant. But a certain process enabled the good to rise to the top and the bad to fall away. Now that process has been interfered with by marketing metrics. When books are dumped on schools because they are cheap to produce or have a proven track record of sales, parents must be vigilant.

 

Definitely refine your own collection. Get rid of all Disney, and everything that plays into some sort of marketing scheme — for instance, no Disney Winnie-the-Pooh, only E. H. Shepard. It goes without saying that Dora — just, no. Of course, I don’t know what you mean by “fantasy” — lots of variations of quality covered by that word! Tolkien, of course. The Golden Compass books, absolutely not.

Boys of the age of yours in general often don’t have time for reading, but that doesn’t mean they won’t when there’s nothing else to do. Work into your daily schedule some “down times” when they really have nothing else to do but read — and it can be only 40 minutes a day!

I will say that knowing one has to write a book report can deaden the will to live, never mind to read. Auntie Leila can barely think of it. Maybe just have sympathy for the victim and let him know that the best way to accomplish the task is to simply enjoy the book, the better to be able to recount it later.

Keeping a commonplace book really helps, by the way — not as a burden, but as a great record for the future. Everyone will be excited to get a new notebook in which to record the books read and a few thoughts about what made the book great or disappointing. If they can think of it as a “lifetime log” it might have a lot of appeal. Rosie’s Captain P. did this (when he was a kid — he wishes now he had kept it up!), and now he enjoys looking over his entries.

I make a distinction between one’s own list and those supposedly motivational “reading club” lists that libraries have. Good books sometimes take a while to read — it’s really not about quantity, is it? Nor is it a competition. Deep pleasures like reading must be carefully cultivated without reference to outside rewards. (I am put in mind of a reading challenge in our old town’s school one year long ago — the “prize” for the kid who read the most was, wait for it, a Sony Gameboy. Talk about misguided… )

Some other suggestions:

1. Like anything else, bad drives out good, and getting back up to where you need to be takes effort. Because newer books aimed at kids are easy to read and morally not demanding, they drive out the harder ones. The remedy is to read aloud very exciting, somewhat demanding books. If they are up for it, read them more than once. Look at my “read-aloud” category on the blog.

2. Entice/trick them. A great strategy for this is to read one chapter out loud — or two — to the targeted kid, just until the action starts. Then say, “Oh, I have to go close up the chickens.” Usually said kid will pick the book up to find out the rest — as long as he doesn’t have video games or shows to tempt him away, and if only to avoid having to deal with the chickens himself.

3. Leave good books in the bathroom. Just a few. Leave them right in reach…

4. Put a lamp that has a clamp on the frame of each child’s bed. When he goes to bed, let him read if he likes — just tell the children to turn off the light when they are ready for sleep, or perhaps you could ring a discreet little bell or something to signal the end of reading time. It’s fine to get 8-11 year-olds to bed a little early so they can read, carefully selecting their material beforehand. 

Please make an effort to get an incandescent bulb for the lamp. I know it’s not easy, but the light needs to be appealing and soft. One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s hard for families to get good lighting somehow — often I’m not surprised that the children don’t read, because honestly, the only light comes from a harsh bulb in a center fixture in the ceiling; and now it’s harder than ever, since incandescent bulbs have been banished. You can find them here. The light for a bedside lamp does not need to be bright — you can even use the chandelier bulbs you find in the grocery store (the ones that fit a standard, not extra-small, socket). That way siblings aren’t kept awake. Trust me on this one. (At the barest minimum, get an LED lamp with the softest color possible… )

5. Sometimes you have to detoxify the mind — not by trying to eliminate the bad but by only offering the good. Even a week of being in the “deprivation tank” with only good books to read will really set them up. Rotate the books in a crate. Every week choose 10 or 15 that you think will appeal to the different ages. Put them in a prominent place. Rest time is a good time to bring this out, saying, We’re going to have a quiet hour, please choose something to read! Let them wander off with a book from the crate, and don’t worry about age level — it will all sort itself out.

Detoxifying often means that the middle-schooler who has been reading Judy Blume (how can it be that schools are still pushing Judy Blume?) can’t go straight to Johnny Tremain or Swallows and Amazons. He needs a re-set. He needs a stop at the “lower reading level” of Beverly Cleary or Tintin (the movie is cute too) or My Father’s Dragon or The Hardy Boys (get an old one). Good books are good, no matter what the age level. When C. S. Lewis took in children escaping the bombing of London during the War and began reading aloud to them, he discovered that Beatrix Potter is a genius!

The best of all is if you can go on vacation somewhere rather rustic where this crate is, other than the outdoors, the only source of entertainment!

 

6. Find them good friends who love to read. Pray about it, because sometimes it is difficult, I know. The problem with school, I just have to say, is that the peer group (which is indeed so necessary to the older child) is debased. Our children are vulnerable to the influence exuded by a group of children left without mentors, without teachers who are committed to creating a community of virtue and learning. Don’t underestimate the power of the peer group to drain all the joy out of reading… but the flip side of that coin is that good friends encourage the lagging to reach for new heights!

7. There has to be some sort of conceptual difference in their minds between the schlocky stuff “out there” and the excellent books you choose for them. You can start talking this up.

Your older girls especially need to start being discerning. You can begin a sort of benign “indoctrination” where you have conversations about books, read lists together, read articles (like this one by William Fahey, president of Thomas More College), maybe watch costume dramas of good books (there are excellent ones of Dickens books, like Our Mutual Friend, and I highly recommend North and South — the BBC version of Mrs. Gaskell’s classic, not the TV series featuring Patrick Swaze, which dear Erin, bless her, watched bemusedly for quite a while before she surmised that it was not the series I meant to recommend).

