1. Liturgy of the Hours
As you know since Lent began I’ve been trying to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. I’ve got it figured out now, I’m aiming to do 3 offices each day: Lauds and Vespers morning and evening, and the office of the readings during my toddler’s naptime. It’s kind of too bad that I can’t really do it all year round, because I find it a beautiful form of prayer. I like how the psalms relate to the time of day. I had never heard most of them before, I didn’t know stuff like that was in the bible etc! I even find myself relating to some things, despite the fact that they were originally written thousands of years ago.
Last Lent it got every morning off to a good start; I loved that quiet time sitting in my green living room. The book I got form my mom is only for the Lent and Easter season, and realistically I just don’t see myself giving up that much of my day year round, and then what would I do to increase prayer time during lent. Right now how things are is a good fit for me.
I also notice a big difference in my day to day life. I find I can be so much more patient! The periodic reminder helps keep God (and thus the virtues I’m trying to model) at the forefront of my thoughts.
2. Hockey
Ah hockey, a Canadian tradition. My family has never been that into sports (my brother watches football now but he’s alone in that) but somehow we still got into hockey. After my dad died my mom discovered the Mooseheads games and it was something we could all enjoy as a family so we attended regularly for several years.
These days I don’t watch it as much. I haven’t been as interested since the Mooseheads have had a couple bad seasons. However, anytime national pride is at stake I find it more interesting (and DH too). Hockey isn’t just a sport, it’s a religion. It’s in our blood. (this coke ad illustrates what hockey is to Canada pretty well). I tend to tune in to the World Championships and DH and I have been closely following the Canadian team at the Olympics. In the round robin we *gasp* lost to the US. It was very disheartening. We did outplay them but their goalie was on fire.
Wednesday night it was do or die against possibly our biggest rivals, Russia. I had not entirely lost faith but I was to the point where I just had to cross my fingers and hope for the best. But for this game the Canadians were an entirely new team. They scored early and often. They got that crucial first goal against Russia and from then on Russia could only play catch up. The way they were playing it looked like the scoring was overkill, they were soundly beating the Russians. I think the strategy was preventative. They came out early to squash any chances the Russians might have thought they had. I think if we hadn’t played that way, the Russians would have been an equal adversary, but when it played out it was no contest. Now it’s on to Slovakia, who apparently have a pretty good team also. Go, Canada Go!
3. Commercials
On the topic of the Olympics, in between the events I have also been enjoying the themed commercials. In one hardware commercial a tape measure goes across Canada from coast to coast, there is an adorable wonder bread commercial with child-sized Olympians, and in this series of commercials the cars have conversations.
Wonder bread: mini Olympians
Bell – The world is here don’t miss it
4. The swimsuit in the Sears catalog seems to have kicked off a bit of a clothing spree. I’ve ordered a shirt online and have my eye on a shirt in the Winners catalog.
I am tired of my v-necked shirts not adequately covering me in between nursings, they often get twisted to the side. It is not helping me to maintain modesty around the house (which is mixed company) and I’ve even caught it when I was out! It was time this stopped. I did an inventory and it seems I only have 2 shirts that will reliably cover me (the rest of my shirts have to big a neckline or are too short!) I can’t afford to buy 5 more, especially when they need to be somewhat specialized, but one more to the mix will help, and I don’t have to be quite as meticulous when he is at work (though he’s going to be retired soon).
So with this new necessity, I went peeking around on the internet. What I found is several websites with clothing designed moms. Here’s a few of the things that caught my eye:
The clothes are specially designed to be worn with a growing belly or while nursing but are still feminine and pretty. Lol, I’m starting to sound like Betty Beguiles! I found several things I would like to have: a couple different shirts, a really pretty dress and most of the things on this site.
Here is what I bought. It’s got the discreet second layer and clips for nursing.
5. I guess I will be funding all these important purchases with the money I’m making doing research studies. I’m taking it very seriously, signing up for all the ones I can. As my friend’s research assistant (helping her get participants for the study she has to run) I will also make a small profit, but that money is going into the household account. As for the studies themselves, unlike the computer science ones I did before these ones are actually work. My friend’s study was hard on the eyes and when I finished the audio visual/tactile study today my knee and wrists were sore from the position of my arms and the foot pedal.
