Our Lady of the Legos, the Loo, and the NICU

Thirteen years ago I was using the powder room in someone's home. I had never been there before so when I walked in I was a little surprised to see a large statue of Our Lady displayed on a shelf above the toilet.

As I rejoined my hosts I commented, "I like the Our Lady of the Loo statue you have," a bit of a cheeky grin on my face. They laughed and explained how it was a wedding gift and they hadn't known where else to put it (there was religious art *all over* their home) so they put her in the powder room. It worked!

Our Lady of the Loo has stayed with me ever since, at least the idea of her.

I don't think this is actual theology, this whole making up whatever name one wants for Mary, but it has given me lots of little inside jokes with the Holy Family over the years and has helped me to keep laughter and the Lord in my heart and home.

In the hallway, across from my toddler's door, hangs an icon I have dubbed Our Lady of the Eye Roll because when I'm having a hard time with my toddler I often roll my eyes as a way of communicating to her how stressed out I am. She sees me at my worst.

On my dresser stands Our Lady of the NICU. She holds her Infant, her crown is broken, and her dress is sticky from the residue of hospital tape that secured her to my son's neonatal intensive care unit bassinet. She holds memories of my hardest days and worst fears and prays for the trauma of it all.

I thought of this little way of mine when I was clearing off the dining room table after lunch. I sat the salt and pepper shakers on the buffet, which triples as our liquor cabinet and family altar. When I saw where I had placed them I smiled and said, "Our Lady of the Salt and Pepper Shakers, pray for us."

I hope everyone understands that this isn't me making fun of Mary or her titles. In fact doing this has brought me closer to the Blessed Mother as she meets me in these small, mundane moments of my every day life. The religious art in my home becomes an entry into prayer instead of a decoration and always, always Mary does what she does best and she uses these moments to draw me closer to the Heart of her Son. 

Nothing is too small to be loved by Jesus. Nothing is too boring to be brought to His attention. But it is often in those little moments where I most need Mary's prayers to guide me, I need her presence to remind me. 

And so the serendipitous placing of Lego creations on a shelf so they can be proudly displayed by my older children while protected from my younger children becomes a moment to laugh and then pray.  

Our Lady of the Legos, pray for me that I will delight in my children. Pray for me that I will nurture their creativity and confidence and the knowledge of when to try harder and when to let it go. Pray for me that I will encourage them to share and work together and support one another. Pray for me that I will detach myself from the desire for perfection and will place more value in my children than in a decorated, tidy home. And Lord have mercy when I step on a Lego and curse. +

And then I leave it in her hands, confident that her prayers for me will continue throughout my day. 

Please know that Marian theology and devotion has not always been easy for me. When other Catholics would gush about Our Lady I just didn't get it. I respected her as the mother of my Lord, but there wasn't a ton of intimacy. 

Our Lady of the Loo changed all that for me. She was the beginning of a beautiful relationship which has grown through the years to a place where Mary is friend, mother, confidant, companion, mentor, and prayer warrior. And so I share my names for her with you in case this helps you to love her more, to aid you so that you will let her love you more. Her love has been such a great gift in my life. Thanks be to God.

PS - While writing this post I remembered the beautiful work that Christy Mandin creates. Her images of Mary are some of my favorites ever. You can check her out at A Creative Almanac, though most of her Marian prints are found on her inprnt store. The above image of Our Lady of Solidarity was created in response to the immigration crisis at the border. Christy is donating a portion of the profits of each copy sold to Together Rising's efforts at caring for the children and families there. What's more, inprnt has promised to match her donation!

Mary, Mother of the Church - a new feast day to celebrate

Have you heard? There's a new feast day to celebrate.

Pope Francis has asked that we celebrate Mary, Mother of the Church the day after Pentecost, the birthday of the Church.

I love this. Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ and we are the Body of Christ, therefore Mary is our mother, too. Now I know that some of this may seem so weird and overly pious and maybe even wrong. But think about when you were little and you became friends with someone at school. Once you met their mom, went to their house, and had dinner with their family didn't you know your friend so much more? Suddenly you understood things about them that you never would have even noticed just at lunch or recess. And because of that - because of the way their mom talked about when they were a baby, or displayed pictures from their toddlerhood, or called them by a special, family nickname - you were able to love your friend in a deeper, more whole way. So it is with Christ.

This feast day also reminds us of how the Church is our mother. She feeds us with the Eucharist, takes care of us when we are ill, washes us clean with Baptism, clothes us with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit through Confirmation, and brings healing to our brokenness through confession. She teaches us right from wrong, forms us in Scripture, and brings us closer to Christ - just like any good momma would, just like Mary does.

