The Gift of Rest

The peace of this school vacation week has been a balm to my very weary soul. After a Lent that was full to the brim, a nonstop Holy Week, and Easter day, having time to just "be" and think, nap and even deep clean(!) has felt so amazing. I've tried to enjoy this slower pace and allow each day to just develop. Going into the week, I actually felt a lot of guilt and stress because I wanted to have a few fun things planned to do with Kate and Luke and I was having a hard time figuring what to do. I still feel out of my element trying to plan fun things for my young teens. I miss the days when trips to the zoo and playground made them so excited and made me feel like a really good mom! It took some work, but I was able to surrender all the hard feelings and spend some time praying each day that God would help me plan what was best for all of us. Because in the past, the guilt has totally derailed the time off I had and left me feeling deflated and discouraged...and I didn't want that to happen again.

And while we haven't done anything big most of the week, the kids have actually enjoyed the slower pace as well. They did some deep cleaning of their rooms(my favorite), and had lots of time to work on their own craft projects.(their favorite!) Kate had some time with friends and they both had a couple of Jackbox game nights with some of their siblings. We went out for ice cream, breakfast and lunch on three different days. Jay was able to get an unexpected day off on Friday, so we are going to take Kate and Luke on a day trip to Boston. (Which makes me feel good that we can provide a little adventure and "small" family time for them!) And Luke and Jay are going to see the 25th anniversary showing of Revenge of the Sith on Saturday, which Luke is really excited about. 

This little hiatus from my usual full time schedule is making me long for summer to arrive quickly to experience even more of this slower pace.  And while I've had moments of anxiety about the return to normal chaos next week, I keep just turning my thoughts to gratitude for the time that I've been given.

Today, after sharing takeout lunch and a boba smoothie with Luke and Kate, I sat on the steps of our deck in the sunshine. The weather was just perfect and I felt so calm as the warmth of the wood seeped into my legs, the sound of birds singing filled my ears, and the beautiful colors of spring filled me with anticipation for the summer weather that will be coming before I know it. 

As I sat on the deck reading a book, (a true luxury in the middle of the day for me), I saw a crow perching at the very tip of the fir tree in our yard. It flew away and a hawk came out from its hiding place in the same tree and flew into the woods.  I felt excited for the buds growing on the trees and plants and I love that the grass is so green! As I looked around, I was able to overlook the spattering of plastic Easter eggs still littering the yard, the dozen tomato stakes strewn across the patio that my grandson, Ambrose, relocated yesterday to make a "bridge", and the shed that needs repainting. My focus was not on what needed to be done, it was on the natural beauty all around me. I'm not always able to see that.

The landscape hasn't changed a whole lot in the last week, but my ability to receive it has. I've finally been able to stop and be fully present and allow myself to truly rest. It's been quite a long time since I've been able to slow my mind and body down enough to just live in the moment. It's made me realize how important this is and that I would like to feel this calm more often. At least for this week, I will receive it as the great gift that it is. 

My two princesses, Aurora and Claire!

Those cheeks!!!

End of Lent Pep Talk!

As Lent draws to a close, I find myself feeling a little disappointed. 

Let me clarify: I'm not disappointed about Lent being over. I'm starting to feel like Lent has been going on for.ev.er! And to be completely honest, Lent has never been my favorite season. It's all those involuntary sacrifices that pop up during Lent...the illnesses, unexpected medical procedures, unexpected losses, and unexpected hardships and inconveniences... that make each week even more, well, "Lenty", than I really wanted Lent to be.

The disappointment I feel comes from a place of unmet expectations about the changes that I hoped Lent would make in me. The growth that I thought might happen during Lent hasn't come to fruition yet. And since we are almost at the end, there's a good chance that I will fall short of my own hopes and goals.

But the key words in that last paragraph are "I" and "my", as in the changes that  "I" expected and "my" hopes and goals. Because Lent is supposed to be about growing closer to God by working on removing the things in my life that keep me from Him and adding things into my life that He inspires that will accomplish greater intimacy with Him. So what really matters isn't the direction that Lent took or how well I did or didn't do on the things I took away or the prayers that I added in. If I can focus on the areas of my heart that God did choose to work on and any growth that I can see, then maybe I can shift my attitude of disappointment to an "attitude of gratitude"!

Maybe some of us, (myself included), need an "End of Lent Pep Talk"!

