La Morenita and a Joyful Mystery

Friends, today is the great feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In Mexico she is affectionately known as La Morenita, the dark one. I always think it is fascinating that when Mary shows up, she looks familiar to those she is appearing to. It also seems appropriate that today we pray the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary because in the first two mysteries Mary is pregnant, which reflects her condition when she appeared as Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

At the Annunciation many things happen. I love using the Ignatian method of imagining ourselves in the scene to see what happens.

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I imagine I am at Mary’s home. I walk over to the doorway leading to the back of the house. The opening has a curtain over it. It is a coarse homely cloth. I draw the curtain aside to go through but I stop because I hear an otherworldly voice. It’s like music. You can almost see it shimmering in the air.  The voice says, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” I look at young Mary and I don’t see fear but she is clearly in awe and her eyes are open very wide.

She doesn’t reply immediately but she is pondering what this greeting might mean. Her smooth olive brow has a little furrow in it. The being says, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”

I am so shocked I let the curtain fall shut, but I clearly hear Mary respond, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.”

A sudden breeze makes the curtain flutter open. The other being is gone. Mary slowly rises from her seat, smooths her dress over her belly, letting her hands rest there for a moment.  Nothing will ever be the same again.

Light of the World

 I struggled to write a post this evening. My friend sent me a beautiful quote I wanted to unpack but alas, it was not to be. So I give you this instead, Holman Hunt's painting 'Light of the World.' It seems so timely on so many levels. There is also a 'surprise' or a little mystery to solve in this painting. Can you see it? 

A Few of My Favorite Things

I’m out of ideas at this moment so I’m just going to make some recommendations. A timely book that crossed my path the other day is titled Finding Christ; What the Pandemic Can Teach Us by Fr. Harrison Ayre and Michael Heinlein. At only 104 pages it should be a quick read, though it looks substantial. I can only find it on Kindle and it’s a paltry $2.35 – less than a latte and with more sustenance!

I’m also going to put in a plug for Rushing River Apiaries, a local business that sells the most fantastic candles. I was yearning for a new set of Advent candles as I had given mine away and as of Dec. 9, they are now stocking them in their online store. They aren’t cheap but they are 100% beeswax, look beautiful and smell divine! Even if you purchase them now and don’t use them right away you will be ready for next Advent!

If you are looking to pray the Rosary and ponder some Advent reflections, Fr. Terry from Annunciation Parish is hosting an online event from Wednesday to Saturday at 8:00 pm Pacific. He is at Annunciation church PR on Facebook.

For anyone who is interested in making a consecration to the Blessed Mother or St. Joseph, I highly recommend Mary’s Mantle Consecration; A Spiritual Retreat for Heaven’s Help and Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father. Mary’s Mantle is available through Queen of Peace Media and St. Joseph through the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, as well as that online bookseller that starts with the letter “A”.

And last, but not least, if you are looking for something seasonal to watch, The Chosen’s Christmas special is engaging and appropriate for all ages. 

 

Where To Pray Now?

Our church is closed. Mass is being prayed but the public cannot attend. All the beautiful events that were planned for Advent and Christmas are now shuttered. No Adoration, no rosary, nothing on Sunday except watching Father on youtube. It is profoundly sad. I even thought of writing the bishop to beg him to open the church for limited numbers of individuals to pray in assigned and sanitized seats.

Then I read a letter from a woman to her local Catholic paper. She reminded readers that when a bishop was once asked, years ago, by parishioners, where to pray when the church was closed, he replied, in the street. That is where I am taking my prayers.

When I go on my daily mental health walks, I will try to go past the hospital and if I am not already praying the rosary then I will say an Our Father, 3 Hail Marys, and a Glory Be. I will pray for the sick in ICU, their caregivers, and their families.

When I am in town at the grocery store, I will pray for all the people wandering the streets that are either drugged up, drunk, looking for a fight, or just plain lonely. There are so many now. I have lived here over 30 years and there have never been so many souls in need. When I smile at them that is also a prayer.

When I look across the street at dusk and see my neighbour’s colorful Christmas lights, I will say a prayer of thanksgiving for living in a safe neighbourhood, for the roof over my head, for the gift of sight, and for my neighbour who has given me some joy in this strange season.

When I am on a video chat with my neighbour down the street, whom I can no longer visit in person, I will be grateful that technology can be used for good. I will pray in thanksgiving that we are both getting the social interaction we need.  

And for those that cannot get out to the street, where will they pray? The Holy Father tells us that, “St. Joseph reminds us, that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation.” He also says, “each of us can discover in St. Joseph – the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet and hidden presence – an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble.”

Looks like we have our work cut out for us!

The Year of St. Joseph Begins Today!

Sometimes Pope Francis has me scratching my head with the things he allegedly says. I do realize that he is often misinterpreted, misquoted, mistranslated, etc. but TODAY! Oh! What a beautiful gift he has given us by proclaiming the Year of St. Joseph! And it starts today!

I was speaking with a friend earlier and we were sharing stories like the one I wrote about St. Joseph and my manger scene. She told me a beautiful story about her Advent wreath and St. Joseph. So you can imagine our delight when we heard the news that St. Joseph will be travelling along with us for what’s left of 2020 and through most of 2021.

