Carry Your Cross

     Carry your cross today.  The Saints remind us, the only way to heaven is through the cross.  We must suffer, and learn to rejoice in that suffering.  This is such a hard concept if we are of this world and not Christ's.  (I struggle with this debate daily myself!)  So let us not be like the masses and flee our Lord in his time of need.  Let us take up our personal cross, and follow Christ in his way of the Cross.

PS  Please pray for the boys...we start carrying our cross today at 1155, St Brigid to Regina Caeli, Academy.

-ehw

Open to Grace: Two Fruits of Classical Catholic Education

    Today our little Catholic Hybrid School will graduate our senior class.  Through family friendships and school events, I watched two of them grow into peaceful and God Fearing young adults.  These two also became my very first senior photo clients!  

    Neil is a quiet young man of deep thought (like some of my best high school friends).  He will go out west to college, and will begin the study of media production from a Catholic perspective at John Paul the Great Catholic University.  This is a great fit for him.  

    In our school I observed how he is a quiet, humble leader of the younger students.  Many boys looked to him, literally looked directly at him, before doing almost anything to observe the example he would set.  His example became their course of action.  He respectfully fulfilled his duties to the school and family very well.  His quiet leadership leaves a void for the school population, which will be noticeable until another boy fills his vacated role.

    Mikayla is a lovely young woman, of sincere virtue.  She lets God's grace work through her life to help others.  She will enter studies at Aquinas College in Nashville this fall.  She will be more than a normal student though, as she continues her discernment of vocation with the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, a teaching order of nuns.  

    Again a great fit for this woman's character.  In our school, and with her family, she is a guidon for a prayerful life. You can see it when she enters a room.  Small children hold her hand, and admire her.  Her baby sister simply adores her.  She also walks with a grace beyond her years.  When she enters chapel with her matillia, she peacefully focuses herself and those around her on the mass and prayer.  She is no wallflower though.  She demands unimproved family campsites, and can rough it with the best of them.

   I hope I captured a bit of the reflected glory of God these two bring to the world.  I enjoyed watching as my children gravitated to them at school and band over the last two years.  I knew their example would be good ones, and not misguide my children on their own path to adulthood.  I continue to learn a great deal from their parents as well, since they are good examples of parenting in a stormy world.

    Mikayla and Neil:  May God's grace continue to fall on you, and your souls never let your eyes wonder off the prize of heaven.  You've started the race for the prize well, and may the finish be even more virtuous in God's eyes as you change the world for His Glory.  Amen!

-ehw

Good Friday Quest

   On Good Friday I put together a quest for our Blue Knights group.  We visited three churches from noon to two and found short lessons at each church related to the passion of our Lord.  We completed our Quest with a boy led Stations of the Cross in our home chapel of St Micheal the Archangel at Regina Caeli Academy.  You can view a complete report on our Blue Knight website.  

   The regular group of seven had six potential recruits and our teen mentor join us for a day.  During our travels we also met with three other families and five more children.  All total it was a joy to see nine families and nineteen children participate during the day.  It was also wonderful to hear the boys sing, respond to complicated questions, and enjoy being with their fathers.  Our mother daughter team was precious as well, teaching us a lesson from the women of Jerusalem. 

   The funniest moments were at St Benedict at both the beginning and end of Stations.  When the thirteen boys marched in with capes and uniform colored shirts followed by Dads, people stopped and wondered who we were.  You could actually hear the whispers and see the heads turn.  I must admit it was a quiet but very visual spectacle.  At the end of stations I could see the pastor observing the long row of boys...I know he did not know who we were and was wondering where we came from.  I think I'll drop him a note and thank him.

    It was awesome to have fathers on board taking time with their sons to learn lessons, and mothers who spend great amounts of time building classically formed children inside their homes.  I could see how each family was not using a cookie cutter approach to evangelization.  It was easy to see families identifying what each child in their family needed, and searching out different methods of teaching each child.  It was inspiring, and motivated  me to continue doing the same with my sons.

