![Revisiting Our Family's Rule of Life]()
by Catherine | Jan 15, 2015 | Faith, Family, Marriage, The Homefront
I first read Holly Pierlot’s A Mother’s Rule of Life back in Lent 2014. As part of my Lenten mission, I came up with a rough sketch of our Family Rule of Life. Since then, we have moved to a new house in a new city. Now that we’re settled, the kids are back in the school routine, and the craziness of the holidays are over, I’m ready to share how I started revisiting our Family Rule of Life during Advent. While my vocation and its essential duties remain the same, our surroundings, the children’s development, our relationships with God and each other have changed significantly.
Before I jump in, let’s circle back to revisit a few things:
First, what’s a “Rule of Life”?
Holly Pierlot defines a rule of life as an “examination of one’s vocation and the duties it entails, and the development of a schedule for fulfilling these responsibilities in a consistent and orderly way.”
Before I pulled together the first draft of our schedule last year, I needed to determine:
- What’s my vocation? (My answer is what I call this the proper hierarchy of relationships. The order is very intentional here.)
- Child of God
- Wife
- Mother
- What are the essential duties that my vocation entails?
- Child of God: Sustain a regular prayer life, frequent the sacraments, attend Mass, and show my love of God through my love of neighbor. I also have the responsibility to care for myself (personal prayer, recreation, good nutrition, exercise, rest) so that I can perform all of my duties well. (My duties to self will be explored more with the 2nd P, Person.)
- Wife: Holly Pierlot quotes Saint Pope John Paul II as saying that love could be defined as “availability, acceptance, and help.” As a wife, I have the duty to: be available to my husband (Ever hear of SPICE in your NFP training? We are to be available to our spouses Spiritually, Physically, Intellectually, Creatively, Emotionally), be accepting of all of him, and to be a helper instead of a hindrance on his journey to sainthood. In order to fulfill my duties as a wife, I need to keep my relationship with Philip second only to my relationship with God, but above all relationships–even our children.
- Mother: I can’t sum up my duties as a mother more succinctly than Holly Pierlot did in her section on parenting. She says that it is a “call to form persons. We’re called to bring God to our children’s spirits, truth to their minds, health to their bodies, skill to their hands, beauty and creativity to their hearts, and in all this, virtue to their wills and sanctity to their souls.” To be my children’s primary educator means remembering Pope Pius XI’s wise words that, “Education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be, and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created.” In sum, it’s my job as a Christian mother to foster my children’s relationship with God so that they can: hear His voice calling them to their specific vocation, receive the graces to live it out well, and glorify Him through their lives as a preparation for their eternal reward with Him. Ultimately, it’s my job as a mother to raise my children to become saints.
With my vocation and essential duties at the forefront of our minds, Philip and I worked together last year to create our family mission statement. Here it is:
The Boucher Family is a domestic church whose mission is to know, love, and serve God. Our aim is to live intentionally as Jesus’ disciples, propel one another to sainthood, and joyfully share our love of God with others.
I still want to get our family mission statement on canvas to hang in our kitchen. Any suggestions on a great Etsy shop or artist?
With my vocation’s duties outlined and our family mission statement written, I set out to re-draft our family’s schedule. A lot has changed in one year! In order to do that, I re-examined what Holly Pierlot calls the “5 Ps.”
- Prayer
- Person
- Partner
- Parent
- Provider
Your Turn:
- What would you consider the essential duties of your vocation?
- If you had a family mission statement, what would it say?
- Are you fulfilling the essential duties of your vocation? If not, what practical changes can you make today?
- What is keeping you from fulfilling your essential duties?
- Are you preventing someone else from fulfilling his/her essential duties?
If you’re interested in creating your own Rule of Life, read A Mother’s Rule of Life and visit Holly Pierlot’s website for some great resources. I would LOVE to go through the 5 P’s with you!
![Revisiting Our Family’s Rule of Life]()
by Catherine | Jan 15, 2015 | Faith, Family, Marriage, The Homefront
I first read Holly Pierlot’s A Mother’s Rule of Life back in Lent 2014. As part of my Lenten mission, I came up with a rough sketch of our Family Rule of Life. Since then, we have moved to a new house in a new city. Now that we’re settled, the kids are back in the school routine, and the craziness of the holidays are over, I’m ready to share how I started revisiting our Family Rule of Life during Advent. While my vocation and its essential duties remain the same, our surroundings, the children’s development, our relationships with God and each other have changed significantly.
Before I jump in, let’s circle back to revisit a few things:
First, what’s a “Rule of Life”?
Holly Pierlot defines a rule of life as an “examination of one’s vocation and the duties it entails, and the development of a schedule for fulfilling these responsibilities in a consistent and orderly way.”
Before I pulled together the first draft of our schedule last year, I needed to determine:
- What’s my vocation? (My answer is what I call this the proper hierarchy of relationships. The order is very intentional here.)
