Tragedy at Sandy Hook

The tragic loss of lives at Sandy Hook happened on my 27^th wedding anniversary, and its impact will last a lifetime, most certainly for victims’ families.  The immediate response by the media and the White House is gun control.  Other issues raised are mental health and violence in entertainment and the media.  If Americans are serious about preventing future mass shootings, they’ll do more to support the family, the basic building block of society.  Look no further than the Holy Family as an example for us to follow:  Joseph never cohabitated with Mary prior to marriage nor asked her to have an abortion when she became pregnant.  The child Jesus grew up with a mom and dad, and his parents were active in their faith.

As for the response by the media and the White House concerning a ban on assault weapons, weaponry doesn’t kill; it’s the person pulling the trigger that does.  If that person is mentally ill, all the more reason to provide sufficient care for the mentally ill population and to provide support for their families. 

Some people will deny the connection between violence in entertainment and the media and actual violence.  For these people, I’d like to recall a story my husband told his religious education students a few years ago to help them discern the truth about the existence of God:  Imagine yourself in a room with God and Satan.  One of them wants you to believe that both of them exist; the other wants you to believe that neither does.  Okay, now one of them wants you to believe that there’s no relationship between desensitizing people to violence and their willingness to commit it. The other one wants you to direct your thoughts toward “all that deserves respect, all that is honest, pure, admirable, decent, virtuous, or worthy of praise.” (Phil. 4:8) Who’s who?

For practicing Catholics, prevention of another mass shooting boils down to taking important measures to protect and foster respect for the sanctity of life and to practice our faith as set forth by the Magisterium of the Church.  If you’re feeling pulled away from practicing your faith and following the teachings of the Church, who’s to blame?

Book Signing Schedule

Here's a list of authors signing copies of their books at the Catholic Writers' Conference Live!

Thursday, August 30, 201211:00am - 12:00pm Deanna Klingel: Bread Upon the Water
12:00 - 1:00pm Ann Margaret Lewis: Murder in the Vatican: The Church Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
1:00 - 2:00pm Karen Kelly Boyce: Sisters of the Last Straw, According to Thy Word, Into the Way of Peace, A Bend in the Road, and Down Right Good
2:00 - 3:00pm Margaret Realy: A Garden of Visible Prayer
I was a reviewer for Karen Kelly Boyce's Down Right Good and approved it for the Catholic Writers' Guild Seal of Approval!

www.estherlocascio.com

 

The Catholic Writers Conference Live!

This conference started yesterday and continues through tomorrow. Here's a list of today's events:

Thursday August 30, 2012
9:30-12:00pm Publisher Pitch Sessions: Servant Books, FAITH
Catholic, Christus Publishing/Tuscany Press, Ignatius Press,
Ave Maria Press, pre-registration required (Rooms M-2-4)

9:30am-10:15am Blogging 101: Sarah Reinhard (Room M-1)

10:30-11:15am Everything You Wanted to Know About Catholic
Marketing and Publicity but Were Afraid to Ask: Teresa Tomeo and Gail Coniglio (Room M-1)

11:30-12:15pm Ask What You Were Afraid to Ask—a Follow-up
Q & A Panel: Teresa Tomeo, Gail Coniglio, Michael Russell, Marcy Klatt, Marissa Hornbuckle and Dan Burke (Room M-1)

2:00-2:45pm Fiction and the New Evangelization: Ellen Gable Hrkach
(Room M-1)

3:00-3:45pm Enabling Catholic Authors to Self-Publish, Without Risks, Using Digital Technology: Christopher M. Petro (Room M-1)

4:00-6:00pm Trade Show Free Time

I'm a member of the Catholic Writers Guild but couldn't fit the conference into my schedule this year. Maybe next year!

Zucchini and the Easter Woodchuck

Palm Sunday fell on April Fool's Day this year, and I couldn't resist playing a trick on my students, but what?  I'd planned a small party to celebrate Easter just before the end of class, so Chuck suggested I tell them I'd brought whole zucchinis to pass out for a snack.  Or, how about telling them about the Easter Woodchuck?  

The Easter Woodchuck reminded me of Christmas around the world, and how Santa rides a surfboard to Australia in bathing shorts and sunglasses, and how it's the Three Wise Men who deliver gifts to kids in Mexico (Ebram learns about this in Ebram's Story: The Haunting).  Impressed with Chuck's ideas, I decided to use both.

At the beginning of class, I told the students I had something to show them and pulled out a zucchini.  I asked if they knew what it was but met with blank stares.  I walked down the aisle so they could have a closer look, and--surprise!  They thought it was a cucumber. 

