Why a Chapel?

For as long as I can remember,  I have wanted to have a chapel where my family could pray together daily, as well as individually whenever a bit of quiet time with God was needed. I made a few attempts in our old house to make the “Back Room” into a chapel, but we always needed the room for something else – storage, guest sleeping quarters, play room, sewing room. We just did not have enough room for everything, and the chapel always had to be the loser. God stepped in, knowing that I needed to be near Him, and in time I was given keys to my parish church, where I could go sometimes to be quiet in His Presence. But the distance between house and church was far – almost an hour. That prevented me from going very often. I began, very slowly, to learn how to find quiet in my soul even with noise in the house. Still, every now and then I needed to go back to the church to recharge my batteries in actual, physical, tangible silence.

When Ian and I looked at this new house, I immediately saw where the chapel would be, and in my mind and heart I solemnly vowed that it would not be a multi-purpose room. This time God would be first. It did not even enter my mind that this room could ever be anything else. We would have to build walls eventually to enclose it and separate it from what would be the living room, and I really prayed that the walls could be built soon so that the chapel would not be lost to storage or clutter. Providence heard my prayer, and a wall had to be built right away. The previous owners of the house had removed a wall from just the place I wanted one. It turns out it had been a load-bearing wall, and the upstairs now had no support!

Supporting Wall had to be replaced.

When told that this room would be our chapel, a visitor to our unfinished basement asked, “What will the room be used for normally?” I didn’t know what he meant, so he asked, “I mean, when it is not being used as a chapel.” I said it would be used as a chapel every day, but he did not seem to understand what I meant. Later, another person suggested that it could be a quiet place to go and read, and that we could keep all of our bookcases in there.

Painting the Chapel

It never occurred to me that people would not understand what I meant by “chapel.” I did not mean a temporary place where sometimes we would gather to pray as a family and sometimes play board games. I did not mean a quiet place to read. One might as well ask,”What do you use your kitchen or bathroom for when it is not being used as a kitchen or bathroom?” I meant a place set apart all the time, where one can go and know that no one is going to be sewing or listening to music or doing homework. A place set apart to pray; that is, talk to and listen to God without distractions. One needs silence for that, and in a home with 12 people living in it, silence is hard to come by.

Quiet Time with God

Now I can understand using space wisely, especially when room is tight and many tasks have to be done in one place. I know that I cannot at this time have a dedicated sewing room. I do not sew often enough to merit that (although one could argue that more sewing might be done if there were a place in which to do it). I understand that I cannot have a dedicated classroom, even though we do school every day. The dining table will have to serve as school desk for 10 children, and I will have to cook and plan meals at the stove while I teach them.

For me, though, praying is different. I know I must pray always and make my life and every part of it a prayer, but I have to recharge sometimes. Now that we have moved, I do not have keys to the local church. I can’t drive the 3 hours to my old parish to find quiet. There has to be a place where I can go every day. I want to cultivate that inner silence in my own heart, and in the hearts of my children. I want them to know Who God is, and the only way to hear Him is in silence. I want the chapel to be the heart of our home. I want it to be normal and natural for each of us to go there separately or together every day, and as many times a day as we want to. I want this room to be available all the time, to encourage prayer and reflection.

Lumen Christi

Like that Providential wall that provides support for the main part of the house, prayer is the absolute foundation without which our lives fall apart. The chapel will be a visible reminder of that need in our lives, and, I hope, a place in which to find the One Who can fill that need.

Why a Chapel? Because God is there.

A New House, a New Home

We have been in our new house for almost a month already, but it is still not home. Robert (3) keeps saying tearfully, “I want to go home!” I know how he feels. We lived in our little house on the prairie, which we affectionately called “Windyside Manor,” for almost 14 years. All of my children, except my oldest daughter, were born inside that house, and all of them learned to walk and talk there. I had never before in my entire life lived in any house or apartment for more than 3 years. Although we had put this house on the market a few years before (I still think it was providential that it did not sell), I did not think we would ever leave Colorado Springs.

Ian and the kids painting Windyside Manor

Ian and I looked at the new house a couple of months ago, and we both could see our family living there and being happy. Immediately I saw exactly where we could have a family chapel, and we quickly figured out what children would fit in which rooms. Best of all: we’d all be together under one roof every day.

Our New Place

The kids and I picked out paint chips for the bedrooms and bathrooms and the chapel. The day after we moved in, my In-Laws came to spend 2 nights and days with us and got the basement rooms painted before the floor was installed.

Dad getting it done. Go Dad!