       The most reflective moment was after the boys completed their stations.  Two boys quickly noted as we reflected on the death of Christ, the clock struck three.  The timing was not choreographed, but perfectly summed up our day traveling with Christ to and through the cross.

    Thank you Jesus for letting us participate with your in your passion on this Good Friday.

-ehw

Praying for Divine Mercy

   Today Lord you make the perfect sacrifice for me a sinner.  I know you offer grace freely if I but ask. I know I must accept justice for my sins against my fellow man and your creation.  I know my sacrifices here can never be as perfect as your was in antonement for my sins.  So I humbly beg for your Devine Mercy, to which I am not entitled but can only receive through your devine will. 

  I also ask you provide this final gift to the all souls in purgatory...so they can participate in glory of the eternal mass in heaven today.  

St. Faustina pray for us! 

-ehw

And so it begins...the Triduum

    The commisioning of priests and institution of the Eucharist...two great gifts

    The beauty of Holy Thursday never escapes me  Last night as even more beautiful because of the lessons taught to me by so many God seeking people over the last year. Lessons from people who past over 1800 years ago, and lessons from those living amongst us now filled my mind, heart and warmed my soul as we heard the liturgy of the word and celebrated the liturgy of the Eucharist

   Father Tri, of St Brigid Catholic Church, reminded us the story of each life is what makes the church breathe the world. The story each life brings to the church helps pass on its's lessons and beauty from generation to generation  These stories allow the priesthood of the family to connect with the priesthood of the Church.  To make this occur we all must listen, observe and react to the wisdom of God as it works its way into our lives throug everyone around us. 

   The Holy Eurcharist is the foretaste of heaven, the perfect mana, needed to nourish our souls with the grace to navigate e challenges of a fallen world.  When taken in concert with reconciliation it enables us to stay on the path to heaven.  It keeps Christ within our very blood...commingling a bit of heaven with our life here on earth..as we go about our day.  So when we say take Christ with you wherever you go, if we partake of this holy nurishment we can do exactly that.  No other God before or since offered such a gift to mortals.  In fact no other God offered to make lowly man part of himself, and join in perfect communion in heaven, for all eternity if we choose to do so.

   Pray for our priests that they may lead all souls to heaven.  Pray for our priesthood in the family, that each man will be willing to lead their family to the best of their ability to the altar of God.  Pray each mother makes their home a place where the stories of old, new and the future will enable The word of God to reach fertile ears and move those souls to Christ.  Pray for the religious, that by their concerted life they make offerings the rest of us cannot for the salvation of the world.

   So let us begin our Triduum journey, and honor the sacrifices made to bring us all the way to heaven.

-ehw

Kalen helping bring the gifts forward with our Decon in formation Randy Ortiz

Christ the Judge in a World of Noise

       The world is full of manmade noise. Noise, sounds and vibrations with no Godly organization, only serve to distract us from our ingrained mission of finding and loving the Lord.  This means if we want to draw ourselves to the Lord, we must through force of will, ignore the world's noise so our souls can make music in harmony with God's intended design for the world.

     For example, take a look at tomorrow's March for Life in Washington, D.C.  There thousands will walk as a result of a court decision literally made up from the air the justices breathed, and created with little factual evidence or legal precedent.  The whim of men created "rights" which did not exist ever before, denied the humanity of a child in the wound established with natural law at the dawn of time, and to this day results in the extermination of so many people it is actually fulfilling Margret Sangster's dream of the ethnic cleansing of "lesser" peoples.  Oh the thoughts of this are nauseating to God fearing people everywhere!

    In the thousands of words the people attending will hear tomorrow, very few will change the hearts and minds of committed abortion supporters.  Why?  Abortion rights supporters will constantly deny the humanity of the child in the womb by shouting their own words over anyone opposing them.  They will continue trying to convince themselves their own destiny must not include the life they helped create.  They know they cannot avoid the consequences of their own actions, but they will shout themselves horse trying to convince themselves otherwise.  In a way it is a perfect demonstration of evil madness to try and deny physical realities in such a way.  The thousands of words hurled by the protesters will only be added noise to these abortion supporters.

