Today, we remember...

.....Our Lady of Lourdes.

Went to Mass this mornng and the kids will be adding a Lourdes page to their Mary Notebooks -writing and illustrating a notebook page on Our Lady.

I thought we might also discuss the following thoughts from Pope Benedict XVI, on education - if I can squeeze in time, amidst all my Kumon prep before work and an evening Parents Information Meeting that I am running today...Of course, if I got off the internet, that would help!

" The educative relationship is, however, above all the meeting of two freedoms and successful education is the formation of the right use of freedom.Little by little the child grows, he becomes an adolescent and then a youth; we must therefore accept the risk of freedom, always remaining attentive to help him correct mistaken ideas and choices. That which we must never do is to go along with him in his errors, pretend not to see them, or worse, to share in them, as if they were the new frontiers of human progress.Education cannot, therefore, do without that authoritativeness that makes the exercise of authority credible...it is acquired above all by consistency in one's own life and by personal involvement, an expression of true love. The educator is thus a witness of truth and of goodness: "

From the Vatican, Jan. 21, 2008 BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

From the Pope's Letter to Romans on Education "Each Person and Generation Must Make Their Own Decisions in Their Own Name" .

The last line quoted above is very powerful - "The educator is thus a witness of truth and of goodness. "

While educating our children, while living and learnng as a family, we educate and form ourselves, our characters, our souls.

Who knew that homeschooling would ultimately be concerned with growth, with truth, with goodness?