The prayer group we belong to, which we’ve christened Our Lady’s Prayer Bubble, which meets at the Rosary Ranch (my friend’s yard when the weather is good), has been led by Mary since Good Friday this past April. Now Mary has invited her earthly spouse to join us on our journey, on this wonderful Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. What a gift!

St. Joseph, Terror of Demons, Pray for us!

Away From the Manger

I’ve never been very big on Christmas. We didn’t put up a lot of decorations and the tree didn’t go up until the Saturday before Christmas Eve. We didn’t go to church so the only real lead up to the big day were activities at school such as making ornaments and practicing with the choir for the annual concert. We also sang Christmas hymns and carols at school, something I’m quite certain that’s not done anymore. Christmas Day was quiet as only my uncle and aunt would come for dinner as the rest of the family lived overseas. We’d have turkey and I’d call my friends to compare gifts and that was it until the following year.

When I was 11 years old my best friend would take me to church with her. I didn’t have a lot of questions about Christmas because in those days there were seasonal TV shows like The Little Drummer Boy and A Charlie Brown Christmas that told the story of Jesus’ birth. Christmas was less of a mystery than Easter was.

When I was 18, I was living far away from home and it was my first Christmas away from my family. I was lonely and at loose ends but I befriended a woman who let me help out in her pottery studio. She had a ton of molds and we poured a lot of clay to make greenware. People would buy pieces to decorate and the owner would fire them in the kiln.

I had always been fascinated with nativity scenes and there was a 15-piece set of molds at the shop that caught my eye. I decided I would like my own set so I poured all the pieces and glazed them myself. I had been working on them throughout December and they were finally ready to take home on Christmas Eve! I’ve put that same set out for 39 Christmases now and not one piece has broken.

A few years later I was in the local mall when I noticed a nativity scene in a shop window. It was ceramic, exactly the same as mine, but all glazed in white. It was then that I realized I was missing St. Joseph! I had mistaken one of the shepherds for him. I was crestfallen. There was no way I could ever manufacture a new Joseph! The potter had long since moved away and this was in the days before the tentacles of social media reached around the earth. Mr. Shepherd was going to have to continue to do double duty and protect his sheep as well as Mary and the Christ Child.

Then a few days ago I was noodling around on the internet searching for images of gingerbread nativity scenes and “what to my wondering eyes should appear” but a candy mold that matched my ceramic creche figures! I ordered it immediately so that finally, I will be able to have a proper St. Joseph to watch over the manger. Mind you, he’ll have to be made of chocolate but since the set is brown, I don’t think this will be too noticeable. He will have to be recreated every year as I doubt the chocolate will stand the test of time but maybe there’s some sort of spiritual lesson there. Yes, the figure will be perishable and won’t quite match the Mother and Child, but he will still belong with them. Yes, very much like ourselves.

My Rosary Story

The first time I prayed the rosary was sometime in the Spring of 2003. I had returned to the Church only a few months before and I was only acquainted with two or three people there and I didn’t know them well enough to ask them to teach me how to pray it. So, I learned how to pray the rosary online. There were many websites with diagrams and the basic prayers, most of which I already knew.

I had two sets of rosary beads. One was a set that my eldest son received when he made his First Holy Communion. They were very long and the chain was very light, almost flimsy, so they were a bit unwieldy for a novice to manage. The other beads were a tiny white plastic set. I literally had to look at each bead as I prayed or I got hopelessly lost. So, armed with my tiny beads and my computer I prayed my first Rosary. It felt very Catholic to me and I liked it.

As I searched different websites I began to see that the rosary was not a prayer reserved for little old Portuguese ladies in black veils (at that time my parish had quite a few of those.) Lots of people, including young ones like me (I was 38 at the time) also prayed it.

I prayed the rosary a few more times. I’d get the order of the mysteries mixed up but I wasn’t too worried about that. As long as I covered all five mysteries for that day that was enough. God wasn’t keeping score.

One afternoon I felt the urge to pray the rosary but realized I had already prayed it in the morning. I didn’t know you could pray it multiple times a day!

The first time I heard the rosary prayed in a group was right after St. Pope John Paul II died. We had a prayer service and I was captivated by all the voices praying in unison. Many people were also on their knees. It was a beautiful and holy experience.

Around that time, aside from a few special occasions, the rosary was only prayed in a group on Tuesday night after Mass. Sometimes I would stay for it and I longed to lead a decade but different people would lead and it seemed each one had “their” mystery and there was to be no deviation from the “schedule.”

In recent years the rosary became a daily occurrence, either before or after most Masses. Finally, I was given the opportunity to lead a decade once in a while. At first it was nerve wracking but as I became more comfortable it became easier. There were even times when I was allowed to lead the entire thing.

In the last 23 days I have prayed the rosary every day as part of preparation to renew my consecration to Mary. Twenty-three more days to go! Using a form of Ignatian spirituality I have received new insights into the mysteries these last few weeks and I may share some of these ideas this month. 

The rosary is such a simple set of prayers yet it is so profound. It illuminates the life of Jesus but also demonstrates how intrinsic Mary is to the plan of our salvation.

If it’s been a while since you “called your mother” I invite you to pick up your beads right now and speak and pray with Mama Mary today. She’ll be so happy to hear your voice.