I sometimes feel anxious about my children’s futures. I sometimes watch the news and wonder how on earth my children will make their way in this broken world. Someone once advised me, though, that rather than wringing our hands with worry over our children’s futures, we should instead get busy praying for those futures:

1. Pray for your child to know his/her vocation and to be open to the will of God.

2. Pray for your children’s future spouses. Don’t wait until the engagement to start praying for your future sons and daughter-in-laws. You might not know them yet, but you can start praying right now that the people whom your children will marry will avoid bad influences and seek to know, love, and serve God. Pray for their moral safety and right judgment. Ask Mary to keep them close to her heart and ask their guardian angels to protect them from harm and help them grow in virtue.

We can’t control our children’s futures, but we can beg God’s grace for them and their futures every day — starting now.

photo credit

O God, the father of mankind,
Who has given me these, my children,
And committed them to my charge to bring them up for You,
And to prepare them for life everlasting;
Assist me with Your heavenly grace,
That I may be able to fulfill my sacred duty and stewardship.
Teach me both what to give and what to withhold,
When to reprove and when to praise.
Make me gentle, yet firm, considerate and watchful,
And deliver me equally from the weakness of indulgence
And the excess of severity.
Grant that both by work and example,
I may be careful to lead them in the way of wisdom
And true piety; so that at last I may,
With them, be admitted to the joys of our true home in heaven.
Amen.
(Catholic.org)

This is the kind of fish you don’t eat.

This is the kind of fish you wrap in several hundred layers of plastic and then place in the bottom of your mother’s freezer while your father researches taxidermy prices.

Yes. It’s that awesome.

UPDATE with the stats some requested: It’s a large mouth bass. It weighs 4 lbs 9 oz. and is 21 inches long. It fought hard with one impressive jump during the reeling in.

Designed to celebrate the bimillennium of the birth of St Paul, which historians place between the years 7 and 10 AD, the Pauline Year, in the words of Pope Benedict, will include “a series of liturgical, cultural and ecumenical events, as well as various pastoral and social initiatives, all inspired by Pauline spirituality.”

Read more and check out the great resources at Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

You can read my latest column at InsideCatholic today:

Mass in the Gym

Check out this German ad that encourages more babies.

I remember enough college German to translate the name of the campaign, A Campaign for More Child Friendliness, and its slogan: “You are Germany.”

Wow.

HT: Large Family Mothering

“Hey, that thing I just said about Gabby and how I think she’s a diva and all that … was that blog worthy?”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, how about this? Is begging to be blog worthy blog worthy?”

“Fine then.”

is to find something good and embrace it. With both hands. Slurp up every last bit of goodness without apology or restraint. Find the good stuff and hold on tight.

Relish it. Devour it. Eat up every bit.

I give up. I keep spending more and more money on food, but my family just keeps eating the stuff. Between higher food prices and the expense of gas to drive 40 minutes to the larger stores where I know there are (slightly) lower prices, I feel like I can’t win.

Are you feeling the pinch this summer? What kinds of things are you doing to feed your family or drive for less?

Technorati Tags: food prices, grocery shopping, frugal meals

InsideCatholic announces an upcoming online book discussion:

InsideCatholic Book Circle is a feature we’ll be running July 14-18. Amy Welborn, Matthew Lickona, Joseph O’Brien, and Bishop Daniel Flores of Detroit will be discussing Ron Hansen’s latest novel, Exiles, and we’re encouraging readers to grab a copy and join in. We hope it to be a continuation of our blog discussion from a couple of months ago on the state of contemporary Catholic fiction. This promises to be a great conversation.

Get all the details here!