​I loved teaching kindergarten catechism. It forced me to look at my faith differently and from the perspective a child. And if I was honest with myself, it makes me a better Catholic.
Every November my parish hosts an “All Saints” presentation. The class’ saint was St. George. They loved the idea of a dragon and when I pointed out that we couldn’t use real fire, they loved it even more. As one of my kids put it, “We can all wear orange.”
Trying to organize a group of ten kindergarteners is like herding cats diagnosed with ADHD pumped up on a double shot of expresso with a side of Milky Way candy bars. In short, my best friend and I were a bit frazzled. And my playwriting skills, never great to begin with, suffered tremendously. I was just happy to have the dragon die at the end.
It took several minutes of intense concentration to color the dragon. At one point, a fight between our St. George and our irate princess broke out. It seemed that our dragon had to be a multi-colored one since St. George had left the red marker uncapped and it dried out. Princess went for George’s throat and I was able to pry the fingers before George was martyred for the cause at the early age of five. Our dragon was a mish-mash of colors, glitter and ribbon. It was a refugee from a drunken Mardi Gras float but the kids adored it.
The Sunday dawned bright as if to mock my low expectations. Our George arrived with no neck bruises and our princess had an ornate crown fit for the British monarchy. Our dragon brigade was decked out in florescent orange shirts and it was time to break a leg.
Here is the gist of the play:
Me: Our saint is St. George (who waves his cardboard sword like a demented windmill and almost takes my head off) who fought a dragon (Dragon Brigade holds up glittery dragon and roars) to rescue a princess (who did her best imitation of Queen Elizabeth’s wave).
George (sword waving again too close at my ear) was riding his horse when he came upon a dragon (seven children dressed at highlighters roar at different pitches) to save the princess (she waves a bit less enthusiastically). George (again with the sword play) slays the dragon (they overdid the roaring since the dragon was dead). He kills (I emphasis kill since some of the dragon is still standing and it is, after all, supposed to be dead) the dragon (the rest of the brigade falls down and assumes wonky rigor mortis positions) And rescued the princess.
The audience erupted into applause and the children all bow like the serious thespians they were. I did send a prayer to St. George for watching our frenzied adaptation of his life and saving my head.

As most parents know, carrying a two year old and a four year old to Mass is a…shall we say…an adventure.

My daughter, Regan, was two years old when she discovered Beanie Babies and dolls. To my everlasting dismay, she latched onto the goat Beanie Baby and a dollar store Barbie knockoff. Totally ignoring the goat’s given name of Goatee (a perfectly acceptable moniker), she called it “Horny” because she pointed out the animal did have horns. And she called it loudly to anyone who asked. The Barbie was not much better and I admit, this was my fault. You see, this doll had the peculiar talent of losing body parts and her clothes. I found her arm in Regan’s lunch sandwich as if it was waving during a beauty pageant. One day, it lost its head—literally. We never found it but Regan refused to part with it. So I called it Anne Boleyn after Henry VIII’s second wife. Regan heard it and the doll, like a Hollywood celebrity, changed its’ name from Barbie Knockoff to Anne Boleyn.

I write all this as a backstory because a good humiliating story about Christy’s life needs a bit of history.
Picture this: During Mass, officiated by a visiting priest, one Sunday morning, my then four year old son, Wesley, and Regan started bickering. And it was not a quiet argument. The crux of the battle was whether or not Regan pulled off Anne Boleyn’s clothes and hid them in the missalette. Anne was always an free thinker. Fortunately, I was able to distract them with a bag of fossilized Cheerios found in my purse.

​After Mass, I again made the mortifying decision to go out the front doors carrying a sleeping four year old boy and towing an overly animated two year old girl who refused to take her usual nap during the homily. Regan made a beeline to the priest. Below is the gist of the story:

Visiting Priest (VP): Oh hello! My, aren’t you a sweet one. (He bends over to smile at Regan)

Regan: Look! (She holds up her goat and naked Anne Boleyn) This is Horny the Goat (she waves the goat in the priest’s face) And this is Anne Boleyn. (In the other hand was the attired challenged doll).

VP (kudos to him because his smile only faltered a second): Okay. Well thanks for coming to Mass. (He seems eager to get rid of us because he realized the Breedloves were the real life Addams Family)

Regan (who is not to be deterred from giving a detailed account of her toys’ lives) Tell Anne Boleyn and Horny the Goat bye. They are best friends!

I am not sure but I think the visiting priest went into cardiac arrest and possibly made the decision to become a cloistered monk to get away from my children.