    What caused these abortion supporters the most fear?  It is the mandatory waiting period, and ultrasound machine testing.  Why?  Because in the quiet of a doctor's office, with the noise of the world isolated from the room, the reality of natural law confronting hardened hearts wins over far more souls than continue to deny there is a new life in their womb.  Abortionists loathe the requirement any person listen to the heart beating while they see the face of their child before they kill it.  

    The sound of natural law runs naturally in the heart of the unborn child, and speaks with a clarity to unsettled souls like no other sound on earth.  Oh how I wish we could mandate put the father in the room as well!  Maybe the natural music could save three souls at a time, and help make a proper family.

   So the next time you find yourself lost in a sea of manmade noise, find a place where you can slow down and hear the pulse of life.  Let the pulse remind you of your place in the cosmos as a child called to God.  Then follow the call of this music to build his kingdom in word and deed.  Then maybe it will be easier to get a smile out of Christ the Judge when the time comes to meet him.

-ehw    

Pray for Us!

    The First Lego League's first elimination round starts on Saturday at 7:30AM.  Our Regina Caeli Darebots will be there, and ready to compete.  Under the direction of Coach Les Levergood, Assistant Coach Fred Bunn and myself they grew a great deal...or maybe in spite of our coaching they grew!  If you want to catch up on their adventures you can visit them at the website Regina Caeli Darebots.  

    The team practiced two to three times a week since late August. Now after the long series of rehearsals they are ready to compete....for the first and possible last time!  Coach Levergood ran a tight ship this year, and Coach Bunn brought excellent programming instruction to the kids.  Solving the mysteries of the gyroscope was an incredible experience for the kids.  I helped them build out their presentations.   

    The team will do three presentations to judges Saturday morning.  The first will be their sales pitch for ways to improve collection methods of depleted uranium on test ranges and battlefields.  They will then explain how they grew as a group using the lessons from Core Values.  Finally, they will discuss robot design and programming methods.  In the afternoon they will run their robot Penguin through the course several times using different teams of Darebots.  At the end of the day, they will find out if they are in the upper third of 40 or so teams. If they are they may move on to regionals in January!

   Tomorrow Coach Levergood will guide the seven of them through six and half hours of final rehearsals!  So pray for Coach L and then the team!

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Here is Penguin the robot!

Fall and Hope

  Each fall I get very reflective on my mortality.  I see my passing life like the leaves.  I hope and pray my colors will be strong and bold for the Lord when my time comes to pass to the next phase of life.

    God does things mysteriously to us mere mortals.  This week I witnessed a testimony of faith from men and women of amazing power as we lifted up others in prayer.  I felt the sting of arrows of despair when evil crossed my path.  I heard the wisdom of the Lord written down over a period of three thousand years from his disciples across the ages, and found hope to deflect the disparaging arrows in the Divine Office.  I also received a gift to help my discernment on future missions to advance the Lord's intentions with the gifts he entrusted to me.

        The week still has time to go, but it is giving me much to ponder and wonder about in the awe of his Grace.  God is good all the time.  I hope my ability to see his works, and those of evil trying to tear us apart, will help my colors shine brightly for him all my days here and the hereafter.

-ehw

Where is the blog?

    A few people asked me why the blog posts slowed down.  So I thought I would address that this morning since I've blogged more than ever the last few months!   I support two important activities for my children (outside of paying the bills and homeschooling): Blue Knights and First Lego League.

   Blue Knights is a boys evangelization effort I run with some willing and faith filled Dads.  I am the head coordinator this year for both our year groups, and my friend Les (John Paul's Godfather) runs the first years.  I am very happy to report three other friends are very excited and participating as well...one runs the before meeting games and the two new dads are digging into the program very quickly.   This effort is time consuming though.  We have one template meeting a month, and the second I have to brainstorm inside the program objectives.  Between the meetings my sons and I work on the evangelization questions, daily prayer, and a few craft projects.  The work is worth it when you see all the boys light up hearing about the great lives of our saints and teaching of our church.

