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7 Quick Takes: Life Lately
Life has been so busy and I have finally realized that I just need to stop saying it’s busy and just accept that it’s life — life with six kids. So, here’s a quick glimpse of my life lately in 7 Quick Takes. 1. Called by Name Conference: I just returned from a really amazing conference and I’m so impressed with the way it equipped everyday people like myself with practical tips to reach out to people who have left the Church. You know how sometimes you come back from a conference full of good ideas and nice feelings, but not sure how to actually do anything with it? This wasn’t…
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Called by Name: Inviting People Home
I’m taking a break from pilgrimage posts to share a little about the Called By Name conference I attended last week. The goal of the conference: to equip ordinary people like you and me for the very important work of evangelization and welcoming people back into the Church. Bishop Boyea envisioned this series of conferences to energize members of his own diocese to be part of the solution to the problems within it –he knew he couldn’t tackle these problems alone. Only about 34% of registered Catholics in the diocese of Lansing attend weekly Mass and there has been almost a 30% drop in weekend Mass attendees in the last 10 years. Think about…
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7 Quick Takes: One Night in Rome
Rome was hot, very hot. And I was often wearing a baby, so multiply that by 10. 🙁 So, needless to say, we were sweating all.day.long. But something really wonderful would happen each evening –there was a coolish breeze and the scorching sun went away –so an evening walk was a great way for us to end our time in Rome. Honestly, Rome by day is impressive — but by night — it’s kind of amazing! This is true for cities all over the world, but especially the cities of Italy. At night, families come out and spend their evenings in their favorite little piazzas. The old and the young, romantic couples…
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On Pilgrimage: Rome with Kids (Part 1)
I have been slowly making my way through our recent pilgrimage to Italy. Please forgive me if it takes until our next family trip to finish this series of posts, but life –just life. I’d love to write every day, but I’m still trying to find the balance between blogging and living. Since my return, we have slowly transitioned back into the ordinary rhythm of life. Usually I return from a family vacation feeling empty and exhausted — the shell of a person I once was. Don’t get me wrong — I love our family trips — but I usually need to hide away for a few weeks to recover from them. This…
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Easy Weekend Dessert
It’s the weekend! It has been quite the week — I have felt one step behind on everything this week — new schedules that haven’t made it to my calendar means I have found myself missing meetings, arriving late to events, etc… 🙁 So today I am going to get all of my calendars synced up in the hopes that I won’t have so many fails in the week coming up. Oh well, just trying my lousy best here. But time to forget about that and reconnect with family. Here in the midwest, we have just gathered up the last berries of the season. So, I thought I would share one of our favorite go-to…
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St. Peters Basilica: 7 Quick Takes
Rome — where do I begin? On some level, Rome is like every other big city out there — traffic, noise, the constant activity of people doing all the things that people do in big cities. But Rome is also strangely unlike any other big city in the world– it is literally bursting at the seams with all things Catholic — slowly the big city fades and you begin to notice that everywhere you look there is some aspect of our faith represented in living color. It is a city of pilgrims, of saints, of sinners. In a real way, it is a city that belongs to all of us — for what else does the word “catholic”…
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Florence: A Hike Before Sunrise and Finding Quality Time
“Quality time is found in the midst of quantity time” ~Deacon Randolph~ When thinking back on our trip to Florence, there is one memory that brings home the truth about quality time: it’s often found in the more ordinary moments and it can happen anywhere, at anytime, and it is the glue that holds family together. Sure — we were in Florence — and that isn’t an everyday occurrence for our family. But the memory that I am thinking about started off in a way that many family memories start out: a little conversation between husband and wife. We knew we hadn’t slept much since the beginning of our trip…
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Florence: What Art, Beauty, and Naked Statues Have to Do with Being Catholic
“This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair”. ~John Paul II, Letter to Artists~ One of the reasons I love being around kids is that they ask the honest questions that adults are too afraid to ask. When traveling to Florence with kids, a question that will almost inevitably come up is, “Why so many naked people?” I’m not talking about the people passing by, but everywhere you look — in churches, piazzas, and museums — there are naked people depicted in very life-like reality. It might surprise you that the Church was one of the greatest patrons of the arts — and without the Church,…
