Happy Birthday Mom

You would be 64 today. We miss you so much.

New Christmas tradition

For a couple years in a row now we have been getting a package in the mail from my relatives in Michigan. This special package has precious loot inside: Polish sausage! Not just any Polish sausage, mind you. This is the best Polish Kielbasa sausage obtainable in North America. And yes, I do have a significant amount of Polock in my blood... long live the Poles!

Faustina loves this sausage so much-she becomes a carnivore when we have it. Kid just chows it down. Mirabile visu.

So, on Christmas eve we snack on this sacred sausage and decorate the Christmas tree. Cynthia also makes Grandma Gail's special dinner rolls which are also excellent. It is a relaxing and fun day. We have now decided to do this every year. We also got dumped on by the snow this year so it was fun to go outside. I wrote about this here.

We have also been making egg-rolls with our friends Andy and Ruthie during the Christmas "break." We have breakfast, then we pack and roll up quite a few egg-rolls and cook them in... grease! They are really good. We are slated to do it this Thursday morning after breakfast. Nice!

"Give us a heart of flesh"

I was talking today with someone who said he had heard a terribly boring homily/sermon on Christmas day-for him, it was a great disappointment. I will refrain from the parish and the details...

I also talked to another person today who said that he had heard one of the best, in fact, the finest Christmas homily he had ever heard. I was very grateful for this news as it balanced out what I had heard earlier.

The text of this wonderful homily is below. Thanks to the friend who mentioned this to me. And for my friend who suffered through a terrible Christmas homily, this is for you!

But before I reveal the text, let me say that indeed this is one of the best Christmas homilies I have ever heard too.

CHRISTMAS HOMILY OF POPE BENEDICT XVI 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

“A child is born for us, a son is given to us” (Is 9:5). What Isaiah prophesied as he gazed into the future from afar, consoling Israel amid its trials and its darkness, is now proclaimed to the shepherds as a present reality by the Angel, from whom a cloud of light streams forth: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:11). The Lord is here. From this moment, God is truly “God with us”. No longer is he the distant God who can in some way be perceived from afar, in creation and in our own consciousness. He has entered the world. He is close to us. The words of the risen Christ to his followers are addressed also to us: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20). For you the Saviour is born: through the Gospel and those who proclaim it, God now reminds us of the message that the Angel announced to the shepherds. It is a message that cannot leave us indifferent. If it is true, it changes everything. If it is true, it also affects me. Like the shepherds, then, I too must say: Come on, I want to go to Bethlehem to see the Word that has occurred there. The story of the shepherds is included in the Gospel for a reason. They show us the right way to respond to the message that we too have received. What is it that these first witnesses of God’s incarnation have to tell us?

The first thing we are told about the shepherds is that they were on the watch – they could hear the message precisely because they were awake. We must be awake, so that we can hear the message. We must become truly vigilant people. What does this mean? The principal difference between someone dreaming and someone awake is that the dreamer is in a world of his own. His “self” is locked into this dreamworld that is his alone and does not connect him with others. To wake up means to leave that private world of one’s own and to enter the common reality, the truth that alone can unite all people. Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another. Awake, the Gospel tells us. Step outside, so as to enter the great communal truth, the communion of the one God. To awake, then, means to develop a receptivity for God: for the silent promptings with which he chooses to guide us; for the many indications of his presence. There are people who describe themselves as “religiously tone deaf”. The gift of a capacity to perceive God seems as if it is withheld from some. And indeed – our way of thinking and acting, the mentality of today’s world, the whole range of our experience is inclined to deaden our receptivity for God, to make us “tone deaf” towards him. And yet in every soul, the desire for God, the capacity to encounter him, is present, whether in a hidden way or overtly. In order to arrive at this vigilance, this awakening to what is essential, we should pray for ourselves and for others, for those who appear “tone deaf” and yet in whom there is a keen desire for God to manifest himself. The great theologian Origen said this: if I had the grace to see as Paul saw, I could even now (during the Liturgy) contemplate a great host of angels (cf. in Lk 23:9). And indeed, in the sacred liturgy, we are surrounded by the angels of God and the saints. The Lord himself is present in our midst. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts, so that we may become vigilant and clear-sighted, in this way bringing you close to others as well!