When, eventually, you read Chapter 10 of Little Women together and realize how much more fun life is when you can reference Pickwick and know what you are talking about, why, then you will be in business. Who knows, they may even start a literary club and magazine of their own!

Everyone will enjoy reading E. Nesbit after watching The Railway Children! When you win them over, you won’t have a lot of trouble with the boys. Younger children tend to live up to what the elder ones hold as a standard.

This summer, why not start reading Penrod out loud, or Anne of Green Gables, or Kidnapped? Definitely read Betsy-Tacy, Heidi (discussed in this post that gives you confidence to direct your child’s reading), Pippi, and Narnia to the six-year-old. Pop some corn, get your cookies and milk, build a bonfire, or otherwise entice the older kids to listen as well. Now is the time to get your older children to develop their taste in books!

See what you think!

Love and a big hug,

Leila

Do you have any good strategies to give children good reading habits? Please share them in the comments!

*I have many posts on reading, including this series on Teaching Children to Read, so do check them out! Especially, when the topic is the reluctant reader, do read the note at the bottom of this post, and the comments related to it.

The post Thoughts on getting the reluctant child to read, with 7 practical suggestions. appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

A DIY Play Kitchen with “Running Water”

It’s high time I do a bit of show and tell on the play kitchen I made for Finnabee as a Christmas gift. You might be thinking, “yeah, Christmas was a while ago, Deirdre! Why have you been keeping this from us?” To which I reply: I’m referring to Christmas 2015.

But it if takes a lot out of me to make/give a gift, then it only follows that I probably won’t be the most efficient at sharing about said gift.

I am not naturally a gift-giver. I’ve taken the quiz, so I can tell you that “giving presents” is the lowest-ranking of my love-languages.

“Therefore if you, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” – Matthew 7:11

This verse has been a challenge to me since I’ve become a mother… what if I don’t know how to give good gifts to my children!?

But I’ve been learning in recent years that being someone without a gift for gift-giving (if you will) can’t be excuse for doing a bad job of giving gifts. It just means that I have to put more thought into it and try a little harder, perhaps, than some people do.

However. In the case of this play kitchen, God pretty much handed it to me and walked me through it. “Here, let me show you what you should give your daughter. I will make this simple.”

By which I mean, sometime in the fall of 2015, around the time that I was starting to feel defeated about the upcoming gift-giving season and how I had no inspiration… a little piece of furniture showed up as a curbside pick-up on my street. Some kind of bedside table or kitchen cart, it presented itself as an ideal size for toddler play.

It had one door on the front and the other one was missing. It looked a bit messy here and there, but otherwise in great condition. And on wheels! So I wouldn’t have to commit too much to giving away any one part of my preciously scarce floorspace.

[Sadly, I seem to have lost track of the ‘before’ photos of this project! Just close your eyes and picture something very sad, colorless, unloved, and dingy that conjures no inspiration whatsoever; then feel free to supply reactions along the line of ‘oooh! ahhh! Such an impressive transformation!’ in response to the enclosed ‘after’ pics.]

Somehow we kept the little cart on the DL until we were able to pop it in the trunk of our car and bring it to my dad’s garage workshop at the LMLD homestead, where I finally got around to tackling it in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I didn’t get a chance for the finishing touches until Christmas Eve, at which point I had pulled it upstairs into the rec room (yes, that same room where I’ve had my last two babies and which, during Christmastime, becomes a staging/gift-wrapping room) and spent the hours working on it until well after midnight.

It was my most Santa’s Elf-esque moment to date. At every step of the way, I consulted with my parents, who lent goods and expertise.

I will walk through the steps but, unfortunately, I’ve forgotten the names of most of the fancy tools I used. So if you’re very curious about a particular step, you can ask and I’ll contact my dad for reference and get back to you.

 

[Prepping step: removed remaining door from the front and cleaned the whole thing.]

Cut a piece of board to size and fastened it to the back. The cart was originally backless.
Using a saw, I trimmed off a few inches of overhang that were originally here. I figured having the overhang would make it slightly harder to access the kitchen and trimming it back would also let more light into the space.
Cut and fitted this piece of trim onto the raw edge I just sawed back. Trim courtesy of the scrap pile in my dad’s workshop.
Power-sanded and then painted the whole cart. If I am recalling correctly, I did a coat with spray paint and then went over it again with this teal color.

I had picked up a small sample-sized can of paint in the sale bin at Home Depot a while ago on the basis of the fact that this is a) a favorite color of mine and b) very close to the color we used for other nursery furnishings, so I knew it would come in handy at some point.
Drilled holes and put in these adorable knobs that happened to go perfectly. The knobs are courtesy of my mom, who just had them around (as one does). I put washers in between the knobs and the wood so that they would spin easily, and put another washer underneath with the bolt holding it in place.
Drilled holes for the sink fixtures. The biggest expense of this project was probably the hardware that I bought at Home Depot, including the soap dispenser. I used a fancy attachment on the drill to cut a big hole for the dispenser (more on this below). I stacked washers on top of each other to make the knobs turn and look more “sink-like.”
Cut a large hole and used aforementioned fancy drill attachment to smooth out the shape. Inserted perfectly adorable enamel dish to be the sink.

