Three Women Named Mary

On Saturday morning, I wear my blue "i love babies" t-shirt,
and after Mass, I wait for the woman who asked me to help out at a yard sale.

I make my thanksgiving for Communion,
for the gift of the Lord's presence in my heart by the statue of Mary.

And the widow stops to say hello.
Holding out her hands to me, she tells me that I am so beautiful, that God must be pleased with me,
and she wants to keep in touch when I go away...we will exchange addresses soon.

Only later do I realize that what she sees is not what I see,
and I am humbled by her praise,
because God only let her see the beautiful in me--His gift,
though I can often only see the ugly in me--my sins, my weaknesses, my faults, my brokenness.

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On that sunny Saturday afternoon, at the yard sale, I see a woman in blue stop and bend over.
She cannot take another step.

I ask, "are you all right ma'am?" but she does not respond.

A tall man catches up with her, and she begs him to let her have a smoke.
We are on school property, a parish school, and he says to her,

"no, Mary. You can't smoke here."
 She pleads and pleads, but he will not let her,
so she goes and sits on the curb, alone,
until it is time for them to go.

My heart is breaking, for her, for him, for all who struggle in this world...
"is this what addiction does, Lord?"

And as I look from one to the other, the man notices my worried stare,
my curiosity that I cannot contain, and apologizes to me.
He apologizes, and I can see how much her pain hurts him, though he tries to hide it.
I realize that he has to deal with this every day, and he can do it, but he can't.
And I don't know what to say, what to do, but I pray.

Sweet Jesus, blessed Mary, pray for us and give strength to her, patience to him, grace to all!

Later, I realize that this Mary was obedient, even at the cost of suffering,
and I am sure that our encounter was not an accident or a coincidence.

Blessed Pope John Paul II says, "In the designs of Providence, there are no coincidences."
(Weigel, George. Witness to Hope, p. 440)

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Today is the feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

After the name of Jesus, the name of Mary is the holiest, most beautiful name in the history of the world.
This is because Mary is the holiest, most beautiful woman who ever lived.
And we should never be afraid to take her as our Mother, to call on her name for help.
She will not take us to herself alone, but will lead us to her Son, for our salvation and the glory of God.

For Mary knows our joys, but she also shares in our struggles, our weaknesses, our burdens...
more than any other woman, she knows all this.
She was with me and the widow in church, looking with a mother's love on both of us.
She was with me when I realized how unworthy I am of the widow's love, let alone Mary's and God's!
She was with Mary on the curb, helping her to be obedient,
and with the man who cares for Mary, helping him to love patiently.
She watches us all bear our crosses behind our Lord,
intercedes for us with a mother's love,
and will be with us, rejoicing when we rise with Him.

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I rejoice with Mary on this, her nameday, and I give thanks to God the Father through her...

1000+x+22...and still counting...

for my mother's broken toe on the mend day by day : : the Abbots' reactions and her rebuttal

joys of nanny work : : red baby jogger : : just-in-time diaper change : : "Daddy Loves Me" onesie

oddly familiar laugh lines on an unfamiliar face : : sister's help : : yard sale ladies in leis 

knots, knots, knots : : good children : : lighthouse ring-toss : : a secret surprise for my helper in the works

more K'nex adventures : : the last hurrah : : "zi-ba-zi-ba-zib-zib" she sings and we laugh

banana cake with chocolate frosting : : crows summoning us to the picnic : : swooping swallows-bug control!

sister time : : new year at the high-school begins tomorrow : : more nanny work this week

Joining the Gratitude Community at A Holy Experience today and every Monday:

 

Blessed be God forever!

The Queenship of Mary, Waiting Days, and New Beginnings

Source

Today is the Feast of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth.

No word yet as to whether the Prioress has received my application (though I trust that she has by now), or whether the letter of recommendation from my spiritual director has arrived yet either. Humanly speaking, my acceptance now rests on the reception of these documents and the mercy and love of the Prioress and her Council.

More fundamentally, all my hopes are pinned on God's good pleasure, and I have two reasons for trust:

1. God would not have let me progress as far as I have unless He willed me to persevere and be accepted.
2. failing 1, God has some other plan for me that I don't yet know, but He will never leave me an orphan.

Meanwhile, my sister is making preparations for a new beginning of her own this fall: she is college bound at the end of this week. So between the two of us alone, there is quiet a bit of anticipation of things to come.

