1. Shop early online, wrap the gifts, and forget about them. Consider doing a Kris Kringle (Secret Santa) exchange at the office, at school, or with friends to cut down on spending. Collect possible gifts at yard sales during the year, or save children’s art projects for family members.

2. Take a family photo and use a religious Christmas frame for your card this year. You can find them online at TrueChristmasCards.com

3. Make a Jesse Tree. On a bare branch, hang a different ornament (symbolizing the ancestors of Jesus in the Old Testament, such as Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David) each day of December, and then read a short Scripture reading.  At NCRegister.com click “Resources” to find helpful material.

4. Have an Advent wreath, the same as we have in church, with four candles: three purple and one pink (for the third Sunday of Advent, called Gaudete, which means “Rejoice”, Sunday, since Christ is nearly born). Sing an Advent hymn like “O Come, Divine Messiah” or “People Look East” each night as you light the wreath.

5. Keep an Advent calendar. Buy a religious paper calendar, or consider a fabric pocket calendar if you have young children, so they can place the items in the pockets for each day by themselves.

6. Fill Baby Jesus’ manger with straw. Ask the children to tell you about their good deeds, and let them put a straw for each one in a small manger at their bedsides. The goal: a comfortable bed for the Baby Jesus by Christmas.

7. Fast. Advent has always been a time of fasting. Although a bit less severe than Lent, it’s still a time to serve simpler meals, give up sweets, and to enter into a spirit of penance and recollection.

8. Visit the elderly in your family or neighborhood. Ask them about their Christmas memories and traditions on tape, and make a treasured keepsake for their families and yours. Bring a package of homemade Christmas cookies.

9. Celebrate St. Nicholas’ feast day on Dec. 6 by filling your children’s shoes with chocolate gold coins, reading a short biography of St. Nicholas, and watching the CCC of America cartoon movie Nicholas: The Boy Who Became Santa.

10. Teach your children how to pray a novena for the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and say the Rosary after attending Mass on Our Lady’s feast day. Wear something blue. Serve a special dessert when you get home.

11. Contribute to the Christmas of the poor. Sponsor a family in the parish; shop a catalogue of gifts for the poor in the missions; save change from fasting for the poor box. One of our family customs is to collect a box of unwanted toys to donate to our church thrift shop.

12. Attend a parish celebration of the solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In our parish, the entire congregation celebrates after Mass with a Mexican fiesta. Your family can have its own fiesta.

13. Wait to decorate the outside of your home with lights until the feast of St. Lucy on Dec. 13. Traditionally, girls dress in white robes and wear Christmas wreaths with candles on their heads and wake the family with coffee that day. Include the Irish custom of placing candles in your windows to welcome the Holy Family.

14. Teach your children to sing a new Christmas carol every week and have them practice the songs on their instruments. Give a concert to your Christmas dinner guests.

15. Buy a CD of sacred Christmas music in Latin to listen to as you bake, wrap and decorate. It will help to keep your minds focused on the Nativity.

16. Make your Nativity set the center of your home’s decorations. Consider buying an unbreakable collectable set and add a new statue each year. Let the kids play with the figures.

17. Watch DVDs of The Little Drummer Boy, The Small One, or The Fourth Wise Man.

18. Put a “Keep Christ in Christmas” magnet on your car.

19. Go to a local shrine to visit the outdoor manger scene, preferably at night. Serenade the Holy Family with Christmas carols. We like to do this on the Epiphany, when the Wise Men have joined the Nativity scene.

20. Go Christmas caroling with other families to your neighbors’ homes; have hot chocolate when you get back home. Sing carols at a nursing home.

21. Participate in a celebration of “Las Posadas.” This is a nine-day novena of preparation for Christmas; a statue of Baby Jesus in the manger is passed from home to home, beginning Dec. 15. The family whose home has the statue brings it to the next family on the list, with two children dressed in simple costumes as Mary and St. Joseph, asking for shelter in the posada(home).

22. Buy an oplatek, a blessed (not consecrated) white wheat wafer stamped with the Nativity to share with your family on Christmas Eve, in Polish tradition. At dinner, the oplatek is broken and shared with the family, along with special prayers.

23. Make a traditional Italian 12-fish Christmas Eve dinner — and invite a lonely family member who remembers this custom to share memories about it with the children. The 12 fish represent the Twelve Apostles.

24. Attend midnight Mass as a family, all dressed up in your Christmas clothes. Make a special visit to the manger to wish Baby Jesus a “Happy Birthday.”

25. Read the Gospel of St. Luke’s Nativity story as you place Baby Jesus in the manger after Mass, and thank him for coming to your family this Christmas.

