Category: Weekly Newsletter

The Mom Weekly, Volume 145: May 19, 2026

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

Notes

When I heard this podcast episode a week or two ago, I realized I really wanted to share it! So I re-listened, and I am sharing the relevant quotes here.

The title of this Weekly is not about burning down the world in a negative sense, but rather, the second half of a quote attributed to St. Catherine of Siena, “If you are who you should be, you will set the world on fire!”

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

This wasn’t her exact quote, as far as I can see from research, but it captures the spirit of what she meant to say:

If you are what you should be, you will set all of Italy ablaze!

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

“…You Will Set the World on Fire“

The podcast, “Dominican Sisters Open Mic,” put out by the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, is a lovely listen or watch. (on YouTube). I’ve listened to several episodes while mowing or doing other activities, and I enjoy many of them. Here’s a NY Times article (gift link!) about the podcast.

There is something so normal, healthy, and edifying about hearing these well-adjusted sisters talk about the religious life, their stories about their faith, and their normal lives and struggles.

It’s not just a dry discussion, but funny and engaging.

This episode with Sister Catherine Thomas, who was a teacher for at least one of you kids in high school, is par for the course. Since we know Sister Catherine fairly well, I think you will find it a good listen.

But knowing that everyone is not as enamored of podcasts or videos as I am, I want to summarize one of the best parts. But truly, all of it is really good and worth listening to!

This episode includes the fact that Sister Catherine, as a non-practicing Catholic, attended Saint Louis University for college, and how that led to her re-conversion to Catholicism, and also to her vocation as a sister. So many connections with our connections!

Sister Catherine shared three “truths” of St. Catherine of Siena, based on how she is quoted in the catechism. And here they are:

First of those truths: CCC 313
God loves us first. His love is primary.

Second of those truths: CCC 356
The dignity of human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

Third of these truths: CCC 1937
The interdependence of human beings.

“Every human being stands in need of receiving something from every other human being, and every human being has something to give as well, to every other human being.”

At the end of this exchange, Sister summarized:

“The three nuggets… that St. Catherine has to say to a world, truths that will heal its hurts:

—that God love you God loves you first.

—You have an incredible, beautiful dignity.

—The world needs the gifts that you have, but you also have needs, and we have to depend on each other.

It’s a cure for the isolation and division that many people experience.”

I’m just going to leave the message there because it is really true! God loves you, you have infinite dignity, and we are all dependent on each other.

Interesting/Notable

A Sacred Cloth and the Love That Formed a Priest

A centuries-old tradition at a priest’s first Mass points to a deeper truth about vocation, sacrifice and the role of a mother.

The Mom Weekly Volume 144: May 12, 2026 

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here. https://themomweekly.com/

Notes: 

Dad is in Canada this month, and that brought up this “From the Vault” that . Do you remember our whirlwind trip to Canada then? We drove something like 4,500 miles in two weeks. But was wonderful. I have so many great memories from that trip, including going to Prince Edward Island and seeing Anne of Green Gable sites, but this reflection captures some of how we made it a religious pilgrimage of sorts.

Remember how much I love you (and how much I love traveling with you!),

Mom

Crutches (From the. Vault, June 2009)

In both pilgrimage sites we visited in Canada, St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, and the Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre , outside Quebec City, crutches figured prominently.

I’m sure I snapped more than a couple dozen photos of the crutches left behind by those healed through the intercession of St. Joseph and St. Anne. Now I only have a few because I’ve been fairly ruthless editing the photos we took in Canada. And I experienced such involuntary and powerful emotions when seeing them. So I’ve put up a couple of the photos I took that remain.

At first, or at some point after seeing them I thought, could there really be this many people who are cured and no longer need their crutches? How many people really need crutches these days? I guess it was different many decades ago when these shrines were being constructed. But still, all these people healed?

And yet, you see the hundreds of well-used crutches and canes all over the place, and clearly people left them behind. Even with my skepticism, at least for me, I continued to have a very strong emotional reaction, my eyes tearing up, when I would catch sight of the crutches as we spent our time at the shrines. I think part of my intellectual reaction was from my mom, who was pretty practical about these kind of things, almost to a fault. But still the tears flowed.

An old friend from DC wrote on my Facebook (after I mentioned we were going to St. Joseph Oratory) that she had visited there years ago and, seeing the crutches, was inspired to pray for her own healing. And I didn’t see her note until after we had been there, but I had the same thought. I couldn’t even articulate at the time what I meant by that. It was just a wordless prayer for healing and grace.

