Faith & Family Live!

Faith & Family Live is where everyday moms offer one another inspiration, support, and encouragement in Catholic living. Anyone grappling with the meaning of life or the cleaning of laundry is welcome here. Read the blog, check out our magazine, join our community, learn more about our mission, and come on in! READ MORE

Daily Lenten Meditations

«  March 2010  »

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
  • Pray Light a candle. Every time you pass that candle today, offer a prayer of thanks. Don’t ask for anything. Just thank him.
  • Fast Don’t cut corners. Even if no one will know, complete today’s work thoroughly.
  • Give Touch is a powerful thing. Make an effort today to touch your children: a hug, a shoulder rub, a tousled head -- especially the bigger ones
1
  • Pray Make five minutes in the morning, at midday and in the evening to be still, silent, and alone, only asking God to infuse your soul with his will.
  • Fast No noise today. Turn off the TV, the radio, the iPod. Find God in the silence.
  • Give Pay particular unsolicited attention to your least demanding child today.
2
  • Pray Begin a gratitude journal. At the end of the day, jot down five things for which you are grateful. Think upon these things.
  • Fast Remember the first time you had a moment alone with your first child. What did you promise him? Do that. Be that.
  • Give We can only expect what we inspect. For every task you assign today, follow through and before it’s truly finished ensure that there is praise from you.
3
  • Pray “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me." -- John 10:27
  • Fast Every time a child interrupts you today, stop what you are doing and look into his eyes as he talks.
  • Give “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” -- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Speak kindly all day long.
4
  • Pray Ask God to show you how weak and small you are. Open your heart to see it.
  • Fast Don’t argue today. As much as possible give up, give in, give way.
  • Give When you are tempted to put on the TV for kids today, pull out a stack of favorite picture books instead. Invite the kids to join you on the couch.
5
  • Pray Take a walk, even if it’s cold or raining. Leave your iPod at home.
  • Fast Think of someone whose life you are tempted to envy and then choke out these words: Thank you, God, for the blessings you have given to X. Help me to see my own.
  • Give Think about the kind of person your husband married. Be that person for him today.
6
7
  • Pray "Love consumes us only in the measure of our self-surrender." -- St. Therese of Lisieux
  • Fast As you go about your daily routine today, remember that you are expecting someone very important for dinner tonight. Together with your children, work towards your husband’s homecoming as if you were expecting to welcome a king back to his castle.
  • Give “You can do nothing with children unless you win their confidence and love by bringing them into touch with oneself, by breaking through all the hindrances that keep them at a distance. We must accommodate ourselves to their tastes, we must make ourselves like them.” -- St. John Bosco
8
  • Pray Take this quote to prayer today and listen to God’s answer: “Real love is demanding. I would fail in my mission if I did not tell you so. Love demands a personal commitment to the will of God.” -- John Paul II
  • Fast Stop looking for encouragement and approval. Genuinely encourage and affirm someone else instead.
  • Give Let your child choose a huge stack of picture books (use that word “huge” when you ask her to gather them). Read them all to her today.
9
  • Pray Persevere. “He who does not give up prayer cannot possibly continue to offend God habitually. Either he will give up prayer, or he will give up sinning.” -- St. Alphonsus Liguori
  • Fast Don’t forget that the only pedestal you need ever stand on, is the one your husband and children build for you.
  • Give Focus on your home today. The world can find another volunteer, but your husband and children have only you.
10
  • Pray Insist on quiet from all your children during naptime today. Pray the Divine Mercy chaplet.
  • Fast We’re half way through. Compare yourself now only to yourself when Lent began. Tweak the plan.
  • Give Reach out to a local friend today. Reconnect.
11
  • Pray Ask God to make you humble and lowly.
  • Fast Don’t compare or complain. Do compliment.
  • Give Pack a picnic and go somewhere to eat it with your children. If the weather is prohibitive, build a tent in the living room and it eat there. Sit on the ground with them. Be fully present.
12
  • Pray Sometime before bedtime tonight, make time to pray with and for each of your children.
  • Fast Rise a little earlier and bring your husband breakfast in bed. (If it’s too late today, plan for tomorrow).
  • Give Plan a date night.
13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31

Bloggers

Meet the Faith & Family bloggers. We invite you to join us in encouraging and helping the Faith & Family community grow in faith!