Copyright 2010 Leticia Velasquez

Death Panels: A Novel of Life, Liberty and Faith

Deep in the human heart is an innate sense of right and wrong. It guides our actions whether we were raised in the Amazon rainforest or in downtown Manhattan, whether we believe in God or not. It helps us tell right from wrong unless another influence supplants it.  This understanding of essential facts like the dignity of the human person and his right to live is so vitally important to society that it is inscribed in the Preamble of the Constitution. “All men are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We may not be aware of the presence of this Natural Law within our hearts; however, we do recognize when it has been violated, it causes a visceral sense of outrage, for example when a child is brutalized. Dictators and totalitarian regimes know this, which is why they invest so much time in re-shaping the consciences of their nation with propaganda.

In Michelle Buckman’s novel, that is precisely the kind of society America has become in 2042, when it has been absorbed into a worldwide government called the “Unified Order of the World”. The fundamental right to live is turned into a duty to kill “for the good of the nation, for the good of the world.” Decades of programming, dehumanizing the weak and deliberate obliteration of the family, and its primordial role in reproduction, has paid off for the leaders of the regime, which has gained absolute control of a populace that follows orders to kill the unfit and experiment on the ill. The leaders of the Unified Order, led by Axyl Houston, are about to implement their version of ‘The Final Solution,’ the extermination of the inhabitants of the Cloistered Dominion, the Christian ghetto, who pose the last threat to the complete takeover of the human heart.

Death Panels: A Novel of Life, Liberty and Faith, like its predecessor, Aldous Huxley’s prophetic Brave New World in the 1930’s, is a clarion call to those whose consciences have fallen asleep in a nation once considered the pinnacle of civilization and beacon of freedom to the world. GK Chesterton said that Brave New World was a revolt against Utopianism, rejecting materialism and loss of individuality, sexual promiscuity, and was written about America.

Death Panels was written about the America towards which we are heading if good people do nothing to stop it. It’s our last warning.

Death Panels is a compelling read, despite how fiercely the atrocities of this brave new America assault our sensibilities.  Although offended, we are tempted to proclaim that we are above such outrages in America, yet, in the absolute control the state has over health care, we are eerily reminded of certain legislation which was just rammed through Congress. Today’s politicians have decided what is “for the good of the nation, for the good of the world,” despite the will of the American public. The legislation has provisions for the same type of Death Panels we find in the Unified Order where those with genetic defects are eliminated as too expensive to receive care. Today, in 2010, it is accomplished by a voluntary 90% abortion rate; in 2042 it is accomplished by “dumping” whereby each birthing center has a drawer, where a defective newborn is strapped in, the drawer pushed in, and a button pressed, which gasses the newborn to death, and, in a coldly efficient manner, his corpse unceremoniously dumped into a waste bin.

This is too much for David Rudder, an outcast who, because of his refusal to abandon his Catholic faith, lives in the Dominion, a penal colony of Catholics carved out of the wasteland of Detroit’s inner cities. Even though he is a physician, his wife Elizabeth and newborn daughter Bethany languished and died for lack of updated medical equipment, which the government denied the Dominion in an attempt to slowly extinguish the remnants of the population resistant to indoctrination. David came to mainstream America seeking solace from his grief, determined to do some good and make contact with the Christian Underground when after assisting at a birth, a child with Down syndrome is born, and he encounters the horrific process of “dumping.” Rudder rebels, and along with obstetrician Markus Holmes, whose disgust at the outrage gives him a burst of courage, they run with newborn baby Frankie in a desperate quest to save his life. These reluctant heroes have no idea that their bold actions will bring about upheaval in a nation which seems to be sleeping. They inspire Jessica Main, who has been secretly yearning for a family of her own, and who contacts members of the Christian Underground who have been waiting to capitalize on such an opportunity to expose the heinous experiments conducted on sick children donated to the State in the Gift of Life foundation. In The Death Panels one small act of rebellion from a reluctant hero touches off a mass awakening which threatens the hold that the totalitarian regime has over its somnolent citizenry.

The tragedy is that in America in 2010, this downturn is already far advanced, and we as a nation are too blind to see how far down the slippery slope our apathy has allowed us to slide. Death Panels: A Novel of Life, Liberty and Faith may be our last chance to see the terrifying consequences of deeming one member of the human family ‘life unworthy of life,’ and thereby degrading the value of all life. This fast-paced, powerfully written novel may be the wake up call we have been seeking.

Order Death Panels: A Novel of Life, Liberty and Faith and support CatholicMom.com with your purchase

Copyright 2010 Leticia Velasquez

I am proud to say we never had a big argument, and that though I may have a few more grey hairs, I somehow kept my anxiety in check, (see those nail marks on my seat bottom?) and was a fairly even-tempered instructor. I was also very knowledgeable, to my surprise. Things my Driver’s Ed teachers told me kept popping back into my brain, word for word, “always assume the other driver will do something dangerous and be prepared for it”. I wondered why of all the schooling I had, that these phrases were so easily remembered. Perhaps because I had delayed taking the class till I was ready for college, fearing the onerous responsibility of operating a motor vehicle capable of taking a life, the warnings I received about driving defensively were burned into my conscious memory. I wondered at the boldness of my daughter, whose fifteenth birthday wish was to pick up a drivers manual so that she could take the permit test on her sixteenth birthday.