Today is Monday, and there is much for which to give thanks, as always, so here goes:

Lord, thank You for Your 1000+x Gifts; for Your Infinite Love!

-The Queenship of Mary :: This video clip from Sister Act (just for fun!)

-breath slowing these last few days :: deep calm :: God's patience :: precious encouragement here and here
-monarch on the marigolds :: distant thunder :: raspberries ripe again
-Grandparents home safe :: newly minted Master's homecoming today
-sister piecing her quilt :: mother making handkerchiefs :: cat's cradle with littlest sister (stalling her bedtime)
-fun haircut :: no more headaches :: blister healing faster than I'd hoped
-Discovering Gruda's Poetry :: new desire to learn more about the Theology of the Body
-thoughtful letters from friends
-the grace to always wear my Grandfather's Pardon Cross :: broken chain quickly and easily replaced
-the Word, always inviting to begin again in faith, hope, trust and above all, love.

Joining the Gratitude Community at A Holy Experience today and every Monday:

 

Blessed be God forever!

Gruda's Words

George Weigel's Witness to Hope is one of the best biographies I have ever read. It is clear, compelling, and as I read, several things happen:

1. I am constantly amazed at how much Blessed John Paul II had to overcome (especially in Communist Poland) and how much he achieved throughout his life. 
2. I grow more and more grateful for the life and ministry of this pope of my childhood, who I did not immediately appreciate as I should have. But I'm making up for lost time now!
3. The humor, wisdom, and faith of Blessed John Paul II inspire and challenge me, and I finally discover the richness of his theological and philosophical insights more fully (and at the same time, I also come to recognize the flaws in my own thinking more deeply)
4. Often, when Weigel references certain writings of Blessed John Paul II I feel compelled to add them to my reading list, or if they are short, look them up immediately. 

On that note, in a chapter of Witness to Hope that I read a few days ago, Weigel references Blessed John Paul II's poetry. Thankfully, (but not to my surprise) my father has a copy of Karol Wojtyla, Collected Poems, which I pulled from the shelf and perused a bit, to my edification.

Jerzy Peterkiewicz, the translator of thise collection, explains that the cycle entitled "Meditation on Death" was first published "under the pen name Gruda, which means 'a clod of earth'" (147) 

Gruda is a fitting name for the author of this cycle, though if I may be permitted to write this, Blessed Pope John Paul II was one of the greatest 'clods of earth' who helped us transition from one century to the next. Still, as the name he chose to pen this cycle under, "Gruda" evokes both the virtue of humility and the admonition from Ash Wednesday: "remember, o man, that you are dust; unto dust you shall return."

That being said (whew, I was beginning to think I'd never get here!), there are three passages from "Gruda's" cycle in particular that struck me because of their relevance to the season of my life and/or their reference(s) to hope:

1) from the first part of "Meditation on Death" -- Thoughts on maturing, section 3, page 150:

"When we find ourselves at the shores of autumn, 

fear and love explode their contrary desires:

fear desiring the return to what was already in existence,

and still is-

love desiring the departure to the One

in whom existence finds all its future."

the shores of autumn: the mornings are growing cooler, and this summer of my life is nearly over, there will be others, God willing, but this one is ending. With this ending, I hope, comes a new beginning, too...but
fear and love explode in their contrary desires...: for all the calm that I have tried to cultivate in my heart during these quiet waiting days,  so much questioning and thinking goes on;  fear and love still war in my heart.
"Gruda's" meditation on death holds true for more than one kind of death. There is no doubt that the day I enter the convent, if this is God's will for me, I will die in some sense. To myself and to the world. And I will live again, my life hidden in God, the One in whom existence finds all its future.

+  +  +

2) from the fourth part of "Meditation on Death"-- Hope reaching beyond the limit, section 1, page 156:

"Hope rises in time

from all places subject to death-

hope is its counterweight.

The dying world unveils its life again

in hope."

I read in this passage another sense of death, this one more literal. Death and decay, sinfulness, all that threatens to separate us from God. But Hope is stronger than all. God has shown me this every day of my life.

Hope rises...

+  +  +

3) from the fourth part of "Meditation on Death"-- Hope reaching beyond the limit, section 5, page 158:

"And so I am inscribed in You

by hope,

outside You I cannot exist."

(This is my closing prayer, no further comment necessary.)

