A Catholic Voice in the Upcoming Election

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Vince and Melissa

We both believe that it is so important that we enact our right to vote in the upcoming Federal Election. The question is, who to vote for and how to come up with the right decision.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops have created a guide for the 2011 Federal Election. This guide is very helpful in offering us questions that we can ask the political parties and candidates in our riding. The guide is also only 3 pages, which makes it practical to print off and use when gathering information to make an informed vote this year.

To find the guide, go to www.cccb.ca/site/eng/media-room/3098-guide-for-2011-federal-election

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Applying the 2nd P: Taking Care of You as a Person

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Melissa

As I promised the last time I wrote, I would write my next post about how I apply Holly Pierlot’s Second P: Person in her book A Mother’s Rule of Life. I am sorry that it has taken me so long to write this post. Part of the reason is because life has been really busy for us and I needed to cut back on a few things so that I could take care of myself and my family, which meant that I needed to take a break from this blog. Life has calmed down for us now so I am really happy to be back writing again!

So in terms of living out the Second P, Person, I do a number of things to take care of myself:

  • I get to bed as early as possible. By 10:00pm at the latest, I am winding down so that I know that I will be asleep by 10:30pm. This way if my wonderful children are awake at 6:30pm, I know that I have slept for at least 8 hours.
  • I found it a challenge to eat healthy until I discovered a fabulous cookbook “Low Glycemic Meals in Minutes” by Laura Kalina and Cheryl Christian. This book helps me make healthy meals literally in minutes by using their Quick Prep method and creating a meal plan every week. It helps take the guess work out of meal times. We are also big fans of taking pharmaceutical-grade nutritional supplements with a potency guarantee to provide our bodies with the nutrients we don’t receive from our foods, yet are vitally important to our health.
  • Exercise can be hard, so I make it a point to exercise for 30 minutes 5 to 6 days a week. This helps me de-stress, keeps me healthy, and gives me some “Melissa-time”. I find it too time consuming to go to a gym, so we purchased an elliptical-bike machine a few years ago, which keeps my workout time to a maximum of 30 minutes since I don’t have to leave home.
  • I don’t always have lots of time to do hobbies or take extra relaxation time during the week, so I make a point of taking extra time on Sundays. After all, God Himself rested on Sundays. I do, however, try to read something everyday even if it’s only for 10 minutes (I do this while exercising, before bed, or if the kids are having quiet time).
  • Every month, I participate in either a mom’s Bible study, mom’s group, or a mom’s study group. This helps me connect with other moms and nurture my faith at the same time.

There is one things that I would like to do better: I would like to take a “Mother’s Sabbath” as Holly recommends and have a day out once a month. I don’t seem to be able to do this. For me, it may be easier to start with one or two evenings per month  since Saturdays are busy days for our family and we really cherish our family time together.

If you have any suggestions or thoughts on how you take care of yourself, please share them with us!

 

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New Page: Our Store

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Vince

We have just launched our new store! Please feel free to check out the resources we have placed in it. If you have any recommendations, please let us know!

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Where have all the Saints gone?

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Vince

I have visited many beautiful churches in different parts of the world and have seen how churches are build to glorify God. I remember our trip to Lourdes, France where the Basilica of Notre Dame de Rosaire (Our Lady of the Rosary) was absolutely magnificent with its splendor of mosaic tiling. The hundreds and hundreds of hours of dedicated work to glorify Jesus and the Church show the passion in the artwork presented there.

So, what happened?

Today’s churches seem to be plain and simple, hardly any Saints or statues. Thankfully the crucifixes are still there and there is usually a “Mary’s garden” outside the church.

Why have we excluded the great Saints of our Church? Are they not as important anymore?

When speaking to a close friend of ours, she explained to us that having the Saints and Angels decorating our Churches is so important, especially for our young children. Our children look around during church, and what do they see? If they are lucky, they see the Saints and Angels that have helped us during our churches history! It is so important for our children, (and for us as well) to learn about the fascinating lives of the Saints. They have solidified our Church over the centuries and we must learn from them. Next time that you walk into a church, take the time to recognize the Saints that are around you and make a conscience decision to learn more about them on their feast days. For example, on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, celebrate with your family by having a Mexican meal and break open a Pinata! You can also celebrate the feast of St. Francis of Assisi by simply going for a hike in the park! Simple things go a long way to learning about our great Saints.

Here are some great resources for the history and lives of our Saints!

http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/

http://www.ewtn.com/saintsholy/

Maybe talking to our parish councils can persuade them to have more Saintly images in our churches.

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Second Priority: Person

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Vince

In the second P, Person, Holly Pierlot speaks about the importance of taking take of ourselves. Many of us feel guilty or selfish for taking care of ourselves as a second priority in our lives and feel that we should be last; however, we can not give what we don’t have! It’s hard to be a good spouse and parent when you are tired, hungry, don’t have energy, and feel bad about yourself.