    The second major activity is the Darebot First Lego League team.  Les runs this group, and I am one of two dedicated assistant coaches.  During the fall and winter we can meet two to three times a week for several hours to prepare for the competition.  I am helping build out the project and team building aspects of the competition.  Thankfully Les is a great coach for the kids, and I just have to keep up.

   For both activities I run separate Wordpress blogs.   You can view them and see all the fun events and activities yourself.  It is where life is on display, and some pretty fun street & documentary photography!  Here are the sights!  Darebots and St Michael's Blue Knights

   So the next time you wonder where are the pretty pictures trees, flowers, Americana, and grace you've come to expect regularly...just know they go on in two different venues.  I'll keep pushing on here the best I can as well!

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A New Servant for the Table of the Lord

    Today I found myself blessed to watch my son Kevin participate as an altar server at mass for the first time.  It is a moment which almost put tears of joy in my eyes.  Why?  I could see in his eyes and his deeds he wanted this moment with all his heart.

    Last night Kalen and I prepared Kevin by holding a practice mass, as conducted at RCA with Father Tran's preferences, twice on our deck.  Kevin impressed me with his memory of how the bells rung, the way people stepped around the altar, holding his hand on his chest and the procession in which he would accompany the priest to the nursery to deliver the Eucharist to those working there.  I already knew he memorized much of the consecration prayers, but this was pretty amazing for me to see first hand. For all of his daily eight year old distractions, he was paying attention every mass.

    Today two upper school boys, John Paul and Stephen, took Kevin over to the chapel to set up and do a final rehearsal.  This is something which endears me to Regina Caeli.  Our youth are normal youth, but we parents call them out a little more each year to live their faith.  At the end of a 15 minute preparation, Kevin came out tripping over the seam of the smallest cassock and stood with Father Tran and Stephen to enter the mass.

    He went down the isle with his serious face on, and nervously looked over to Stephen from time to time to make sure he was doing the right thing.  Stephen looked out for Kevin as a big brother should, and Kevin earned a smile from Father Tran.  Kevin sure made his Daddy proud.  It sounds silly to many, but I was proud because he entered the Army of Christ today at the altar of our Lord as a willing servant for the community.  it is a major step on the road to adulthood of life and faith.

    Thank you God for letting me see this day in the company of so many good friends!

-ehw

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The Doctor is In!

    The Doctor was in last Saturday night.  She did house calls for everybody!  Luckily she confirmed we are all in pretty good shape headed into our Fall Break from school.  We are almost homebound since we still have three days of dance, two Robotics classes, doctor's appointments, a dead refrigerator, and music!  Regardless of our staycation status, we should have time for plenty of moments like this one where we enjoy a few moments of family time...can get the house set for fall both inside and out!

-ehw

Where did the baby girl go?

    Just a month ago I had a baby girl roaming my house.  Today I have this little girl, who reminds me she is a big girl.  She puts in hair in ponies and tells me she is cute, and plays with toy horses with glee.  She chases her brothers with lightsabers with complete abandon, and swings with power a Sith could desire.  Oh where has my baby girl gone?

    The baby girl is now a determined little girl.  Her red hair, gleams in the sun and proclaims the fire of her will to set things right.  Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O'Hara-the quiet man) would meet her match in this little lady! This little girl keeps the boys on notice, and then smiles coyly at her Dad...keeping him wrapped around her still little finger.  Oh the Daddy knows the trick being played, and only prays the rosary harder begging for her to use that fire for the Lord all her days!  What a force for God she could one day be!

    My baby girl is now a little girl...and all is as it should be!

-ehw

Melting your heart

    These are the moments when a parent's heart melts just a little.  Between normal conflicts children have over toy ownership, using crayons on someone else's homework, songs being sung too many times, and a dozen other issues we occasionally have little moments where we catch a glimpse of parental heaven. Whenever your children find displaying the love of friendship (filia) for the fate of their siblings, you know something you are doing worked to get God's message through to your charges for at least a moment.

