This afternoon I visited with Sr. MJ of the Dominican Nuns. We spent a nice hour together chatting and I mentioned the consecration and my target date of February 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. She told me that their co-founder, Damien M. Saintourens, OP, prayed very specifically to Our Lady of Lourdes in the Grotto at Lourdes for guidance as to methods to expand devotion to the rosary and he was inspired to found the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary.Apparently, February 11 is an important date for their community.
Yesterday, I went to visit my mother and brother. It is about a 150-mile round trip so I try to spend enough time on these visits to help out around the house as best I can. I will usually balance my Mom’s checkbook and do little handyman chores around the house. This time she asked if I could check out the shower because the water pressure was low and it was becoming difficult, as my mother said, “to wash all the shampoo out of my hair.”
Of course, what would have taken an experienced plumber about 20- minutes to take care of turned into an all afternoon affair with multiple trips to Lowes Home Improvement Center amid visions of an emergency call to a plumber to come fix the damage I’d done. Fortunately, my brother-in-law stopped by and, between the two of us (mostly him) we figured it out and all was well.
I stayed for dinner and did a few more little things before leaving at around 9:30 PM. As I entered the PA Turnpike, I had a quick thought that something might happen on the drive home. It was strange because I don’t normally think like that when I’m on the road. Sure enough, about 30 miles into the drive, some sort of animal darted in front of me and I hit the beast at 70 miles an hour. It happened so fast that I never had a chance to lift my foot from the accelerator. Whatever it was, it was about the size of a medium-sized dog and may, in fact, have been a medium sized dog. Not sure. But, no doubt, the creature has gone to meet its maker. It hit hard!
I pulled over a few miles down the road to check my car. The front frill had a crack in it and I thought I might be leaking fluid but, so far, the damage seems minimal.
But the good news is that I am doing things without the encumbrance of the stomach issue that wiped out a good part of my holiday, I am feeling less and less of the effects of stopping the medication and I have continued to keep up the daily consecrations readings and rosary. And I am trying very hard (and this is NOT easy) to surrender everything, big and small, to the Blessed Mother. When I started to work on the shower repair, there was a point where I was seriously thinking that I might be have caused some damage to a fitting and I really thought this could turn into a disaster. But through the whole thing I just kept reminding myself that it was in Mary’s hands and that I shouldn’t anticipate the outcome. It was a long afternoon and very frustrating but, in the end, it all worked out.
I am trying to apply that same attitude of surrender to my interior life as well. I have a tendency to beat myself up for all of the things that I am not or that just don’t come easy to me. I am easily distracted in prayer and find myself thinking that I am not fervent enough or devout enough. These attitudes, too, I am trying to give over to Mary. I can’t change who and what I am and I would hope that, if I approach my prayer life and this consecration preparation with a sincere attempt to surrender, what needs to change will change and what is OK as is will stay the same. I will just try to stay as malleable as I can.
Some quotes from St. Louis and the Imitation:
- They (the Desert Fathers) hated their lives in this world that they might keep them in life everlasting.
- … the great sweetness of contemplation.
- They persevered in true humility…and advanced in spirit and gained great favor with God.
- Nevertheless, temptations are very profitable…for in them a man is humbled, purified and instructed.
- …little confidence in God is the beginning of all temptations.
- God…preordains all things for the salvation of his elect.
Did you ever in your wildest imagination anticipate that someday you would be abandoning plumbing projects into Mary’s hands? These are the kinds of things that become more and more a natural way of life, but are also often quite difficult to explain to others.
No, Gabrielle, I certainly did not. But it seemed wholly appropriate and even logical. And when I reflect on all of the little things I have whispered Hail Mary’s for during my life I realize that I have rarely been disappointed.