{SQT} Caring for the Souls God Gave Us

1. Eucharistic Congress

Last Saturday was our city's annual Eucharistic Congress at which Catholics gather for a Eucharistic Procession through the downtown, speakers, vendors of religious objects, and Mass with the bishop and all the priests of the diocese. This year, Chris attended with only the two oldest children because he had volunteer duties all morning and this mama would not  be able to safely navigate solo  all the brood through the crowds of 20,000, plus it would "knock me out" all the rest of the weekend. Oftentimes, others think having six children means a woman must be a "Super Woman" who can do it all, but that's very much not true!

2. Medical maladies

We had only two medical events all week, readers! Praise God for the slowing down of adversity.

Last Sunday, a heavy fire door at church closed too fast and a metal portion of it pierced Thomas smack in the middle of his forehead causing profuse bleeding and ruining his and his daddy's Mass shirts, but all was well. We were much relieved that we did not have to go to Urgent Care again!

On Friday, I stumbled down our four brick steps into the garage. I am sore in all my joints and back, scraped on my elbow, and my ankle was twisted, but it could have been so much worse. I'm very grateful!

3. "The Lie of the Apostolate"

I read "The Lie of the Apostolate: How I Left My Children Poor" by Melody Lyons three times in one day and knew it was very meaningful for me and might be meaningful for some of my readers.

"I would have been a better woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and homeschooler over the last 20 years if I hadn't bought into the idea that I needed to become some kind of minister to the world.

"We are all called to spread the Gospel, but it is a lie to say that spreading the Gospel to my children is not enough. The Church has enough apostolates. What she needs is a revival of sacrificial hardcore love in the domestic church. Not just a put-'em-in-a-good-school-so-the-experts-can-do-it kind of revival, but real transformation. It has always been that way because real love is not about big numbers...it is about one soul at a time."

There is a persistent tension, self-doubt, and pull for us religious, homeschooling mothers, in particular--one could say "idealists in general," but I only know my perspective--to do service outside of their homes. Running the home, educating the children, and trying to form Christians out of them is seen as not enough. Maybe this is because we are a couple of generations into the assumption that all women will work outside the home and have lifetime careers interrupted as briefly as possibly by a couple of babies: any other way of living than this is seen as not enough.

Homeschooling mothers probably have my same experience of being constantly asked to volunteer at the parish level, constantly asked to head things up, be in charge, donate our time. My experience thus far and the wisdom of older mothers have taught me to be very cautious because every one of these service activities pulls Mom and her ever dwindling resources away from the souls God actually gave her (her specific husband and children).

How much further a mother (me!) would grow in virtue and holiness to make it through one week--or maybe one day--fully serving her family, with all the cooking (even very simple), laundry, spills, chaos, and negotiating of fights, without resentment or tempers flaring even once? Perhaps even with a cheerful smile all day?  How much that exercise of virtue in one's own Domestic Church (what Catholicism calls the home) would grow the Christian kingdom!

I'm not "hostess with the mostess":
Once or twice weekly, dinner is frozen pizza on paper plates!

When our family does service or volunteering, we try to have it include the whole family. For example, this week we cooked a (very simple!) meal for a struggling family: Most of the children cooked with me, learning skills and charity at the same time, and I scheduled my delivery for when we would all be ten minutes away from the family's home for another event anyway.

4. Scholastic Scenes

This was a week of more normal school, with fewer medical interruptions, for which I am grateful. Homeschooling is an emotional roller coaster (for some of us, anyway!) and I went from crying on the driveway to my husband about how "I can't manage this!" and "I'm ruining them for life!" on Monday to feeling pretty darned solid about our educational path and process by the end of the week. Pretty typical for my weeks!

Do I have any even-keeled homeschoolers among my readers, or are we all a bunch of emotional nuts?

Just for fun this year, my seventh grade (in addition to required Latin) is taking Spanish through a live, online class 25 minutes per morning and using DuoLingo (free) for reinforcement. My fifth grader (in addition to her required Latin) fell in love with German so first bought herself a German dictionary, then requested to start studying German 20 minutes daily through DuoLingo. We will see how it goes but they are loving it so far!