    If our parental hearts melt in joy with a moment like this, I can only imagine the joy in heaven when one of us reaches sainthood to go beyond the gates into heaven.  Angels of all types singing, saints of old grinning and reaching for our hand, and a parental smile on Christ after passing the test of our final judgement might be amongst the sights and sounds we'd see.  Oh the glories of such thought!

    Well for five minutes I saw my parental heaven walking before me again...I hope we all get to enjoy it in heaven as well!

-ehw

The Prayerbook made for you!

   Do you need someone to pray with you?  For you?  The prayerbook above is meant for you! 

    How did this happen?  (This is the hardest post I've composed over the last four years!)

    In 2014, after much introspection, I realized a need for more consistent personal prayer in my life.  Prayer with God needs to happen in good times, meditative times, times of discernment as well as times of need.  A year ago I failed in most of those areas by being hit or miss.  On cue, God sent my son to me with a book about St. Dominic and the rosary.  A year of growth started in earnest as I devoured the book.  As I wrapped up the first year of work, I noted progress in many areas and several continued shortfalls.

    Prayer from others literally kept me upright following our two 2014 miscarriages.  Since then I made it a point to let others in need know I will pray for them as well.  The opportunity to pray with others had two incredibly powerful moments this past year.  One with close friends as we prayed over their sick child in the ICU.  The other was with a co-worker recovering from a heart attack in a different ICU.  In the second case it was special as we prayed with his wife and another friend from work.  

    I know God was listening, and I am grateful he supported full recovery for both requests.  I don't want to sound crazy, but God's grace was so present in each moment I was shaking afterwards.  The realization God was amongst us in those moments, tending to his children, left me feeling rather meek.

     This year I wanted to be more consistent in fulfilling prayer requests as they came in.  So I picked up a spiritual diary to catalog the requests over the next year.

    I publicly announced this year's prayer campaign on St Dominic's feast day at John Paul's baptism. Current requests recorded so far include needs of friends for their parents, the manager of a transmission repair center fighting liver and pancreatic cancer, young men discerning their future vocation, our school's success at its mission, a friend's child with the same risks my wife had in pregnancy, a young priest at his parish, a new widow and her family, and two co-workers with heart ailments to mention just a few.   I also have some for people who never asked, but just have an obvious need for someone to requests God's intercession on their behalf.

    Each night I review the prayer requests, hold it close, and pray for those inside.

    Prayer is the only thing I can do for most people I know in need.  I have no worldly riches, and little spare time in my days to travel and be with the many I know in need. 

    So you can see, this prayerbook is for you.  Please help me direct my prayers to God to help you, and I what I pray will be our collective journey to sainthood in the Kingdom of God.

-ehw

P.S.  Reply to the post, shoot me an email or better yet give me a call!  I'll add you to the prayer rolls!

God's Viewpoint:"My Way Not Yours"

    On Monday, Father Tran provided a wonderful homily at the Regina Caeli Academy's opening day mass.  One very important thought Father wanted us to take home is a key step all of us need to take when building a relationship with Christ and the body of Christ.  It focused on reorienting our discussion reference points while talking with God.

    Most of us, myself as a sinner included, begin our discussions with God saying, "I am in need...I wish...I.....I....I...I"  Father challenged us to recognize this type of thought and language implies the little partner in the relationship, or the child, is telling God to look at the world through our eyes.  When you ponder the statement, you quickly realize the insanity of our normal position.  We mortals, of limited senses and knowledge, tell the almighty and all knowing to work towards our designs.

    After thinking through this situation for but a minute or two, most rational people will recognize we should really be walking a mile in God's shoes before we talk to the Almighty.  Rather than asking the Lord to make straight the crooked path ahead to ease our burden, maybe we need to ask the Lord for strength to correct the mistakes we made while making the crooked path ahead the day before!

    When we shift the thought process from our perspective to God's perspective, we can more readily accept the wisdom of God.  This will mean more time walking with him, and less time arguing with our own selfishness.  Just maybe that will lead us better on the path of salvation.  The very path he called us to from the moment he formed us in our mother's womb..  

