Another Pro-Life Rap Video

But first, what I am reading right now. I will review it sometime:

Seen at the Roman Sacristan's Blog:






Today I passed the 5,000 hit mark.

Thank you.

Happy Fourth Birthday

Today we celebrate the birth of our FOUR year old son. He went to Mass and received a blessing. The pictured pinata was not destroyed.

Lenten Thoughts

This Lent, the stuffed animals are on a retreat lasting all for forty days. Here are some pictures from Ash Wednesday, as they process into the old copy paper box which has been prepared for them.

Mr. Moose, Mr. Aardvark, and Miss Bear will join them in spirit, as they are obligated to tend to their respective vehicles.

Mr. Hedgehog, in the foreground below, mentioned to me that they will be observing a strict fast while on retreat. When I mentioned to him that stuffed animals do not normally eat, he said, "perhaps we should make some other sort of sacrifice. I hadn't thought of that before now."

In order to raise the bar of my posts, I must resort to plagiarism. Here are two quotes from reading I have done recently. Well, one my wife read to me:

On the Priesthood:

"A quarter century of priesthood means consecrating and absolving for a quarter century, that is to say, celebrating over nine thousand Masses and forgiving thousands of faithful.

"In addition, it means sowing the word of God, both in church and in private conversation with souls, preparing them for that last walk into eternity. All this exemplifies how much is involved in parochial work… How great the result each of us knows. Simply tremendous!

"How many souls, thanks to priestly zeal, have approached God and been saved! How many souls in Heaven will testify about those who helped them reach their final destination! Such persons will enjoy an immense gratitude, and a love so much the greater as their sacrifice was greater.

"A quarter century is a period during which a priest accomplishes very much for the salvation of souls. St. Augustine said: if you save a soul, you ewill be assured of salvation. What should be said of him who has saved countless souls."

- St. Maximilian Kolbe, from a discourse delivered during the celebration of a priest’s 25th anniversary of ordination, September 4, 1939.

From For the Life of the World: St. Maximilian and the Eucharist by Fr. Jerzy M. Domanski, O.F.M. Conv.

Priests need our prayers and sacrifices as well, for the devil would love to see them fail. Please offer some prayers for the priest who celebrates your Mass. I always think of my brother's ordination, when the newly ordained priests are prayed over by the bishop and the other priests at the ordination. To see some of the old, lame, grizzled looking priests there is quite a stirring moment.

Another argument against television:

"The familiar faces of my books welcomed me. I threw myself into my reading chair and gazed around me with pleasure. All my old friends present – there in spirit, ready to talk with me any moment when I was in the mood, making no claim upon my attention when I was not."
- George MacDonald
Found in Homeschooling with Gentleness: A Catholic Discovers Unschooling by Suzie Andres

I like how books do not bother us, clamoring for our attention as the television did. One of my first blogs was on this subject, and how we have lived without a TV now for almost 12 years. Trashing our TV took years to do, and the last straw was Lent, or rather Easter, when we started watching it again. It did not take long before we realized we were better off without it.

Another shot of the animals processing into the box. It looks more like a mad rush for the door than a solemn procession.

Pray for the Poor Souls

In particular a man named Michael, who died four years ago today.

Cat Update:
Assuming that you care, there are only three cats left from this picture taken in December. While we were on pilgrimage, one of the orange cats left, as did the multi-colored one. The gray one developed a love for automobiles, which ended when the cat decided to bail out of the engine compartment while the car was moving. The black cat and one of the orange ones remain, along with the mother of the orange cat and the cat I call 'Homewrecker.' I could blog on these creatures all day - but I won't because of my allergies to cats.

Stewbean Update:


This manatee("Call me Ekyu, Ekyu Manatee") showed up on Friday night, late, saying he had information about the Water Strider. He was exhausted, and was given a place to sleep and all the spinach we could buy at the grocery store. Apparently spinach is not as close to seaweed as we thought, and now he is sick and unable to talk. We hope to get some information out of him after he recovers, if he recovers.

Lent is Nigh

St. Charles Borromeo, walking in procession.
He wore a rope around his neck as a sign of penance.

Wednesday begins Lent, and with it a time of serious discernment.

There will not be many blogs during Lent.

I wish you all a prayerful and penitential Lent.

