Our Faddah

I couldn't say it better myself...

A Small Journey with Mary - the Pieta

I don't tell this story often, and then usually only to fellow Catholics, but it is Christmas Eve and a rather sad one in some ways for my second son, so I feel the need to share with him just how very special he is.

When I was a tiny girl living in Chicago IL USA, I heard about the Worlds Fair scheduled to be in New York in 1964-1965. They were actually going to let the beautiful Pieta of Michelangelo leave Italy to come! I prayed that I might have the chance to see it... and forgot about it.

...Until the day that I stood in front of the statue in 1965. Somehow, my father had been transferred by his company to New York. Just for that one year. And there I was. And there it was.

I cried, because I remembered my prayer. I remembered speaking with heaven and giving thanks, and promising that I would look very carefully and remember ever single line since I knew how special this was, and knew that I might never have that chance again. But still I did pray, that if it ever might be possible, that I might have the privilege some day to see that beautiful work again. And, having made the prayer, I forgot all about it.

Twenty-seven years later, these memories flooded back as I stood before the Pieta once again in Rome. I was there with my husband, a good man but not a Catholic, and the father of my son. We had wanted to take a trip together and everything was set to go to Jamaica, but we booked instead a package for the same cost for London and Rome. The trip was because our marriage was in a rough spot. The whole week before that moment, while we were not fighting we might as well have been apart since we acted like strangers.

And suddenly, there I was. And there it was. And I was so grateful that I had taken such care to remember every line, because now it was behind the Plexiglas to keep a second vandal from damaging it like the first one had. The tears really came this time, the pride in my own heart was softened. With the memories and the prayerful conversation, I begged that we might be granted a second child...and we were, that very evening.

But the story does not end there either. When the child was only six months old, my husband was diagnosed with a fatal cancer. Out of nowhere, a small Pieta came to my home that I still treasure. Our Mother's love not only sustained us during that time, she also deigned to teach me so that I could help his mother, a girl who had lost her own father young and now was losing her only son. At the same time, both Our Mother and our sister Faustina sent saints both from heaven and earth who helped my husband to accept Our Lord before he died.

Thank you again, sweet Virgin! Love you more than anything, little Spud!

Tiny treasury of prayers in the Catholic tradition

People ask me all the time to pray for one cause or another. Most of the time, it's easy to remember. If someone has died, I put their mass card in my prayerbook at the Office for the Dead. When ill, I usually write their name on a paper I keep by Morning Prayer and review before mass. As the years pass and the requests increase, I've run into trouble from time to time.

Over the past few years, I've found myself making little prayer cards and giving them to others who are willing to help. I'd usually find something appropriate, scan it to a .jpg, and print them out as wallets or 3x5 cards using windows picture viewer.

I've started archiving them here.

Video from the Christian Book Expo 2009

William Lane Craig, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson, Lee Strobel discusses if the God of Christianity exists and if it matters March, 2009 at the Christian Book Expo.
Christian Book Expo 2009

A Prayer for Gaza

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052871.html
Wed., January 07, 2009 Tevet 11, 5769
A Jew's prayer for the children of Gaza
By Bradley Burston

If there has ever been a time for prayer, this is that time.

If there has ever been a place forsaken, Gaza is that place.

Lord who is the creator of all children, hear our prayer this accursed day. God whom we call Blessed, turn your face to these, the children of Gaza, that they may know your blessings, and your shelter, that they may know light and warmth, where there is now only blackness and smoke, and a cold which cuts and clenches the skin.

Almighty who makes exceptions, which we call miracles, make an exception of the children of Gaza. Shield them from us and from their own. Spare them. Heal them. Let them stand in safety. Deliver them from hunger and horror and fury and grief. Deliver them from us, and from their own.

Restore to them their stolen childhoods, their birthright, which is a taste of heaven.

Remind us, O Lord, of the child Ishmael, who is the father of all the children of Gaza. How the child Ishmael was without water and left for dead in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba, so robbed of all hope, that his own mother could not bear to watch his life drain away.

Be that Lord, the God of our kinsman Ishmael, who heard his cry and sent His angel to comfort his mother Hagar.

Be that Lord, who was with Ishmael that day, and all the days after. Be that God, the All-Merciful, who opened Hagar's eyes that day, and showed her the well of water, that she could give the boy Ishmael to drink, and save his life.

Allah, whose name we call Elohim, who gives life, who knows the value and the fragility of every life, send these children your angels. Save them, the children of this place, Gaza the most beautiful, and Gaza the damned.

In this day, when the trepidation and rage and mourning that is called war, seizes our hearts and patches them in scars, we call to you, the Lord whose name is Peace:

Bless these children, and keep them from harm.

Turn Your face toward them, O Lord. Show them, as if for the first time, light and kindness, and overwhelming graciousness.

Look up at them, O Lord. Let them see your face.

And, as if for the first time, grant them peace.

_____________



With thanks to Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman of Kol HaNeshama, Jerusalem.

______________