Postscripts From The Catholic Spitfire Grill

The inspiration came from the challenge of keeping our little girls occupied and behaving at Mass. We tried the glass children’s room in our church, but that was more like a day-care center than Mass. I saw parents in the pews supplying the kids with baggies of Cheerios and coloring books, and though we resorted to that once or twice, that didn’t sit right with me. I saw some parents supply their kids with bible story books or children’s prayer books: a step in the right direction, but this still left the child disconnected from the Mass. Then it occurred to me to look for children’s bible stories synchronized with the lectionary cycle. Finding none, I wrote this book, the first in a series of three.

Is he singing the song of my frustration with bringing all three of my children into full participation in the Mass or what!? Except for the part about looking for bible stories connected to the lectionary…and then of course solving the problem by writing the solution….I could have written the above paragraph.

The intent of this book is to help parents and educators bring Jesus’ message to children in a way that will include them more fully in the weekly Mass. This book does not try to change the gospel stories to be stylish or impose the latest slang onto them. It is a children’s English translation, for our children to understand and hear Jesus’ voice more clearly as He speaks to them in the pages of the Gospel.

The gospel reading fom each Sunday’s Mass is represented in clear, simple, and sometimes expanded text that speaks to our children without speaking down to them. The text does not soften the demands of a life of faith, or water down the sadness or joy expressed in this great story.

I really like the idea behind this book. I would have loved to be able to have a quiet gospel time with my children before Mass so that they had already “met” the gospel for the week when they heard it at Mass. The gospel for each week of the entire cycle B of the lectionary (or November 30, 2008 to November 22, 2009) is printed in adult-sized type with the simplified version of the gospel written in large child-friendly print with engaging illustrations. There is absolutely nothing about this book that I didn’t like. I enthusiastically recommend it to every parent who is trying to walk with their children as they bring them into full participation at weekly Mass.

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……

According to John Paul II, the dignity and balance of human life depend at every moment of history and at every point on the globe on who woman will be for man and who man will be for woman (TOB 43:7). The sexual relationship — the relationship of man to woman and woman to man — is the deepest foundation of human ethics and culture. (TOB 45:3). The union of man and woman builds and shapes families, families shape neighborhoods, neighborhoods shape communities, communities shape cities, cities shape states, states shape nations, nations shape the world. When the sexual relationship breaks down, eventually so does everything resting on it. (page 54)

To which I will only add. “Amen.” and offer my opinion that this books offers a good introduction to the completion of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body if you aren’t starting from scratch with regard to his message, and that it is an excellent place for learning about the Theology of the Body if you aren’t already familiar with this important Church teaching.

This review was written as part of The Catholic Company product reviewer program.  Visit Catholic Company to find more information on Heaven’s Song

I am going to shamelessly steal an idea from Soutenus at A Catholic Notebook who had the grand idea of asking Catholic bloggers what their favorite Catholic books are…this is one post that would be best if all of the comments ended up in one place. Read it here on my new blog.

However, I was truly excited to discover that Ignatius Press is releasing critical editions of King Lear, Frankenstein, and Wuthering Heights. From the editorial description:

The Ignatius Critical Editions represent a tradition-oriented alternative to popular textbook series such as the Norton Critical Editions or Oxford World Classics, and are designed to concentrate on traditional readings of the Classics of world literature. Whereas many modern critical editions have succumbed to the fads of modernism and post-modernism, this series will concentrate on tradition-oriented criticism of these great works. Edited by acclaimed literary biographer, Joseph Pearce, the Ignatius Critical Editions will ensure that traditional moral readings of the works are given prominence, instead of the feminist, or deconstructionist readings that often proliferate in other series of ‘critical editions’. As such, they represent a genuine extension of consumer-choice, enabling educators, students and lovers of good literature to buy editions of classic literary works without having to ‘buy into’ the ideologies of secular fundamentalism. The series is particularly aimed at tradition-minded literature professors offering them an alternative for their students. The initial list will have about 15 - 20 titles. The goal is to release three books a season, or six in a year. The first three titles to release in April 2008 are King Lear, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights.

tI hope this excites other readers out there as much as it excited me! Back to making lesson plans…..and as long as I am making recommendations I highly recommend Edu-Track for this onerous task.

I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further. So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot “affirm” and “accept,” but first one must say “yes” where one really can. If I affirm myself as a Catholic merely by denying all that is Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. in the end I will find that there is not much left for me to affirm as a Catholic: and certainly no breath of the Spirit with which to affirm it.

The author, Heidi Hess Saxton, is also a convert to Catholicism. Like me, she struggled with the idea of asking Mary to pray for us and names herself as possibly the most stubborn and contrary of all her adopted children. I beg to differ. That would be me. In fact, she starts her book of meditations with a a story that had me rolling because I could so relate. I hope she doesn’t mind telling me at least some of it here. I promise I am leaving out an hysterical punchline and you MUST buy the book in order to hear the end. Heidi was lonely and wanted someone to sit with in church. A Catholic friend of Heidi’s had suggested telling Mary about her loneliness and desire to have a friend to sit with in church an idea that didn’t sit well with Heidi at all…..

That Sunday my eyes fell on the medal as I drove into the church parking lot. Almost gingerly I picked it up. It was still cold with winter chill. Closing my eyes, I said, God, I don’t know if I should be doing this. If this isn’t something I should be doing, don’t let anything happen today that I could take as a sign that this is OK.” I pasued, then took a breath and spouted out, “Mary-if-you-can-hear-me-I’d-like-someone-to-sit-with-inchurch-today-Amen.”

I entered the church, went to my usual pew, piled my coat and purse beside me (on the aisle, so no one could slip in while I wasn’t looking), got down on the kneeler, and began to pray.

When the Pastor told us to turn and greet people, I looked up to find a woman about my age standing next to me. “Hi! Can I sit with you? I just moved here a month ago and don’t know anyone yet.” Dumbfounded, I moved my coat and let her slide in.

It’s a fluke, I told myself.

The next week I repeated the same routine, asking God to keep me from error, sending up a quick reminder to Mary that I wanted someone to sit with, then going into the church and barricading  myself in the pew. When I looked up that time, an older woman was standing there. “Can I sit with you dear?”

The third week I knew what was going to happen. “I mean it God. I’m going to keep doing this if You keep sending me pew mates……”

Because God has a raucous sense of humor, I will tell you that a punch line follows. But the big punchline is what happens when a reader of the first edition of this book prays much the same as Heidi did. You GOTTA read that.

Highly recommended reading. I also highly recommend Heidi’s blogs: Behold Your Mother and Streams of Mercy which just “happened” to have an entry today that I think will nicely round out this review.

Finally, a gentle warning. Jesus warned that unless we become like little children, we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It took God many years and quite a number of strippings and humblings before I was willing to say,

I don’t have the answers, Lord. Only questions. You are God, and I am not … You are pure mystery, and my mind is blinded by prejudice, ignorance, and error. Help me. Guide me each step of the way, and take these blinders from my eyes and help me to truly see.”

This is a dangerous prayer, but a necessary one. It’s not enough to read the Bible … one must interpret it correctly as well. We do this not in isolation, but in union with Christians going all the way back to the first apostles. We must not “proof text” isolated Scriptures to harden our hearts and minds, but invite the Holy Spirit to open us to ALL the truth God wants us to understand. Almost inevitably, He does this through the treasury of wisdom that is available to us through the teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium) and the saints.

And buy the book would ‘ya?….make it worth Heidi’s time to send me another one.

Have you brought Jesus flowers today?