Taking care of ourselves means asking ourselves the following questions and acting upon them:

• Am I getting enough sleep?
• Am I eating healthy meals?
• Am I getting the nutrients I need and taking the right nutritional supplements?
• Am I exercising?
• Do I have time for myself? Time for a hobby? Time for relaxation (when was the last time you had a bubble bath?)? Time to read?
• Am I getting out of the house by myself for an extended time?
• Do I get to spend time with my girlfriends without the kids?
• When can I do these things on either a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?

These may seem like a lot of things to do when we have so little time to accomplish these things with our children needing our attention. However, when we make the effort to do these things, it is so worth it because we feel better about ourselves and truly are better parents and spouses!

In my next blog post I will write about some of the ways I am able to fit these second priority things into my life (and what I could still be doing to improve).

To check out Holly’s website and to buy her book, go to www.mothersruleoflife.com

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First Priority: Prayer

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Melissa

In A Mother’s Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot, she writes about how we need to put God as our number one priority in our lives. Holly recommends that we create a rule for our lives and our family like a religious order has a rule that they follow for how they live. In this rule, we should start by scheduling set times to pray throughout the day so that we can make our day more and more like a prayer.

I have found that it makes it so much easier to pray throughout the day when I have set prayer times. It takes the guesswork out of when I am supposed to pray. Obviously we are parents, so we don’t have hours to sit and pray everyday. However, there are natural quiet times throughout the day and it is in those quiet times that I have scheduled time to pray, as recommended by Holly. Some of those prayer times include first thing in the morning when I am awake before the kids get up, or while I am nursing Dominique and Marie-Therese is still sleeping, and when one child is napping either in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon. If a nap time doesn’t happen, I find that there are usually at least 5 minutes where the kids are playing together for me to pray. In Holly’s book, she recommends looking at what everyone is doing while you pray, which definitely helps it go smoother since you know that everyone is occupied. I aim to have my own prayer times 2 or 3 times throughout the day, but there are also times of the day that are family or spousal prayer times. I try to pray with the kids in the early morning shortly after they are finished eating breakfast, and then we also all pray together as a family in the evening before their bedtime. Vince and I pray together every night before we go to bed as well.

It is amazing how taking a few minutes to sit and put God first allows me to accomplish so much more in my day. When I’m tired and don’t feel like doing the dishes or laundry, it is amazing how the Holy Spirit works when I am done praying and am able to accomplish all that I set out to do and usually more!

If you would like to share with us how you pray during the day or put prayer as your first priority, please feel free to leave a comment and share them with us. We love to hear other people’s suggestions too!

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New Year Changes

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Melissa

As of today, my wonderful husband goes back to work after being on parental leave. Sigh…. It has been a wonderful eight months having him at home. Obviously, reality dictates that he has to return to work even though I wish he were home for good.

While Vince was off, I lead a monthly book study of A Mother’s Rule of Life: How to bring order to your home and peace to your soul by Holly Pierlot. I give thanks to God that I did. Through our 6 months of reading, discussing, and implementing this book with 6 other women, I feel so much better about Vince returning to work today. I feel that I, through the grace of God, have a better handle on living out my vocation as a wife and mother on a daily basis. In Holly’s book, she talks about living our lives according to 5 Ps (priorities): first Prayer (putting God first), second Person (taking care of yourself so that you can take care of others), third Partner (keeping your marriage flourishing, which directly impacts the 4th P), fourth Parent (helping our children grow to be children of virtue and faith), and fifth Provider (taking care of your home and providing for your family financially by using your resources appropriately).By living out these 5 Ps in our lives, we become more effective in our roles as wives and mothers, which helps our children in the long run.

As I adjust to being a stay-at-home mom by myself during the day, I have decided to write about one of the 5 Ps each week for the next 5 weeks. Please feel free to provide suggestions and comments as we go through the 5 Priorities.

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Keeping Christ in Christmas Day

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Vince and Melissa

With the materialism and focus on presents at Christmas, we have been trying to make an effort to keep Christ the center of our focus on Christmas Day. Here are a few things we have done over the past couple years. If you have any ideas of your own, please leave a comment with them.

