A bit of miscellaneous activity!

Over the course of the past few months many little events have taken place between the larger! These include working, sharing meals with the families of the children I teach, spending time with new friends, witnessing a friend enter the Catholic Church at Easter Vigil (while praying for those whose we could not attend, especially Uncle Tim!), picking up acting (see below), Nathan attending Opus Dei events, and together just trying to follow God's will and lead in life!

A few things to highlight in particular...

1) Lauren's Dad made a quick visit to Philly during one of his business trips to PA!

2) Lauren's acting debut as Marmee, in a scene of Little Women.

 

The school Lauren teaches at only has four, seventh and eighth grade girls this year. So the four of them acted as Jo, Amy, Meg, and Beth, and they asked me to be Marmee! The girls did phenomenally well. I choked on stage, but the girls did a great job ad-libbing to pull me through! Here's a pic from the evening.

3) Treasures of the Church

There was an exhibition of relics going around the Philadelphia area! This was amazing, and if you ever have the chance you should go see this, or request it to come to your area! I mean it St. Louis and Kansas City Dioceses!!!! :)

This priest came with 160 first class relics and other great treasures! If you want to know more, ask me or look at this site. Read the testimonials! This is inspiring! Let us all strive to become Saints!

To learn more about relics: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12734a.htm

4) St. Rita!

 A few years ago when I went to Rome with Jessica Schippers, we made sure to make an excursion to Cascia, Italy, home of St. Rita of Cascia. There we had an amazing time of peace, prayer, and being in the homeland of a very holy woman. When we left Italy, we said we had to go visit the Shrine in the United States devoted to her. Little did I know I would end up living there!!! St. Rita's Feast Day is on May 22. I attended Mass in her honor there, and was able to have roses blessed and venerate a relic of her. St. Rita was both a mother and a nun, due to particular circumstances. Her life is inspirational to read about. Read more on her or watch the film made about her. You too will be inspired! Here are a few pictures from the US National shrine!

St. Rita, pray for us!

(St. Rita is known as the female "version" of St. Jude, she is patron for impossible cases!)

Parting ways!

Following our quick trip to St. Louis, Sunday evening found Lauren flying back to Philadelphia and Nathan flying to Denver. Nathan headed to Denver for his first week of Summer Training for FOCUS; the rest of training takes place in Illinois. After his week in Denver, he had the opportunity to travel to Hayes, KS to witness the transitional diaconate ordination of his dear friend Brian Lager.  Nathan was able to see his good friend Brian Lager be ordained a Deacon on May 21, 2011.  Brian and Nathan went to college together at Benedictine and then served as FOCUS missionaries together from 2004-2006.  Brian then went to seminary, as Nathan continued to serve with FOCUS.

What is a deacon?  A deacon is a Holy Order of the Catholic Church.  There are two types of deacons: permanent and transitional.  A permanent deacon is usually a married man who is 35 years old or older who after several years of theological training is ordained for service for the Church.  A transitional deacon is not much different than a permanent.  It is only different in two regards.  First, a transitional deacon is one who takes on the discipline of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom and like the name itself is only going to be a deacon for a certain amount of time.  A transitional deacon is in a “transitional” period between being a seminarian and a priest.   Deacon Brian Lager will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Salina in May of 2012.  Please pray for him and all those studying for the priesthood! I was so happy he had the opportunity to go.  Deacon Brian served in our wedding Mass as a seminarian.

Here's a picture of Deacon Brian along with his uncle, Father John. Fr. John was the celebrant of our wedding Mass! We look forward to attending more Masses where they are serving Our Lord!

Surprising Robyn!

Well many of you have heard the great news that Nathan and I will be uncle and aunt again! My sister, Robyn is expecting a little on mid-November!

We had caught word that Robyn and Joe were taking a trip to the midwest, and so I became eager to get there to see her, otherwise, I would not see them until the little one was born! I had to see Robyn pregnant :)

So we scheduled a very quick 30 hour trip to St. Louis to surprise Robyn and Joe. That weekend a shower was being thrown for her by our family! I figured Robyn would not suspect our presence because the shower took place on Sunday afternoon! But we managed and are so happy we made the quick trip to see our family, especially Robyn and Joe!

It was bittersweet though!

Here are just a few pictures, but more can be see at: http://gallery.me.com/bigredbox#101339&bgcolor=black&view=grid

Thanks to all the Aunts for putting on a wonderful shower! Thanks Aunt Chris & Cousin Meaghan for the Rubber Ducky creativity!!!

Our Lady of Fatima!

Our Lady of Fatima has played a special role in our marriage thus far.  It was in May this past year that Nathan was praying to Our Lady of Fatima and encountered the pilgrimage statue of her in a Church in Denver.  He prayed for our move to New Jersey (at the time) and that I would be able to find a job.  Within in a week of encountering the statue, I was in a conversation with Regina Angelorum Academy outside of Philadelphia about an opening.  Before you knew it, we were moving to Philadelphia and I was teaching 3rd grade.  What a great Mother we have in Our Lady!  We are looking forward to see what other blessing we will receive through her motherly patronage.   

For more information on our Lady of Fatima visit this website.

THE Jersey Shore

So everyone here in Philadelphia talks about THE SHORE. Yes we quickly came to know where they were speaking, but we did not experience it until May! (Well, let me take that back, Nathan got to see it for a FOCUS retreat, but not as a leisurely trip). 

One of the families I teach for, generously offered us their shore condo over Mother's Day weekend! We also invited the Conrads along. It turned out to be a beautiful weekend. We had a great time exploring Wildwood, NJ a shore side town, and we were just 10 minutes from the infamous Cape May. It was beautiful, like I said. The weekend alloted for leisure by the ocean and a place to get away from the city for the weekend!

Though the sun sets in the west, and we were positioned on a beach in the east, we got to see a gorgeous sunset, from Sunset Beach. (Unfortunately, it wasn't a totally cloud free day, but it was still beautiful).

 Chris, Sasha, and Katherine :)

 The Boardwalk, my student's favorite place. It's like a mile long carnival with many amusement parks too.

P.S. Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there, especially ours!!!

We love you Moms!