Unfortunately, I’ve been ill all morning so I wasn’t able to post what I intended today; the reflection from my visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs. I am hoping to push my usual dailies down by a day, and start my week tomorrow.
Taking its place today then is a link to the Top 10 Catholic Shrines in the US, one of which is the one I visited.
Here is also a virtual tour supplied by Acevedo Homeschoolers on You Tube:
I hope to see you tomorrow.
I’m looking forward to visiting here this weekend.
My First Rosary
Growing up Jewish, rosaries were as unfamiliar to me as the Chinese language. I’m not sure I ever saw one outside of a television show, and even then it would have been a fully habitted nun.
When I first began attending Mass, the woman sitting in front of me prayed her rosary before the mass. Every morning I would walk in, sit behind her, and glance over her shoulder as she worked the beads. It was both equally intriguing and foreign to me.
In the Fall of 2013, I traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia to participate in a LARP (think dinner and a show except there’s no audience) and Premiere Viewing of Supernatural. I was staying with a friend who was working on props for the event. Among her prop work, she gave me my first rosary, the one in the second picture, that she made for me by hand. It’s beautiful. It is in my two favorite colors: greens and silver. I was touched that she would spend the time and honor me with her gift. As soon as I returned to New York, I brought it to my priest to bless it. It is primarily the rosary that I use. It not only brings me closer to G-d and Jesus and the Blessed Mother, but it also ties me to friendship and love here on earth.
In the first picture are my other rosaries. These were lovely gifts from special people who helped foster my Catholic education.
In the first photo, from left to right:
This gold rosary is very shiny and has the delicate features of a necklace. It was sent to me for Christmas after my baptism from my dear friend and godfather. He stood up for me as a witness at my Easter Vigil, but more importantly, he introduced me to the practicalities of knowing Jesus: compassion, forgiveness, and loving one’s neighbor no matter what. Those three things, those ideals, changed my heart and my life forever.
Second in line is the rosary I’ve already spoken about.
Next is the white one. This is from the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. I was given this by the RCIA teachers who taught me the class on Mary. They are a couple who I know from my memoir writing workshop, and they have a large devotion to Mary. They collect Mary statues and pictures/icons from all over the world, and they are magnificent. This rosary comes in a little clear box with a gold picture of the shrine/Fatima icon.
The fourth is not actually a rosary, but a chaplet. Chaplets have less beads than a rosary, and are personal prayer devotionals. This one is the chaplet of St. Anne’s, and was a gift on my baptism day from another couple who taught me during the RCIA program.
I don’t pray the rosary daily, but I will often be called to at the oddest moments, and I try to stop, take a breather, and pray.
I’ve been trying to follow weekly themes. For the most part, it gives me a place to start when I’m looking at my weekly posts and prompt suggestions. This week is Water, Water Everywhere.
I have a mixed relationship with water. For the most part, I’m not a fan. I don’t like water. I take showers and wash my hands; my problem is mostly with natural bodies of water and boats. My husband tried to propose on a boat. That did not work out for us at all.
On the other hand, I do like waterfalls. I find them calming and soothing. I’ll share one of my favorite places (after Niagara Falls, which is too far for a day trip) later in the week. I discovered when we went out to Montauk Point a few years ago that I have a real problem with the ocean. It’s too big and never-ending from the shore.
When I returned to church and Mass one week ago today, the first thing I returned to was the baptismal font. I put my fingers in, and made the sign of the cross over myself, and I was back.
For my baptism (in 2014) I was not baptised in the font; an Easter pool (for lack of a better word) was built on the church’s altar. You’re supposed to get your whole body wet. I was told to bring a change of clothes for after, and I definitely needed them.
I thought today I would share the Gospel of Jesus’ Baptism as well as some of my photos from my Easter Vigil, the first one of my baptism.
The water was ice cold, and the pitcher was full and the priest poured it over my head (and the rest of me) three times: appropriately in the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Baptism
Confirmation
My First Communion
The Baptism of Jesus
Matthew 3:13-17Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son,whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Friday is Good Friday. It is also the first night of Passover.
When I decided to go ahead and follow my conscience to be baptized and to become Christian and join the Catholic Church, I made the commitment to continuing to observe many of the Jewish customs that I had grown up with. Not to make too fine a point of it, but my kids are still Jewish, and for me my Catholicism is a very organic and logical extension of my own Jewishness.