Saturday Wrapup

Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the crypt below the altar at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Mobile, Alabama.


REPENT!



This is a good snip from George Weigel's excellent book, Witness to Hope, the biography of Pope John Paul II:

The wellspring of reconciliation, John Paul writes, is the cross of Christ. Its vertical beam symbolizes the human need for reconciliation with God, and its horizontal crossbeam represents the need for reconciliation within the human family.(1) Because the Church is the Body of Christ, its "central task" is "reconciling people with God, with themselves,, with neighbor, with the whole creation."(from Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, Sections 7.7 and 8.5)

One of the ways the Church lives out that ministry of reconciliation is to remind the world of the reality of sin. For reconciliation is impossible without naming the evil that had caused division and rupture in the first place.
(Page 473)

Well said. Good food for thought before the start of Lent.

Other News:

This picture was taken by a surveillance camera at a convenience store in Costaguana, on the Pacific Coast of Central America. The character in the right foreground has some of the features of Captain Merrill Stewbean.

Stewbean, along with First Mate Buster Crabbe, Chef Tortoise Tuus, and one unidentified passenger disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico two weeks after leaving December 26, 2006, on a Cruise from Port Aransas, Texas.



The last contact was a text message from somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.



A reward has been offered for any information leading to the return of Captain Merrill Stewbean and his crew and passenger.

Attack of the Killer Fish

from here on February 4, 2007.

I laughed and laughed and laughed at the motto of this blog: anyone reading this is not practicing custody of the eyes.

The Near Death Experience, Again

I tried to post this via e-mail twice, so it may show up again and again:

For the past few nights I have found myself awake at 4 a.m., usually because of body aches and cramps in my legs. There hasn't been much I can do for this except take Tylenol and pray the Rosary. Our Lady's Beads continue to be a powerful sedative for me.

All this 'down' time has given me a lot of time to think. I don't consider this time as idle time because I really don't have much energy to goof off. So I have been busy contemplating just what happened to me on Sunday, and putting into context with the previous 42 years of my life.

It has struck me, that once again, my life was spared. There are lots of minor examples of this, like times I ran stop signs, or fell asleep on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, or witnessed crashes on the freeway. But there are now three times when I have been made acutely aware that, but for the grace of God, I would not be sitting here in this chair tapping away at my little PDA's keyboard. One of the three occasions happened in the 70's, when my oldest brother and I were kept from riding our bikes right into the field of fire of a sniper who was shooting people in the street. The next was in the 90's, when a helicopter I was to fly in crashed the day before I was scheduled to fly in it. All three crewmembers died from the rapid deceleration of striking the ground at high velocity. See my post for December 1, 2007 for more thoughts on this incident.

And now, I realize that if I had not told my wife to take me to the emergency room on Sunday when I did, I would have suffered either a stroke or a heart attack. Both of these would have had terrible consequences not only for me, but also for my family.

Along with the realization that my life has been spared, I realized that in all three instances I had some measure of free will to save myself. I could have ignored the advice of a stranger and ride up the hill into shooting range of the sniper. I did not have to moonlight as a doctor on a helicopter, with all the risks that accompany flying. And on Sunday, I was granted, before I would have collapsed, the freedom to put in motion the steps necessary to save my own life.

It is terrifying to think how much God respects me as a man, when He allows me to have the freedom to decide my own fate. But of course He allows us the freedom to sin or practice virtue, to go to Heaven or to Hell, every day of our lives.

All this thinking about being spared and free will have ended up with the question, 'So what are you going to do about this, this instance where you were spared?' My mind keeps on coming back to this question. Such a tremendous blessing from God demands a response from His creature.

I do not know what to do right now, but I will have Lent coming up here next week to use as a time for contemplation. I plan on spending more time in prayer and discernment, with the goal of asking Our Lord what more He asks of me.

Some things I will NOT be doing:

I won't run off and become an environmentalist wacko.

I won't take up yoga, or any other quasi-religious behavior.

I won't grow a beard - tried that a few years ago, looked like five o'clock shadow after six weeks.

I won't join Al Gore in any endeavor.


The easiest solution to doing the will of God would be to ask my wife, the woman who knows me the best and loves me the most, what she would want me to change in my life. Until wifeofdadwithnoisykids wakes up, I will keep asking Our Lady(another woman who knows me the best and loves me the most) to help me with this question.