Now, with some time away from the experience, and getting a chance to reflect on it, I recognized that what resonated with me was the common human struggle with brokenness. For some it is an obvious problem—a physical disability. Some are more open about their struggles with brokenness—I’m grateful for the blogs I can visit where people share their struggles and their faith journeys.

But even if we are more private about it, or it is not obvious, human life involves struggles and brokenness, even amid joy. What is important is to be loving and forgiving to each other as we recognize that. On our own, we don’t have that kind of love and forgiveness. That is why I’m so grateful for the grace and supernatural love given freely by Jesus, however imperfect I am at accepting that grace and love.

I was in confession last week with an African priest visiting our parish, and I have to “confess” I was a little concerned, because the last time I went to an African priest for confession (several years back), my penance was— an entire Rosary. I can laugh now, but in my shock, I had to ask him if that’s what he really meant. Now I know a Rosary isn’t terrible (Mary, Mother of God, please still love me for even writing that!). But for soft old American me, going to confession to very kind American priests, I’m used to one Hail Mary or at the most, two Hail Marys, and some good advice.

But this time during confession (with a penance far less than a Rosary, I might add), the priest at one point said, “dear daughter of the King,” and of course my eyes teared up. I am a daughter of the King—we are all children of the King— and His grace and healing is available to us. Let us be given the hearts to know that.

Interesting/Notable

Is it hiking or walking? REI blog

This article is very appropriate not just because I think city walking counts as hiking! And note this memory of city walking/hiking:

On that 2009 trip, Dad wanted to stay back in St. Joseph’s Oratory Church to look at some of the architecture, and I said I would take the kids for some outside time.

There is an outdoor, life-size stations of the cross on the grounds, and I VIVIDLY remember running (yes, actually running, and at a pretty good pace) the stations of the cross with an extremely active six-year-old boy and his equally active older sisters.

I remember thinking, “I think this is still reverent, even though we are running!” And we did burn up some energy.

The Mom Weekly Volume 143: May 5, 2026 

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here. https://themomweekly.com/

Notes: 

Many of you know I’ve been sharing points & miles content on LinkedIn on weekdays since the beginning of the year. And I do plan to start an email list to share some of this content, but I haven’t gotten to that yet. It’s underway!

In the meantime, I’m going to share a recent post. (Not points & miles related, sorry).

Occasionally on LinkedIn, I will repost someone else’s post, and add my own take to it.

This is my reply to a dad’s post reminding other dads to remember Mother’s Day and to plan accordingly—get your cards in advance, order flowers, etc. I took this up a notch, and I really enjoyed what I wrote. I think it would be helpful not just for Mother’s Day (I don’t need anything, really! I would just enjoy a phone call time with each of the kids), but for when you have kids of your own. And I also think it is a helpful framework for really any holiday.

Since Dad’s birthday falls right around Mother’s Day each year, we are often doing this process together. But give it a try with your next 

Plan A Mother’s Day Weekend (LinkedIn Repost)

I liked so much of this dad-to-dad reminder about Mother’s Day next weekend. 

But also, I hope dads will take sound advice from an older mom who’s had decades of Mother’s Days:

—Plan a Mother’s Day Weekend—

I love Laura Vanderkam’s framework for looking at the weekend as seven distinct periods. With that, the weekend seems much more expansive:

Friday night

Saturday morning

Saturday afternoon

Saturday evening

Sunday morning

Sunday afternoon

Sunday evening

But we don’t want to give Mom another job by having her plan the whole weekend, do we? So: I suggest you propose one and have her fine-tune it with what she’d like best.

With a Mother’s Day weekend, you could offer something like this:

Friday night: 

Pizza & movie night with kids

Dad & kids order/pickup pizza, serve, and clean up

Mom picks movie

Dad takes care of bedtime while Mom reads, enjoys time alone

Saturday morning:

Mom goes out for a walk/coffee with friends

Dad, obvi, on kid duty

Saturday afternoon: 

Family lunch out (Mom choice) and Family hike 

Mom gets post-hike nap, Dad takes care of the kids 

Saturday evening:

Casual (or fancy) date night dinner

Dad arranges babysitting, suggests three places for Mom to choose from 

Sunday morning:

Church, Mom’s choice of time

Sunday afternoon:

Brunch/lunch with extended family, perhaps takeout (restaurants are so full on Mother’s Day itself, we rarely eat out then).