- Child of God
- Wife
- Mother
- What are the essential duties that my vocation entails?
- Child of God: Sustain a regular prayer life, frequent the sacraments, attend Mass, and show my love of God through my love of neighbor. I also have the responsibility to care for myself (personal prayer, recreation, good nutrition, exercise, rest) so that I can perform all of my duties well. (My duties to self will be explored more with the 2nd P, Person.)
- Wife: Holly Pierlot quotes Saint Pope John Paul II as saying that love could be defined as “availability, acceptance, and help.” As a wife, I have the duty to: be available to my husband (Ever hear of SPICE in your NFP training? We are to be available to our spouses Spiritually, Physically, Intellectually, Creatively, Emotionally), be accepting of all of him, and to be a helper instead of a hindrance on his journey to sainthood. In order to fulfill my duties as a wife, I need to keep my relationship with Philip second only to my relationship with God, but above all relationships–even our children.
- Mother: I can’t sum up my duties as a mother more succinctly than Holly Pierlot did in her section on parenting. She says that it is a “call to form persons. We’re called to bring God to our children’s spirits, truth to their minds, health to their bodies, skill to their hands, beauty and creativity to their hearts, and in all this, virtue to their wills and sanctity to their souls.” To be my children’s primary educator means remembering Pope Pius XI’s wise words that, “Education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be, and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created.” In sum, it’s my job as a Christian mother to foster my children’s relationship with God so that they can: hear His voice calling them to their specific vocation, receive the graces to live it out well, and glorify Him through their lives as a preparation for their eternal reward with Him. Ultimately, it’s my job as a mother to raise my children to become saints.
With my vocation and essential duties at the forefront of our minds, Philip and I worked together last year to create our family mission statement. Here it is:
The Boucher Family is a domestic church whose mission is to know, love, and serve God. Our aim is to live intentionally as Jesus’ disciples, propel one another to sainthood, and joyfully share our love of God with others.
I still want to get our family mission statement on canvas to hang in our kitchen. Any suggestions on a great Etsy shop or artist?
With my vocation’s duties outlined and our family mission statement written, I set out to re-draft our family’s schedule. A lot has changed in one year! In order to do that, I re-examined what Holly Pierlot calls the “5 Ps.”
- Prayer
- Person
- Partner
- Parent
- Provider
Your Turn:
- What would you consider the essential duties of your vocation?
- If you had a family mission statement, what would it say?
- Are you fulfilling the essential duties of your vocation? If not, what practical changes can you make today?
- What is keeping you from fulfilling your essential duties?
- Are you preventing someone else from fulfilling his/her essential duties?
If you’re interested in creating your own Rule of Life, read A Mother’s Rule of Life and visit Holly Pierlot’s website for some great resources. I would LOVE to go through the 5 P’s with you!
![Put It To Work 10]()
by Catherine | Jan 12, 2015 | Faith
Happy Monday! You know what that means — it’s time to Put It To Work! We’re gonna take St. Pope John Paul II’s advice to stop wasting our suffering and start putting it to work to the cross. Mondays, which can be a stressful or chaotic day, is the perfect time for us to set our sights on God and swap prayer intentions with the promise of “putting them to work” for one another.
Instead of allowing today to turn into a “manic Monday,” we’ll actively unite any little suffering we might have during the week to the cross for the other person’s intention.
Here are my intentions for the week:
- For my friend, Nicole, who is shouldering the heavy cross of miscarriage. Please pray for Nicole and her family as they mourn the death of their baby, Samuel Nicholas. (You can read about Samuel’s story here.)
- For women battling postpartum depression and those who love them. I pray that they will find the courage to get help, that their doctors will help them find healing, and that their loved ones will help them through their illness. I pray that their family members will seek help to learn how to be the best support possible and facilitate healing. I pray for an end to the stigma of this very real, very painful, and very treatable illness. May we all lift up the women who are hurting with a disease that they desperately want to be rid of.
- For a special intention
Your turn! What intentions can I start “putting to work” for you this week? I will add them to my prayer journal and pray for you by name throughout the week. Please share them in the comment box below, on the blog Facebook page, or send them to me via the “contact” button on the main menu bar.
Thank you for your prayers!
![Goddaughter Day]()
by Catherine | Jan 10, 2015 | Faith, Family
My niece, Meghan (who also happens to be my goddaughter), turned 10 over her Christmas vacation. In celebration, I took her out for a fun afternoon.
Last year, we met over cupcakes to discuss what we thought of Anne of Green Gables.
This year, we started our afternoon of fun over lunch at Paradise Bakery. Meghan and her twin brothers are 15 months apart in age, so she has known how to hold her own for quite some time! We had great conversation between bites. I got to hear all about the latest on the school front, the home front, the friend front, and field questions about anything and everything in between.
