A Crucifix

I have been Catholic for over 2 years, but I don't have a crucifix in my home. My husband has observed that crosses seem to mysteriously multiply in our house, really without any effort on my part. But I have never been given a crucifix.

I have thought lately about making the wall right by my side of the bed into more of a prayerful spot since my bed has become my Scripture reading spot. I'm hoping my husband won't object to this little corner of the house bearing a few religious images (we're not enthroning the Sacred Heart in the living room, okay?!). Several days ago I spotted a pretty little crucifix on Etsy and am hoping that it can sit on the wall right next to my little thumb-tacked image of Divine Mercy and my rose pillow that reminds me of the Blessed Mother and St. Therese.

And seriously, the crucifix? It is simple and beautiful. Here is the Etsy image since I have to wait for this baby to ship from Ukraine!

I had such a hard time choosing from this particular Etsy shop. Seriously, look at this one. And this one! Ultimately this simple one was lovely and within my budget (that's a plus!) and I really wanted a metal corpus for my first crucifix. In all likelihood I will purchase another one someday when I have fun money again...I will hang it in my actual closet if I have to!

We're oratory underground up in Casa Stone.

Bookmark: Fr. Cizek

"God has a special purpose, a special love, a special providence for all those he has created...It means, for example, that every moment of our life has a purpose, that every action of ours, no matter how dull or routine or trivial it may seem in itself, has a dignity and a worth beyond human understanding. No man's life is insignificant in God's sight, nor are his works insignificant--no matter what the world or his neighbors or family or friends may think of them." -Fr. Cizek.

(Pulled from another book, A Heart on Fire: Rediscovering Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by James Kubicki, S.J.)

The Idol of Comfort

I read this post by Jen @ Conversion Diary the other day, and it made me wonder what my antagonist is: what do I desire more than I desire God. I took it to prayer and the answer which sprang immediately to mind was, "comfort." At first I thought, "okaaaay." Then I thought about the way I seem to focus so much on maintaining my peace, my status quo, my self image, my residence firmly in my comfort zone. I thought about times when I though I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit and then wriggled out of following the prompting because, "I must be imagining that. That's not me. I couldn't do that." I finally had to admit, "yeah, sounds about right."

Recently I stopped wearing my veils or coverings at Mass. I did it partially to mark the joy of the Easter season, and partially (probably mostly, if we're honest) because I was tired of being the weirdo. I have used this time to think about whether or not I will take it up again come Ordinary Time, and lo, Pentecost is nigh!

Last Friday I went to a Catholic Girl's Night Out event in San Antonio arranged by the Alexander House. The first hour of the event was a nearly all-women Mass (much to the surprise of the officiating priest). During the sign of peace I turned around to find that the young woman behind me was wearing a veil. Kneeling a moment later I prayed, "if you want me to wear the veil again, let me know, Lord." The rest of the Mass went on as usual and was lovely. In the gap between Mass and the guest speaker, we prayed a collective rosary. I kept thinking about the veiled woman, wanting to ask her about her experience with it.

As the rosary was begun I shifted in my seat and looked left and right. Everyone was kneeling, everyone was praying. I didn't feel like praying the rosary, but in the interest of blending in and the mere fact that I was re-consecrating myself to Jesus through Mary the next day, I went ahead and knelt myself though I did not have any beads on me. I reached to my throat and tightly grasped my miraculous medal.

Moments later I felt a nudge on my back. I turned and found the veiled woman offering me her extra rosary. I prayed on her beads the rest of the time and when I tried to hand them back to her afterward, she said, simply, "keep it."

Looks like I'll be veiling again soon! And also re-reading this blog post by another San Antonio woman for additional inspiration. Also, this!

Funny enough, I purchased some scarves here a couple of weeks ago using a coupon code for 3 free scarves, and when they came in I immediately thought that they would make good church scarves. Seems like I'll be testing them out sooner than I anticipated.

St. Elizabeth....Pray for us!

I don't know whether Baby Stone is a boy or girl, but if a girl I am officially making my request that she be born on November 5 for the feast of St. Elizabeth of the Visitation. That would be amazing! I have been thinking of Elizabeth as a middle name this whole time!

Amy Elizabeth Stone? Maybe ;)

Sunday Reading Mashup

The family is sleeping, and I don't do any but essential housework on Sundays. So blog!