I had ordered a metal dog dish on Amazon, thinking that it would be the right shape (having a lip to hold it up above the hole), but when it arrived I realized it was sadly too small. Again, my mom stepped in with *just the thing* — this enamel pan truly steps it up a notch, right?
Made a little set of curtains, trimming them with biased tape. Slid them over a dowel I had trimmed and painted.

Once again: Auntie Leila for the win. She had this fabric in her stash!
Fixed dowel into place with a nail on each side.
Screwed in some previously measured-and-cut pieces of wood to be the interior structure for the metal rack.
Screwed cup hooks into the underside of the top, for hanging utensils (this was harder than expected!).
Put in a baker’s cooling rack (ordered from Amazon) as the oven shelf and affixed it to the wood with a staple gun.
* Now that I’m thinking about it more, the order wasn’t exactly this way… painting happened later in the game and putting on the fixings like the bowl and knobs came after paint. But you get the idea. Sorry – it was a while ago.

 

Some close-ups:

I wanted to make sure that these would give a satisfying spin. How annoying are knobs that don’t actually turn?

 

I know there are dozens of more impressive DIY play kitchens out there. Rosie had an adorable setup [“not quite as cutely DIY as yours” — Rosie] in her Oklahoma house (the play kitchen tour was part of it!).

In fact, the Pinterest selection is so overwhelming that I wouldn’t even bother putting my rendition up here, but for the fact that I’m pretty proud of my innovation: the “running water” element:

I wanted the kitchen to have a real feel – I was envisioning a play kitchen with most of the elements being metal or glass for a fun tactile experience and toy longevity. Somewhere along the thought process, a soap dispenser came to mind. I went for it on the principle that children love games that involve water. This is getting close to combining the fun of a play kitchen with the fun of a water table. I also quickly learned that buying an actual metal faucet would depart from “thrifty DIY” territory, nor was such a thing likely to fit in this small space.

Now, it was a bit of a gamble, because I had to make an irreversible hole in the cart, custom measured to fit this particular dispenser. And I had to find a dispenser that tapered, getting every so slightly larger towards the top, so that it would sit inside the hole snugly and not fall through (I pondered building some kind of support unto the oven space to hold a dispenser up from underneath, but that was getting too complicated).

If this dispenser bites the dust, it will not be easy to replace the faucet.

But I think it’s worth the risk. Check this out!

Another upside to the fact that the cart is on wheels: when the play kitchen is in its place in the play room on the carpeted floor, no water is allowed. But on a hot day like the ones we’re having nowadays, I can move the cart out into my kitchen or the back hall or even out onto our porch and the kids can splash away, “washing dishes!”

All they have to do is bring a cup of water from the bathroom sink and fill up the soap dispenser and – voila! their kitchen comes to life.

This is why the enamel pan is so great: the truth is that it’s annoying to have the sink be too small. I was happy to allot a fair bit of the horizontal space to a good-sized sink.

More close-ups:

 

So, you can see that basically I was given the backbone of the gift and then my parents contributed heavily (my dad in the workshop and my mom in that purveyor-of-fine-toddler-toy-goods manner of hers), and before I knew it, I had a properly exciting gift to present to my little one on Christmas morning.

 

What’s more, this is the gift that keeps on giving. I still have yet to make her an apron and oven mitt — I would love to get around to that at some point! And little brother enjoys this so much as well; he will need an apron of his own, too.

Later, Mémé (the Artist’s mom) gave the kids this play food set and this one as well, which of course became part of the kitchen setup.

Christmas 2016, I expanded upon the theme and bought this set of dishes from Green Toys. I did a bit of research on felt food and ended up making a selection as stocking stuffers. Felt food, it turns out, can be a masterpiece and looking into it can be a rabbit hole – I made a Pinterest board which you can check out if you want to check out some different sources of inspiration. I wanted something simple and didn’t want to let myself get carried away, so I went ahead and just copied what this lady did (I didn’t print out pdfs, as it was easy enough to eyeball it). I bought this pack of felt from Amazon (it works – although it’s a bit more stiff than one would like ideally) and used cotton balls as stuffing where needed.

 

 

The metal tea kettle – just the right size for this kitchen! – I discovered in my neighbor’s recycle pile. Other utensils have been picked up here and there along the way in a similar manner.

 

My original plan was to create a stovetop space to the left of the sink there. My mom suggested finding round, cork trivets and painting them to look like heating elements before gluing in place. I couldn’t find any such things before the Christmas deadline, so I decided that I would add that touch later. However, as time went on and play proceeded, I decided that I would leave it plain.

The space is so small (budgeted for maximum water fun over in the sink) that I fear that I might just frustrate the little munchkins by putting in too much detail. When they want to “boil some tea” or cook something in a pan, their imaginations are up to the task of creating stovetop heat. Otherwise, it can function as a countertop. I have, on a few occasions, let Finnabee take a piece of real dough and roll it out in that little area before “baking” in her oven.

 

Here it is in action in the back hall, this week:

 

 

Sometime soon I’ll show you the other big gift (for giving) that fell into my lap not long after!

 

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{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

We’re in that tricky period in the garden where things look like they’re growing fine but you just never know, as the only harvest so far has been kale, garlic scapes, basil, and raspberries. Will the tomatoes come in? Will the cucumbers do that overnight die-off thing? Will the eggplants mysteriously refuse to bear fruit?

Doesn’t prevent me from being obsessed. The green beans are making a comeback, now that the fence is at least up (it will receive further improvements, including a gate, but for now it fulfills its function in keeping the bunnies away from the green beans!). I have a back-up plan with “pole” (actually old shelving) beans in what I call the “far garden”. The volunteer squash in the compost is burgeoning.

