Category: NCRegister

NCRegister Blog: 15 Suggestions for Literature That Will Feed Your Soul

A couple of months ago I explained why fellow mothers in my situation in life (lots of little kids, lots of mundane tasks) should make an effort to exercise their brains through reading books on a regular basis. And while I was targeting moms in that post, all Christians need to take seriously the call to form our minds and seek truth. Yet, most of us do not realize the immense value we can draw from reading good literature in the form of novels and short stories.

I have always been a lover of novel reading, but as my reading has been largely self-directed I have always had trouble choosing good books to read. I came across a list of novels compiled by John Senior, a great professor of the humanities, which he called “the Good Books List” in the appendix of his book The Death of Christian Culture, and it is from this list that I have drawn most of my reading choices of late. Through reading these good books I have been slowly discovering how a novel forms one’s moral sense by allowing a reader to enter into various scenarios and seeing how characters are affected by those choices. This is helpful because we can learn so much about sin and the human condition through our imaginations to help us form our consciences without muddying our souls.

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…

NCRegister Blog: Pray For Your Priests, for They Exercise Christ’s Sacred Power

It is that time of year again—when the new priests have been ordained and the reassignments from the bishops are out and implemented. When I first heard that the beloved pastor at my mother’s parish was being transferred I wondered how she would take the news. I knew that she would experience sorrow, but I also knew that she would be one of the first to reach out to the new pastor of her parish with prayers and any support she could offer. She would still attend the daily Mass, receive the Sacraments from her pastor in persona Christi, be available to pray during adoration hours, and have him over for dinner. She would adjust to him as her new pastor, and I am sure that she already has, because my mother deeply appreciates all priests.

The parochial vicar at our parish was also transferred to another parish after only one year with us. We had already grown to appreciate the depth of his homilies, which called us on to live our Christian lives more intensely. We had become friends with him through several meals, and now we will no longer receive Jesus from his hands weekly. In some ways it is an occasion of sorrow, but in other ways it is a realization that experiencing Christ in the sacraments is so much more than which priest is ministering to us. It is the same Christ giving us grace, whether it be through the words and hands of Fr. Jaspers or Fr. Schroeder.

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…

At the NCRegister: “La La Land” and the Liberating of Traditions

“La La Land” is the only recent movie I have seen to which I can relate to so completely. My husband and I finally got around to it the other night on our anniversary. We had gone out for a nice Italian dinner, perused a used bookstore, came home to kids ready for bed (thank you, babysitter), put them to bed, and streamed the movie on my husband’s laptop—the strange mix of modern times and traditional ways did not strike us as funny at all. Of course we would stream a movie on our date night since we do not have a television. Of course we would first take time to Instagram a picture of the gorgeous 90-year-old 31-volume set of Robert Louis Stevenson we had found at the bookstore lamenting, yet thankful, that the books had been passed over so many times to have been marked down three times. We felt that we had to liberate them from the dusty top shelf and bring them to a place where they would be truly appreciated.

I wondered as we drove home what our society had come to that it did not see the value in so brilliant a writer as Stevenson or even the set of Charles Dickens that we left waiting for another sympathetic buyer. And then we turned on “La La Land”—a film about people of my generation seeking their dreams and discovering that they cannot perhaps have it all after all, a film indicative of our generation discovering that all the liberation that happened in the sixties and seventies did not give us anything solid to stand on. In fact the film downright promotes all that my adult life has been focused on—discovering the beauty of our past traditions and bringing them back as fully as possible into our modern lives. I am fully aware that we cannot have the fifties again—nor do I want the fifties again. We can’t go back, but we can recover the beauty that was lost, because the artifacts of it are still there to be found…

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…

NCRegister: The Deeper Meaning of Receiving at the Altar Rail

I was recently given another theological explanation of the action of receiving Holy Communion at the altar rail while studying the New Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism with my daughter. And it blew my mind for about a week. We were in Lesson 28 on Holy Communion, directly following the lesson on the Sacrifice of the Mass, when I paused at this sentence: “At Holy Communion, when we go up to the Banquet Table (the altar rail), Our Lord comes to us.” I had always thought of the Banquet Table as the main altar where the priest makes present Christ’s sacrifice. It had never occurred to me that the altar rail was something more than a divider from the sanctuary, but that it is actually an extension of the altar—the people’s altar..

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…

NCRegister: How NFP Makes My Life Like a Jane Austen Novel

The fact that my husband was making just over the equivalent of ten thousand (modern British pounds) a year when we got married is not the real reason that Natural Family Planning makes my life like a Jane Austen novel. Neither is the fact that I have several very silly sisters, nor the fact that I am not going to be left a very large inheritance. The main characters in Austen’s novel and Catholic couples practicing NFP face the world in a similar way. Both combat the worldly temptations to self-love and self-indulgence by recognizing a higher good. They know that one’s every act forms one’s character, and that to be fully human one must act according to reason through the pursuit of virtue and the resistance of superficial worldly charm.