This past week I have been reading:

and

It ended up being a great mashup! Do you ever read something that perfectly meshes with something else you're reading, and then you think, "I'm supposed to be reading this?" That's how it was with these two. 

I have been working through 33 Days since April 28, leading up to the renewal of my consecration to Jesus through Mary on the feast of the Visitation on May 31. (As an aside, pregnancy has been involved each time I did this, isn't that wild for that particular feast?) Anyway, I didn't know that much about My Sisters the Saints when I checked it out, but I'm very glad I did. It really spoke to me, in fact in some ways it mirrored my life right now.

Colleen writes so beautifully about her father's illness and about her struggles with infertility. There were several instances where I read her descriptions about her feelings about certain things, and I thought, "I'm so glad she wrote this, this is exactly how I felt." The way that she wrote, I felt a certain kinship and sisterhood with her and not just with the saints that she wrote about (who, wouldn't you know, happen to be my saints!!).

She details her struggle with being faithful to Catholic teaching throughout her infertility troubles even though it meant that she could not in conscience use IVF, which she thought at times might be her only way to conceive. I have not had to struggle with infertility, but exactly the opposite. After giving birth to Lillian it was much harder to consent to follow the church's teachings against contraception, especially with those crazy fertility signs and a husband who definitely wasn't on board with the idea. I wrote about my suffering last May. It was so touching that both of us women struggling in different areas could have the same reaction, a struggle against obedience to the Truth. I say now that I'm happy with how things have unfolded with my husband and I, and *spoilers* things turned out well for Colleen as well!

The book also works through Colleen's struggles in seeing her father descend further into dementia due to Alzheimer's disease, and how difficult it was for her to watch. My dad was diagnosed with cancer just at the end of April and so he has been heavily in my thoughts and prayers lately (though he is doing quite well at the moment). I *loved* the way Colleen speaks about learning to exercise spiritual motherhood from St. Edith Stein's Essays on Woman (yes, I own this book and have read the passages which Colleen quoted!) and caring for her aging father. It reminded me once again to persevere in praying for gentleness and patience as I serve my family and others I may meet. 

Near the very end of the book Colleen gets to her thoughts on Mary, the last saint mentioned. The passages about Mary's personal motherhood were exactly what I needed to hear, and definitely overlapped with the section of Morning Glory I'm in at the moment. I felt like God saw me reading Morning Glory ineffectively and said, "you know, you're not getting this. I need you to do this supplemental reading." Bam! Exactly what I needed.

You know how sometimes you're reading Scripture and a line just jumps out and knocks your socks off? My Sisters the Saints quoted not one, but two such Scripture passages which have absolutely grabbed me this past month (Psalm 27:14 and Romans 8:38-39). It may be silly, but these two verses hammered home the feeling of "you're supposed to be reading this, take heed." I'm a strong believer in Providence, and it seems as though last week's reads were exactly provided for me.

Examination of Motives

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, not present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

This passage has been bumping around in my head for several days, and today I encountered it again in My Sisters the Saints that I got from the library.

I know Catholics don't believe that we can "earn" salvation, but I have realized more and more that I live my life in a way which seems to say that a person must "earn" love. Every straight A, every accomplishment, every degree that I earned has been silent proof like a plea, "I am worthy of love...see?"

I don't impose those cruel standards on anyone else, just me. The past several years as I applied for one job after another leading only to rejection have thoroughly brought that unconscious belief to light as I wondered over and over again whether I was worth anything at all. Maybe I was a dull little pebble fallen into the crack of the sidewalk. I've worked through a lot of that over the years, but sometimes the niggling thought resurfaces and I have to battle it again.

Sometimes it resurfaces in a different angle which I have to address. During my life as SAHM I have battled through these feelings of worthlessness because I am not pursuing things which appear to be worldly success. I have no career, no income, dusty never-used college degrees, etc....I have just realized today that in the absence of those things, I sometimes find myself trying to "earn" my husband's love. I am more diligent about housework etc. on the weekend when he is home because I want to show him that I am not totally useless, and that I still am worthy of his love.

