Good Friday

Dominic wanted us all to do the Stations of the Cross together on Good Friday and he looked for a place and found this convent, Rosary Heights, in Shoreline, in an area close to us, where he goes running sometimes. The convent was gorgeous; the buildings, the gardens, the surrounding woods and the breathtaking view of the ocean and mountains were really impressive. The nuns were nice and allowed us to go there and one of them took some pictures of us and talked to us a little.Before we went there and at Dominic's suggestion, I printed out coloring pages of all the stations and gave them to the kids to color.
I think we might do this again next year.

The Great Fast

Here are the fasting regulations of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Van Nuys, to which our church belongs:

Strict Fast (no meat, eggs, dairy or condiments made from animal fats and preferably no synthetic substitutes like soy milk) on Pure Monday (first Monday of the Great Fast) and Good Friday.

Simple Fast (no meat or meat products) on every Wednesday and Friday of the Great Lent.

All Byzantine Catholics are to keep the fast. Infants, pregnant women, nursing mothers and those seriously ill are exempt from the strict fast..

Now these regulations don't seem strict at all. The original monastic fast is forbidding all animal products, wine and oil on every day of the Great Fast (Lent) except for Sundays, when some of those products were permitted. Father Joseph told us that we don't have to keep this monastic fast, we should do as much as we can, and he suggested fasting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
I think that each priest would give a different set of rules so in the end we should prayerfully decide what works best for us. St. Theodor Studite said that we should "fast as much as our body can endure".

We should not forget that in addition to the fast and abstinence from certain food, we are supposed to try to abstain from amusements and parties and from serious sin like anger, gossip, lying, swearing and so on. We should also practice virtues and do good works. It is also recommended that we receive Holy Communion as often as possible during the week.

I will not talk about what my fasting rules are, that's pretty personal but I will share my choice of spiritual reading during Lent. The book is called "The Spiritual Life. And How to Be Attuned to It" by St. Theophan the Recluse, a collection of letters written by the Saint to a young woman, in which he gives her great pieces of advice to help her grow spiritually.
Kelly is also sharing the title of the book she is reading, on her blog.

Teddy has made up his own rules for Lent. He told me that he will try to not play on the computer (which he loves doing) or watch TV and he will not eat any sweets during the whole Lent. I told him that this is very strict and he didn't have to do this but he insists. Celsus, his friend and I think their other classmates too, have aparently promised to make similar sacrifices. I don't know how much he will actually be able to follow these rules. We'll see.

I wish you all a great journey through the Great Fast (Lent).

Mixed Marriages

Michelle has pointed out that there's a distinction between a sacramental marriage and a valid marriage. I read a little more about it, but I'm not going to explain here what I've learned, because I'm sure to make mistakes again and I'll really confuse everyone. Instead I'll give a link to the Question and Answer page about marriage on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website. Hopefully that will be helpful to anyone who is interested in this.

Here is another article that talks about why mixed marriages are not recommended, even though they are sometimes permitted.

Fr. Ripperger's Conference

It was quite a pleasure listening to Fr. Ripperger talk today, at Veritas. The main subject of his talk was living in our society as traditional Catholics. He touched on many controversial issues. I wasn't able to hear everything he had to say because I was in and out of the room with a fussy Alex. But from what I heard and what I still remember I will present here a few of his ideas.

As traditional Catholics we should not pick and choose from the Church's teachings. We live in a society that spoils us, so we are used to an easy life and because of that we have a hard times obeying the teachings of the Church completely. Take for example fasting; Father thinks we should fast according to the old tradition. I'm not sure what that is in the Roman Church, but I know that the traditional fasting in the Byzantine Church is very very strict.

Family members should pray together daily and the children should get a solid religious education. Children should be given religious books to read, including the lives of the saints. It is also important for us adults to constantly improve our understanding of the faith and the teaching of the church by reading relevant books often. It is an obligation we have to avoid mediocrity in our spiritual life.

