Because the people want to know!

Regarding the Family Closet:

Kaira asked,

Are all of your clothes displayed in these pictures?

Not all of our clothes are on the shelf, but probably half are. When we moved from SC to TX in May, I packed a suitcase with about 7 outfits for each child, plus church clothes. I packed 3 or 4 boxes of extra clothes, and that's after giving away 20+ garbage bags full of clothes.

6 or 7 outfits seems to be just the right amount. Those boxes of clothes are still in the garage. The kids have 3-4 pairs of shorts and 2-3 pairs of pants each, and the girls have some extra dresses. It's just the right amount and even if I get behind on the laundry, I don't get overwhelmed anymore.

How many clothes can a kid wear, anyway?

Shannon asked,

Do you ever have trouble with those wire cubbies?

In SC, our family closet was in the laundry room and an attached hallway. This was a heavy traffic zone, and I DID have trouble (usually from the kids hanging on them or swinging on them.) Now they are in a closet and I haven't had any problems. No one is idly leaning on them or kicking them for fun and they stay together.

Regarding Faith matters:

Someone asked me if I could recommend a novena to be said before the election.

Radical Catholic Mom has one she will be posting from Oct. 26- Nov. 4.

I also received this email regarding the Pope's prayer to Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, but haven't had a chance to respond. K, I hope you don't mind me leaving you some links for now - others say it much better than I do.

Did the pope actually pray this prayer? If so, how do you explain that? I mean, for all intents and purposes, it does seem to me that the Catholic Church treats Mary as we, in the Christian church, treat Jesus.

First, Catholics are Christians. The Nicene Creed is article of faith, and recited at every Mass. We believe Jesus is the only begotten son of God the Father, that He became man and died for our sins, that He rose again from the dead, and that He sits at the right hand of the Father.

I haven't been able to find the text of the prayer online, but it was pretty widely reported in the media so I'm assuming that it's true. Here are some links about the hows and whys of Catholics devotion to Mary and the other saints. It may be helpful to understand that Catholics see Mary not just as a woman who happened to carry Our Lord, but also has a new Ark of the Covenant, carrying the Word, in a new Kingdom. (See Ark of Covenant and also how Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, was treated in the OT.)
Marian issues from Scripture Catholic
VTC has covered this fairly comprehensively
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2673-2679)

In communion with the holy Mother of God

2673 In prayer the Holy Spirit unites us to the person of the only Son, in his glorified humanity, through which and in which our filial prayer unites us in the Church with the Mother of Jesus.²⁷

2674 Mary gave her consent in faith at the Annunciation and maintained it without hesitation at the foot of the Cross. Ever since, her motherhood has extended to the brothers and sisters of her Son "who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties."²⁸ Jesus, the only mediator, is the way of our prayer; Mary, his mother and ours, is wholly transparent to him: she "shows the way" (hodigitria), and is herself "the Sign" of the way, according to the traditional iconography of East and West.

2675 Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested in his mysteries. In countless hymns and antiphons expressing this prayer, two movements usually alternate with one another: the first "magnifies" the Lord for the "great things" he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings²⁹ the second entrusts the supplications and praises of the children of God to the Mother of Jesus, because she now knows the humanity which, in her, the Son of God espoused.

2676 This twofold movement of prayer to Mary has found a privileged expression in the Ave Maria:

Hail Mary [or Rejoice, Mary]: the greeting of the angel Gabriel opens this prayer. It is God himself who, through his angel as intermediary, greets Mary. Our prayer dares to take up this greeting to Mary with the regard God had for the lowliness of his humble servant and to exult in the joy he finds in her.³⁰

Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angel's greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. "Rejoice . . . O Daughter of Jerusalem . . . the Lord your God is in your midst."³¹ Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is "the dwelling of God . . . with men."³² Full of grace, Mary is wholly given over to him who has come to dwell in her and whom she is about to give to the world.

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. After the angel's greeting, we make Elizabeth's greeting our own. "Filled with the Holy Spirit," Elizabeth is the first in the long succession of generations who have called Mary "blessed."³³ "Blessed is she who believed. . . . "³⁴ Mary is "blessed among women" because she believed in the fulfillment of the Lord's word. Abraham. because of his faith, became a blessing for all the nations of the earth.³⁵ Mary, because of her faith, became the mother of believers, through whom all nations of the earth receive him who is God's own blessing: Jesus, the "fruit of thy womb."