The squirrels and birds have definitely moved in on the raspberries. And the bees love the kale blossoms!

Let’s have a little tour, shall we? Edited — I will put descriptions above the photos because a reader asked for captions so that he could identify the plants, and I like nothing more than going on about the garden! So forgive me…

Foreground: cucumbers and beefsteak tomatoes; in the back: a row of Brandywine tomatoes, which is a great heirloom variety IF it comes through, and a row of yellow pear tomatoes.

 

Foreground: eggplants; behind: garlic, almost ready to harvest.

 

Foreground: eggplant; next: left to right: garlic; two rows of bell peppers. Next: sunflowers with a couple of ground cherry plants, with a row of cucumbers in that bed as well; and on the right, my recovering green beans (bush variety).

Here is that bed with the ground cherries (also called Cape Gooseberries) — they are still small; and the cucumbers with basil in front of them.

I just really love red geraniums and decided I needed them sprinkled around!

This is a couple of squash plants that volunteered here in the compost heap. I guess they are butternut, but they might be pumpkin!

 

Here we have a variegated sage plant.

 

In this bed in front you can see cucumbers and beefsteak tomatoes behind them.

 

I plopped one of those squash plants that was doing quite well in the compost here, in one of my new beds.

 

In my “far garden,” which is beyond the raspberries, I have my bets hedged against the bunnies with these pole beans. The shelving was in our garage forever. Since some of us have trouble throwing things away, I decided they would work for the beans!

Kale is a biennial plant — it grows in year one and flowers and seeds in year two. This kale ought to be cut back, but the bees love it! There’s a row of new kale (and weeds) growing alongside.

 

And for good measure, Rosie’s kids playing with the rose petals that their Aunt Sister Louise-Marie brought by, just for fun!

On to our links!

Department of “it takes a miracle”:

It’s 1982, and Mother Teresa prays a cease-fire into existence in deepest, most desperate war-torn Lebanon, so that she can take care of spastic children left behind in the rubble. I remember seeing footage of her and the other sisters taking care of the children — the love they showed them with their firm and intimate touch was palpable through the screen.


An abortionist who left his bloody trade to become a doctor bringing healing to women and their babies tells his remarkable — miraculous — stories of life.

Military-ish:

Sketchbooks of a 21 Year-Old World War II Soldier — do show your children. Sometimes we despair a little when we are trying to get our kids to write, to learn the craft of writing. But there are many ways to communicate. People are different and their contributions and talents are different. These sketches, which represent an amazing historical record at this point, might open up a different way of looking at the whole topic. Along with nature-journaling, maybe we can widen our horizons and be inspired to try different ways.


Have you ever seen the U.S. Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon? It’s like a dance and (as mentioned in the comments) the world’s longest secret handshake wrapped up in one uniformed precision maneuver.

Miscellaneously:

Another doctor reveals an underreported means of preventing miscarriages.


A forgotten saint with a real-life Cinderella story (complete with evil stepmother) can help our self-absorbed age find meaning in suffering.


A short and sweet reminder from John Cuddeback to carve out time to enjoy… to do what you like to do (as opposed to what you think others like); perhaps to rediscover some overlooked enjoyment, like sitting on the porch, that may transform the ordinary into… real life. The book he references is one we love, A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander. I wrote about it here, just a little. It can go on the shelf next to David Clayton’s Way of Beauty, a book that illuminates the patterns Alexander doesn’t have the vocabulary for — the transcendent ones of order and beauty in the Liturgy.


A moving (if shocking — child abuse details alert, not safe for tender-hearted kids) story of a policeman’s generous soul. 

 

Happy Feast of Blessed Peter Vigne!

From the archives:

If you are stressing out about how last year in homeschooling went with writing, I do have posts that might help: First steps in helping a child to write is the first.


Bees and peas. (My peas were a complete bust this year, boo.)

 

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MuTu on Sale!

Click here to read my review of Mutu, the exercise and habit-changing program that I started out last year. I’m currently doing it again from square one to regain strength and shape after having that big baby of mine. Just beginning��week 7, I’m feeling good and have, so far, closed what was a��four finger-width gap (I’d say ‘ouch!’ except diastasis recti��generally doesn’t hurt physically, which is what makes it so sneaky) down to more like 2 fingers. (For a guide on to how to check whether you have DR, click here.)

 

July 6 only (starting in British time), you can get Mutu for 46% off by using the promo code ‘wendy46’! The sale is supposed to run only until 12:59pm PST.

Thank you for using this link here or one from my review page! I do earn a commission and, honestly, I would feel a little guilty if it were not a quality product. But MuTu��is something I can totally stand behind and am happy to recommend. I know from my own experience and from hearing from friends that it makes a big difference!

 

 

I will try to be in touch if you have questions, either in the comments, on FB, or by emailing me!

(Tech issues do seem to arise on the MuTu site with these big sales, so if the link doesn’t work, you can try again later or check the status of things on the MuTuSystem FB page.)

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{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

The front bedroom on the third floor has a lofty view of things.

You can see my garden, and now it’s respectably weeded, in the paths especially, which is such a load of work, but so satisfying when it’s done! (I didn’t do it all, full disclosure. I have had to resort to hiring enterprising young people to fill in the gaps previously manned by my own children, who have flown the coop.)