Drawings of Some Friends of Ours

Here is a picture of some dear friends of ours, four of the children from Our Magnum Opus.

Drawn by our 14-year old boy Noisykid.



Click on the picture to get a better view of the details. He got his artistic talent from his mother.

Serious Pro-Life Rap

Saw this at Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex.

This contains no curse words or vulgar language, but touches on the issue of abortion.

About Scorpion Stalking Duck

In order to make people understand the warped mind of dadwithnoisykids more, I have added the List of Labels to the sidebar.

In this way, anyone coming by to petition for the removal of this blog from the Catholic Blog Awards Nominees will have easy acess to proof.


The Humility of Dadwithnoisykids

For a while, I have been posting on Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo's great book Humility of Heart. Well for the last week I have been afraid to pick it up because it inspired such fervent prayers for humility that I think God responded in kind.

This last week has been a trial of physical proportions for me, but even more so one of emotional and spiritual suffering for my wife and children. I would go so far as to say that the physical problems I have encountered this week are miniscule compared to the sorrows that my wife and children have borne while trying to give me a place to rest and recover.

So, even in the humiliation of being sick, I find that my little cross is nothing compared to those of my beloveds.

It does help keep down the self-pity!

So what does this have to do with Humility of Heart?

Well, I am going to follow the example of Herbert Cardinal Vaughan(1832-1903), the translator of this book into English. It is said that he kept this book with him all the time, filling it with notes and constantly referring to it. At the end of his life, when he apparently went to retire at some nice estate, he decided to translate the book into English. So while others were playing golf, he was busy doing this tremendous work which has benefitted so many. He completed this task shortly before his death.

For a guy whose experience with Italian is limited to what he hears in those Italian restaurants which play language records in the bathroom, the gift of Cardinal Vaughan is immeasurable.

So I plan on keeping the book close by, referring to it occasionally. It is hard to pull out quotes which I can post for your edification, because nearly every word(except and, but and or) strikes to the heart of me. But some are so choice, I just have to print them. Like this great big swift kick in the rear end:

"In Paradise there are many saints who never gave alms on earth:
their poverty justified them.
There are many saints who never mortified their bodies by fasting or wearing hair shirts:
their bodily infirmities excused them.
There are many saints too who were not virgins:
their vocation was otherwise.
But in Paradise there is no saint who is not humble. "(#1)

Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
make my heart like unto thine!

Buy the book. It will be on my gift list this Christmas!



Please note that dadwithnoisykids does not receive royalties from the endorsement of any product, book, DVD, hairspray, Love Spud, or any other item which has an implied or explicit approval associated with it.

Nominated?

I have been nominated for

BEST NEW CATHOLIC BLOG

(I think)

If you go to the Catholic Blog Awards Website, you can see what I got nominated for and vote for my blog.

For now, I need to rest more and pray for a speedy recovery.

Here is a picture of the Love-Spud, sold only at the Gift Shop! The perfect last-minute St. Valentine's Day Gift!

What Ails Me?

In the preface, or forward to a book I have somewhere called "Medical Ethics for Nurses" there is a quote from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen to the effect that every good doctor( or nurse) needs to have an incision and a good sense of humor. Over the past sixteen years I have striven to cultivate the latter while trying to avoid the former. I have been quite successful until recently.

For the first time since I was an infant, I was in a hospital as a patient. In the past week I have been having problems with vertigo, dizziness, and on Sunday, intense chest pain. I had to say the words I never wish to hear; namely, "honey, take me to the emergency room now," and "hi! I think I am having a heart attack."

Oddly enough, just saying those words gave me some measure of peace. But these few words were probably the hardest words I have ever said.

After the dust has cleared, it appears that I did not have a heart attack, but that the heart was suffering the effects of high blood pressure on it. I am on medications to control my pressure, but I still feel weak as a newborn kitten. An MRI done of my brain confirmed what one of my partners always suspected, that there is nothing in there of any concern.

