that I am very proud of my husband!

Not because he gets up every morning at 6am and works until 5pm just so we can live in a good house, wear lovely clothes, eat yummy food and pay off all our medical and student debts.

Not because he’s applying to law schools as I type this and sip hot chocolate leisurely.

Not because he is a strong, faithful Catholic.

Not because he is a wonderful father and loves our girls more than any daddy I’ve ever seen.

Not because he is a loving husband and treats me better than I deserve.

Not because he is a talented web designer.

Not because he is a creative photographer.

Not because he always does the chores that I can’t stomach while pregnant (or any other time for that matter!).

Not because of any of the other hundreds of reasons I can’t think of because I’m entertaining a toddler as I type this.

 

But because he fixed my computer. Kind of! It’s not really fixable entirely, but he’s fixed it enough where it closes and I can keep using it! And he stayed up past midnight to do it. Thank you, sweetheart. I love my now-closing laptop.

I still have a couple of hours left in the day!

 

1. Yesterday was my 25th birthday and what a special day it was! Joseph left me sweet cards with little gifts hidden around the house and Molly and I had fun finding them. Molly actually found two of the five and opened them herself! It was pretty cute! We ate dinner at Jerry’s Bistro and ate Funfetti Cake with Rainbow Chip frosting (my favorite!). Thank you to everyone who made my day so special! What a blessing.

2. A not so good part of my day yesterday – my computer broke. Kind of! Everything works fine on it, but it seems like a hinge that keeps the screen on the actual laptop (I know, these are very technical terms) popped out of place and broke a part of the casing. I’m sure it’s fixable. Or I’m telling myself that because my connection to the outside world as a stay-at-home mommy is oftentimes only because of my precious laptop. Joseph is really good at fixing things like this so I’m praying that he can! St. Joseph the worker, help us out here, please!!

3. Tomorrow is Molly’s second Halloween! We found her a cute little butterfly costume on Craigslist. Actually, our friend Kristin did! It was only $6 and the lady delivered it, to boot! Molly likes wearing the hood around the house. We had to hide it because I want her to think it’s cool to wear it so she’ll leave it on. We’ll post pictures (ha. I’ve never said THAT before).

4. I think we’re on a record for NOT watching our favorite TV shows this last week. We’ve been so busy with law school applications (we being used liberally seeing as how I have nothing to do with that) and late pregnancy fatigue (we being used liberally again seeing as how Joseph has nothing to do with that) that we haven’t watched Heroes, The Office OR Flash Forward this week. I don’t even know us anymore.

5. I tried to put myself on an internet fast for only one day last week and failed miserably. I think maybe that’s why God sent me a broken computer hinge. Sigh. I just pop in really quickly to see what my other mommy friends are doing, what great half-off baby stuff is being sold that day, what blog updates have been posted, what Old Navy has stocked in the last 15 minutes, what new emails have been shot my way, what Fox News has to say about world events every few minutes, what Pioneer Woman has to say about world events every few minutes, what facebook statuses have been updated in the last 30 seconds…I mean, it’s not like I have an addiction. But sometimes, I may possibly sometimes maybe spend a little bit too much time on the internet. I guess next week I’ll have a forced fast thrust upon me with the birth of our new little one. OR, now hear me out, I’ll be nursing a newborn and have plenty of downtime on my hands and my addiction will only get worse. Especially with an iTouch.

6. I am very disappointed in literature this week. I started reading The Time Traveler’s Wife which has a really, really interesting premise and is really well-written, but is so trashy. I let a few things slip. A few curse words here and there don’t bother me, but really? The “f” word throw in over and over just for the sake of having a curse word in dialogue is just too much. And there was just too much sexuality for me to handle. I didn’t want to stop reading it but I did. I fully plan on looking up the plot synopsis online to make myself feel better, though. What’s even worse is that I don’t feel comfortable selling our copy of the book back to Half-Price Books because I don’t want to pass along the trashiness that is that novel to someone else. I won’t even tell you what I did with it in case you think I’m a Nazi.

Still looking for book suggestions for this upcoming week! I hope to go by the library tomorrow.

