Batman revised...

Well, we watched Batman Begins last night and I was wrong!  It happens.  A lot.

Alfred didn't originally say, "Why do we fall, Master Wayne?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up again."  It was Bruce's father, teaching Bruce a life lesson.  Nonetheless, Alfred said it later and he does have some of the best lines in the movie!

Temperance

"To live temperance well means to be detached from earthly things, to give them the importance which they merit and nothing more, to avoid creating personal needs, to exercise moderation with regard to food and drink, to rein in our whims and passions...  When we rest we do not need to run up unnecessary expense or allocate to our leisure an inordinate amount of time.  One area where we can give good example in this virtue relates to our use of television and all the other means of comfortable pastime offered by modern technology."  ---  In Conversation with God, vol. 4, p. 218

St. James

Today is the feast of St. James.

"Can you drink My cup?" Jesus asked James and He asks us.  "If we are united to Him, we will respond positively and bear what is humanly disagreeable for His sake.  In union with Christ even our pain and failure are converted into joy and peace.  It helps a great deal for us to see evidence of James' defects and of those other eleven the Lord had chosen.  They were not powerful, or wise or even simple."  (paraphrasing now...)  They were often ambitious, argumentative and lacking faith.  God can work wonders in us.  He also called us.  Do not give in to discouragement at your defects and weaknesses.  Ask Jesus for help; He is ever patient with us.  Also ask Mary's intercession to find the joy and courage to proceed on our way as the Apostle James did. 

Did anyone see The Way?  I have yet to watch it, but I heard it was very good.

On a side note - pray for our newest relation, Benjamin Thomas out in Utah who was born July 23rd! :)  The family is all doing well!

Holes

Holes are part of the design and that design is an art.  Don't compare yourself to another home educator; just do it.  Education is an art, not a science.  ---- Elizabeth Foss, 2004 (not verbatim)

St. Teresa of Avila - she must have been so cool!

St. Teresa's quotes often floor me.  We tend to think of a Saint as some perfect being, but that is far from the truth.  They struggled just as we do.

"There come days when a single word distresses me and I long to leave the world altogether, for everything in it seems to weary me."  --- St. Teresa, The Way of Perfection

I love this one -

She was traveling far to set up a new foundation and kept meeting with problems:  flooding, hotels without proper beds, twisted ankles...  "Wryly she complained:  'So much to put up with and You send me this!'  Jesus replied:  'Teresa, that's how I treat my friends.'  She was not at loss for an answer:  'Small wonder You have so few!'  Soon her good humor returned, for once the danger was passed, they enjoyed talking about it."  --- ICWG/The Foundations

So, we don't have to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, we just have to keep TRYING to be!  Happy Sunday!

Contrition Prayer

Mother, my life, my hope, lead me by the hand and if there is anything in me which is displeasing to my Father God grant that I may see it, so that, between you and me, the two of us, we may uproot it.  O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary, pray for me, that by fulfilling the most lovable Will of your Son, I may be worthy to obtain and enjoy what Our Lord Jesus has promised.  ---  St. Josemaria Escriva, The Forge, p. 161

Interior Struggle and Batman!

In the interior struggle we will meet with many failures, some unimportant, others more serious, but our atonement and contrition will bring us even closer to God.  God allows for our weakness and always forgives us, but we need to be sincere, to repent and to struggle to rise up again.  --- In Conversation with God

I don't know any movie quotes but this one from Batman Begins which is applicable to this subject:

"Why Do We Fall, Master Wayne...?"

"So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."

Hail, loving Mother of the Redeemer, gate of Heaven ever open, star of the sea; assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again... --- Divine Office

God bless all those who were hurt and killed last night in Colorado, their families and friends, the perpetrator, those working the case and all the Holy Souls in Purgatory.