For the first time in my life, I got to experience a hospital from the other side. I never realized just how vulnerable one is as a patient, subject to midnight blood draws, blood pressure measurements, and the mysterious 4:30 wakeup to ask if I had had a bowel movement yet. Throw on top of that the sleepless times, filled with worries and fears about the future - more often about how I would provide for my family than about any future suffering. Add to that the recriminations about not exercising more and eating less, second-guessing my doctors, and just the constant question 'why?'

After much prayer, especially the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, it is apparent to my wife and I that while only God knows why He gave me this little cross, there are indications that He was preparing us for this little sidetrip. At the last moment in January, we changed plans for vacation and took our children to see Mother Angelica's cloistered nuns, and the Benedictine monks in Alabama. We then took our children to see my grandmother and my youngest brother in Florida, something which may never be possible again. A lot of what we did we may never do again as a family.

All the while, we treated this as a pilgrimage, begging God to send us more children.

God always answers these requests in His own way. The last time we stormed Heaven with prayers with this intensity and purpose was in 2004, when we were praying for the Little Flower to intercede for us. Did she ever. On the final day of the novena my wife had a severe gall bladder attack. She had surgery to remove the offending organ, and within three months was expecting our youngest daughter.

So now it looks as if it is my turn to suffer a bit, hopefully as a prelude to another Noisykid. I don't think I will need surgery for my present ailment, but that is not clear at this time.

What is clear is that the next girl, whenever she shows up, will be Faustina.

Thank you for your prayers.

New Patron Saint of the Moment!

Oleksa Zarytsky

Profile
Greek Catholic. Entered the seminary in Lviv in 1931.
Ordained in 1936. Pastor of the Archeparchy of Lviv for the Ukrainians.
Imprisoned for his faith in 1948, he was sentenced to ten years in the forced labour camps, and sent to Karahanda.
Released in 1957, he was soon arrested again for his faith, and senteneced to three more years.

Died in prison; martyr.
Born
1912 at Bilche, Lviv District, Ukraine
Died
30 October 1963 of gastritis and complications from high blood pressure at the forced labour camp at Karaganda
Beatified
27 June 2001 by Pope John Paul II at Ukraine
Canonized
pending

Saturday Thoughts

Here is a movie I really want to see. I haven't seen a movie in a theater since 1998, and this one looks really interesting:



The quote at the beginning looks to be from 1 Kings 19:11-13, but from my poor reading of German, the quote appears to be that of God not being in the strong wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire, but rather in the soft wind. This does not correlate with what I found in the Douay-Rhiems Bible. I am confused. THANKS TO HISTOR THE WISE, I FOUND IT IN 3 KINGS 19: 11-13, where Elias meets God on the mountain.

Anyhooo....

Every year, I go on a silent retreat at a retreat house run by Opus Dei, and while we do not go to such extremes of mortification over the four days, it still is an edifying time for me. It is a chance to step back from my busy life and take stock, to spend the time in prayer and thought. Blogless.

When there is no talking, the mind ceases to concentrate on the next thing to say, the next witty or sage pronouncement that I am constantly searching for in my day to day life. In the silence, no noise coming in and nothing preparing to go out, God will speak to me...provided I am not humming the 'Batman' theme song to myself.

After a few days, I am ready to return to my Wife and Noisykids, to a house where someone is cooking Play-Do in the microwave just to see what will happen, and toilet paper rolls are scattered about the floor of the bathroom like spent shell casings of some monstrous gun, rather than being neatly stacked away. While I feel a slight pull to the quiet of a contemplative life, my calling truly is to that of a man in the world trying to bring himself and his family closer to God every day.

Saint Scholastica and Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Patron Saint of the Moment

Saint Ulrich

Born 890 in Canton Zurich, died 983 in Austria. Bishop. Patron Saint of dizziness and vertigo.

I have taken him for my Patron Saint of the Moment, since I am experiencing vertigo.

I can see several connections with this saint:

1. I lived for a year in Canton Zurich when I was a child.

2. The main bookstore at the University of Michigan was called Ulrich's.

3. There is a story that St. Ulrich gave a goose leg to a messenger, and the goose leg turned into a fish on Friday(he is pictured with a fish). This goes along with a joke I love about a convert to the Faith who is found 'baptizing' a piece of meat with gravy, intoning, 'you are now a trout.' Since we observe not eating meat on Friday year-round, I sometimes joke about doing this with chicken or beef.

