Catholic Memoirs

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us & all the whole world.

I’m trying hard to remember that in anything I do, no matter how hard it is, I must choose love. When I make the mistake of giving into anger or otherwise, I must remember to forgive myself.

Took the baby on a long 1.5 hour walk to get him to nap. We stopped by my childhood church & spent time with Mary. 🌹

‘The Church’s Year of Grace’

The more I research about Liturgical Living, the more I’m humbled and wide-eyed at the vast amounts of knowledge, symbolism and tradition we have in the Catholic Church.

I happened upon a simple, but beautiful book cover while I was browsing Amazon for liturgical year books. Written by a priest, Pius Parsch, he wrote a 5-volume series in the 1950s detailing the Church’s year.

Unfortunately, the book is out of print. I did happen to find a digital copy of it on Archive.com, which we can check out the book for an hour at a time.

Below is the book’s excerpt for today:

A few of the other volumes can be following this search result for Pius Parsch, 1884-1956.

Ash Wednesday 2022

I hadn’t gone to mass since Ash Wednesday 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. My husband felt it was safe enough for me to attend for Ash Wednesday mass, so I packed up all the things I wanted to bless.

I was excited to find a parish in the next city that was a 13 minute drive from me that offered Tridentine Latin Mass daily at 12pm for Low Mass and 5pm for Sunday Mass. They had also been the only parish to contact me back about scheduling an appointment for confession on such short notice.

I arrived and was just so happy to be back at church and so happy to be able to put on my veil in the sanctuary of concecrated ground once more.

No Holy Water was being offered and the pews are filling up quickly, so I took a spot where I could socially distance as best I could and knelth down to pray. I should have noticed that there weren’t so many cards set up on the altar for a TLM and eventually the procession started for a Novus Ordo mass.

I was a little bummed that it wasn’t TLM, especially since I was told that noon mass was TLM. Maybe they didn’t have their TLM priest available? I didn’t get a chance to ask and I felt kind of like I was bothering the priest since I had to wait until after mass to get my stack of things blessed. I should have asked, especially since I don’t know if I will have another chance to visit again.

As a new mom who works full-time with a toddler who naps around noon, it’s really hard for me to make time to go out to mass. Let alone going to mass with my baby, the carseat we have is in the car I can’t drive (it’s manual). Also, my husband isn’t keen on taking a toddler to church. He’s afraid of the toddler throwing a tantrum and not being able to be quiet and still for an hour of mass. I understand, but I feel it’s possible, but I do want to honor my husband’s wishes, especially since he’s not yet Catholic and I don’t want to dump him into the deep end with all my wishes for practicing Catholicism as a family.

I need a lot of prayers and patience to get through this. I also needed a lot of grace with my disappoinment of not being able to celebrate Latin Mass when the parish secretary said they would have it. I’m also feeling a bit conflicted with choosing a parish based on the priests. There are some good priests who make you feel so welcome and important in the church and unfortunately other times, there are priests who give off the impression that you’re a burden to them. My husband and I are struggling to find a parish we can call home, but I so wish to like this parish with the Latin Mass.