#ElvesTeachTheFaith

[elfpuddle]

Dear quizmaker, have you never heard of the Catholic Church? This was a painful quiz.

And my result is hilarious, because I never went to anything but a public secular school, but I now teach in a homeschool co-op and am the head of the Children's Formation Guild (and do the paperwork for the OCIA classes that Father teaches, and a whole lot of other Guild work like praying for the dead, helping with the post-Mass Parish dinners, reading with the ladies friendship/spiritual reading guild, and on and on...) And not only do I know a whole lot about Harry Potter, it's one of my regular tags! :D

[elfpuddle]

A few things Tagging...

Tagged by @charmandersims, thank you!!!

Five songs you’ve been listening to on repeat recently?

I’ve been dealing with my depression with a YouTube playlist featuring late 70s Country and DollyStyle. Don’t judge me, it’s gloriously fun.

Last movie you watched?

It was in the before-times. Bad Boys For LIfe, maybe?

Currently watching?

Iron Fist Season 2     #ElvesAreMarvelGirls

Currently Reading?

Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Our Lady of Kibeho by Immaculee Ilibagiza, Directory for Catechesis, Confessions of a Curious Bookseller by Elizabeth Green (it’s awful, but it was free, and I’m finishing it out of stubbornness), Christus Vincit by Bishop Schneider, Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed, The Sign of the Cross by Bert Ghezzi, and Rescued by Fr. Riccardo (highly recommend!!)

tagging @episims, @valiantlydecadentsuit, @alwaysabeautifullife, @grilledcheese-aspiration, and @that-catholic-shinobi, though certainly ignore if you want. Also, if you want to do this and haven’t been tagged, feel free to claim I tagged you. Here’s your @_____!!

[elfpuddle]

I love T.S. Eliot.

Take the time to read it slowly. Savor the words. Let them remind you of Mass. Let them remind you of the Sacred. That you are imperfect. That you will die.

And you don't know when.

[elfpuddle]

None of the above… I work full-time in a volunteer position for my parish (head of children’s formation, and managing the paperwork for Confirmation for adults and children) and full-time as a homeschool co-op literature tutor (the field in which I have a degree). Yes, that’s more than 40 hours a week. BUT I get paid $200 a month for seven months.

You know what time it is….

* Regardless of whether you like your actual workplace or specific current practice (e.g. if you hold a nursing degree, you work as a nurse even if it’s in an area of medicine or a clinic that you don’t like)

Survey questions adapted from survey issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[elfpuddle]

On her feast day, I must ask, Auntie Elves: how did Saint Joan save your life?

Good morning, John, and happy Feast Day!! (DON'T READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT DEATH AND NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES. YOU CAN TELL FROM THE QUESTION THAT THAT'S WHAT THE ANSWER WILL CONTAIN!!)

So, It was 1989, the Lent before I was Confirmed, and the Spring before my seventeenth birthday. It was one of the decades of post-Vatican II silliness (and I mean no disrespect to Vatican II! I'm referring to the silliness of the laity and the "Spirit of Vatican II" that did so much damage to catechesis and Catholics, not to the actual goings-on of the Council). And when I say there was damage to catechesis, well, this was my Junior year in High School, I was weeks away from being Confirmed, and I fully believed that I was going to be the first female priest and NOT A ONE OF MY CATECHISTS OR PRIESTS OR NUNS TOLD ME NO OR EXPLAINED WHY NOT!!! (I've since fixed my damage, but there we were.)

With a group of five or six Seniors, and the mother of one of them, our French teacher (I was in French III, they in French IV). We joined up with some twenty or thirty other kids from across the US and went to France. We stayed four or so days in Paris, then stayed with a Parisian family for four or so more days, then toured Versailles, Omaha Beach, Rouen,...it was supposed to be exciting and amazing. So one of our Paris nights, our little group, led by Madame (who had lived in Paris as a younger woman), went to Notre Dame. Some half-understood reflex led me to light a candle under St. Jeanne's statue. We left Notre Dame around 7PM or so, and went for a tour on the Bateaux-Mouche, the tour boats of the Seine. Imagine the classic double decker red bus of London, but without the red. The bottom deck is mostly just filled with folding chairs and a small inside viewing room whose walls are solid windows with sliding glass doors. Upper deck is full of folding chairs.

When we got on the boat, a voice in my head not only convinced me to not sit on the front edge, where my group had headed, but made me make them sit in the back row with me. It wasn't a voice I ever use to talk to myslef, but it was a girl's voice.

As we approached a bridge, we saw that there was a barge parked under the bridge without any lights or reflectors. We rammed it hard. The first three rows of chairs were crushed. I turned to look behind me as a gentleman tried to get out of the inside room's doors. The boat rocked and the doors cut off his head. I learned later that the screaming woman next to him was his new bride and they'd been on their honeymoon.

It took hours beofre the police arrived. Hours of being on the rocking boat with more than one dead body in a foreign country with a teacher who had suddenly lost her shit. We barely made it to the metro in time to catch the last train back to the hotel.

