It's been a minute, hasn't it?  With good reason.  Just when I thought I was catching my breath life took a hard left.  We came to realize what was needed was not simply tweaking but a complete reworking of our life.  That is much easier said than done and took all I had in me and a little more.  It involved a fair amount of remodeling, purging, packing, and prayer – not necessarily in that order.  So much work, y'all.  If you have moved long distance, you know this.  We are mostly on the other side of it now.  The dust is settling some.  The boxes are being opened and things are finding new homes in house #18, with eight of the ten children nearby.  It is incredible to me to see so many of my children, big and small, together in one place again.  After all these years spread so far apart, it is a blessing that takes my breath away.  

More than ever, I am taking each day as it comes.  The words, "…sufficient unto the day," have taken on deeper meaning.  So, too, am I certain that,  "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning."  Not that every day is easy, because it is not.  Each day comes with just enough grace for those 24 hours though.  When they are strung together, one after another, we can see progress. 

Today finds us at the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.  Tomorrow is the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Sts Peter and Paul are on our minds this week.  If you are observing these feasts you may enjoy some of the stories in the June back issue of St Catherine's Gazette.  The girls hope to make one of these fruit plates tomorrow.  Then there will be more boxes to open and furniture to repair. There will be a dog fence to install and a garden to tidy up, appointments and paper work to see to, and with luck some reading and resting and starting over, new every morning. 

Leaving a beautiful prayer that might inspire:

Teach me, my Lord, to be kind and gentle in all the events of life, in disappointments, in the thoughtlessness of others, in the insincerity of those I trusted, in the unfaithfulness of those on whom I relied.

Let me put myself aside, to think of the happiness of others, to hide my pains and heartaches, so that I may be the only one to suffer from them.

Teach me to profit by the suffering that comes across my path.

Let me so use it that it may mellow me, not harden or embitter me; that it may make me patient, not irritable; that it may make me broad in my forgiveness, not narrow, proud and overbearing.

May no one be less good for having come within my influence.

No one less pure, less true, less kind, less noble for having been a fellow traveler in our journey toward eternal life.

As I go my rounds from one task to another, let me say, from time to time, a word of love to You.

May my life be lived in the supernatural, full of power for good, and strong in its purpose of sanctity.

Amen.

Father John A. Hardon Catholic Prayer Book with Meditations