Lent Is Upon Us! An Idea For The Family, and Reflections On The Season

March 1, 2017November 15, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been writing about a couple of more serious topics recently, so I thought it might be time to switch it up and get a little more lighthearted. Like by writing a post about Lent. Because Lent is known for being both lighthearted and fun! Ha ha! But, in all seriousness…

People. I am honestly, truly, so pumped about Lent!

I think part of the reason I’m so excited is because last year, at this time, I was approaching Confirmation. I was preparing in my heart for fully uniting with the Holy Catholic Church. And it was just a beautiful time of anticipation and reflection.

Another reason is that I have really grown to appreciate the liturgical seasons. They are such a rhythmic way to go through life, with periods of anticipation, and celebration, of sacrifice, and waiting, and also, normalcy. I think the cycle is so beautiful. And I know many of my Protestant brothers and sisters, in their faith traditions, are already or are starting to re-embrace some of these liturgical aspects, like Advent and Lent, as well. It is good for us to have a rhythm to our life. Like the seasons of the earth, only these are the seasons of our faith.

We move ever forward, and yet revisit that which is good for our souls time and time again as the years go by.

In this particular season of having three little ones at home, my desire is to start incorporating more formal traditions into our family life for the major liturgical seasons and Holy Days throughout the year. But also, not to bite off more than I can realistically chew. I may or may not have a tendency to think I am Superwoman. I submit Felicity’s third and fourth birthday parties as examples of this. One was a Frozen theme, the other Rainbows.

It is quite possible that my children will never experience this level of Pinteresty-ness again. I sure did have fun doing it, and hopefully the husband and grandparents that got roped into helping did too, but this momma has time to painstakingly cut out dozens of paper snowflakes by hand no longer. And if some day, some how, some way I do have the time and energy and will again… cool. But I’m really working on not putting that kind of pressure on myself if I just can’t. Right now I can keep 3 little humans alive and manage to maintain my sanity for the most part. This is enough.

So… I want to start traditions, but keep it manageable. I had a few ideas, but this year, I am settling on this one. Just adding one thing to our Lenten season as a family. And that one thing is… drumroll please…

Sacrifice Beans!

Oddly named, but pretty cool. I originally found this idea on one of my favorite Catholic Mommy blogs, Catholic All Year.

This Lent, whenever we do something that is a sacrifice for the benefit of another, we get to put a bean in the vase. This will primarily be for the kids, but they are welcome to call out JP or I making a sacrifice for another and we can put a bean in as well. We will continue to add beans to the vase all the way up until Easter. At which point, on Easter morning, they will arise to find that all their sacrifices have turned into Jelly Beans. We can continue this into the Easter season, and this time, when they sacrifice, they get to eat a Jelly Bean.

If things go well, Easter this year may be a bit more sugared up than usual. 🙂

My hope is that this will be a fun way to help all of us to focus on serving each other, and to remember to put others first during this season. Also, hopefully, this will help pave the way for our children, and for JP and I to continue to live just a little bit more selflessly as time goes on.

That’s about all I can take on this year. We can add other traditions as the years go by. But I’m glad to be doing something, and am glad to start our first significant family tradition during Lent.

What about you? Does your family have any special Lenten traditions? Are you going to try something new this year?

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Lorelei is the author of creepy, magical, hopeful stories for children. Her debut, *The Circus of Stolen Dreams, released* in 2020. Her second book, a magical retelling of *The Secret Garden,* released in 2022. Both are available for purchase wherever books are sold.

Mary Charlotte

January 16, 2017November 15, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 5 Comments

We have been so thankful to welcome Mary Charlotte Savaryn into the world on December 26th! The whole end of pregnancy while working full time with 2 other kiddos didn’t leave a lot of time to write, but it did leave a lot of time for reflection, so this post has been a long time coming.

Prior to becoming pregnant with Mary, I was full of fear. Because of my traumatic pregnancy with August, the idea of getting pregnant again was terrifying, and my husband and I were not wanting to go through that again. I already wrote a bit here about how this pregnancy has allowed for such healing in our marriage in how we were able to handle the challenges of pregnancy differently this time around, which has had much to do with our Catholic faith.

But on a more personal level, just seeing God’s faithfulness in bringing me through the physical challenges of pregnancy this time, and knowing that He was sustaining me through the nausea, through the growing pains, through the discomforts at the end, and all the way through to a very healthy and healing natural delivery, boosted my own personal faith in countless ways.

I know that God had willed for us to have another child, and being open to life again was a big step of faith. And through it all I never felt abandoned… I could kneel in Mass and feel nauseous and know that Jesus, who asked this of me, was there, literally, sustaining me, right there in the Eucharist. I could kneel in Mass and feel the weight of my child inside me this December and know that Jesus, who asked this of me, was still, right there, always, in such a concrete way, a way I had never had access to prior to becoming Catholic. I knew that He has such a plan for this life, and that He was pleased with our faithfulness in being open to another child. Receiving Jesus each Mass was something I looked forward to and was grateful for, many times through tears, throughout the more difficult stages of growing this babe.

I also had the blessing of being very pregnant during the season of Advent. I was able to study and contemplate the journey of Mary at the end of her pregnancy, anticipating the birth of her own child. The discomfort she must have felt to be so pregnant on such a long journey, her own wonderings at when her child would be born, her own feelings and emotions as the time drew near, her faithfulness in the (much greater) task that God had set before her. And this Advent, due to my new relationship with and appreciation of the Mother of my Lord, I drew more comfort than ever that Mary knew what it was like, especially since she had so much more at stake than I did. And she was so faithful. And if she could be so faithful, then I knew I could as well.