In the "Question and Answer" part of the conference, many issues were discussed. Here are a few:


1. Obedience-Wives are to be subject to their husbands. An interesting thing he noticed is that when a woman "rebels" and wants to stop obeying her husband she cuts her hair short and starts wearing pants.
2. Modesty- I originally wrote something here but I've been censored by my husband (and since I'm a good obedient wife :) I will not insist on writing about this). Dominic thinks that the whole "women should only wear long skirts and dresses" thing is exaggerated.
3. A lot was said about SSPX (Society of St.Pius X, the schismatic branch of the traditional church founded by Bishop Lefebvre). While this branch of the church follows the pre Vatican II rite, it is still considered schismatic and the pope will need to officially raise the excommunication. Before this happens, participating and receiving the sacraments in an SSPX church is forbidden. This was the opinion of Fr Ripperger and I'm not going to comment on this because I don't know enough about the matter. I just know that several people I trust and respect have chosen to go to SSPX churches.
4. Women who have had an abortion are excommunicated IF at the time of the abortion they knew this was a sin punishable with excommunication. I had no idea about that, I have to say. I wonder if murder is also excommunicable. I don't think it is and that says a lot about the gravity of abortion. In other words, a woman who had an abortion and wants to get absolution would need to get that from a bishop. Is that correct?
5. Marriage outside the Church- This is a very delicate subject. Someone raised this question: What do you do if someone in your family marries outside the church? Father's response was that you can not be part of that. If their "marriage" is non sacramental you are not allowed to attend their wedding, nor are you supposed to accept them in your house as a couple, especially if you have older children, since that would be causing scandal.

There were two more points I wanted to write about, but I really should stop here for now, because I'm very tired and it's late. I might continue this post tomorrow.

Great Byzantine Blog

I want to recommend this blog to anyone interested in the Byzantine Catholic rite. It is called Orientale Lumen (The Light of the East) and is written by a homeschooling mom in Texas. Unfortunately, she decided to take a break from blogging but there's a lot to read anyway.

"God's Architect"

I was reading Faces of Holiness II yesterday and guess whom I found among the holy people featured there: Antoni Gaudi, Spain's greatest architect.

I remember seeing his beautiful buildings in 2001, when Dominic and I did a little Europe tour with Teddy and Benedict. Dominic's uncle has an apartment near Tarragona where we spent a few days together with Dominic's parents. Dominic and I spent an entire day in Barcelona (without kids) walking around and visiting the major touristic attractions including Gaudi's buildings:
Casa Mila


Casa Battlo,

and his most famous work
Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family Church), the symbol of Barcelona.

One place we didn't get to see, which is another one of Gaudi's major creations is Park Guell



a park commissioned for the aristocracy of Barcelona and adorned with many little structures, buildings and figures, some covered in colorful tiles all in the typical Gaudi style.

But, the reason I'm writing about him here is not to discuss his work or his architectural style but to share my excitement about what I just found out, namely that a few years ago Antoni Gaudi's beatification process was officially initiated.

Some people are surprised about this. For the first 31 years of his life he was known as someone who enjoyed luxury and extravagance. His conversion started after he began working on the Sagrada Familia
He moved to his on-site studio and dedicated the rest of his life to this particular project and to God. During this second part of his life he was known for living modestly and for being a deeply spiritual person.He gave up his wealthy lifestyle, started every day with Mass and Communion and spent time in front of the Blessed Eucharist often. Apparently, Gaudi had several mystical experiences which provided inspiration for his ongoing work on Sagrada Familia.

He died in 1926, struck by a streetcar, at the age of 74.

For the beatification process to be concluded, there needs to be a documented miracle attributed to his intercession.
The second step would then be the canonization process. If a second miracle is proven, than he will be declared a saint.

So, next time you need to pray for someone's intercession in a serious problem, give St. Anthony and St. Jude a break. They work too much. Try praying to Antoni Gaudi and who knows, you might make history, if your prayers are answered.

Capital Punishment and the Teachings of the Church

I was reading this article from Catholic World News and was wondering what the actual position of the Catholic Church was regarding capital punishment. It is my understanding that "Thou shalt not kill" refers to all situations other than self defense.

The article talks about the Church's position in regards to Saddam Hussein's execution. I keep thinking that lifetime prison would serve the purpose of keeping people safe from a murderer and in that case capital punishment is only revenge and isn't revenge against Christian principles? I'm saying this because I know that many devout Catholics and Christians in general are pro c.p. It just doesn't make sense to me.