​PS We never did find Anne Boleyn's clothes.

Catholic Warning: Children are actually sent from outer space to test the limits of patience.

​I have extremely...uhm...lucky...to have taught kindergarten catechism for a few years. For those who have never tried teaching complex Catholic dogma to a group of 15 five year old children, I will, in my own limited way, describe what insanity follows.

Regan, Regan, Regan. My curious, beautiful, stubborn daughter was once in my Sunday School class. For the past six weeks, she very covertly influenced her fifteen classmates.

Week 1: Regan announces that Jesus should be a fisher of both girl and boy trout.

Week 2: God does not like peanut butter treats, but rather chocolate.

Week 3: Jesus should have included cookies when he fed 5000 people fish and bread.

Week 4: Poor Jesus, no one brought him a video game console in Bethlehem.

Week 5: The cry room is a perfect spot to hide from your mommy and daddy.
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And the grand finale: Week 6: Regan recites her version of the Lord's Prayer.

"Our Farter, whose art's in heaven, halloween be my name, my kingdom come, my will be done, on earth and everywhere else, give me your daily Fred, and forget us our treasures, as we forget others who treasure against us. And lead us not into the basement but liver us from MMs."
By the time she finished, her fifteen little followers who cannot remember my name after six weeks, were chanting "Our Farter" loudly.
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• Great, I'm teaching kids that God has gas.
• God's hobby is painting landscapes.
• Halloween is another name for God.
• And you should not go into the basement of houses.
• Fred apparently has been sold into slavery every day.
• Everyone should bow to Regan's will.
• Lastly and perhaps the biggest cut of all, MM’s will be made out of liver.

What can I say? She’s a leader.

Blessed James Duckett is the patron saint of booksellers. He was one of those English martyrs from the time of the violent Protestant persecution of Catholics during the Elizabethan era. He was betrayed by a fellow bookseller for (GASP!) printing the Catholic Bible.

I chose Jim this week because like him, I work with books. Granted, I probably won’t be executed for checking out “Animal Farm” or “Twilight”—well maybe “Twilight” but certainly not “Animal Farm”. But he used his talents to live his faith.

One of my very few talents is imagination. I have a way seeing the world unlike normal people and luckily, I can parlay that imagination into the written word. But unlike James Duckett, I don’t always use my talent to further the Catholic faith. I use it to be snarky. Case in point: Telemarketers

At our house, we get a lot of telemarketers calling. We’ve registered with the federal “do not call” registry but yet we still get them several times a day. In my passive aggressive way, I take revenge. Here is a sample call:

​TM: Our company is offering to clean your HVAC system
Me: My husband is a HVAC guy (not really but honestly, I don't know exactly what my husband does all day. As long as it's legal, I'm good)
TM: We also replace windows.
Me: I don't use Apple products
TM: No--house windows
Me: My nephew is a glazier (which is true)
TM: Septic?
Me: Sewer (lie)
TM: Clogged pipes
Me: I take fiber everyday so my pipes are clear (true)
TM: Vacuum repair?
Me: Hardwood floors. (sort of a lie)
TM: Are your gutters dirty?
Me: No, I send my kids to the roof and take the ladder away until the gutters are cleaned. Look, I admire your persistence, but I can do this all day.
TM: &$#$% (rhymes with witch)
Me: We have cats.
So instead of sparring with telemarketers, I should visualize how I can help further the Glory of God instead of playing with people who are trying to make an honest (some of them) living.

Bl. Anthony Neyrot was a Dominican religious in the 15th century. He started off his adult life rather uneventful. He got wanderlust and moved around looking for the next adventure. Later he was captured by a Muslim ruler and even, for a time, disavowed Catholicism and married a Turkish lady. He started to translate the Koran (into what I’m not sure) but when he found out a Dominican friend died, he came back to the Church. Apparently, the Muslim community did not approve and stoned him to death on April 10, 1460. Anthony’s travels and unrest during his life mirrors many individuals today.

I started off in southeast Texas and moved to Georgia to finish college. I met a Georgia boy and got married in 1997. It’s been said that there are five things that test a marriage—death, moving, loss of job, illness, and children. Let’s do a quick tally of the first few years of our marriage, shall we?

1. Death: In 1997, we lost my father (cancer), my husband’s sister (auto accident) and my husband’s grandmother (stroke).

2. Moving: Hubby got transferred to the Midwest right after buying our first home.

3. Loss of Job: I had to quit my job because commuting daily from Kansas City to Athens, GA was not viable.

4. Illness: When my son was born via emergency c-section, the OB-Gyn found ovarian cancer. My husband had a major heart attack while I was seven pregnant with my daughter.