While she was taking the test, in the pouring rain at sunset, I prayed my rosary aloud in the Motor Vehicle Department. If they couldn’t understand why a nervous mother was praying during a road test, they were past helping, I figured. I asked God to give me Gabbi’s nervousness, because I knew that if she didn’t surrender to nerves, that her natural ability would help her pass the test with flying colors. So I dealt with the butterflies in my stomach, and watched her drive the tester back into the parking lot. She parked, and the car lights remained on for an eternity, until up emerging from the car, her 200 watt smile told me she had passed. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I had to resist shouting “Alleluia!”. Gabbi came in and said she only did one thing wrong, she backed into a space and parked on the white line. Not bad for a dark rainy night!

She took the written test on the computer, posed for a photo, and soon she were walking out of the office with a spanking new “Youth License” in her hand. Since the tragic deaths of teenagers due to reckless driving has caused many restrictions to be added to 16 to 17 year olds, just about the only difference between having a learner’s permit and an actual license these days is that she can now drive herself. For a year, she can’t even drive her best friend 5 miles to school, but you’d never know that from the breadth of the smile on her face when she called her father to tell him the news.

On the way home, we ate sundaes in the car while the rain drummed on the roof, in celebration. This junior year of high school is one of almost milestones, PSAT’s, college visits, the Junior Prom, Getting her driver’s license is the only full fledged accomplishment available to my 16 year old, and despite a nagging fear that I was giving her the means to kill herself, I managed to enjoy a glow of pride for a job well done. I had spent 16 years giving her roots, and the last six months giving her wings. It was time to let her use them.



Copyright 2010 Leticia Velasquez

Review of 11 On My Own

Kristin Luscia

WestBow Press

166 pages

By Leticia Velasquez

11 On My Own is a story of one woman’s pain; pain from three failed marriages, betrayal, and abuse, but mostly pain from a source which was created to alleviate it; the Family Court System. A mother of eleven children, deserted by her husband, Kristin Luscia is left without means to support her eleven children in a dilapidated home that is subject to an impending foreclosure.  Kristin’s ex-husband owes her over $60,000 in child support, and has paid none of it. Yet the court continues to insist that he has ‘rights’ to see his children bi-weekly, at least those he hasn’t managed to alienate yet. Ted has warrants out for his arrest that haven’t been served, and yet he manages to show up in court unscathed. He is the Teflon Deadbeat Dad. This is the tragically unjust outcome of Kristin’s exhausting three years in the Family Court System of Connecticut.

Rights for men and poverty for women. Sadly it’s a familiar story from my days as a Social Worker at Catholic Charities in New York. One case stands out from 25 years ago; the wife of a cardiologist, living in a mansion without heat, where she and three small children were reduced to living in the living room heated by a kerosene heater, keeping warm under quilts, came to me seeking food for her family for Christmas Day. The not- so-good doctor had fled to warmer climes with his girlfriend, emptying the bank accounts, leaving his wife with nothing but a Bloomingdale’s credit card. You can’t buy food at Bloomies, so her children were well-dressed, and hungry. His lawyer settled the child support while he was on medical leave for an operation, and without income. The doctor had NO obligation to support his children. According to Family Court, two years later, while touring his hospital, the same doctor boasted about his large donations to charity. Bound by confidentiality, I replied icily, “Charity begins at home, pal!” Both men planned the abandonment of their families by cleaning out the joint bank accounts. When their wives fought for support, they discovered that their husbands could afford better lawyers.

Addressing this widespread problem though her personal crisis, Kristin speaks in a colloquial voice as she describes her situation, and takes the reader back to her childhood as an only child of adoptive parents. She tells the story of her troubled marriage to a narcissistic sociopath with candor and without self pity. Far from the latest blame-my-mother book, 11 On My Own is set apart by Kristin’s humble admission of own her role in her disastrous marriages. This as well as the frequent references to Canon Law, Papal Encyclicals, and The Catechism of the Catholic Church, makes 11 On My Own somewhat akin to Confessions of St Augustine, one of two saints to whom she dedicates the book.

St Augustine said:

“I came to You late, O Beauty so ancient and new. I came to love You late …  You were with me but I was not with You. You called me, You shouted to me, You wrapped me in Your Splendor, You broke past my deafness, You bathed me in Your Light. . . You touched me, and I burned to know Your Peace.”