Some things I have to just be patient about, short- or long-term: The plan is to erect a rabbit-proof fence (you can sort of see its beginnings there), and the poor Chief just has a lot of chores right now. On the other hand, the green beans are being decimated. Then, going to the right, the horizontals on my drying line got pulled down (“got pulled down” — I was mowing and somehow the dangling end of the clothesline caught on the mower and although I did notice, it was too late; where the bolts went in was a bit rotted, so they just fell out, ugh!). And then just to the right of that, my asparagus bed, which is terribly out of control. I have to wait until later in the summer to take care of it. I think I will try to burn off the weeds and begin again. I may or may not have bought a propane torch…

But other than that, we’re in good shape. The raspberries further on to the right are doing fine, and then I have some even further beds that hold the kale, brussels sprouts, and pole beans (hence the white shelving there that I have repurposed into “poles” for them).

I mean, other than the vast brush in the beyond… someday when I can hire a Caterpillar to knock it all back… sigh…

On to our links!

Are you familiar with materialism as an explanation for reality? Basically, that matter is the only thing that exists. So, for instance, that the mind is in the brain. A neurosurgeon goes to St. Thomas Aquinas to explain what he encounters regularly on the operating table, that the mind is something apart from the brain. A good one for the high schoolers too.

Materialism, the view that matter is all that exists, is the premise of much contemporary thinking about what a human being is. Yet evidence from the laboratory, operating room, and clinical experience points to a less fashionable conclusion: Human beings straddle the material and immaterial realms.

Twenty-three dangerous things to let your kids do. (Of course, as I do not tire of saying, the modern family with its relentless pace and two working parents will simply not have time to let children play as they ought, and no amount of articles encouraging freedom for them will have any effect. For children to develop with the right amount of “danger” and exploration, there must be the leisure afforded by having the mother devoted to making the home.


You can’t do better than reading Fr. James Schall — and I think this essay would be particularly good to read with your older children — if they have any idea who Bob Dylan is! His deceptively simple way of unfolding an argument carries you along. Here he examines Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize speech, and uncovers truths about education and song, and transcendence.


The Quiet Joy of Watching Other People Knit (I haven’t been knitting now that the weather is amazing and the garden calls, but these pictures are delightful — especially the last one of Doris Day, for whom I have a special fondness).

This reminds me of my all-time favorite knitting photo, of Jacques Plante, Canadian hockey goalie. “A fellow’s got to have something to do when he’s not tending the nets.”

Sometimes the best response to ridiculous PC culture is simply to stay close to the saints. Today’s feast is for St. Junipero Serra, missionary to the Americas. The beauty of the culture he inspired will inspire us as well! Traditionally, it’s also the feast of The Most Precious Blood of Jesus (just scroll further down that link), to which the month of July is dedicated. I love how our faith helps us to contemplate, little by little, all the various truths and beauties of God’s goodness.

From the archives:

Did you know that I have a bajillion posts about discipline? Here’s one:


Some musings on living one’s own life: This part of the island is where you are now.

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{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter

This was my back hall last week, in preparation for my parish’s celebration of Corpus Christi:

Four hundred and fifty carnations to water, air, trim, and take to the church for everyone to carry for the procession! Do you have a custom of bringing flowers to lay before the altar or monstrance at the end of your procession? Or some other way of using flowers in your procession? I’d be interested to hear. We’ve been working on enhancing the procession at our beloved parish and I was encouraged that this year’s was an improvement over last year’s.

And the blossoms that were broken or popped off their stems ended up gracing our little oratory:

Enjoying the start of summer by visiting a local farm to pick strawberries with our Manchester St. Gregory’s Pocket… and checking out the interesting animals! The kids could not get enough of the peacocks. Honestly, I  too could have stared all day at those colors! (Did you know that peacocks make noise with their feathers when their tails are all fanned out? I didn’t! It sounds like a rattlesnake!)

And this is our mode these days. Full-on little monkey of a 2yo boy:

This week’s links!

As a heads up: if you were considering purchasing the MuTu Program, which I recommend, note that there will be a big sale on it coming up on the 6th of July so that will be the day to buy it (and I’ll be grateful if you do so here through my link)!

I’m doing it again, post-Chickapea. On week 5 and feeling good. I’ve noticed that more readers have been buying it recently. It’s so interesting to me to see that the demand is there; I think it really is difficult for women in our culture (especially child-bearing ones!) to take proper care of our core and posture, and I’m grateful to have found a tool that helps me so much in this struggle.


If you’re looking for a daily dose of beautiful painting inspiration on Instagram, I recommend the new account (which I may or may not be managing – not that I’m biased) for the Rat Scullery!


Do you know about St. Therese’s sister Leonie? An inspiring story of a difficult child who just may have been a saint as well: The Unmentioned Martin.


Our friend, the composer Paul Jernberg, passed along this deep and delicate meditation on beauty from Father Richard G. Cipolla: “Beauty must not be divorced from truth.” Father contemplates the necessity of remembering and returning to the truth that motivates our search for beauty: “It is chant in the deepest sense that is the music of the Roman rite.  As much as we love polyphony that is sung almost every Sunday at this Mass, the origins and roots of polyphony are in that austere beauty of chant that like the severe façade of the Gesù, like the earlier tower at Chartres, like the early iconic art of the Church, point in the deepest way to the beauty that is ever ancient and ever new, and that is that beauty that points to the God who has and who is and who will save the world.”


Did you ever wonder why [virtually] all the baby blankets in hospitals are the same?


