Two Weeks Old
Jemma’s kids are two weeks old. It is a glorious and short season each spring when you can look out the kitchen window and see babies bouncing around the newly green pasture. Makes all the worry and anguish of the actual kidding process worthwhile.
Easy Egg Pudding
This is a genius way to sneak in more protein with little fuss. So little fuss I do not use a recipe.
Add hard boiled eggs to the blender. Add a pinch of salt and enough milk/cream to desired consistency. Sweeten to taste.
Ite ad Joseph
“In human life, Joseph was Jesus’ teacher in their daily contact, full of refined affection, glad to deny himself to take better care of Jesus. Isn’t that reason enough for us to consider this just man, this holy patriarch, in whom the faith of the Old Covenant comes to full fruition, as a master of interior life? Interior life is nothing but continual and direct conversation with Christ, so as to become one with him. And Joseph can tell us many things about Jesus. Therefore, never neglect devotion to him—Ite ad Joseph: “Go to Joseph”—as Christian tradition puts it in the words of the Old Testament (Gen 41:55)”
Bl Fulton Sheen
February Reads
Some quick thoughts on this month’s books.
The Little Catechism is written by the author of the wonderful Divine Intimacy. It is a short read but it proved to be challenging and a little divisive among my local readers. It is a Carmelite methodology and the focus is how to cultivate a deep contemplative interior prayer life, focused on the love of God.
The book introduces the concept of colloquy with Our Lord. Not quite an intellectual exercise though there is thinking. Not an academic exercise, though reading is often involved. Not always vocal though some vocal prayer can be foundational. However: “If we were the only ones to speak, ours would not be a colloquy. whereas St Teresa has taught that God does speak when we pray from our heart.” So it is vital that we quiet ourselves and not monopolize the conversation.
The Promise was a Well Read Mom title. It was a very different sort of novel for me, introducing a culture I was unfamiliar with and stirred up all sorts of thoughts about different types of parents and parenting, education, and a slice of history that I have not explored. The pacing was (deliberately?) slow.
I had questions at the end and when I realized there was a sequel I grabbed that too. It meets our main characters a few years down the road as the boys are in grad school and establishing themselves in their careers and relationships. There is a whole – also long and slow going – secondary plot about psychology and methodology. As with the first book I have a lot of feelings about the material explored. I don’t regret either read.
In between there was Emma. Naturally.
Henbit
The first harvest of the year is one I didn’t even plant. Not long ago the purple blossoms began to pop up and soon spread all over the empty garden beds, pathways, and across the lawn. My gardening group said it was henbit, a first food for pollinators. We were told it would give the bees a head start and eventually wither back, so I left it alone and enjoyed the view. Then my herbalism and foraging group mentioned “getting the henbit in” and I was intrigued.
Henbit is in the nettle family and a source of vitamins C, A, E, and K. It is a natural anti-inflammatory and anti-rheumatic, used internally and externally. It’s been used for fevers and women’s health and anxiety disorders. Also – it’s free and everywhere I look in early spring.
I brought in two full canner pots this morning and have not made a dent in the crop – which is advised so it will repopulate next year. I rinsed and pat dried and they are air drying in the sunroom now. I hope to get a bit more in before they are finished.
How often what we discount as nuisance at best or outright discouraging is actually full of potential. A gift in disguise.
The Catholic Mother – March 2026
The Catholic Mother February 2026
For several years now I have compiled a monthly newsletter for our local Confraternity of Christian Mothers. It is a collection of vintage Catholic wisdom alongside links to books, video, and hands on activities to celebrate the liturgical year. Attached is the current month’s newsletter. God bless you.
Math literacy – easy does it
Pressure-free math chats during play:
“If the friends each bring two acorns to the party how many are there?”
“If a friend has six acorns and gives one to a buddy how many are left?”
“If the friends split their acorns fairly how many will they each get?”
“This friend worked so hard to pick all these acorns. How many did he collect?”
No work was ever done in the shade…
St John Bosco has long been my model for true Christian education. Gentle, empathetic, wise. I've read much about his work with boys, and even material about his mother who worked along with him. Somehow yesterday was the first I heard of St Mary Mazzerello, whom he was to train to do for girls the work he was doing among the boys. I found this wonderful story (there is also a booklet available) called Gold Without Alloy: A Brief Account of the Life of St. Mary Mazzarello by Paul Aronica, SDB online here.
"A hot Italian sun beat mercilessly on the handful of workers in the rocky field. Mopping the sweat off their well-tanned faces, they labored on, their hands burrowing into the soil, skillfully setting the delicate vines in place and tying them tenderly with wisps of straw onto thin sticks. But it was so hot in the glaring sun! Gradually, one by one, they began edging away toward the shade, till a single girl remained in the field, her sturdy, young body bent firmly over her task, her swift fingers deftly caressing the vines and sealing them into place. Now and then, as a lock of her black hair fell across her eyes, a quick movement of the hand pushed it back into place under a white kerchief – and then immediately back to work! "Mary," called a friend, "come on in out of the hot sun. It's much more comfortable here!"
Mary looked up. "But no work was ever done in the shade!" she laughed. "Since when have you all become afraid of the sun?"
"We're not afraid. We just prefer to wait till it sets lower in the sky!" retorted a young man.
"Cowards!" the girl in the field chided. "The sun is God's gift to us! You'll never have any wine this winter if you hide in the shade!"
A peasant woman laughed heartily. "Some girl, that Mary Mazzarello! She can beat anyone of us in the field, and that goes for the men too! No use calling her. She'll stay there till her line is done and then go on to ours!"
"Mary," teased a young fellow resting under a tree, "did you hear that? Is it true you can beat us working on the farm?"
"On the farm and anywhere!" came the decided answer.
"She's right," interrupted a young woman. "You've never done a day's work equal to hers."
"No use teasing her, lad," broke in Mr. Mazzarello, going out to join his daughter in the field. "Ever since she was just a tiny thing of a girl, she has never given in to anybody. Her mother and I know too well!"
But as Mary bent back to her work and the perspiration trickled freely down her cheeks, her thoughts were far from boasting, even far from the friends that called out to her from the shade. Her eyes were fixed on the tiny vines that seemed to look to her hands for assistance in their first moment of life. Those hands, roughened and cut by pebbles and briars, were meant to be helpful hands, to labor for others – hands of tender mercy to comfort and heal, to lift and strengthen. She was eighteen now, and, though most girls at eighteen think only of love and marriage and a warm hearth and children nestling in their arms, such thoughts seemed alien to her mind. Much as she loved her people, their priceless heritage of Faith and simplicity, much as she admired the sincere and well-intentioned approaches of the young men of Mornese whom her mother made her find every opportunity to meet, she could not think of herself as a housewife. She felt there was another call for her, other tasks than a housewife's reserved for her. What it might be, who could tell?
Father Pestarino, the pastor of Mornese, who had guided her in her spiritual life ever since her First Communion, would tell her in good time when prayer and meditation had revealed God's will to him. Till then, she would labor, as peasant among her people, yet not entirely one of them…"
read the rest here
More about St Mary:
Fragility in the life of St Mary Mazzarello
The Salesian Sisters have produced a film with English dubbing.
Starry Sky Journal 