Raising Saints & Martyrs

In honor of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima I thought it wise to spread her will...or rather God's will. We all know the story, May 13th 1917 the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima appeared to three children. She had warnings and pleadings to offer us. She also make three requests. Three basic requests we cannot ignore...


Our Lady has asked the following of God's children:

1. Prayer - every time Our Lady appeared she asked that we pray daily. Not just any prayer...the Holy Rosary. Now, as a Catholic we all see them, we can pray with them, but can we really pray with them? Do we know how to focus that prayer? Feel the beads within your hands and let the rest of the world fall a way for a time?

Adapt to life:

I do prefer physical beads, but I will say that the download of Laudate has taught my own children how to maintain the prayer easily. Teach our children to pray from an early age, include them in your daily Rosary. Children mimic what they see. If they see you obeying God, they, too, will obey. If they see you praying, and see you reaping the rewards of that, they will pray too.

2. Reparations - to old school Catholics this is called Penance (ok...to all of us, but reparation sounds way less scary). We are called to confess our sins and leave them behind for eternity. You may want to do more than just "confess" your sins. God grants us mercy without asking...perhaps we should use that and be sure we do ask. Then it will be known to Him that we want His will to be done through us. A simple Act of Contrition is not the answer here. We must be truly sorry, we must mean it when we ask forgiveness of our Lord.

Adapt to life:

Ask for forgiveness regularly. Forgive regularly. Now, forgiveness is not the same as allowing people to walk on you, but that is a whole different blog post. Let your child see you begging God to forgive your transgressions. Let them see you put those sins in the past and no longer committing them. Our children will more readily ask for forgiveness if it does not seem shameful to do so.

3. Consecration - pay attention here...this matters: Consecration makes things holy. If we consecrate our lives to the Holy Mother, then we are opening them up to Jesus. We are consecrating our lives and hearts to Christ through the Holy Mother. This is important!!! By consecrating ourselves to Mary we are making ourselves holy for God. For His glory and happiness. We are called to have a fire within our souls for Jesus and Mary.

Adapt to life:

It seems like so much to live up to...lucky for us, we only have to desire and ask. When you truly desire and ask something of God, he responds somehow.  I cannot fully tell you how to incorporate this into your life, but I can tell you a great book to assist you in doing this would be 33 Days to Morning Glory. I used it as a personal retreat and it has done wonders in my life.



Rosary - Pray this daily with an examination of conscience...then consecrate yourself to God and the Holy Mother.

Make the Sign of the Cross

Holding the Crucifix, say the Apostles' Creed

On the first bead, say anOur Father

Say three Hail Marys on each of the next three beads

Say the Glory Be

For each of the five decades, announce the Mystery (perhaps followed by a brief reading 

from Scripture) then say the Our Father

While fingering each of the ten beads of the decade, next say ten Hail Marys while 

meditating on the Mystery. Then say a Glory Be (After finishing each decade, some say the 

following prayer requested by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima: O my Jesus, forgive us 

our sins, save us from the fires of hell; lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have 

most need of your mercy.

After saying the five decades, say the Hail, Holy Queen

33 Days. That's all it takes.

I enjoy my rosary. So much so that I have several, and intend to make more. I am becoming increasingly interested in the different types of rosaries available to pray on. I want my own children to have an interest in revering the Holy Mother. I want them to look at her as I do and see a woman that God saw fit to not only bear, but raise His Holy Son. I am in amazement that such a person has ever even lived.

I want to be like her. I want to have her grace. I want to feel her love.

I want the same for my own children. I want them to know this level of grace exists.

I am rereading 33 Days to Morning Glory. I also found a podcast I plan to use as well this time around.

Join me for the next 33 days. Consecrate yourself to Mary.
Join me and make this a retreat for your own homeschooled children.

I will leave you with how I taught my children to recite the Hail Mary with meaning:

Hail Mary, full of grace 
The Lord is with thee

God filled Mary with grace. She loved him. She followed God at any cost.
God is with Mary during her pregnancy, experiencing every moment she experienced.

Blessed art thou amongst women,
Blessed is thy fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

God blessed Mary with a child. God gave her himself.
Jesus grew within her to become man, like us.

Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death.

Even God sees Mary as the Holy Queen. He sees her as his mother.
Mary prays for us daily. She answers our prayers as she sees fit. 
Mary prays for the sinners. She pulls you in and loves you to redemption.

Amen

   
     I am in a book club at church, well rather through my moms' group. We read a book a month throughout the school year. I get a lot of great books to read, and even some amazing ideas for books to read in the summer. I thought it might be fun to tell you what I am reading, and what I am getting out of it.
     Right now I am reading Everybody Needs to Forgive Somebody by Allen Hunt. We read it last month for book club, but since I had my children that night I did not bother reading it. Plus, I put it off because I know I have someone to forgive. Well, it was a great book. I was caught up immediately, from the moment he began discussing Jesus and his forgiveness of those who crucified him.
     Well, crap. How could I not finish it. How could I not try to forgive the man who hurt me to my core. Fine. I read the book, I loved the book, and I began to try to forgive. I couldn't. It was not even a remote possibility. I harbor ill feelings, sure, but I am not angry. I do not feel I need to forgive him. I sat down and assessed who needed the forgiveness.
     I began questioning myself and those around me. I didn't blame him for leaving me because I left him. I didn't blame him for cheating because...well, okay, I blame him, but I am not angry it happened anymore. When I think back to why I am so damned angry I think about the following:

I left, I was relieved he cheated because it meant I could finally leave.
He hurt my children and I was horrified that I let him.
My daughters were "used to it." Perfect, I couldn't even protect them against words.
I was relieved a marriage of 10 years was not valid in the eyes of the church.

Double crap. I wasn't mad at him. I don't care enough about him to harbor feelings that require me to forgive him. The way I see him and his mistress: It is their issue to take before God, not mine. They are not sorry. And, I could not care much less. I am happy. I am mad at ME. Wonderful. Because we all know self loathing and resentment are so easily healed, right? Well, this was what I needed because now I am in that place. The place where I get to heal from the wounds I caused myself. I no longer blame myself, but I still have not fully forgiven myself either. It is a day by day prayer process.

We all have someone to forgive. I challenge everyone to find who they need to forgive. Ask yourself the questions I did:

Who do I blame?
Who do I no longer trust that I need to trust (of course I no longer trust my former spouse, but that is not an issue because I do not need him in day to day dealings)?
Who do I want fully in my life, but push away?

Pray daily on your journey.

An amazing thing happened last night; Boo laid next to me in bed while I was reading 33 Days to Morning Glory and asked if she could do the retreat with me.

Mind. Blown.
She is 12...well, this month she will be 12.

It was at that moment that I realized what a wonderful life God has given me recently. I have three amazing daughters and the son I wanted so badly. All four of my children are relatively healthy, not counting the Epilepsy issue. They are all very intelligent children, and very well adjusted. I am lucky enough to be able to work from home while I attend school, all while I homeschool Boo and Bear. From the depths of my heart, I am grateful. I love my life as it is now, and I have God to thank for that.