We just watched Evan Almighty (thank you, library!), and I have to say it was one of the BEST movies I've seen all year! Right up there with Rattatouie. I had heard such good things about it (including from Barbara Nicolosi, who praised it on EWTN radio) that I decided to go ahead and watch it as a family, sight unseen.
First, let me tell you that since getting hooked on The Office, we have become huge fans of Steve Carel. Huge. He's hysterical, and the interviews I've seen with him do nothing to change my feelings about him. And then Soccer Dad reminded me that Evan Baxter (the Almighty Evan) was in Bruce Almighty, which I'd totally forgotten. So then I was more excited about it.
And another thing, I was VERY skeptical about this movie when I first saw previews for it. Knowing how Hollywood treats religion and religious people, I was positive that this would be another slam on those of us who believe in God.
Then I saw about a million previews while watching The Office, and I started to think it looked cute.
Then I heard Barbara Nicolosi talk about it, and about the director's conversion experience. She talked about the warm reception Christian reporters had given it, how they wondered how Tom Shadyac had pulled off making such a blatantly religious film. (He said if you make enough money for the studios, they'd let you make a movie about a water bottle.) She recommended it, saying it was appropriate even for kids as young as 7.
And on that one interview that I heard on EWTN, I knew I'd want to see it. Barbara, if you happen to have followed a Technorati link here and see this, I want to thank you for recommending this as a family film. There were two - only two - semi-questionable comments in the entire movie, and I think it went totally over my girls' heads (6 and 9).
I cannot recommend this movie enough. It is a total family film. It is absolutely perfect for children to watch. It is FUN, it is FUNNY, and it is done with absolute respect for people with religious beliefs. I'm telling you, don't even bother renting it. Just buy it outright. It's just nice, clean fun.
Hollywood, that's all we want. Nice, clean fun. Stuff I can bring my children to. Something sweet. Something innocent. Something uplifting.
Thanks for things like Evan Almighty, Rattatouie, Narnia, and Because of Winn Dixie. Keep 'em coming!
(BTW, Wikepedia has some fascinating facts about the movie.)
Monday, December 10
HG: You Are Not Alone
If you've ever suffered from a debilitating illness, you know it's helpful to know you are not alone. When you suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), an illness that is only recently being noticed by anyone outside of those of us who have suffered through it, it's very easy to feel completely isolated. When I became pregnant with Big Girl, I had never heard of HG or known anyone who had suffered through it. The first person I met who had it was my homecare nurse, who suffered for all nine months. (She told me of being on the delivery table and still vomitting.) Only about one in two hundred women will have HG, so it's likely that you might never meet someone (in person - this doesn't really count) who had it.
It is scary. It's so scary that some people will go to extraordinary lengths to escape or avoid it. And sometimes those choices made can have repurcussions that last for the rest of your life. (I told my own story here - I warn you that it is long and not particularly pleasant.)
Ashli - blogress extraordinaire who keeps the S.I.C.L.E. Cell blog - has written a book to help spread awareness of HG. She doesn't want anyone else to suffer as she did, especially if their doctors don't know what's wrong or how to treat it. (I thank God that I wasn't told to abort. On top of being sick, I'd have been searching for a new OB on the fly. But other women aren't so lucky.)
There are two things I'd like to highlight for you today that have to do with HG. First, I want you to know that Ashli's website connected with her book Beyond Morning Sickness now has a forum. There, you can share your story with other women and gain needed support. Those can be found at this site. I cannot tell you how alone a woman with HG feels. And part of it is that too much stimulation of any senses is like being thrown under the bus. So you isolate yourself on purpose, just to cope. I remember when my high-risk OB took over from my usual OB; he put me in a small, dark room with the blinds drawn shut to keep out all light. My phone was shut off, and the nurses were all warned to not suddenly turn on the lights or burst into the room. It's amazing to say this, but that dark little cave was a sanctuary for me. I wanted to stay there forever - or until I stopped being so sick. So this forum will provide needed help for women and their families. (Let me tell you, it's no picnic for the husbands, either.)
Secondly, I wanted to let anyone else who has suffered HG know that USC is doing a genetic study to determine the cause for HG. (That's right - no one knows what causes this!) It's a simple study, the genetic sample is spit, and if you had HG, you only need to find a control person - someone who has been pregnant but not sick and is not related to you. I pray that they find a cure. HG is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. If you need information about this study, please go to this site, where Help HER has the information on how to get involved. They need 500 HG sufferers and 500 control subjects.
Now, for a quick story about me. I know that in my other post (linked above), I mentioned that I'd been to Confession about the tubal ligation. But I do have a really interesting story about that Confession and a subsequent one.
When I went to Confession about it, I told the priest and broke down. Big time. I'd been a parishioner for just a little while, and Father barely knew me. But he said something very nice. "Your children need you. Your husband needs you." He absolved me.