Kristin says;

“In my past, I had chosen several times to follow Jesus’ path without fully knowing why: I had my babies baptized in the Church and gave my mother a proper burial before I was a practicing Catholic.

Yes, I had also chosen sin through many foolish and poor life decisions. My parents believed in God, yet they didn’t take me to His Church. I had the benefit of graces received in Baptism, but had no idea how to channel them. I am sure that my devout Babci (Polish for grandma) praying in the Church triumphant for my soul was a means of shaping my destiny to begin making the right choices.

There is hope for me, thank God. No sin of mine (or anyone’s) is greater than God’s love. No matter what your past has been, we can begin anew.”

Despite disturbing descriptions of abuse suffered, and intolerable legal injustice, ultimately 11 On My Own is a tale of hope. Hope that the poor sinner reading this book can learn from the hardships that Kristin endured as a result of her own sin and that of her husbands. Hope that readers will then take advantage of the graces bestowed on them through Baptism, and make good confessions in order to live in the grace of God. It’s never too late. If ever there were an important message to a world with a 50% divorce rate, wounded from sin, it’s this one.

Highly recommended for adults and mature teens, due to a sprinkling of four letter words, and sexual references. This may be just the book your son or daughter needs to read before heading into a disastrous life decision.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that I am the Leticia whom Kristin mentions in the last line of her book, and who wrote the blurb on the book’s back cover.

I came to know Kristin within the past year, through our daughters’ friendship. I was impressed at the purity and holiness of her children, as well as her determination that she would remain faithful to God and not surrender to bitterness, despite the terrible events they have endured. It was the witness of her beautiful family and the enormity of the injustice she has endured at the hands of the courts which prompted me to support her book. May it be a blessing to you.

Purchase 11 On My Own and support CatholicMom.com


Copyright 2010 Leticia Velasquez

The Handbook for Catholic Moms: Nurturing Your Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul.

For more than ten years, Catholic Mom.com has provided Catholic women with a place for friendship and counsel, wit and wisdom. Now she has organized the insights of her talented cadre of seasoned Catholic writers into several important themes to form a book to reach the mom in the trenches of laundry, dishes, teens and potty training with the message that they are not alone. They are part of a blessed sisterhood.

Lisa does not see herself as a Mom-guru, giving advice from on high; she’s far too humble for that. Her attitude throughout the book is “I found some great ideas on this subject from a friend, come and see”, or “here’s how I struggled with this problem”. I enjoyed reading about her experiences as a young mother moving to a new parish with a husband working long hours, and the story of her stirring victory over breast cancer.

The Handbook has sound, balanced advice on matters practical as well as spiritual, and the topics are so diverse, that any mom is bound to find a personally relevant section. The two which stood out to me were the nutrition and fitness sections; these are two areas where my husband and doctor have been trying to motivate me. Lisa’s upbeat, affirming words have helped me take another look at how I care for my body. She has helped convince me that my health is worth taking time out of my schedule, and that taking care of me is an act of love for my family. Encouragement is her particular gift and she uses it well throughout this book. .

Lisa is a natural cheerleader, and when it comes to sharing her faith, her enthusiasm is contagious, yet she doesn’t get too theoretical. For example, in her section on prayer, she acknowledges the difficulty most mothers have maintaining an active prayer life and proposes practical solutions;

“The demands of our motherly vocation, couple with an ever-increasing societal “noise” level and the busyness of the schedules we keep, leave our spiritual reserves running on empty. In this chapter, we look at different types of prayer and how busy moms have succeeded in prioritizing prayer in their lives.”

Hands-on strategies, heartfelt sharing of triumphs and tragedies, and authentically Catholic advice based on Scripture, the saints, and the Catechism are what make The Handbook for Catholic Moms an essential resource, you will consult frequently. As Lisa says, in her section on creativity, “When we take time to tap into our creative abilities, we acknowledge the God who placed them within us, and who crafted us, just so, knowing every aspect of us and loving every hair on our heads”.

The Handbook for Catholic Moms reflects both the creativity of its author and the love of the God who made us.

Copyright 2010 Leticia Velasquez

A Christmas Letter from God to a Mother of a Special Child

My beloved child,

I have heard you question my gift of a special needs child.

I love you deeply, and I know you intimately, better than you know yourself.  My love for you is infinite; however, desire is to make you holier and more loving, to bring you closer to me.  This can only be done by purifying you.  As I did with the children of Israel, I accomplish purification through fire.  Fire purifies gold by burning off the impurities.  Having your desires for a healthy baby ‘ignored’ by me is my way of helping you let go and trust me to re-shape your idea of happiness.  Happiness in the world’s eyes is prosperity and health, peace and smooth sailing. As you have read in my Word, my ways are not your ways.

