We went to a homeschooling convention yesterday and listened to Dr. Mary Kay Clark speak on the goal of eternal victory through homeschooling. Most homeschoolers we talk to are always harping on "your style". Our problem is one of chaos. Mary Kay Clark is a hard hitter and she gave some good advice starting with:

1. Daily mass
2. Weekly confession
3. Use of sacramentals

Basically avail yourself of the graces that God has to give for which you are not asking for now.

Then she proceeded to the practical homeschooling advice (which I will save for a different time) ... Now while I realize she was peddling her wares at the conference, I couldn't help but be amazed that with both speakers the focus on BEING a good Catholic is the primary prequisite to being a good homeschooling Catholic.

If you don't live it, then it will ring hollow when you try to tell your kids to live it. Or as Dr. Clark said, "you cannot give what you do not live."

Finally she mentioned a talk by Fr. Fessio about the family being the "Monastery of the New Dark Ages" which was an idea that seemed truly inspiring to me ... so I did a search and found it.

The Family: Monastery of the New Dark Ages -- a couple of choice quotes (read the whole thing)

[The Benedictines] preserved the monuments of our faith by copying Scripture, and copying the great Fathers of the Church. Slowly, but inevitably, a new civilization was built up.
...
For one thing, these are the people having children, and you can’t have a civilization 100 years from now unless somebody has babies. Thank God that the people who really believe in the Church and believe in our civilization are having the babies and transmitting the culture. Because that will eventually take over.

I really like the tag Monastery of the New Dark Ages. Begging for some t-shirts to be made ...

We have also made a decision to go with St. Thomas Aquinas Academy with our first son.

Coming soon

I have collected some statistics on pornography which are shocking. ... I also have some thoughts on that which will show up here in the next few days. One more post for today ... :)