Thinking About Mary, the Mother of God

Pieta, Michaelangelo

She holds Him first in the stable, keeping Him warm and safe in the darkness of the star-lit night.


Then, a scant eight days later, He experiences the first pain, the first tiny loss of the saving blood, His circumsion.  United to us in helplessness, in smallness, in suffering, she holds Him tightly in her arms.


Soon, Mary will carry Him up to the Temple, where Simon will tell her to expect great suffering, both for herself and for Him.


Then, one dark night soon after, Herod's soldiers set out to kill this threat.  A threat to Herod and his power, to us and our self-will.  Mary carries Jesus as she and Joseph flee in the night to Egypt, but behind her she hears the terrifying cries of mothers, screaming as their sons die for His sake.  The first of the martyrs testifying to His coming.


Does she hold Him close, afraid to let Him go, when He comes to her and tells her He is setting out on His own path, fulfilling His destiny, beginning His mission of teaching and healing?  Does she see the cross at the end of that road? Opening her arms, letting go, is it another sword of sorrow?


At the end, she holds His dead body in her arms, carrying the pain of His crucifixion like a sword in her heart.


Then, comes a morning when all the suffering, all the sorrow, all the loss is swept aside and her heart nearly explodes with joy--He is alive!  


Motherhood.  The greatest joy, the greatest sorrow.  Mary lived it daily; she lived it deeply.  All the rejoicing, all the grief  she experienced were contained within the Will of God, the Will she embraced and remained in perfectly throughout her life.  When we walk in the Will of God, we will share in her joys and her sorrows; we, too, will have a place in the work of Redemption.

Madonna and Child, Marianne Stokes

Dear Lord, by the intercession of your Blessed Mother, give me the strength to hold my children close and the courage to let them go.  May Your Spirit fill me with enough wisdom to guide their steps and enough faith to let them follow their own path.  Guide them when they are far away,  turn their hearts and minds to You.  Through the prayers of Mary, may each of us, humbling ourselves to conform to Your Will as she did, come finally home to You.

Boys on a Winter Morning

Winter-Time

Robert Louis Stevenson

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,

A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;

Blinks but an hour or two; and then,

A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,

At morning in the dark I rise;

And shivering in my nakedness,

By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit

To warm my frozen bones a bit;

Or with a reindeer-sled, explore

The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap

Me in my comforter and cap;

The cold wind burns my face, and blows

Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;

And tree and house, and hill and lake,

Are frosted like a wedding cake.

 

A Delicious, Healthy Breakfast

Might look weird, but they really tasted great!   

   

This morning I decided to start with my new plan for healthier eating in 2012.  One of my goals is to increase dramatically my vegetable intake, so this morning I scoured my refrigerator for likely vegetables to include in my breakfast.  I found some leftover broccoli, a few green onions, and a red pepper, along with a bunch of parsley.  So, this is what I made:

Scrambled Eggs and Vegies!!!

1.  First, cut up a few strips of bacon and begin to fry it up in your favorite cast iron pan.  I love my cast iron pan.  It heats evenly, washes up so easily (if I wash it right away), and even adds iron to my diet! I can use it on the stovetop and also in the oven.  If the power goes out, I can use it over a fire without destroying it.  I can turn on the burner and forget it for a few minutes without melting or ruining the pan.  It lasts forever.  I always put a dishrag under it when I wash it in my porcelain sink to keep it from leaving black marks all over.  My pan was a gift from a friend, but it is easy to find pre-treated pans.  I love the sloping sides on my pan.

I added a link over on the sidebar under "Things I Love" so you can see exactly which pan I have.

2.  While the bacon is sizzling up and getting oh-so-crispy-and-delicious smelling, chop up some vegetables.  I used the red pepper, green onion, and leftover broccoli I had on hand, but green peppers, regular or red onions, and spinach would all taste great, too.  When the bacon is crisp, add the vegetables and cook a few minutes.

3.  While the vegetables are cooking, stir together however many eggs you would like (I used 3), salt, pepper, and a few scoops of sour cream. When they are well mixed and the vegetables are starting to get just a little soft, pour the eggs into the pan.  Cook up just as if you were cooking scrambled  eggs.  When they are finished to your liking, scoop onto a plate and top with chopped fresh herbs (I used the parsley) or grated cheese.

Simple, quick, delicious, and vegie-laden!  That's just what I wanted for breakfast!

Wish you could join me!

The Holy Family

The Holy Family, Bartolome Esteban Murillo

     When we think of the Holy Family, we often visualize them as surrounded by a  semi-haloed golden-glow of light in the midst of a fragrant, snug, rather quaint little stable.  This is an endearing mental picture, but does not give us a true idea of the life of the most extraordinary family that ever lived. In truth, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus lived an ordinary life, filled with all manner of ordinary tasks and daily routines.  It was a three-meals a day, scrub the laundry, mend the shirts, spin the yarn,  knead the bread kind of existence.  Daily duty, daily labor. The extraordinary in the midst of the utterly ordinary.

     Our lives, too, reflect this truth. Struggling through another round of repetitive never-to-be-entirely-finished  daily chores, we find within ourselves the same extraordinary mystery that dwelt in the house in Nazareth:  Christ in us. 

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,  of which I became a minister according to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now made manifest to his saints.  To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.~Colossians 1: 24-27, RSV

During this feast of the Holy Family, may we all seek and find within our own homes the Presence of the extraordinary in the midst of our daily ordinary duties.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel ~ God-With-Us.

Dare I Share????