Sometimes you just need that little toddler confined and busy in one place:

From the Archives:

Making a shawl; thinking about things. I’m sharing this post along with some advice to any new readers: my mom has a habit of strewing her pearls of wisdom along with random chit-chat and the minutia of this blog — which is what gives it the “kitchen sink philosophy” feel — and this means that you mustn’t overlook even the smallest posts nor think that just because a post is about, say, a particular knitting project (and you may not be a knitter), that it doesn’t contain some insight for you! Read it all, people!


Ask Auntie Leila: The Difficult Five-Year-Old Boy


Romano Guardini on how the liturgy guards truth (in reference to the article about beauty, above), in the first chapter of his The Spirit of the Liturgy, which you will remember we studied together!


Remember that time that Suki had baby Freddie? And started the big baby trend in our family?

In the Liturgical Year:

As you’ve heard mentioned in a recent post, today is the solemnity of the birth of St. John the Baptist! And the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (my fifth anniversary in a sense; The Artist and I were wed on this feast day!)!

 

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{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

See, I did mow!

Now on to the weed whacking…

[Not an actual baby.]

Is there anyone interested in starting a St. Gregory Pocket in Berkeley or thereabouts? Our dear friend Phyllis is moving out there with her family; she would love to meet you and help you get things started! Email Suki at suzanneelizabeth [at] gmail [dot] com to get connected.

Last week I met several different ladies who had formed Pockets or were about to. The Pocket is completely compatible with your projected or existing book club, because of course friends share reading and conversation (and maybe a glass of wine!). It’s so much more, so it’s really worth making the effort. If you are feeling like you have a nice time with your reading group but aren’t sure that it’s actually a community (for instance, what about children and spouses? what about the future?), do think about making a Pocket. To see where there are already existing ones, go here. If you have questions, first read this! (E.g. Do I need to be Catholic? Does starting a Pocket make me the leader?)

On to our links!

A Father’s Day MUST READ (yes, all caps shouting!) from Deirdre — A doctor heeds his father’s advice to forgo billions — yes, billions — of dollars of profit on a life-saving invention and goes on to provide care for the dying. This story (scroll down to page three) is inspiring, giving a vision for what end-of-life care could look like, and why we should turn away, definitively, from euthanasia.

How have you seen the success of this approach?

At Calvary we treat 6,000 patients a year, and no one, after they have been here for 24 hours, asks for assisted suicide. No one: no matter what’s wrong, and we’ve seen some terrible cases. Not when you reach out with arms of love. When I enter a patient’s room, I always stop on the saddle of the door, and I pray, “My dear Lord God, my love for You brings me here for Your greater glory.” Then it is no longer a patient’s a room; it’s now a sanctuary. When you ask God to

come, He comes. I know He’s there. I can feel it. And when someone is dying, you think that room is part of this earth? No! You are not in this world. You have entered the vestibule of heaven.

One of the reasons I started blogging, long ago in the mists of time, is that I saw that a lot of parenting advice is either not based on good authority (just the whim or fantasy of the parent of all girls or in fact ill-behaved children of both sexes) or is based on bad authority (for instance, on the thinking of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, notorious bad philosopher who, despite verifiably abysmal parenting, continues to inspire experts everywhere). An antidote: St. John Chrysostom on how to raise children.


Another St. Peter’s List gem: Knowledge and Wisdom.


This past week marked the anniversary of the death of G. K. Chesterton. In his honor, an inspiring essay about his poetry.


A long read, but this interview with James Matthew Wilson may help you find new reserves of inspiration for this adventure we call educating our children. The title makes it sound like it’s about politics, but really it’s about so much more — the good life and how to keep it.


More in educational inspiration: Hillsdale College’s Top Ten Reading Picks. Everyone will have their own, but this one is quite good.


I know I take some engineering feats, like a tunnel through a mountain, for granted.


Speaking of books, do you know and love Dorothy Sayers like I do? Great summer reading, and just the thing to shake you out of any bad reading habits you might have. (If you haven’t read her, I recommend starting with Strong Poison.) NB: After you’ve read the Lord Peter books, should you find that you have a sense you missed some of the literary allusions, go back and read Shakespeare, Dickens, and Wodehouse. Then re-read the Lord Peter books!

Today is the feast of another wonderful Gregory, St. Gregory Barbarigo. Tomorrow most regions celebrate Corpus Christi, the solemn and beautiful commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist. I hope you have a procession to join! If you take a picture, I’d love to see it (my Instagram account is linked below).

From the archives:

We are in full wedding swing here — you too? Did you know that Deirdre wrote a whole series about how to have a beautiful wedding? Here are two that are specifically about the reception: The Wholesome, Good-Times Reception and How to Get the Wedding Reception You Really Want. Do read all the posts and pass them along to your favorite bride!

 

~We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).~

Follow us on Twitter.
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Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
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Order and Wonder in June

 

As I go around taking a few pictures for my post, I have to overcome the urge to just forget about it, due to every room, every view, and every item needing a complete overhaul, cleaning, and weeding.

But I am resisting, because we can’t go on forever not really talking!

I wanted to show you this boot rack that I got at Homegoods (for 20% off because it needed some gluing up, which the Chief was happy to do). I probably need four or fifteen of them, but it does help to give the impression that I’m trying in here.

 

And there’s the garden, which as soon as I’m done here I will go mow, and mulch, and all sorts of other things that will render it much more photogenic and much less pathetic! But things are growing! And I have some new beds!