  • Go to Mass! Midnight Mass is a little late for our kids, so we go to the Children’s Mass at our parish and then have a meal together (a réveillon) afterward.
  • Sing/Listen to Christmas carols: It’s a tradition in Melissa’s family to sing Christmas carols on Christmas Eve, which we do with the kids. Getting out the guitars helps to keep the kids attention too. Throughout the day on the 25th, we also keep the Christmas Carols playing.
  • Sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus: Last year, we added Baby Jesus to the manger scene under our Christmas tree first thing in the morning and sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. This tradition will continue this year too.
  • Before opening presents, we are going to eat breakfast together and light our Advent wreath with the white candle in the middle and do our family prayers for the day. This is going to be done before opening any gifts so that the focus stays on Christ.
  • When we do open our gifts, we do so one at a time so that there is a genuine interest in the giving and receiving, and not just a furry of activity to see “everything that I got”.
  • Before we eat our Christmas dinner, we make sure to say Grace and thank God for the feast we are about to eat and for all the blessings of the day. This is something so simple, yet you never know who’s heart it could touch.

We would like to wish you a wonderful Christmas Day filled with much joy, peace and blessings!

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Preparing Our Hearts for Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Melissa

It can be so easy to get bogged down and to feel overwhelmed and stressed out at this time of year, especially when Christmas Eve is only 6 days away. There are so many preparations to be made: gifts to buy, gifts to wrap, parcels to send, cards to write, groceries to buy, baking and cooking to do, decorating, and cleaning. I feel overwhelmed just thinking about all of this! It certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why it can be so easy to forget to prepare our hearts for Christmas and the Second Coming of Jesus. Beyond our daily Advent meditation, which we have added to our regular prayer time, there is one thing that we couldn’t recommend more to prepare our hearts: Confession.

Taking the time to get to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation is so important. Most parishes have Advent penitential services; however, most of them are probably over now (ours was this past Wednesday and we couldn’t make it because of whiteout conditions on the highway to get to the church). It’s not to late though! There are still 6 days before Christmas. That is 6 days for us to put God first and take the time to get to a church and prepare our hearts by letting go of our baggage of sin that we are carrying around and to replace our stony hearts with a heart of Jesus’s love and forgiveness. Since we missed our penitential service this week, we are planning on going to Mass 45 minutes early today so that we can both go to confession. Even if confession isn’t available before Mass at your parish, ask the priest after Mass today or some day before or after daily Mass this week, or call him to see when he is available. Whether it has been years, months, or days since our last confession, now is the time to embrace a new this wonderful gift God has given the Church to set us free from sin and welcome Jesus in to make a home in our hearts!

One great way to prepare for the sacrament of reconciliation is to do an examination of conscience beforehand. I (Melissa) will even write things down on a piece of paper, which I destroy afterward so that I don’t forget things during confession. If you are looking for an examination of conscience, there is a great one written by The Word Among Us on their website.

Know that you are in our prayers in a special way over the next 6 days that your hearts may be prepared for the glorious celebration of Christmas.

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Advent Adventures

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Vince and Melissa

Advent is such a special time in our home, which is why we have been a little too busy to write on here lately! Advent really is a time filled with adventure in so many ways. Not only were Mary and St. Joseph experiencing the adventure of their lives as they were approaching the birth of Jesus, but I feel like we as parents are on a bit of an adventure as we approach Christmas. We both find that Christmas is too materialistic and that the true meaning of Christmas as been lost in so many ways. On the other hand, advent is such as great time to embrace some of the great feasts and traditions in the Church, which can be fabulous moments to engage our children in the beauty of their Catholic faith.

For the remainder of advent, we will be writing some posts on our adventures as a family as we lead up to Christmas!

To give you a little update on where our adventures started here are a few ideas of some things we did as a family so far…

  • On November 28th, the first Sunday of Advent, we went to see A Christmas Karol: Karol Wojtyla 2010 Nativity Play put on by a group of 45 children. Our children has never been to a play before, so this was a very exciting experience.
  • We also started lighting our advent wreath every evening at dinner starting on the first Sunday of Advent. Then on December 1st, our children’s advent meditation book started: Gifts of Love, which we do during the lighting of the advent wreath. The meditation is really short. On each day we thank God for a gift he was given us, whether it be ourselves, our minds, our hands, our feet, our faith, etc… It’s only about 3-5 sentences long, which is great for a 3 year old’s attention span, and then there is a sticker to put on a different picture of a present that surrounds a manger scene of the Baby Jesus all the way until Christmas Eve. Marie-Therese has had a great time putting on the stickers and has fun remembering all the things we have said “thank you” to God for!
  • The feast of St. Nicholas: On December 6th, it was the feast of St. Nicholas, so on the evening of December 5th, Marie-Therese and Dominique put their boots by the door. On the morning of the 6th, we reminded our children of the story of St. Nicholas and then we went down to see their boots. We know that traditionally, children will find chocolate gold coins in their shoes; however, we have decided to put an advent / Christmas book or video in their shoes to help them better understand the true meaning of Christmas. During the day, we had a play date with several friends and we had the kids color pictures of St. Nicholas. What a fun day this was!

We hope you have enjoyed our adventure so far! If you have any adventures of your own that you would like to share, please leave us a comment and share them with us.

Happy Advent!

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