All posts by CadyLy

Why God Made Moms

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?

1. She’s the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.

2. Mostly to clean the house.

3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?

1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.

2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.

3. God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?

1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.

2. They had to get their start from men’s bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?

1. We’re related.

2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s mom like me.

What kind of a little girl was your mom?

1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.

2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.

3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?

1. His last name.

2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?

3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mom marry your dad?

1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom eats a lot.

2. She got too old to do anything else with him.

3. My grandma says that mom didn’t have her thinking cap on.

Who’s the boss at your house?

1. Mom doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because dad’s such a goof ball.

2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.

3. I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What’s the difference between moms and dads?

1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.

2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.

3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power ’cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.

4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?

1. Mothers don’t do spare time.

2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?

1. On the inside she’s already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.

2. Diet. You know, her hair. I’d diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?

1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I’d get rid of that.

2. I’d make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it not me..

3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Magnificat Meditation of the Day

Humility and the Father’s Love

Why did my Father give you power over me?
Because he wanted me to get very close to you
to show you the depths of his love for you;
not the distant love of a God
who sits on a throne in his heaven
and looks down on you on the earth,
but the love of a Father who longs to help you
to carry your burdens,
to comfort and heal you,
to give you every good gift.
He wants to come into your homes,
and to sit with you at your meals
as one of the family.
He wants to walk with you as a beloved friend.
He could not do that himself
and so he sent me, his only Son,
to make his love known to you.

I could take on your weakness
and then act out my Father’s name which is Love.
Can you truly imagine the love of God?
Can you understand the depth
of your Father’s love for you?

The Father sent me to show you his love,
and to act it out among you
to give you an example to copy.
I am the image of your unseen Father,
in my life, and particularly in my passion,
I showed you the depths
to which love must be prepared to go.
There is no room for fear in love,
no room for shame,
no excuses,
no holidays.
Love offers everything
and expects no return.

You cannot bear the unveiled love of God.
It falls like a fire upon you
and you are consumed and burnt up in its heat.
You are not ready yet to be refined
and purified by the naked flame
of your Father’s love for you,
and so it has to be filtered,
mediated to you through my flesh. — Richard Hobbs

I was just looking up the Mass reading for the day in the Magnificat and I opened up to the meditation of the day. I just love this. Not only is it a great expression of Jesus, but I feel a personal connection to these words as well. I feel that I also am called to mediate God’s love to a particular person. I also feel that this person has incredible power over me. Not that this person is entirely aware of my calling, but that in what this person does, says, feels and experiences, I am also affected. We truly are one Body in Christ, and I feel that most keenly with this person. The way in which I help to carry burdens, comfort and heal is in my daily, continual prayer for this person. I pray night and day and all the time in between. It truly is an act of love, and not done for any false sense of piety. And in this loving, I learn how to love. By opening myself up to God’s love, poured out through me, I learn from His example.

The Only Bit of Good News…

From an excerpt of a University of Michigan press release talking of the Embryonic Stem Cell Research Consortium:

In addition to deriving new embryonic stem cell lines, researchers will use recently developed techniques to convert adult skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, known as iPS cells. These reprogrammed cells display the most scientifically valuable properties of embryonic stem cells, while enabling researchers to bypass embryos altogether.

Yes, please, bypass the embryos.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures




PictureMail

Originally uploaded by CadyLy

Okay, with Neko out of commission, I had to pull out my dinosaur laptop. Seriously, it took 20 minutes to boot. And forget about looking up anything online. 🙂 But, it did function, just really, really slowly. 🙂

I hope that my desktop is fixable. Or that someone reading this blog will have some extra money that they don’t know what to do with, and would like to buy me a brand-spanking new MacBook, for me to take with me to grad school. 🙂 That would be awesome! 🙂

Speaking of school, classes start on May 4, and I take my GREs this Saturday. Kinda nervous about that. I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten everything they are going to test me on. Pray for me, please! 🙂

There Was Much Sadness…

Yesterday, my computer was in the middle of uploading photos and video and then the anti-virus decided for some odd reason to kick on. then, my computer hung. When I tried to reboot, it froze on the booting screen. Then, it wouldn’t do anything, apparently, but turn on the fans. I think I need help. 😦

Short Note on Prayer

“Prayer lifts the soul into the heavens where it hugs God in an indescribable embrace.

Prayer is the desire for God, an indescribable devotion, not given by man but brought about by God’s grace. As St Paul says: For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself intercedes on our behalf in a way that could never be put into words.” — From the Office of the Readings

What a great thing to keep in mind! That prayer is a gift. It is not my list of demands to God, but the free gift of a relationship with Him. He *allows* us to communicate with Him. He doesn’t have to. How often do we — do I — take for granted the fact that I can talk to God, and He can speak to me?

I have had it happen before where I am completely unable to string together a coherent thought, but have the desire to communicate something to God. But God knows even before we do, so the words aren’t really necessary; and being coherent isn’t necessary, because He has perfect understanding. This is not to say that we shouldn’t pray, because God hears us anyway. As the way we were made, God is constantly inviting us to respond to Him and to seek a relationship with Him. Prayer is a gift, but we need to cooperate.