 

Of course, the best plants are the compost volunteers. I’m hedging my bets and leaving some here.

 

I went to Milwaukee last week to speak to a great collection of wonderful folks out there, and then on to Chicago on the spur of the moment to hang out in the back yard of a friend and chitchat with around 30 lovely ladies (and one or two gents!) as well. (I took the train, the “Hiawatha,” from Milwaukee to Chicago, and I highly recommend it.)

The topic was “Developing the Moral Imagination of Your Children” and Dear Reader, I kept coming back to something I find takes quite the skill to convey — skill perhaps that I don’t have, so if you think you are getting it, let me know!

It’s what I called, long ago, Order and Wonder, as a way to answer the question of how to homeschool — but that leads to, simply, how to live — but I didn’t make it up, you know. It’s just my odd way of saying that what we long for is already there, given to us — we simply have to conform to it, this river that pours out of heaven and is free for all to come and drink. The trees planted by this water flourish… If we love and follow God’s holy Law, and live the Liturgical Year, we will be able to teach our children what they need to know, without any stress at all.

(I was also told by some dear readers that they don’t mind longer posts, so here goes… )

After we linked to this article a bit after the feast day of St. Joan of Arc, I had to have this book. *

*The selections in it are free online, as they were Pope Benedict’s Wednesday addresses for a while, but it’s a beautifully produced volume and makes great spiritual reading.

 

At the end, he has a little talk on holiness, and he says something very consoling, I thought — and germane to the topic of my talk, which proved so hard for me to wrestle into shape (I have highlighted the bits that struck me as they relate to my topic):

However, the question remains: how can we take the path to holiness, in order to respond to this call? [This could also be the question for us: “How can my children take this path?] Can I do this on my own initiative? The answer is clear. A holy life is not primarily the result of our efforts, of our actions, because it is God, the three times Holy (cf. Is 6:3) who sanctifies us, it is the Holy Spirit’s action that enlivens us from within, it is the very life of the Risen Christ that is communicated to us and that transforms us. 

It’s our baptism that gives us this life. He goes on to quote some deep teachings about all this and then says,

… perhaps we should say things even more simply. What is the essential? The essential means never leaving a Sunday without an encounter with the Risen Christ in the Eucharist; this is not an additional burden but is light for the whole week. It means never beginning and never ending a day without at least a brief contact with God. And, on the path of our life it means following the “signposts” that God has communicated to us in the Ten Commandments, interpreted with Christ, which are merely the explanation of what love is in specific situations. It seems to me that this is the true simplicity and greatness of a life of holiness: the encounter with the Risen One on Sunday; contact with God at the beginning and at the end of the day; following, in decisions, the “signposts” that God has communicated to us, which are but forms of charity.

“Hence the true disciple of Christ is marked by love both of God and of neighbour” (Lumen Gentium, n. 42). This is the true simplicity, greatness and depth of Christian life, of being holy. This is why St Augustine, in commenting on the fourth chapter of the First Letter of St John, could make a bold statement: “Dilige et fac quod vis [Love and do what you will]” And he continued: “If you keep silent, keep silent by love: if you speak, speak by love; if you correct, correct by love; if you pardon, pardon by love; let love be rooted in you, and from the root nothing but good can grow” (7,8 pl 35). Those who are guided by love, who live charity to the full, are guided by God, because God is love. Hence these important words apply: “Dilige et fac quod vis”, “Love and do what you will”.

We might ask ourselves: can we, with our limitations, with our weaknesses, aim so high? During the Liturgical Year, the Church invites us to commemorate a host of saints, the ones, that is, who lived charity to the full, who knew how to love and follow Christ in their daily lives. They tell us that it is possible for everyone to take this road. In every epoch of the Church’s history, on every latitude of the world map, the saints belong to all the ages and to every state of life, they are actual faces of every people, language and nation. And they have very different characters.

Actually I must say that also for my personal faith many saints, not all, are true stars in the firmament of history. And I would like to add that for me not only a few great saints whom I love and whom I know well are “signposts”, but precisely also the simple saints, that is, the good people I see in my life who will never be canonized. They are ordinary people, so to speak, without visible heroism but in their everyday goodness I see the truth of faith. This goodness, which they have developed in the faith of the Church, is for me the most reliable apology of Christianity and the sign of where the truth lies.

In the Communion of Saints, canonized and not canonized, which the Church lives thanks to Christ in all her members, we enjoy their presence and their company and cultivate the firm hope that we shall be able to imitate their journey and share one day in the same blessed life, eternal life.

Dear friends, how great and beautiful, as well as simple is the Christian vocation seen in this light! We are all called to holiness: it is the very measure of Christian living. Once again St Paul expresses it with great intensity when he writes: “grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift…. His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:7, 11-13).

I would like to ask all to open themselves to the action of the Holy Spirit, who transforms our life, to be, we too, as small pieces in the great mosaic of holiness that God continues to create in history, so that the face of Christ may shine out in the fullness of its splendour. Let us not be afraid to aim high, for God’s heights; let us not be afraid that God will ask too much of us, but let ourselves be guided by his Word in every daily action, even when we feel poor, inadequate, sinners. It will be he who transforms us in accordance with his love. Many thanks.

 

Well, to be concrete about all this, there are a few feast days coming up this month that would be ideal for putting into action this great resolution that we can feel forming, to live the life of the Church, the order that gives rise to the wonder.