But that guilt kept coming back. I felt a need to confess it again, and so I did. To a different priest. I cried again, saying that I knew I'd been forgiven, but I just couldn't stop feeling guilty. And you know what this second priest told me? The one who was about as different from the first priest as you could be?
"God has forgiven you. Your children need you. Your husband needs you."
I kid you not, he used the exact same words. Since then, I've only felt occasional pangs of guilt, but nothing like the terrible feelings that overwhelmed me in the past. Because I knew that the only way I could have gotten the exact same words from these two vastly different priests was if it was Christ Jesus Himself working through them. And that's how I know it's Jesus I'm confessing to.
It is scary. It's so scary that some people will go to extraordinary lengths to escape or avoid it. And sometimes those choices made can have repurcussions that last for the rest of your life. (I told my own story here - I warn you that it is long and not particularly pleasant.)
Ashli - blogress extraordinaire who keeps the S.I.C.L.E. Cell blog - has written a book to help spread awareness of HG. She doesn't want anyone else to suffer as she did, especially if their doctors don't know what's wrong or how to treat it. (I thank God that I wasn't told to abort. On top of being sick, I'd have been searching for a new OB on the fly. But other women aren't so lucky.)
There are two things I'd like to highlight for you today that have to do with HG. First, I want you to know that Ashli's website connected with her book Beyond Morning Sickness now has a forum. There, you can share your story with other women and gain needed support. Those can be found at this site. I cannot tell you how alone a woman with HG feels. And part of it is that too much stimulation of any senses is like being thrown under the bus. So you isolate yourself on purpose, just to cope. I remember when my high-risk OB took over from my usual OB; he put me in a small, dark room with the blinds drawn shut to keep out all light. My phone was shut off, and the nurses were all warned to not suddenly turn on the lights or burst into the room. It's amazing to say this, but that dark little cave was a sanctuary for me. I wanted to stay there forever - or until I stopped being so sick. So this forum will provide needed help for women and their families. (Let me tell you, it's no picnic for the husbands, either.)
Secondly, I wanted to let anyone else who has suffered HG know that USC is doing a genetic study to determine the cause for HG. (That's right - no one knows what causes this!) It's a simple study, the genetic sample is spit, and if you had HG, you only need to find a control person - someone who has been pregnant but not sick and is not related to you. I pray that they find a cure. HG is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. If you need information about this study, please go to this site, where Help HER has the information on how to get involved. They need 500 HG sufferers and 500 control subjects.
Now, for a quick story about me. I know that in my other post (linked above), I mentioned that I'd been to Confession about the tubal ligation. But I do have a really interesting story about that Confession and a subsequent one.
When I went to Confession about it, I told the priest and broke down. Big time. I'd been a parishioner for just a little while, and Father barely knew me. But he said something very nice. "Your children need you. Your husband needs you." He absolved me.
But that guilt kept coming back. I felt a need to confess it again, and so I did. To a different priest. I cried again, saying that I knew I'd been forgiven, but I just couldn't stop feeling guilty. And you know what this second priest told me? The one who was about as different from the first priest as you could be?
"God has forgiven you. Your children need you. Your husband needs you."
I kid you not, he used the exact same words. Since then, I've only felt occasional pangs of guilt, but nothing like the terrible feelings that overwhelmed me in the past. Because I knew that the only way I could have gotten the exact same words from these two vastly different priests was if it was Christ Jesus Himself working through them. And that's how I know it's Jesus I'm confessing to.
Jesse Tree Reading: Second Monday
Back to Genesis today! Our reading is Genesis 37:1-36.
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Sunday, December 9
Jesse Tree Reading: Second Sunday
It's now the second week of Advent. We continue with our readings today, but move to Isaiah. Turn to Isaiah 9:2-7.
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Saturday, December 8
Jesse Tree Reading: First Saturday
Today we continue our journey through Salvation history with Genesis 27:41 - 28:22.
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Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!
From New Advent:
Immaculate Conception
The doctrine
In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."
"The Blessed Virgin Mary..."
The subject of this immunity from original sin is the person of Mary at the moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into her body.
"...in the first instance of her conception..."
The term conception does not mean the active or generative conception by her parents. Her body was formed in the womb of the mother, and the father had the usual share in its formation. The question does not concern the immaculateness of the generative activity of her parents. Neither does it concern the passive conception absolutely and simply (conceptio seminis carnis, inchoata), which, according to the order of nature, precedes the infusion of the rational soul. The person is truly conceived when the soul is created and infused into the body. Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin at the first moment of her animation, and sanctifying grace was given to her before sin could have taken effect in her soul.
"...was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin..."
