A new year - what can we do?

St. Josemaría puts it best when he says that in every new year "...let us take a good honest look at our own lives. How is it that sometimes we just can’t find those few minutes it would take to finish lovingly the work we have to do, which is the very means of our sanctification? Why do we neglect our family duties? Why that tendency to rush through our prayers, or through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? How are we so lacking in calm and serenity when it comes to fulfilling the duties of our state, and yet so unhurried as we indulge in our own whims? You might say these are trifling matters. You’re right, they are, but these trifles are the oil, the fuel we need to keep our flame alive and our light shining. (Friends of God, 39-41)"


 All the best to you and your family in this new year 2012! 

Merry Christmas!

Adoration of The Magi carved on the tomb of St. Agnes in Rome

Children Believe What Their Parents Tell Them

Be careful what you say to your children in anger... 

Technique to Help with Tantrums

This seems to be an effective way to help you and your child get past the terrible temper tantrums. It comes from a very interesting article by Shirley Wang, recently published  in The Wall Street Journal.

Let us know if it worked for your child!

Click on the image to enlarge and read.

Hope (because you can!)

Hope is to expect with confidence, to be realistic, to have a goal and to live in the present where God is with us. Live with the determination that we can reach that goal and having a realistic plan on how are we going to reach for it with specific actions right now. 

Our children should know themselves on a positive and realistic way and should have a project for life, something to fight for, a reason to be living.

Where am I going?  How should I live my life? What qualities in human beings are admirable and worth emulating? What goals are worth pursuing? What leads to fulfillment in life, and what does not? This is the most important project they should be working on, and having that in mind they will be living a better right here and right now, with hope for a future. 

In this present instant is where we have all the grace of God and His help to overcome the difficulties of today.

Stop living in the past or afraid of the future, start living the present because today you CAN, you have His help!

Forgiveness

It is true that someone made me suffer or that they hurt me or my feelings, and it is true that I am patient and flexible, but do I truly forgive and forget??? Our culture teaches us revenge, indifference or avoidance, not forgiveness; you see it in movies, TV, everywhere, but is not right to live in a payback mode, it makes no sense and it is exhausting. 

When you forgive, you are not accepting evil or ignoring it, you are understanding that such person has done you harm, but it is not up to you to judge his or her intentions. It could have been a misunderstanding, lack of communication, it could have even been done with good intentions.

Evil does not come from external circumstances, it comes from the way we react to those circumstances.  If evil enters our heart with hate, resentment or anger it is because we have an emptiness in our hearts, a lack of hope and love. If you live your life focusing on doing good to others, you may suffer when others hurt you, but you will not hate.

When you forgive, you set yourself free from resentment and contempt; when you hate someone that hurt you, you keep thinking of that person all the time, you are chained, enslaved to him or her. When you make peace with him or her, you set yourself free!  You will be amazed of the great feeling that comes from forgiving. It is heroically hard for the other person to get in front of you and ask for forgiveness and it is heroically hard to truly forgive.

When we see our children practicing the act of asking for forgiveness and forgiving, we should reward them because it is a truly important virtue to learn. As life gets more and more complicated, they will have to practice forgiveness regularly to maintain healthy relationships and to become great adults.

Modesty - protect your family!

A person’s dignity depends upon living in a manner that will achieve the purpose for which he was created, to be sons and daughters of God.

“Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity”[1].

“Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing. It is discreet”[2].

"Modesty of the feelings as well as of the body: The forms taken by modesty vary from one culture to another. Everywhere, however, modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening in them respect for the human person.
A modest person recognizes the value of his own privacy and respects that of others. He protects his privacy from the gaze of others."[3]

From these definitions we can see that there are four areas in which we have to consciously work to live the virtue of modesty:

1-Custody of the eyes. Avoid permanent damage that can be done to you and your kids forever: be mindful of what is seen on TV and the Internet. 

2-Manner of speaking. With discretion and charity. Not revealing all the information you have to everybody, especially your private family matters. Seeking guidance from someone you trust.

3-Manner of dress. With decency, elegant, beautiful.

4-Manner of acting.  Motions, walking, gesturing, touching, sitting, bending to pick up something from the floor, with grace and elegance.

Our home is not only our castle, but also a place of privacy where we retreat to reflect, to relax, to be ourselves. Take good care of it. Protect your family!

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[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #25221

[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church #2522
[3] Raise Happy Children, Teach Them Joy