We celebrated Sibyl’s baptism and Consecration to Mary as well as the Churching of Women yesterday. It was beautiful. 
Fasting
Someone once told me, “Marry a man who fasts.” It was wise advice.
Fasting gives birth to prophets and strengthens the powerful; fasting makes lawgivers wise. Fasting is a good safeguard for the soul, a steadfast companion for the body, a weapon for the valiant, and a gymnasium for athletes. Fasting repels temptations, anoints unto piety; it is the comrade of watchfulness and the artificer of chastity. In war it fights bravely, in peace it teaches stillness.
– St. Basil the Great
Welcome
Welcome Sibyl Anastasia, 5-4-19, 7Ib 14 0z.
Our fifth baby girl. Welcoming a new baby into the family never gets old. Her sisters love her and fight over who gets to hold her next.
A Room Of One’s Own
I’m currently reading Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” and I’m actually enjoying it despite myself. Her envious tone keeps me from taking her seriously but she writes beautifully and I can see why it’s been in print since 1929.
However, Woolf misses the mark; Why is writing poetry and novels more important than motherhood? Can’t a woman’s genius be different than man’s? So what if men are more inventive than women. Women’s talents shine elsewhere. I also find it hard to believe that social construct has successfully “kept down” women for centuries! centuries! Camille Paglia has an interesting take and I agree Genius is not checked by social obstacles: it will overcome:
“In the beautiful hypothesis of ‘Shakespeare’s sister,’ Virginia Woolf imagines a girl with her brother’s gifts whom society would have ‘thwarted and hindered’ to insanity and suicide. Women have been discouraged from genres such as sculpture that require studio training or expensive materials. But in philosophy, mathematics, and poetry, the only materials are pen and paper. Male conspiracy cannot explain all female failures. I am convinced that, even without restrictions, there still would have been no female Pascal, Milton, or Kant. Genius is not checked by social obstacles: it will overcome. Men’s egotism, so disgusting in the talentless, is the source of their greatness as a sex. Women have a more accurate sense of reality; they are physically and spiritually more complete. Culture, I said, was invented by men, because it is by culture that they make themselves whole. Even now, with all vocations open, I marvel at the rarity of the woman driven by artistic or intellectual obsession, that self-mutilating derangement of social relationship which, in its alternative forms of crime and ideation, is the disgrace and glory of the human species.”
Mother Knows
Mother Knows
Mother knows the sweet babe’s cry
And if he needs a meal or rest.
And Mother knows which fare or song
Will lull and comfort best.
Eternal Rest Grant Him
I was saddened to hear that the blogger “Zippy Catholic” his real name, Matt, died last Fall.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Homemaking 2019 Reading List
Here are some books that have been recommended to me and I hope to read this year. What are some of your favorite homemaking books?
A Mother’s Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot
This book has been recommended to me twice this month. It looks sweet and has a good rating on goodreads the only complaint from the reviews, “too Catholic” – sounds promising.
The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer
This book has been on my reading list for several years. I keep hoping I’ll find it at a thrift store but haven’t had much luck, it’s also not available at our local library so I decided to just order it this year.
Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman
I still don’t feel like our family is “large” but people keep telling me I’d like this book.
The Greatest Liberation
When making a speech to women of the liberation movement, Blessed Mother Teresa frankly said, “Every woman is the heart of the family, since no man can never really love in the same way as a woman So that by trying t become somebody else, women lose something, and because of that loss, the world is what it is today. My advice to women is simple :stay home. A woman’s first responsibility is to be the mother, the heart, the only one who can keep the family together. We are liberated only when we live our life to the fullest as a woman. And that is the greatest liberation of all.”
Motherhood
An acquaintance of mine recently told me that staying at home with her children wasn’t for her anymore and she was looking for work. I replied with an, “oh, really” and wasn’t sure what else to say. I didn’t know if she wanted encouragement to keep up the good fight, to defend my own decisions or simply soothe her conscience, “yes, motherhood is hard, it’s not for everyone.” After this conversation, I fortuitously stumbled across this thoughtful article, A Fallacy of Motherhood by Laura Wood, which is worth a read. Here’s an excerpt:
” No other form of daily work is burdened with such unrealistic expectations and exalted assumptions as the work of motherhood, which is so sentimentalized in our feminist culture. The woman who does not enjoy the company of young children or finds the home lonely and unstructured compared to the workplace may be left thinking she is not meant to be a mother.”
Prayer Request
Could you please pray for my Grandmother, Mary Jane, who passed away Monday. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light. shine upon her and May the souls of all the faithful departed, through. the mercy of God, rest in peace.
