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If you are looking for me here.I have moved. You can find me over at Granola Catholic

Deacon Weekend

 

As my husband’s years of formation come to an end so will the “Deacon Weekends” .  Seven years ago we as a family had no idea what a “Deacon Weekend” was.  For the small group of men and their families,  Deacon Weekends are a special, crazy. hectic weekend.  How is that you ask? Well it seems that every month when the preset weekend for the aspirants and candidates rolls around, and the wives are left at home to hold down the fort, everything that could happen does.  These weekends invariably fall on THE busiest weekend of the month. Those of us who still have children at home, and that is about half of this class, find that our children must be in 4 different places all at the same time, if not they will explode. This also seems to be the weekend that someone will end up sick or in the Emergency Room. When classes were held at the hospital this was actually quite convenient.

While our husbands are in classes, learning theology, Christology, church law and history, we wives are at home dealing with soccer, swim meets, getting kids to their jobs, dealing with leaking roofs, or pipes or whatever appliance decides to stop working that weekend. 

When my husband first starting going away for the weekend I would try and make deacon weekend a special time for the kids, pizza night with ice cream and movies. Really it gave me a sort of night off, no cooking and snuggles on the couch. And pizza is a treat that we only have once a month. So it really made it special for the kids. We kept up the pizza on deacon weekend until my husband realized he did not get to eat any pizza, since I only had it when he was gone.

Now flash forward, we have only a few more months of Deacon Weekend left before ordination. The closer ordination gets the further away it seems. When my husband first announced that he was thinking of becoming a deacon,  I was sitting at a table with our parish priest, holding my 2 month old son.  Now that son will be turning 7.  My children were 6, 4, and  2 months old.  They have spent their childhoods growing up experiencing Deacon Weekend.  After ordination I know that there will be many changes but one that will take some getting used to is no more Deacon Weekend.

Looking at Life through Rose Colored Glasses

Today has seemed to have a theme, the theme of glasses. Earlier my mother called and told me that her appointment with her eye specialist went well. She will not be needing surgery. Her eye doctor instead, wants her to try glasses with prism lenses. I started to think about what it would be like to look at life through glasses that were prisms. For someone with normal vision it would distort how things looked. Now think about it – what if you distorted how you looked at life?
While thinking about distorting my vision of life, I happened upon this video that a friend of mine shared

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or try this link.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1566836164169&comments
Now just imagine after watching the video, that you took a moment and put on those glasses and looked at the people that you encounter each day through that lens. How would YOUR life change? Would you be kinder, more patient?  Try putting on these glasses each day if only for five minutes and see what happens.

Two Masses

After a week of being snowed in by the blizzard of 2011 it was good to get out and go somewhere. My husband was scheduled to mc(be master of ceremonies) at the Bishop's mass celebrated the Feast of St. Blaise and the blessing of the throats.http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=28 or http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2011-02-03

 However the blizzard decided that this feast day mass was to be celebrated on Sunday. At one point we all planned on going to mass together, but as the weather and luck would have it, we had a forecast today of more snow. Because of this, it was decided that I would take our children to our parish to an earlier mass, while my husband attended to the  bishop. Mass was surprisingly full as many people decided to forgo the  8am mass and go to the later 11am mass.  It was quite nice to see so many friends and "family" after a week of being home.

As my husband continues his vocation and become ordained this June, I realize that there will be occasions that necessitate us going to mass separately. For the most part we try make every attempt to attend mass together, even if dh ends up going to several extra during the course of a weekend, we like to be at the same church together.

Even though I was not with my husband it was soo nice and comforting to see many families lead by strong men at church. Men of faith who make sure their families are there and are not afraid to sit up front, kids and all.  Men who are involved being ushers, active in the men's group, teach Sunday School, are lectors, Eucharistic ministers, teach English to our immigrant families. Men who make sure the organist can get to church and go pick them up when can not get out.  Men who show their families what faith is and lead them to church and to worship. Men who checked on me and my children, asking after Greg where he was and making sure we were all okay with the storm.

Why the Fourth Pew?

You are probably asking yourself why of all names did I choose this one. The short answers is this that I sit in the fourth pew with my children on Sunday while my husband is on the altar. Why not the first pew, you ask? WELL I  have active children and they would be a distraction to my husband.  Why would they be a distraction?  This past November as part of my husband's formation as a future Deacon in the Catholic Church he was installed as an Acolyte. My husband is currently in his 6th year of studying to be a Deacon.  This Pentecost Sunday he will be ordained with the rest of his class by our bishop.   Some may see this as an end to all the classes but it is really just the beginning.

I am hoping this blog will be a place for others to come and share their experiences. In the future I hope to expand this blog to include resources for all who come to visit.