The two things that stuck out most about during our visit were Meg’s maturity and her big heart. She shared how heartbroken she was for a classmate whose mother recently passed away. She said that it made her realize how special her own mother is to their family and that she couldn’t imagine life without her. We talked about different ways that she can be a good friend, and she had some very thoughtful ideas.
I was thrilled to hear her circle back to a classmate that had been acting like a bully the previous year. Meg shared how she played peacemaker. (Let’s call the classmate Molly.) “I said, ‘Molly, I don’t want to fight anymore. Can we just be friends?’ And she said, ‘Sure!’ And she’s coming to my sleepover tonight!” I told her how proud I was of her for being so kind to someone that hadn’t been so nice to her, and I said that it was really cool of her to invite Molly to her birthday party–especially since the other girls still think she’s a bully. Meg said, “Yeah, they don’t know that she’s nice like I do. I’ll just change the subject and work really hard to include her tonight.”
Isn’t Meg such a doll? I love her new glasses.
Toward the end of our meal, I gave her a little something for her birthday. It was a prayer journal with some fun, colorful gel pens. I had brought along my own prayer journal and showed it to her. I talked about how I loved to journal at her age and said that it helped me to think through times when I was sad, or angry, or wasn’t sure what to do. I said that my favorite part about keeping a prayer journal was looking back at the old entries to see how God worked in my life–especially how He didn’t answer prayers how I wanted Him to, and how it always worked out as it should have. That got us to talking about prayer and Meg asking me how I prayed. She was excited to hear that my prayer life mostly looked like a conversation. We talked about different kinds of prayer, and I showed her how I used my journal. I emphasized that a prayer journal can be whatever she wants it to be, and that it’s just for her and God. Hopefully the conversation helped to show her that daily prayer is both normal and attractive. It didn’t hurt that the journal had some cute butterflies on the cover!
After our lunch, we headed out to go ice skating. I was THRILLED when Meg said that that was what she wanted to do. I took lessons for a few years in junior high and loved it so much that I taught little ones how to skate for awhile. I hadn’t been on the ice in a few years, so it was fun to pull out my skates.
Just like riding a bike!
Meg was a pro! She never had a major wipeout, and there were several times that she went around the ice 5 laps without falling. Way to go, Meg!
We had some more great conversation on the ride home, and I got Meg home in time to get ready for her big slumber party. I’m looking forward to our next Goddaughter Day!
Question for you:
How do you connect with your Godchildren? Meg and I are looking for another book to read together. Any suggestions for something a 10-year-old girl would enjoy? Fire away!
![Today’s Gospel: “Give them some food yourselves.”]()
by Catherine | Jan 6, 2015 | Faith
How God spoke to me this morning when I sat down with today’s readings:
Today’s Gospel is the feeding of 5000. You know this Gospel is important if the story made it into all 4 of the Gospels! Jesus said to the disciples, “Give them some food yourselves.” I need to start with what I have and trust that God will multiply it. God takes the little I have to offer, blesses it, and allows it to bear fruit when I offer it to Him. It would have been easy to look at the crowd and think, “No way will this feed them!” I probably wouldn’t have even tried to put the small amount of food to work, but the disciples trusted Jesus, not knowing what He would do with their offering. I would have doubted, I would have gotten fearful that the crowd would become angry, I would have feared that we would be left in a deserted place with no food if we didn’t get going before dark. But the disciples said, “Okay, Jesus. If You say so. Here is what we have.”
Lord, help me to be more like that. Teach me to give what I have as a sincere gift of self for You. Please bless and multiply my offering, that it will feed many. Help me to see that I am called to obedience above all else, and that You will provide when I give all that I have. Amen.
Questions for you:
Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like God was asking you to offer everything? How did you respond? What was the result?
![Today's Gospel: "Give them some food yourselves."]()
by Catherine | Jan 6, 2015 | Faith
How God spoke to me this morning when I sat down with today’s readings:
Today’s Gospel is the feeding of 5000. You know this Gospel is important if the story made it into all 4 of the Gospels! Jesus said to the disciples, “Give them some food yourselves.” I need to start with what I have and trust that God will multiply it. God takes the little I have to offer, blesses it, and allows it to bear fruit when I offer it to Him. It would have been easy to look at the crowd and think, “No way will this feed them!” I probably wouldn’t have even tried to put the small amount of food to work, but the disciples trusted Jesus, not knowing what He would do with their offering. I would have doubted, I would have gotten fearful that the crowd would become angry, I would have feared that we would be left in a deserted place with no food if we didn’t get going before dark. But the disciples said, “Okay, Jesus. If You say so. Here is what we have.”
Lord, help me to be more like that. Teach me to give what I have as a sincere gift of self for You. Please bless and multiply my offering, that it will feed many. Help me to see that I am called to obedience above all else, and that You will provide when I give all that I have. Amen.
Questions for you:
Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like God was asking you to offer everything? How did you respond? What was the result?