Several nights ago my husband said to me, "Goodnight, my sweetheart." In the days since I have broke down bawling every time I thought about it. You see, he loves me regardless of the things I do for him. I never had to do anything to earn his love, because I already had it and never lost it. All the while I have been unconsciously fretting about how to be worth it, maybe I was neglecting to shower him with the love and respect that he deserves. Maybe I was not really allowing him to love me, given my belief that I wasn't worthy of such love. It was also a glimpse of the way tha God loves me.

God finally got it through my hard head that I need to be doing my work to love my daughter and to love my husband absent of a desire to earn their love back. I need to keep a beady eye on my motives and do everything for the sake of outward-focused, humble love.

Another line which landed on me like a punch in the stomach, also from My Sisters the Saints, "I marveled at how stealthily God works in the soul, one day and one trial at a time."

Apt, very apt.

7 Quick Takes about debt, frugality, and library love!

It's been a long while since I've done a 7QT! Complete with memes and text which absolutely refuses to left align despite my pursed brows and sighs of consternation! 

{one}

A couple of years ago I spent a few weeks devoted to Dave Ramsey. I was determined to get us out of debt (student loans + mortgage). I was also pregnant and knew that I would be quitting my job before the baby was born. Our debt wasn't too bad. We didn't have credit card debt or a car payment (though we accrued one due to a surprise run-in with an old lady with a blind spot which would destroy the entire passenger side of my husband's car 2 months before the baby was born). The issues I had with Dave Ramsey were 1) he was critical of women with college degrees who decide to stay home with their kids, and 2) unless you could put a massive chunk of money toward debt, he seemed to always recommend that the woman keep working. I knew this wasn't an option for us at the time, grew discouraged and stopped listening to him. 

{two}

But I had to learn to budget. I started out doing straight up envelope cash-only system, but since our bank is not in town it was a hassle to acquire the cash. Then I started using the Goodbudget app on my iPhone, but the free version only allows you to have 10 budget categories and things got a little complicated. We also failed repeatedly to enter purchases as we went and the app was rarely correct as to how much money was left in each category. Yesterday I admitted failure and downloaded a free trial of the You Need A Budget software. The good thing about it so far is that you can create the budget on your computer and everything is also linked to your smart phone. You can also enter in transactions on your phone and keep track of them that way. Here's hoping that the hubs and I can get into that habit!

{three}

Sadly, this is not so far from the mark...

I also faced the music and looked at our bank account and added up the amount of money we spent eating out in May. The hubs had a lot of overtime in this first paycheck, so we had a lot (for us) of extra money in the beginning of May. It turns out we spent $150 eating out, plus several non-essential purchases which left us in the familiar barely-holding-on-till-payday scenario! If we spent the same amount eating out every month, we could have saved $2800 to pay down our student loan bill! This sobering realization brought me to think of ways to cut out some expenses. Dave Ramsey, be damned. We can be miserly and pay some debt on one income. In the interest of cutting some expenses such as my insatiable appetite for the written word...

{four}

...I finally, finally, finally got my TexShare card! This means that though I live in a small, small town with a teeny tiny library, I can now check out items from San Antonio Public Library (SAPL) even though I live out of county. Usually you have to pay for the privilege of using SAPL, and at $200/year it wasn't gonna happen. With TexShare my local library vouches for me, and I get limited access to SAPL's inventory. Score one for alleviating the temptation to buy books!

{five}

SAPL splurge

My degrees are in English, history and library science. You know I love da books. It took great willpower to choose only three to take home today when there is a limit of five. Lillian helped me by peppering my arm with muscle spasms due to her becoming fussy and demanding to be held. I knew that I would need to arrive at my vehicle before my arm gave out, plus parking is free for the first hour.

{six}

I already have gluttonous ideas of the delicious books I will check out next time I go to the library:

Blessed, Beautiful and Bodacious by Pat Gohn
Discipline that Lasts a Lifetime by Ray Guarendi
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
All the books, ever. Amen.

{seven}

Last, but not least: Something Other Than God. SAPL has it. I have already read it, because I do not have the patience to wait for library books to be ordered and processed. BUT...I used the "Suggest A Purchase" feature in SAPL's catalog and was notified that due to my recommendation, the library has decided to purchase the book that I suggested. And there are 49 people waiting to get their hands on it. I am famous. Collection development for the win.

For more quick takes, visit Jen @ Conversion Diary!