Jay has taken over the reins for another week, here is the current edition of the Catholic Carnival located at Living Catholocism. Head on over and take a look.

Under the Mercy,
Matthew S

WWJD? Ummmm, maybe not! ! !

One of the worst fads to come out of Christianity is the marketing of a simple question that people now ask to figure out what they should do when faced with a challenge of how they are to act. WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? Honestly, while the answer may be interesting, insightful or maybe even beneficial I know it's the wrong question to ask.

First, let's take a look at what the answers to the question could be:

1. Forgiving sins of others (pretty sure this is reserved to God)
2. Feeding the Poor (yes, this is a good one)
3. Loving our neighbor (again, just an awesome thing to do)
4. Dividing households
5. Setting the earth ablaze
6. Throwing tables over and driving people out of the room with a whip

The main problem that I have with the question, WWJD, is that we are not Jesus, we are not God and we should not have the attitude that we should act as God acts. A better question would be "Jesus, What do You Want Me to Do?" Yeah, I understand that it isn't as fashionable, catchy and probably wouldn't make lots of money if you tried to market it. Marketing and money aren't what life is all about.

I do believe we should imitate Christ in His humanity and humble ourself to the will of the Father, no to be like him but because He asked us to take up our cross and follow Him. As the Lord's prayer, where Jesus taught us to pray, Thy will be done, not My will be done.

The biggest reason we must submit to God and His will is that we are not able to read hearts. We should do what Christ wants of us and not what we think Christ would do.

Let Go
Let God

Under the Mercy,

Matthew S

Someone Turned 1

SighMy youngest (for now) daughter turned 1 today (November 24, 2007). You can read my version (that's right, a guy's point of view) of the birth story. Here are pictures from the past 21 months (beginning of pregnancy on).

Happy birthday baby girl, Daddy loves you!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Let us give thanks.




Under the Mercy,
Matthew S

Rubrics for Toddlers: Section 1 Introductory Rites

Selections from a document I found hidden in a diaper bag at Church. . . . .


49. When they reach the sanctuary, the priest, the deacon, and the ministers reverence the altar with a profound bow.

The Toddler should bow and crawl under the pew immediately in front of them to determine if any food was left at the prior Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.


51. Then the priest invites those present to take part in the Act of Penitence, which, after a brief pause for silence, the entire community carries out through a formula of general confession. The rite concludes with the priest's absolution, which, however, lacks the efficacy of the Sacrament of Penance.

As a sign of true sorrow for having been caught under the pew eating stale dry cereal the Toddler should now throw himself or herself on the floor, kicking, wailing and gnashing teeth.

The Collect

54. Next the priest invites the people to pray. All, together with the priest, observe a brief silence so that they may be conscious of the fact that they are in God's presence and may formulate their petitions mentally. . . . . . .

Lest the joy and beauty of a Toddler be forgotten let your voice be raised to the heavens in a song unrelated. This helps direct the intention of the congregation in prayer to pray for the Toddler directly.
. . . . . . . .

The people, uniting themselves to this entreaty, make the prayer their own with the acclamation Amen.

The Toddler should wait until all others have said Amen and then exclaim rather loudly, Amen!



There is always only one collect used in a Mass.

The use of one collect at Mass does not preclude Amen from being recited multiple times, loudly, by the Toddler


Under the Mercy,

Matthew S

Odd searches

Every now and then (okay, almost daily) I look through a list of refering pages to my blog. I have had 3-4 people, 2 of them today, that have come across my blog by searching for some derivative of the phrase "how many pounds of green beans per person".

I love Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there, I hope you can be with your family or call your family. If you cannot, say a prayer for them. Say a prayer for those who cannot be with their family and say a prayer for those that will be protecting and serving tommorow.

I will be with my parents for lunch and then working.

God bless all of you.

Under the Mercy,

Matthew S

It's movie night

When we watch movies (DVD's on the computer or hauling the 19 inch television out of a storage closet in the storage room and hooking everything up on a table) its an event becuase it is rare. Needless to say, everyone in the house shows up.

I did say everyone showed up, well for the family movie they did. Now, my beautiful wife and I are going to watch the second movie after I set the horse out to pasture.


Reviews to come and I hope its obvious who watched what movies.

Under the Mercy,
Matthew S

A horse is a horse?

IMG_4064
Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/mattsauer/

Recently, I have been spotting a horse around the house in a variety of situations. I have been starting to stalk the horse and have been able to capture some interesting pictures and I am going to start sharing them as an irregular feature on my blog, all in the name of fun and oddity.

Under the Mercy,
Matthew S

Fr. Francis Mary and EWTN

My comments from this post at Roman Catholic by Choice. Roman Catholic by Choice is a fine blog that I regularly see and read the posts from as they scroll across the feed reader.