Love vs. Dualism

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This is an excerpt of how George Weigel explains Father Karol Wojtyla's  philosophy and theology of responsible love:

"In freely giving myself sexually to another as an expression of love, I am being myself in a most radical way, for I am making myself a gift to another in a way that is a profound expression of who I am." (Weigel, George. Witness to Hope, 142)

I was struck by this passage, and I wonder if this holds true for every chaste relationship, including those in which the partners remain celibate?

Every day, I strive to dedicate everything I am, have, and do, completely to God, including my sexuality. It is all God's initiative, though.

God not only invites me to give myself freely to Him in the totality of my being (which is itself His gift to me), but He also gives me the grace to do so. In this give and take between the Lord and my soul, I really do discover who I am, at the core of my being.

I once thought that, as someone who hopes to be a nun, sexual ethics and the Theology of the Body would not be important to me.

Now, I am just beginning to realize that I just might have been wrong about this!

In fact, I have been fighting dualistic tendencies of thinking all my life (holy father, Saint Dominic, pray for me!), and here is an answer to them:

I believe that I am a body-mind-soul unity, made for the praise of God's glory in the totality of my being. I cannot just choose to cast off my body, abuse it, or ignore it (as if it would ever let me anyway) without losing my humanity and betraying a huge part of God's will for my life.

In fact, all this talk of me and my body, my body as an 'it' is just feeding into the dualistic mentality. I am so bad at using language!

I am my body, and my body is me. But, unlike the materialists, I believe in the existence of an immortal soul as well. A few  years ago, on a Philosophy exam in college, I did a little bit of speculation as to what the soul is/does:

"As a Catholic, I believe that the soul does exist, and that it is the source of my fundamental identity. It is the part of me that shall never die, even though the body and my brain will one day decay. (Remember o man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return!)...The soul is that which unites the body and the mind, thereby making me a single entity...I am my soul, my soul is me. We cannot be separated or distinguished from one another." (from my practice notes, which I saved) 

At any rate, this book...

(Source)

...is now on my reading list (though it is doubtful that I will get to it anytime soon, as I still have 800+ pages to go in Witness to Hope! and other books in line ahead of it).

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, an amateur theologian
(and even worse philosopher!)
struggling to grasp the truth of my existence
in light of Your Love and Your Truth!

My Jesus, I love You.
My Jesus, I trust in You.
My Jesus, I give myself entirely to You!

Blessed Pope John Paul II on the virtue of Hope

“Hope is not empty optimism springing from a naive confidence that the future will necessarily be better than the past. Hope and trust are the premise of responsible activity and are nurtured in that inner sanctuary of conscience where “man is alone with God” and thus perceives that he is not alone amid the enigmas of existence, for he is surrounded by the love of the Creator.”

-Blessed Pope John Paul II, from his “Address to the Fiftieth General Assembly of the United Nations Organization,” 16. (Quoted in Weigel, George. Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, 14)

What a beautiful, helpful definition of Hope! Hope is not naive: it is responsible. And it is based on a relationship with God. If we have Hope, it is only because of God’s initiative. God’s free gift of Himself is our wellspring of Hope.

To Turn and Become Like Children

Matthew 18:1-5,10, 12-14 is the Gospel for today. And these are my florilegium notes:

"[Jesus] said, 'Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.'" (Mt 18:2)

What does it mean to be child-like? Innocence, trust, and simplicity are some of the characteristics that come to mind...

Bl. Pope John Paul II and Maria Bambina

Aside from the Child Jesus, Tradition has handed down devotion to the Child Mary (Maria Bambina).  Some years ago, a good friend of mine taught me how to pray the Infancy Chaplet and meditate on the virtues of this Infant Mother of ours. Among the countless virtues Mary practiced throughout her life, twelve have been singled out as having been practiced perfectly from her childhood in particular:

*  Innocence  *  Simplicity  *  Humility  *  Obedience  *
*  Patience  *  Love of God  *  Love of Neighbor  *  Detachment *  *  Purity  *  Silence  *  Meekness  *  Modesty  *

With such virtues, the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by storm. For how can God resist a soul endowed with even just one attribute of His Son, the Child Jesus or Mary, His virginal Daughter, Mother, and Spouse?

I am setting this goal for my daily life: to say the Infancy Chaplet every day from now until September 8th, the Nativity of Mary.

Lord, I trust in Your Love.
I am not afraid because You are with me.
All I ask is that You help me to grow in Love 
and in whatever other particular virtues of childhood You desire to see in me.
Lord, I surrender all to You,
for the praise of Your Glory forever!
Amen.