More and More Thoughts
I’m always real with my readers. Maybe it’s because I’m so strongly attracted to honesty, or perhaps it’s because life is messy and no one is always feeling good or put together all the time. Even if someone comes across as always having it together, deep within their heart they must feel as if they are running through a maze of confusion. And if that’s the vibe people portray, then it isn’t genuine and I can see right through that. I love genuine people, they’re real you know? You can relate to them.
I want to thank a very sweet friend for her beautiful note of encouragement, that I just read in my inbox. The woman who sent me the note was the first person who interviewed me with FOCUS several years ago. Dressed in my black suit and high heels, I was nervous for that interview. I wasn’t sure why I was nervous, maybe it was because I really wanted the job, so that probably added to the pressure. She opened the interview with a prayer and then said, “So, tell me about India? What did you learn while you were there?” I can totally do that, I thought. Regardless, it was very considerate of her and I felt very loved, so thank you.
Today is an exceedingly special feast day in the Catholic Church. Although, I think I say that about all feast days, today is most assuredly one of my favorites. It’s so hard to choose your favorite you know? Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. And I want to tell you a story about Our Lady of the Rosary.
This was almost two and half years ago, and I desperately needed to let go of a great deal of anger that I had been carrying on my shoulders for over ten years. I needed to forgive someone who had hurt me very much, but forgiving from the heart is hard, really hard. I strongly desired to be free, to toss this weight of anger and hatred into the deep and step out into the light of beauty and grace.
My parents instilled within me from a very young age the power and beauty of the Rosary, so during college I said a daily Rosary, sometimes out of habit, sometimes from the heart. But desperate situations call for drastic measures, so I decided to pray two rosaries a day – one in the morning and one at night. The one at night was special, well all Rosaries are special, but this half hour at night I spent with our Lady was in my mind a special meeting with the Queen of Heaven for a petition that I desperately sought wisdom on. I always carried the petition on my heart, and beseeched our Lady to ask her Son to bless me with the grace of forgiveness. I knew she would hear me, as there wasn’t an ounce of insincerity in my words, but didn’t know how it would look or feel when the thirty-day “extra Rosary” period was over. I imagined how it would feel or things that would happen, but never in my wildest imagination pictured what did happen.
It was the eve of the feast of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who is by the way, the patron saint of Made in His Image. I had finished the extra thirty Rosaries a few days before, and experienced a profound peace within my heart, the peace of forgiveness which produces the grace to see beauty. On that same day, one of the persons who had hurt me sought me out for the first time and asked for my forgiveness with a genuine apology. We cried together as God’s grace sliced through the plague of hatred, evil and anger.
Moral of the story – pray the Rosary. The graces which flow from it are beyond our comprehension. May the Queen of Heaven intercede for us this day! ”Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.” -St. Padre Pio
Leave it to Papa to say something like that! Make today a wonderful day friends and don’t forget to say the Rosary!
