Good morning! Thank you for joining us at the end of your week! We apologize for not having a new Cause of Our Joy last weekend, but if you read the update we sent along you read that we have been swamped!
The Eucharistic Miracles Exhibit has been hopping as we’ve seen hundreds of visitors in the past couple weeks alone! So many new faces at the Center along with friends that have known and supported the Center for years! It’s been a busy but incredibly fun couple of weeks.
As you may have read, we did a summer camp last week and it was WONDERFUL! Being with these little saints-in-the-making has been nothing short of inspiring and beautiful. Of course we were exhausted (haha) at the end of each day, but we had smiles on our faces and enjoyed every single moment with these sweet and innocent souls!
Interestingly, we both made the same observation after the camp was finished: although we went to lengths to plan and prepare what we thought were creative, in-depth, and really great projects and games, some of the children’s favorite things were the simplest things! This got us thinking about the simplicity and humility of the heart of a child.
It’s with this thought in mind that we chose our focus for this email today: humility, back-to-school and easy ways to make every day holy!
Humility
It is said that humility is the foundation of all virtues. It’s a tough one because we automatically compare humility with humbling experiences (read: embarrassing experiences.) This isn’t really what humility is! Simply put, humility is a true knowledge of self in light of who God is. We found a couple articles that you might like to check out for further reading. First is Mother Teresa’s 15 Tips to Help You Become More Humble and the other one is by Catholic Gentleman’s 6 Ways to Cultivate the Virtue of Humility.
Sunday’s Readings
We hear a lot about humility in this Sunday’s Readings. In the First Reading from the Book of Sirach, we hear how humility finds favor us with God. And from Luke’s Gospel: “ For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Scott Hahn has a short but wonderful reflection on the Readings available in text and audio.
Back to School
It’s that time of year again to head back to school. As a former teacher and a mother of 5 school-aged children, we both know and understand the difficulties that arise during this time of year with all the hustle and bustle of preparing our kids and our families for a big change in daily routines. Here’s a great article which tries to help us focus on getting back into the school groove.
Teaching the Faith to Our Children
The current culture that we live in is not very friendly to Christianity and even less so to Catholicism. Raising children in a world that indoctrinates with false ideologies can be a nail-biting task to say the least. It is true that we can’t control everything and that at some point our children need to take the Faith we’ve tried to instill and live it themselves. For those of you in the trenches of trying to teach this beautiful Faith of ours, here is a simple and handy reminder of the things we can control as we endeavor to raise saints!
Phone Less, Family More
There are countless articles on the harm that cell phones are doing to our young people (and even the not so young!) It seems that these little devices are harder to put down than a bowl of ice cream and while we know it’s addictive, we just can’t seem to control our preoccupation with them! Obviously, this can have some pretty damaging ramifications on family life. If you’re an adult who struggles with putting limits on your mobile phone, check out 4 Ways to Make Sure Your Phone Doesn’t Ruin Your Relationship With Your Kids.
Nifty News
As most of you probably already know, Twitter is an online social media platform that allows folks to discuss, opine, and really, say just about anything they want within 140 characters and put it out into the world wide web for comment and sharing. For a good chuckle, check out “Nun Hilariously Fires Back at a Goth Account.” God bless Sr. Theresa Altheia for her quick wit and witness- it may just bring some lapsed Catholics back to the fold!
For a cute and timely read about a Michigan neonatologist who sings to her preemie patients, check out this adorable article from the National Catholic Register.
Marian Minute
The National Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother, also known as the Grotto was founded by a Servite priest who had made a promise to Our Lady as a young boy when his mother was near death after childbirth. This beautiful grotto was carved out of 110 foot high cliff. If you’d like to learn more about this shrine and to see pictures, follow this link.
Saint Spotlight
Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s feast day is coming up on Thursday, September 5th. Mother Teresa is known not only to Catholics, but folks all over the world, for her humanitarian work with the poorest of the poor. To learn more about this humble nun’s life, check out this link.
For the Kids
We found this list of back to school books about the Faith that we thought may be helpful.
Here are a couple cute ideas to celebrate the Feast of St. Teresa of Calcutta with delicious treats: Mother Teresa cupcakes and Jello dessert.
If you’d like to have the kids color a picture of this wonderful saint, here’s a link to a free coloring page.
Marian Center Update
Today is the last day to see the Eucharistic Miracles of the World exhibit. Don’t miss it! Find out more here.
September 28 – Mass at 9 am, and celebration of the Archangels along with dedication of St. Juan Diego
Oct. 25-27 – Marian Conference XXVIII – Register online at marianconference.org (make sure to use Firefox and Chrome browser).
To Christ Through Mary,
Katie Moe and Lori Mercer
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