2677 Holy Mary, Mother of God: With Elizabeth we marvel, "And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"³⁶ Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: "Let it be to me according to your word."³⁷ By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: "Thy will be done."

Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the "Mother of Mercy," the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender "the hour of our death" wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son's death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing³⁸ to lead us to her son, Jesus, in paradise.

2678 Medieval piety in the West developed the prayer of the rosary as a popular substitute for the Liturgy of the Hours. In the East, the litany called the Akathistos and the Paraclesis remained closer to the choral office in the Byzantine churches, while the Armenian, Coptic, and Syriac traditions preferred popular hymns and songs to the Mother of God. But in the Ave Maria, the theotokia, the hymns of St. Ephrem or St. Gregory of Narek, the tradition of prayer is basically the same.

2679 Mary is the perfect Orans (pray-er), a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple we welcome Jesus' mother into our homes,³⁹ for she has become the mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her. The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope.⁴⁰

^Footnotes:

27 Cf. Acts 1:14.
28 LG 62.
29 Cf. Lk 1:46-55.
30 Cf. Lk 1:48; Zeph 3:17b.
31 Zeph 3:14,17a.
32 Rev 21:3.
33 Lk 1:41, 48.
34 Lk 1:45.
35 Cf. Gen 12:3.
36 Lk 1:43.
37 Lk 1:38.
38 Cf. Jn 19:27.
39 Cf. Jn 19:27.
40 Cf. LG 68-69.

Labels: apologetics, Blog, Catholic, homemaking

Recently, some e-friends and I heard a sermon by an Independent Fundamental Baptist on You Tube. He asserted that 1.) Real men pee standing up (with Bible and verse to support it, and that was the topic of his sermon, I kid you not!) and 2) the number 5 signifies death in the Bible.

Now, I am familiar with the way several numbers are used in Scripture. (6 is the number of creation, and the number of man; 7 is the number of completion; 9 is the number of angels; 40 is the number of repentance; 3 is the number of the Trinity.)

I have never heard that 5 is the number of death. And because I'm a nerd with nothing better to do on Saturday morning, I thought I'd look into it.

Most online sources I looked at say that 5 is the number of Grace. Nowhere could I find 5 is the number of death. (It seems just the opposite). Jesus multiplied 5 loaves and 2 fishes; David killed Goliath with 5 stones, the parable of the talents, the wisest servant was given 5 talents.

I don't know how this squares with Catholic teaching, as there isn't much numerology in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Catholics do have a devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus, however, and altars are consecrated in 5 places in remembrance of them.

The preacher cited three reasons 5 is associated with death in the Bible:

• People killed under the 5th rib
• Genesis 5:5
• Acts 5:5

So, let's take a look. Scriptures quoted are from the NIV, copy and pasted from BibleGateway.

First, I must add, that the numbering of the Bible is not inspired. The chapter and verse system was introduced hundreds of years (in the 13th century) after the Canon was codified, in order to aid study and exegesis. There really would be no reason to see significance in a verse 5:5, or a verse 6:66 for that matter.

Several people are killed by being stabbed under the fifth rib in the KJV, in 2 Samuel. The NIV translates it simply as "stomach", and the Douay-Rheims calls it a "groin".

Genesis 5:5

Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.

Genesis is full of geneologies noting how old people were when they died. The number 5 doesn't have much to do with it. Other places in Genesis recording people's deaths: 5:8, 5:11, 5:14, 5:17, 5:20... I could go on, but I can't even type all of the non-5 references.

Other verses recording important men's deaths:
Noah - Genesis 9:50
Abraham -Genesis 25:8
Joseph and his brothers (the twelve tribes of Israel) - Exodus 1:6

Acts 5:5

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.

Other deaths in Acts occur at chapter/verse: 5:10, 7:60, 12:23,
Hmm... the numerology doesn't work so well for those.

Some other "5:5" verses in the New Testament -
And Matthew 5:5 is this:

5Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

Mark 5:5

Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

John 5:5

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years

Revelations 5:5

Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.

Nothing to do with death, there, either.

Well, how about the fifth book of the Bible? Deuteronomy 5:5

(At that time I stood between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

Yeah. Not seeing the connection.

Mama Says:
One doesn't have to add superstition to the Bible in order to make it more meaningful.

Labels: apologetics, Bible Study, Rants and Raves

Many Christian churches teach that once one has a "salvation experience", a one-time event, you are saved and assured of Heaven. Generally, "getting saved" involves declaring you believe Christ died for your sins and/or telling other people about it. It varies by denomination, however.

