Letter to the Loved One by Schmidt (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).
On Tuesday I wrote about a spiritual focus for my life in 2014. Today, I want to tell you my plans for my blog this year. What can you expect from me in the coming months?
As I tell new bloggers who want to join Catholic Spirituality Blogs Network, the focus of blogs change over time. It has happened to me too. When I started Contemplative Homeschool, I planned to share my educational philosophy with the world. I planned to focus on Homeschool.
But first my readers needed some background about prayer. So I wrote a post on contemplation. Then another. Soon, half of my posts were on the spiritual life. As I said in my recent radio interview, my posts are now 80% spirituality and 20% homeschooling. I focus on the Contemplative.
More Contemplative, less Homeschool
I want to take that a bit farther this year. I will still write about educating your children, but I will focus on teaching them how to pray and practice virtue. I’m not planning any more posts about different homeschool philosophies, lesson plans, or activities, EXCEPT those that relate to the spiritual life or current events that relate to the faith.
I want to teach you, the adults, how to pray and draw closer to God. And I want to teach you to teach your children to do the same.
Likewise, any books I review will be about prayer, virtue, the saints, or the Bible.
I am sharpening my blog’s focus. That focus is to help you and your whole family become contemplatives.
Here are some more details.
The Five Lessons are coming to video!
Readers love Five Lessons from the Carmelite Saints That Will Change Your Life But many have told me it was too short. They want more in-depth coverage of the Five Lessons. Now, as you know, I wrote this book for you, my blog readers. I didn’t intend it as a spiritual tome. I meant it to be short, but deep. I believe I succeeded.
But I do want to dig deeper into these Five Lessons. I hope to write a full-length book about each of them. But that takes lots of time. Only with God’s help can I finish a book a year while homeschooling my kids.
Enter video.
Dan and I are setting up a professional video studio in our home. My first project is to make a short video of the Five Lessons for those who don’t like to read. But that’s just the beginning.
I plan on shooting a series of 10, 40-minute seminars about the Five Lessons. I can cover a lot about each lesson in forty minutes. But I’m going to do two videos of most of the lessons to dig even deeper. (Lesson One will probably be only one seminar. Lesson Three, the center of the spiritual life, we take three seminars.)
I’m really excited about this project. Look for the first video in the next month or two.
Trusting God with St. Therese
My book on trust and St. Therese is two-thirds complete. My goal is to have it ready for pre-sale by July 16, the Feat of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. That’s the anniversary of the day I uploaded the Five Lessons to Amazon.com.
Subscribers to my blog will get to read a free chapter later this spring. They will get first “dibs” on review copies. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do so now.
Please continue to pray for the success of this project.
Other ideas I can hardly wait to share with you
- Sing the mysteries of the Rosary with your children (including a song I just wrote about The Finding in the Temple)
- How dads can help their children be holy
- My favorite books about St. Therese–reviewed in depth
- The Lord delights in you
- 5 reasons more Christians don’t become saints
And many more posts about how to work on detachment, trust, and prayer.
How you can help
You can help support my writing and video projects in several ways.
First, will you commit to praying for me and my family? I don’t want to try to teach you something I don’t practice myself. But doing God’s will is hard work. We weren’t meant to live the Christian life in isolation. Will you be my prayer partner?
Second, tell your friends and family about my blog. If you liked A Manual for Mental Prayer, share it with those close to you. Better yet, share the link where they can subscribe and get their own copy.
Third, please interact with me and your fellow readers in the Comments Box. My top five commentors for 2013, in order were: Melanie Jean Juneau, Ruth Ann Pilney, Michelle Marvian, Nancy Shuman, and Manny. Thank you for caring enough to answer questions and offer insights here!
I’ve decided that the top five commentors for this year (2014) will receive an exclusive gift from me next New Year. I don’t know what it’s going to be yet. But please, if you have been sitting back and not commenting, I would love to hear from you. I know your fellow readers would too. Of course I don’t have to tell you not to comment with a bunch of smiley faces or one-word answers just to get in the top five!