Let us return to the Christmas Gospel. It tells us that after listening to the Angel’s message, the shepherds said one to another: “‘Let us go over to Bethlehem’ … they went at once” (Lk 2:15f.). “They made haste” is literally what the Greek text says. What had been announced to them was so important that they had to go immediately. In fact, what had been said to them was utterly out of the ordinary. It changed the world. The Saviour is born. The long-awaited Son of David has come into the world in his own city. What could be more important? No doubt they were partly driven by curiosity, but first and foremost it was their excitement at the wonderful news that had been conveyed to them, of all people, to the little ones, to the seemingly unimportant. They made haste – they went at once. In our daily life, it is not like that. For most people, the things of God are not given priority, they do not impose themselves on us directly. And so the great majority of us tend to postpone them. First we do what seems urgent here and now. In the list of priorities God is often more or less at the end. We can always deal with that later, we tend to think. The Gospel tells us: God is the highest priority. If anything in our life deserves haste without delay, then, it is God’s work alone. The Rule of Saint Benedict contains this teaching: “Place nothing at all before the work of God (i.e. the divine office)”. For monks, the Liturgy is the first priority. Everything else comes later. In its essence, though, this saying applies to everyone. God is important, by far the most important thing in our lives. The shepherds teach us this priority. From them we should learn not to be crushed by all the pressing matters in our daily lives. From them we should learn the inner freedom to put other tasks in second place – however important they may be – so as to make our way towards God, to allow him into our lives and into our time. Time given to God and, in his name, to our neighbour is never time lost. It is the time when we are most truly alive, when we live our humanity to the full.

Some commentators point out that the shepherds, the simple souls, were the first to come to Jesus in the manger and to encounter the Redeemer of the world. The wise men from the East, representing those with social standing and fame, arrived much later. The commentators go on to say: this is quite natural. The shepherds lived nearby. They only needed to “come over” (cf. Lk 2:15), as we do when we go to visit our neighbours. The wise men, however, lived far away. They had to undertake a long and arduous journey in order to arrive in Bethlehem. And they needed guidance and direction. Today too there are simple and lowly souls who live very close to the Lord. They are, so to speak, his neighbours and they can easily go to see him. But most of us in the world today live far from Jesus Christ, the incarnate God who came to dwell amongst us. We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the manger. In all kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us again and again, so that we can manage to escape from the muddle of our thoughts and activities and discover the way that leads to him. But a path exists for all of us. The Lord provides everyone with tailor-made signals. He calls each one of us, so that we too can say: “Come on, ‘let us go over’ to Bethlehem – to the God who has come to meet us. Yes indeed, God has set out towards us. Left to ourselves we could not reach him. The path is too much for our strength. But God has come down. He comes towards us. He has travelled the longer part of the journey. Now he invites us: come and see how much I love you. Come and see that I am here. Transeamus usque Bethlehem, the Latin Bible says. Let us go there! Let us surpass ourselves! Let us journey towards God in all sorts of ways: along our interior path towards him, but also along very concrete paths – the Liturgy of the Church, the service of our neighbour, in whom Christ awaits us.

Let us once again listen directly to the Gospel. The shepherds tell one another the reason why they are setting off: “Let us see this thing that has happened.” Literally the Greek text says: “Let us see this Word that has occurred there.” Yes indeed, such is the radical newness of this night: the Word can be seen. For it has become flesh. The God of whom no image may be made – because any image would only diminish, or rather distort him – this God has himself become visible in the One who is his true image, as Saint Paul puts it (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). In the figure of Jesus Christ, in the whole of his life and ministry, in his dying and rising, we can see the Word of God and hence the mystery of the living God himself. This is what God is like. The Angel had said to the shepherds: “This will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:12; cf. 2:16). God’s sign, the sign given to the shepherds and to us, is not an astonishing miracle. God’s sign is his humility. God’s sign is that he makes himself small; he becomes a child; he lets us touch him and he asks for our love. How we would prefer a different sign, an imposing, irresistible sign of God’s power and greatness! But his sign summons us to faith and love, and thus it gives us hope: this is what God is like. He has power, he is Goodness itself. He invites us to become like him. Yes indeed, we become like God if we allow ourselves to be shaped by this sign; if we ourselves learn humility and hence true greatness; if we renounce violence and use only the weapons of truth and love. Origen, taking up one of John the Baptist’s sayings, saw the essence of paganism expressed in the symbol of stones: paganism is a lack of feeling, it means a heart of stone that is incapable of loving and perceiving God’s love. Origen says of the pagans: “Lacking feeling and reason, they are transformed into stones and wood” (in Lk 22:9). Christ, though, wishes to give us a heart of flesh. When we see him, the God who became a child, our hearts are opened. In the Liturgy of the holy night, God comes to us as man, so that we might become truly human. Let us listen once again to Origen: “Indeed, what use would it be to you that Christ once came in the flesh if he did not enter your soul? Let us pray that he may come to us each day, that we may be able to say: I live, yet it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20)” (in Lk 22:3).

Yes indeed, that is what we should pray for on this Holy Night. Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, come to us! Enter within me, within my soul. Transform me. Renew me. Change me, change us all from stone and wood into living people, in whom your love is made present and the world is transformed. Amen.

Fausty-the-snow-girl!