7. Sunday is All Saints’ Day and Monday is All Souls’ Day. Just thought I would throw out a reminder for two reasons: 1) they are wonderful feast days to thank your heavenly friends for their intercessions and to pray for all the souls in Purgatory and 2) I really couldn’t come up with anything else to write about.

Here we go again! I’m pretty proud of my new-found updating abilities!!

1. My new favorite word of Molly’s is, “Down.” She pronounces it with major crazy emphasis and elongation of the “ow” so it comes out, “dowwwwwwwn.”

2. Molly’s favorite game of the morning is trying to lure me off the couch so she can get to my computer. She thinks it’s really funny. I think I should not be on the computer so much if her new favorite game is figuring out how to get me off! Maybe wireless isn’t such a great thing!

3. Nesting is hitting full-force in the Behnke household! I was taken off bed rest because I am FULL-TERM (have I mentioned that lately?) and there’s no reason to stop labor. I have grand plans each night as I fall asleep to get room after room cleaned out and bask in our new-found simplicity of only owning the basic thing we need in life. Then I wake up in the morning and I think, “Man, I’m tired. Man, my back hurts. Man, it feels like there is a bowling ball between my legs. Man, I just want to sit on the couch. Man, eating bon-bons sounds really good right about now.” And there you have it. Sister Nesting has made her appearance but Sister Energy went out the window several weeks ago. Why do I suddenly feel hippy, liberal after that sentence? I kind of feel like I need to take a shower now.

4. Does anyone have any good book suggestions? If waiting in the hospital to have a baby this time around is anything like the last time around, I’ll have several hours (read: days…just kidding. Shouldn’t be like that again. I hope.) to just lay in bed and read. When was the last time I had time to do that? Oh yeah, the last time I was sitting in a hospital waiting to have a baby! Maybe I should really be looking forward to that wait….

But I digress. I finished up a couple of series about WW2 and the Potato Famine late this summer and have been reading books that we have around the house since. Any suggestions are welcome! I really seem to enjoy historical fiction! Pretty much anything not having to do with Edward Cullen would be appreciated.

5. Joseph and I started a photography blog to help share photo sessions (used very liberally!) that we’ve done for friends and family. We have such a long way to go in our photography but we thought this was a good step in the right direction! Of course we are no where NEAR where we want to be (Kristin Bednarz, Bobbi+Mike), but hey – it’s a start. If you’re interested in looking over anything, we really do like the critiques and need them to help us grow in our love of taking photos! The link is: http://behnkephotography.blogspot.com.

We hope to get some people to shoot sessions for that aren’t family or friends so we can save up some money to buy a second camera (D90, how I desire you.)! It’s not always the most fun when we’re juggling one camera to shoot with, a toddler and now a newborn! “Hey, Joseph, trade you Molly for the camera. Oh wait, shot missed.” It’s a mantra of ours. Plus, the D90 has video. Not the best but we don’t want to be videographers. We just want to bombard your emails with videos of Molly and Ellie.

6. A few weeks ago, I started spiritual direction with our parish priest, Father Longua. What a blessing it is to have such a kind, understanding and faithful priest as our shepherd! He came over for dinner and while Joseph watched Molly and dinner finished up cooking, we chatted about my spiritual life. I’m very excited to see where Our Lord is leading me in regard to my spiritual direction. I’ve never had a spiritual direction but I think it will be beneficial to have the extra accountability. Plus, Father is my regular confessor which makes me want to commit sins even less because, seriously, I’m having the man over to dinner once a month. No, thanks. I’m taking a spiritual direction hiatus after Elisabeth is born but I hope to start up again in January. Oh and to top everything off with this spiritual direction, we found out during Father’s visit that he is a Mac person, too. Really, can a priest get any more awesome?

7. Speaking of starting new things, a few stay-at-home mommies and I started up a Catholic moms’ group a few months ago. We didn’t actually have the first meeting until this month and of course I missed it because it happened to fall right during a doctor’s appointment, but I think it will be great! There are a good number of moms interested and it’s never a bad thing when a bunch of kiddos can get together and wear each other out while the moms enjoy adult conversation. I’m really excited to go to MY first meeting. Unfortunately, the second meeting on Tuesday falls right during a doctor’s appointment and then the next two meetings will be when Elisabeth is super young, but hopefully I can make it soon! Once a month, we will have a play date and the other meeting will be a book discussion about a book regarding Catholic motherhood. I pray that Our Lady guides us in Faith, motherhood and friendship through this group!

