Two Vocations Begun

“The first duty of the consecrated life is to make visible the marvels wrought by God in the frail humanity of those who are called. They bear witness to these marvels not so much in words as by the eloquent language of a transfigured life, capable of amazing the world.”

~Vita Consecrata 20~

My two sister-friends Katie and Mary Beth (a.k.a. Sister Victoria Marie) both entered into their holy vocations this summer: Katie as a married woman and Mary Beth as a professed sister. They both are amazing!

Katie’s wedding was lovely. If you have been following her blog you know all of the hard work she put into the preparations! And of course she was the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen, and Chuckie was a very happy groom! But what struck me more than anything on the day of the wedding is how both Katie and Chuckie knew it wasn’t about them. Everything about the wedding Mass from the way they knelt in the sanctuary to how they followed the time-honored tradition of laying flowers before the Blessed Mother’s altar, paid full attention to the Mass, how the groomsmen prayed the Rosary together beforehand, even choosing a Mass that doesn’t allow for “personalization” beyond inserting the names of the bride and groom spoke to their profound awareness that that this day was completely a gift from God. The mood of the day was certainly one of joy and thanksgiving, but also a deep appreciation of the solemnity of the vows they took, humble acknowledgment that they would need graces to take them every step of the way together, and childlike confidence and trust that those graces would be freely given. In all, a perfect wedding!

The above quote was from the program from the Mass for the Rite of First Religious Profession. Humility was certainly a theme for the sisters’ first profession as well. This was their wedding day, too! Just the fact that Sister Victoria Marie had to share “her day” with fourteen (!) other sisters and had limited invitations as a result must have been a humbling experience. It was also a beautiful ceremony. When the novices traded their white veils for the black of penance and mortification was especially moving. Despite this somber description, Sister Victoria Marie is absolutely radiant. It’s immediately obvious that she is exactly where she is meant to be.

Thank you two for being such amazing women of God. Your faithfulness has constantly inspired me in my own vocation, to give myself more completely and to trust more fully in God. It has been a privilege to witness His work in your own lives, and to call you my friends.

"Hi Daddy!"

Ryan’s gone to Switzerland for ten whole days for work. I got to talk to him on the phone for a long time this evening, even though it was 2:30 AM there! It brought me back to our engagement days, when he was in Cincinnati for the summer and he’d call me every night. He’s having a wonderful time it seems, checking out medieval villages and churches, taking in breathtaking views of the Alps and whatnot. You know, European stuff. ;-) I’ll see if I can persuade him to do a guest post of his travels after he comes back next Saturday.

Anthony and I are missing him a lot for sure. This is his third trip already this summer, and the longest. Ryan called tonight right before Anthony’s bedtime. I always turn on the speaker phone so he can talk to Anthony. Anthony will “talk” back and be all excited; it’s really cute. But today, he said, “Hi Daddy!” !!!!! Ryan and I both heard it distinctly, so I know it wasn’t my imagination. Very often he will sound like he’s saying certain words, but really it’s just the inflection of his voice is very good, if you know what I’m trying to say. For example, he’ll say, “I did it!” when he succeeds in stacking up his blocks or something like that, but it’s really more like, “Ah didi!” He’s very consistent with it and I’m positive he really means, “I did it.” This was the first time he spoke two words together clearly.

Our little boy’s getting so big! This picture is from today when we were playing with the camera:

I think he understands the concept of the camera taking his picture, but doesn’t understand the idea of smiling for the camera yet.

This is from a year ago:

Maria Goretti

Four years ago today my husband asked me to marry him. Today is also the feast of St. Maria Goretti. I'd always prayed to her for purity in our dating days; I remember my high school youth minister giving us a "Prayer Before a Date" card that asked for her intercession. But today what struck me about her martyrdom was not that she died to protect her purity, but that she would not submit to being raped out of love for her attacker! She said, "No, Alessandro, you will go to hell." Even as he was stabbing her, she was thinking of the good of his soul. That is a saint. (A more complete bio can be found here. Also check out Alessandro's page!)

St. Maria Goretti showed extraordinary Christian love for the man who she knew would kill her, and sacrificed everything in trying to keep him from committing a mortal sin. As a wife and mother, I have a great responsibility for the souls of my husband and son, but so often I am lazy and not willing to sacrifice even twenty minutes for prayer for them. St. Maria, help me.

Easy No-Measuring Watermelon Sorbet

Happy Fourth of July! I hope you all enjoyed your holiday. Ryan is going away, again, in two days, so I've been trying to make a special effort in the kitchen this week. I don't know if any of you other wives do that, but when he goes away I like to leave him with a good taste in his mouth, so to speak! It must be confessed, however, that some of the cooking got totally forgotten when Bubs got sick this weekend. Baby fevers are never fun, but he's had a seizure from fever before so we really have to be aggressive in keeping the fever down. He still is sick today, but seemed happier and more active than yesterday. Antibiotic seems to be working, but doctor visit tomorrow for sure. As an aside, we have the best doctor ever for answering pages promptly on Sunday afternoons and helping us avoid trips to the ER.

But before all that excitement, I did manage to make this dinner on Friday for the feast of the Sacred Heart:
Grilled steak and various sauteed summer veggies with basil. Yum. And for dessert, the very fancy-tasting watermelon sorbet I'm going to teach you to make! No recipe, just needed to use up this huge watermelon that I was inspired to buy at market this week. Why I bought an entire watermelon for a household of three I will never know, but it had to be used and necessity is indeed the mother of invention! I served it in our crystal wineglasses from our wedding, with vanilla pizzelles (I'm sure I've spelled that incorrectly.) leftover from the massive amount of cookies we brought home from Katie's wedding, and garnished with mint, but I did not take a picture of it in all it's fancy glory, alas.

So on to the tutorial! First chop up half of a watermelon, or however much you want to use. Half a watermelon will yield about 3 quarts of sorbet! I still have the other half in the fridge. I haven't got a big enough mixing bowl for this much watermelon, but a stockpot works.



Then add a big handful of mint, and about 1/2 cup of honey, and the juice from 1 lemon.


We have a ridiculous amount of mint. See? Ridiculous.



Blend it all together.



Then pour it into a 13x9 pan. It just makes it!

Cover and freeze overnight. I really ought to do something about the organization of this freezer.


Before serving, run some hot water over the back of the pan to release the sorbet in one big block.

Chop it with a knife into manageable pieces, and run it through the food processor until it's smooth. The longer you run it, the creamier the texture.

It's really good; you should try it! It would probably work with just about any fruit, but you might need to add some water to get the right consistency. I'd love to hear about it if you do try this!

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

It's been awhile, so let's jump back in to blogging with a meme from my new favorite blog, Like Mother Like Daughter.

~Pretty~

My friend Erika and I took the boys to the Wyoming farmer's market. One stand has enormous buckets of summer flowers and you can make your own bouquet!


~Happy~

Peppers are growing!!!


~Funny~

Anthony still is not walking, but he'll push a laundry basket around for twenty minutes! He's really fast and agile, able to pull it backwards and maneuver in tight corners.

~Real~

Last night I came across the proper way to hang laundry on the line in my library book. Sure enough, no need to iron, even that linen skirt on the far left!