My comments in the combox:

“As a result, I am compelled to take some time off to prayerfully and honestly discern my future.”

I don’t know where everyone is jumping the gun saying he is on a leave of absence from the priesthood. From what I can recall reading he is taking time off from EWTN. “prayerfully and honestly discern my future”

I don’t see anything in that stating he is considering leaving the priesthood. He never said he was reconsidering his vocation to the priesthood…it is possible that he is locking himself up in the desert in Arizona with a couple other brothers serving some cloistered sisters and deciding if his vocation is going to include public ministry.

The point is that no one who has made these comments knows the truth. This is something I have been meaning to blog about for quite a long time and I may just end up putting this comment with a link back over on my blog.

Under the Mercy,
Matthew S.

I would like to add that you can find the full text of the letter here and I would agree with the contention of that author that Fr. Francis could use our prayers. He did always and will always have a need for prayer.

With that said, it is best that I deal with it away from EWTN.

Therefore, I have asked for and graciously been granted some extended time
to prayerfully discern my vocation.

These two things show me that he is taking time to look at his future, you can infer that he is considering moving in with a widow and having a family if you would like...that is what society would like you to believe, (actually its Satan that wants you to believe that and would love that to be true) but all its says is that he is taking care of this outside of the public spotlight and he is trying to gain clairty of where his future is (around EWTN or away from it, in the monastery or away from it). Time will tell.

Under the Mercy,
Matthew S

What does it take to homeschool?

When I began home schooling I never sat down and figured out what it would take for my wife and I to school our children at home. Basically, we hold onto several decisions that are normally made by committees, school boards, principals and teachers. We hold onto questions of class structure, content, teaching style, lesson plans and curriculum. As parents teaching in the home we not only maintain the role of parent but also keep that of administrator, teacher, janitor and lunch lady.

I never really considered this a few years ago when I consented to letting my wife to “try” teaching our kids at home. Now, I wouldn’t give away these roles. Our children gain several benefits from us not delegating these roles away. We are able to seek outside help in our state and have consultants that we pay for out of our own pocket, that help us make decisions of curriculum but my wife and I (mainly my wife) make the final decision.

The biggest benefit that I can work with is I can tailor my curriculum at the beginning of the year to the level my child is at right now. They can be halfway through second grade on one subject, at the beginning of third grade in another subject, and even further on in another subject. The decision on what is taught to my child is based on what she knows and what she has mastered. This is a huge benefit for my child over institutional school where decisions are made on some imaginary standard of a student that is used to develop grade levels.


As the school year progresses we are able to adjust our schedule and path for each subject as the year moves forward and meet my child’s needs. The benefit is that we are able to present the lesson to our child and our child alone. I only have to meet one mind in its needs and its understanding.

The role of administrator really is the role of parent. We have to make decisions about how much outside playtime, inside playtime, computer time and field trips. The great thing is that we don’t have to participate in parent-teacher conferences and teacher-administrator meetings. We are able to combine all of these roles together into the parents.

The role of janitor is one of my favorite roles because it really takes very little additional time to fill when you are teaching your children at home. If you think about it the additional mess that a child in school makes is really small in the grand scheme of a toddler and their ability to help is present (in varying degrees and depending on their attitude).

The role of Lunch Lady, especially for me as a father, can be lots of fun as well. Currently, I am working second shift and I get up in the morning and make breakfast for my children and then we have lunch together before I go to work. We don’t have to rush around in the morning trying to get anyone out the door unless we have something we have scheduled or planned.

Another favorite activity we have undertaken this year is going on nature walks. Every week we are going outside and just experiencing nature and what is going on with the seasons. I am thinking of adding geocaching to the experience of the outdoors as it could be a fun game for the kids to grow into, problem solving and some basic orienteering skills could easily be learned.

Anyway, I am beginning to digress from my point. What does it take to home school? It takes decisions about lifestyle and roles that you are going to undertake. My wife is a Stay At Home Mother (SAHM) and that is one of the things that makes homeschooling a possibility. We also make choices about what is important to have in the house like cable, newspapers, cellphones and how much you eat out.

One of the big things I work to maintain my attitude on is the question of what do I do when I am not at work. When you are a parent you are “on the clock” and working from the time you wake up until you go to sleep at the end of the night. From the time you go to sleep until you wake up you are merely on call. As the parent that works outside of the home I consider that I have one job outside the home and many inside the home but I don’t ever truly have “off-time”. My wife who stays at home has time on the clock and runs longer than a full-time job. However, I do work to give her time away from the home and time to herself since she doesn’t have the “break” of getting out of the house as regularly as I do.

So, to return to the question, what does it take to home school? It is a choice that a parent makes, it is a commitment. It isn’t for everyone but it is an option that should be preserved, promoted and defended.

Under the Mercy,

Matthew S.