Do you love it now, too? Good. To celebrate this new feast my friend Katie has created the sweetest craft which you can download for free from her website, Look to Him and Be Radiant. She drew Our Lady holding her parish and when you flip it open you find Mary's Immaculate Heart and surrounded by the people of the Church. It's so sweet, so pretty, and is a great way to explain this Marian title to kids (and maybe even adults). You can find the craft here.

Other ideas to celebrate include:
- Pray for your specific parish, your diocese, and the whole Church during night prayers.
- Display a photo of your local parish or the Vatican next to a statue of Mary and a candle.
- Cook a meal for your priest or invite him over for dinner.
- Cook a meal with food from all over the world - curry, refried beans, stir fry, and rice for example
- Pray the World Mission Rosary for the Church all over the world
- Sing a Marian hymn
- Pray a Marian prayer
- Attend daily Mass
- Get ice cream
- Buy or pick flowers and bring them to Mary, placing them near a statue in your home or church
- Do something kind for someone else
- Display an image of Mary in a prominent place in your home
- Read the story of Pentecost and meditate and / or discuss how it must have been for Mary to be there

So those are some of my ideas. If you have an idea please share it with us!

And if you want to learn more about this feast day, listen to the Catholic Stuff you Should Know podcast episode about the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church here.

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us!


PS - Don't forget to enter to win a copy of Jennifer Fulwiler's new book, One Beautiful Dream!

Confession from a Mom who's Missed a Lot of Feast Days, or Our Struggling Domestic Church

For years I have had a few basic goals for how my family would be a domestic church. Nothing was really outlandish and everything was basic enough that I should be able to pull it off. Simple things, like:

- beginning the day with a family morning offering

- ending the day with a family act of contrition

- serving a special meal and dessert for Baptism days and lighting the kids' Baptismal candles at dinner time.

- making a special meal and dessert for namesake days, aka celebrating the feast days of the saints we are named for.

- taking note of one or two special feast days in each month and doing something special to recognize them, be it a special kind of food, a craft, or even placing a holy car in a place of honor.

Really, I could handle this. I could do this. But except for the daily family morning offering, I don't. 

 I thought it would become easier as my children grew older but now that I officially have a seven year old and my baby is almost two, well, I feel even further from this goal than I was when I was knee-deep in babes.

And let me tell you something:

It doesn't feel like an epic fail at all. It doesn't even feel like a little failure. It just feels like life being lived. 

Do you know how good that feels? To have gotten to a place where I can just let go and be okay with where we are? 

It feels so good. It feels freeing. It feels like how God wants it to be. 

Let me tell you something funny:

I haven't celebrated a feast day since St. Patrick's Day, which was more of a cultural thing in our home anyways so really it was probably Advent. But on the last day of April I thought, "May is the month of Mary. I should re-decorate a bit so the house shows that while it's still the Season of Easter it is also the month of Mary." 

And so on May 1st I felt happy that I had thought ahead and gotten things lined up, until I got online and saw Kaitlin's home altar with it's statues of St. Joseph and all the play tools her kids had brought to honor St. Joseph the Worker and how Lisa was making St. Joseph May Day baskets. Such good ideas- both of them!

I had to laugh. 

Here it was my son's namesake day and the day I usually honor my husband and instead I had completely overlooked it. 

Oh well. The great thing is that there's always another chance to pick up and try again, right? 

May is super busy with end of school things, Travis' coaching schedule and masters' projects, birthdays, speaking gigs, Mother's Day, seasonal allergy stuff that won't go away, and more. I'm going to just focus on Mary, the rest of Easter, and Pentecost for this month. Next month we can begin the Act of Contrition and sitting down with a calendar to plan meals and special days a bit better. June has two baptisms to celebrate... (root me on, will you?)

Also, here's one more goal that I have but it's so foreign to me that I just don't really know what it should look like and how it should work. If you have any experience with such things I'd love to hear your thoughts - blog it or leave it in the combox, please. That last goal: to have 10-15 minutes of quiet, prayer time where my kids are praying / reading their age-appropriate Bibles and so am I. Anyone have any ideas about this?

Whatever happens with all this I hope I don't stress. I've stressed enough in my life and that's not what living out our Christian faith should be. It should be joyful; it should be freeing.

Christ didn't come so we would have busy schedules. He came to set us free. 

"Rejoice and be glad for the Lord has truly risen."

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Doing and Un-doing Advent with More Feasts!

In celebration of my friends Haley and Daniel Stewart's new e-cookbook, More Feasts! I've been invited to be a stop on the blog tour and share a little bit about Advent in our home. You know me, I love taking pictures of my decorations and talking about liturgical living, so of course I said yes.