My relationship with Mary has only started to grow, but I also felt her sustaining me throughout this pregnancy. Our daughter carries my grandmother’s names, one of which is also the name of our Holy Mother, and that was no coincidence.

It is my utmost goal to raise my children strong in the Catholic faith, so they can grow to be Saints in this world by following Jesus with their whole lives. This journey to motherhood for the 3rd time was particularly special, and healing, and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for this little life that he chose to bless us with, and through whom He already has provided such healing in my marriage, and in my soul.

-Lorelei

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Oh Child, I Have So Much Good in Mind for You – If You Would Just Obey

July 28, 2016November 15, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ 1 Comment

In reading the Gospels lately, there is a common theme in Jesus’ teaching that jumps off the page at me (JP). That theme: if you believe I am Lord, then do what I say. I really am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and I’ve come so that you can have life to the fullest. But, having that life requires obeying me!

Being a parent has granted me the gift of understanding our relationship to our heavenly Father in better ways than ever before. Look at a scenario many parents are familiar with: parent wants what is good for the child, child doesn’t trust parent… But why?

Because sometimes what’s good for the child requires some element of suffering for the child.

The child can’t see past the short term suffering – giving up the toy to the younger brother, turning off the T.V. when mom asks, coming inside when told, …. etc. Since the child only sees the short term suffering, he/she has a hard, if not impossible time, believing that the parent has the child’s best interest in mind. But, the parent pleads with the child – if not explicitly, at least implicitly, subconsciously – to trust, just trust. “Child, if you’d just trust that I have your best interest in mind and obey what I tell you to do, life would go so well for you. I love you unconditionally, I take care of you, I want nothing less than for you to become the best version of yourself!”

But the child needs to do more than simply give mental assent to this claim from the parent – the claim that the parent has the child’s best interest in mind. The child actually needs to obey the parent! Without obedience, there is no growth. In obeying the parent, the child is participating in allowing the parent to shape him/her into the person the parents want them to be. And they want them to be a certain way only because the love them so very much! They want the child to be happy and they know what brings happiness and what doesn’t.

How similar have I been in my relationship with God to how my kids interact with me. Yah, yah, yah, God, you came and died for my sins, I get it. Jesus is God, I get it. …. 30min later when stuff is getting hard in the house, kids are screaming, dishwasher is broken, rain water is coming in the window, … whatever, I choose to sin, I choose not to obey Jesus’ commands in those moments. But if I really believe he is who he says he is, then the answer to all life’s greatest challenges is to do what he says! And what does he say to do?

Love.

That lead to the next logical question: what is love? How do I love as Jesus commands? Love is to will the good of the other. Love, which is what God is, is self-giving, indifferent self-giving. Love is giving of self regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what you will get in return. This is what Jesus came to show. He showed us what that looks like. And then he gave us the answers to all of life’s greatest troubles: do what I tell you – love others as I love you – and you will have life to the fullest. You will be free to freely give! Not to even begin to mention the endless grace he pours out on us when we make room in our hearts for him. If we just trust our Father in heaven has our best interest in mind and do what he says, we will have life to the fullest.

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” -John 10:1

– John Paul

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Children are Life

July 6, 2016November 15, 2020 ~ Lorelei Savaryn ~ Leave a comment

I write this as my 4 year old daughter is screaming and crying and stomping her feet in the middle of a time out. So, if I can still write this now, you know I mean it.

Felicity, our first little gift of life.

I hope to explore this further as time goes on, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how parts of our society view children. The decisions about how many children to have, how far to space them apart, what kinds of sacrifices are involved, seem to revolve more around the convenience and desired lifestyle of the parents than really looking at the matter from the perspective of a Christian, or, Catholic worldview.

I think those are important things to consider when deciding when or how many children to have, and the Church acknowledges that there do exist grave situations where limiting or delaying family growth is prudent. JP and I have no plans to need a school bus to cart our family around. But, there is a moral and ethical way to go about that planning that doesn’t wrap our fingers so tightly around the control that we shut out God’s movement. But my concern is that we are all too often addressing the issue from the view of society, and not from the view of the Church.

Example- the idea that having more children is going to postpone our life’s plans, are going to make it more challenging for us to have the lifestyle we desire, etc. Thinking about family planning from that perspective is looking at things from the point of view of society- that our goals and ambitions come first, and we somehow fit our child bearing into that plan for our lives. Somehow, bringing children into the world has become about us.

The Church comes at child bearing from a completely different angle. And this is the angle we should be using when evaluating issues in regard to family planning. The idea that children are not a barrier or a cause of delay in our own lives… children are life! They are life created in the image of God. They are life endowed with an immeasurable intrinsic value. In addition to that, the Church believes that marriage is most fully expressed in the way God intended when it is a marriage lived open to the possibility of creating life. We have found that openness to life to be transformative in our own marriage. When you live like that, the perspective necessarily shifts away from what we get out of our marriage, to what we give, and then, ultimately, what we receive from God as a result of our own self-giving.

I think there is a possibility that one might decide to have fewer children than originally thought, in order to pursue one’s life goals more quickly… but then decades later wonder “what if…” Whereas, I don’t think it’s likely that many people, deciding to allow for the blessing of children in their lives at God’s timing, would,decades later, wish that they hadn’t had one or more of their children. Or that they would regret delaying a “life’s goal” in exchange for the existence of their child.

Why is that? Because, while we have plans for our “life,” in the sense of what we want to accomplish, children actually are life. Period. And actual life, God-imaged life, is one of the most precious gifts our Creator has given us. Children are the beautiful life-filled result of the loving, giving union between a husband and a wife. And there are few things more beautiful in this world than that.