Jude's a cigar man himself...




Here's our Christmas Eve... covered in snow.

Faustina looks hilarious in a snow-suit. Uncle Bob calls Faustina "Fausty the snow girl," so I had to post this!

A Christmas Favorite...

One of my favorite things to do during Christmas-ever since I was a little kid-is to sit in front of the Christmas tree at night in the dark. I love how the lights of the tree illuminate the room with all the various colors. Of course, for those who know me well, it is best to be sitting in a rocking chair!

Here's a shot of our tree for Christmas 2009.

Here too are some classic shots of ornaments that both Cynthia and I made as little kids. Cynthia's still has a crusty old sugar cookie attached to it!

Watching our words

Of course, Mike and I know we have to be very aware of what we say around our little parrot, Faustina. Over a week ago, however, she heard one of us use the word 'psycho'. For some reason, she latched onto this word, and it has stuck. Her memory refuses to erase this particular word, and we hear it a lot. She'll run around the house yelling it at the top of her lungs (!), or be tackling her teddy bear in her crib singing it. Yesterday she started attaching it to other people. She hears me call her father 'Mike' or 'Michael', so of course she has started calling her father Michael. But he is not only 'Michael', he is 'psycho Michael'! Yesterday (as we were practicing using the potty), she was walking around with few clothes on trying to walk in my shoes and yelling 'psycho, psycho, michael, psycho'.

What can you do, we just try not to laugh....in front of her, anyway. And I guess we'll have to be even more careful of our word choices.

This is just funny!

This story, featured in the Onion, is a must read. Hilarious. Here's a blurb and the link.

MINNEAPOLIS—A study published Monday in The Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry has concluded that an estimated 98 percent of children under the age of 10 are remorseless sociopaths with little regard for anything other than their own egocentric interests and pleasures.

NB: For those who didn't already know, The Onion is a "fake" newspaper.

Update on our little man

Yesterday we had a doctor's appointment to see how Jude's kidneys are functioning. Good news: it appears that the utereal seal puncture was successful (the little surgery he had in November) and neither of the kidneys seem to be under pressure or dialated. We'll have more tests done in 5 months to re-evaluate the situation. Praise God!

Jude is 4 months today and he is changing quickly. He must have a high metabolism and is getting enough to eat; you can see from the header picture that he is healthily sweating all his calories out!! He continues to be incredibly smiley, his grin is so big and alive sometimes I think his mouth is going to jump off his face. He is tracking Faustina more and more and seems to have a special smile just for her. Usually we have to look him in the eye and he will return coos and giggles, with Faustina, however, he follows her with his eyes wherever she goes and he is just smiling. He has rolled over once and today I am going to try using the jumper and play station since he can support himself now.

It is so fun to have Faustina and Jude close in age; I love it. At this age, they really are changing every single day.

Gaudete Sunday

"Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, O daugher Jerusalem! The Lord has removed the judgment against you, he has turned away your enemies; the King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst, you have no further misfortune to fear. On that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem: Fear no, O Zion, be not discouraged! TheLord your God is in your midst, a mighty savior; he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, he will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals."
Zephaniah 3:14-18

Today's reading helps us put the celebration of Christ's birth in the perfect framework! What more could one ask for?



"Gaudete" means "rejoice" in the imperative form in Latin. Rosecea vestments are used during liturgy. We rejoice because it is only one more week until we commemorate the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord!

No baby anticipation this year....just enjoyment

Since I have been pregnant the last 2 Advents, it was a good way for me to meditate on the anticipation of Christ's coming along with the excitement of welcoming a new little person of our own into the world. This year, there is no preparation for a new baby, but I have been thinking and thanking God for our 2 wonderful children and I have been in awe of how much he has blessed our family. The last two years, no matter how much I wondered, thought about or tried to imagine what our two little children would be like, there is no possible way I could anticipation the joy they bring to our lives and how much we love them.

Things I love about an 18 month old little girl, our Faustina:

* rocking her to sleep at night with her bottle ash she plays with my fingers, giggles, says new words and I can hold her petite little body and smell the sweet fragrance of her baby hair

* watching her run around the house like Barney Rubble giggling

* how her foot is as long as my finger and her toe is as long as my fingernail!

* dressing her up for mass and how incredibly adorable she looks in her cute outfits

* how she plays by herself in her crib and babbles at the top of her lungs and tackles Teddy

* changing her diaper on the changing table and playing with her (yes - I like changing her diaper!)