That video of SH's execution which is everywhere on the web is just painful to watch. It kind of reminds me of the executions of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, Romania's former Communist president, and his wife. I can't help thinking that if they lived until God decided to end their life they would have had a chance to repent. Doesn't it say in the Bible that even the biggest sinner can hope for the happiness of Heaven if he repents and accepts God (or something to that respect). By ending the sinner's life early you basically take away that possibility from him.

Just my two cents.

Comments welcome.

A Little Confession

I've been thinking about whether I should write this here or not and finally decided to do it. In my last week of my pregnancy with Cecilia, I was on bed rest at Swedish hospital. Things looked pretty bad, I had been bleeding for a few weeks, my amniotic fluid was almost completely gone and the baby wasn't thriving. I was obviously desperate. I knew that most likely I would give birth soon (I was only 23 weeks when they admitted me in the hospital and then 24). I was praying 2 rosaries daily (one for me and the baby and one for Dominic's cousin who was due around that time too but wanted to get her tubes tied after the delivery and I prayed that she would change her mind...and she did). I was doing novenas, litanies, you name it. Every time someone asked me if I was bored being on bed rest so long, I would say that I'm actually very busy praying and reading about prematurity, so I wasn't bored.

They kept checking my amniotic fluid to see if it was growing and I was so anxious about that, that I started praying to St. Gianna Beretta Molla (the one who sacrificed her life for the life of her unborn daughter) to make a miracle and make that amniotic fluid grow back because I wanted my baby to be born at term and be healthy and normal. I asked the Blessed Mother for the same thing and...here it goes...I made a promise (and I'll talk more about making promises later) I promised the Blessed Mother that if she made a miracle and helped my little girl (I knew it was a girl) be perfectly healthy, I WOULD DEDICATE MY LIFE TO MY CHILDREN, and I WOULD TAKE THEM TO DAILY MASS EVERY DAY. Now this was a desperate mother praying for the life of her daughter , whom she so much wanted. Someone who was never in the situation of almost losing a child cannot understand how desperate a mother can be, how she would promise anything.

Well, my prayers were obviously answered, not exactly in the way I wanted (the amniotic fluid didn't grow) but in the end Cecilia turned out to be perfectly healthy even though she was born 16 weeks early.

After all the craziness with Cecilia being in the hospital for 4 months and then at home, I just couldn't find the time to go to daily mass. As the years went by I kept trying and still I couldn't do it because our local church has mass at 8am and the boys have to be in school at 8:55am so there's no time.

Recently I prayed that I would find a way to take the kids to church every day and soon after it occurred to me that we can go to Blessed Sacrament at 5:30pm. I have all the intentions of going from now on too but only if it doesn't interfere with dinner, homework etc. I hope the Blessed Mother will give me credit for doing my best.

What I've learned from this is that we should never promise God or the Blessed Mother anything because we don't know if we can keep our promise, we can always promise to do our best though. I told this to Teddy and he learned the lesson.

I'd really like to know people's opinions about this since it's something I've been thinking and worrying about for the past 3 1/2 years. I'm hoping that whoever reads this will leave a comment. It can be in English or Romanian, it doesn't matter.

The Daily Mass Gang

Our daily Mass group is growing. Tavis joined us today. But since I'm the only adult with so many children, I feel like people are looking a little funny at us. The kids are pretty well behaved in church for the most part but still we're quite a scene. I wish Dominic could come with us but that's impossible. He works until much later. Winter break will be over soon and I don't think we'll be able to go anymore when school starts, but we'll try. It's good for the kids and for me.

15 Kingdom Comes

The boys are still in their winter break. School starts again next Monday. We've tried to go to daily mass as much as we could these days. "Blessed Sacrament " , a church in the University District in Seattle is the only church I know of that has daily mass in the afternoon, at 5:30pm. So what I've done these days is that I've started dinner preparations much earlier so that we can eat at around 4:30pm and then leave for church at 5pm. Today when we got there we saw the church empty (Tuesday is the one day of the week when there's no mass...oops) so I told the kids that we'll just go inside for a few minutes to pray and then we'll leave.

All of a sudden Benedict disappeared and I found him in the front of the church, on the right side, where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed praying on his knees. I stayed there a little with the kids and prayed and then when Alex started fussing and Cecilia started running around, I told the kids that we have to go. I gathered them all but Benedict wouldn't move and continued praying. I went to him and said "Let's go" and he whispered to me " I need to say two more Hail Mary's". After he finished praying he went closer to the tabernacle and prayed some more. I had to finally grab him and take him out of the church because we were starting to disturb the other people who were praying there.