I really need to remember that, just because parts of my Lent became a journey that I wasn't expecting, that doesn't mean that I haven't experienced growth. God did give me the grace of a big perspective shift right at the beginning of Lent.  By reading "Jesus and the Jubilee" by Dr. John Bergsma and listening to a podcast by Fr. Mike Schmitz on the desert as a place of training for the Israelites, I was able to enter Lent in a whole new way. 

I didn't enter Lent this year with a sense of dread for all those involuntary penances that would come my way. Instead, I entered Lent with a posture of curiosity as to what God was trying to teach me and heal me from. A small change in perspective can make a familiar time like Lent feel like a whole new experience.

I always thought of the Israelite's forty year journey through the desert as a punishment for their doubt, unbelief, and idol worshipping. But the Israelites time in the desert wasn't a punishment, it was a gift. It was a time when God drew the Israelites to Himself and worked to free them from the slavery mindset of Egypt that had been stamped into their hearts for hundreds of years. During the time in the desert, God taught the Israelites who He was and how to depend on Him. That generation spent the rest of their lives unlearning and being healed from all they had suffered.

By doing the hard work with God, the Israelites were writing a new story of healing and faith, not slavery, to pass down to the next generations. The Israelites needed a new story and so do we. 

We spend Lent wandering through the deserts of our own hearts where God is teaching us about who He really is and helping to separate us from our slavery mindset to the idols that we hold onto. Maybe we didn't make the progress that we wanted to this Lent...but I think if we spend some time reflecting, (and get past our perfectionism), that God will show us the progress we did make. And where we fell short gives us the opportunity to embrace our spiritual poverty and continue turning to God and ask for His help. 

We need to remember that our transformation and growth don't stop just because Lent ends. Especially this year! 2025 is a special year because Pope Francis has declared it a Jubilee year. A Jubilee year is filled with an outpouring of special graces given by God for healing and restoration for ourselves, our families, and our communities. In an article for Franciscan at Home titled "Jesus and the Jubilee: Reflections for the Jubilee Year 2025, Dr. Bergsma shares:

"Lived well, this Jubilee year can be a moment of miracle and grace for all of us, a kind of yearlong spiritual Christmas season in which we daily awake to open the grace that God our Father so lovingly gives us."

I don't know about you, but a "yearlong spiritual Christmas" sounds amazing! So even if Lent hasn't finished the way we wanted it to, let's continue leaning into the graces that this special Jubilee year offers to us each day. 

(And let's all try to keep our mind off of our own expectations and focus on the growth that God is doing in His time!)

Prayers for a blessed Holy Week and Easter!

pic from our trip to Niagara Falls last summer:)

When A Saint Reaches Into Our Lives

Sometimes in difficult life situations we go searching for a saint, but sometimes it seems that a saint comes searching for us.  

Several years ago, my daughter was going through some severe trauma that had a huge impact on my own heart. Only three weeks into the struggle, we were still in a state of shock and steeped deep in survival mode where even breathing felt like it took a lot of work. I couldn't figure out how to stop the pain in order to try and find some path of healing I wasn't sure even existed.

As I dragged myself out of bed to head to daily Mass to continue begging God for help, I felt a nudge to invite my daughter to come with me. It turns out that on that particular morning, God was orchestrating a Divine appointment.

Connecting With a Saint

What I didn't realize before we got to Mass was that particular day happened to be Saint Maria Goretti's feast day. While I knew her story, I did not have a deep devotion to Saint Maria Goretti. Yet, in that moment, I knew that God had inspired my daughter to accept my invitation so that He could minister to her through Saint Maria Goretti. And minister He did.

My daughter also knew Saint Maria Goretti's story and during Mass she also felt that God was comforting her heart through the intercession of this special saint. As Mass ended, our pastor at the time announced that he had a first class relic for all of us to venerate. Saint Maria Goretti was literally present at Mass with us. 

After Mass and venerating the relic, we knelt in the quiet church to pray. Our pastor, who knew what my daughter was working through, came up to us and said, "I think that Saint Maria Goretti wants to go home with you today." And he generously allowed my daughter to borrow the relic for several days. There was a great sense of peace that entered my daughter's heart that day. While God did not work a complete miracle of healing through Saint Maria Goretti, He did give us a smaller "miracle of a moment". Saint Maria Goretti brought some respite to our home and reminded us of God's love and care in the midst of a painful situation.

