Lilla Rose Review and Giveaway

 Lilla Rose Review and Giveaway

Note: This is a guest-post reviewing the product of a Catholic homeschooling mom.

     In recent months, I have been making a concerted effort to dress more modestly and in a more feminine manner. After making changes to my attitude and wardrobe, my untamed hair was the final hurdle. My hair is thick and wavy and takes forever to blow dry, so it usually ends up in a ponytail or bun. I can’t stand going to Mass with wet hair, but I feel that a ponytail isn’t always “dressy” enough for church. I’ve been eyeing the beautiful hair accessories from Lilla Rose and am excited to have the opportunity to share my experience with them.

     The first step was to figure out what size Flexi clips to order. My hair is thick and wavy and falls a few inches past my shoulders. Since I typically wear my hair in a ponytail, I selected a medium for that style. I chose an XL for when I want to wear my hair in a bun. The website has videos to help you choose the correct size for your hair and desired style. Choosing the correct size is so important if you want the clip to hold your hair all day! However, if you happen to order the wrong size, Lilla Rose will gladly exchange the Flexi for free within 90 days.

     The next step will be to choose from dozens of beautiful clips! I liked the silver clips because they’d pop against my dark hair.

Even the packaging is pretty!

     The first thing I noticed was that the stick is permanently attached to the Flexi clip, so I don’t have to worry about losing them. (You can’t tell by looking at the website, since the photos are of closed clips, so I was VERY pleasantly surprised!) You cannot imagine how awesome that is to me, in a house filled with boys where things disappear on a regular basis! Plus, a wayward stick can’t be used as a weapon or projectile, as often occurs ‘round these parts.

     I was also relieved to see that a how-to manual was included. I had been fretting about when I would ever find the opportunity to watch how-to videos, but my worries were abated as I followed the simple directions. Here is my first ever bun with my XL clip:

     It’s far from perfect, but it still looked decent and stayed in all day! And though it’s so simple, I felt so much more dressed up and put together while wearing it instead of my trusty thick, black, hair rubber band.

Bye-bye, rubber band! You have served me well, but I must move on…

Here’s a ponytail, using the medium Flexi clip:

Here’s a sad attempt at a French Twist, which I’ve never tried before, ever:

OK, I need to work on this one! I had much better luck with the “Tails Up.”

Other good things to know:

·         There is a one-year guarantee on defective items.

·         They offer more than just Flexi clips. They also have hair sticks, hair bands, bobby pins, and more!

·         Lilla Rose has monthly specials with limited-edition items

·         You can host a party and get FREE stuff!!!

Independent Consultant Katrina Burbank is sponsoring a giveaway, open to residents of the U.S. who are new to Lilla Rose. She will be giving away one item of the winner’s choice! (Good luck narrowing it down.) You can also like her page on Facebook.

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Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues - CD Review

Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues –

CD Review

          Father Robert Barron is well known for his Catholicism series, which ran on PBS and is now available as a DVD set.  He has also put up numerous You Tube videos about some aspect of the Faith or philosophy and has reached many people through that ministry as well as his Word on Fire organization.

          Father Barron has also made a number of CDs for St. Joseph Communications, which are distributed by Lighthouse Catholic Media.  In this article I am reviewing his CD Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues.  The CD, along with many others (and the Catholicism series), is available at the Lighthouse online store, a link to which is on the sidebar of this page.

          Hopefully this review (and others that will follow from time to time) will be informative and give people an opportunity to go deeper by purchasing the CDs if they desire.  The reviews are not meant to be a sales pitch, but will hopefully be a worthwhile encounter with a ministry in which I believe.

          In Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Lively Virtues, Father Barron follows Dante’s Divine Comedy through the seven deadly sins.  He explains each one in detail, and with wonderful examples.  Then he gives a counter-virtue that is an antidote for the sin, and some practical advice on what to do to overcome it.  Finally he gives a Marian example from Dante in which she beautifully models the virtue.

          Pride:  Father Barron starts with pride, which is at the base of Dante’s Mount Purgatory, and is the base of most all sin.  Father Barron gives St. Thomas Aquinas’s definition of pride – turning oneself into God, taking on the prerogatives of God to oneself.  This is the sin that made Lucifer say, “I will not serve,” and led Adam and Eve in the Garden to steal the prerogative of God and decide what is good and what is evil, according to their own authority.  The lively virtue that is the antidote for pride is humility, one of the most precious and difficult of all the virtues.  The practical advice Father gives is for us to find opportunities to purposely take the lowest place.  By allowing others to be ahead of ourselves we will develop humility and conquer that tendency to grab for ourselves that place to which we have no claim, God’s.