Later, when we were in Orleans and Rouen, there was such a familiar sense of being near the Maid's relics, armour, statuary...I knew in a way I cannot explain that it was her voice I'd heard, just as ishe heard the voices of other saints. I never saw her, but she saved my life. I was born on Memorial Day, the day to honor those who died with their boots on, so to speak, and on the feast of a young lady who led men into battle in order to save even more. I don't know why she saved me, but St. Joan reached out and kept me from death without keeping me from trauma. I've been through a lot of counseling to even be able to get on a boat without melting down. I hope that Our Lord has used my suffering to help those who suffer even more, or to prevent more trauma.

I lived, I came home, I was Confirmed Joan Catherine (nobody even told me I shouldn't have two Confirmation saints! Catherine of Alexandria, Joan's Catherine, is my other, and not just because I was named for a different, much weaker Catherine). I've become much better catechized, and now my whole vocation is to catechize others. I pray that St. Joan will continue to have a hand in my life.

[elfpuddle]

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[elfpuddle]

Actually, you all do...the people I'm reblogging this from, the people reading it now...all y'all were made to be happy with God eternally.

The person I reblogged this from deserves to be happy

I tried to scroll past this. I really did

[elfpuddle]

In case you missed it the first time...

Arise, o sleeper.

Today Christ is Harrowing Hell itself looking for all the souls of those who died before He did. He left us to go looking for them.

If you think you are lost, or don't think it's possible that you could ever return. If you doubt He would even want you.

I remind you again...He literally went to Hell and back to look for people exactly like you. He died for you. He loves you. He searches for you.

Come home.

[elfpuddle]

Some thoughts on the readings for the day, and a good way to reflect.

[elfpuddle]

At my parish, we have morning prayer 8:30-9:00 followed by open Confessions. Confessional closes at 11:30. At Noon, we have the Veneration of the Cross, because that’s when Christ was Crucified. Afterwards, the Confessional is open again until about 2:10. At about 2:45, we start a Seven Last Words service. That times it so that the part of the service where Jesus draws His last breath happens at 3:00, the traditional time of His Death.

The great part about the Confessions (beyond the usual greatness of forgiveness!!) is that we put a sign up that those having their First Confessions get to go to the front of the line. So as head of the CCD Guild, I get to sit in Adoration while and “my kids”—adults and kids to be Confirmed, check in with me that their souls have been made squeaky clean and they see other parishioners getting clean and supporting them!

What do Catholics do for good Friday?

Good Friday is the only day of the year there isn’t a Mass said worldwide. And the silence is palpable.

There is a religious service in which Holy Eucharist is offered, but there is no consecration because Jesus is dead by the time the service usually starts (3 pm).

The service involves the “Veneration of the Cross” in which congregants can approach the cross, which has been processed down the aisle, and offer a sign of reverence or respect to the cross.

Typically people will genuflect, make the sign of the cross or kiss the cross, or variations of this.

There is no closing music or procession as with a typical Mass, but people leave silently.

On Good Friday it’s common practice to fast, and also maintain silence/ quiet from 12-3 for the time Jesus was on the cross.

[elfpuddle]

The best advice I have for the struggle, and it’s advice I take because sometimes the struggle is all too real, is to learn *why* the thing I’m having difficulty with is there. The Church is so very old, and nothing She teaches is harmful to me. What good will this doctrine, teaching, or whatever it is be for my soul? Why is it good for me? Struggling to learn that makes me understand not only why the Church asks it of me, but also helps me understand better why I’ve been struggling.

If there was a defined doctrine of the Catholic Church that was a consensus for centuries, requiring submission from the laity, that you really, really didn’t like… would you remain in the Church? 

There’s just something… something I’ve been struggling to accept. Most people might not even know about this but it’s in there..”

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

I’ve seen scandal after scandal in the Church, including ones that have affected my own family. I’ve wrestled (and still wrestle) with obedience, I’ve been in desolation, I’ve caught myself in both despair and presumption, and this is what it comes down to. To whom shall you go? There is no other way to the Father except through Jesus Christ, and the way to Jesus Christ is through His Church. The Church that gives us baptism, confirmation, reconciliation, and the Eucharist.

So yes, Anon. I would remain. I have remained. And with God’s grace, I will remain.

[elfpuddle]

Spoiler: It’s not.

Spoiler the Second: It is also not a checklist of things to achieve or collect.

“People think of education as something they can finish.”

— Isaac Asimov

[elfpuddle]

Most of the agnostics I've met have had a relationship with God of some kind, and a bad relationship with either His Church or multiple church people.

every single atheist i’ve met has had a deeply personal relationship with God, just not a good one

[elfpuddle]

A young lady in my Religious Education class once told me that her family used to go to a different Church, “but Jesus doesn’t go there,” so they became Catholic. She said He goes tour Church and sits “up there” and watches us.

Honestly, that’s a pretty good reason to become Catholic. I mean, if God doesn’t go to your church, why do you?

why are people still catholic holy shit

it isnt the middle ages anymore guys, no need to be scared of the pope 

[elfpuddle]

Mary having sin is, to me, the weirder doctrine. How could God exist in a womb of a sinner? God be nourished by something tainted by sin?

Look, whether or not Mary was conceived without sin, if she had been touched by sin then she could not have carried God in her womb. Matter and anti-matter don’t mix. So she was saved from all sin before Gabriel’s visit. If not at Conception, then when?

Just learned what the immaculate conception actually is.

It’s worse doctrine than I thought.

Weird idea that a person must first be without sin for God to use them.