This was my third observed Lent, my first after my baptism. I’ve had no problem abstaining from meat on Fridays and giving up something. For two years, it was Diet Coke and this year it was the McDonald’s Breakfast Burrito. The burrito holds a place in both my stomach and my heart as an amazing breakfast food as well as a fond memory of my first teaching job.
As a kid, Passover wasn’t terribly easy, but it also wasn’t terribly hard. We gave up bread, pasta, rice, certain vegetables and that meant that we truly gave them up. Nowadays you can practically eat anything and it’s kosher for Passover; even cake, and sandwich rolls. When my kids were really little, I bought the cereal (the box was tastier) and the potato chips without corn syrup. They hated all of it, so we went back to buying nothing but matzo and potato pancake mix.
This year, though we’ll be traveling to my mother-in-law’s, and it’s Holy Week, and Easter is Sunday, which isn’t usually a problem since I’ve abstained from chocolate and cake and anything not allowed.
But this year, I just don’t feel it.
I didn’t feel Rosh Hashanah, probably because the kids had school and I let them go.
I did observe Yom Kippur, but Chanukah was forgotten most of the week with everyone’s crazy afterschool schedules and my son’s work. We don’t do eight presents because that gets too expensive, but we do always get dreidls, gelt and potato pancakes. Except this year, I didn’t make any.
I’m not depressed; it’s not that, but I’m not feeling it.
I feel the importance of Passover; of the Exodus, but the joy of the Exodus is blended and jumbled with the joy of the Resurrection, and the latter seems more important even though it’s not a competition.
I feel guilty. It’s more than I don’t wanna also, but it both feels wrong to observe and wrong to ignore. I need to sort out a compromise for myself that is both emotionally satisfying and religiously authentic.
The customs and traditions were always important to me, and I don’t want to lose or forget that part of myself. It may take some time until I find the balance that I’m looking for.
If you observe the Christian Holy Week, what is the one thing you love about it, and the one thing you would love to avoid? If you are not Christian, what is the one religious obligation that you observe that you really love?
St. John the Evangelist, Schenectady, NY
St. Peter's Chapel, St. Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine
Cohoes Library, Cohoes, NY
Reading is fundamental. When I was growing up in the 70s this was more than a sentiment, it was a movement with suggestions and ideas and a non-profit. After food and a warm place to sleep this was what babies enjoyed most: the soothing sounds of their parents’ voices reading them stories. Our entire lives are made up of stories from fairy tales to our own origin stories. From princesses to cowboys, planes to trains and everything in between we have our stories.
The very first class I took for my Master’s degree was Children’s Literature. Not only seeing what was out there, but how to use it in the classroom. This was coupled with a new concept in the 80s which I adopted for the rest of my life: whole language. Whole language was the teaching of reading through actual reading rather than a focus on phonics. Phonics have their place for some learners, but what better way than using context and the whole language to learn how to read. From the moment I heard it, it made sense and it has never left me.
Three of the other things that I learned in reading classes for my teaching degree:
I can remember getting lost in the worlds of Winnie-the-Pooh and Cranberry Thanksgiving, one of my favorite books as a child. It is probably one of the main reasons I love Thanksgiving and it is my favorite holiday. I still have it somewhere. I put myself on the subway with Sarah and John in The Magic Tunnel, a book which still sits on my bookshelf. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were also favorites of mine. For my son it’s the Wimpy Kid books and the Zombie Chasers. For my daughter it’s Monsters High.
Whatever the favorites are, the reading is pure joy.
Here are a few of my favorites from these genres:
Sci-fi/Fantasy
Sci-fi/Fantasy is wonderful because it can be set anywhere from back in time and time travel to the future and spaceships. You can be in outer space on another planet or on a spaceship traveling the stars. You can be with the dinosaurs while also using ray guns and modern to us equipment or you can be in a magic land of Harry Potter-esque wizardry or Hunger Games dystopia. You can play what if Lincoln had lived or what if Jefferson hadn’t written the Declaration of Independence. The possibilities are endless.
Biography/Autobiography/Memoir
I’ve been on a biography/memoir kick lately. My top five of recent reads are:
Religious and Spiritual
This is a genre that I have found more recently. As a child attending Workman Circle Schools I knew all of the Bible stories and loved to read and re-read from our set of four Jewish History books, three of which I still have. It was a wonderful time in my life and fostered and encouraged both a love of my religion and of history.
More recently as I have journeyed on my conversion to Catholicism, I have read numerous books and booklets, periodicals and devotionals, some better than others, some outstanding. Here are my top four:
A few others to enjoy:
Also, Lucky Man, also by Michael J. Fox
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 