We are all still living out of boxes and suitcases, and sleeping in sleeping bags because our basement is not finished yet. What we thought just needed a coat of paint and flooring has turned out to be a huge project, involving removing and rebuilding walls. Apparently the previous owners removed a load-bearing wall, so putting it back became a priority!

New walls

Gratefully, we all get along in our close quarters on the main floor. We have a bathroom-and-a-half upstairs, but we were down to one toilet for a while. Not fun. Especially last week when three kids had sudden flu-like symptoms with no warning. Did I mention we don’t have a washer or dryer hooked up yet? You guessed it: the laundry room is in the basement. I have gotten to know Lupita at the laundromat really well.

Some good news, though, is that the contractor we hired is wonderful. He and his wife have been working in our basement almost every day since we moved in, and have laid laminate flooring in both bedrooms and part of the hall, built that all-important load-bearing wall, and today will finish laying the tiles in the bathroom. Tomorrow they will grout them, and the next day they’ll install the toilet! We’ll have two places to bathe, and THREE TOILETS! If you are a mom of many like I am, you will rejoice with me! Alleluia indeed!

The Long-Anticipated Third Toilet

 

Leaving Home: Finding God

Even though it took almost an hour to drive to church, and despite its leaky roof and faulty plumbing, Immaculate Conception Parish was the closest thing to heaven I had ever seen.  I loved going there for Mass, for friendship with godly people, for Spiritual Direction and Confession, and sometimes just to be alone with God. I loved to clean the rectory because it was peaceful and quiet. With the priests busy with appointments and meetings and Altar Boy training, I had uninterrupted silence two Saturdays a month: my own silent mini-retreat. Now that we have moved it is over 3 hours away, but I have felt a strong urge many times in the last month to just drive there to kneel and cry.

Why so sad at leaving a church: Aren’t there other good Catholic churches where we have moved? Isn’t there a Latin Mass closer now? Isn’t God in Loveland? Yes, yes, and yes. But Immaculate Conception is more than a good Catholic Church. More than the Latin Mass. It is home. I found God there so palpable. I could see Him and touch Him, and enter into His Most Sacred Heart. There I saw His Blessed Mother honored. Immaculate Conception is not only the name on the collection envelopes: it is the soul of the parish.

For me change is very difficult. I want permanence: to be sure that the sun will rise and set, and that everything will be where I saw it yesterday. Living in the semi-chaos of changing houses and towns is hard, especially since we cannot unpack everything yet. I cannot find a certain pot or the dishwasher detergent. The plan was to move into the main floor and finish the basement within a week, and then unpack everything and put it into its new place.

At least that was MY plan.

God has a way of showing me again and again that I am not in charge. My plans are not the ones that matter. This life is not permanent and I must not get too comfortable here. I am reminded that I am a child and that unless I become as a little child I cannot enter His kingdom. I must become docile to His will. I must not cry when God plays peek-a-boo with me.

Yes, I am a child, and a very beloved one. God takes care of me wherever I am, and loves me beyond anything I can imagine. I suffer when it appears that God has left me. I cry when I think I am alone. He is only hiding his Face for a little while and it is my task to find Him. I am sure I will find godly people in my new home. In time I may love the Latin Mass community here. Everyone is very friendly and the priest very devout and holy. I will find that God is here even in Loveland.

St Francis de Sales and Our Lady

St. Francis de Sales is one of my favorite saints. The more I get to know him, the more I love him and want him to help me become a saint.

Both my pastor and an assistant pastor at our parish have said, in their sermons, that we should approach Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist as if it were the FIRST time we were going to receive Him, the LAST time we were going to receive Him, and the ONLY time we were ever going to receive Him. Think about that as you read what our illustrious saint has said:

“Think for a moment of the piety of the Madonna when the angel told her that the Spirit would overshadow her. What sentiments of humility, confidence and courage! At the very moment when she understood that God had given her His heart, that is, His Son, she gave herself to God. Her soul was flooded with charity, so she could say with the sacred spouse, ‘…My heart trembled within me, and I grew faint when he spoke.’ [Sg:5:4] As far as we are concerned, we receive a similar grace in Communion, because not an angel but Jesus Christ Himself assures us that in it the Holy Spirit descends on us. Heavenly power covers us with its shadow and the Son of God really comes to us. He can say that He is conceived and born in us. Truly then, the soul can respond with the Madonna, ‘I am the servant of the Lord; let is be done to me as you say.'” [Lk 1:38] ~St. Francis de Sales

Pilgrimage: Day 4

Day 4: St. Francis Xavier, Confessor, pray for us!

Today’s walk is supposed to be 15 to 30 minutes. Today’s high is supposed to be 57 degrees. So far it is 37, with a wind chill of 31. I will wait until it warms up a bit. The snow is supposed to fly tonight, and we are expected to get 4 to 6 inches tonight, another 5 to 8 tomorrow, plus maybe another inch tomorrow night. I need to get some grocery shopping done today!!

