My Son the Writer and Eucharistic Adoration

Teen son wants to be a professional writer (remind me to tell you the story someday of how he HATED writing). He is currently writing a fantasy trilogy. Yep, three novels. He's not ambitious or anything.

But fantasy isn't all he writes. He helped me with a teen book that is soon (prayerfully) to be published and he is the student columnist in the current Heart and Mind issue (spring). Look for him, his pen name is Christian Ohnimus (rhymes with anonymous.)

Here is something that he wrote for the newsletter of the Holy Adoration Eucharistic Chapel:

After a fast-paced week full of school, work and extra-curricular activities, the quiet peace-time of holy adoration early Saturday mornings has been a wonderful way to tone it all down for me, and has been for years. With the constant hustle and bustle of everyday life, and the constant contact with sounds and noises that go along with it, there really is no better way to relax than to spend time with God, and chapel is the perfect place to do that. With the soft glow of lights, flickering candles, and most importantly, the very presence of God in the Eucharist looking down on the bowed heads of those at prayer, a quiet atmosphere ensues the moment one enters the chapel.

But holy adoration is more than a way to relax, it is a special time set aside to commune with God in ways that really are not the same when at prayer even in the comfort of one’s own home. One seems to discover a content and quiet peace of mind the moment the door closes behind them, shutting out the busy world outside for a time; for chapel really is its own little world, detached from the material things just outside its doors, in the world, but not of the world.

Time should be set aside in prayer every day, of course, but attending chapel once a week gives one the chance to incorporate prayer into our lives in a way that really keeps us focused on prayer, placing God at the top of the list and just letting the rest of our lives fall into place around Him. Time spent talking to God through prayer, reading scripture and in meditation becomes even more potent when directly in the presence of the Eucharist and our awareness of the presence of God and the impact he has on our lives is enhanced beyond previous degrees to new levels that help to develop our spiritual lives so that we may come ever closer to our Lord, Jesus Christ.

This article brought me to tears.
Hope you don't mind a little mom bragging.

Review of the Companion

Karen Edmisten wrote such a lovely review of The Catholic Homeschool Companion Wednesday that I am still blushing. It's a very detailed review if you're wondering whether or not the Companion is worth a purchase. I'd like to share the part of Karen's review about the Dad chapter:

The entire chapter on dads, for dads and by dads (with essays by Steve Wood, Frederick Cabell, Jr., Ed Rivet and Dan McGuire) is terrific. I almost called this chapter "dessert" but on reflection, it's more like having strawberries after a meal: absolutely delicious, and most certainly a treat, but as healthy and nutritionally necessary as the rest of the meal ... because a healthy homeschool is one that not only acknowledges dad, but also relies on him, recognizing his place as the spiritual head of the family and thus of the homeschool. I'm reminded of the old saying, "The father is the head of the household, and the mother is the heart." Or, of another observation made by a priest friend: "The father is the head, and the mother is the neck that turns the head." The team effort that's necessary shouldn't be a sweet extra.

Thank you Karen!

Get the Companion 30% Off

If you're dying to own The Catholic Homeschool Companion, but almost passed out when you saw the sticker price (24.95), it's available for a limited time at All Catholic Books for 30% off. They have lots of other great books too at a very nice discount.

I'm So Excited, I Just Can't Hide It

I just got an email from my public library and they're ordering the complete Alton Brown's Food Network Show video series. Ask and you shall receive!

I've got them on hold already. To tide me over until they're delivered, I checked out Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen.

Ummm, I wonder if they have I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking or any of his other titles. I'm off to check my library's website!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

I got this Blogthing from St. Athanasius Academy who got it from Cay's Cajun Cottage. Try it for fun. Ida never thunk me to be a joke writer.

You Should Be a Joke Writer

You're totally hilarious, and you can find the humor in any situation. Whether you're spouting off zingers, comebacks, or jokes about life... You usually can keep a crowd laughing, and you have plenty of material. You have the makings of a great comedian - or comedic writer.

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Addendum: This is a grownup site. Several of the quizzes are definitely NOT for kids. Anyone know of a kid-safe version?

Prayers Please

Please pray for my brother-in-law Tom who is having cataract surgery today. He'll be having a second surgery later. He is only in his 40's. So make sure that y'all are getting your own eyes checked regularly!

PopeStNick: De-Coding Mary Magdalene

With the upcoming Da Vinci Code movie, this is an important title to get into public libraries.

Check to see if this title is already in your library's catalog. If it is, put a hold on it and check it out. If not, fill out a patron request form right away. This can usually be done online at your library's website.

Title: De-coding Mary Magdalene: Truth, Legend, And Lies
Author: Amy Welborn
Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor, Indiana
Date Published: March 2006
ISBN: 1592762093
Price: 9.95 Softcover
Comments: Go beyond the Da Vinci Code and learn the real story behind St. Mary Magdalene.