4. He is also the patron Saint against mice, and we have cats to limit the mouse invasions.

Saint Ulrich, Bishop, native of a beautiful part of Switzerland, pray for us.

Now an unrelated video, about 10 minutes long, of the Joint Strike Fighter. Reminds me of my time in the Air Force:

Benedict XVI Quote

"We commend ourselves to the constant intercession of the Mother of God and of our protector saints so that they will support and help us not to fail in our good intentions, so that they will encourage us to intensify all efforts, praying and working with confidence, convinced that the Holy Spirit will do the rest.

"He will give us complete unity when and how it pleases Him.

"And, strengthened by this confidence, let us go forward on the path of faith, of hope, and of charity. The Lord is guiding us."

-from Pope Benedict XVI's General Audience, January 24, 2007.

Cool Video from the Roman Sacristan

These are test pilots, except for the first one, where the guy doesn't land....

thanks to Roman Sacristan

Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Mind

My wife is a stunning brunette. Otherwise I would be sleeping on the couch....





Other humorous things from the life with the Noisykids:

What do you do when you see the 6-year old taking the electric coffee grinder to his bedroom? I stopped him before he could start anything.

Roadside advertisements from our recent pilgrimage:

Scenic Dirt Road

or

Hot Eats Cool Treats

Street names:

Topsy

followed by

Turvy

along with

You Win Road

we went through

Point Blank, Texas

also.

The internet is an alligator farm

I have not been to one in years, unlike this shark above, who brought this home from Louisiana. But there are some similarities between them. First, they both can be entertaining and educational. That is why you are here at this blog.

Secondly, they are a disaster waiting to happen if you stray off the path and into a 'gator pond. The one I went to about 20+ years ago had a walkway that took me over the swamp, and as I walked along, I could see plenty of eyes watching me. They appeared to be sizing me up for dinner, and had an evil appearance.

I always keep this thought in mind as I look for things, especially on Youtube, where a clean video may be neighbors with a really bad one. I keep the 'window' squeezed down to the minimum to avoid any temptations to my eyes.

While an alligator would only pull me down, drowning me and waiting for an opportunity to eat me, the dangers of the internet pose a far greater risk to my soul.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

Telephone pole, somewhere along I-45:

Missing Pelican Alert

Evidence of Stewbean in Connecticut?

Efficiency Plan Thwarted

After the recent goings on at NASA, I suggested that we try using diapers for all of us on long trips. Wifeofdadwithnoisykids disagreed. I could just imagine us getting out of the van...cancel that thought.

Scenes from Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Mobile Alabama:

That's a blurry picture of my 9 year old girl Noisykid approaching the altar.

The motto above the Tabernacle is Ecce Panis Angelorum, which I think means 'Behold the Bread of Angels.'

A brief comment on architecture styles. If you go to the website for the Cathedral, you can see the beautiful pictures. Contrast that with the masonic temple a block away. No windows. No light coming in, no light coming out.

Humility Revisited

Humility of Heart is so good that it is painful for me to read it. But I am still reading it, mainly because every line of the book just pounds away at my conscience with words of wisdom about humility. I am one of those irritating people who likes to underline key passages, but I had to stop doing this because most of the words are worth remembering.

I strongly recommend the book to everyone, and I think the best thing to do is to read it and keep coming back to it.

I earn no royalties from the sale of the book. Read the book!! here is a prayer i will incorporate into my morning prayers:

Daily Offering to God

"I offer Thee, O my God, all my thoughts, all my words, and all my actions of this day. Grant that they may be thoughts of humility, words of humility, and actions of humility-all to Thy Glory"

-from Humility of Heart, Number 25

Random Tuesday Thoughts

This is being published on Wednesday because I was sick yesterday and recovering today.

While on our trip, a friend e-mailed us and recommended that we stop off at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile, Alabama. It is conveniently located a few blocks off of Interstate 10, which we took from Florida to Louisiana(at which point we headed off into the bayous).

Despite me losing my temper at my co-pilot who was giving directions, we ended up at the Cathedral. It is a magnificant structure, and I would have gotten some good pictures if I had something other than my cell phone PDA. Besides, the sun was behind the Cathedral, so it would have only been a shadow.

The above picture is of the outside.

