Laura Kelly Fanucci
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I carried one book with me across the country on a recent trip, Phyllis Tickle’s The Shaping of a Life: A Spiritual Landscape.&nb...
How to pray lectio divina with kids
I first heard of lectio divina when I started graduate theological studies. Thankfully, I was blessed to study with the Benedictines, who are steeped in this prayer practice (which St. Benedict wrote about in his Rule dating back to 500). So I learned from wise sisters and brothers how to make this “holy reading” of scripture part of my prayer life. And I’ve been grateful ever since.
But here’s the thing about lectio divina.
I have a first-grader
Every morning my son goes off to school. He slings a giant shark backpack over his tiny shoulder, and he waves to me as I drive away from the carpool lane.
And every morning as he turns into the school’s open door, the same fear catches my heart. What if that is the last time I see him?
The essay I never wrote
I plopped the baby on the ground beside me, mail already scattered across the grass like clumsy confetti. He lunged for the letters; I snatched them up and sighed. A long, muggy summer afternoon; too-hot kids whining about everything under the sultry sun and still hours to go before dinner.
The baby grabbed the envelopes again. I gave in. Junk mail; who cares, he was happy. So I reached for the magazine instead.
3 simple ways to celebrate Ordinary Time
It’s no secret that I love Ordinary Time.
As time goes on, I find that the seasons I love the most in the liturgical year aren’t the high holy feasts, but the ordinary ones.
Meditation, preschool-style
Most nights, my bedtime prayer with our two oldest boys begins like this:
Be still and know that I am God.
There is another way
All these things are in the way, I sigh. Shuffle and shove to make space again. I am tired of working like this, I mutter.
I want to sweep everything aside—the papers and the clutter and the laundry and the bills and the books and the toys and the shoes—and stare at a vacant desk.
What we hold tight and what we let go
I finally tossed the stack of papers into the recycling bin, the post-op instructions we brought home ...
Until it stays open
You have two choices when you feel it happening. You can let your heart stretch to the point of ripping open to the beauty and agony of living in this mortal world.
Or you can pull the protective shield back over the vulnerable center.
Like a mother and child
I was 12 years old and away at summer camp for the first time. She was the counselor assigned to my cabin. I remember her long dirty blond hair, wavy and wild. Her weathered hiking boots and the lilac shirt she tied around her waist each morning.
Her birch-bark name tag read Marion, but we all chose French pseudonyms for our two-week cultural immersions.
What the Presentation means for parents
We have to let go. We knew that, right? People told us from the beginning. The years fly by so fast and before you know it, they’ll be grown and enjoy this time before it’s gone.
We smiled and looked down at the baby in our arms.
The gift of Ordinary Time
I have a sneaking suspicion this is what matters most.
Not the anticipation of Advent, the celebration of Christmas, the long journey of Lent, or the exuberance of Easter. But the everyday of Ordinary Time.
Supporting couples through infertility
I never expected this. Those words swam in my head every single month that we were waiting for a baby. So I should not be surprised that infertility continues to shape my life in unexpected ways, such as in the overwhelming number of stories people shared in response to a recent post I wrote. I've been floored by how many people are yearning to hear that they are seen.
So many couples are suffering the invisibility of infertility.
Dear couple in the pew: I see you
I see the way you grip each other’s hands when you notice us. I see the way you try not to cry while you watch our kids.
Where is home?
Right now I am home. Sitting in the house that we own. Where we are raising our children. Where mail arrives daily bearing my name. Where we welcome family and entertain friends. Where I pull weeds and paint walls. Where my car pulls into the driveway and my shoes slip off in the doorway.
And I am writing about going home. Which is not here.
A different assumption for today
August 15 is the Feast of the Assumption. The Catholic Church teaches that at the end of Mary’s life, she was assumed into heaven, body and soul.
You might assume, if you knew I was an Associate Missionary of the Assumption, that I had something to say about today’s feast. But here’s the truth about how I started my AMA year in France.
The forgotten days of Holy Week
Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. How easily we pass over them, eyes set eagerly on Easter Sunday. Or anticipating Thursday’s opening of the Triduum.
Our first half of Holy Week probably looks a lot like yours. Work. School. Kids. Meetings. Chores. Bills. The lackluster pregame show before the big kickoff. The forgettable prelude before the fanfare. The ordinary before the extraordinary.
My toddler's witness
His careful movements caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, as I e-mailed and meal-planned and sorted the mail and remembered wet laundry in the washer and half-checked the clock to see ...
When pavement ends
This sign sits in our front yard. Since it’s covered from view by a line of trees, I rarely glimpse it from the house....