 

I'm so happy to have found two of the Christmas 2011 photos I thought were gone for good! These were shots I took of my wonderful husband and our six younger children.  I had forgotten that I emailed them to my Mac so I could send them on to my eldest son who is in Afghanistan.  They are so ordinary, though, I hesitate to post them.  They aren't good photos, or lovely, or specially posed.  They are "the real McCoy"! You can see our white board "fireplace" down in the lower right hand corner, our improvised stockings hanging by the horizontal blinds with care, our son struggling to get loose, and the completely unmatched pajama situation that has truly gotten out of hand!  Our children above are in the midst of a game of Boggle with the felt Jesse tree on the wall behind them. 

Dear readers, I really struggled to find happiness this Christmas.  We were away from our home in Virginia for a second year and I was in a place that I don't like or feel at home in.  It was so hard to make it lovely, although it was a bit lovelier than these pictures show (I did take some great shots of our tree and our Christmas dinner spread...those are gone for good, though).  I had to confront some not-so-pleasant-to-see truths about what was important to me, what I value most.  And I found it was not the twinkly lights, though they are lovely.  It was not the flickering fire, though that is cheery and warming.  It was the people in my life, my dear loved ones, who saved Christmas for me and made it joyful.  

My delight was in snuggling those dear boys in their unmatched jammies and playing seriously competitive Boggle with my dear daughters.  My joy was in seeing the growth and maturity in my 20-something son's eyes and the warm feeling of being loved that came from thinking about the willingness of my college-aged son and daughter to drive 5 hours through horrible traffic just to spend Christmas day with us.  And although I didn't get a picture of them, I also was so blessed by my second oldest son and his wife, who drove several hours to spend Christmas Eve Day with us before heading off to her folk's home for Christmas Day.  We walked the beach together and played Pictionary (with me having to draw words like loitering and cartography, while others were given crayon and barn...I'm not usually suspicious, but....) My oldest son called many times before he finally was able to reach us and wish us Merry Christmas, and that was also a source of great joy, as was being able to talk to his sweet wife and our grandchildren on Christmas Day. But the greatest gift of all was looking at my husband of 31 years and knowing he loves me more this Christmas than he ever has, that he accepts me just as I am--not an easy thing!--and that he and I together with God's help have created this lovely family.

The heart of the joy of my Christmas this year was family.

And isn't that the true meaning of Christmas, after all?  Isn't that why Jesus came to us that first Christmas night?  Shivering in a cold cavern, lying in a crude manger of straw, He came to us in order to bring us home to our family, in order to bring us home to our Father. 

"Heavenly Father, you have given us a model of life in the Holy Family of Nazareth. Help us, O loving Father to make our family another Nazareth where love, peace and joy reign. May it be deeply contemplative, intensely Eucharistic and vibrant with joy. Help us to stay together in joy and sorrow through family prayer. Teach us to see Jesus in the members of our family especially in their distressing disguise. May the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus make our hearts meek and humble like His and help us to carry out our family duties in a holy way. May we love one another as God loves each one of us more and more each day, and forgive each other's faults as You forgive our sins. Help us, O loving Father to take whatever You give and to give whatever You take with a big smile. Immaculate Heart of Mary, cause of our joy, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. Holy Guardian Angels be always with us, guide and protect us. Amen."~Blessed Theresa of Calcutta

Adventures in the Cloud

This was supposed to be a Christmas blog post.  You might notice the lovely cloud above which rained down upon my Christmas tree today.  

This is a Christmas Tree:

Clearly, it is not MY Christmas Tree, all aglow with happy children opening presents beneath it.  And why not?  Because, in a disastrous encounter with technology,  I managed to delete all of my Christmas pictures.  

I decided to commit to iCloud before it was too late to backup my life, but I didn't backup my iPhone before I completely downloaded a new operating system, hence obliterating my most recent photos. Aaahh,  technology!  So many mysterious ins and outs!

In spite of my inability to post cute and ever-so-interesting pictures of my family and our lovely packages and delicious food, I hope you all are having a wonderful Octave of Christmas!  Oh, and here's a photo from last year---

St. Stephen Being Led to His Martyrdom,  Fra Angelico

     Today is the feast of St. Stephen, the Proto-Martyr (or first witness). His courage and conviction are clearly show to us in the Book of Acts, chapters  6 and 7.  His faithful witness ultimately won to Christ one of his own murderers, the great Apostle, St. Paul. 

Coronation of St. Stephen, Annibale Carracci

     Although it is not his feast day,  it was also on this day that, according to legend,  Saint Wenceslas I , Duke of Bohemia (in the area of the modern day Czech Republic) trudged out on a snowy night to feed the poor.  This charitable ruler was renowned for such acts of generosity, as the 12th-century author of the Cosmas of Prague recounts:

      But his deeds I think you know better than I could tell you; for, as is read in his Passion, no one doubts that, rising every night from his noble bed, with bare feet and only one chamberlain, he went around to God’s churches and gave alms generously to widows, orphans, those in prison and afflicted by every difficulty, so much so that he was considered, not a prince, but the father of all the wretched.


St. Stephen and St. Wenceslas, pray for me that I might, by the power of the Holy Spirit, grow in charity, generosity, and compassion.  Help me to give even when it is not easy or convenient; make me more aware of the needs of the people who surround me in my daily life.  May all of my giving be done as if I were giving to Jesus Himself.  In His service, you were willing to offer even your lives.  Pray for me that I may offer myself as completely to God as you did.

Merry Christmas!

 

Wishing you and all of your loved ones a holy, blessed, and joyful Christmas!

O Antiphons: O Emmanuel

The Nativity, Schongauer

O Emmanuel: 

“O Emmanuel, 

king and lawgiver,

desire of the nations, 

Savior of all people, 

come and set us free, Lord our God.”

Almost there!

The sink....

The laundry....

The cookies.....

The coffee....

THE END!

Hope your Christmas chores aren't overwhelming you!  Take a break and have a cuppa'!