Last year I took a big step back from all the Advent traditions and activities. It was an incredibly powerful and fruitful step, so much so that this year will look very similar. Last year I wrote:

I decided that instead of doing Advent how I had in the past I would "un-do" it.

Some of the basics are still here... The bare minimum.

And gosh, it feels good. My life feels more quiet. The doing got to be too much, overwhelming, and burdensome. It became my undoing. The un-doing has taken the pressure off.

I so badly want to teach my kids about Christ, the Church, salvation history, the saints, the Bible. I grab hold of all the good things, afraid that if I don't I will bypass the one thing which could have really done it - could have really brought home the Story and the Beauty and the Truth.

But too much of a good thing is still too much.

Me stressing out over an activity is not going to impress upon my children how much God loves them, that Jesus Christ died for their eternal salvation, and that the Holy Spirit lives within them.

But God speaks in the quiet and the still, small voice so maybe making less noise will allow them to hear Him. 

This year I have gone through the calendar and noted which days I wanted to celebrate. I have gone through our new home and set up the few things that I want to focus on.

We will pray and eat around our Advent wreath, using Lisa Hendey's book O Radiant Dawn to guide our prayers and dinner conversation.

Our nativities are set up, but are empty except for the animals and a candle, waiting for the Holy Family.

Our stockings are hung by the chimney with care - and I'm so excited because it's the first time in my life that I've had an actual mantel to hang my stockings on. (!)

Our Christmas lights are up outside the house but will only be turned on for feast days until Guadete Sunday. After that they will be on every night through Epiphany.

St. Nicholas will fill the kids' stockings on the eve of his feast day (December 6th), bringing chocolate coins and pajamas.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th) we will go to Mass and maybe, if I'm on top of things, there will be rice krispie treats for dessert.

Our family celebrates Venerable Fulton Sheen's feast day on December 9th even though it's not yet on the Church's calendar. This year we'll celebrate by having a good ole, Midwestern dinner and then attending L's school Christmas concert.

Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day is on a Friday this year (December 12th) so we'll probably have quesadillas for supper.

St Lucy's name means light and so on her feast day (December 13th) we will drive around town and look at the Christmas lights. Maybe, if I'm on top of things, I'll spend part of the previous day making Grace's Santa Lucia rolls.
Maybe.
I'm gonna go ahead and call it: probably not.

And then it's Guadete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, the day we take a little break and Rejoice! because Christ's coming is near. This is the day we put up our tree, bring out the rest of the Christmas decorations (not just the Advent ones), and all the Christmas lights stay on and the Christmas music comes out.

Gosh, that still looks like a lot, doesn't it? But it's all pretty manageable.

The nice thing is that most of the feast days are easily celebrated at the dinner table. I have to feed the family one way or another, so it might as well include a nod to the saint we're celebrating. Additionally, since we usually eat meatless meals on Fridays, we add another meatless dinner to the week during Advent. Haley and Daniel's Simple Beans and Rice from Feast! is my go-to recipe for that.

What about you? What special meals or traditions will you be using to celebrate Advent in your home? 

PS - More Feasts! includes ten new real-food, gluten-free recipes, some thoughtful reflections, and lots of beautiful pictures. Click here to view more details and buy the e-book. (I get a small portion for being an affiliate if you purchase through my link.) It only costs $4 and if you use the coupon code HAPPYFEAST you can get 25% off your purchase from now until December 15th.

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Mary, More Than Her Feast Days

My second video on living liturgically is out! In it I talk about a few little things I've done to incorporate Mary in my life beyond the feast days and some books I've read that have helped me grow in my understanding of who she is and how she can help me love Christ more.



In the video I mention Catholic Cuisine and Catholic Icing for different recipes and ways to "eat blue" and I've included the links here so you can easily find them.

I also mention the following books:
33 Days to Morning Glory by Fr. Michael Gaitley
Mary, In Her Own Words by Fr. Gary Caster
Fatima for Today by Fr. Andrew Apostoli
The World's First Love by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
True Devotion to Mary with Preparation for Total Consecration by St. Louis de Montfort


Lastly, here's the poem "Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue" written by Mary Dixon Thayer. At the bottom I've also included a video with Venerable Fulton Sheen reciting the poem.

Lovely Lady dressed in blue
Teach me how to pray!
God was just your little boy,
Tell me what to say!

 Did you lift Him up, sometimes,
Gently on your knee?
Did you sing to Him the way
Mother does to me?

Did you hold His hand at night?
Did you ever try
Telling stories of the world?
O! And did He cry?

Do you really think He cares
If I tell Him things
Little things that happen?
And Do the Angels' wings
Make a noise?

And can He hear
Me if I speak low?
Does He understand me now?
Tell me for you know.

Lovely Lady dressed in blue
Teach me how to pray!
God was just your little boy,
And you know the way.