From Tragedy to Sainthood

Saint Maria Goretti was born in Italy in 1890. She lost her father at a young age to malaria and Maria watched her five younger siblings while her mother worked to support them. When Maria was eleven, her neighbor, Alessandro Serenelli, tried to physically assault her. She resisted his attempts, shouting that it was a sin and put his soul in danger. In anger, Alessandro stabbed her 14 times. Maria died twenty-four hours later, forgiving her murderer for all around her to hear. Alessandro was sentenced to thirty years in prison. He was unrepentant and angry until Maria appeared to him in a dream eight years into his sentence. Maria gave Alessandro 14 lilies and repeated her forgiveness for him to hear and for her desire that he be in Heaven with her one day. Alessandro had a change of heart and, when he was released from prison, went straight to Maria's mother to beg forgiveness before joining a religious community. Maria's mother not only forgave him, but she came to consider him an adopted son. When Maria was canonized in 1950, her mother and Alessandro were both present, kneeling beside each other.

Deeper Lessons

It's such a grace when a saint reaches into our lives in such an evident way. Saint Maria Goretti's visit to us on her feast day that year was a gift that I will always treasure. And while it was instrumental in bringing some relief to an acute situation, our visit with Saint Maria Goretti opened a door for greater reflection on her life and a broader focus on our own story.

As a mom, I was drawn to the reaction of Saint Maria Goretti's mother and all that she suffered. Maria's mother, Assunta, suffered the horrible trauma of watching her daughter die from the wounds caused by their neighbor's brutal assault. Assunta had to live with the pain that she wasn't present to protect Maria from Alessandro as she worked through her grief over Maria's death. And yet, Assunta accepted the grace to forgive Alessandro when he came to her after his release from prison. 

Assunta's ability to forgive herself and to forgive Alessandro and allow him to be a part of her life were definitely great graces from God. Assunta, who followed her daughter's example to forgive, continues to give me much to ponder and challenges me in my own life situation to keep my heart open and allow God to work. Forgiveness, mercy, and healing do not come easily (or quickly) to our hearts that are broken when someone has hurt us or our loved ones. But if we can keep our hearts open to God, He can redeem our brokenness into wholeness and use our experiences for His greater glory.

Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us and all those that we love who have been hurt by another. Please open our hearts to give and receive forgiveness, repentance, and to allow God in to redeem the most broken parts of our hearts. Amen

I wrote this post as part of Catholicmom.com’s Holy Women’s History Month. Each day in March a writer has shared a personal story of how different female saints have interceded in their lives. You can check out all of the other reflections on their website!:) 

The "Trying Threes"

Three is not my favorite age.

With all eight of my children, I always found their three year old year to be the most challenging. The cute toddler often morphed into moments of being a tiny tyrant once they were three. There's a willfulness that emerges and three year olds aren't as easily redirected. When they want something ...or don't want something... you're going to know about it and they don't give up as easily as they used to. There's lots of silliness that's harder to distract them from, and they easily pick up bad habits from other young kiddos that drive their parents, (and grandparents!) crazy.

In the Trenches

Two of my sons and their wives are experiencing this phase of childhood. One son has a three year old boy and the other has three year old twin boys. Parenting one three year old has challenging moments. When the twin three year olds are having challenging moments it feels like I'm a referee with a broken whistle at the WWE wrestling match! Sometimes it's only one of the twins that is testing and pushing limits but, quite often, the other starts to mimic the negative behavior and it's a two on one moment of extreme silliness where they've lost the ability to listen to Grammy's demands to cease and desist.

My three big boys hard at work making memories (and messes!) with Grammy:)

Nothing Lasts Forever

Despite how hard it can be to have two kids in the same difficult stage at once, I do have the experience to know that even the hardest stages don't last forever. I watch the twins and their almost 18 month old brother three days a week. The twins turn four next month, and I'm praying that some of the challenges we've had in the last several months will be extinguished with the Paw Patrol candles they blow out at their birthday party. 

My son has joked a few times with me lately, "Mom, think how easy it will be when the twins are in preschool next year and you only have one to watch." And while that certainly will be easier, I don't want to wish this moment away with the twins either.

I know that there is joy to be had even in the difficult stage. And while it's easy to allow the negatives to build up and slip into a posture of "white knuckling" until things get easier, that kind of thinking keeps me from being present in the moment and robs me of any good happening in the 'right now'. Early childhood is a really special time of development. Never again do you have the same amount of time with your children or grandchildren once they start school. Everything changes - and that's exciting and sad all at the same time.