-ehw

Boy to Little Man at 12

    Today I officially received two more grey hairs.  Kalen turned 12, and John Paul celebrated eighteen days!   Kalen planned out his birthday almost all by himself.  

    The day started last night with vigil mass for the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady.  Kalen organized a simple get together today with good friends for a day of Nerf gun wars and legos.  He made his gluten free cakes with Grandma, a time honored tradition, this AM to provide dessert.  For lunch?  Simple hot dogs with gluten free buns for those of us on the dole with him for sensitive tummies was his planned menu.  It was his party, followed by a family pizza night where he watched a funny movie about Penguins from Madagascar.   Tonight he went to bed beaming with the joy of friends and family being with him today.

    All of his actions got me to thinking about when does a boy crossover to become a man?  I could only think of the answering: "The man arrives when the boy begins to seek and take responsibility for his actions."

    This young man is doing just those actions.  It makes me proud to know he will do everything in his being to be a real man as he grows older.  It makes me sad to know my eldest is no mere boy any longer.  It also worries me, since I know this little man tries to take on more than he can chew or is responsible for.  

    I am still happy today to keep the promise made 12 years ago today.  I promised to always get to church on the Feast of the Assumption and say a prayer of thanksgiving for a healthy child.  Just attending mass with him last night was pure bliss in an of itself. 

-ehw

P.S.  John Paul is not a noisy child...unless he needs momma's special blend.  He is also not a huge believer in flash bulbs!    

Go and Baptize...John Paul

    Matthew 28:19:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

    Today we fulfill our first of many parental tasks as Catholic parents, the baptism of our son John Paul.  The family gown gets one more run into the church, and we will celebrate the moment our son is washed clean in the water of life.  There are few moments as special to me as the first sacrament of a child's life, and the solemn promise a parent makes to provide a Catholic home.  These two thoughts humble me.  I would be overwhelmed if I did not know, the grace John Paul receives today is the same grace which sustains all of Christians when we submit our will to God's.

-ehw

Child, Hear your Father's Instruction

Proverbs Chapter 4

THE TEACHER AS MODEL DISCIPLE

1  Hear, O children, a father’s instruction, be attentive, that you may gain understanding!

2  Yes, excellent advice I give you; my teaching do not forsake.

3  When I was my father’s child,  tender, the darling of my mother,

4  He taught me and said to me: “Let your heart hold fast my words: keep my commands, and live!

5  Get wisdom, get understanding!  Do not forget or turn aside from the words of my mouth.

6  Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you;  love her, and she will safeguard you;

7  The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom; whatever else you get, get understanding.

8  Extol her, and she will exalt you; she will bring you honors if you embrace her;

9 She will put on your head a graceful diadem; a glorious crown will she bestow on you.”

The New American Bible for Catholics, Proverbs Chapter 4

-ehw

Ready to Climb

    A playground always brings out the best in kiddos...open spaces and fresh challenges every day!  I always love to watch the little guys and gals climb the slide backwards for the challenge and shortcut to the top!  In the case of this mountain climber the hill will pose no obstacle!

-ehw

P.S.  for you tech-cats  this was the X-T1 sporting the 18-135 zoom.  A nice all around tool in good light.  When you hit the playground it is good to have a tool which reaches out and goes wide at a whim.  You don't miss too much action that way!  If you hire a photographer for an event, make sure he has the tools for the job you need done.  That is why a good guy will have to charge a little bit more...he has to pay for the right gear and it costs a good amount to purchase.

Buds posing perfectly

    What happens when you take three sweet little girls, from three different grades, all growing up together over the years and let them play?  Magic smiles and poses appear!  Their different heights made a naturally interesting composition!  Maybe this will make it past the yearbook editor and get a thumbs up!

-ehw

P.S. Ok Fujifilm fans this was my often neglected 35mm prime set at F2.0 to handle the poor gym lighting.  Yes the ISO is 3200, but the X-Series RAW file handles it well in Capture One 8.  Even the jpeg was excellent!  I just enjoy playing with RAW files whenever possible because I adore the extra headroom to craft my final images.