When we got out of the church he explained to me that he said 15 Hail Mary's, 15 "King Kongs" (or "Kingdom Comes", which is what he calls the "Our Father's) and 15 "Angel of God" in the hope that Jesus would hear his prayers and come out of the tabernacle, so that he could see Him. I explained to him that even though Jesus is really present in the Blessed Sacrament we can not see Him.
We had a discussion about that a few days ago and he was very intrigued by the fact that Jesus is in that small golden box. "How can He fit in there? What happens if you open that box? Will Jesus come out?"
How do you explain to a 6 year old these things?

He is fascinated with the story of Blessed Imelda Lambertini, the young girl (patroness of first communicants) who had a vision of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. We have her story on tape (one of the "Glory Stories") and he wants to listen to it over and over again.

Just wanted to share...I thought it was a cute story.

Join in Support for the Tridentine Mass

As many of you already know, Pope Benedict XVI will soon release a motu proprio liberalizing the use of the Tridentine Mass (traditional Latin Mass). A group of French and Italian intellectuals have joined in support for the Pope's decision.
To show your support follow this link to sign and send a sample letter (you can cut and paste the English version in Word, then sign and send it).

Recommended Catholic Books

Ever since Alex was born 5 months ago, I found myself having more time to read books. How is that possible? Well, whether I want it or not I need to take many short breaks every day to nurse the baby. Since I can't do any housework while breastfeeding, I either say my daily prayers or I read. Here are some of the books I've read this year that I recommend.
For Catholic mothers of many children there are several helpful books on raising large Catholic families written by other mothers (mostly homeschooling moms). One such book is Your Vocation of Love by Agnes M. Penny (author of "Your Labor of Love"). Each chapter of this book is a short essay about a specific aspect of motherhood. Some examples of these "short reflections" as the author calls them are: "Openness to Children", "Keeping Your Home Catholic", "Working Outside the Home" "Self-Pity", "Bad Days", "Holy Poverty", "Attending Sunday Mass" and more. It is a very easy read and even the most experienced of mothers could find some helpful advice in it.
Another interesting little book is Collyyn Hammond's Dressing With Dignity. I don't know if I necessarilly recommend it, but it did make me rethink the way I dress and the way I should teach my daughter to dress.
I recently discovered a great Catholic author, Ann Ball, who mostly writes about contemporary saints, blesseds or holy people who are in the process of being canonized. She also wrote books about other aspects of the Catholic faith, like the sacramentals, the titles of Mary etc. The first book I've read from her modern saints series is called Young Faces of Holiness, a gem of a book featuring the short biographies of modern (from the last 100-150 years) young saints, blessed, venerable or uncanonized holy people. All of the people featured in this book have died before the age of 21. Some of the children have died a heroic death at ages as young as 4! There's an inspiring story in this book for every child or parent. This is my second favorite book I've read this year.
The book I'm reading now is called Faces of Holiness - Modern Saints in Photos and Words also by Ann Ball. This one features saints and other holy people like Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (the young Italian student who died in 1925 at 24 years old and who enjoyed sports and mountain climbing). Pier Giorgio is a favorite of my husband Dominic and my son Teddy. Teddy just finished reading his biography written for children and was very impressed. Other people featured are Saint Clelia Barbieri, Blessed Miguel Pro and two of my favorites: Sister Maria Troncatti, missionary in the Amazon jungle (I'm frantically looking for a longer biography of hers) and Montserrat Grasses (1941-1959) a young girl from Barcelona, Spain, who lived a normal life on the outside but had a profound love of God and accepted with serenity her suffering and her premature death, due to bone cancer. Again, wonderful role models for children and young people and for everyone else who wants to grow closer to God and who thinks that holiness is hard to achieve in our time.
Recently I've started to think more seriously about that thing called "sex education". I realized that my oldest son, now 8 1/2 is going to bee a preteen before I know it and will need to learn "the facts of life". I strongly believe that it is the parents' responsibility to teach their children these things. Public and even Catholic parochial schools offer sex education classes for even young children and I am happy that my kids are able to go to a private Catholic school where they will not be offered such an "education". In order to prepare myself for the fast approaching teenage years of my children I've looked for some good wholesome books on the subject. On EWTN (the National Catholic Radio) someone was recently recommending Parents, Children and the Facts of Life" by Fr. Henry V. Sattler as the book about teaching children about sexuality. I have to say that I did find it useful. Some of the ideas presented are: teaching the facts gradually over years, teaching children about modesty from the early years, guarding their purity and stoping them from developing bad habits, the importance of frequent Communion and Confession, teaching about the three vocations (married life, unmarried life in the world and unmarried life as a priest or religious). This book is a must for every parent who wants to raise children who will use their sexuality as God intended it, only inside the marriage.
There's many more great catholic books on the subjects I've mentioned. The best way to find them is for each of the above books to look at the other recommended books on Amazon.