If you have ever read a novel or two by Jane Austen (I allow myself the pleasure of all six whenever I am pregnant), you may have noticed that in each of her novels, a heroine is pursued by a charming man of the world…

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…

NCRegister: The Deep Joy of Easter

We cannot expect to enter into Eastertide with a blissful forgetfulness of suffering. We cannot have Easter without bearing our own crosses, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). The fact of the matter is that Lent did not rid me of all of my faults. God continues to teach me humility and my complete need of his aid. Easter has come. I still lose my temper with my kids. I still misuse my time. I still have to stifle uncharitable thoughts all the daylong. And I am still hopeless without his grace. Yet, he promises me that these afflictions are preparing me for a glory that I cannot even grasp. The joyful consolations he offers me in prayer are a mere drop compared to the glory, the joy that awaits…

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…

NCRegister: We Veil Our Statues and Unveil Our Hearts at Passiontide

Traditionally known as Passiontide, the last fortnight of Lent is the time we are called to greater devotion and mortification. Now is the time to meditate even more deeply on Christ’s Passion. This is the time that the Church traditionally covers the crucifix and statues imitating Jesus at the end of the Gospel for Passion Sunday in the Extraordinary Form: “Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.” Many parishes have kept up or brought back the tradition of veiling holy images during Passiontide. In my home, we also cover our religious images and crucifixes with the traditional purple colored cloth to keep the Passion of Our Lord in the front of our minds throughout the day. Not only are we mortifying our bodies through our Lenten penances, but we now mortifying our sight. The veiled crucifix reminds us of how our sins divide us from Jesus; we cannot see him or be guided by him when sin rules our hearts…

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…

NCRegister: 10 Delicious and Simple Lenten Dinners for Fridays

Stewed Pinto Beans and Collard Greens with Ezekiel Bread

 After eight and a half years straight of have a child dependent on me for nutrition through pregnancy and/or breastfeeding, I have window of time where I can practice a stricter form of fasting. I am learning firsthand how my soul is affected by my voluntary bodily Lenten practices so much so that I related to the collect in the Extraordinary Form Mass for Monday of the Third Week in Lent:

Pour Forth in Thy Mercy, O Lord,
we beseech Thee, Thy grace into our hearts:
that as we abstain from bodily food,
so we may also restrain our senses from hurtful excesses.

Scripture tells us that our fasting should be accompanied by an increase in almsgiving, but also that the discipline of our bodies, so inclined to concupiscence, leads to greater discipline in our souls. In the same way bodily excesses make it harder for us to live a life of virtue…

Read the rest at the NCRegister…

Christ Did Not Say this Call was Easy…(BIS and NCRegister Posts)

Today is my devotion day over at Blessed is She. When I wrote this devotion about making sacrifices and the challenge of living out the Gospel in our daily lives, I did not know that would have also written about a very challenging application of it in loving our enemy and those in need at the Register this week.

I am seeing that what it comes down to is radical love and a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel. Here are the posts and links to them:
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The Temple of God

Every moment of even the slightest suffering that we bear, we can unite to His One Sacrifice. We can choose in our daily lives to habitually participate in Christ’s One Sacrifice, and through His suffering our suffering can bring grace into our lives and the lives of those for whom we pray. For we are temples of God, and as temples, we are a place of sacrifice.

In the Gospel today Christ asks of us some very hard things: turn the other cheek, give away your cloak, go the extra mile, give to the one who asks of you, and love your enemies. These decisions are sacrifices. These choices unite us to Christ…
https://blessedisshe.net/the-temple-of-god/?mc_cid=8f13b8ffd9&mc_eid=e8f0452374&v=7516fd43adaa

I think about the kind of nation I would want my children to live in, and while I would love for them to have peace and prosperity, I worry more about their immortal souls than whether or not they will be persecuted. I know that they will be. There is no denying that. Christ told us so: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The Christian has always been persecuted. The model of radical love is one that I want them to follow rather than that of cowering in fear behind the secure borders of our country.

It is time to overcome our fears and meet those different from us with radical charity, so that we might hope to be among the righteous.

Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?
 And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee?
And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’
And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.‘ (Matthew 25:37-40)

NCRegister: How to Post-Chrismas Like a Boss with the Blessed Mother

The expression “to post-partum like a boss” is used a lot in the Catholic mom blogging sphere, and is used to emphasize the importance of a mother giving herself time to rest and recover from delivering a baby. The physical recovery after birthing a baby is long, lasting many weeks and, for some women, months. When a mom is able to post-partum like a boss, she can take time to recover while caring for her baby. She spends her days and nights sleeping, eating, feeding, changing diapers, and soaking that newborn in. This time does not suddenly come to an end, but she eases slowly from her life of complete devotion to that baby back into the daily routine required of her full vocation. But the initial couple of weeks ideally give her time to recover and fall in love with her new baby.

One of the things I love about the old, traditional liturgical calendar is the season after Epiphany. Instead of jumping back into Ordinary Time two weeks after Christmas, it gives one a longer time to linger with the Mother and Child…

Read the rest at the National Catholic Register…