The appointment is ill timed, right at Mass. I am sad, as it is the solemnity of St Joseph, Husband of Mary, and also Gabriel’s First Communion anniversary. I pick up the littles from my husband’s work place and park for a moment outside the Orthodox church to say our morning prayers to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament before we head home. As we drive away I turn on the Luminous Mysteries to pray on the way home. I take the country route and half way home, I smell something awf

He was about to leave for over a week. We had recently moved with our four small children into a one room cabin as an interim to building on land. There was mud so thick we lost our shoes in it, had to pull our children out of it. When we walked to the car we wore muck boots and only then switched to city shoes. Our clothes were stained with mud. Our rugs got ruined with mud. We also had no WiFi and no cell service to even call my husband. I walked out onto the porch as the n

I close my eyes Only for a moment and the moment's gone All my dreams Pass before my eyes with curiosity Dust in the wind All they are is dust in the wind I am riding in the car with my husband, talking about problems, and the beginning of this song pops into my head. It brings tears to my eyes and a heartache. I find it on my phone and play it over the speaker. Later my husband tells me how hearing the song moved him to tears too. How suddenly he remembered that a hundred ye

It is the beginning of Lent. My husband is gone on tour and per usual I take my refuge in church. I load all six children up after school and go to church to sit in the Presence. The sunset is breathtaking, a perfect orange circle in a creamsicle sky. The children want me to take a photo but my phone is dead. I keep looking at the sunset in my rear view, thinking about the fiery star and the One who made it. We kneel walk around the Sanctuary for the Way of the Cross in repar

It started on Tuesday. One child has a fever. Immediately all plans of holy hours and music classes are wiped away. I battle anger as she has caught it from playmates who came sick. Within a couple days multiple children are sick with high fevers, coughs, congestion. When children are sick they are so very needy. My husband gets sick and I try to make one last dash to clean the house despite the aches and cough beginning. He loads up on meds and leaves to go on the road and s

I sit in the morning light and pray St Bridget’s prayers. This devotion was recommended by my spiritual director and it speaks to me. My miscarried baby would have been due on St Bridget’s feast day. I remember the blood loss from the miscarriage as I meditate on the blood pouring from Christ’s body in the seven meditations. The anemic weakness I felt from that very early miscarriage had shocked me. I was not able to get to mass as I was so sick from the heavy blood loss. A k

I fumble in the dark of early morning for the Apostolate of Holy Motherhood book on my nightstand. My 5-month-old is restless and I am terrified to wake up my 2-year-old. It is not 6am yet. I walk into the kitchen area to make coffee and realize I pulled out the Book of Enoch, not the Apostolate. I go back to get the other book, annoyed. Later that day I am listening to Candace Owens’ podcast, making my afternoon/evening coffee for reinforcement, and lo and behold, she mentio

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love. I finish my morning offering, Come Holy Spirit, and the guardian angel prayer and then my thoughts turn to the Office of Readings. This is not normal for my morning prayer time, but I look it up in the quiet darkness, interested that it popped into my mind. How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches. There is the sea, vast

Sophie looks at my phone case. “I love the flowers Mama! It looks like a princess phone!” She giggles. “Except princesses don’t usually have phones do they? They ride horses and sing but they don’t usually have phones.” Her little 4 year old tongue lisps over the word “usually”. I laugh and acknowledge. “That is true, they don’t have phones.” I marvel at the meaning, the base instincts inherent to a phone, curiosity and the need to control. We have had a slow morning. Husband

I am amused at the irony of the situation. I nagged my husband into buying this condo then hated living here. My children make incredible messes, complete with tearing down curtains and smearing yogurt on walls, I am pregnant, and somehow I am supposed to show, sell, and move my house on my own while my husband is on tour. Phone calls with my husband are lacklustre and I have a horrible suspicion that he is starting to resent me. I lay on the sofa in a bog of despair and scro

The resident doctor is refusing to take more labs and says we will be discharged. I swallow panic. They don’t know my son. He is a toddler trailblazer, brown eyes sparkling and rosy cheeked, not school-bus yellow and grossly puffy, zoned out on the hospital couch. I had been at home, praying Hail Marys as I texted his symptoms of dehydration, when my thumb slipped on a skull-and-bones emoji. I was stunned and knew it was a message from Mother Mary. I had rushed to the ER and