Ginny’s Gems

by Marc Postiglione | One of my fondest and earliest memories of childhood is the way we as a family celebrated Sunday. Sunday always started with morning Mass. We were not a sleep late family and were out the door for 9:00am Mass.

by Bl. Pope John Paul II | If it is true that by giving life parents share in God’s creative work, it is also true that by raising their children they become sharers in his paternal and at the same time maternal way of teaching. According to Saint Paul, God’s fatherhood is the primordial model of all fatherhood and motherhood in the universe (cf. Eph 3:14-15), and of human motherhood and fatherhood in particular.

by Mary Kay Clark | The most important subject is religion. We are homeschooling because we want to teach Catholic values and the Catholic Faith to our children. Most homeschooling families in this country are Christian families who see that the public schools have completely eliminated religion from their classrooms.

Let it be repeated as an immutable and inviolable fundamental doctrine that matrimony was not instituted or restored by man but by God. Not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate marriage, but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ Our Lord by Whom nature was redeemed; and hence these [marriage] laws cannot be subject to any human decrees or to any contrary pact, even of the spouses themselves.

Download this ‘The 4 Marks of the Church’ Crossword! A fun activity to challenge your knowledge of facts and trivia. For all ages! Answer these questions: There are four ___ of the Catholic Church by which all men can recognize it as the true Church. This saint was martyred in the third century; many people give cards to their loved ones on his feast day. This saint was the brother of St. Methodius.

by Thomas J. Centrella | The foundation of this country is the Constitution. It is the mind of the nation. The cornerstone of this foundation is the Declaration of Independence.

Every St. Valentine’s Day leaves men at a loss for telling their girlfriends or wives how much they love them. Very often, whether a dozen red roses, a box of chocolates, or a hand-written poem, nothing seems to suffice. If you homeschool husbands find yourself in this predicament, don’t feel too bad. We’ve all been there.

So often in human life we wonder if someone is going to call, coming to visit, or going to write us a letter. We assume that we are to expect, ...

Recently in a class to our Confirmation students, I was attempting to explain that much of morality can be traced to Genesis 1:26-27 and the creation of man in the ‘image and likeness of God.’ As I was preparing for the lesson, I thought back to three works that have inspired me and have always been faithful companions in my teaching experiences

by Heather Kerbis | A large homeschooling family seems natural to us now, but in the beginning, homeschooling was not on our radar. We were married relatively young, in our very early 20s, and assumed our children would go to the classroom for education.

Jennifer Tutwiler tried every kind of schedule there is. Her family couldn't settle into a a successful schedule - until she broke free of 5 popular myths.

By Sarah Rose | There are some things we come to appreciate more as we get older. Oftentimes, cradle Catholics may not have a deep appreciation for their faith until they experience a type of conversion in their teen or young adult years.

Pope Francis: "There is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the ‘tyranny of relativism,’ which allows everyone to create his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples. But there is no true peace without truth.”

How easy it is to neglect these amenities of manners that consist of attention to seemingly minor things of no consequence: a thank you note, a compliment, a visit. How convenient it is to use the excuse of busyness with important affairs to avoid attention to small details.

The results from a Seton survey prompt valuable insights into how much time to schedule for homeschooling and Seton staff offer guidance for flexibility.

We are sometimes asked why Seton’s materials are so saturated with Catholic content. There are a myriad of reasons, but first and foremost, we fill our curriculum with Catholic content because we know that in God’s plan, the purpose of education is not simply to learn facts, but to prepare souls—curious combinations of intellect and will—for eternity. Education, from this perspective, is a hugely important, yet delicate, task.

On February 11, 1858, the Blessed Mother appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France, when Bernadette was only fourteen years old. The “lady” appeared to be only about sixteen, wearing a white veil and a white gown with a blue sash.

As someone who has been teaching high school and college now for more than fourteen years, it has become life’s daunting task to motivate students. In an age of instant communication, a teacher needs to be able to convey subject material in a way that is both ever dramatic and always engaging. It used to be a concern to worry about a bad day; now, one has to worry about an un-engaging minute.

Kevin Clark shares how God looked out for youngster, Fr. Robert Lange, and saved him from many mishaps. Read more in his memoirs!

For the homeschooling mother of many, there's always more; more to organize and more to do. Always more little faces to wash, more nails to clip, more hair growing back into bright, smiling eyes, more boo-boos needing more band-aids and more baby teeth to brush.