Later: Mom time alone, ideally with chocolate and a good book

Sunday evening: 

Simple supper cooked by Dad  and kids

Special dessert, cards, and “presents” for Mom

Obviously, your wife’s preferences would differ from my sample weekend (mine differ from the sample!). 

But the genius move is offering a plan of thoughtful ideas and letting her edit it to what she likes.

Consider presenting your wife a proposed Mother’s Day weekend plan the next day or so, and letting her have the fun of personalizing it. By planning ahead, your whole family can enjoy a great Mother’s Day weekend.

Action Item: Plan A Weekend in the Future

With the framework I talked about above, consider planning a future weekend. I promise this is a fun exercise, and I think you’ll enjoy both the planning process and the weekend.

Interesting/Notable

Rise of the Blood Populist: The Atlantic Gift Article

This is such an important article. An important quote from it:

Over the years, many experts have warned me that periods of entrenched political violence are difficult to escape. We know exactly what conditions make a society ever more vulnerable to political violence, and we’re swimming in them now: highly visible wealth disparity, declining trust in civic institutions, a perceived sense of victimhood, intense partisan estrangement based on identity, rapid demographic change, flourishing conspiracy theories, violent and dehumanizing rhetoric against the “other,” and a belief among those who flirt with violence that they can get away with it.

The Mom Weekly Volume 142: April 28, 2026 

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

Notes

I don’t have much to say in this “notes” section, so:

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

What Fresh Hell is This?

I remember vividly how the phrase  “What fresh hell is this?” came into my head, unbidden. 

It was fall  2019 when I was in Washington, D.C., for a conference, and stopped at Dunkin for coffee. I was given a paper straw with my iced coffee. A paper straw that almost immediately disintegrated. I had quite the time drinking my iced coffee. Apparently, DC had recently outlawed plastic straws. Oy vey.

I actually took a photo of it, and tracked that photo down, and I’m using it to illustrate this weekly. I still laugh when I think about it.

The person who popularized the term, “What fresh hell is this?” Is Dorothy Parker, the 20th century writer and quipster, who had many a “wicked witticism,” many of which are quite sad and amusing at the same time. She also struggled with a lot in her life.

Anyway, the term “what fresh hell is this?” can be applied to so many things in our current world. I often think “what fresh hell is this?”, truth be told, when a notification pops up on my phone with some bonkers line comes out from a certain world leader whose name rhymes with bump. 

Just like avoiding paper drinking straws, we can avoid as much as possible the “fresh hell” our world, and social media, wants to serve up to us 24/7.  

Dad and I have worked out (well, actually, I have strongly encouraged!) that he can’t tell me about world events or bonkers quotes from people after mid-afternoon, because it is counterproductive. It disturbs any normal person, and there’s nothing to be gained by stirring up my emotions and outrage about things I can do nothing about, especially late in the day.

There’s a concept that you shouldn’t try to solve big problems or talk about tough issues after dinnertime, because typically, people have less emotional bandwidth then. Much better to have specific times that we discuss things, or talk about world events, in a time when you can figure out how you’d like to tackle it, or what you can do about it (give money to a charity, inform yourself, or write about it).

To conclude with something positive about the drinking straw “fresh hell” — I was at Sam’s Club the other day, and the straw wrapper said something like “compostable” or “biodegradable.” I had a minute of worry (and a second of muttering, “what fresh hell …. “ before I opened the straw. Fortunately, the technology has gotten way better since 2019, and the straw was just fine. The straws looked like, and performed like, normal straws. See, things can get better!

Interesting/Notable:

The Nicest “Jeopardy!” Champion Dissects His Losing Game (WSJ Gift Link)

We have so enjoyed watching Jamie Ding win many games over the last few weeks. It was sad to see him lose, but this is a nice article.

How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He is Dying—NY Times Gift Link

I shared a Ben Sasse interview a couple of months ago. He is the former senator who is dying of pancreatic cancer. He’s still doing a lot of interviews, and here’s one with Ross Douthat. (NY Times Gift Link). He’s also got a podcast called “Not Dead Yet” that he does with a journalist friend. I’ve only listened to part of one episode, but it’s actually pretty funny.