Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

I have finished the bulk of my homeschool planning for the coming year. [Deep contented sigh.] For those of you who are interested in what I use, here are the general details.

We have used Sonlight Curriculum from the very beginning of our homeschooling. I like that I can re-use each year’s curriculum with my younger children with a minimal purchase of consumable materials. I like that we are building a library of real books. I like that it’s an extremely adaptable curriculum. It is a Protestant curriculum but it has been an easy matter to adapt the curriculum to our family’s needs.

Aleks math….may I just say what a godsend Aleks math has been for us?

We will continue using Magnificat for our daily prayer/Sacred Scripture times. We do morning prayers together, Angelus & Mass readings just before lunch, and when things are going well a family rosary before read-aloud time in the afternoon.

We usually ditch most of the SL Bible portion of the core, and I susbstitute read-alouds from biographies of Saints, and other inspirational people of faith. I believe strongly that the best interpretation of Sacred Scripture is read in the lives of the Saints so how the Saints lived their faith is the backbone of our catechism time. Books by Mary Fabyan Windeatt are a good starting place for the younger elementary kids with the exception of the book she did on Blessed Imelda Lambertini and everyone needs to read that one. The Vision series of books (here’s one) is also good those listenee’s that are a little older. The books by Louis de Wohl are similar to the Henty books in that there’s a lot of history in them but they tend to be dry to read-aloud and they are similarly biased like the Henty books. I highly recommend The Shadow of His Wings for anyone who will be covering WWII with jr high and up children. It’s a very exciting book and drives home the point that not all Germans were bad guys as well as the power of prayer! At times I will also work in books like The How-to Book of the Mass 

Some other resources that we have used in the past that you might want to look at:

Mass Explained to Children (this is an explanation of the pre-Vatican II mass but without too much difficulty can be used to discuss Novus Ordo)

Also pre-Vatican II but very helpful Know Your Mass

Another pre-Vatican II re-print My Catholic Faith ….some of the rules have changed from then to now but it’s broken up into very digestible, systematic chunks, which makes it easy to discuss with children.

New to our catechism time this year will be An Introduction to Catholicism from the Didache series. I know my high schooler could benefit, my jr. higher is up to is, what remains to be seen is if my youngest (9 yodd) will be totally swamped by it. I am also hoping to spend some time with my two oldest on the Theology of the Body for Teens sometime during the year. I have just started viewing the DVD’s that go with this program and I am very impressed. I think that teaching our children the Theology of the Body is essential and am enthusiastically recommending this as a way of incorporating it into your youth groups, and homeschools. Please check out what others have to say as well.

Nobattleplansurvivescontactwiththeenemy. Nobattleplansurvivescontactwiththeenemy. Nobattleplan……

I’m sure you’ve heard about the outrageous sacrilege committed by PZ Myers. If you haven’t, Jimmy Akin sums it up here. I’m not going to comment on what he did. You don’t need me to do that.

But I will encourage you to make August a month of prayer for PZ Myers. But let’s not just pray for his conversion. Let’s be a little more daring. Let’s pray that he will become our next St. Paul — not an the Apostle to the Gentiles, but an Apostle of the Eucharist.

This isn’t as odd as it might sound. One theme running throughout the lives of the saints, espeically saints that lives worldly lives before their conversion, is this: Their greatest sins became the foundation of their holiness. St. Paul persecuted the Church, and so God used him to build up the Church. St. Augustine lived a life of fleshly pleasure, so God made him the one to clarify the Christian view of conjugal love and made him the model of acesticism. St. Ignatius of Loyola longed to be a military man, and so God made him the head of, at one time, one of the most influential religious orders in the world. And little Therese Martin was extremely selfish in the smallest things of life, so God used her to teach the world how to become extraordinarily holy by giving Jesus the smallest of our acts.

So beginning next Friday, August 1, let us all join in prayer for the conversion of PZ Myers every day, until Sunday, August 31. Let us pray Rosaries for his conversion, offer up the Mass for his conversion, engage in abstinence and fasting for his conversion, and spend time in Adoration for his conversion.

In other words, let’s treat the man as Christ would have us treat him — with profound love.

So get the word out. Email your friends and relatives. Put it on your blogs and websites. Maybe one of you could made a flier that we could put in our parishes (contact me, and I’ll make it available through the Apostolate).

To which I will only add, please consider making the Holy Hour of Reparation for the Sacred Heart of Jesus part of your prayers for PZ Myers and all who share his contempt for the things of God.