I think that’s about it. Really, all seven could have been about night-weaning and the joys of late pregnancy but I thought I would spare you. I mean, I never talk about that stuff, why should I start now?

I guess this is my delayed Tiny Treasures Tuesday post. Let’s call it….Tiny Treasures Wednesday because I’m really creative.

Molly Rose

I grow more and more in love every single day with this little girl! It seems that night-weaning is finally paying off and she is happier and more lively during the day! We were all exhausted, including the little culprit! We have had three great nights in a row and I’m nervous about what each evening from here-on-out holds because of it. I think we have found a great routine, thanks to some wonderful advice from our fellow-mommy friend, Laura. We’ll see if it keeps up. If it does, I’ll post our secrets on here so other moms can hopefully get some good use out of them, too!

Molly is completely enamored with elephants right now! There is a little park not too far away from our house that has elephants that toddlers can ride on and she just loves them. As soon as we get out of the car, she starts making her elephant noises and runs full-throttle toward them. Of course she only stays on each one for about half a second because what self-respecting toddler can sit still for longer than that? It’s adorable to watch. She also loves her Zoo Animals book, this week at least. I couldn’t figure out why until I caught her carrying it around in one hand and making a trunk with the other and doing her elephant noise. I think what started it was instead of calling Ellie, Baby Sister to her, we started trying to teach her to say Ellie. Of course that sounds like elephant. Now she will put her mouth right up to my belly and make an elephant noise. Too cute.

Speaking of a loving big sister, Molly has taken to laying her head on my [incredibly large] belly and feeling Ellie move underneath. She will lay there giggling and then look up at me with wondering eyes like she’s saying, “Mama! Did you feel that? Do you see??” Of course she doesn’t know it’s Baby Sister but it’s so beautiful to watch. She still loves giving Baby Sister kisses, but will only do it when my shirt is lifted…no matter who is around. It can get pretty awkward when you have your priest over for dinner and Molly decides to kiss Baby Sister…and then mama has to fight a battle of modesty!  It’s so beautiful to watch, though! It’s amazing to see how even the youngest of people recognize the life growing inside a womb when so many people choose to ignore that!!

Oh and be still my heart! Molly has taken to singing a “Mommy” song. She just walks around singing, well, Mommy. She does this with Daddy, but of course it’s not quite as cute as when she sings Mommy! She is also learning how to say, “I love you.” It comes out, “Lub oo” or something like that and it may be the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, aside from hearing Molly’s first cry and what I’m sure will tie with that – Ellie’s first cry. Okay, giggles rank up there, too.

Elisabeth Grace (maybe)

Grace, maybe? That’s a strange middle name. I’m still not set on Grace. We really want to, well, grace, each one of our girls with a Marian name. Molly is Molly’s – it’s the Gaelic form of Mary – and Elisabeth’s would be Grace after Our Mother of Divine Grace. She was a HUGE intercessor for us when we had our early pregnancy miscarriage scares. I just don’t know that “Grace” is Catholic enough. I know, I know. So weird! We are naming her after the Mother of God, but I feel like Grace isn’t Marian enough. We are considering a couple of other middle names. I want to wait to see our sweet Ellie’s face before we decide.

In the world of Ellie – we are full-term! Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on bed rest because I had some pretty heavy and consistent contractions. I’m so thankful for all the help given to us because it means our baby got to bake just a little bit longer! The doctor took me off bed rest yesterday so it’s full-steam ahead! I want her to stay where she is for just a little bit longer so she can develop as much as possible but at the same time I want to shove her out. Not to say that I don’t enjoy the heartburn, aching back and the fact that no shirt will cover the lower half of my belly….just kidding. I don’t enjoy it. But really, I just can’t wait to meet her!! What a blessing she has already been to our marriage and to our family! I can’t imagine how much that will multiply when she actually makes her worldly debut!

That’s about it for now! I would post a picture but I’m too lazy. Check in the following posts!

I mentioned that I wanted to find a little aquarium for Molly’s crib that cost less my right arm. We did! I went to Once Upon A Child today and they had a pretty good selection. We even splurged and spent an extra $5 to get one with a remote control that usually runs for about $50 brand new. Unfortunately, we got home and found that the remote didn’t work, so we’ll be exchanging it tomorrow, but hey, that’s okay!

I even found a double stroller, to boot! It was a great day in the Land of Once Upon A Child. It was my second choice for a double stroller only because there is one that is a newer version and supposedly easier to handle. And of course about $150 more expensive (brand new). I had been scouring craigslist trying to find a good deal on one of these two strollers and hadn’t even thought of checking the used stores in our area. I have had dicey experiences with craigslist in the past so I’m really glad that I found one at a store that we could look over before we purchased. It’s brown with green trim so it’s very gender neutral if God ever blesses us with a little boy! I’m really excited because it was a really good price, even for a used model (from all the prices on craigslist). I really hadn’t expected to be able to get a double stroller anytime in the near future so this is an extra special treat for me.

I do want to try out a baby carrier but Molly never took to one and honestly, I was just too weak after my last labor and delivery to even tote around a tiny baby on myself. I’m hopeful for the delivery this time around but I’m also going to be open to the idea that a carrier won’t work out again. Since we got our double stroller, I’ll be able to take walks with the girls when my body is good and ready. We’ll also have our single stroller on hand still in case the carrier does work out!

That was my exciting afternoon. Have a good weekend!

I wish I could honestly say that I didn’t have time for much more than this but since I haven’t left the couch in two and a half weeks (it feels like) then I really do, but I’m just bad about updating!

One of my Catholic mom blogs does a Seven Quick Takes on Fridays – just seven short thoughts, most of which aren’t connected in any sort of way. Here’s mine!

1. We have been practicing night-weaning for officially one week tonight. It’s been hard, it’s been rewarding, it’s been stressful, it’s been stressful. But I’m hormonal, right?? We’re really hoping it sticks. We know that Molly isn’t hungry at night; we’ve just never allowed her to learn how to fall back asleep on her own. I’ve learned a few tricks that seem to help her out:

• Snood — Dearest Teddy Bear, You whom my daughter loves with all her heart. I love you, too. You comfort her. You make her laugh. You let her pull your stuffing out of that tiny little hole in your tummy that she thinks is a belly button. You let her throw up on you. You’ve probably let her pee  and poop on you, too. You help her to fall asleep. I love you, Snood.
• E.O. — Dearest Second-Loved Stuffed Friend, you give my little girl something to hold on to with her other arm. I love that you allow her to fall asleep with one arm securely around her Snood and the other securely around your neck. You’re not quite as special as Snood and Molly makes that known, but you’ve never held that against her. You’ve taken your fair share of throw up, too.
• Musical Star — Molly just loves to push those little buttons and watch the lights come on and the music play. Only downfall: it doesn’t attach to the crib. I’m on a search for a musical toy under the price of my right arm that will attach to the crib.
• Moo, Baa, LaLaLa — Molly’s favorite book that she reads to herself as she falls asleep for naps. I don’t think she uses it to fall help her fall asleep at night, though I do hear the occasional, “LaLaLa” being said at 2am.

We used to say our family Rosary with her every night to help her fall asleep but we’re working on NOT nursing Molly down with a bottle, so now we give her a sippy, read her a few books and say a decade or two with her and finish together after she is asleep. We’ve only done this for two days, but I feel it will work out great!

2. That wasn’t such a quick take. It could have been a blog post of it’s own. Sorry, guys. I’ll pretend it was two and move onto the next one.

3. She’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain soon! Elisabeth (probably Grace but totally not completely decided yet) will be here in about three weeks at most! We haven’t scheduled the c-section yet but I hope to on Tuesday. I’m tempted to wait until I go into labor naturally to just head to the hospital and have my c-section then, but I’m not sure what the doctor thinks about that. If that’s the case we may have to wait longer to meet our little girl. We’ll see! Either way, she’ll be here in a few weeks!

4. Has anyone else watched the new show on ABC called Flash Forward? I really like it! The acting isn’t all that great but when I watch old episodes of our favorite shows (The Office, Lost, Heroes), none of the acting was super great the first season. Joseph and I watch it on Friday nights on ABC.com since it comes on during prime “put Molly to bed” hour. It’s a fun Friday  night tradition for us now!

5. Crock pots? Probably my favorite thing ever. I haven’t had much energy this pregnancy and we discovered that you can cook ANYTHING in a crock-pot. I swear that I haven’t cooked a meal outside of that crock-pot in months and every meal has turned out really, really tasty! Once I get some energy back, I’m sure I’ll resort to using it only a few times a month, but for now, I am really thankful for the greatest invention man has ever known. It will make our post-partum days much easier than they were with Molly!

6. Speaking of post-partum, we have just been overwhelmed with such kindness in offers of people bringing us meals after Ellie gets here. What a blessing! We’ve already had a couple of people bring us some frozen treats and meals. They are safely stored away in the recesses of our deep freeze where my pregnancy cravings will not be able to find them. We are so thankful for all the love and support and generosity we’ve been given through this pregnancy. We hope that everyone knows we offer them up in prayer and thanksgiving for the blessings they give us!

7. The Rosary is a REALLY powerful tool. I mean, I’ve known that with my mind my whole life, but I sure didn’t feel it with my heart, I guess. With night-weaning going on full-steam ahead in our house, we’ve had a few rough nights where Molly just will NOT go to sleep for hours and hours in the middle of the night. No matter how much we comfort her or how long she cries. It’s pretty miserable. The other night was the worst. Joseph and I were both exhausted and were not handling our fatigue with the greatest grace or love toward one another. I finally convinced Joseph to go into our den and try to get some sleep since it was a school night for him. After sitting with Molly and trying every tactic I could think of, I just started praying the Rosary for grace and strength. I prayed to St. Michael and Our Blessed Mother that Satan would just go away (since he was obviously using our fatigue to make the situation worse). By the first decade, I was calm: my tears had stopped, my anger had subsided and I really felt Our Lady walking me through what SHE would do. Lo and behold, sweet Molly fell asleep, as well. Of course this isn’t to say that that the Rosary was used as a “charm” to get Molly to fall asleep; I was just able to use this beautiful tool to keep Satan away and help calm myself down. I think it’s given me a renewed love for Our Lady’s prayer and will truly help in my prayer life (here’s hoping!).

I’m pretty wordy, since none of these were short or quick. Oh well! Time to lay our little night-waker down for a morning nap!

I haven’t updated this in a long time! I really have no reason! I’ll start to write a post and then think, “Why would anyone even read this??” Even though I’m a blog-stalker and read every single little post in blogs written by people I don’t even know, I just don’t think I have anything interesting to say.

Until I remember that I have two precious girls who change every single day! Who DOESN’T want to read about that?? On one of the blogs I frequent (yep, written by somebody I don’t even know), I found a great idea to keep me blogging regularly and about my most interesting topic – our kiddos! Tiny Treasures Tuesday!

Molly Rose

I think this photo shows her silly little nature really well!

What a girly-girl our little Rose is! She loves all things sparkly, frilly and pretty. Or Pitty-Pitty as she says. She is her mama’s whole world, let me tell you, but she is definitely a daddy’s girl at the same time. Here are some of my favorite things about her:

She loves to play “beauty shop.” She’ll grab a brush and just come up to me and ask to brush my hair. We’ll take turns brushing each others’ hair in front of a mirror that we keep in our living room (in order to keep little hands from emptying out our DVD cabinet every few minutes). She loves it! A few months ago, I painted her toenails thinking she would hate it, but she loved that, too. Now she goes around painting everyone’s toenails with toothpaste tubes, lotion dispensers or anything else that comes out of the bathroom. One day when she won’t paint our carpets pink, I’ll let her have the real nail polish!

Molly also loves to talk, much like any girl! She has a slew of words, but her favorites are:

Ucky = Yucky
Uh-oh = uh-oh
Pitty-Pitty = pretty, pretty
Fruful = Beautiful
Daa-dee = Dami (her best friend)
Baby = baby
Titter = sister
Uppy = puppy
Ook = Book
Noo = Snood (her favorite stuffed animal)
Gah-go = gotta go
Kank-oo = thank you
Wew come = You’re welcome
Stat? = What’s that?

There are a few others, but I have no idea how to translate their pronunciations into words! Unfortunately she learned how to stay “stop” because I was having a really hard week with third trimester fatigue hitting and Joseph being gone so much studying for the LSAT and I resorted to saying, “Molly, stop!” instead of, “Molly, we don’t throw our spaghetti on the ground for the third time in a row. It’s not nice and it makes a yucky mess.” That would have been harder for her to learn how to say! Drats.

She also loves Baby Sister. I tried to get her to say Ellie, but she just made elephant noises instead, so we’re sticking with Baby Sister for now. She will lift my shirt (no matter if we’re in public or not, of course) and kiss my tummy. If I ask her where Baby Sister is at, she knows right away! What a good big sister she already is! I can’t wait for the two of them to meet!

I think this ties as my favorite thing Molly does with how much she loves Baby Sister. She loves pointing to the Crucifix and saying “Gah!” I love that she already knows Our Lord. I’ll take a Crucifix off the wall and she will give Our Lord kisses or she’ll just blow Him kisses from on the ground. She also loves our St. Joseph the Worker statue. I had to tell her that he went night-night the other day because she wanted to carry him around and give him kisses all afternoon. I’m going to start teaching her about Holy Mary next! It does lead to a bit of a conundrum during Mass though when Molly continually points to the altar and says, “Gah!” really loudly during very important and silent parts of the Mass. Oh well! She is being raised a good little Catholic!

Elisabeth Grace

We don’t have any digital photos of our Ellie, but we’ll have plenty soon enough!

Bake just a little bit longer, sweet girl! At my last doctor’s check-up, I was already dilating even though we were only 34 weeks along. Sweet Ellie is ready to meet her big sister who gives her lots of kisses!

She is quite the gymnast and likes to keep mama awake during the middle of the night. Apparently she’s just a bit small for her age but it sure doesn’t feel like it! She has hiccups just as much as Molly did but she doesn’t kick as much, just move around a ton.

We are having a schedule c-section if all goes well which means we will get to see her precious face in about a month! We should schedule the date a week from today – I’m shooting for November 5th – feast of St. Elizabeth! Perfect!

That’s it for this week. Hopefully I won’t have so much to catch up on next time! God bless!

Our dear friends, the Busbys, just recently welcomed their second son, Gannon Ryan, into the world! We were very blessed to get to take a few pictures of their family! Here are my favorites:

PS. We are still learning how to take good pictures…please bear with us!

And lastly – Clark and Molly! Clark is quite the Molly-admirer! He’s always trying to give Molly hugs. Until recently, Molly wanted nothing to do with them! We finally convinced her that hugs are good things!

My favorite subjects, by far, are babies!! They are just so perfect!

Here is a picture we took at Dami’s first birthday party. This is our dear friend Laura with her sweet baby girl, Lucy. Doesn’t Lucy have the most hair of any baby you’ve ever seen? What a sweet, cute, precious girl. Both of them, actually! 

 

I happened to catch a sweet moment between mother and daughter and I thought it was such a perfect picture of the beauty and simplicity that motherhood is. 

 

joseph+melanie+molly

This might  be the first and only post without pictures attached; thankfully the following excerpt brings to mind so many beautiful mental images that I think I can get away with it!  Joseph’s favorite book, Dan England and the Noonday Devil, never really appealed to me. It is targeted mainly at men, I think. This except, however, really brought me to tears with how beautiful it is. The book was written by Myles Connolly in 1951 before, of course, all the changes of Vatican II took place. Maybe I should give it another chance!

 

“The Church to me is all important things everywhere. It is authority and guidance. It is love and inspiration. It is hope and assurance. It is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It is our Lady and St. Joseph. It is St. Peter and Pius XII. It is the bishop and the pastor. It is the catechism and it is our mother leaning over the crib teaching us our evening prayers. It is the cathedral at Chartres and the cross-tipped hut on Ulithi. It is the martyrs in the Colosseum and the martyrs in Uganda, the martyrs at Tyburn and the martyrs at Nagasaki. It is the wrinkled old nun and the eager-eyed postulant. It is the radiant face of the young priest saying his first Mass, and the sleepy boy acolyte with his soiled white sneakers showing under his black cassock.

It is the spire glimpsed from a train window and the cruciform miniature of a church seen far below on the earth from an airplane. It is six o’clock Mass with its handful of unknown saints at the communion rail in the gray dark and it is pontifical High Mass with its crowds and glowing grandeur in St. Peter’s. It is the candle-starred procession after evening Benediction in St. Patrick’s and the rosary, the night before the burial, at a stuccoed funeral parlor in Los Angeles. It is El Greco’s soaring Assumption in Toledo and it is the primitive pink and blue angels on a mission altar in Peru. It is the Sistine Choir and it is the May procession of Chinese children singing the Regina Coeli in Peking.

It is the Carthusian at prime on Monte Allegro and the Jesuit teaching epistemology in Tokyo. It is the Scheutveld Father fighting sleeping sickness in the Congo and the Redemptorist fighting prejudice in Vermont. It is the Benedictine, the Augustinian, the Passionist, the Dominican, the Franciscan. It is all religious and especially the great unnamed Order of the Parish Priest.

It is the Carmelite Sister lighting the tapers for vespers in the drear cold of Iceland and the Sister of Notre Dame de Namur making veils for First Communion in Kwango. It is the Vincentian Sister nursing a Negro Baptist dying of cancer in Alabama and the Maryknoll Sister facing a Communist commissar in Manchuria. It is the White Sister teaching the Arabs carpetmaking in the Sahara and the Good Shepherd Sister in St. Louis giving sanctuary to a derelict child, a home to a lamb who was lost. It is the Little Sister of the Poor salving the sores of a forgotten old man in Marseilles, the Grey Sister serving the destitute in Haiti, the Blessed Sacrament Sister helping a young Negro write poetry in New Orleans. It is the Sister of Charity… It is all the Sisters everywhere.

It is the crippled woman who keeps fresh flowers before our Lady’s altar and the young woman catechist who teaches the barefooted neophytes in the distant hills. It is the girl who gives up her bridge to drive the Sisters to the prisons and the homes of the poor, and it is the woman who goes from door to door begging for help for the orphanage. It is the proud mother of the priest and the heartbroken mother of the criminal. It is all mothers and sisters everywhere who weep and suffer and pray that sons and brothers may keep the Faith.

It is the youth climbing the September hill to the seminary, his heart sure of Him calling, and it is the lost priest stumbling, groping, seeking vainly afar the God he can hold in his hands, a stranger among men always and everywhere. It is the bad sermon and the good, the false vocation and the true. It is the tall young man who says the Stations of the Cross every evening and it is the father of ten who wheels the sick to Mass every Sunday morning at the County Hospital.

It is St. Martin and Martin de Porres, St. Augustine and St. Phocas, Gregory the Great and Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Ambrose and Charles de Foucauld, St. Ignatius and Ignatius the Martyr, St. Thomas More and St. Barnabas. It is St. Teresa and St. Philomena, Joan of Arc and St. Winefride, St. Agnes and St. Mary Euphrasia. It is all the saints, ancient and new, named and unnamed, and all the sinners.

It is the stained-glass window with the ragged hole from a boy’s baseball, and the small red sanctuary lamp sputtering in a dark and empty church. It is the bursting out of the Gloria on Holy Saturday and the dim crib at dawn Mass on Christmas. It is the rose vestments on Laetare Sunday and the blue overalls of the priest working with the laborers in a mine in the Ruhr.

It is the shiny, new shoes and shiny, reverent faces of the June bride and groom kneeling before the white-flowered altar at nuptial Mass, and it is the pale, troubled young mother at the baptismal font, her joy mingled with distress as she watches her first-born wail its protest against the sacramental water. It is the long, shadowy, uneven line of penitents waiting outside the confessional in the dusk of a wintry afternoon, each separate and solemnly alone with his sins, and it is the stooped figure of a priest, silhouetted against the headlights of a police car in the darkness of the highway as he says the last prayers over a broken body lying on the pavement beside a shattered automobile.

It is the Magnificat and it is grace before meals. It is the worn missal and the chipped statue of St. Anthony, the poor box and the cracked church bell. It is peace and truth and salvation. It is the Door through which I entered into the Faith and the Door through which I shall leave, please God, for eternity.”