Random Acts of Kindness

It says in our local newspaper that November 13th is the day of "random acts of kindness". Wouldn't it be nice if each person would try to do one every day and not only on November 13th. I'm always surprised of how good I feel when I do a little something for another person. At the same time, when someone is kind to me, it puts a smile on my face.
Yesterday I was making Ebay packages and I noticed that one of the buyers was a lady from my town, who has bought shoes from me in the past. She has added $5 for shipping for the shoes and I emailed her saying that I can deliver the shoes myself to her house (it only takes me like 5 minutes to get there and it's on my way to the post office) and I can refund her $5. She emailed back and told me to keep the $5 that those are "for the delivery service", "after all", she said, "those shoes are worth more than their price anyway". She obviously didn't have to do that, but she wanted to be nice. Now, $5 might not make much of a difference in my wallet, but her kindness and generosity did make a difference.
Food for thought...
And since I'm talking about kindness, I would recommend a book called "The Hidden Power of Kindness" by Fr. Lawrence Lovasik. It is a book written by a Catholic priest from a Catholic perspective. I'm reading it now and it is great so far.
Father Lovasik has written many books (especially for children), mostly in the 60's. The Lovasik book I'm now reading to my boys is called "The Works of Mercy", another book I warmly recomend for Catholic children; in fact I was thinking of buying it for each of my godchildren this Christmas. It describes each of the 7 corporal and 7 spiritual acts of mercy that we as Christians are called to do. Some examples are: "to feed the hungry", "to visit the sick", "to admonish the sinner", "to counsel the doubtful" etc. Jesus himself has tought us to practice these works.
I will gradually introduce my children to the works of mercy and encourage them to practice them as often as they can, starting with maybe one a day.
More food for thought...

Happy again

Two days ago we have learned that we have a new Pope. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is the best Pope we could have wished for and what a beautiful name he has chosen for himself, Benedict XVI. May he have a long papacy and continue Pope John Paul's good works.
I started reading one of his books, "God and the World" I think it is called. It is written in an interview format and very nicely organized so that you can easily jump from one chapter to the other and from one question to the other, depending on what you're interested in.

Talking about books, I've been reading this little book called "The Way of the Pilgrim" lately. Dominic has bought it (twice!) from our church and I don't think he has ever read it, but I kept bumping into this book until I said to myself that it must be a sign that I have to read it. It's been really wonderfull reading it, it taught me the importance of the "Jesus prayer" also called "the prayer of the heart". I can't belive I've never heard about this prayer before, being a Byzantine Catholic and all. What this prayer is, basically, is just a continuous repetition of the words "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner". You repeat it over and over until you get so used to it that you don't have to actually say the words with your lips but feel the prayer in your heart, repeating it with every heartbeat.

Sad times for all of us

These days we are remembering and mourning The Holy Father who went to the Lord three days ago. I think he has been about as good as one can be as the leader of the Catholic Church in these very difficult and eventfull last 2-3 decades. In spite of the terrible pressures from society and even clergy, his position against such evil trends as homosexuality, abortion and euthanasia has been unshaken.
Some have criticized him for being to strict, some, on the other hand blame him for the liberalism that has penetrated the Church lately. Both sides are wrong in my opinion. The pressures he was under are hard for us to imagine and under the circumstances, he has done more good for the Church than many would have done.
May God rest his soul in peace.
It is now time for us to hope and pray for a new pope that will continue John Paul's good work. Cardinal Ratzinger?...
"Gloria olivae"?...for those who are familiar with St. Malachy's predictions...and what would that mean anyway?
We can only pray and hope.

That's me (second from left) at the Vatican with the Pope in 1994