6. There is a cool new show on TV called Undercover Boss. The president/CEO of big chain companies like 7-11 goes undercover as an entry-level worker in their own company. Not only do they get to see first hand what their employees have to deal with, but it also lets them discover new ways to improve their business for both their customers and their employees.
7. There is another Women’s night coming up next Thursday. I have invited T and my friend’s mom as well. I’m excited, I know the lady giving the talk, she’s my godmother! And I haven’t seen her in months so it will be nice to catch up.
I didn’t take this photo but would love to give kudos to whoever did. It was on the facebook page.
Glad you’ve gotten the Hours figured out! It’s complicated at first; eventually, with perseverance, it becomes automatic.
The psalms are the hymns and prayers of God’s chosen people. They run the gamut of the human condition–and our human nature has not changed one bit in all the centuries between. They were prayed in the ancient Jewish cultural and Temple rituals. Christ would have prayed them throughout his life, in the Last Supper, and on the Cross. (His cry “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” is the opening line of Ps. 21 (22) and would have been understood by his contemporaries as a short-hand for the whole prayer. If you haven’t discovered that one yet, look it up. It is said at Daytime prayer on the 3rd Friday in the 4-week Psalter–and on Good Friday, of course!–and is a powerful blend of abandonment, loss and trust in God.
The apostles and early Christians (most of them converts from Judaism) continued to use the psalms and they have remained one of the major prayers of the Church down through all the centuries since.
There are more good ones lurking in the Hours you aren’t presently using, but at this stage of your life your primary duty is to your family. While I prayed the full office faithfully for several years, by the time you and your brother came along, I did well to manage one Hour a day during Lent. Now life has slowed down and I have more time again.
Some food for thought (and research) here when I get the time
Yep, at least I think I’ve got it. Red bookmark in the am, then green then purple. Green then purple for the rest of the day
I am really drawn to the liturgy of the hours, which is funny, because I’m not Catholic! I tried for a few days, but got lost in the busyness of schooling 5 kids, maybe I will try again.
I loved the commercial with the kids as olympians, I’ve only seen one though..
the show about the Bosses sounds intriguing, I’ll have to look for that, it would be a good philosophy for anyone running a business, I think.
many blessings to you, have a great weekend.
Yes, with 5 kids I can see it as a challenge, but you could always squeeze on office in first thing in the morning or right before bed
(I realize it’s not as easy as it sounds!)
Mom, I have come across it before. But it sounds just as though it is Christ himself speaking, ‘they cast lots for my robe’ etc. (unless it’s joseph) so how would it come about before Christ that he would pray it on the cross?
It is one of the Old Testament Messianic prophecies, which was not fully recognized until Christ came and fulfilled it so clearly.
From the Navarre Bible, Psalms, p. 92 and 96:
Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke the first words of this psalm when he was nailed on the cross (“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”: Mk. 15:34; Mt. 27:46), and he showed that he was making his own the feelings of trust in God included in this prayer. This fact gives the psalm a very special value because we are able to see that it prefigured Christ’s feelings, and to get an insight into what his death meant to Jesus at the time and what it means for us. In recounting the death of our Lord, the evangelists wanted to show that the words of this psalm were being fulfilled. It is true that the literal words of the psalm do not allow us to say who the sufferer is and what the nature of his sufferings were; but the New Testament does make it clear that the psalm refers to the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, and invites us to link our sufferings with Christ’s.
. . . The Fathers often draw on this psalm because, by adopting the feelings expressed in it, Jesus showed himself to be truly man while being at the same time God: “Keep our faith alive; try to understand that the one whom we a short time ago contemplated in his divine state took on the form of a slave, made himself in all things like man, made himself in his way of being identical to human beings; that he was humbled and made obedient unto death. Let us consider how he even wished to make his own those words he spoke from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Although we turn to him as God, he makes his petition to God as a servant. In the first place we see him as the Creator, and in the other, as a creature. Without suffering any change to his being, he took on our created nature to transform it and to make us along with him one man, head and body. Let us pray, therefore, to him, through him, and in him, and let us speak with him, for he speaks to us. (St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 85, 1.)
oh. It was a prophecy… now it makes sense…