”Jesus, who was in [Mary's] womb, hurried to sanctify John still in his mother’s womb.  Before Mary arrived and greeted Elizabeth, the child had not leapt in the womb, but as soon as Mary had spoken the word that the Son of God in her womb had suggested, the child leapt for joy, and at that moment Jesus made his precursor his prophet…There is no doubt that [Elizabeth] who was then filled with the Holy Spirit was filled on account of her son.  She was not the first to be granted the Holy Spirit.  No, only when John, enclosed in her womb, had received the Holy Spirit, only after his sanctification, was she filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Origen, Homilia VIII in Lucam)

On this blessed day in the hill country of Judea, Our Lady arrived at the house of Zechariah.  At her greeting to her cousin Elizabeth, Our Lord, hidden in her womb, poured the Holy Spirit through her words.  John the Baptist is filled with the Holy Spirit and dances with delight, filling his mother Elizabeth with the Holy Spirit such that she cries out, “Blessed are you among women….”

How I would have loved to sit in the midst of that exchange of Divine Fire, to bask in the love flowing from child to mother to cousin.  Imagine the conversations that must have passed between the blessed women during their three months together; they probably discussed the care of infants, proper swaddling techniques, the futures of their sons, the wondrous plan of the salvation through the coming Messiah, heaven.  It would have been so wonderful to share with them in the joy of growing life within the womb, to sing and laugh at the mercy of the Lord.  I wish I could have been their friends in the flesh; my faith is too little to fully appreciate their friendship in spirit.

Especially, now that I’m with child, I feel deeply connected to the Visitation.  I pray for the grace to be a daughter of Our Lady who brings the Christ Child to all she meets.  I pray for the grace to be a daughter of Elizabeth, who introduces my pre-born child to Christ through the Holy Spirit.  Dear mothers in faith, please pray for me.

Magnificat anima mea Dominum.

“i’m just around the corner but i feel so far, have i lost my mind?
it’s like i’m blinded by the things i see, holding my eyes shut keeps the truth from me
now that i know how desperate a man can be would you bring me back
out of the black
it’s obvious to see
not obvious to me
that you were waiting right here in front of me”
–Wideawake, “Obvious” from their excellent album, Not So Far Away

That song popped into my head, but it has little to do with what this post is about!

What is obvious to me is something about the war in Iraq, but it seems like it’s not obvious to many people I talk to.

Many people hate George Bush. Alright, not good to hate a person, but that’s another topic.

I have a question for those people: Why are our troops still over there putting their lives at risk in Iraq?

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You may have noticed ads on the right side of our blog for the National Catholic Register newspaper and Faith & Family magazine.

I get as tired of ads as the next guy, and that’s why we are only putting up ads for things that have been a blessing to us and through which we believe our Lord will bless you.

Gerardo and I were roommates for many years and got the Register; it is a great paper that includes the big news stories that matter and gives you a faithful Catholic perspective on them, rather than the often-twisted perspective of the mainstream media.

The Register also has articles by the illustrious Danielle Bean, Mark Shea, and many other excellent writers.

Think about this: World Youth Day has been attended by tens of millions of young Catholics throughout the world over the past ten years, and yet you hear little to nothing about it in the mainstream media.

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…then would you believe?

Most people would say yes–I remember when I was an atheist I said I would believe–if only Jesus would come and show me a miracle, preferably one that defied physics.

And yet, in truth, I would not have believed even then because I was convinced that God did not even exist, so whatever it was I saw must be some trick and not a real miracle.

The best (and worst) example of this is Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.

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…that, in spite of our devotion to him, we could never name our child Ambrose.

“Ambrose Rose” is just a bit too awful.

…a learning computer.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator II

That’s one of my favorite Arnold quotes because it uses just the right amount of real computer science terminology to sound believable, but of course in reality neural networks can’t do anything even close to what our brains can do. That’s why it’s science fiction!

My second favorite ridiculous science fiction quote is from Pauly Shore in the very dumb movie Son-in-law (if you haven’t seen it, don’t), where he impresses his girlfriend’s little computer-hacker brother by getting his computer working again, explaining: “I greased the subroutines and tweaked the P-RAM”.

However, the above quotes have nothing to do with this post, which involves yours truly, by the grace of God, fixing the guest toilet! It appears not to leak anymore, though only time will tell. The tank wouldn’t stand up quite straight, and so we are now calling it the “leaning toilet of Pisa”, but it doesn’t leak, and that’s what matters!

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Aah, Friday.  It’s been such a long week, with the session wrapping up at the Capitol and the morning sickness requiring ongoing management and the wonderful husband needing love and the garden needing weeding and I needing incredible amounts of sleep.  Whew!

Devin and I totally forgot the Pentecost novena, too.  Bless the Lord.

We had lots of help this week from “Grammy” Rose, who did the grocery shopping for poor little me and, also, had us over for dinner the other night.  Thanks, Mom, for all your help!  I couldn’t do it without you these days.

Have a blessed Pentecost-Memorial Day weekend.  Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.  YKC!

Apologies on the title of this post: the Oasis lyrics from “Live Forever” always seem to pop into my mind when blogging.

Sometimes we don’t want to know who someone is, so we never try to find out who they are.

This sounds somewhat esoteric, but it’s really simple. For example, I may not want to find out who someone is because I have made a pre-judgment of them in one or more of the following ways:

1. I judge the person to be of no “use” to me, and even to be a “drain” on me
2. I am afraid of being judged by the person because I do things that they think are wrong
3. I am repulsed by what someone stands for or a belief they have
4. I am repulsed by someone’s physical appearance
5. I am repulsed by what someone has done

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I wrote a little program this weekend that lets an expecting couple enter in their baby’s name and their estimate at the baby’s conception date, then it just shows you how old the baby is and how many days are left until birth:

You can keep the program running all the time, and it will automatically increment your baby’s age in days and decrement the number of days until birth.

Technical note: It is the second program I have written using C# (“C sharp”), a programming language that Microsoft created some years ago.

You can download BabyCountdown.exe and use it for free!

I think I’ve figured it out!  Here’s what happened this week.

Tuesday was my roughest day thus far.  I was unable to keep any food down all day, getting sick morning, noon, and evening, and I felt pretty discouraged my the time I went to bed that night.  I stayed home from work on Wednesday to recuperate and decided to go to St. Williams for Mass at noon.  Very providentially, I saw my friend, Barb, at Mass.  She’s the mother of 5 grown children, grandmother of 5+, and super-organic, like I am.  After Mass, she invited me to her home for lunch and, upon hearing about my pregnancy-nauseau, gave me the book.

The book.  Sheer brilliance.  Utter revelation.  Managing Morning Sickness, by Marilyn M. Shannnon, to be precise. On 25 short pages, the author lays out the reason (according to her research) that many expecting women suffer from sickness and offers her thesis in preventing it.  It’s very simple.

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