Maybe they have a penchant for languages like my father, who took Latin for 12 years, as well as numerous years of high-school French and German, and one year of Japanese.

Studying German for fun

Thomas (4) playing old-fashioned, manual Battleship (as I rarely, but not never, allow the computer version of the game with all its whizbang visual and sound effects) . . .

Each day, it is written into my third grader's schedule to babysit the four- and two-year-olds for one hour so I can teach my first grader. It's like a little preschool time for them!

Learning his colors and shapes

Playing with money

Joseph studying zoology

When my first grader was learning about zoological taxonomy and moths, my two-year-old sat next to me scribbling and whispering to me endlessly about his drawings,  "Moth! Moth! Moth!"

5. Voting

I took the six kids with me to the voting booth on Tuesday, as there was a special congressional election. We like to talk politics in this family, reading up about it and watching debates when we can. It is a tradition that we always have taken our children with us to the booth to exercise our civic duty.

6. Gardening

We are learning our new property and there is so much to learn! This week we spent some time dethatching the badly matted grass before aerating and overseeding this fall. The children are loving raking and keep asking to do more during our recess breaks from school.

There were a lot of paving stones left behind by the previous owners so we laid them in a path and now begins the lengthy (months?) process of our countersinking each one. If we had more discretionary time, it could be done over a weekend, but it took me and the kids one hour to do four stones. The hard manual labor actually feels really satisfying and it is good mentally and morally to balance with academics.

A lot of work ahead of us!

The children asked to start a Gardening Club so I granted them the a corner of our back yard, which they have transformed into a wonderful club house!

They planted this tall shrub that they found in a pot left behind by the prior owners.

Sweeping the club house

Creating a path with leftover stones

Creating a luncheon area for club members

The little garden the 4-year-old is allowed to work on

Thomas' little garden which he likes to water daily

They made their own pine bough broom for the club.

7. Catechism for Fall 2019-20

What are we trying for catechism education this year? Do you have any great ideas that are working for your family? Add in comments!

The 2-year-old saves his favorite book on the kneeler

Mornings

Grades 1 through 7 are supposed to start each morning by saying their morning prayers (written out on a laminated sheet) and doing some holy reading. At the moment, two children are reading Angel Food stories, one child is reading Beautiful Girlhood, and one child is reading With God in Russia. To be honest, I still have to be the reminder every morning and it doesn't happen every morning or for every child, but I just keep chugging ahead, reminding when I can, and it happens several times per week for each person.

Official Catechism

Grades 5, 3, and 1 are completely Faith and Life (Ignatius Press) at their respective grade levels because our diocese has chosen to use that for its students. We are trying it this year, not in the books again, but at MyCatholicFaithDelivered.com, which is a recorded online version of the book which takes about 20 minutes to complete one chapter weekly.

My 7th grader is taking Middle School Catechism at Homeschool Connections once weekly, which is using the New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism No. 2.

Morning Basket Time

I keep a basket of current catechetical supplies at the kitchen table and use it casually and spontaneously at as many breakfasts per week as I can (which is several, not all).

• We read through The Baltimore Catechism No. 2 about once weekly. 
• We try to read the daily entry for Character Calendar (Augustine Academy Press), which follows the old liturgical calendar.
• We just started playing with the Friendly Defenders apologetics cards, Sets 1 and 2: we can get a rousing good game going with the kids and they all really enjoy it. Note that I think these are better when there are older kids in the mix, and I would not use them if all I had were wee ones learning their faith for the first time. These flash cards have Protestant characters on each making specific protests against the Catholic faith and then the backside has a Catholic character backing up the Catholic teaching.

Evenings

• Family rosary most nights, led by their dad
• I'm reading aloud Blessed Margaret of Castello, even if we only get to that a couple nights per week. (FYI, we watched and enjoyed the movie of this book, available on YouTube!)

Church Sacraments

• We opt out of Faith Formation at the parish because the scheduling takes our family apart too much on the Sabbath.
• Weekly goals new this year that we do not always hit, but we achieve a portion of, are Confession and two weekday Masses per week.
• Sunday Mass
• Our parish has solemn vespers sung every other Sunday afternoon, and we'd enjoy attending that when we can this year.

For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum.