Easter!

What can I say - we had a GREAT day!!  We woke up early and attended the 6:45 Mass and spent the rest of the day with our good friends (and Miguel's Godparents).  We had fantastic food and lots of fun for the kids (well, all of us really).  Thank you God for this wonderful day!!  Check it out!

Finally, the pinata broke - and the kids rushed for their prizes!

Now the video...  In the morning we made cascarones.  This one of Rafa breaking one on Frankie´s head is hysterical!!  Listen closely...  I hope you can hear it.

Alfonso Martinez, Jr.

Dear Uncle Poncho. Every time I spoke to you, you always had wonderful words of wisdom and advice (sprinkled in between a joke or two). It was also this way the very last time we spoke. Thank you for that. You died on the Feast of the Most Holy Annunciation. I found this profound as this was the day that Mary’s “fiat” brought our Savior into this world. But I also realized that it is also the Feast day of St. Dismas, who was the good thief being crucified at the right hand of Jesus. He was a man who, despite great trials of life, showed a great profession of faith and repentance at his moment of death and is said to have been canonized by Jesus Himself while dying upon the cross. Uncle Poncho, through the Grace of our Lord, I am confident that you, like St. Dismas, have heard the words of Jesus, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43)

Glorious St. Dismas, you alone of all the great Penitent Saints were directly canonized by Christ Himself; you were assured of a place in Heaven with Him "this day" because of the sincere confession of your sins to Him in the tribunal of Calvary and your true sorrow for them as you hung beside Him in that open confessional; you who by the direct sword thrust of your love and repentance did open the Heart of Jesus in mercy and forgiveness even before the centurion's spear tore it asunder; you whose face was closer to that of Jesus in His last agony, to offer Him a word of comfort, closer even than that of His Beloved Mother, Mary; you who knew so well how to pray, teach me the words to say to Him to gain pardon and the grace of perseverance; and you who are so close to Him now in Heaven, as you were during His last moments on earth, pray to Him for me that I shall never again desert Him, but that at the close of my life I may hear from Him the words He addressed to you: "Today you will be with Me in Paradise."

Amen

Spring!

Today´s weather was beautiful! We hung around at the park and soaked it up!

Miguel didn't get on the swings - but he was loving it nonetheless!

Grandma Mary

So today we got the call that I've been dreading. My Grandma (the kids' great grandma) passed away this morning, just a week after her 93rd birthday. We were blessed to be in El Paso less than two weeks ago and were able to spend some time with her. She loved to play practical jokes, watching and reading mysteries, and going to the movies. When I was little she sold Avon and she used to give me little sample lipsticks and perfumes. I always got gifts from Avon and it was great! Please remember her in your prayers. Her name was Maria Luisa Martinez. She and grandpa are finally back together again. We love you both and please pray for us too.

St. Francis de Sales

I heard a priest once say that a lot of people (whether cradle Catholics, converts or reconverts) who find themselves fully engaged in their Catholic faith sometimes expect that their lives will be cheery, every day will be sunny and, because they are faithfully following God, their lives will be perfect. That, he said, is exactly when evil tries its hardest to creep in to their lives. Sometimes it works its way through tiny little cracks and in many different ways, trying to make the person question their ultimate faith in God. Then one day, I read the following passage from St. Francis de Sales that really struck a chord with me and I have since taken to reading his entire writing "An Introduction to the Devout Life" which is so profound and speaks of living a devout life while still living fully in this world.

Today is his feast day, and in honor of him I thought I'd recommend his writings to you. If the world ever brings you down (like I know it can to me), these writings might help with those attacks that can slip in through those tiny little cracks.


“As soon as worldly people see that you wish to follow a devout life they aim a thousand darts of mockery and even detraction at you. The most malicious of them will slander your conversion as hypocrisy, bigotry, and trickery. . . .

“Philothea, all this is mere foolish, empty babbling. These people aren’t interested in your health or welfare. ‘If you were of the world, the world would love what is its own but because you are not of the world, therefore the world hates you,; says the Savior. We have seen gentlemen and ladies spend the whole night, even many nights one after another, playing chess or cards. Is there any concentration more absurd, gloomy, or depressing than this last? Yet worldly people don’t say a word and the players’ friends don’t bother their heads about it.

“If we spend an hour in meditation or get up a little earlier than usual in the morning to prepare for Holy Communion, everyone runs for a doctor to cure us of hypochondria and jaundice. People can pass thirty nights in dancing and no one complains about it, but if they watch through a single Christmas night they cough and claim their stomach is upset the next morning. Does anyone fail to see that the world is an unjust judge, gracious and well disposed to its own children but harsh and rigorous towards the children of God?

“We can never please the world unless we lose ourselves together with it. It is so demanding that it can’t be satisfied. “John came neither eating nor drinking,” says the Savior, and you say, “He has a devil.” “The Son of man came eating and drinking” and you say that he is “a Samaritan.”

“It is true, Philothea, that if we are ready to laugh, play cards, or dance with the world in order to please it, it will be scandalized at us, and if we don’t, it will accuse us of hypocrisy or melancholy. If we dress well, it will attribute it to some plan we have, and if we neglect our dress, it will accuse of us of being cheap and stingy. Good humor will be called frivolity and mortification sullenness. Thus the world looks at us with an evil eye and we can never please it. It exaggerates our imperfections and claims they are sins, turns our venial sins into mortal sins and changes our sins of weakness into sins of malice.

“‘Charity is kind,’ says Saint Paul, but the world on the contrary is evil. “Charity thinks no evil,” but the world always thinks evil and when it can’t condemn our acts it will condemn our intentions. Whether the sheep have horns or not and whether they are white or black, the wolf doesn’t hesitate to eat them if he can.

“Whatever we do, the world will wage war on us. If we stay a long time in the confessional, it will wonder how we can have so much to say; if we stay only a short time, it will say we haven’t told everything. It will watch all our actions and at a single little angry word it will protest that we can’t get along with anyone. To take care of our own interests will look like avarice, while meekness will look like folly. As for the children of the world, their anger is called being blunt, their avarice economy, their intimate conversations lawful discussions. Spiders always spoil the good work of the bees.

“Let us give up this blind world, Philothea. Let it cry out at us as long as it pleases, like a cat that cries out to frighten birds in the daytime. Let us be firm in our purposes and unswerving in our resolutions. Perseverance will prove whether we have sincerely sacrificed ourselves to God and dedicated ourselves to a devout life. Comets and planets seem to have just about the same light, but comets are merely fiery masses that pass by and after a while disappear, while planets remain perpetually bright. So also hypocrisy and true virtue have a close resemblance in outward appearance but they can be easily distinguished from one another.

“Hypocrisy cannot last long but is quickly dissipated like rising smoke, whereas true virtue is always firm and constant. It is no little assistance for a sure start in devotion if we first suffer criticism and calumny because of it. In this way we escape the danger of pride and vanity, which are comparable to the Egyptian midwives whom a cruel Pharaoh had ordered to kill the Israelites’ male children on the very day of their birth. We are crucified to the world and the world must be crucified to us. The world holds us to be fools; let us hold it to be mad.”

We have a Teenager in the House!

Today was Geneva's 13th Birthday! It seems the time has gone so quickly. We had a terrific dinner, delicious desserts and she got a couple of nice gifts to mark the special occasion!

Thinking about this being the beginning of her teen years, I wondered if there was a Patron Saint of Teenagers. Sure enough, there is! It is Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, who is known as the Patron Saint of Teenagers and young Catholics. St. Aloysius wanted to be a priest from a young age and wanted to become a Saint out of sheer willpower. When he entered the Jesuits, he was advised to discontinue his boot-camp type of approach and simply follow regular prayer and acts of self-control and self-denial. He thought this approach was too easy, but obeyed nonetheless, which pleased his superiors. He once said, "I am a piece of twisted iron. I entered the religious life to get twisted straight." He died at a young age while compassionately caring for the sick in Rome during the plague of 1591.

Blessed are you Lord, God of all creation. You gave Saint Aloysius both a wonderful innocence of life and a deep spirit of penance. Through his merits, grant that Geneva's young life may be saved from the spirit of this world and have the same sense of innocence and spirit of penance as Saint Aloysius. Through Christ we Pray, Amen.

Happy Birthday, Geneva! We love you!

Making a wish...

Miguel at four months!

Miguel has turned four months old and he's doing great! He rolls over, babbles at us, loves to smile and is very happy! He had a great doctor check up on Thursday (well, except for those pesky shots). The doctor said we could even begin giving him rice cereal. Here's the little man.

That little moustache (and the accompanying smile) is his first taste of cereal.