Catholics believe that we are saved by grace, and that our soul must be in a state of grace in order to enter into Heaven.
Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life - Rev. 21:27

Because we have free will, we can always say "no" to God.

We HAVE BEEN saved by grace:
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. 2 Tim 1:9

We ARE BEING saved
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God - 1 Cor 1:18

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)- Ephesians 2:5

We WILL BE saved:
And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved - Matt 10:22

We HOPE to be saved:
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? - Romans 8:24

That is, if we endure to the end with a living faith.

Labels: apologetics, Catholic

Crystal and I are teaming up to do a Catholic women's Bible study! We'll be going through Courageous Virtue, which I bought over a year ago but I never could find anyone to do it with me.



Courageous Virtue, by Stacy Mitch, is a Bible study on moral excellence for women. It has a nihil obstat from Rev. James M. Dunfee and an imprimatur from the Bishop of Steubenville, OH. What does that mean? Fisheaters has the answer:

The procedure works like this: when a Catholic writes a book on faith, morals, theology, liturgy, books on prayer, editions of Sacred Scripture, etc., he will submit his manuscript to his diocese's Censor. If the Censor finds no problem with it, he will give it his stamp, which reads "Nihil Obstat," or "nothing stands in the way." He then sends it to the Bishop for his review. If the Bishop finds nothing objectionable, he gives the book his "Imprimatur" which means, "let it be printed." ...

...Please know that the presence of an Imprimatur does not mean that a book is an official text of the Church. It doesn't make the book the equivalent of an encyclical, say. It's not the approval of the work by the Pope or a dogmatic Council, and it's not a stamp of infallibility. It doesn't even mean that everything in the book is accurate, only that there is nothing in it that contradicts Catholic dogma.

Crystal and I have been e-buddies forever in internet years. We found each other from the Stay at Home Catholic Mother's email loop, unsubscribed at the same time for the same reason, and then she started a blog. She has two darling little boys.

We'll be taking turns hosting on our blogs, and we'll start in two weeks.

If you don't have a Catholic store nearby, on my right sidebar I have a link to Aquinas and More Catholic Goods. They have the book for $7.95, and the store is in Colorado Springs. The proprietor, Ian, makes a point NOT to stock any materials made in China, so you know why I support him!

If you use my link on the sidebar, I get a kickback referral fee.

Let me know if you plan to participate! So far we have three: myself, Crystal, and Amy.

Labels: apologetics, Catholic, education, Family Life

I've heard that updating the new Mozilla will erase your bookmarks.

I thought I post a few of my "most important" ones here, where I can find them. I've said before that my blog is kind of a public journal for me, so consider this a really boring entry. Plus, I can throw some Linky Love to some of my favorite sites!

Although, many of them I don't even remember bookmarking - often if I am researching something and happen across something else, I bookmark it, and it languishes in my folder gathering cyber dust.

This is like letting your mother-in-law look under the bed or behind the fridge. It's surprisingly personal!

But, I'm really boring so you won't find too many titillating links. Unless you like vintage freebie printables.

Homemaking
Teaparty Girl
Household Notebook Planner
The Family Homestead
Vintage Homekeeper's Planner


School Organization
Starry Sky Ranch HMB forms etc.
Teacher Planning Forms
Unschooling and Planning
Homeschool Curriculum Reviews
Planning the School Year - Footprints on the Fridge
Dawn's File Folder System

Parenting
Small Manual of Civility Manners in the Catholic Home
HealthyToys.org
When Mom/Teacher Role doesn't work


Food
A Little Cookbook for Girls
Frugal Abundance
Practical Pantry everything you ever wanted to know about the staples
Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls
No Fail Pie Crust
Calcium Requirements

Catholic
Finding God liturgy and family life
Where is That in The Bible - essay on Tradition and Sola Scriptura
Sean's Pages - aplogetics
Hear the Gospel at Mass
Why Catholics Have a Pope
Catholic Culture
BibliaClerus Vatican resources, early Fathers, etc.
Women for Faith and Family
John 6 and the Eucharist
Catechism of Catholic Church searchable by keyword
Scriptural Rosary for Children
Amazing Catechists
Sanctifying Halloween

Religious Other
Evangelical Manifesto

Crunchy Granola Mama links
Natural Life Magazine
Healing Power of magnets - legitimate
Managing Post Partum Depression
Microchipping Public School Students
CFL Recycling
Drugs.com side effects, etc.

