When you are visited by grace (St. Francis de Sales)

   O, how… you should be overwhelmed with joy when you are visited… by the interior graces that you receive daily from His divine Majesty by means of so many inspirations and words that He speaks to your hearts!  For He is always near, knocking and speaking to you about what He desires you to do for His love… You should listen to him with great attention, and faithfully and promptly carry out his divine will! 

   The true mark of a divine visitation is transformation. 

--François de Sales, Oeuvres 9:168 & 10:76.

Happy Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

Image source:  Lucy D'Souza-Krone, The Glorious Visitation:  Mary and Elizabeth

Why do you stand looking up at the skies? (Kathleen Norris)

 Why do you stand           

 looking up at the skies?          

Acts 1:11          

 It wasn’t just wind, chasing  

thin gunmetal clouds  

across the loud sky;  

it wasn’t the feeling that one might ascend 

on that excited air, 

rising like a trumpet note. 

                          

And it wasn’t just my sister’s water breaking, 

her crying out, 

the downward draw of blood and bone… 

                       

It was all of that, 

the mud and the new grass 

pushing up through melting snow, 

the lilac in bud 

by my front door, bent low 

by last week’s storm. 

                       

Now the new mother, that leaky vessel, 

begins to nurse her child, 

beginning the long good-bye. 

--Kathleen Norris, Ascension         

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To work for peace & justice

   Heavenly Father, on this Memorial Day, we pray for those who courageously laid down their lives for the cause of freedom.  May the example of their sacrifice inspire in us the selfless love of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  

   Bless the families of our fallen troops, and fill their homes and their lives with your strength and peace.  

   In union with people of goodwill of every nation, embolden us to answer the call to work for peace and justice, and thus seek an end to violence and conflict around the globe. 

We pray through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

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