"For while gentle silence enveloped all things and night in its swift course was now half gone, Thy All-powerful Word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of a land that was doomed."

Wisdom 18:14-15

These words made me actually catch my breath and continue to occupy my imagination.

To think, even now the Lord is so eager to draw very near and fill up the cold recesses of our hearts, even if they hold much the same as what filled that barn so long ago.

To think, He can make dark caves shine with Light. Furthermore, He longs to do so. 

Make room for Him. 

 

 MY CHILD, I will teach you now the way of peace and true liberty:

Seek, child, to do the will of others rather than your own.

Always choose to have less rather than more.

Look always for the last place and seek to be beneath all others.

Always wish and pray that the will of God be fully carried out in you.

Behold, such will enter into the realm of peace and rest.

Imitation of Christ, ch 23

Years ago a friend gifted me a wonderful novena booklet called Sacred Motherhood by M. Kley from the Schoenstatt Center which had prayers for each month of pregnancy. Remembering how inspiring it was to me then, I pulled it out to share with young friends expecting babies this year. While perusing the reflections I came across a wonderful meditation which is perhaps much more relevant to mothers of older children. I found it quite encouraging.

Things we somehow did not know about St Catherine Laboure before today:

Her first name, before religious life, was Zoe. I am not sure I have ever heard of a Zoe before recent times and this intrigues me now. 

She not only cared for the aged and infirm, but she was in charge of the poultry for the order. 

Those who knew her commented that she was "rather insignificant", "matter-of-fact and unexcitable", "cold, almost apathetic"

This is no doubt due to "the precautions she had taken to keep herself unknown."

I have a deep devotion to the Miraculous Medal. My story is deeply tied up with hers. For reasons too plentiful and diverse to list here, I became disillusioned with the Church of my youth which was barely hanging on and largely run by poorly formed lay people. I began to venture more deeply into my mother's new age resources.

By the time I was a young mother I had also seen a multitude of problems there and was no closer to finding answers I so desperately sought. Through a library story hour program we met Catholic homeschool families and eventually landed at a catechism program offered at an old downtown church in the city we lived in then. An older man would stop by some class days and sold old Catholic books for a quarter or fifty cents. An avid reader, I scooped several up and began to explore these new ideas. Suddenly there were answers coming together.

He approached me one Saturday morning and said, "If I bring something for you and your son would you wear it?  It's free!" Free being my love language I said, "Sure?" The next week he brought two very bulky Miraculous Medal necklaces and placed one over my head and one over my son's.  Six weeks later I was in the confessional for the first time in many years.  The rest, as they say, is history. Or rather it is an ever-unfolding story complete with more plot twists than I ever expected. I was back though.  The journey began there.  This is where I mark a definite starting point.  

I am forever grateful to a humble sister who spent her whole life serving and performing tasks the rest of the world would find lowly at best. She was the only one in her large family who was not given benefit of education, due to her mother's early death and the responsibilities which fell to her afterwards. She didn't wow her contemporaries as evidenced by the "rather insignificant" comment.  I imagine her now cleaning her coop much as I do. In quiet conversation with God as she went about the very unglamorous tasks required in caring for folks who cannot care for themselves. "Matter of fact" suggests to me that she put one foot in front of the other. In another place it relates that her life is "notable for her devotion to profound silence."

profound silence

farm work

physical care of the infirm

 St Catherine Laboure, pray for us. 

Butler's Lives biography here