          Envy:  Next is envy, what Aquinas defines as sorrow at another’s good.  This sin Father Barron says is the nearest to pride, and its antidote is admiration.  If we can admire the good of another we can rejoice in it.  His advice is to go out of our way to praise someone, particularly someone whom we envy.  If we are in a group where envy leads to gossip about another person, make a point of finding the good in that person and praising it.

          Anger:  Next up Mount Purgatory is anger, which Aquinas defines as the unreasonable desire for vengeance.  Not surprisingly the antidote lively virtue is forgiveness.  Father’s practical advice: take a step today to heal a broken relationship.  Particularly if it has been festering, become a grudge, or led to not speaking to another, make some step to begin to heal the relationship, and quench the sinful anger.

          Sloth:  Midway up the mountain is the sin of sloth, the lack of energy for spiritual good.  It is a spiritual lethargy that may be very present in people who have much energy for the cares of the world.  The antidote virtue is zeal, and Father’s advice is to seriously discern our mission.  Take to prayer the question of what mission God would have us accomplish.  If we discern our mission, we will obtain that zeal that drives out sloth.  He also suggests we practice the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy: feed the hungry, visit the sick, instruct the ignorant, pray for the living and the dead, etc.  It’s not hard to see how these would be incompatible with sloth.

          Avarice:  Avarice is defined as the unreasonable or immoderate desire for wealth.  Father Barron passes on wonderful wisdom from the Saints and popes about the use of material goods, of the right to private property and the responsibility to use that property with the common good in mind.  The lively virtue is generosity, and Father Barron gives a host of practical advice.  First, he advises that we make a habit of giving things away on a regular basis.  We should often clean out our closet to the benefit of the poor.  He suggests when we make a purchase to buy a model item one step down from the one we want and give the difference to the poor.  His suggestions are difficult to follow, but certainly powerful for replacing avarice with generosity.

          The last two sins deal with sensual pleasure, which is good when used properly and seen as a foretaste of Heaven.  However, the devil is a master at distorting and corrupting the good things God has made.

          Gluttony:  Gluttony is the immoderate pleasure in food and drink.  Despite America being an overweight nation in a health craze, gluttony as a spiritual problem is not given much concern these days.  However, food and drink can become an addiction and over-indulgence in them can be used as an escape or even a substitute for God.  The lively counter-virtue is asceticism.  Father Barron notes the irony that the modern world considers asceticism some medieval, crazy idea, while at the same time rushing to the gym to spend hours on the Stairmaster.  The goal, he reminds us, is not puritanism, but to discipline our lower nature.  And his practical advice is fasting.  He offers the simple recommendation to occasionally skip a meal, spend the time in prayer, and give the money we would have spent on it to the poor.

          Lust:  At the top of Mount Purgatory is the deadly sin of lust, which is defined as treating another person as a means to one’s own pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure.  Father Barron reminds us of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, that we must always treat the other as an end and not a means.  The virtue that does that, particularly with our sexuality, is chastity.  His advice will require us to examine our relationships.  First, he says, if we are using any form of pornography, stop.  If we have a problem with it, seek help.  Then, if we can recognize any relationship, perhaps even a marriage, in which we objectify another person, we have to reorient it.

          This CD is a wonderful example of why Father Barron is such a popular speaker.  It is informative, interesting, and leads to reflection.  From time to time I will review other CDs from various speakers.  This CD and many others can be found by clicking the Lighthouse online store icon on the sidebar of this blog.  There are specials for Lent and gift ideas as well.  If you would like this ministry brought to your parish, please email me (servantofcharity@yahoo.com) or contact Lighthouse directly.  Finally, if you know of another ministry faithful to the Church that I can promote on this blog, please email me with information about it.  I am happy to promote any program that will bring people to Christ. 

Lighthouse Catholic Media

Lighthouse Catholic Media

                You may have noticed some new graphics on the sidebar of this blog, concerning Lighthouse Catholic Media ministry.  Lighthouse is a not-for-profit organization that was started in response to Pope John Paul II’s call for a new evangelization, which has also been taken up by Pope Benedict.