If you read the lives of my closest friends, the saints, you will see how often I told them “no” to their perfectly reasonable desires for their lives.  They suffered disease, poverty, persecutions, and this left them feeling abandoned by me.  Yet I loved them very much.  So much that I wanted to kiss them from the Cross, allowing them to share my suffering, saving souls.  Mother Teresa knew this, and she once said, “Tell Jesus He can stop kissing me so much!”

You have been called by me to a unique and noble vocation; to raise a special needs child requires that you put your entire trust in me, inn order to overcome your fear of having a child whom the world deems incomplete.  To go against the current of popular opinion in which a disabled baby is the worst thing that can happen to a family, in fact, did you know that 90% of mothers who received news like your child’s diagnosis aborted their children?  You have already proven that you are one of the elite 10% who said “yes” to life. I am so proud of you!

Now I want you to learn a higher level of trust, by going against your natural reaction to infirmity, and your maternal fears for your child’s future.  You will struggle with this, for example, when you see your daughter’s development lagging behind her typical classmates in first grade, or when you worry about what she will do as an adult.  Learning to trust me is a lifelong process, and it usually hurts.

Soon you will notice that you have an increased capacity to love; as you learn to love me for who I Am, not for what I do for you.  Even if you do it while gritting your teeth.  When you can act in loving ways even you don’t feel like it; caring for your child when you are upset or feel like you have no time for yourself or your other children, you are growing in love.  That is the goal of your walk with me.

This gift can seem very strange indeed, but you must remember that this increased capacity for love will surpass your expectations.  Perhaps you did not think you could cope with a special needs child.  However, as each challenge appears, you will find that I will not abandon you in this very special mission.  I want you to accept this child as a gift from my Hand.  Mary accepted the gift of my Son trusting the future to me.

Are you worried about your child’s future?  I hold it in my hands too.  This is a fear you overcome, little by little, as you see every stage of development happen, like watching a slow motion film of a rose unfolding.  And each accomplishment will mean so much more to you.  Someday soon, I promise you will look back on these dark days as Mary did, you will ponder the mystery of your special child in your heart with deep gratitude.

You will have peace again.  More than you have ever experienced before.  Peace that can never be shattered by circumstances. Peace deep in your soul, peace in knowing I love you and ultimately work all things for good for those who love me.  Peace that I hold a wonderful future for you and your child in my hands and it is eternal union with me.

However, I cannot complete this work in you without frequent communication with you, and your receiving my grace through the sacraments.  You also need support from family and friends.  Pray as a couple.  Have your children pray for their new brother or sister. This is a good time to start attending a prayer group. I will send you new friends who love me and who understand your unique new vocation.

Wisdom and peace are the fruits of carrying the cross; raising a child like yours is your way of carrying the cross.  Try to offer it up for those mothers who are considering aborting a child like yours.  It will make the suffering more meaningful. And remember to enjoy the unique gifts your special child offers to your family.  Her capacity for laughter, his ready smile, and frequent bear hugs.

Remember that I give the very best to those who leave the choice to me.  My blessings on the feast of the Nativity of my Son.

I love you,

God

Copyright 2009 Leticia Velasquez

The Higgins brothers’ background in photography, as evidenced by their use of the Chiaroscuro technique, in which faces emerge from darkness into light, emphasizes the theme of light that is central to The 13th Day. Character’s faces emerge from shadowed darkness, to black and white, to muted color and as they respond to the heavenly messenger portrayed in blinding light. This technique may not appeal to those who prefer a traditional portrayal of this story, yet it has a haunting quality achieving an arresting emotional impact. Interestingly, not only are Our Lady and the children flooded with light and color, but those who come to accept the apparitions also take on a tinge of color. Clearly, this technique evokes the phenomenon of rainbow light that washed over the eyewitnesses in Fatima on the 13th of August 1917

The portrayal of Our Lady is breathtaking, and there is a stunning ‘holy card moment’ pausing to show the traditional portrait of the three children kneeling at her feet at the base of the shrub oak. The high point of the film is the miracle of the sun, showing the brilliance of its colors, its wildly erratic movement, and its menacing plunge towards earth, terrifying tens of thousands of witnesses. The film captures this with intense realism, focusing on the intensity of terror and joy felt by the witnesses. The 13th Day shows in passing the Third Secret of Fatima, where a figure in white (assumed to be Pope John Paul II) ascending a hill amidst the devastation of famine and war towards a cross where he is shot.

The musical score is lush, adding tenderness to the rare moments of innocent joy what is a somewhat unsettling film. Hints of Allegri’s “Misere” add a touch of transcendence to the emotional soundtrack, and it is one of the best features of the film.

The young Portuguese actors who play Lucia and Francisco convey a mixture of simplicity and emotional strength for their roles as innocent souls entrusted by Our Lady with the most critical and terrifying of secrets. Jacinta is seen for the innocent six year old she was and has a minor role.