"The zucchini is very special to some kids in South America," I said after informing them that it was not a cucumber. "They're not familiar with the Easter Bunny; they have an Easter Woodchuck.  On the night before Easter, they leave zucchini for the Easter Woodchuck so that he'll stop by their house and leave candy and small gifts on Easter Sunday."  

At this point it was hard to keep a straight face.  "The Easter Woodchuck eats as much of the zucchini as he can and gives away the rest to orphans and poor children." 

This is NOT a cucumber!

The students were very quiet and I thought they might actually believe this tale. "April Fools!"  I said to deafening silence .  "Look, I wrote April 1st on the whiteboard; it's Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, and April Fool's Day!"  Finally, a cracked smile or two.  Had I let them down?  I guess I'll never know.

Catholic Faith

I told my RE students last Sunday that we would be finishing our study of the Old Testament that day.  We covered some Prophetic books (Malachi, Obadiah, Joel, Daniel, and Jonah) and Historical books (Esther, Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, and 2 Maccabees).  Since this is my first year teaching a bible class, I developed lesson plans beforehand that required research into events and ideas presented in the textbook.

In particular, the First and Second books of Maccabees cover a lot of history that I broke down into a timeline on the whiteboard.  The textbook started with 323 B.C. when Judah was under Syrian-Mesopotamian rule and then jumped to 175 B.C. when the king was warned about the Roman Empire’s intent to invade.  The king’s name wasn’t provided, so I did an Internet search that led me to the Jewish Virtual Library: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Greeks.html.   Alexander the Great had conquered Persia; consequently, Judah had fallen to the Greeks.  The Jews detested the Greek gods and found certain Greek practices offensive, such as nude wrestling and homosexuality.

Given today’s liberal pro-choice climate, I researched abortion in ancient Greek culture and found it to be an acceptable practice.  This topic wasn’t discussed with my students, but aware of highly popular Greek mythology books published by Scholastic, I asked if they could name some Greek gods and they did: Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, etc.  

My thought for today: Catholic parents must learn their faith in order to pass it on to their children.  By solely exposing them to secularist and materialistic forms of entertainment and education in books, movies, video gaming, phone apps, etc., they risk leading their children astray from their faith, sometimes to the point of abandoning it altogether.

A Call to Holiness

My family and I attended Mass today at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower.https://littleflowerbasilica.org/  This church is dedicated to saint Therese Lisieux and  celebrated its 80th anniversary last year. A community of Discalced Carmelite friars, the Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Face, and Little Flower School are located nearby.   

In his homily, the priest told of a touching event in the life of saint Therese Lisieux when she was a child.  He said that she ran away from home with her brother and headed for the Strait of Gibralter to be martyred by the Moors.  The reason she wanted to be martyred was so that she could be present before Jesus.  Of course, the children never got there, and Father asked us if we were in church for Jesus...or out of a sense of obligation.

A couple of hours earlier, I'd taught my sixth grade religious education class the last lesson for the year about the Old Testament, and having a few minutes to spare before dismissal, I asked them about a movie that's getting a lot of attention these days, The Hunger Games. This movie is rated PG-13, but we all know that children as young as eight years of age have been reading the book and will certainly watch the movie.  Not surprisingly, my students had heard the hype.  One is currently reading the book on his Kindle and another had seen the movie with his parents. I was very glad to hear someone say that it wasn't his type of movie and he wasn't going to see it.

I used this opportunity to tell my students that some movies are damaging to souls, and they should look up any movie they want to see on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) website.  If I'd thought to bring it, I would've given them this website: http://www.catholicnews.com/movies.htm. 

In hearing the story of saint Therese, I thought of how differently we're raising kids in our society today.  Parents can look to Therese's parents, Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin (beatified October 19th, 2008), for an example of virtue and holiness in family life. Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, pray for us!
http://www.sttherese.com/Parents.html

We recently received mail from the Carmelite Friars reminding us that, as Valentine's Day approaches, love is more than hearts and chocolates. It told of the Shrine of Saint Valentine at Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, which contains the remains of Saint Valentinus the Martyr, who died serving the Lord, the source of infinite love. For more information about this shrine and the legend of St. Valentine, visit their website at: http://www.carmelites.ie/ireland/Whitefriar%20St/valentine.htm.

I'd like to share a picture of a handmade, heart-shaped flower inside a Valentine's Day Giftigami Box. The flower is made out of bread and water to form a dough. After the dough dries, it's painted with red acrylic paint and sprinkled with glitter.

Valentine's Day Flower Craft

         Copyright 2012 Esther Locascio. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.