May the Lord God bless you!

Please pray for Blàse

Please pray for Blàse, a 3-week-old little boy who is in the NICU with many medical difficulties, mostly cardiac. He recently had open heart surgery, and he and his family could really use your prayers.

Thank you, so very much!

Lent – A Time to Grow Closer to the Lord

Just a quick note on my Lenten plans.  This year, I decided that I would have a 3 phase plan for Lent.  I wanted to grow in three areas:  spiritually, physically and emotionally. 

1.  Physical growth- I hate drinking water.  I usually stay pretty dehydrated, which can get me into trouble.  So, for Lent, I will drink 2 glasses of water in the morning and 2 glasses of water in the evening.  Not only will this refresh my body, but in symbolism it is not healthy to be constantly rejecting water, since water is life.  I don’t wish to avoid life or reject life, but rather embrace life.  So, I will do this in a tangible fashion and hope that it has some effect on my spirit as well (since we are body-spirit mixes, I figure it’s worth a shot).

2.  Spiritual growth – I don’t really have a problem praying or talking to God.  And most of my friends would probably say that I don’t have a problem talking, period.  However, in my relationship with God, I find it harder to hear what He is saying to me.  So, I will make it a point to read 2 chapters of Scripture each day of Lent.  That way, I am hearing His Word and not my words.

3.  Emotional growth – this may seem like a silly one, but I think it will be the most difficult for me.  I like to listen to what I call Norte Americano Booty Music.  Mostly pop, with some rap and dance in there.  This is not always the best thing to listen to, morally speaking.  I have brought it up in confession a couple times, wondering about it, and have been told that it’s not so horrible of a thing.  However, another priest has counseled that it’s not a good idea to invite sin into our lives (good plan).  And since the message of the songs are all too frequently immoral and/or degrading, I am going to fast from this music.  Since it is all-pervasive in society, I am technically saying that I will refrain from listening to this type of music if I have control over the music being played.  For example, if I were shopping at the grocery store or something and one of these songs comes on, I’m not going to go running screaming out of the store.  However, I am not going to seek out stores to shop in because I know that they do play this music.  If I am, say, in a friend’s car, I would mention this to them, but then it is their choice to keep the music on or not — I’m not going to force my penance upon them.  Until I have lobotomized my iPod (wiped all my booty music from it and replaced it with either good music, or more likely homilies and talks from my priests), I have removed it from my car.  Needless to say, the radio’s either going to be off or on Ave Maria.  🙂

On a side note, there was an article in the weekly bulletin, mentioning these bracelets. Basically, every time you find yourself saying something unkind, or engaging in gossip, you need to switch the bracelet from one wrist to the other. Because you physically have to move something, it will help make you aware of that behavior. A friend suggested this as something we could do over Lent, like a spiritual exercise, not necessarily as our official Lenten penances. I upped the stakes by saying that we should track how many times we swapped wrists during the course of the day, and then at night say a decade of the rosary for every time we swapped, for the intention of the people we spoke against.

May all of you have a wonderful Lent, grow closer to our Lord, and soak up all the abundant grace which He provides to us in this time!

God bless!

Joyeux Mardi Gras!!!

The time of the year for the world to show it’s seamy underside as we spend a day reveling in our sin, in our shackles, in our imprisonment before reconciling ourselves to God and following Him in the path to true freedom tomorrow on Ash Wednesday. But today, as we gather our beads and eat our paczki, we should be aware of our sin and of the way in which our sin binds us and restricts our freedom. Which is why I am wearing a prison-stripe T-shirt today. This is truly a day to rejoice, for it is the last day of our enslavement! Tomorrow will bring a new season of renewal and conversion. I love Lent. I believe it holds incredible grace for us — we just have to cooperate with that grace.

As an aside, there are certain ethnic groups traditionally spotlighted today: the Polish people for the paczkis, and the Creole people with the huge Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans. As a little French girl with some Native American blood, I think that I should qualify as a Creole. 🙂 At least for the party, right? 🙂

Please remember in your prayers today René LaMourt, a friend of mine who passed away just after returning from a deployment at sea, about 11 years ago on February 28, 1998. Please also pray for Sheri, a friend of a friend, who committed suicide last Thursday.

Laissez les bons temps roulez!

I Have a Strange Sense of Humor

For example, take the books I picked up from the library today:

“Son of a Witch” by Gregory Maguire
“Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living Catholic Faith: 101 Stories to Offer Hope, Deepen Faith, and Spread Love” by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & LeAnn Thieman
“He’s Just Not That Into You” by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo
“Sex for Busy People: The Art of the Quickie for Lovers on the Go” by Emily Dubberley (This I think will be hysterical! Completely absurd!)
“Benedict XVI: Spiritual Thoughts in the First Year of His Papacy” by USCCB

Update
The “Sex for Busy People” book? Ugh. Completely X-rated. I’m surprised this was available on the shelves at the public library. Yuck. Not funny. Morally offensive.