From the publisher:
Recent bestsellers and upcoming movies have popularized a historically and spiritually false view of Mary Magdalene. In this new book, learn the truth about the extraordinary woman who was one of the earliest disciples of Jesus and a powerful witness to his death and resurrection. Be the first to inform your friends and family about the TRUTH behind the fiction!

Teen Driver

Yesterday I drove teen son to the Secretary of State to get his driving permit. Then he drove me home. Up until then, only Rob and the driving instructor had driven with him. He did a great job. I didn't do too bad myself either. I only screamed, "Watch out!" once, though my foot was tired when we got home from pressing on the imaginary brake pedal.

Homeschooling Is Cool

A to Z: Home's Cool Homeschooling Website is featuring The Catholic Homeschool Companion on its homepage. This website has helped me a ton in the past. Lots of great homeschooling articles and links. Check it out!

PopeStNick: Heavenly City

I like to occasionally recommend books of different genres: biographies, crafts, art, music, historical fiction, etc. Let's get good Catholic books not only onto our library's Religion shelf, but other shelves as well. It is good to make purchasing requests for books that find themselves into other categories of the Dewey Decimal System. Today's recommendation is an architecture book.

Check to see if this title is already in your library's catalog. If it is, put a hold on it and check it out. If not, fill out a patron request form right away. This can usually be done online at your library's website.

Title: Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago
Author: Denis R. McNamara
Publisher: Liturgy Training Publications
Date Published: October 2005
ISBN: 1568545037
Price: Hardcover 59.95
Comments: A well researched book that is also eye catching. Full-color photographs and architectural descriptions of Chicago's most beautiful churches and chapels.

Pope St. Nicholas V

A while back, I started a Yahoo group called Pope St. Nicholas V: Catholic Book Lovers Influencing Library Purchasing Decisions. Nancy Brown wrote an article about it in This Rock Magazine: Evangelizing Your Library.

What I do is send out an email, about once a week, that features a Catholic book to suggest to your public library. I plan to also post the featured books here on the blog from now on.

I have a 75-90% success rate with my library. Additionally, I'm requesting books for my homeschool.

If you'd like to give this a try go to your library's website and see if you can make purchasing suggestions online. If so, make a suggestion! If not, next time you visit the library ask for a patron request form and then fill it out. Get your library, and your tax dollars, working for you!

Nancy Brown has a similar Yahoo list for homeschoolers: Homeschool Library Connection.

Cancelled the Cable

Speaking of the degradation of television, Rob and I cancelled our cable television. I've cancelled the cable 6 or 7 times over the years, only to reinstate it at the beginning of hockey season. But this time it's for good. Gosh, hockey season is still going strong and Rob was the one to suggest pulling the plug.

I thought that I would go into Food Network withdrawal, but I'm holding up pretty good. I just need to convince my library to buy all of Alton Brown's Good Eats episodes on DVD!!!

Degradation of Television

Teen son is working on an essay for his Regina Coeli class and is having trouble with his research. I'm hoping that one of you can help. He is writing about the decline of television since it's inception. In searching the Internet, he's found commentaries on the phenom, but he's looking for research. Something that he can cite as a resource that lays out the shift from wholesome family fare to low-life scum fare. (Am I showing my prejudice against TV?) Perhaps a study or two not only on the shift but its affect on our culture.

More on Unity of Truth

The Unity of Truth blog continues to pick up steam. Alicia has given it a new look and is very busy adding lots of very neat math and science links. We can all use a little help in teaching math and science. Tell all your friends about Unity of Truth!

Steve Ray and The Footprints of God

I first heard Steve Ray speak at the Michigan Catholic Home Educators conference a few years ago. He graciously stepped forward when our previously scheduled speaker, Fr. Groeschel, was hospitalized after being hit by a car.

I went to his talk on Church history thinking that I had already heard it all and I didn't expect to really learn anything new. Boy, was I wrong! (God has a way of humbling me over and over again.) Steve had a whole new way of looking at the history of the Church. He brought it alive for his audience through the geography of the Holy Land. Yes, geography. He had been to the very places where the Prophets, Jesus, and the Apostles had walked and Ray enthusiastically shared his experiences with us. Enthusiasm: that's what makes a great speaker. If you're enthusiastic about your subject matter, so will your audience. And that day, everyone in the audience was enthused about Bible history!

More recently, this last weekend to be exact, Steve came to the Lansing area with his friends Mark Shea, Roy Schoemann, Gary Michuta, and Rod Bennett for an apologetics conference. I missed it because I was 400 miles away at a homeschooling conference in Pittsburgh. All my friends tell me that I really missed out. (800 people showed up; twice as many as were expected!) Fortunately for me Chuck, the sound guy, is a dear family friend and he dropped off CD's of all the talks for me this morning.

