I don't know what my problem is, but I'm not keeping up on here nearly like I'd hoped. The first six week session of our Why Catholic small group is ending this week. Each week we have options of how to "live the good news" and almost every week one of the options is to start a prayer journal. I sort of thought this blog might be a kind of prayer journal when I first started and yet I've not blogged here, nor started an actual prayer journal. Ugh! Maybe someday!
In the meantime, one thing that I am doing much better is actually praying for people as soon as someone mentions they or someone they know needs prayer. This happens a lot on facebook. In the past I'd often say you're in my thoughts and prayers and kind of think that counted as a prayer (sort of like God hears me, he's got it covered). I am now in the habit of immediately saying a Hail Mary for that person. Sort of like passing it on to Mary to intercede on their behalf. Since so much of the time the person in need of prayers is not Catholic, I kind of chuckle to myself that it is sort of my Catholic Evangelization tool so to speak. Kind of like, I'll pray for you, not only that, but I'll get Mary (and maybe a bunch of saints) to pray for you too how do you like that?!
I am still loving teaching 5th grade CCD. Today we had a great class, the two biggest challenges weren't there. Even the challenging kids I really like though. One is a boy who is very class clown-ish, but totally endearing. The other is a girl who just has that "I want to get out of all work" kind of mindset that I think mostly comes from school. (My own kids certainly want to get out of work-- like manual labor work-- but I think for the most part they enjoy learning especially when it involves the sparkling, enlightening conversations that I present both to my own kids and my CCD ones.) Anyway, in class today we talked about the Liturgical Year, which to me is just one more genius of the Catholic Church. I was pointing out to the kids how we prepare for big events like weddings and having babies and moves and birthdays, and how in the Church it is the same thing, we get ready for the big events like Easter and Christmas in the preparation seasons of Lent and Advent. I tell these 10 and 11 year olds that they are way ahead of me to be learning some of the stuff that I've only learned in the last few years (and I've been going through the motions all my life). It was especially neat when I explained that ordinary time didn't mean ordinary like regular or not special, but meant time "in order". I actually had one little girl do one of those "light bulb moment" kind of a-ha's...soo cool!!