The formal active essence of original sin was not removed from her soul, as it is removed from others by baptism; it was excluded, it never was in her soul. Simultaneously with the exclusion of sin. The state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities, essentially pertaining to original sin, were excluded. But she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam -- from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death.
"...by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race."
The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism. Mary needed the redeeming Saviour to obtain this exemption, and to be delivered from the universal necessity and debt (debitum) of being subject to original sin. The person of Mary, in consequence of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin. Her redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He is a greater redeemer who pays the debt that it may not be incurred than he who pays after it has fallen on the debtor.
Such is the meaning of the term "Immaculate Conception."
Proof from Scripture
Genesis 3:15
No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture. But the first scriptural passage which contains the promise of the redemption, mentions also the Mother of the Redeemer. The sentence against the first parents was accompanied by the Earliest Gospel (Proto-evangelium), which put enmity between the serpent and the woman: "and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and her seed; she (he) shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her (his) heel" (Genesis 3:15). The translation "she" of the Vulgate is interpretative; it originated after the fourth century, and cannot be defended critically. The conqueror from the seed of the woman, who should crush the serpent's head, is Christ; the woman at enmity with the serpent is Mary. God puts enmity between her and Satan in the same manner and measure, as there is enmity between Christ and the seed of the serpent. Mary was ever to be in that exalted state of soul which the serpent had destroyed in man, i.e. in sanctifying grace. Only the continual union of Mary with grace explains sufficiently the enmity between her and Satan. The Proto-evangelium, therefore, in the original text contains a direct promise of the Redeemer, and in conjunction therewith the manifestation of the masterpiece of His Redemption, the perfect preservation of His virginal Mother from original sin.
Luke 1:28
The salutation of the angel Gabriel -- chaire kecharitomene, Hail, full of grace (Luke 1:28) indicates a unique abundance of grace, a supernatural, godlike state of soul, which finds its explanation only in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. But the term kecharitomene (full of grace) serves only as an illustration, not as a proof of the dogma.
Other texts
From the texts Proverbs 8 and Ecclesiasticus 24 (which exalt the Wisdom of God and which in the liturgy are applied to Mary, the most beautiful work of God's Wisdom), or from the Canticle of Canticles (4:7, "Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee"), no theological conclusion can be drawn. These passages, applied to the Mother of God, may be readily understood by those who know the privilege of Mary, but do not avail to prove the doctrine dogmatically, and are therefore omitted from the Constitution "Ineffabilis Deus". For the theologian it is a matter of conscience not to take an extreme position by applying to a creature texts which might imply the prerogatives of God.
Friday, December 7
Forty Hours Devotion
Tonight, beginning immediately after the vigil Mass for the Immaculate Conception, our parish will have forty hours of Adoration, with intentions for the Pro Life movement. It's an annual event at our parish, and our whole family is participating this year. The first shift is only about half an hour, lasting from the end of Mass until 9:00, and the girls and I will stay for that. Tonight, when Soccer Dad gets back from his business trip, he'll stay in adoration from midnight until 1:30. (The usual shift is one hour, but the Knights have asked for volunteers because there's been trouble filling those early morning slots between midnight and four.) Tomorrow night, after Little Girl is finished dancing and both girls are on their way to dreamland, I'll go back to the church for another hour alone. 
I cannot even say just how very much I need this time. How totally desperate I am right now. It's unreal, and I'm hoping that I don't just sit there for an hour and cry.
I'll try to remember the intentions I've been given tonight, and tomorrow, I'll especially remember my aunt, who has only been given "a handful of months" to live. (Thank you to those who have promised to help me with the spiritual bouquet. Even my mother-in-law, who is Methodist, has sent me a lovely note with what she'll do in prayer.)
One last thing: In preparation for tonight, I purchased this book at our parish bookstore.
You can get those at Aquinas and More, if you don't have one. It's really handy, and has a whole section on prayers before the Blessed Sacrament. And I'll tell you what, it's awfully nice to have prayers that say just what you want to say when you are having trouble praying. It's a relief to know that our prayers are not new, and that we don't have to pray extemporaneously. We can use these pre-written prayers.
You can get those at Aquinas and More, if you don't have one. It's really handy, and has a whole section on prayers before the Blessed Sacrament. And I'll tell you what, it's awfully nice to have prayers that say just what you want to say when you are having trouble praying. It's a relief to know that our prayers are not new, and that we don't have to pray extemporaneously. We can use these pre-written prayers.
Jesse Tree Reading: First Friday
Are you keeping up with the readings? Today's Jesse Tree reading is Genesis 22:1-14. Today's reading ought to be pretty clear as to why it has to do with Jesus.
And if you're really interested in typology and Salvation history throughout the Bible, I highly recommend the Podcast for Understanding the Scriptures.
[Our Jesse Tree Resource]
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