Creation – Daily Graces

Feast of the Holy Trinity 2023

Published on June 2, 2023 by Kate2 Comments

Well, the best laid plans and all that. Between preparing our house for sale and vacation with family I do not have a well planned Gospel reflection for today. But, vacationing in the Black Hills means our family has been blessed with some gorgeous encounters with nature. From unique rock formations, to baby bison, to Lord of the Rings worthy waterfalls. This was a trip focused on the beauty and wildness of creation.

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is eternal. The Holy Trinity with each of its unique members, was active in the creation of our world. A sweet way to think about creation is to say God’s fingerprints can be seen throughout our world if we take the time to look for them.

Each of us lives in a unique place within God’s created world. Even in the middle of a bustling city, there are pieces of the natural world to be seen – a beautiful sunset, a window box of flowers, a park green space, the laughter of a child at play.

To celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, take some time in the nature you are planted in. Go for a walk, take a drive, however you’d like to do it. Just slow down and appreciate the beauty that surrounds you every day. It is a lovely thing to go away and experience the natural wonders of the world. But don’t discount the wonders that are just outside your front door.

A Place for Rest – The Bedrooms

Published on April 3, 2022February 24, 2022 by KateLeave a comment

There is something sacred about your bedroom. I don’t think I consciously realized this until I noticed how fiercely my children guard their individual beds and bedtime things. Our kids each have a few (ok, total honesty? Clare, our 7 year old, has about 30 bedtime friends and multiple blankets in a friend fortress, or castle, or something it changes weekly) bedtime stuffed animals. These are special, sacred things to them. When we travel, they come with (no, not all 30 of Clare’s. We put the limit on 2. I can only handle keeping tabs on so many stuffed animals in a hotel room). For Gabe, our 2 year old, they are necessary for sleeping. He wakes up in the middle of the night and if he can’t find one of them, he cries for us to help him. You don’t mess with bedtime friends.

This isn’t to say that adults don’t have their own bedtime quirks, because they do. Ben feels pretty strongly about his pillow. If I were to switch our pillows he would immediately notice and insist on switching back. We all have a bedtime routine of some kind, even if it isn’t one we intentionally crafted. How many times have you gotten into bed and realized you accidentally forgot to do a part of your routine? I would bet you ultimately got up and completed whatever it was before you could sleep soundly.

As humans, we need rest. It is part of who we are and how our bodies function. Everyone knows what it feels like to be sleep deprived and most do what they can to avoid it. Our bodies have a whole series of functions and tasks that occur only during sleep. On the whole, we will not be able to perform our day to day tasks well if we do not sleep well.

Sleep scientists have compiled whole lists of things we can do to help us sleep better. Parents already know quite a few from their days of struggling to teach their children to sleep. A routine helps tell your body it is time to sleep. Engaging in stretching or other gentle exercises help to relax your body and rest your mind. Journaling is a great way to let go of the day’s work and worries. Environmental factors such as a lighting, temperature and breathing ability (sleep apnea is no joke) will affect the quality of your sleep.

As you spend time in your and the other members of your family’s bedrooms, consider the following questions:

Does this space encourage rest?
Can the person sleeping here access what they need in an environment that is conducive to sleep?
Does this room have unnecessary items that do not promote sleep?
- This could range from an overflowing closet, too many toys, electronics, general clutter
All bedrooms inevitably end up with some kind of storage space, usually under a bed or in a closet. If you are up for a challenge, empty those storage spaces and see what needs to stay, what can be donated and what needs to go.

Spiritually speaking, God is a big promoter of rest. Part of God’s great actions of creation was to rest on the 7th day. We wouldn’t talk about it if it wasn’t significant. God modeled for us the goodness of rest and we should take note. In our modern culture, most jobs provide for time off during the week. It may not be on the traditional weekend (Saturday and Sunday), but the days are there. We recognize that it is not good for people to work non-stop. There has to be time for hobbies, for entertainment and for rest.

As Christians and Catholics, we also recognize that there needs to be time set aside for God. The Church offers us Sunday as our day of rest, the day that Jesus rose from the dead. We attend Mass, joining together with our community to worship God and keep holy the Sabbath as instructed in the 10 Commandments. But we know that to have a healthy relationship with God, we need to give Him more than 60 minutes on Sundays. Each day there needs to be time to connect with God, to talk with Him, to be with Him. Just as we need to sleep everyday to be physically healthy, we need to rest with God everyday to be spiritually healthy.

Take time this week to assess how much time you spend at rest. How do you use that time? Could you try to spend a few more moments resting with God, rather than Instagram? Could you read a Scripture passage instead of a Tweet? Challenge yourself to rest more with God and less with the things of this world.

One final week! I wonder what last space we will be in. I’m looking forward to talking with you about it then!

Indelible Mark

Published on November 15, 2020 by Kate3 Comments

This weekend has been the Catholic Moms Summit (if you haven’t checked it out you still have time! Hurry over, it’s all free, though if you want to be able to watch what you’ve missed later, as well as have access to the live events they held you will need to purchase the pass). I listened to a few talks, all of which were very good. My absolute favorite was by Beth Sri, Birthing 101. Beth is a Catholic wife and mom of 8. You can learn more about Beth here.

In her talk, Beth talked about the things she figured out after her first four births and wished she had known for them. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty details of the practicalities of birth here, you can head over to the Summit if you want that information – it’s worth it, trust me!

One of the things that really left me floored was something she said toward the end about the spiritual aspects of birth. She had a spiritual director tell her, when she would share about a new pregnancy, “Thank you for your gift to humanity!” As Beth says in her talk, this sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it? But no! If we believe what we say we believe, if we as parents are truly participants in creation with God the Father, how could this new little person be anything but a gift?

Beth, of course, understands this also. She concludes her talk like this:

“You’re going to contribute in an indefinite way to eternity. Not only is your little person and your experience going to make a mark on the world, but it is going to make a mark on eternity. Forever, this new soul will exist forever.”

Wow, just wow. Taking this opportunity to announce we are going to be welcoming our 6th gift to humanity in March, I can honestly say I have not considered the indelible mark each of our children will have on eternity. On the world, yes. Ben and I have all of the usual hopes parents hold – we hope our children are faithful, brave, compassionate, truthful and cultivate all the other good virtues. We pray that they follow their vocation, that they listen to God’s Will in their lives and that they discover that happiness lies in self-giving love. But an indelible mark on eternity? I’m rendered a little speechless at that one.

Indelible means “not able to be removed,” or similarly, “not able to be forgotten.” By conceiving our children, heaven has changed forever. Every single child, whether they are born into this world or whether their mark is made only on our hearts, will make a new impression on eternity which cannot be forgotten.

God knows the number of hairs on our heads, even if your babies are born bald like mine. Not a single child is forgotten by their loving Creator, and heaven is all the better for it.