          Lighthouse is best known for distributing Catholic CDs from St. Joseph Communications to parishes and schools in order to get them in the hands of the faithful.  They have titles from well-known speakers like Fr. Robert Barron, Matthew Kelly, Scott Hahn, Mother Teresa, and Archbishop Fulton Sheen, among others.  They also have agreements with Catholic publishers like Ignatius Press so people can receive good Catholic books at a discount.  If you click on the “online store” link in the sidebar, you will have a chance to browse and purchase CDs, books, and other Catholic materials.

          Below that is a link for the CD of the Month Club.  Members of the CD of the Month Club receive a new title delivered in the mail each month.  This is a wonderful opportunity, which I began taking advantage of a few months ago.  I used to be a voracious reader, but it has gotten increasingly difficult to find time to read as my family has grown.  With these CDs I can get great information from wonderful speakers and listen on my way to and from work.  Members can also sign up to receive multiple CDs every month at a discount to distribute them to family and friends.  Click on either link for more details about Lighthouse’s programs.

Cleaning Up the Content: product review

Cleaning Up the Content: product review

          Here’s an interesting social experiment: find an old episode of Leave it to Beaver and watch it.  Then watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother.  Notice anything strange?  (Sadly, Leave it to Beaver is considered strange in 2012).  Both shows were / are on in prime time and immensely popular.  But though they were both made in America, they seem to be depicting completely different countries, or perhaps different planets.

          The point of this post is not actually to decry the corruption of our culture.  (Another time maybe.)  And it’s certainly not to cast aspersions on people who watch How I Met Your Mother.  The same is true for all shows these days.  I used to really enjoy Everybody Loves Raymond, but when I watch re-runs, the truth is sometimes I have to turn it off.  Even sports can pose problems sometimes, if not just the commercials.

          As a father, I have a serious duty to control the media that come into my home and infect my children.  The television is only one battlefield, of course, but at my kids’ ages it’s the primary one.  Also, as a Catholic, I have a serious responsibility to monitor what I take in as well.  Plenty of images, language, etc. are inappropriate for me as a grown man.

          The purpose of this post is to share a couple of tools that my family has found extremely helpful in fighting this battle in our home: the ClearPlay DVD player and the TV Guardian.  I am not employed in any way by either of these companies, so this is not a sales pitch, but I really appreciate what they do.

          The ClearPlay is a DVD player that edits DVDs.  You don’t need to buy special DVDs, just turn the filter on when you pop in one of yours.  The company has created filters for many DVDs and when you buy the player you receive a USB stick with the filters on it.  You also get a subscription to the service that allows you to download new subscriptions as they are created.

          The technology is wonderful.  It takes out bad language and inappropriate images or sexual content.  It also mitigates violence, which is great for watching wonderful movies like The Lord of the Rings that might otherwise be a bit too intense for the kids.  A word of caution, though, you may still want to preview a movie even with the filter.  Sometimes there are things left in a movie, or “adult topics” that are central to a plot that you may still not want your kids exposed to.  And you would need to decide whether the level of violence remaining is acceptable.  All in all, it’s a great product.  We have DVDs that would have ended up in the trash if not for our ClearPlay.

          Another piece of advice: when ordering, do it by phone and ask how long the free subscription to the service lasts.  Also, have them throw in the extended warranty.  They’ll do it for free and we have had to get players replaced for breaking in the past.  The extended warranty came in handy.

          The other product, the TV Guardian, is truly unique.  It edits language on DVDs, VHS tapes, and television programs.  The product uses the hidden closed captioning and when a targeted word appears, the sound goes mute and it gives you a brief, cleaned up, captioned version.  You can use multiple settings for how strict you want it to be.  Of course, it only works on things that are closed-captioned, but most shows are, and sometimes it doesn’t make perfect sense.  (My wife loves the Viagra commercials that advise men to be sure their hearts are healthy enough for hugs.)

          But the product is definitely worth it.  My biggest problem with television, etc. is that an otherwise appropriate show will flippantly throw the Lord’s Name around in vain.  With the TV Guardian I can still watch without having to listen to that.  It’s also a great message to my kids that there are certain things that aren’t appropriate.  It’s a natural way for them to learn about controlling content and appropriate language.  Of course, while watching EWTN I have to turn it off since it can make religious programs a challenge, constantly editing God’s Name.

          Obviously the ClearPlay DVD player and TV Guardian can’t turn your television into a fountain of purity, but they provide great services to a Christian home.  Hopefully men and women of faith will continue to use technology in ways that give God glory and protect the innocence of children.