Praying in My Mary Garden

It's been a long summer and summer isn't even over. My family has managed to declutter dozens of bags of excess from our home and weed bag after bag of weeds from our yard. With the help of my sons and a young adult family friend, (pictured here with our cat) I managed to carve out a Mary Garden from an overgrown patch of yard.

Christmas Musing: Preti's "The Visitiation" and Our Search for the Infinite

When we rounded the corner to the left and into the Baroque room at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts this morning, my eyes welled with tears. There it was; the painting I had visited the museum for, a painting called "The Visitation" by 17th century Baroque master Mattia Preti, a Calabrian and a protege of Caravaggian naturalism.

How fitting the painting first went on display here on Christmas Eve.

How To Make Iced Latte Without Ice

I was inspired this afternoon to make an iced latte, following the directions of Danielle Walker, on her wonderful blog, Against All Grain. 

This, my friends, is not what my iced latte looked like:

Middlesex Greenway: A Little Thunder Road, a Little Ave Maria

 Yesterday, while our younger son attended a preseason soccer camp at St. Joe's High School, I walked the Middlesex Greenway, a two-year-old new ribbon of paved walkway that runs 3.5 miles from Metuchen to Woodbridge. This is one of the prettiest vistas I found along the trail.

On Staten Island: Feast Day for Our Lady of Good Health (Vailankanni), Fast Day for Syria

This is the day Pope Francis asked Christians worldwide to fast and to pray for our brothers and sisters in Syria. It also is the feast day of Our Lady of Good Health (Vailankanni). Today, I traveled with our younger son and three of my CL friends from New Jersey to a Staten Island parish where we joined hundreds of others in fasting for Syria and feasting for Our Lady of Good Health.

Paying it Forward: Liebster Award Nominees... by Me!

The lovely Celeste at Sacred Sharings For the Soul surprised me with a nomination for a Liebster award. This award originated in Germany a few years ago by a woman named Jasmin and is a way for bloggers to recognize and recommend each other. 

Thank you, Celeste! I am going to follow her lead and "award" four fellow bloggers:

Paula,  Marissa, Heidi, and Sarah. Now Sarah has more than 200 followers, but hey people, I knew her way back when.   Well, only three years ago but that is like a whole generation in bloggyland. 

Here are my 11 questions for my nominees....

Seven Quick Takes for Friday

1. It's snowing here. Hard. The Northeast is expecting a major blizzard. Our home is ready with newly made beeswax candles, food, unread books and for me, some cross-stitch. My husband and I worry we will lose power; Superstorm Sandy showed up the infrastructure here is pretty fragile.

 newbrunswick.patch.com

On the Annunciation and Not Hiding from God

It's taken me until midlife to really understand the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception and to appreciate why it is one of the concepts that keeps me connected to my Catholic faith. I am not aware of any other Christian community that gives so much honor and praise to the role of women in the Christian event. The Advent season is a time of particular focus and honor of the Mother of us all.

When I was a child, Mary felt remote and inaccessible. As an adult woman, and as a mother, I see how she is an intrinsic part of Mystery, of the overwhelming, immeasurable love with which every human is conceived. And when I ask Mary to pray for me, I understand her indissoluble link to the Divine and Mystical Mystery.

The Virgin of Mercy Has Arrived in 21st Century New Jersey

What better gift than this? We purchased this beautiful painting of the Holy Mother from my friend Ann Burt, who lives and works in Raleigh, N.C. This is the largest piece she has created so far in her rustic barn series. She painted Mary on a piece of salvaged barn wood.

I was unpacking Mary today from the cardboard box and bubble wrap she showed up in when my friend Dan, himself an artist, happened to stop by. (You know I don't believe in coincidences.)

Why Christ's Inauspicious Start Comforts Me

What are the chances that an unwed teenaged girl from a no-name place like Nazareth would give birth to the Savior of the World? Seriously? But that is what happened. As Christmas approaches, the truth of this improbable story comforts me. You see, we all have the odds stacked against us.

Some of us grow up in lousy neighborhoods, or have inept parents or struggle with addiction or mental illness or a loss so big we can hardly put it into words. And yet, we all, every stinking annoying hypocritical disappointing one of us, were summoned into being by a Presence, a Beauty, a Something that is the ultimate answer to all our human longing.

An Anti Catholic Poet Who Inadvertently Penned a Lament to Our Holy Mother

Not until my pastor suggested today during the Sacrament of Reconciliation that I take my troubles to the Holy Mother did I find out the Church has devoted the month of October to Mary. Several Marian feasts are celebrated this month, which also is the Month of the Holy Rosary. (the rosary here is from www.clayrosaries.com)

So I went in search of a poem devoted to Mary. I found one in a most unexpected place: the writings of John Clare, a virulent anti Catholic who died in 1864 after a twenty-year struggle with severe depression. He is a fascinating man, who wrote some of the world's most beautiful descriptions of nature. (Pictured here are John Clare roses, small, translucent pink roses that bloom into winter) He now is considered one of the most important 19th century poets writing in English. I hope to devote more space to him at a later date.

For now, I would like to introduce this lovely lament, "To Mary: It is the Evening Hour."