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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
  • Pray Give thanks for food, clothes, and shelter. Listen to His plan for stewardship.
  • Fast Clean out the refrigerator today instead of eating lunch. Pull everything out and wipe it all down. As you do it, thank God for the food he provides for your family.
  • Give “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” -- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
15
  • Pray Before you read or do anything else today, pray this prayer, taken from the writings of St. Louis de Montfort: Lord, help me to imitate Mary's deep humility, lively faith, blind obedience, unceasing prayer, constant self-denial, surpassing purity, ardent love, heroic patience, angelic kindness, and heavenly wisdom. Amen.
  • Fast Give up thinking things have to be perfect.
  • Give As you do laundry today, bless the person for whom you are folding. With every crease, offer a prayer.
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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 …
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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 …
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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. …
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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. …
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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 …
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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 …
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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, …
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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 …
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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

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Real Presence of Real Books

How Reading Enriches Your Family Life

The sacramental life of our Mother Church deals in the tangible reality of the creation for a reason: the physicality of good things can guide, teach, protect, and heal us.  A child who grows up in the presence of good (and even great!) books may be profoundly affected in enduring, nurturing ways.

The recent canonization of Damian of Molokai drew me back into the living room of the childhood house. My love for this new saint originated in that living room where handsome hardwood bookshelves lined the walls, displaying titles, in several languages, that spanned the centuries of human history. Growing up surrounded by hundreds of books of literature, philosophy, biography and art was integral to my intellectual formation and has been woven into my life as a Catholic mother.

My father didn’t believe in the value of television. As our large family was a center for much visiting by family and friends, we spent much of our leisure time in that large room with walls of books.  I can still “see” in my mind entire shelves with the titles displayed on colorful spines, some newer, some well-worn. Thus did I become acquainted with such authors as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Maritain, Chesterton, and the great Brazilian writers, such as Machado de Assis.

Old Books, Old Friends

Great volumes with reproductions of sacred art held my attention for hours at a time across many years. Among all the minor books, encyclopedia, and dictionaries, there was one book—whether due to its format or its location on the shelf—that caught my year after year before I ever felt old enough (or tall enough) to actually bring it down. It was “Damiao o Leproso” by one John Farrow, who then I would not have recognized as the father of actress Mia Farrow.

A sturdy hardcover, translated into Portuguese from the original British publication, the book seemed unpretentious, yet it held promise. No attractive jacket blurb told me that was a biography of a humble Belgian priest. No customer reviews could warn me of how I would so deeply admire a man who fought against fortune and authority to give his life truly for Christ in the person of his leprous neighbors in Hawaii.
Many years passed. I married, began living my vocation of wife and mother, and I never forgot the story of the saintly priest who worked tirelessly, and died among his beloved lepers. Yet when he was beatified by John Paul II, it confirmed all I learned from that wonderful book: despite his shortcomings and his critics, he was indeed a saint! And I felt he was my friend.

When recently my teens joined a service group and voted Blessed Damien for the group’s patron, that book on the shelf came to mind. I could almost touch and smell it, and I rejoiced in knowing that the teens are inspired by such an exemplary friend in heaven!

Book Blessings Multiply

My husband and I bought a set of bookshelves many moves ago. They are white, fairly inexpensive, but sturdy places to hold our many books. After all, we have always enjoyed saying that once we brought our books together when we married, they quickly began to multiply!

Our cheerful shelves have been the “trademark” look of the Braga-Henebry household and the background for many family pictures through the years! After each move we have sought to reproduce the ordering: Catholic fiction, theology, poetry, Shakespeare, American and world Literature, history, science, our diverse books from college, and the books passed on from parents, and given by friends. My husband’s precious collection of Greek Loebs in their lime green jackets which have always adorned a top shelf. I just know that every time my kids visit a home with those small distinctive volumes displayed in a row they will recall home and conversations will ensue.

How many books on our shelves are even now inspiring our children? How many of these spines, covers, pages, and places will remain in their memory? How many poems, quotations, images? In what instances in life will they recall these old friends and fill their hearts with noble memories? By surrounding, enveloping our kids with books — good and true — the possibilities are boundless!

— Ana Braga-Henebry has a Masters Degree in Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas. She has written myriad articles for Catholic homeschool periodicals, has been writing book reviews for over ten years, and blogs from the family acreage in South Dakota.


Comments

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My 23 month old son absolutely loves books!  We’ve been reading to him since he was 2 months old.  We have all the classics (The Very Busy Spider, Brown Bear, etc).  I’m hoping that his love of reading will continue throughout his life.

 

You just made me feel a lot better about the huge order of vision books I placed a little while ago. I feared the order might have been indulgent, now I’ve changed my mind!

 

Molly, even in our graduate school days, when money was beyond tight. we bought books: the best thing wort buying!

 

Ana, our oldest son graduated from high school last year.

There was a senior talent show, and one of the boys read “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Seuss.  I cried the whole way trhough, because I remembered all the times I had read that book with my son when he was little.  (I’m sure I wasn’t the only one!)  Then, when we took our son to college, there was that same book again: a drawing based on it is painted on the sidewalk at his school.  Most of the students had probably been read that book as children and would remember.

I am also finding that books can tie older and younger siblings together.  When much youunger sibs read things their older brothers and sisteres read, it creates a lovely bond.

And then there are the memories!  One night, i was reading a chunky board book with our toddler, and an older son, who was seventeen at the time, smiled and said, “I remember that book!”  I had not read it to him in fourteen years… but he remembered!

Amen to all you wrote, Ana.

 

When we were raising our six, every Friday night was Family Night, when we did something together as a family.  Every month, one of those would be Library Night, when we all went down to the local library to check out the books.  We had to limit them to no more than 10 books per kid, or it was impossible to keep track of them all when it was time to return them!  The trips home from the library, and the weekend thereafter, were wonders of silence and tranquility as the kids poured over their piles of books, and then started trading them with one another.

Our strategy for encouraging reading was so counter-cultural as to be almost offensive to some: we have no television in our home.  For entertainment, the kids had to read, so they grew up doing so.  The difference it makes in their cognizance, mental acuity, and even attention span is unbelievable - we almost felt we were sending our kids to school with an unfair advantage over their fellows!

I’d recommend all parents read Neal Postman’s classic Amusing Ourselves to Death.  It gives you an entirely new perspective on video vs. print, and how the form of our learning affects how we think.

 

Good for you, Prince!  We do have a TV in the house, but my son (who will be turning 2 two weeks after Christmas) has never once watched a TV show.  People are often shocked to hear this.  There aren’t enough hours in the day to do the things I want to do with him, and I can’t imagine TV cutting into his play/learning time.


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