The vivid visions of hell and trials endured by the children are harsh for younger viewers, though profoundly important to the story. One forgets that the Fatima children accepted suffering for the sake of sinners, and the filmmakers remind us that Lucia and her cousins were immediately put to the test with their family members. Children dealing with broken families and schoolyard violence might welcome a film which shows children who see through the darkness into the light of heaven. In fact, all children raised in today’s Godless public square would benefit from the message, which calls them to lift up their eyes to heaven where a loving Mother awaits their prayers. Two generations of Catholics, who have been raised on ‘Catholic lite’ CCD programs, need a wake-up call on what it means to be the Church Militant. In the face of a darkening world landscape, The 13th Day is just that.

The 13th Day reminds viewers not only of the message of Fatima, but of the price paid by the young visionaries so honored by Our Lady, and draws striking parallels between hostile governments and media of 1917 and persecution of the Church in our own time. It is a somber film for a sobering message. Recommended for age 8 and up. No language or nudity, but scenes of hell and children being persecuted may be disturbing for younger viewers.  Highly recommended.

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Copyright 2009 Leticia Velasquez

Last spring we would never have dreamed that Mom, actively working for a crisis pregnancy center at 74 would, in four short months, be taken from us and drawn up into the mercy of God. The words “stage four inoperable cancer” made my heart seize in fear, when my father spoke them over the phone, and I stumbled outside, numbly searching for the words to talk to God. That my seven year old found the words for me is a story I told here. For weeks, in the first drowsy moments as I awoke each day, the knowledge that Mom was dying hit my stomach like a sucker punch, and preoccupation with her condition robbed my attention all day long. I was functioning on autopilot; much of my emotional energy was focused in praying for a miracle for Mom. Just as all medical efforts to save her life were exhausted, a dear friend told me that she felt that God wanted us to know He was calling Mom home, and to let her go gently, wrapped in our love. Those words brought to mind the ironic sense of joy the Little Flower felt the first time she coughed blood into a handkerchief and felt the Jesus calling her to Him. She was 24. We began to understand that God calls each soul at the right time to attain their eternal salvation, and vowed to accept His timing no matter how abrupt it seemed.

I brought the girls to see Mom as often as possible, flinching inwardly each time I noticed signs of her diminishing health, yet she seemed to grow spiritually even as her physical strength waned. On weekends, there were rows of seats around her hospital bed, full of friends and family eager to be in her company, as Mom would make each visitor feel loved. Nurses and fellow patients were drawn to her gentle spirit and she was visited by half a dozen priests, who anointed her, heard her confessions, gave her Holy Communion, and asked for her prayers. She would offer her suffering for those she loved and took time to see all those who wanted to visit her, no matter how tired she was. She struggled to eat to keep up her waning strength, though each swallow was painful. Her left arm, bruised by the IV’s had indentations from her wooden rosary beads, which she kept, wrapped around her arm. Dad was constantly at her side, sleeping in a chair in the hospital and on a bed next to her at home, tending to her needs round the clock, and keeping her company when fear gripped her in the dark of night. Soon it became necessary to call my brother, a nurse, to help Dad care for Mom at home, and he spent her last months patiently nursing the one who cradled him for his first years.

Living four hours away could have filled me with anxiety that somehow I would miss being with Mom in her final moments, however, my experience of God’s mercy told me that I would know when it was time to say goodbye. During the final days when her celestine blue eyes could no longer see, my family took turns stroking her hair and caressing her. We told her we loved her, and we were trusting her to God’s mercy as we prayed the rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet. On the morning of her last day on earth, a married couple, her longtime friends, brought her Holy Communion with a reading on not being afraid to return to the Heavenly Father. Mom received a tiny fragment of the Host, which contained the entire body and blood, soul and divinity of her Lord Jesus.

When her last breath was upon her, Mom reached up to Dad, to caress his face and say farewell, then her beautiful blue eyes closed to this world to open in the next. It was just before three o’clock on Friday afternoon. Though we could barely speak the words through our emotion, we prayed with the Divine Mercy Chaplet as we sent Mom into the Mercy of God.

Walking your children through the rituals of a wake and burial can be a daunting task, yet the dozens of mourners who embraced us reminded us of the beautiful life Mom had lived, and we were comforted by the stories we heard from those who remembered Mom reaching out with love to them. However, the best was yet to come. A family member, who had been estranged from his faith, had his two children baptized two days after Mom’s death.  We knew that as part of the Communion of Saints, Mom was looking down with joy as three children entered God’s family, because of her prayers. Her funeral Mass was an embrace of love. Our tearstained eyes were astonished to see a full church; family and friends had come from 14 states to pray with us, and rejoice in the gift she had been to our family.