Well, guess what? I did not do any deliberate exercise today. But when I finally got home after a doctor appointment that took an hour longer than it needed to and grocery shopping that took a couple of hours, and a beautiful Mass at my parish, I unloaded the groceries from the van in 20-degree temperatures (wind chill 5 degrees), and my legs and toes and hands froze and hurt a lot as they thawed. That’s gotta count for something, right? The snow started just as I got the last of the groceries out of the trunk.

Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 14 degrees, so I think I will be doing laps around the kitchen.

The Pilgrimage Begins: Chartres: Pentecost 2016

Ian and I just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on November 30, 2013.  It has been a beautiful marriage from the start, and God has blessed us with 11 beautiful children, one of whom He took to Himself almost as soon an we knew he existed!

We want to thank God for His goodness and mercy, so we decided that for our 20th anniversary, we will make a pilgrimage. I do not know how I came up with the idea of Chartres, but that is the one we plan to do.  For the next 30 months, until May of 2016, this blog will chronicle our preparations for the pilgrimage, and then I will bring back tales of Chartres, God willing.  I hope that all the details will help someone else who might want to do a pilgrimage, but if not, they will serve as a reminder to me of everything we did to get ready.

Day 1: St. Andrew, pray for us!

St. Andrew’s Day, Saturday, November 30,  2013, we began our physical training: we went for a walk together. Hand-in-hand, like we always do, we walked briskly from our house almost to the corner of Phoebe Grove and Black Forest Road and back home. It took us about half an hour. I wore some shoes that were a little too small for me, but my feet did not suffer too much. Our walk was in the morning after breakfast, and it was cool but not too cold, although I wished I had covered my ears. That afternoon we went to the local runners’ store The Runner’s Roost, and Ian had me fitted for walking shoes for training! The staff there know what they are doing and know all there is to know about what you need on your feet for running and walking. Ian has been going there since he ran cross-country in high school. The man who assisted us said, “The most important things when walking or running are, number one: shoes, and number 2: socks. I can’t tell you which shoe to buy, because it will be as individual as your foot. Each person will need a different shoe for the same race.” He watched me walk in the boots I was wearing, and came back with 3 pairs for me to try. He watched me walk away and back on the track they have built into the floor in the store and told me why this particular shoe would work for me or not. The second pair I tried, I knew was not going to work as I started walking away, and when I came back, before I had said a word, he told me it wouldn’t work, and even repeated to me what I had said to myself. When I settled on a pair of shoes, Ian said, “Happy anniversary! I’ll come get these for you next week.” YAY!! Thank you, Ian!

Day 2: O Come, Emanuel!

The next day, the First Sunday of Advent, December 1, we walked all the way to the corner, north on Black Forest, and back home by way of Cooper Grove. It was also about half an hour. I borrowed my daughter Anne’s shoes, thinking they would be better for my feet, but I got a blister! I felt the arch support digging into my left foot as soon an I started walking, and that should have been a warning to me that these were the wrong shoes for me. Live and learn! It was getting cold, as it was evening this time when we went for our walk. I wore layers, including a fleece jacket and a windbreaker, and a scarf to cover my ears from the wind. I was too hot! I am glad I had the scarf for my ears for the first part of the walk, as the wind was blowing on them, but by the time we turned onto Cooper Grove, I had to take my gloves and scarf off.

I will try to write every day about what I did (Ian will not be with me to train every day, so this blog will be my perspective of the journey). More to come!

If you have been on this pilgrimage, I encourage you to leave feedback here! I would like to know every detail that you can remember: blisters, shoes, prayers, songs, rain & mud, heat & cold, hunger & thirst (physical and spiritual), priests, new friends met along the way, funny things that happened, tears and joys, fears & triumphs, sleeping on the ground, camping equipment you took, wish you had taken, or wish you had not taken, what you thought it was going to be like, and how it met your expectations.

If you have not been on this pilgrimage but have though about it (or another pilgrimage), I encourage you to leave a comment also! Why do you want to go on pilgrimage? What do you hope to find?

Annual Blog Post 2013

So many things have happened since my post last September. Among the most life-altering were the new job Ian got in another town, and the burning down of my In-Laws’ home.

Ian slowed the operations of http://www.aquinasandmore.com, which for the last 10 years, has been our sole source of income. For many reasons, it was not enough to support a family of 12, so the hard decision was made to shut it down. At the same time, Ian was offered a job doing pretty much the same thing for another company. Unfortunately, the job is 2 and a half hours away from our home, so there is a lot of time away from the family for him, and a lot of work that both of us have to do alone. We will have to move closer to his work in the near future. Aquinasandmore.com is open for business again, but on a much smaller scale. Slowly we will build it up again, but we will probably never have a brick-and-mortar store again.

