November - 2011

Family Name: Lebish

Parents: Nicholas and Christina

Children: Claire Marie, age 22 mos.

Our questions for Nicholas and Christina:

Tell us a little about yourselves - a paragraph or two . . . Where do you live? What parish do you attend? How did you meet?

We met in Rome, Italy, where Nicholas was working on graduate studies in Philosophy and Theology and Christina was pursuing work as a harpist. We were married in Williamsburg, VA and returned to Rome to begin our first six months of marriage living la bella vita. We left Italy to move to New Hampshire for a teaching position at Holy Family Academy. Nicholas is currently working at St. Catherine of Siena parish, where we also attend Mass. Our only daughter, Claire, was born in Manchester. She’ll be two in February.

What is your favorite family activity?

Our favorite family activity is reading aloud. We’re currently reading about the life of Michelangelo in Irving Stone’s, The Agony and the Ecstasy. It brings back many great memories of our years in Italy. We also very much enjoy watching classic black and white films and historical dramas. One of our favorite time periods is 19th century England.

What is a favorite family tradition?

Because we are still a young family with only one young child our family traditions are still developing. We will celebrate Advent with some Catholic traditions we learned about by reading Maria Von Trapp’s Around the Year with the Trapp Family. These traditions include intensifying the penitential aspect of the season, making our own Advent wreath from scratch, praying evening prayer together by the light of a special Advent candle and finally, waiting until Christmas Eve to decorate the tree.

How does your family pray together?

It’s very difficult to establish routine family prayer. What we strive for is meditating on the Mass readings every morning and praying one decade of the Rosary every evening before bed. Right now, if we can accomplish that, we consider it a great success.

What does your family find most challenging to living as a Catholic family in our society?

What’s most challenging about being Catholic in today’s culture is the lack of societal support in keeping the traditions of the Church. For instance, Sunday as a day of rest. The day is treated like any other. There are no church bells calling us to Mass and prayer. There is no sense of authentic leisure and repose with family and friends. Other feasts days throughout the year are barely blips are the radar. The larger culture doesn’t pause to celebrate and meditate on these feasts or days of penance together as a Christian society.

Thank you Nicholas, Christina and little Claire Marie! Check back next month to see another family featured on our Family Spotlight.