AS THE SUMMER rolls on and we approach the fall, I like to rehash the real reasons we are homeschooling.

After all, it can be a little too easy to dream – to dream of sipping my peppermint tea polluted with stevia (a natural sweetener that becomes my annoying meal companion when I am actively working on postpartum flab reduction) uninterrupted each morning; to fantasize about what life would be like if I actually used my college degrees to rake in the serious dough and we got to experience what a blast family life can be when lived on two incomes; or to contemplate how pretty my lavender kitchen would look without baking soda volcanoes erupting here and there and the infamous “food dye being sucked up by celery sticks” science project sitting next to my Big Mean To-Do List. But alas, all play-script dreaming must come to an end, so that reality can take the stage, and the true stories behind the joys and struggles of homeschooling can be told. 

Bishop Schneider at the Catholic Identity Conference 2019

One day, when St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was stopped by international border police who asked her if she was carrying any weapons, she plainly responded, “Yes. My rosary and my prayer books.” Arguably, a faithful Catholic would have to say the same thing today if they were caught red-handed with a copy of Christus Vincit, an arsenal-packed, book-length interview featuring the ineffably profound insights of Bishop Athanasius Schneider.