As unbelievable as this seems, some horrible people are apparently trying to scam would-be donors to the hurricane victims by posing as online charities but collecting money for themselves. Please give, but please be careful.

Catholic Charities has a page for donating online as well as information about other help people need.

Stephen watched carefully while I stamped the letter and then he came along with me to the post office. He stood on tiptoes and peeped into the outdoor mailbox. He pulled the handle and held it open for me. I placed the letter inside and he let it clang closed. Then he opened it again quickly to make certain the envelope had fallen inside.

“What will happen to it now?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, “Later on today the mailman will pick up all the mail. He will read the address on our letter and then send it along to a post office near your cousins’ house. Then a mailman there will read the name and address on the envelope and deliver the letter to your cousins. Then they can open it up and read what we wrote to them.”

Stephen chewed his lower lip and studied the mailbox for a moment.

“Oh,” he finally said. “It’s kinda like email.”

Here is an article by Elizabeth Foss, one of my favorite Catholic mom authors, on bringing children to Mass. She shares some great insights and practical advice.

I’m a mom, okay? That means I like to share recipes. It’s instinctual or something. Anyway, since I hear from so many of you about how much you like the family-friendly recipes I occasionally share in this space, I decided to lump them all together in a new Recipe Page for your convenience and enjoyment. You’ll be able to access this page any time by clicking the link in the upper left hand corner of the main page.

So far, I’ve just gone through and added the recipes I have already posted here in the past, but I’ll be adding more in the future. Bon Appetit!

I was folding laundry in the house the other day when I heard an enormous crash that sent me racing to the window. There was Dan, standing beside his car which was parked near the woods at the edge of our driveway. He had his head in his hands and a bewildered look on his face. There, on top of the car, was an enormous tree trunk.

I ran outside and immediately saw that my husband was alright, but the car was not. The hood was dented and a spider-web-style fracture stretched from one end of the windshield to the other. With his hands still on his head, Dan stood silently beside me.

Now every good wife knows when her husband needs a little time to himself, and I figured this was most definitely one of those times. Years of marriage have taught me that in times of calamity–especially those that involve cars and money–a man needs a little space to process what has happened. So, though I wanted to talk about what had happened and ask all kinds of annoying questions (“How did this happen?” “Did you know we had a giant dead tree in the woods just waiting to fall on one of our children?” and “Will our insurance cover this?”) I kept quiet.

So it wasn’t until later that I heard the whole story. About how Dan had just finished parking the car there when he heard a creaking sound in the woods. About how he had just barely managed to get out of the way of the falling tree himself before it hit. About how some branches of the tree had broken off and hit our van (which was parked next to the car) as well.

Now here is where I begin to marvel at how my husband and I can have so very different perspectives of the same event. My immediate reaction upon hearing all of this was a prayer of thanksgiving that nothing worse had happened: Thank goodness Dan was not hurt. Thank goodness his guardian angel managed to get him out of the way before that heavy tree could crush him. Thank goodness it was only a car that was damaged.

But, as I was gushing on about the marvelous powers of his guardian angel, what Dan said was this: I just can’t figure out why God would throw that tree at me.

And he was only partly joking. Here we have clear examples of two very different ways in which people tend to perceive life’s inevitable mishaps. Is God involved and on our side–intervening and preventing worse things from happening? Or is God just punishing us for some bad thing we have done?

As usual, I think the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremes. God loves us and wants what is best for us in the long run. That means He won’t necessarily always be “on our side” in the short run. He gives us the freedom make decisions even when He knows we are going to choose badly. He lets us experience the consequences of our own decisions. He lets some prayers go seemingly unanswered.

But (and now here is the part that I like to focus on) He gives us the Church, the sacraments, the communion of saints, and our guardian angels to steer us in the right direction and out of the way of falling trees.

Angel sent by God to guide me,
Be my light and walk beside me.
Be my guardian and protect me,
On the paths of life direct me.

A Blessing Against Storms

Jesus Christ a King of Glory has come in Peace. God became man, and the Word was made flesh. Christ was born of a Virgin. Christ suffered, Christ was crucified. Christ died. Christ rose from the dead. Christ ascended into Heaven. Christ conquers. Christ reigns. Christ orders.

Amen.

And it paid off.

A few years ago, when I was just starting out with all this writing stuff, I decided not to pursue writing for secular markets. I did a little bit in the beginning, but I soon found that my writing was just too close to my heart for it to be anything but Catholic. Or at least Christian. Distinctly so. And that was okay with me.

So I focused on writing only for Catholic papers and magazines and had my book published by a Catholic publisher. All was well. I was satisfied. That is until one recent day when I was offered the opportunity to write a bit for a major secular magazine for $1.25 a word.

$1.25 a word! If you are not a struggling Catholic writer, that rate might not mean much to you. If you are a struggling Catholic writer, though, you know that no Catholic market comes even close to matching that rate. And paying on acceptance, within 2 weeks of invoice, to boot.

Don’t worry, though. None of this $1.25 business is going to my head. There are very few people on this earth for whose thoughts I would pay $1.25 a word and I am not one of them. Besides, this was a small assignment, so I am not exactly ready to retire. But I have to admit that last week when the check arrived in the mail, I opened it up, looked at it, and thought “Holy cow, that was easy. I wonder what else I could write for them?”

And so here I sit, between deadlines for two different Catholic papers that pay “the usual,” with my thoughts distracted by the glamour, the glitz, and the money of other markets. What’s a good Catholic girl to do?

Oh, and by the way, at my new $1.25 rate, you dear reader, owe me $405 for this post. See what I mean? Easy!

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man
would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me. For whoever
would save his life will lose it, and whoever
loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 16:24-25

Lord, give us the strength and the will
to follow You always.