At her graveside service, my daughters huddled together and sang the Salve Regina to entrust the soul of their grandmother to the sweet embrace of Our Lady and the tender mercy of her Son.

Copyright 2009 Leticia Velasquez

After two little girls were born to us, my husband and I thought our life as parents was complete.  But unexpectedly, another life began, and we were surprised by joy.  We were unprepared for the loss of that life, and two more.  I was laid low with unspeakable grief.  I could not pray the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary, bringing to mind the joy of conception, since my last three had ended in tragedy.  My calendar was dotted with days of loss, which sprung up whether I was consciously remembering them or not, like the seasons. My son, Theodore had died on my Grandpa Theodore’s birthday in September, Patrick died on St Patrick’s Day, and Dolores died on Good Friday.  I prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries with the Sorrowful Mother, who watched her only Son die a slow, painful, ignominious death on the cross.  The loss of a child tears a mother’s heart, so I could relate to the image of the Immaculate Heart, pierced with a sword at her son’s death.  I could also feel the anguish of Our Lord who asked for the cup of suffering to be taken away from the Heavenly Father, and when it was not said, “Lord, into Your Hands, I commend my spirit.”  The rosary taught me to unite my pain with the Cross and offer it to God as a sacrifice.

Soon, my life was to change.  I was able to find a book, which explained the root cause of my secondary infertility (Fertility Cycles and Nutrition by Marilyn Shannon).  I conceived again, and suddenly I could not stop praying the Joyful Mysteries.  The season of sorrow was over for me.  I meditated on Mary’s pregnancy, at the Annunciation at first a secret she hardly dared breathe to anyone, then a joyful Visitation with her cousin Elizabeth as they discussed their coming births.  No less than eight of my friends were expecting babies within two months of one another. We attended a baby shower, and stayed late into the night, sharing our joyful anticipation.  We weathered 9/11, praying for the husbands of one of our friends who was a firefighter in the World Trade Center, and rejoiced when he came out alive to raise his new daughter.  In the spring, we met in the halls of the local Catholic hospital, celebrating our nativities. Our Lady may have given birth to Jesus in a strange land, but God sent shepherds and Wise Men to worship her Son and share her joy.

The Presentation in the Temple is akin to our sacrament of Baptism.  We had 100 guests attend the ceremony in our parish church that rainy Mother’s Day in 2002. Our daughter Christina had Down syndrome, and like our Lady our celebration was tinged with fear for our child’s future, as nurses in the hospital gave me frightening statistics about congenital defects which often accompany Trisomy 21.  Christina had a small hole in her heart, which kept us going to the Cardiologist for a year until it healed spontaneously. Simeon had issued a dire warning about her heart being pierced with a sword, yet Our Lady, watching Jesus grow up strong and healthy, must have found it hard to imagine her Son dying a horrible death in the three decades of their peaceful hidden life.

When Jesus was 12, He frightened His parents by disappearing from the Passover Pilgrims and, when at the Finding in the Temple, they were stunned to see how the elders of the Temple sat at His feet to hear His wisdom. He gently reminded them of His role in the world, serving God not them, some day in the future.  Little by little, Christina is doing the same to me, displaying signs of independence and a desire to embrace the world beyond our safe home. I have to undergo a gradual process of letting go, and  proudly watch her achievements at school.  God knows me well,  I do not have the spiritual strength to let go in an instant as Our Lady did. It’s hard enough to let go of her little hand as her aide takes her down the hall to her Kindergarten class.

As I walked through these mothering mysteries in my own life, I grew closer to Our Lady whose experiences paralleled mine.  As a reward for my devotion, she helped me to grow closer to her Son. Just before I met my husband, I wrote Mother Teresa a letter discerning my vocation. Her response was “put your hand in Mary’s hand and she will lead you to Jesus”. The rosary has been her method of drawing me toward her Son.

My vocation to motherhood was ennobled with the daily contact with Heaven, and the reason for the rosary is becoming clearer. It is not so much about how many times you tell Mary that she is “Blessed among women.”  It’s about allowing Our Lady to show you that motherhood is a blessing, and that she, whose unique role in salvation was to give birth to the Lamb of God, though it broke her heart, was the most blessed of all of us.



Copyright 2009 Leticia Velasquez

Maybe it was the solemn beauty of the church which held his attention; I can remember similar scenes from my childhood, seeing nothing but the backs of well-dressed people, yet the the traditional smells and bells of the Mass told me that this is a holy place. When the crowd parted for communion, I could spy the fresco of St Joseph and the child Jesus at the carpenter’s bench next to the altar. It told me about fatherly love. The organ playing the hymns shook the floor with awesome tremors.