5. Children: I’ve been pregnant three times. The first resulted in a miscarriage.
Suffice to say, there are times that it’s been rough. But I’ve always managed to go to church and find solace in my faith.

Except the time my husband was laid off in 2008 from a company he had been with for 15 years. Then soon after my father-in-law, Pop Pop, died from lung cancer. I was very bitter and my faith in God lapsed. What was God trying to teach me by laying off my husband and our only source of income? Why let a good man like Pop Pop suffer?

When I went to the hospice chapel, I opened the Bible to 2 Timothy 4:7. “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith…” God, in His own Way, was telling me to trust Him and myself. And insecure Christy was waffling. I imagine that was a verse Anthony and Pop Pop knew and practiced to the very end. And when I accepted it, the blessings started flowing and my faith was rejuvenated.

April 1st is Blessed Ludovico Pavoni’s feast day. He was an 18th century religious who successfully devoted his life to education and children which is remarkable because during his lifetime, there was so much social upheaval and poverty.

We look at his life and really (and sadly) what has changed in the world since the 18th century? Social upheaval? Check. Education under fire? Check. Poverty? Another check. And that’s just from coming to work at the middle school where I work.

My morning duty is dress code. Another staff person—Ms. K and I are charged with judging whether or not a student has violated dress code. Usually it’s very easy. I see your underwear and tell you to pull up your baggy pants. If you have holes the size of the Grand Canyon in your jeans, change them. And my personal favorite--some young lady got dress code for wearing thigh high black fish net hose with cats embroidered on them

One cold day, a student approached Ms. K and I about the tank top she was wearing. Clearly this was a dress code violation and I went through the motions of entering name and grade into a database just like I do for every violation. Then Ms. K woke me up from my apathetic stupor.

“Don’t you have a coat?” She asked the student. The student shook her head no and Ms. K immediately went and found her a coat. Immediate problem solved as well as long term problem for winter.

​Why on earth did I not notice this? I know the answer and quite frankly, I don’t like it. I’ve moved from caring about the kids at the school to collecting a paycheck (and it’s not a big one by any means). I have lost sight of why I work where I do. Romans 15:2 states “Each of us must consider his neighbor's good, so that we support one another.” So thank you, Ms. K, for reminding me to care and not judge.

Blessed Pierina Morosini was an Italian seamstress who worked in a textile factory to support her nine siblings. At age 26 in 1957, a deranged man attempted to sexually assault her. When she fought back, he killed her by pelting her with heavy rocks. Her feast day is April 6
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The only time Pierina left her village was to attend the beautification ceremony of St. Maria Goretti. By all accounts, Pierina was a loving woman who lived her faith and lived to spread our faith. She joyfully went to work to earn a pittance of wages and then went back again and again.

It blows me away that I can be jealous of a woman who rarely left her hometown and cheerfully lived in poverty to better the lives of her brothers and sisters. I give often to charity. My school’s Relay for Life event is happening in a month and I am getting items for our team’s raffle. I managed to donate a new bread machine, a new sound system and other items. Before you canonize me, you should know that I give from my excess—and I have a lot of excess in my plus size jeans. In other words, I don’t give from wear it hurts.

When Pope Francis spoke about helping the poor, I knew God was speaking through him straight to me. I immediately remembered a well-known verse from the Gospel of Mark where Jesus commented on two people’s approach to giving.“A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then He called his disciples and said to them, 'In truth I tell you, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.’”

​And maybe that’s what I’m doing wrong. I’m not a cheerful giver. I resent the heck out of sometimes. It galls me to know that my donation to a local charity may go to buy meth for a drug addict. I have yet to learn how to trust God and let go. If I can maybe one day I can live up to Pierina’s example.

St. Nicholas Owen was one of the English gang who were martyred for having the temerity of being Catholic during the whole “are we Catholic or are we Anglican” phase in England. St. Nicholas was a carpenter and used his talents to build priest hiding holes and to help prisoners escape the Tower of London. He used a variety of aliases but that all stopped when he gave himself up to create a diversion for a priest to scoot out.

In fact, Robert Cecil, the Secretary of State, almost peed in his fancy English breeches when they caught Nicholas. Apparently, Nicholas was quite infamous for building Elizabethan Where’s Father Waldo concealments.

What impressed me most about Nicholas was that he willingly surrendered. Here was a guy who spent his life shying away from the public light and even aided others to hide. He must have known the penalty for being Catholic in those turbulent times. I know there was no Facebook but surely he knew of the Iron Maiden (the device, not the band) or even the rack.

