Vampire Shift (10:30am to 6:30pm)

Sorry...1030pm to 0630am

You can say the Missal at home, Elizabeth.  That's what I would do if I had kids.  It's what I have done and will do without kids!  Apparently it's what Gerry Matatics does now as well.

But we can't do the wrong thing even if it's for the right reasons.  We can't insult God just because we feel we have to discipline children by taking them to Mass.  Of course, you don't feel you're insulting God, but when and if that realization strikes, you're going to have to act on it.  

It is not comfortable to know you were in the wrong, to have thought you were Catholic when you weren't, and to have to change.  But God takes your hand and leads you through it.  This happened with me recently about NFP.  I defended it on this website, defended Pius XII, defended the CMRI.  Later, after breaking with CMRI, I was going to fly out to SGG, thinking that whatever Father Cekada's faults, at least he was Catholic and against the una cuм -- and then I read his defense of NFP and just got this sinking feeling.  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.  I still haven't written about it in depth but NFP is a huge subject; much bigger than most people think.  

All our lives have been upset.  I wanted to be a writer-filmmaker before all this hit me.  Then I wanted to be a priest and it seems that is impossible.  Now, I have no resume and no plans and will be lucky to get a job at Starbucks.  The truth leads us down some strange avenues, ones we never expected.  But are you going to resist it when it comes?  

"Let the dead bury the dead; you who are still living, come with me."

With respect, it is very easy to say what you will do "with kids"

without having the resposibility of a mortgage, car payments, giving birth, having a relationship with a spouse, educating children.

However, I do know of a very high-functioning, large family who are home aloners and homeschoolers, and their kids are all really great.  But some of us don't have the intellectual capacity and stamina.

We did home alone some years ago, and it just didn't work.  We lack internal discipline or whatever, and not going to Mass is just horrible for my family.

It's a mess and we need to pray for each other.