Friday Photo Favorites

Sing-Song

It's nine o'clock and there has already been three outfit changes and of promise of many more. Her first request almost every single day is for me to turn on the Ballet music, however this request is also almost always sung with arms gently outstretched like a perfect three year old ballerina. Most request are sung and if the reply is sung back it is always heeded. She also decompresses and processes her day by song alone in her bedroom, however her voice carries so we all know what was the best part of the day and what troubled her the most. She is just so very much fun! Right now we are best friends, in her mind and I love it. She ask me daily to jump on the trampoline with her and to play house, I am the kid.

Her favorite sayings, "Wait a minute, wait a minute.'

"Actually..."

"Wait, where are my sisters?"

"I'm the ABC"

This one is because after reading The Penderwicks, we picked up the phase OAP/OAB (oldest available Penderwick/Blaxton) who is left in charge of a situation. Oh my goodness what an honor to be the OAB for those that are not usually left in charge. So now Eleanor will help me set the table and declare herself the "ABC"

Friday Photo Favorites

Sliding through Summer!

Sorting out

This week the USCCB has declared NFP awareness week in honor of Humanae Vitae.

I think it is somewhat of a tragedy that they do. The emphasis of our sacramental love is shifted to the exception of the sacrament verse focusing on what should be the norm. It is as if we have a week celebrating or aware-ing us all the exception of receiving the Eucharist in the hand verses the norm of receiving on the tongue.  NFP has a place as a tool only a tool, it is not actual teaching of the Church. Nothing in the Church doctrine say NFP is of the church or of grace giving...it is morally permissible under the correct conditions only. Unlike sacramentals and devotions which are encouraged throughout Church history. 

Has good come from NFP, absolutely. Good has also come from Retrouvaille, as well. These are both tools and should be treated as such, very handy, very useful and have a purpose in a context, but are that, only tools. These are expectations not the norms. 

These past four weeks, I have spent pouring over the Catechism, Encyclicals, addresses, papers and forms and am still hashing out the ins and outs of all this. What I do know is the current, modern approach to NFP is an extremely contraceptive one.  Most diocese, including the one we were married in 13 years ago, required us to take an intro and two follow ups of  NFP. WHY? If it's because "most couples with engage in conception in some form so let's give them a morally licit one" that is not morally licit. NFP as alternative to conception is not morally licit. You cannot use NFP with a contraceptive mindset. And as thus you have successful paraded young Catholics into grave matter. This is same mentality that says young people will have sex any way so give them condoms to limit STDs. 

Teach the young couples their wedding vows, how at the Altar they will vow to accept children generously from the Lord and vow to teach them in the ways of the faith. Teach them that children are the crowning glory of the marriage. Teach them that if there is reason to delay children, there is reason to reexamine their wedding date. 

I think that NFP is being sold in a deceptive way, a way that is diminishing our openness to life. 

I write this as a supremely frustrated lay person, but not as someone who has any right to judge any decisions, you, your spouse and spiritual director have come to under pray and discernment. Every family and situation is entirely unique. Good has certainly come from the use of NFP, and there is a place for it as a tool to be used under proper discernment.

As I am sorting this out my first question is why did the Church allow the use of NFP in the first place, which the first time a Pope addressed this in the 1850's? Was it out of fear that many would follow the way of contraception? Was it because the unify aspect of conjugal love was being discussed and it's importance was thus that extremely long periods of abstinence was not good?

Big Sky

Oh how I miss the Texas sky. Big sky. With sunsets that wrapped all the way around you. I miss seeing for miles and the big deep breath that comes with it. However, the sunsets at The Hill can be pretty spectacular as well.

So often in the mornings and evenings there is mist rolling over the hills.

God's display on July 4th.

Friday Photo Favorites

When I flip through the pictures this one shocked me...I don't see my 4 year old Annie K. I see my 8 year old Mary Colette. Anastasia, you are stunning, just like your sisters. I pray your physical beauty does not define you, but that your physical beauty is simply making the invisible visible. 

Who's who?

I thought these two look similar and like their own all together.