Last month, I made Junior art masterpiece cards to help him learn the “Hail Mary”. He really enjoyed looking at and talking about the pictures. And he did memorize the prayer, line by line. He would read the words, then I’d cover up them up and he would say them by memory. So, I decided to go ahead and make a similar set to help him learn the “Our Father.”
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Here’s a little Mother’s Day gift for you! For the month of May, I’m teaching Junior to pray the “Hail Mary”. Since he’s such a visual learner, I made these cards for him: an art masterpiece for each line of the “Hail Mary”. I hope they’ll help him to understand the meaning of each line in the prayer as he memorizes it. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Looking at beautiful sacred art is truly a path to prayer. If you have little ones who are just learning to pray, I hope this will help:
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I hope you all had a restful and blessed Christmas break. If only Christmas break could last much longer! But now we’re back to the grindstone with a long winter stretching ahead of us, marked with many uncertainties. Are you feeling the need for strength and courage?
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of conversing with a most interesting lady. Cathy (not her real name) was a police woman and mother of two teenage daughters. She worked the night shift in a sketchy Manhattan neighborhood. Consequently, she had stories galore to tell: how she and her partner would bust drug and prostitution rings; how she dragged famous singers, who had passed out intoxicated or over-dosed, out of bars; how she went after notorious gang leaders who then sent her death threats…
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Yesterday was the feast day of one of my favorite saints, the hard-working, anxious St. Martha. I was actually relaxing (for once!) while watching my children swim in our neighbor’s pool, when I got a call from Cale Clarke. He wanted to know if I would like to talk about this blog and St. Martha on his nationally syndicated talk show on Relevant Radio… that very day!
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Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Christmas season! One thing I love about a New Year is that it is a time for fresh starts. Each day is also a fresh start, especially when it begins with a peaceful morning routine. Why wait until the end of the day to decompress? Begin the day with stillness and prayer. And so I thought I’d share this post, written by Melissa Atlee, a dear friend and homeschooling mama: How My New Morning Routine is Giving Me Peace.
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With the wonderful feast of All Saints Day coming up, I’ve been thinking about our children and what they think of becoming saints. Many of us adults know that we are called to be saints. But how many of us actually believe that we will reach that lofty goal? How many of us, when we consider our human weaknesses, feel discouraged? Sanctity is for Fr. So and So, but not for me. I often think if ever I go straight to Heaven, it will be on the coattails of the holy people around me or through a trap door.
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In last week’s post, I offered some suggestions about running the school part of homeschooling to avoid homeschool burnout. This week, I want to talk about managing the home part of homeschooling. For many of us, it is not the schooling part that’s throwing us over the edge, it’s the household work and the outside activities that we have to do in addition to educating our children at home.
Continue reading “How to Avoid Homeschooling Burnout – Part 2” →
I hope you enjoyed last week’s post, Screwtape Letter for a Homeschool Mom. I wanted to write an Angelic letter as well, because as Lewis put it:
Ideally, Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood should have been balanced by archangelical advice to the patient’s guardian angel. Without this the picture of human life is lop-sided. But who could supply the deficiency? Even if a man – and he would have to be a far better man than I – could scale the spiritual heights required, what ‘answerable style’ could he use?
Of course, there is no way I can scale the spiritual heights required, and I have no ‘answerable style’. But since this is just between friends and just for fun and encouragement, I thought I’d give it a try. Here it is:
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After ten years of homeschooling, I have slowly but finally found the solution to all of my homeschooling problems, and probably yours, too. This solution is so powerful that it can transform your homeschool into something far greater than you ever dreamed, and yet it is exquisitely simple.
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Mercy for Marthas