We went in and prayed for God to bless us with more children. While we knelt and prayed, various factions of Noisykids went exploring the inside of the Cathedral.

The organist was practicing some sort of crescendo of noise, starting softly and then growing until the air seemed to be vibrating with the sound. Then it would suddenly stop.

It would have been really dramatic if our baby were not singing along, carrying the tune as loud as possible in the sudden stillness of the Cathedral.

As I knelt next to my beloved, I started thinking about how difficult a day we had already experienced, and knowing that we still had to cross over the rest of Alabama, Mississippi, and most ofLouisiana before we could rest. I also thought about my own impatient outburst towards my wife, and how much better I could treat her.

Then I looked at her, as she knelt next to me, with most of her face hidden by her mantilla, and I thought about how she loved me and how we were there to pray for more children. I stopped looking at her and turned to the Tabernacle and asked God to bless us with more children, despite my unworthiness.

Then we got into the van and I drove like a madman to Louisiana.

Random Monday Thoughts

"Heute sterben Sie"

That's German for 'today you die,' which is a thought that struck me during yesterday's Mass.

How cheerful. After having that thought, I started contemplating the question, 'what if this were my last day on earth? What would I not want to be doing/saying/thinking on my last day of life, and what would I want to do on my last day of life?'

Briefly:
1. Pay attention and stop daydreaming during Mass.
2. Guard your eyes.
3. Guard your thoughts.
4. Occupy those times where your brain seems to be in neutral with prayers, like the Hail Mary. Fr. John Hardon once said that prayer is the only activity one can continue after death.

This phrase might make a great theme for Lent, which is a little over two weeks from now.



Here I am, Lord.

With Sunday's(yesterday's) first reading(Isaiah 6:1-8) containing those often-quoted words, 'here I am,' I would guess most of the parishes in the United States had a love fest with that sappy song, Here I Am, Lord. Quite a while ago, I uncovered some new lyrics for that song, and you can see them here.

Since I mention sappy Mass occurrences, I should show a picture of the pig who shows up for Wacky Mass Incidents:

She even has a theme song.

Enjoy.

"Take this raincoat before you go play in the thunderstorm. And don't forget your lightning rod!"

With these words, the governor of Texas mandates that all girls in public school receive the HPV, or Human Papilloma Vaccine. There are several angles to take on this law, but consider the message it sends to the youth. Rather than teaching our children to preserve one of their most precious gifts, we are telling them to go ahead and be used as an object for pleasure.

Vaccines can be made for anything, but a soul is not immune to the ravages of impurity.

Habemus Magnus Vannus

Raulito, who doesn't have a link to me, has a new ve-hi-cle! Read his comments on attendance during the football game yesterday, then marvel at the new van.

Speaking of vans, after driving through storms for most of the recent trip, I propose a motto for the Big Blue Miracle:

Nos Insisto Tempestas

(We Follow the Storm)

Sounds Like My Wife:

Proverbs 31:10-31:

When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize.

She brings him good, and not evil, all the days of her life.
She obtains wool and flax and makes cloth with skillful hands.

Like merchant ships, she secures her provisions from afar.
She rises while it is still night, and distributes food to her household.

She picks out a field to purchase; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She is girt about with strength, and sturdy are her arms.

She enjoys the success of her dealings; at night her lamp is undimmed.
She puts her hands to the distaff, and her fingers ply the spindle.

She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy.
She fears not the snow for her household; all her charges are doubly clothed.

She makes her own coverlets; fine linen and purple are her clothing.
Her husband is prominent at the city gates as he sits with the elders of the land.

She makes garments and sells them, and stocks the merchants with belts.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs at the days to come.

She opens her mouth in wisdom, and on her tongue is kindly counsel.
She watches the conduct of her household, and eats not her food in idleness.

Her children rise up and praise her; her husband, too, extols her:
"Many are the women of proven worth, but you have excelled them all."

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Give her a reward of her labors, and let her works praise her at the city gates.

Possible Stewbean Sighting

Evidence of Stewbean in Connecticut?

Oldest Daughter Noisykid Wanted You To Know....

You are a 100% traditional Catholic!

Congratulations! You are more knowlegeable than most modern theologians! You have achieved mastery over the most important doctrines of the Catholic Faith! You should share your incredible understanding with others!