Danielle Bean

Danielle Bean
Danielle Bean, a mother of eight, is Editorial Director of Faith & Family. She is author of My Cup of Tea: Musings of a Catholic Mom (Pauline 2005) and Mom to Mom, Day to Day: Advice and Support for Catholic Living (Pauline 2007). Though she once struggled to separate her life …
Read My Posts

Rachel Balducci

Rachel Balducci
Rachel Balducci is married to Paul and together they are the parents of five lively boys. Besides being a mom, she is also a writer and a newspaper columnist for the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia. For the past four years, she has maintained her personal blog at Testosterhome.net where she …
Read My Posts

Lisa Hendey

Lisa Hendey
Lisa Hendey is the founder and editor of CatholicMom.com, a Catholic web site focusing on the Catholic faith, Catholic parenting and family life, and Catholic cultural topics. Most recently she has authored The Handbook for Catholic Moms. Lisa is also employed as webmaster for her parish web sites. …
Read My Posts

Arwen Mosher

Arwen Mosher
Arwen Mosher lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband Bryan and their young children Camilla and Blaise. She has a bachelor's degree in theology. She dreads laundry, craves sleep, loves to read novels and do logic puzzles, and can't live without tea. Her personal blog site is ABC Family. …
Read My Posts

Rebecca Teti

Rebecca Teti
Rebecca Teti is married to Dennis and has four children (3 boys, 1 girl) who -- like yours no doubt -- are pious and kind, gorgeous, and can spin flax into gold. A Washington, DC, native, she converted to Catholicism while an undergrad at the U. Dallas, where she double-majored in …
Read My Posts

Robyn Lee

Robyn Lee
Robyn Lee is the managing editor of Faith & Family magazine. She is (yikes!) an almost 30 year-old, single lady, living in Connecticut with her two cousins in a small bungalow-style kit house built by her great uncle in the 1950s. She also conveniently lives next door to her sister, brother-in-law …
Read My Posts

Hallie Lord

Hallie Lord
Hallie Lord married her dashing husband, Dan, in the fall of 2001 (the same year, coincidentally, that she joyfully converted to the Catholic faith). They now happily reside in the deep South with their two energetic boys and two very sassy girls. In her *ample* spare time, Hallie enjoys cheap wine, …
Read My Posts

Fr. John Bartunek, LC

Fr. John Bartunek, LC

Fr John Bartunek, LC, STL, received his BA in History from Stanford University in 1990, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He comes from an evangelical Christian background and became a member of the Catholic Church in 1991. After college he worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and …
Read My Posts

Guest Bloggers

Melissa Wiley

Melissa Wiley
Melissa Wiley is a homeschooling mother of six and the author of The Martha Years and The Charlotte Years, two series of books about the ancestors of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She blogs about children’s books, family, and home education at Here in the Bonny Glen.
Read My Posts

Get our FREE Daily Digest

Add Faith & Family to iTunes

 
 

St. Joseph and Blossoming of Faith

User's Guide to Sunday

(In this weekly column, Tom and April Hoopes share family-friendly ways of observing the liturgical year and celebrating the Sunday readings.)

Sunday, March 14 (Year C, Cycle II), is the Fourth Sunday of Lent: Laetare Sunday.

Papal

Laetare (Rejoice) Sunday is the day that — since we have passed the halfway point of Lent — the Church looks forward to the joy of Easter. It’s called “Rose Sunday” for two reasons. First, priests may wear rose-colored (practically pink) vestments today. Second, it’s... READ MORE


Waiting for Sunshine

Lent, Light, and Maple Syprup

As a photographer by profession and by nature, I am constantly aware of sunlight. Watching sunlight move through the day, arranging itself around objects and landscapes in ever-changing ways, is a constant source of joy and hope for me.  It is, perhaps, for this reason that enduring the winter months when the sun gets up late and goes to bed early can be a challenge. As early as four o’clock in the afternoon, while there is still much to be done in my day, the beauty of twilight is snuffed out by... READ MORE


Newt Gingrich Makes a Move

Former Speaker of the House Finds a Home in God's House
Newt Gingrich and wife Callista

(Faith & Family likes to focus on what celebrities get right. The prominent people we highlight in our My Faith & Family features may not have always been Catholic role models, but they acknowledge the debt they owe to their families and to the Catholic faith.)

