Mother's Day is coming and it seems like as good a time as any to open that evergreen can 'o worms, a topic of discussion in Catholic circles since, oh, 62 AD . . . the ever-controversial question inspired by Ephesians 5:21-33: Must Catholic wives submit to their...
People seem to believe that cell phone use is this new, unprecedented behavior about which there are no established customs that could govern our conduct. George Washington and I beg to differ. The technology might be different, but human desires remain pretty...
I've had something on my mind for a while, and as today is the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, I figured I'd finally sit down and type it up. I'm generally a social media apologist. The Catholic mommy blog little pond of the internet (which is also peopled with...
You've probably heard about the troubling study recently released by the Pew Research Center, stating that only one-third of self-professed Catholics believe in the Catholic Church's teaching that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ, and nearly half...
It's July! Get this month's booklet of prayers and devotions here as a print-at-home pdf or here as a paperback booklet. The July installment of the Catholic All Year Liturgical Living Show is ready to go, I just need to get it captioned and write a post for it, so it...
The historic sanctity of the seal of confession is being reconsidered by courts around the world—in England, Ireland, Australia, Louisiana, and in my own state of California, among others—specifically in regards to the crime of child sexual abuse. It begs the question...
Nathan Pyle is the creator of a comic called Strange Planet, in which blobby aliens do regular people stuff and describe it in unusual ways. It’s gentle and amusing and, until very recently, utterly uncontroversial.
New prayer booklets for April, and other new printables for Easter and the sacraments are up in the shop, details at the bottom of the post, or see here. If you're new around here, you can get up to speed on this particular issue here. And the recent, not so great...
It's been a very busy week and is going to be an even busier weekend, but I wanted to pop in here to share some thoughts that really resonated with some of you already, and this week's very excellent Catholic Stuff giveaway. From a social media post . . . Mothers of...
Happy Columbus Day! This is not a feast of the Catholic Church, of course, but it's a national celebration (at least it WAS a celebration, now it's more like one-more-excuse-to-be-mad-on-Facebook) of a Catholic person with admirable qualities and great failings, both....
Disagreement with Catholic teaching is something that saints and heretics have in common. The great St. Paul himself, we read about in today's first reading, was a dissenter and debater. But the difference between the saints and the heretics has always been in how...
October is the Month of the Rosary . . . Sometimes I imagine Saint Bernadette, eagerly and devoutly praying the rosary at the feet of Our Lady. She reverently hold the beads, she carefully recites the prayers, her heart and her mind full of Mary's love for her son...
Welcome to another edition of Answer Me This. It's like a bloggy cocktail party where we can all click around and chat about six totally random topics of my choosing. 1. How long have you lived in your current home? This question was a plant. Last week, when I was...
Look out world, 'cause Answer Me This is back . . . for a limited time. It's the McRib sandwich of blog linkups, so get it while you can. Here's how it works . . . today, I will give you six questions. NEXT Sunday, I'll answer those questions here on this blog. If...
Dear Lady Who Commented on My Instagram Photo, I can't remember your name, because I deleted your comment very quickly. I don't usually delete comments, but I just didn't want a whole big thing to get started. I had a party to plan.The photo was this one . . . of the...
I've missed you guys! Pictured: This was not MY funeral. This was the funeral of Brian Urlacher the hen, who was found dead on Boxing Day, and was buried with due reverence by her caretaker Bobby, with supervision by Frankie. But, whew, yesterday was the first day...
Dear Mr. President, So, you gave a speech last weekend, huh? And . . . three, two, one, BOOM went the mommy wars. I'm pretty sure you didn't intend to say that being a stay at home mom isn't "a choice we want Americans to make." I mean, that IS what you said, but it...
It often seems like we, as parents in a modern world, have two choices. We can . . . a. shelter our children from the world, safeguarding their innocence, and protecting them from knowledge and experiences that might be confusing or damaging to them or . . . b. expose...
A couple of months back the husband and I went to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (meh.) Before the movie we saw a trailer for a crazy-looking comic-book-based movie featuring what appeared to be an Ent, a sexy Wicked Witch of the West, that guy from Parks...
Welcome to Answer Me This . . . the internet's favorite virtual cocktail party* in which I ask six totally random questions and we all answer them and get to know each other a little better. Isn't that nice? *this statement may not be true. So, here goes this week's...
I'm going to let you in on a little secret. A secret known only to everyone who knows me in real life and all the people who like Catholic All Year on Facebook but no one else. Sometimes I put the Bumbo on the table. Okay, maybe it would be more shocking coming from...
This is me. I'm 37 years old. My hair is probably sixty percent gray now. And neither one of those things bothers me. Here's why: 1. I have no interest in misleading people about my age. Mostly because I would much rather people think I look good for forty than kinda...
via Pope Francis' comments at a weekly audience last summer really hit home for me: “This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and...
Living our faith is a learning process. It is our privilege and our responsibility to know and understand as much as possible about our Church. But with great knowledge can come great frustration. I know, I've been there. As I lived my slow and steady reversion to my...
It's not you, it's me. I get that. I totally get that you guys are brilliant and challenging and that people love you. But I don't. I just can't. You guys are huge bummers and you make me want to drown myself in the bathtub to escape the futility and pointlessness of...
--- 1 --- Okay, maybe that's hyperbole. But SCIENCE says that women tend to have allergies and auto-immune diseases at a statistically higher rate than men, perhaps because they don't get exposed to as much immune-system-boosting mud and dirt as children. So here my...
I've debated writing this post for a while, because really -- who wants to be the poster-child for "irresponsible pregnancy?" But, you know me, I can't resist a can of worms. And I think it needs to be said. So, here goes: You know all that stuff you're not supposed...
--- 1 --- I see what you did there. And I like it. I hope everyone had a lovely Solemnity yesterday. We did! I really try to incorporate traditions, historical and/or from other cultures into our liturgical feasts. But there don't seem to be all that many traditions...
Perhaps this will be surprising in light of all my posts about traveling the world and throwing parties big and small, but I am an introvert. Totally. (Or maybe you saw this, so you already knew.) I'm not shy and I do enjoy interacting with people, but I don't find it...
--- 1 --- Back in January, when I started this here blog, I hooked it up to Amazon Associates. That means that when you click on a link from the blog that takes you to Amazon, then you buy something, I get a teeny, tiny percentage of what you spend. Now,...
