Talking
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Does the Modesty Culture Cause Shame in Women?
A series of events this week — which included a friend sharing her concern about imposing modestly guidelines in our home — led to a deep dive into a very important question, “Does the modesty culture cause shame in women?”. Honestly, I’ve had a very positive experience with modesty culture, but I know that is not the case for everybody, and I took her concern very seriously. One of the most difficult things about being a parent is that you can never really go on “autopilot” — the moment you start getting overly confident about parenting, is usually the moment you find yourself hitting a wall. I guess what I’m…
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Defining Success
The other day, one of my lovely nieces was over (I have many lovely nieces), and we started discussing the innovative ways she’s been trying to encourage and highlight women doing beautiful things in this world. Suddenly, the thought came to me, “I wonder how those women define ‘success’?” Honestly, I think it’s an important question — for better or for worse, our definition of success is likely a big motivator in the choices we make and the way we live our lives. Think about it for a second. How do you define “success”? Taking the time to think about it, just might change the way you live your life.…
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Notre Dame Burning, Holy Week & Being the Remnant
Most of you have likely heard about the devastating fire that burned down a portion of the beloved Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. I was going about my day on Monday, when my brother’s text came in, “Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is burning down”. And then I went on my phone and watched as the steeple topped into a blazing fire that encompassed the entire roof of the Cathedral. All I could do was cry. Then my brother began to send me texts reminding me of all the crazy adventures we had when we went to France on pilgrimage, May of 1995. Our first stop after a long journey…
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Is Abortion Really About Freedom for Women?
I am going to be honest. I didn’t want to write this post. Nope. I wanted to write a nice post about capsule wardrobes or decluttering your home. But then I got writers block and as I sat staring at a blank screen, I spontaneously said, “Lord what do you want me to write about?” (Warning: don’t ever do this if you just want to write a puff piece and call it a day.) And then it just popped into my mind, “Abortion is the new slavery”. “Um, no. I won’t be writing about abortion. That’s sooo controversial and not pleasant at all”. But darn it, then I went off…
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Attending the World Gathering of Families and Papal Infallibility
I am Catholic — like really, really Catholic. I’m also Irish — well, technically Irish-American — but that’s practically the same thing in my book. Which is why, when my niece happened to ask us if we were going to attend the World Gathering of Families in Dublin, it set us on a trajectory which we hadn’t anticipated. All of a sudden, we found ourselves booking flights and cars and Airbnb’s and 8 months later, we were in the middle of Dublin, alongside a sea of people, on the way to the Festival of Families. It was an amazing night. The Riverdance troupe almost brought the house down and Bocelli…
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A Call to Honesty: Art and Architecture
“We’ve had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a thousand tongues – I see the world is rotten because of silence.” St. Catherine of Siena I should begin this post by saying I am no art expert. I am just a girl who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, subjected to the typically horrendous art, architecture and music that made its way into many Catholic Churches in those decades. Even as a small child, I had a strong visceral reaction to it. I sensed there was something off, something discordant about it. Then I went to Europe and was immersed in beautiful art and architecture — and…
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The Early Days of the March for Life & Why We March Now
My mother is one of the founders of the March for Life. She was a “stay-at-home” mom, pregnant with her 4th child (me), when she traveled to DC to meet with 6 people to decide what to do about the one year anniversary of Roe V. Wade. Little did she, or anybody at that meeting, know that they would become the founding members of the largest human rights march in the history of the world. Let it be known that these people did not hate women. Hate was never the foundation of this movement. In fact, to this day, you would be hard-pressed to find a woman hater in the…
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Let’s Talk About Christmas Feasting and Why It Matters
Did you know that there was a heresy in the early centuries of the Church, known as gnosticism? The Gnostics thought the human spirit was naturally good, but it was imprisoned in the body, which was naturally evil or simply an illusion. Their goal was to free the spirit from its embodied prison. Why this matters is because many of us struggle with this same heresy today. We find ourselves seeing the body as bad or evil — and spiritual things as good and in conflict with the body. It’s understandable, considering the sex-saturated, botox injected world in which we live — but the proper response to all the craziness…
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Let’s Talk About: Getting Ready for Christmas
I am not trying to freak anybody out, but Christmas is less than two weeks away. Now how did that happen?! It is coming fast! On Sunday, we will finally get our tree up and decorated — because Gaudete Sunday, people. Gaudete is Latin for “Rejoice” and it is the perfect time to raise the tree and decorate the house and to be reminded why we have been trying to sacrifice in the first place. Advent is a gift to people like you and me — people who live in a world that is always trying to frantically push the next thing we MUST.BE.DOING and NOW! It’s a way to…
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The Art of Influencing Your Kids
After watching some parents who seem particularly good at it, it seems to me that there is most definitely an art to parenting well. I am not one of those “artful” parents — but I have learned a lot from observing them and asking lots of questions. I still don’t have all the answers, but what I do have is wisdom that has been shared with me along the way, and I am going to share that wisdom with you today. You’re welcome. 🙂 Right up front, we should address the objection, “Why did God give us free will in the first place, knowing the royal mess we can make…
