Pregnant and famished after a morning of returning all the items from my "return pile" (i.e. all the items I purchased and intended to return but instead I accumulated them in a pile), I stopped at a fast food drive-thru for lunch. It was such a beautiful day, so I decided to eat my lunch at the duck pond, where I was inspired by a mom who took her two children to the duck pond and playfully ran through the ducks as her children did. Living in a small town, all of us mothers have seen each other's children misbehave and have seen each other when we have lost our patience with our children and were not at our best. I enjoyed watching this mom enjoy her children. I was happy for her that she was having a good mommy moment because I recognize how difficult it is to brush off the negative and start anew with my child. She did it. She inspired me. Amen!

Activity for November, the Month Devoted to the Holy Souls in Purgatory

With All Saints Day falling on November 1st and All Souls Day on the 2nd, I thought it would be appropriate to teach the children of my parish about the communion of saints i.e. that the church militant (a.k.a.the faithful on earth), the church suffering (a.k.a.the poor souls in purgatory), and the church triumphant (a.k.a.the blessed in heaven) make up the church and that death does not separate us from each other. We can still pray to each other and for each other.  These are the crafts I made for our fellowship breakfast.  

A prayer wheel showing the communion of saints. Notice that I had the children pick a saint to put in heaven as the church triumphant. Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children, was a popular pick!

An army dog tag showing that the children are members of the church militant, responsible for fighting evil on earth. 

The Catechism on the Duties of Parents

I think that starting off the blog with the "duties of parents" from the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a good place for us catholic moms to start since what is expected of us as catholic moms is already laid out for us. I feel like we should all print them out, put them on our refrigerators, and look at them everyday to remind us of our responsibilities to God and to our children. I may even print this out and include it in baby shower cards, baptism cards, and new baby cards for new catholic mothers with a note saying, "this is all you have to know." Amen!

 The duties of parents

2221 The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. "The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute."²⁹ The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable.³⁰

2222 Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God's law.

2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery - the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the "material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones."³¹ Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:

He who loves his son will not spare the rod. . . . He who disciplines his son will profit by him.³²Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.³³

2224 The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies.

2225 Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the "first heralds" for their children. They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the Church.³⁴ A wholesome family life can foster interior dispositions that are a genuine preparation for a living faith and remain a support for it throughout one's life.

2226 Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child's earliest years. This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the Gospel. Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith. Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God.³⁵ The parish is the Eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of Christian families; it is a privileged place for the catechesis of children and parents.

2227 Children in turn contribute to the growth in holiness of their parents.³⁶ Each and everyone should be generous and tireless in forgiving one another for offenses, quarrels, injustices, and neglect. Mutual affection suggests this. The charity of Christ demands it.³⁷

2228 Parents' respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and spiritual needs. As the children grow up, the same respect and devotion lead parents to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom.

2229 As those first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators.³⁸ Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise.

2230 When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life. They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly asking and receiving their advice and counsel. Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them - quite the contrary from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family.

2231 Some forgo marriage in order to care for their parents or brothers and sisters, to give themselves more completely to a profession, or to serve other honorable ends. They can contribute greatly to the good of the human family.