Children are affected by the environment at Mass, and perhaps that is why the little guy changed his mind on the communion line behind my daughter, and moved his arms from the crossed “I do not receive, please bless me Father”position we taught him, to the folded hands of a communicant. My sister-in-law pointed this out to me, and I make a beeline to join him in line and explain to Father that we only wanted a blessing for him.

It broke my heart to do that, this little boy is not at fault; it was his grandparents who failed to baptize his mother, who had no desire to give him any instruction in the faith. It is a sad legacy which is played out more and more in our Church. This young child’s father has abandoned him and his mother is living with a family member. No one in his home attends Mass, though his little brother was baptized last January, his parents expressed no interest in taking him to classes for Baptism. He looked on as his brother’s Baptism with more than a little jealousy.

After Mass, I brought the little boy up to the statue of St Joseph and the Child Jesus after Mass, and reminded him that he and Jesus both had foster fathers named Joseph, and he smiled. I joined him in prayer for his mother to sign him up for catechism classes. We lit a candle together, and he left the church happy for a few minutes in the playground as a reward for good behavior.

I hope that his mother will take my suggestion to heart and sign him up for catechism classes. I know that the example of this innocent child seeking the faith might be enough to bring his whole family into a state of grace. This will be on my list of prayer intentions. Please join me as we pray for all children who wonder who Jesus is and if God hears them when they pray. May their families take the time to teach them about the love of God.

Copyright 2009 Leticia Velasquez

My Sister Alicia May

In this view into the daily life of a little girl with Down syndrome, big sister Rachel lovingly describes her six-year-old sister, Alicia May. Alicia May has endearing traits; she bursts through Rachel’s door in the morning with a sunny greeting, she gives great hugs, and she counts the dots on a ladybugs’ backs. Alicia May is good at remembering the names of the neighbors, and loves visiting Rachel’s friend Katie, however, she has temper tantrums when it’s time to leave, which Katie learns to dissipate with a bit of bargaining. Rachel is growing in courage as she learns to defend Alicia May against the cruelty of their schoolmates. She is both proud of Alicia May’s accomplishments and frustrated by her stubbornness.

Sister relationships are complex and beautiful things. When one of the sisters has special needs, the relationship may seem one sided; often the focus is on the special sister, and this is a mixed blessing. The typical sister learns to give more of herself and put up with more than most sisters do, growing emotionally beyond her peers, yet there are days when she runs short of patience for her demanding sister. “My Sister Alicia May” describes this unique relationship with a unique blend of candor and tenderness.

When I read the book to a group of older sisters of little girls with Down syndrome, there were some knowing grins when Alicia May acted up and surprised expressions when author, Nancy Tupper Ling acknowledged their ‘special ness’ as well. As a mother to an Alicia May and her two big sisters, I say it is long overdue praise for the big sisters.

This book will make those who love someone with Down syndrome alternately well up with tears and laugh as they relate to Rachel’s authentic description of her sister. Shennen Bersani’s lavish and vivid illustrations alone are worth the price of the book. Her realistic drawings of the girls portray with tenderness the unique character of our much-loved children.

This book is a must for anyone who loves children with ‘designer genes’.

Review by Leticia Velasquez
This book is available at Pleasant Street Press

Yesterday God gave us another moment of grace.

I was outdoors with Christina, trying to absorb the gravity of the bad news I had just received by phone: the surgeon said that Mom’s tumor was probably malignant. I was trying to move beyond the paralysis of fear and find the words to pray about it. I was to pray silently as I walked around the yard, finally sitting down on the stoop in the exhaustion of grief.

Christina got up, saying “Church”, and walked over to the statue of Our Lady of Grace in front of the house. She patted the statue on the shoulder, then stepped back, crouched down and made the Sign of the Cross alone for the first time. Her little hands clasped tightly, she began to pray. For five minutes, Christina mentioned all of our family members, including my mother as we do in our nighttime prayers. Her little face was a model of concentration and at one point she closed her eyes. It was obvious that she was praying, not imitating our actions, since we pray indoors and typically at her bedside. She has never seen us pray in front of this particular statue of Our Lady.

When Christina finished her prayers, she made the Sign of the Cross, and again reached out to touch the shoulder of the statue of Our Lady, and when she turned to leave, patted her head affectionately.

I immediately called Mom and Dad to tell them about the prayers of our little saint. They were moved and uplifted by this gesture of love and faith that was so unexpected.

When Christina was baptized, Fr McCartney said, “sometimes I think that people with Down syndrome feel sorry for us, because we can’t see what they see”. Yesterday, Christina proved that she could pray with words when her mother couldn’t. I know God heard us both, but I can’t help feeling that the prayers of such innocent children carry a special weight with He who asked the little children to come to Him.

May Our Lady and Jesus hear and answer her heartfelt prayers for “Gramma”.

Copyright 2009 Leticia Velasquez