Each feast is in itself a gift, each saint one of those “signposts” along our journey that will help us. But as you live the Liturgical Year, many subtle and gentle lessons emerge when we notice the placement of the feasts, their relations to each other. These June days (and I’m just picking three out of the many beautiful feasts this month) are a good example of the hidden treasure we find when we approach the gift of the Liturgical Year with a humble receptivity (and of course, I don’t pretend to have plumbed all the depths!).

June 22: The Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More.

Here begins the “June Triduum” (or three feasts of June that I have, in the past few years, become more in love with for the particular times we live in). Would you die to uphold a Commandment of God? Would you be a martyr, for instance, for what marriage says about human nature? But this is what these two saints did — they went to their deaths because they would not sign a statement ratifying the King’s wishes.

There are actually two Commandments involved here. Yes, there is the one that prohibits adultery. There is also the one that so interestingly does not flatly state (although it does comprehend) “Do not lie.” It says, rather, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” To sign a paper, to swear an oath (“for what is an oath but words we say to God,” admonishes Thomas More in the great play, A Man for All Seasons), to say what you know to be false — these are ways that we make ourselves a false witness when we ought to be honoring the truth.

Do they seem little things? Why not sign, and live another day to defend God’s rules? But as Fr. James Schall says,

[Thomas] More was a scholar who saw the intimate connection between mind and reality. He saw that the function of the Successor to Peter is to uphold clearly, wisely, and compassionately, the truths handed down to be explained and affirmed in every age. He saw that he must “witness” to this “abstract truth,” even if he must stand alone, and lonely, in an obscure cell to do so. Had his “witness” not been so firm, Henry might well have laid claim to rule, not only the city, but the mind.

In our day, the enemies of the natural and supernatural order do wish to rule the mind, to interpose themselves between us and the truth, which is to say between us and God. Devotion to these two saints will give us the courage to imitate their virtue.

June 23: The Sacred Heart of Jesus.

What is this feast even about? It’s about nothing less than what we read in 2 John 7: “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.”

To convince a weary world that had gone over to abstraction, forgetting that God came to live with us with two natures, one divine, and one fully human, this devotion to the Sacred Heart came to be. David Clayton has an appendix chapter about it in our book, The Little Oratory, in which he quotes Fr. John Hardon:

In my forty-two years in the priesthood I have dealt with many souls and have been involved in many problems. I believe the hardest mystery we are called on to believe, when everything is against it, is that God does love us.”

Fr. Hardon goes on to say:

Margaret Mary was chosen by God to provide the Church and through the Church all mankind with a deep and clear understanding of God’s love for us and the love we should have for Him. In spite of the trial and tribulation, including the reputation in her community for being out of her mind, she never wavered in her loving trust in God.

Love is mainly proved by suffering. No wonder Margaret Mary could ask in one of her letters, “What can keep us from loving God and becoming saints, since we have a body that can suffer and a heart that can love?” Margaret Mary became the catalyst whose mission was to restore to the Catholic Church what some had lost and to strengthen what was so weakened _ the mystery of human freedom in responding to the merciful love of God.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart can be pathetically cheapened by treating it as just another devotion. On the contrary, it contains in its doctrinal foundation what the popes have reminded us are the seven cardinal mysteries of our Faith, which the world denies but we accept.

You can read about these seven cardinal mysteries in the rest of Fr. Hardon’s essay.

June 24: The Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist.

This feast rounds out all our themes, helping us to meditate on God’s Law, which He so graciously gave on Mount Sinai, and the Incarnation, the “becoming flesh” which overcomes man’s inability to reach the heights God has in store for us. John is the prophet who connects the Old and the New Testaments, and his birth is called “the summer Christmas.” At the furthest possible point in the year from Jesus’ birth, we who follow the Church’s year receive a beautiful renewal of our love for the piercing event that saves the world. On our own we wouldn’t be thinking of the crèche with Mary* and Joseph and the baby Jesus in it, but now it is brought to mind.

*This is also the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and it’s not only a gridlock of feasts that piles her on top of the Baptist’s Nativity, but, I believe, a little reminder of motherhood, so intimately connected to babies and their births, and the great Mother of all, Our Lady, with her heart that was preserved from sin from all eternity.

John’s birth comes just after the summer solstice, as the days begin to grow shorter. Do you see how the heavens declare the truth of the Gospel, that “I must decrease, that he may increase”? The old ways wane as the New Adam arrives (at the winter solstice, the point where the days begin to get longer!).

Of course, St. John too was martyred for the faith, specifically for the truth about marriage. When we think about someone’s birth, we also think about their death, so even here we have another reminder about God’s Law and its goodness.

We could tediously try to explain a lot of abstractions to our children; we could read a lot of boring books. Or we could celebrate the feasts and suddenly just know ever more deeply what God is showing us!

And this is what I mean by Order and Wonder, by “living the Liturgical Year.” These upcoming feasts will get you started if you are wondering how you ever will.

Certainly bake a cake (just make it your favorite, really enjoying it, and don’t worry about a theme) — but most importantly, try if you are able to go to Mass on these days; at least tell the stories of each commemoration, that they not be lost. Watching A Man for All Seasons (the Chief’s favorite movie) would be a fantastic thing to do on the 22nd!

Praying each day’s Vespers will put you on the right path. Afterwards, and especially for St. John, I recommend a bonfire if you can manage it, or some other festive party — traditionally this would be held on the 23rd, after the Vespers which anticipate the feast.

I’m giving you a week to prepare! Let’s reclaim the culture for our own, with Order and Wonder!

{This post has more on these feasts.}

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