Self-Reliance
Solar Powered Trailer
Living off the Grid
100 Ft. Diet
Grow potatoes in a garbage can


Blog
Technorati Made Simple
Making Bloggy Buttons
Make Blog Banners totally need to do this. Someday. Eventually.
HTML True Color Chart

Coupons and Deals
Mommy Saves Big
Coupon Chief
Coupon Mom
Organic Grocery Deals
Online Coupons

Special Needs
Autism Evaluation Checklist
Anger Management for Children
Bipolar Complimentary Medicine
Disaboom for people with disabilities

Prolife and Politics
Sen. Obama's Voting Record
CQ Moneyline Campaign Finance, PAC's, etc.
Catholic Mom Framing the Healthcare Debate
REAL ID/ REAL nightmare
Girl Scouts Radicalism
No Room for Contraceptives
Prolife Doctors
Fighting P*rn*graphy
Test Tube Nation (article)

Stuff to Make and Do
Homemade Playdough with pics
3D Papercraft

Just Plain Interesting
Illegal Alien Tracking and crime statistics
Squalor Survivors
Texas Hold'Em Odds
Letterboxing North America

ClipArt and Graphics

Writing
Love Honor Vaccum Write from Home
Houston Writers and Editors
Absolute Write
Writer's Resources
Wordplayer
SimplyScripts

Of Interest Only to Me
SC Lawyer
Harrison Bergeron


If you liked any of these links, leave me note in the comments! (If you're not asleep by now...)

Labels: apologetics, bipolar, Blog, Catholic, children, cooking, education, Freebies, Frugal, homemaking, Linky love, politics, Prolife, special education, Special Needs, therapeutic diet, Working from Home

Whoa! Talk about missing the point! Terry Eagleton, a professor at the University of Manchester, says that the crucifixion of Christ wasn't really all that bad, and that Christ got off lightly since it only took him a few hours to die. Mr. Eagleton is described as a Marxist academic (isn't that an oxymoron?)

I've also read this in a religious article, written by a major leader of the denomination, which shall remain nameless lest I be accused of hate speech. Musings on the Atonement of Christ:

The Meaning of the Atonement
With this background in mind, let us now ponder the deep meaning of the word atonement. In the English language, the components are at-one-ment, suggesting that a person is at one with another...

Well, they almost have it right. Atonement does come from English roots - at one- but it is the Satisfaction of Christ for our sins, by which God and man are brought together. Originally from the Middle English at oon, it meant "reconcile".

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
In any view, the Atonement is founded on the Divine Incarnation. By this great mystery, the Eternal Word took to Himself the nature of man and, being both God and man, became the Mediator between and men.

St. Anselm sheds some light on the Atonement, while simultaneously refuting the claims of the Word of Faith movement centuries before the Trinity Broadcast Network pushed their brand of Name-it Claim-it Success theology, a cornerstone of which is the idea of "Satan's rights" or "Satan's legal ground". (This is how Kenneth Copeland, for example, explains why Christ had to descend into Hell; he had a deal with the devil.)

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

No sin, as he views the matter, can be forgiven without satisfaction. A debt to Divine justice has been incurred; and that debt must needs be paid.
But man could not make this satisfaction for himself; the debt is something far greater than he can pay; and, moreover, all the service that he can offer to God is already due on other titles.
The suggestion that some innocent man, or angel, might possibly pay the debt incurred by sinners is rejected, on the ground that in any case this would put the sinner under obligation to his deliverer, and he would thus become the servant of a mere creature.
The only way in which the satisfaction could be made, and men could be set free from sin, was by the coming of a Redeemer who is both God and man. His death makes full satisfaction to the Divine Justice, for it is something greater than all the sins of all mankind.

St. Anselm's view is echoed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

#616 It is love "to the end" that confers on Christ's sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. (John 1:13) He knew and loved us all when he offered his life. (Gal 2:20, Eph 5:2, 25)

Now "the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died." (2 Cor 5:14) No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all.

The existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses and embraces all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.

The point of the Crucifixion, and the Atonement, does not lie in the fact that a man suffered more, or less horribly than other men. The heart of the matter is that God suffered and died for us.

BTW - it did take 6 hours. Mark 15:25 records that it was the 3rd hour when they crucified Christ, and he died at the ninth hour (Mark 15:33).

Labels: apologetics, Catholic, In The News