Catholic Exchange

Our Lady of Sorrows

• Archives
• Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
• Rachel Watkins

I am not one to question the wisdom of our Mother the Church. After all, she has centuries of experience and intelligence that I do not; not to mention the wisdom of the saints, scholars along with the Fathers and… Read More

Christ for Us: The Year for Priests

• Archives
• Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
• Rachel Watkins

The Year of St. Paul has come and gone and now we are just getting started with the Year for Priests. In announcing this year to the bishops, the Holy Father wrote, “Precisely to encourage priests in this striving for… Read More

How Can Two Items on the Menu Be a Feast?

• Archives
• Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
• Rachel Watkins

How can two items on the menu be a feast?  For most of us, it wouldn’t be enough.  It is for a child: milk and cookies or cake and ice cream.  It is for anyone in Maryland during the summer:  … Read More

The Road Less Taken

• Archives
• Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
• Rachel Watkins

It is time for another of my children to recite “The Road not Taken.” I always look forward to it.  They are also asked to memorize another Robert Frost favorite, “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening.”  While the latter is… Read More

Home Grown Vocations

• Archives
• Monday, March 23rd, 2009
• Rachel Watkins

With a daughter off for religious life I’ve been asked, “How do you do it? How do you raise children open to religious life and willing to pursue it?” Wondering myself, I asked other moms and dads we know who… Read More

To All Parents of Religious

• Archives
• Monday, February 9th, 2009
• Rachel Watkins

So, your child has vocation.  Congratulations!  He or she has told you about the desire to enter a seminary, cloister, order, or monastery.  This is wonderful news.  You thank God for this gift to the Church; you make telephone calls… Read More

The Shack — Discernment Needed

• Archives
• Friday, November 14th, 2008
• Rachel Watkins

A quick survey, please if you have a few minutes to spare. These first questions will merely require a yes or no answer. Thank you.
Did you buy any books of a spiritual nature this year? For example, books with… Read More

What Schools Can Teach Homeschoolers

• Archives
• Saturday, September 13th, 2008
• Rachel Watkins

Schools across the country are open. I know this because my local big box stores have huge layouts of pencils, rulers, paper and notebooks. The current trends of Hannah Montana and Batman are seen emblazoned on everything from clothes to… Read More

Country Song Wisdom

• Archives
• Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
• Rachel Watkins

No one would say that you get real wisdom from country songs. After all, as a genre country music gave us such treasures as “You’re The Hangnail in My Life, And I Can’t Bite You Off”, “You Changed Your Name From Brown to Jones, and Mine From Brown to Blue”, and “The Last Word In Lonesome Is “Me”. No, no real wisdom here.

Shoes Make the Man – Or Do They?

• Archives
• Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
• Rachel Watkins

I will admit to having an odd thing about shoes.  Not a weird predilection but rather just a real strong like.  I am no Imelda Marcos who had, according to reports at the time of her husband's fall from grace in 1986, acquired over one thousand pairs of shoes (yes, 1000+ shoes).  In other words, this woman could wear 2.7 different pairs of shoes a day for year without fear of making the fashion faux pas of being seen in the same pair more than once!  No, I will never compete with her but did wonder if I should worry.

According to an article on shoes by US Today (which also mentions Imelda Marcos), women keep 14 pairs of shoes in rotation, while owning approximately 24 pairs.  Reading this made me feel better as I own fewer than that.  Quite honestly, I would probably have more but my budget prevents it.  Rather than spending the average $277 a year on shoes for myself, I am spending our shoe budget (which is way less than that) for the other dozen people who are under my care — eleven children and one husband.  So, while I might wish I could spend that much, God has prevented me from going overboard with shoes for myself by providing me a large family.  As a result, I do get to shoe shop on a regular basis just not always for myself.