If you would like to hear Steve's talk, Chuck uploaded it to: http://www.glorybe.cc/CA/SteveRay.mp3. It's large (68.3 meg) but well worth the band-width!

On a similar note, we absolutely love Steve's video series The Footprints of God! We're collecting them one by one and can't wait until more are released! Rob uses them in his CCD class (confirmation students) and we've used them in our homeschool. I encourage to not only check this series out yourself, but get your public and church libraries to buy the series. This is something that should be shared with the masses!

To learn more about Steve Ray's ministries visit his website, discussion group, or blog.

Or see his books:
Crossing the Tiber (I have an autographed copy!)
Upon This Rock
St. John's Gospel (No, of course, he didn't write the gospel. He wrote a commentary.)
The Papacy Learning Guide

And to check out tapes of his talks: Defenders of the Catholic Church

But more than anything, I recommend the videos/DVD's The Footprints of God.

Literary Mystery

Go to Cay's blog to guess the Mystery Literary Location. Hope she makes this an ongoing game!

Unity of Truth

The Unity of Truth blog has been picking up steam. There's a very cool post by Hedgemaker on infinity numbers and God.

I recommend sharing this blog with your teens. The archives are rich in information.

If you do pay a visit, please leave a comment. It encourages the bloggers, gets the conversation going, and lets us know what you like to read about.

Kids and Lenten Regulations

In going through my saved email folder, I found an exchange of emails from Lent 2005 between myself and canon lawyer Pete Vere:


Pete,

I made veggie soup for the kids Friday and they accused me of being a heretic for using chicken broth (they're soooo holier-than-thou ;-)). I explained that broth is made from bone marrow and not meat and that surely God will not send me to h-e-double hockey sticks for using meat broth instead of vegetable broth on a Lenten Friday.

A discussion then ensued on why the meat of a fish is not really meat. I again assured them that we will not face eternal damnation because we enjoyed a little cod on Friday. (Where in the world did these kids come from?) That then lead to a bizarre discussion on exotic meats. If say we lived in Arizona, could we eat snake or lizard on Friday? What about snails? (Really, these aren't my kids . . . they were mixed up with someone else's kids at the hospital!)

Finally, I was quizzed on whether or not Sunday is really part of Lent. After all, our wonderfully holy friends, a family in our homeschool group who wear only dresses, and wear lace head coverings to Mass, feast on Sunday. (I should clarify, the dad and sons don't wear dresses or head coverings.) Surely, our friends know better than me, who dared once to wear blue jeans to weekday Mass! It was even debated as to when Sunday started. Surely, could we have chocolate ice cream after dinner on Saturday since the Sunday vigil Mass starts at 4pm on Saturday?

Life is so interesting at the Wittmann house! Just wait until you have teenagers !

Maureen :)


> then lead to a bizarre discussion on exotic meats. If say we lived in Arizona,
> could we eat snake or lizard on Friday?

Yes. Interestingly enough, this issue came up on radio with Karl Keating and Jerry Usher the last time I happened to be visiting Catholic Answers. As I explained to the caller, abstinence applies to flesh (mammals) and fowl, but not to fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, or other invertebrates.

> What about snails?

Insects.

> Finally, I was quizzed on whether or not Sunday is really part of Lent.

No. This is easy to prove. Count from Ash Wednesday to Easter using the full week, then do it again excluding Sundays.

> It was even debated as to when Sunday started. Surely, could we
> have chocolate ice cream after dinner on Saturday since the Sunday vigil Mass
> starts at 4pm on Saturday?

Of course. And due to special indult, 3pm in the Diocese of Venice!

> Life is so interesting at the Wittmann house! Just wait until you have
> teenagers .

LOL!

Pax,
PJV


Pete,
Okay, one more . . . I forgot this one -- If Lenten abstinence begins Saturday at 4, does it end at 4 on Sunday. Therefore, shouldn't we have our dessert before dinner on Sunday in order to save our souls from tarnishment? There's gotta be a way to squeeze cake and ice cream in twice! Kids are soooo legalistic!
Maureen :)


> Okay, one more . . . I forgot this one -- If Lenten abstinence begins
> Saturday at 4, does it end at 4 on Sunday.

No. It's called canonical magic. It begins Saturday at 4pm and ends Sunday at midnight.

Pax,
PJV

While I'm Away . . .

. . . why not check out some of the blogs to the left of your screen. Pick one that you haven't visited before and click on it. You just may find a gem!

Pittsburgh Here I Come

I'm walking out the door in just a few seconds to drive to Pittsburgh. I heard that they filled the building capacity with pre-registration, so if you're planning on going to the conference without a reservation, it's too late.

I'm taking the laptop with me, but blogging will be light to non-existant until Monday.