Knowing that my time with the boys is dwindling gives me the encouragement to work through the moments when they push and challenge me so that we can get back to an atmosphere of, well, more 'normal chaos', so that I can love on them and enjoy them. I want to be able to stop and savor the moments with the three year olds when Leo asks me to sit and snuggle with him, or Ambrose excitedly wants to show me the block tower that he's built, or Xavier wants to tell me the "joke" he's come up with all on his own. These moments are fleeting and I don't want to miss out on them; even on the days that it's a see-saw of time-outs, redirection, and starting over dozens of times.

Living through the "Trying Threes" definitely makes me lean into God many times a day. Short prayers begging for patience slide through my lips just as frequently as "Do you have to go potty?" and "We need to keep our hands to ourselves!". There are days that the boys leave my house and I'm feeling grateful and have peace (and am also in desperate need of a nap!) But on the harder days, I feel very inadequate and question if someone else could be doing a better job with them and that I'm failing at being a grammy. Those feelings aren't all that different from the times that I have felt/still feel inadequate and that I'm failing as a mom. I don't think that I expected that fear of failure and not being enough to travel with me to this next generation. Yet, here it is.

Thankfully there's something else that followed me into life with a new generation: faith. In a lot of ways, praise God, it's much stronger than in my early years of motherhood. And while there's still lots of room to grow, loving and living life with these little ones gives me lots of opportunities to turn to God, admit my poverty, and ask for His grace to pour into me so I can pour into all those He has entrusted to me. 

"The Lord's acts of mercies are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent:

they are new every morning - great is your faithfulness."(Lamentations 3:22-23)

Life With (Yet Another) Teenager

My youngest officially entered into the teenage years in December. I've experienced seven other children enter the teenage years and lived to tell about it! And while each experiences has been different, I have to say that this time around I've noticed that the popular slang seems much more prevalent. (And confusing!)

There's just so much of it! I feel like slang in the more recent past consisted of a few words here or there. But sometimes it feels like Gen Z is creating a whole new language! And while occasionally it's fun to tease my two teenagers by using their slang poorly, most of the time it just leaves me shaking my head!!

My daughter kindly created this slang "cheat sheet" for Me:

Joy and Sorrow

The pre-teen and teenage years can be overwhelming for parents. Even Mary and Joseph had a moment in Jesus' adolescence that brought them pain and confusion. 

"Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety." And he said to them, "Why were you looking for ? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age favor before God and man." (Luke 2:41-52)

The Finding in the Temple is the Fifth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. But this event, Losing the Child Jesus in the Temple, is also the Third of Mary's Seven Sorrows. And if there's anything that defines the teenage years, it's a mix of joy and sorrow. 

As your child grows and changes into a teenager and young adult it creates new ways to communicate and spend time together. (At least it can be when they answer our questions about their day with more than the word "fine" and aren't hibernating in their room!) And while there is joy to see our children become the men and women God created them to be, there is also sadness in the long, hard process of letting go. 

I've been thinking about Mary's Third Sorrow quite a bit in the last couple of months. The trip to the temple that year marked a turning point in Mary's mothering and her relationship with her Son. Mary obviously wasn't expecting Jesus to stay behind in Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph looked for Jesus with "great anxiety". Even Jesus' answer to them wasn't what they expected. Mary and Joseph were being grown and stretched by Jesus’ growth and change. Though he returned home with them, something was different. The loss of Jesus in the temple reminded Mary and Joseph of the reality of Jesus' mission. And while Mary knew how to live perfectly in the present moment loving and caring for her Son, the sorrow of knowing that Jesus' mission would eventually lead to her losing His constant physical presence and bring her closer to Simeon's prophecy of a "sword piercing her heart" was also present.  

That happens to us too. Our relationship with our preteen and teenage children shifts along with their growth spurts and hormones. Sometimes it feels that our sweet, loving children turn into teenagers overnight. Frequent snuggles, reading books together, and them wanting to be in our presence with our full attention that is the reality of our everyday life for years becomes a rare occurrence. Our child's reaction to us starts to change and it isn't what we have come to expect. As parents, we are grown and stretched by our children's growth and change. 

And Mary shows us how to work through that as a mother. Mary shows us how to ponder changes and difficult moments by prayerfully reflecting instead of reacting. Through joys and sorrows, Mary shows us how to accept God's Will in her life even when it's unexpected and difficult.  She teaches us how to  surrender each situation and trust God all while keeping her heart open to the unknown. Mary lives each moment fully alive.

I hope to learn from Mary's example as I journey through the joys and challenges as the mom of a teenager one last time.