Do You Know Your Baltimore Catechism?
Make Your Own Quiz

I am violating the Prime Directive(No Blogging on Sunday) to post the Oldest Daughter Noisykid's test results.

More knowledgeable than most modern theologians....hmmmm

Not only is she smart, but also beautiful. Here is a picture of her with me on the beach at St. Petersburg, Florida. You can see other pictures of our recent trip here.

Of course, the only reason for those silly Prime Directives seemed to be to violate them....

Now I will have to do this thing too:

You are a 100% traditional Catholic!

Congratulations! You are more knowlegeable than most modern theologians! You have achieved mastery over the most important doctrines of the Catholic Faith! You should share your incredible understanding with others!

Do You Know Your Baltimore Catechism?
Make Your Own Quiz

I am only putting this in to prove that I got a 100% score, for I know most of you would not believe me if I just said I got 100%.

Back to silent running for 2.5 hours.

Various Saturday Notes

Saint Blaise

We celebrated the Feast of St. Blaise with Mass and the blessing of throats, in Latin:

Per intercessionem Sancti Blasii, episcopi et martyris,liberet te Deus a malo gutturis, et a quolibet alio malo.In nomine Patris, et Filii +, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

(Through the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God free you from illness of the throat and from any other sort of ill. In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.)

I found the prayer in Latin at this blog, which I shall have to add to the list.

Blog on, blog off!

While I am at it, I will be replacing one blog with another. I will be adding this blog to the list.

Priests check in.....

Several priests responded rather soon after receiving our newsletter. Perhaps they recognized the need for prayers.

Briefly, one of the priests is battling cancer, and praise God it appears to be in remission. Keep Father in your prayers, please.

An elderly priest remarks that he has developed arthritis, but is showing some progress. The way he describes it, he has progressed from a cane to a walker to a wheelchair. His spirit and sense of humor are still going strong, and he could also use some prayers.

Another elderly priest wrote such a good newsletter that I willl ask his permission to quote it verbatim. Last year he described how he had buried several parishioners over that previous year, and was expecting someone to return the favor. We hope not, for no other reason than he writes a great newsletter!

We have a patron Saint for this blog!

St. Augustine of Canterbury is our patron saint for this blog for this year. This was selected by Moneybags at this blog. Part of the deal is that I have to tell how St. Augustine of Canterbury is associated with us.

First, we have a son named Augustine, although we named him after St. Augustine of Hippo. I would count the Confessions of St. Augustine as one of my favorite spiritual reading books. Now we will invoke St. Augustine of Canterbury as well.

In addition, St. Augustine died 1,364 years to the day before Wifeofdadwithnoisykids was born. May 26 is celebrated as his feast day in England. Another reason to celebrate the birth of my wife!

In return we will keep Moneybags in our prayers.

Thank you for this day

Thank You for this day, Lord
which began with You at Candlemas
and ended with You at the side of a child
needing more than just my hands

When bad became worse, You
showed me kneeling before You
not eighteen hours before
chiding me with your words

I am with you always
as far as your panicky little mind
can run - I'll be there
grabbing you by the wrist

Dragging you over chasms
and mountaintops
swinging into a lake
off the end of a big fat rope

So what if I can't swim.

I am with you always
your life is in the world
but it will be better off
starting and ending with Me.

February's Question Revisited

A year after I asked you, Lord,
I am back again at February
older, heavier, slower,
running faster than I ever thought possible

When I have come one year further,
the shadow of my life stretching
away from me, when others have
finished with this chapter of life

I ask the question again.

For the gifts You once gave me
coming to us easier
than falling out of a tree
then taken for granted

Presumed to be automatic
then withheld from me
now desired rather
than just accepted

Despite my failings
my unworthiness
my selfishness
every reason to give up

And say I'm through
gave it my best shot
joining the others waiting
for grandchildren.

But could You see to it
that instead I could be
the oldest father in the crying room
adorned with epaulets of wet burp
On my nicest suit jacket?

Labeled as a fool
in the eyes of the world - again
granted the only title
that will outlast my lungs

No longer Lieutenant, Professor,
Captain, Doctor, Major
or the omnipresent Mister
but rather
a chance to be Daddy once more?

SMD
2/1/07