Happy 2014!
Connie Rossini
Share with us: What are your favorite past posts at Contemplative Homeschool? What would you like to see more of this year?
Your plans sound great Connie! I would definitely love more of your homeschool lessons whenever you have time. We loved the unit study you posted on the story of Jacob and Esau. It was so creative in the way it explored the different themes in the story. But I certainly need and enjoy your focus on spirituality and prayer as well!
Thanks for your input, Nancy. I will do more Scripture study lesson plans, because they teach children to reflect on the Bible–thus introducing them to the idea of Christian meditation/mental prayer. But I probably won’t do any more math ideas, for example.
Hi Connie, I am a cradle Catholic who had a powerful reversion to the Catholic faith after 4 years in the Presbyterian Church. I have two young boys (6 and 8) and I LOVE reading your blog. My reversion came as a result, I believe, of the intercession of St. Teresa of Avila and Our Blessed Mother, along with the Holy Spirit of course! So I am attracted to Carmelite spirituality and you do a wonderful job of bringing this to your readers. God bless you. I will keep you in my prayers.
Thanks for the encouragement and prayers, Cristina. Whose intercession could be more powerful for your reversion than the Blessed Mother’s and the Doctor of Prayer’s? So glad you are back in the family!
Dear Connie,
Thank you for sharing your plans. I have been blessed by your posts very much. Do not know how I found your blog originally but I know that at first I was put off by the Homeschool in the title….as I am well past child rearing years. Well I feel as if The Lord nudged me to sign up for your emails anyway and am so glad I did. Looking forward to this new year with you. You write with simplicity but with profound insights. Like that suggestions are practical for us trying to become Saints.
Thanks, Bice. I sometimes think about changing the name of my website. But I do want to be a resource for teaching kids to pray. I know as a parent that there are hardly any resources for doing this. Now I’m just trying to keep it within the context of spiritual growth for the whole family. Thanks for your comments and encouragement.
I am very excited. I agree with Bice. It’s the simplicity that I not only like, but am able to retain better. I will definitely partner with you in prayer Connie. I also look forward to your book about trust. And videos ~ yeah!!
I so appreciate your prayers, Michelle. And the fact that you offer your thoughts so often.
So excited to have discovered your site – as a busy homeschool mom and running a full-time Catholic ministry , I am always very happy to find good, solid, ready to implement SPIRITUAL homeschool ideas!!
Thanks for visiting, Allison.Full-time–wow! You must be living two lives at once.
I am currently in the formation process for Christ Renews His Parish. We will be presenting in March. After a year of weekly meetings and planning and prayer, I will have a definite hole left when the process is complete. I am anxious to learn about ways to increase my personal prayer life (without the support of my CRHP Sisters) as well as pass that prayer life on to my daughters.
I am not familiar with Christ Renews His Parish. I hope my blog can help fill in some of the holes for you.
I do not homeschool (although I did for about a year when I lived in the US about 7 years ago). I am a convert to the faith and was raised in a loving but atheist family. My husband is a cradle Catholic and we have three children ages 7-13. I am cautiously stepping out in faith with Jesus this year to try some family Catechisis. We currently live in Germany and there are hardly any families or young children (or anyone under 50) attending Mass. Our children are not at Catholic school and they are not really offered significant Catechisis at church because the schools teach religion as an academic subject (a great way to alienate kids from the church!). I am hoping to start in some simple ways and see how we get on. Teaching the children to pray seems daunting yet I love to pray and the Holy Spirit does give me the gift to pray contemplatively but I don’t know how to share that with our children (or my dear husband).
So here’s hoping to be inspired in 2014 and I will be checking back while I pray for you and your precious family. Please pray for us.
Yes, Catherine, I will definitely pray for you and do my best to help you. Teaching your children to pray is part of your vocation to marriage. So you can trust that God will give you the grace to do it if you ask Him for it.