This summer Black Forest, Colorado had a big fire in which more than 500 homes were burned.  One of those homes was my In-Laws’, and therefore, ours also. Their children, all grown up now, and their grandchildren, have so many memories of life there. This was our home, and our hearts ache to see it destroyed so completely. But we thank God that no one was hurt there, and for the realization that, although many of the things in the house were unique and irreplaceable, they were only things after all, and the love we shared within those walls remains.

Dwija’s Request

My awesome Sister-In-Law Dwija (aka Dweej) is having a giveaway today, and one of the suggested things to do to get a chance to win is to blog about this:

“What’s your favorite tip for teaching your littlelest littles? If you don’t have a favorite tip yet, what makes you nervous?”

So,  let’s have some fun with it, shall we?

Here is a list of my favorite tips for teaching the littlest littles:

1.  No paint.  Unless they are wearing already-stained clothes and are at someone else’s house, and that someone else likes cleaning paint off children.

2.  That’s pretty much my favorite right there.

That was easy!  Now for the “What makes you nervous” part.

1. Paint near littlest littles.

2. Littles near paint.

3. Littles on or near ladders and paint.

4. Painting the back room on a ladder with paint, while no one is watching the littles. (True story).

Your Late-Pregnancy To-Do List

My Sister-In-Law (Dwija over at House Unseen. Life Unscripted.) asked her blog readers for ideas for her Late-Pregnancy-List-Of-Things-To-Get-Done-Before-The-Baby-Comes.  Instead of the usual, almost cliche things that are usually listed, like “get some rest,” or “take a shower while you still can,” I decided to give her this supremely useful list.  Because I love her enough to think these things up.  For FREE!
List:
Get lots of school done so you won’t feel guilty taking a break after the baby comes. (who am I kidding? Of course you’ll feel guilty no matter how much school is done)

Put cooked meals in freezer so you won’t feel guilty about not feeding your family after the baby comes. (You’ll still feel guilty but that’s ok)

Paint a room or two so that hideous (groovy?) wallpaper does not haunt you and make you feel guilty (I don’t know why it should make you feel guilty, but I have to fit guilt into every item on the list).

Organize all of your children’s art work AND baby books. If you don’t have baby books for all of your children, make some now before it’s too late! Don’t forget to include the lock of hair from their first haircut! Use acid- and lignin-free everything so you don’t RUIN EVERYTHING!!!!!

Sew, knit or crochet a Christmas stocking for each of your children. You may not use glue of any kind.  If you have a gold-plated needle, use it for this project.  Have the gold re-plated because it will rub off.

Hand-dip a baptismal candle from beeswax from your own bees, and decorate it with hand-dyed wax. The design on the candle should depict our Lord’s baptism in the Jordan, or at least the central panel from the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. If you didn’t do this for the other kids, get crackin’, girl! (Note: You cannot use the same picture on different candles. Each child needs his or her own picture, preferably with a Biblical theme.  Scenes from LOTR are acceptable too)

Hand-write invitations to baby’s baptism, using your best calligraphy. If you don’t know how to do calligraphy you are a bad Mommy. Organize a reception for after the baptism. Make sure you have painted the walls in your reception hall to match the 3-tier cake (handmade) and invitations. What? You don’t have a reception hall? Tsk, tsk!

Go to confession (all that guilt, ya know).

And finally, enjoy these last few weeks of pregnancy!   You will not have a good excuse to eat that entire box of Ding-Dongs after the baby comes.

 

God is Good

We’ve been out here in our little house on the windy prairie 12 years this month. When we moved out here, we only had Lucy (who is now 13) and I was pregnant with Margaret. The drive into town seemed so long, and we were all alone out here. We had a land phone line, but every phone call was long distance, so there was no one to talk to except each other. That is not a complaint. I loved the solitude that allowed us to get to know one another without too much distraction.

The years have passed quickly and quietly. We now have 10 children, and something between 12 and 20 hens. The closest Walmart is closer than it was 12 years ago, and the drive into town doesn’t seem that long any more. Still, it is a quiet life; a good life. A few chickens, a few kids, dreams of a cow and feeding our family from our bit of earth. I wish everyone could experience this kind of peace, even amidst worries of paying the mortgage on time. It is quiet enough to hear God’s voice and lively enough to keep us young (or insane. I can never tell which). God is good. We have what we need most of the time, and we learn to trust in Him when we don’t.