That is the true definition of courage—doing the right thing even if you’re frightened. And that goes hand in hand with love. Nicholas had a great love for his fellow Catholics. He exemplified 1 Corinthians 13:13 “as it is, these remain: faith, hope and love, the three of them; and the greatest of them is love.”

I work in a media center in a typical American middle school. When I think I see it all, God throws me for a loop. One 7thgrader came in and asked me for books on maps, specifically a map of Laos or Thailand. You see, there was a Hmong student who didn’t have many friends. The map seeker wanted to change that so he asked about the Hmong culture.

I just wanted to hug this student. Here was 12 year old young man looking to put another at ease and at the same time, put himself out there to be ridiculed for befriending an outcast in the classroom. Any child knows about bullying. Either you’ve been bullied, know someone who has been bullied or you’ve been a bully. I’m sure there is a 7th grade Robert Cecil in Levis and Reeboks ready to ridicule this boy and the Hmong student. Yet, the map seeker knows this and showed bravery most adults don’t have.
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I am ashamed to say that I don’t have that courage and maybe God is trying to teach me that brave is not only a noun but a verb too.

St. Julian of Antioch was very heroic. On his feast day of 3/16, we honor his martyrdom. He was trying his best to convert the Turkish population when in 306, the authorities decided to execute him. Now being a Christian of ‘senatorial rank’, a regular execution was out of the question. They threw poor Julian into a bag with venomous snakes and scorpions and then threw him into the sea. As you might have guessed, Julian died a horrible death.

When I think about all the stupid junk that happens to me, I have to remind myself that I really don’t have it all that bad. One thing that bugs me is my garage door opener is broken--first world problem for a first class ungrateful, whiny me. Oh but I can go on. My children are eating me out of house and home. My 14 year old son, Wesley, can literally eat a large box of Lucky Charms in one sitting. My daughter, Regan, runs cross country and needs new shoes every month. Zack, our 12 year old dog, has to be brushed every day and it falls to me to do it. My husband has to work late sometimes which means I have do all the dishes.

To put it in perspective, Julian was probably beaten before being trapped into a bag with angry reptiles and arachnids. He was not having a good day to say the least. But all he did was for the glory of God. Try as I might, I can’t relate my minuscule problems to his. The broken garage door opener is only a testament to my laziness.
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Julian, saint as he is, united his suffering with Jesus’. He gave his life, pain and his heart to God. He lived Paul the Apostle’s letter to the Colossians. "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of the body, that is the church . . . " (Col 1:24). It is a Lenten goal for me to quit whining, rolling my eyes and fussing about how I have to go to the store again to buy food. At least, I have the funds, the ability and the means to go to the store. Julian didn’t have anything but he managed to die a richer man than most of us today.

Blessed Villana de’Botti was born in 1332. At first, she was very devout but then it happened—boys. She became quite the party animal. When she married, she threw parties the likes of which are still talked about—think the toga party from Animal House. One day, she looked in the mirror and didn’t like what she saw. Instead of a Renaissance Victoria Secret’s model, she saw a hideous demon. Switching mirrors didn’t help. After that, Villana gave herself totally to God. When she died, people lined up to get relics from the saint on Earth. We honor Villana on February 28th.

I’m not one prone to selfies or even looking in the mirror. I figure if my Secret deodorant is working and my hair is not a grease pit, I’m fine. I’ve been known to pick up my children from school wearing a “Life is Good” tee peppered with bleach spots and torn jeans. But my reticence is not from humility. It’s from a disgust of my deflated balloon belly and frizzy hair. I just don’t like what I look like. But instead of changing myself like Villana did, I whine and mope. It’s a wonder my wonderful husband has not initiated couple’s counseling or even a weekend business trip to get away from my moodiness.

​Villana saw her soul in the mirror. She refocused her love back to God instead of self. I see superficial things—my hair is graying and looks like a bad wig. My nose is too big and I’d kill for my son’s long eyelashes. I need to look my whole self like a gift. My children, for the most part, are a gift from God. If my belly is deflated, it means I had the honor of carrying children and bringing into the world new life. So my hair is gray and my nose is the size of a kumquat! It shows I have great genes! So come on, Christy, look inside yourself. Remember 1 Samuel 16:7 (but Yahweh said to Samuel, 'Take no notice of his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him; God does not see as human beings see; they look at appearances but Yahweh looks at the heart.') Just bypass those skimpy eyelashes and myopic blue eyes and look what God looks at—your soul and your capacity to love others