Last Day of the Month of May

Mama Mary's month has come to an end but I didn't want to leave the month of May without a final tribute.  This one is for all of us who have experienced the loss of a little one: whether that be a child to early death, miscarriage, abortion; whether that be a brother, sister, niece or nephew or grandchild; whether it is a part of you that was lost and longs to be found... Behold your mother who loves you and wraps you in her mantle. God 'so loved the world' that he not only gave us his only Son, he gave us his only mother.  And never before has this world so needed a mother.
(Thanks Monica J., for the gift of this picture, and your friendship)

Loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again. To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners.

(Alma Redemptoris Mater-Mother of the Redeemer)

A Reminder

Little Floral Offering

Daily Offering to the Sacred Heart

O my God! I offer you all my actions of this day

for the intentions and the glory

of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I desire to sanctify every beat of my heart,

By uniting them to its infinite merits,

And I wish to make reparation for my sins

By casting them into the furnace of its merciful love.

O my God!I ask you for myself and for those I hold dear

The grace to fulfill your holy will perfectly,

To accept for love of you the joys and sorrows of this passing life

So that we may one day be united in heaven for all eternity. Amen.

St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower (1873-1897)

Don't ya just love this picture? The Little flower is 2nd from left.
Circa 1890ish...She wounds me deeply.
She is still up to doing so much good on the earth.

Women, listen C A R E F U L L Y

Momedies

Thanks Mom!  I love you. 

Momedies (home remedies. home comedies...compliments of Mom) 

Brother soiled his underpants on Catalina Island...no worries, remove them and stash them in a nearby mailbox.  Drive away slowly.  (Grandma Phillips, 1964)

Bored? Make a picnic in the dining room and a fort in the living room (mom, 1968)

Gotta go potty real bad at Buick Open...fake a limp to the handicapper porta-john while giggling. (mom, 1993)

There's no hair a little saliva-mousse/bobby pin can't fix---see above picture/age 5  (perpetual mom)

paper dolls...  mom, circa 1970

Spitting out your false teeth to scare the daylights out of Bobby Gardner (Grandma Phillips)

Tolerating a garage talent show with about a dozen neighborhood kids, setting up lawn chairs on the front sidewalk to watch us. (1972)

Rubbing the cramps out of my charlie horses in the middle of the night and then giving me St. Joseph's chewables to make me feel better. (1970s)

Teaching me all of the wonderful nursery rhymes put to music that I taught my own kids

Rocking me to sleep

Making me eat healthy foods

Allowing me to eat junk food--there is absolutely no problem a little chocolate can't make better.

Teaching me words like trump instead of fart which were easily disguised in public

Letting me to turn the garage into: a cheerleading squad practice facility, a bike repair shop, a production studio, a fort, a 4-square competition, a place to hide.

Allowing me to turn the basement into: a miniature house with 6 doll-kids, a restaurant, a dance studio, a trumpet practicing facility, a place to hide.

Letting me have a pink room

Bert Lake vacations

Preventing my early demise by making me wear Babooshkas, red rubber galoshes (the kind you could not put on unless you first put plastic baggies on your feet), 2 layers of mittens and socks, a scarf and a hat.

Knowing that playing in the rain/tunneling in the snow is good therapy

Letting me appreciate the logic of rummage sales.

Understanding that I needed to wear black hockey skates instead of white figure skates

Teaching me manners

Teaching me morals

Paying for band camp, majorette camp, softball/basketball uniforms, Lion's band trips and everything else that I knew you had to sacrifice to afford.

Letting me turn my closet into a Bay City Rollers/Donny Osmund worship space

Solving problems while drying dishes as you washed them. (We did not have a dishwasher)

Teaching me the Lord's Prayer.

Giving me a wonderfully flawed, beautifully human place to begin learning to be me.

Thanks Mom.  I love you always...all ways

HHS Mandate Talking Points

1. What the fight is about: 

• Our objection to the “preventive health care” mandate is not about making contraception illegal. Birth control is legally protected by the Constitution itself.
•  It is not about whether the government will continue to fund it; both federal and state governments will continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to provide free or low-cost contraception to American women annually.
•  It is only about whether the government can force religious institutions and individuals to provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs to our employees via health insurance.

     2. The mandate burdens our religious freedom:

 

      Forcing educational, health care or other religious institutions to provide their employees something which directly conflicts with their religious teachings is a straightforward burden on the free exercise of religion. When religious people gather together to provide care for our "neighbor" as commanded by Jesus' teachings in the Good Samaritan parable, they are no less "exercising" their religion than when they pray or worship God with their fellow believers. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est:
 

 Love of neighbour… is …a responsibility for the entire ecclesial community at every level….. As a community, the Church must practise love. Love … needs to be organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community.

        He added:

           The Church's deepest nature is expressed in exercising the ministry of charity 
 

     3. The mandate burdens our religious freedom even if the government claims that insurance companies or third parties will “pay for” the services which violate religious conscience
 

       The federal government is proposing to amend the current mandate (after the Fall 2012 election) so that religious institutions will not be “cooperating” in the provision of objectionable services. Insurance companies or third parties would arrange to provide and pay for contraception. There are two problems with this proposed amendment.

• First, insurance companies will simply fold the costs of contraception into the price of insurance charged to religious institutions.
• Second, no matter how the accounting looks on paper, the fact remains that this proposal allows the government to reach into the internal affairs of religious institutions and restructure the terms of employment.  More, to change it from a workplace and a ministry that embodies and defers to religious witness…to one which is indistinguishable from any other private or public institution.  

     4. But didn’t President Obama “accommodate” religious employers?
 

         He promised he would but he didn’t. Instead, he extended the deadline (to August 2013) for religious institutions to figure out how to violate their consciences, or face legal penalties. The originally proposed rule – requiring religious hospitals, schools, social services, etc. to cover contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can act as abortifacients – is presently in force.

      5. Should it matter that many Catholics disagree with the Church’s teachings on contraception?
          
        Several responses are possible

• First, remember that the rule also mandates coverage of drugs that can act as early abortifacients.
• Second, the government is constitutionally forbidden from reaching into religious institutions and telling them to comply with the preferences of members who disagree with the institution’s religious doctrines
• Third, many Catholics and non-Catholics who don’t understand or who haven’t accepted Catholic teachings on contraception are upset at the government’s attempt to dictate the behavior of religious institutions, and grateful at the Catholic Church’s critical stance toward the medical and social effects of contraception.

And now, one of the moments we've all been waiting for...

Governor Brewer Signs HB 2800 into Arizona Law,
officially de-funding Planned Parenthood in this state.

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His mercy endures forever.