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1. It’s time for my annual colitis upset and sleep disturbance – so that must mean my Pre Cana talk is this weekend! Tomorrow Mr. Pete and I are going to stand up in front of a group of young engaged couples and basically spill our guts about trying to live in a sacramental marriage.
We started giving this talk about 13 years ago, because we wanted share with couples what we had learned – we wanted it to be the talk we wish we had heard when we were newly engaged. Some years, this has been wonderfully well received and other years it has received harsh criticism. And the really hard part is, we don’t know going in whether we are playing a home game, or an away game.
Last year, I definitely think it was more of an away game. I overheard one young lady and her fiance talking about the NFP talk. The young man asked his lady, “What do you think?” to which she replied, “We’re going to just keep doing what we’re already doing. I’m not taking any chances.”
Were they uncatechized? Products of a public school education? or worse, a liberal Catholic school education? No clue. But the teachings of the church on that topic did not resonate with them, and I’m guessing our talk didn’t resonate much either.
We did get one comment last year that stands out.
Who wouldn’t want to sign up for more of that? Our unspecific, rambling talk from last year can be found here. And no, you probably couldn’t put all of that into a tweet.
2. Well, while I’m on a rant I might as well mention the other talk that I used to do. Four years back I was asked to give the speech for the confirmation girls because the nun they had lined up to do it had to back out at the last minute. So I came up with something and then gave that talk for four years. This was not an easy gig. The eighth grade girls spend the night at the school in their sleeping bags and then they had to get up early for all of the confirmation retreat activities. I usually got them either right before lunch when they were starving, or right after lunch when they were sleepy (er).
It was like addressing a group of zombies.
Any who… I guess some of those girls who went on to high school complained that they didn’t remember anything from the talk that “that lady” gave except, for the 4 B’s to have covered for modesty (breasts, back, butt and belly). So now THEY give the talk, which covers such important spiritual topics as whether or not skinny jeans are sinful, or what will high school be like.
An adult male, usually one of the priests, talks to the boys.
3. I found one of my old diaries from my freshman year in high school. As I read through it I was stunned to see how many times I wrote about being tired and exhausted! I wrote extensively about how I just could not make myself get out of bed in the morning. I’ve heard my own kids complain about that for years, but it was quite a revelation to me that I used to feel the same way many, many years ago.
4. I haven’t posted the girls’ art work for a while. So here is the piece Rosie has been working on for a while.
And this is Izzy’s latest!
5. Noah auditioned for the college choir last weekend. He sang Amazing Grace, did some scales and sight singing. He is pretty weak at sight singing, but the nice thing about him playing the piano is that he can quickly learn his parts on his own. They’re going to let us know by the end of the month whether he made it in or not.
6. I know it’s Lent, but we have a few hearts up round the house for Valentine’s Day –
It all comes down Sunday Night!
7. This was fun. I was looking around on Ancestry.come and discovered that I have an ancestor named Valentine! and of course, his grave stone looks like a Valentine!
Fred Paul via Find a Grave, with permission
7th great-grandfather
daughter of Valentine Himmelberger
son of CATHARINA HIMMELBERGER
son of Stephen Fisher
son of Stephen Fisher, II
son of James Fisher
daughter of John Fisher
son of Lowerta Leckrone
daughter of Calvin Leckrone
I've read a couple of articles that say that teen's body clocks are just different, and that you are fighting them when you make them wake up and go to bed early. A couple of school systems have improved test scores simply by moving hs start times later.
Where is your son going to college?
Hi Ruth. Noah will be attending Walsh university.
I would guess the couple making the comment about NFP is more of a not trusting God thing. I would also guess that one part of the couple wasn't Catholic. Been there, done that! Who knows…maybe in time something in them will click and they'll come around.
Good luck to your son! Sight reading is so difficult!