Be Careful What You Ask For

The day before Ash Wednesday, Bernadette asked about fasting, and whether she could do it too.  We told her that not only was she not obliged to, but that she was really too young, and it wouldn’t be safe for her.  So she asked if she could do something else, and we ended up letting [...]

Lenten Resolutions

I’m posting these here to give myself more motivation to keep them.  I am also keeping it pretty simple this year.  Last year I made a whole bunch of resolutions and ended up not being able to keep all of them, so this year I’m trying to just make the ones I’m going to keep. [...]

Baptized

Faustina was baptized on January 10, the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord.  Now she is not just created in the image of God, but an adopted child of God! As always, I felt more relaxed once the baptism was over.  I could sleep better at night now.  Driving home afterwards, I also felt [...]

Transmission Troubles

The transmission on our car has died.  Again.  We had to have it fixed just one year ago, and that was less than six months after we’d bought this car.  Our previous car also had the transmission go out, also less than six months after we’d bought it.  That one had already had its transmission [...]

Our Last Tridentine Mass in Florida

Today was our last time attending the Tridentine Mass here in Naples, Florida.  We have been attending this Mass for very nearly nine months now – in fact, almost exactly one week less than nine months, which equals the time that a baby spends in his mother’s womb before emerging to face the world.  It [...]

Feast of Our Lady of Fatima

Today marks the 91st anniversary of the first appearance of Our Lady of Fatima to the shepherd children Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta. This always feels like a special day for me, although it is not exactly my nameday. We of course made sure to pray a rosary this morning – this would not be a [...]

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks

I have been thinking about this over the last few days, after our Sunday homily kind of focused on this point. Even more particularly, our priest mentioned how it is in times of stress that one’s words really reflect what is in the heart. Without time to think about what to say or how to [...]