Something one of our priests said in his homily a couple of weeks ago got me thinking about a way I could exercise my spiritual duties as father and husband. Father told an anecdote in his homily about a friend of his who set his cell phone to beep on the hour every day to remind him to pray for his wife and kids, wherever he happened to be.
I like that idea. I would like to be able to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day, marking each of the hours of the day with readings and prayers, like religious and priests do. Unfortunately, there just isn’t the time for it. I’m often in meetings or deep in a project and by the time the end of the day rolls around I can’t believe 8 hours has passed.
But this I could do.
So I set up a series of reminders using my favorite to-do web service at RememberTheMilk.com that are timed for each hour. Starting at 9am, RTM sends a notification through their iPhone app to my phone to pray for Melanie. I stop for a moment, say a quick prayer for her needs and intentions and that I would be the husband she needs me to be. Again, at 10, I pray for Isabella, her needs and intentions, and that Melanie and I would be the parents she needs us to be. Then at 11 for Sophia, 1pm for Ben (noon being too distracting with going to lunch), and 2pm for our unborn baby.
Occasionally, I’m talking to someone, or on the phone, or in a meeting when the top of the hour rolls around, but as soon as I can after the hour, I take a minute to pause and pray.
As Rob K mentioned last week, Catholic Dads in undergoing some awesome changes.
One aspect is featured writers.
Each week, you will be able to read scheduled blog posts about specific topics related to being a Catholic dad. Hopefully, these will interest you!
I’ll be writing each Wednesday about what the Church – and specifically the Popes (past and present) – is saying to us dads. My posts will be based on encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, Wednesday audiences, homilies, speeches, and other forms of communication from the Holy See.
The Church has never been silent on authentic manhood and fatherhood. Now is as good a time as any to delve into the abundant wisdom she offers.
Join me each week as I write “Father to Father”.
Feel free to send me ideas via e-mail or the combox. And please, pray for me.
St. Joseph, patron of fathers and the universal Church, ora pro nobis!
It was a dark and stormy night. The only catch was, it wasn’t raining – at least not yet.
My brother and I had just sat down to chew the fat. Guy stuff. Bull sessions they call ‘em. A chance to sit around and just be a man, no questions asked, no pardon required. The end of the week and a chance to put your feet up and blow off some steam that accumulates in our work-a-day lives.
Saturday, 10:17 P.M. The wife and kids were all abed and everything was right with the world for the next 8 hours until the sun came up.
10:30 P.M. My brother and I had just finished admiring the legs on that Irish Red, when the first call came in. My brother took the call. It was a domestic disturbance. Personal. “I’ll take it out there”, he mouthed moving towards the door. He stopped halfway through the motion, and thinking better of it, took the Irish Red with him.
I was in no hurry, so I prayed the appropriate Hour of the Divine Office, checked emails, and pecked out an entry on my blog using that new gadget I picked up two weeks ago. I poured a second glass and admired the color.
11:00 P.M. The phone rang again. I looked at the Caller ID and saw that it was Mom. My senses went on high alert: Mom never calls this late. I occasionally forget and call late, but I’m her son; Moms have more sense. Mom was out of town this weekend, so this was two strikes on the Spider Sense.
I played it cool. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”. She sounded a little agitated. “The neighbor
Joe Carter at First Things has list of 50 things a man should be able to do. It is a good list – those are thing a man should be able to do. I am pretty sure that the list might not be the same. What do you think should be on a list of the things a man should be able to do?
Jennifer Fulwiler at Conversion Diary has put together this practical advice video for dealing with those close to us who claim to be atheists. I thought it was worth sharing here at Catholic Dads.
Here is the “Cliffs Notes” version.
1. Know your faith.
2. Value love over argument.
3. Pray.
4. Work on your own holiness.
These four are good principles for dealing with atheists, protestants, as well as life in general.
Catholic Dads is improving. If you are interested and the fit is right, you can play a bigger role here at Catholic Dads. Here is what is changing.
Featured Writers. We will be engaging featured writers to write on issues about being a Catholic Dad. There has been interest from some (and I will be contacting you), but we are looking for a group of 4 to 10 who would be willing to publish an article per week on an issue related to being a Catholic Dad. Author can focus on a theme or area of being a Catholic Dad if desired, but it is not required. This team will help in guiding the overall direction of the site as well as identify seasonal or special themes throughout the year. If you would like to be a regular author or would like to suggest one, please contact me directly at robk@catholicdadsonline.org.
Open submission publication policy. We will maintain an open publication policy, but there is now an editorial review. If you submit an article, we will provide some editing advice. While articles may be published right away, we will be spacing article publications to provide a better experience. If an article is not a good fit for Catholic Dads it may not be published.
Design. Over the next two months the site will undergo a design change to promote and enhance this new featured writer strategy. It will coincide with an upgrade to WordPress 3.0 Please excuse the dust though.
Other elements of Catholic Dads, such as the feed from member blogs, enrollment for Catholic dads, and promotion of Catholic Dad blogs will remain.
If you have any suggestions or would like to be more involved, contact me robk@catholicdadsonline.org and let me at know your ideas. Thanks!
“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother”
He then adds
That is why your marriage and your love for each other is the most important thing you can focus on. For a married person, it’s your first vocation in life. It comes even before loving your kids.
This struck me, as I’ve often heard people – even those in good relationships – claim they love their children more than anyone else, including their spouse.
I, for one, agree with Fr. Theodore and Matthew.
Do you agree? How do you / would you / should you react to someone who says the kids are #1?
Every week I take my daughter to church by myself. Its not because I am a single. I am actually married and my wife is wonderful, but she refuses to go to church with us.
It would be very easy to leave my daughter at home while I go to church. I won’t lie, there have been many Sunday mornings when my two year old daughter was anything but pleasant to deal (I’m sure you can all relate) with alone and it has been very tempting to leave her at home. I take her with me though, because its the right thing to do. But its awkward and I feel embarrassed when people ask me “Where is your wife?”. Its because they don’t know us from Adam and don’t know our family situation and I know that I would wonder the same thing.
I would love nothing better than for my wife to join as at church. The questions are a minor issue that is not important. It would be great to have someone else to help deal with a toddler. My parish seems very understanding about her crying and various noises, even though I can’t tell you how many sermons/readings/other parts of the Mass I haven’t heard over the wailing. My biggest concern, is of course my wife’s soul.
With that said, where am I going with this? First of all, I would appreciate any prayers for our family. Secondly, I am curious to hear ideas to try to explain to my wife why you should go to church. I have try to explain to her the majesty and awesomeness of the Eucharist present there. I have tried the family/communal meal analogy. Just wondering if anyone has a great way of explaining that I haven’t thought of.
For some time I have been considering changing the way Catholic Dads post articles. There are times when a really good article gets buried in a flurry of activity. There are also times when we have three of four posts in one day, and then nothing for a while. There are times when judicious editing may help an article. It will also help us to ensure that we are focusing on the site objectives and values. I have avoided doing this to now because of the added time commitment, but it will best serve the group and the Church online from a Catholic Dads perspective.
Let me know what you think about this, and current members please continue to login and submit articles.
Rob Kaiser
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