* seeing her give Jude kisses, pointing to him and laughing, patting him, bringing toys to him, saying "Jude" over and over again in her little voice

* seeing her little fingers barely reach the top of tables groping for any treasure she can come up with that she is not suppose to have

* watching her walking around with any toy and using it as a cell phone and talking to 'Dadda' really really loud

* throwing her in the air and throwing her on the bed and playing under the covers

* getting her out of her crib in the morning when she is so excited and happy for the new day, I open the door, she waves and saying 'Hi, Mama' and laughs

* watching her read books upside down and (again!) babbling as loud as she can

* watch her learn new things, accomplish new feats, meeting new people and interacting

* watching her take her favorite basket and zooming it around the kitchen giving Teddy rides it in (this accounts for hours of fun)

* hearing her say new words every single day and imitating what we do and say

Things I love about a 3 month old baby, our little Jude:

* how he smiles so big he can hardly contain himself (especially after he nurses and is drunk with milk!)

* cuddling with this big little boy in bed, he is so wonderfully plump and snuggly

* watching how he already follows Faustina with his eyes and smiles at her

* walking him to sleep in the soft quilt Grandma, he snuggles against me and his eyes start to roll back and he goes to sleep within a few minutes

* watching his personality emerge as he is still so little and so obviously unique from his older sister

Norwegian tradition

Sunday night Mike and I made lefsa for the first time. Lefsa is a norwegian bread/tortilla. The only ingredients are flour, cream, salt and lard. It is delicious and a long standing Lee family tradition. My Dad is 100% norwegian; his parents made lefsa and my parents often woke us kids up during different holidays with the smell of lefsa frying downstairs. And, of course, it is the best when it is hot off the griddle and the butter melts on it.

Sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to roll it out, but I would say it went very well for a first time last night doing it on my own. I have really only done it with my Mom in the past. It was a hit with Faustina and I am sure we'll continue enjoying making it in the future.

Personality continues to emerge

Faustina came up to me about a dozens times today looking like this. She would be silent until I said something or acknowledged her, and then she soon started giggling uncontrollably. She is a goofy one.

Thoughts on Heaven [updated]

As I miss my Mother and continue to grieve our loss, I have had two main ideas on my mind lately.

Strangely, I have been thinking a lot about heaven. This is a tricky topic because, of course, we don't really know anything about heaven. So everything I am thinking is speculation; nonetheless, it is changing my every day perspective. And actually, I would say heaven is something worth speculating on, maybe even necessary. My imagination is taking over and my mind explores different possibilities of what heaven will be like. I read G.K. Chesterton's book Orthodoxy a few months ago and he has an absolutely mind blowing chapter entitled "The Ethics of Elfland". He talks about creativity, imagination, fantasy, fairy tales etc. Here is one excerpt I like:

My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally learnt it from a nurse; that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at one of democracy and tradition. The things I believed most then, the things I believe the most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic. Compared with them religion and rationalism are both abnormal, though religion is abnormally right and rationalism abnormally wrong. Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense. It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticised elfland, but elfland that criticised earth. I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the Moon"

It is easy to think of heaven as fantastical or unreal, but truly it is entirely reasonable just like G.K. Chesterton suggests of fairy tales. It makes sense that there is a heaven, it is a part of Christian belief. It is, however, somewhat difficult to even think about since we know so little about what God has in store for us in the afterlife. After all, who ever could have imagined some of the reality of the life we live in now!

Or I love this one too:

"A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition of Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore."

Again, God made Nature so wonderful and each person so unique, really, we can only imagine what heaven will be like! I would not say that I want to go to heaven now; but I would say that when the time is right I will be excited to see what heaven is like. I do not fear dying or the afterlife. I have also often think of C.S. Lewis's "Till We Have Faces" which is the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche retold. The village sacrifices Psyche to save itself but she actually is taken by the faceless 'God' to live in the mystical mountains and be his 'wife'. The main character, Orual, goes to find her beloved sister, Pysche, in the mountains. When Orual does, in fact, find Psyche in the mountains happily 'married', she cannot understand her new life (heaven). Orual is engulfed in her selfish love for Psyche and cannot let her loved one go.

It all is quite mysterious. Although these quotes and books may sound existential, they are not. As scripture says, we must keep our eyes on the goal and persevere. And that brings me to the second point I have been contemplating. I have a lot of work to do here on earth. Most of it will probably never be publicly recognized. But the important thing is that I seek God's will and try my best to always serve him. Augustine said in his "Grace and Freewill" that we all are suppose to be on the road to sainthood. That means I am suppose to be perfect! And since I am fallen, I cannot do that without God's grace and continually asking him for help. Hopefully that attempt to be holy will bring me to heaven someday, to live forever with the Lord. I think of how much I love my two children and how I only want the best for them. How much more God loves us and wants the best for us.

Mom, I ask that wherever you are, you intercede for us here on earth!

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updated by Mike...


I recommend the book: Everything You Wanted to Know About Heaven (but never dreamed to ask) by Peter Kreeft. We actually own this... I'll recommend it to Cynthia!