The pivotal moment in the Catholic conversion of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich may have occurred during Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 Apostolic Visit to the U.S., but the seeds of faith were planted long before, during Gingrich’s childhood.... READ MORE


Giving Up the World

And Gaining a New One

I had plans, good ones. The world was a mess, I was 25 years old, and I was going to help fix it. 

I had seen much of the world, through travels in Honduras, India, and Bosnia, and wanted to pour myself out to ease the pain that I saw on so many faces. It seemed to me that I needed a graduate degree for this work, so that I would have the credentials to organize large-scale efforts to bring Christ and His healing to a world so full of despair.

(You are allowed to chuckle at my hubris. I certainly... READ MORE


Surrender the Choosing

A Lenten Journey Toward Trust

Lent began for our family last June. That’s when rumors of a third round of layoffs started circling at my husband’s company, which had already bled jobs for a year. We tightened our careful budget yet again, decided that chairs for our new house could wait. So could a desk and a piano. And blinds. And a TV.  When the axe finally fell two weeks before Christmas, delayed gratification was getting old.

By February, it was spreading to necessities. When a friend asked me what I was giving up for Lent,... READ MORE


Spending Lent With Mary

Inspired by Our Lady's Ongoing Example

Lent began, for me, in an unfamiliar house, face-to-face with a woman who is living my nightmare.

On Epiphany this year, my sister-in-law faced a horror I can’t imagine, one that tops her list of sorrows and that has changed my prayer life forever.

When her husband, my brother-in-law, died suddenly and unexpectedly, it felt like Lent had already begun. In fact, it felt a lot like Good Friday, stretched out over weeks.

And then I went to Mardi Gras, that grand celebration before the official start... READ MORE


A Week of Family Days

User's Guide to Sunday

(In this weekly column, Tom and April Hoopes share family-friendly ways of observing the liturgical year and celebrating the Sunday readings.)

Sunday, March 7, is the Third Sunday in Lent (Year C, Cycle II).

Papal

Pope Benedict XVI is not just the bishop of the whole Church — he’s the bishop of Rome, and on March 7 he won’t be celebrating 9am Mass at St. Peter’s; he’ll be at St. John of the Cross parish in Rome.

You can share with your family all the titles the Pope has, according to the Vatican... READ MORE


Make a Better Confession

Use Lent to Seek Forgiveness
Catholic News Service

Lent has begun. It’s the time to fast, pray and give alms. These 40 days are also a good opportunity to better understand the sacrament of reconciliation.

The key to making a good confession is knowing oneself, says Chicago’s Father Peter Armenio, a priest of Opus Dei. “Self-knowledge is the building block for contrition. I can’t be sorry unless I know myself,” says the priest who spends long hours each week hearing confessions.

He explains that honesty and the Holy Spirit will help us come to know... READ MORE


What Faith Looks Like

an ongoing study of the Catechism

If I were describing my daughter’s characteristics, I’d say she’s a blue-eyed blond in Birkenstocks. We tend to see the characteristics of each person as unique to them. Yet, as members of the human race, we share universal features.  The same holds true of faith.

While each believer experiences faith in a personal way, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) describes characteristics of faith common to all believers.

First, faith is both a grace and a free human act, having both divine and human... READ MORE


How To Get Over It

A Guide for Imperfect Victims

Someone hurt you.  Someone did something awful, and you didn’t deserve it at all.

Eventually, he apologized, stopped doing the thing that hurt so badly, and moved on with his life.

But you’re still hurt.  You pray for the grace to be forgiving; you argue with yourself that moving on is healthy; and you chide yourself for dwelling in the past.

But it still hurts.  Every time you’re tired or discouraged, the whole force of that old injury comes slamming back, and suddenly you’re back in victim mode: ... READ MORE



Page 1 of 24 pages  1 2 3 >  Last Page »

<--Uservoice-->