In Luke 1:5-25, we see Zechariah doubting the message the angel, the Lord sent. I always felt this was unfair because Mary doubts also, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" Luke 1: 26-38.
I've reconsidered. Mary is very young. She's just a girl, after all. Zechariah is a grown man. More than that, he's a priest. He should have known scripture.
Therein, lies the difference.
A Benedictine monk told the story of a young monk asking his spiritual director if his reasons for becoming a monk were shallow, or just plain dumb. The elder monk said that your reasons for becoming a monk don't really count, compared to the reasons why you stay.
I like this. I also think the same saying could apply to marriage.
It is the custom that those chapters and individual people, who identify with the Sisters of Bethany, pray for each other. We call this "The Blessing of the Houses." Over the years, some chapters have closed, and some new ones have started. A new Blessing of the Houses had to be written. Here is my chapter's new Blessing.
Our Lady of Mercy
MCI Norfolk
Blessing of the Houses
All powerful, ever loving and merciful God, St. Dominic, Blessed Lataste, and all the angels and saint in heaven, receive our prayers for blessing of the following houses:
Lord have mercy...Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy...Christ have mercy.
Lord, hear our prayers...Christ, graciously hear us.
St. Mary Magdalene...Bless our sisters of Bethany in France.
Jesus in the Eucharist...Bless our sisters of Bethany in Belgium.
Our Lady of Peace and St. Niklaus of Flue...Bless our sisters of Bethany in Switzerland.
St. Albert the Great...Bless our sisters of Bethany in Germany.
St. Catherine of Siena...Bless our sisters of Bethany in Italy.
Holy heart of Jesus...Bless our sisters of Bethany in the Netherlands.
St. Joseph...Bless our sisters of Bethany in Latvia.
Mary Mediatrix of all graces...Bless our brothers in the fraternity of Belgium.
Our Lady of the Rosary...Bless our brothers in the fraternity of Huntsville, Texas.
Our Lady of Mercy...Bless our brothers and sisters in the fraternity of Norfolk.
Mother Admirable...Bless our novitiates
Our Lady of the Church...Bless our Lataste fraternities.
St. Francis and St. Clare...Bless our Franciscan Sisters of Milwaukee.
Risen Lord...Bless our Dominican sisters and brothers in the USA.
St. Dominic...Bless our brothers at Santa Sabina and throughout the world.
Our Holy Founders...Bless us.
Blessed Lataste, Apostle of Prisons...Bless us.
All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker is unforgettable. I haven't written anything on this blog for five days because I've been immersed in Saint and Patch's lives. This book has it all. It's a thriller, for sure. It's a police story. It's a romance. It's a murder mystery. It makes you re-think your perceptions of right and wrong. You see two sides of every event.
I call it a pro-life story because the political debate between abortion and pro-life is mentioned, here and there, but when the story moves on and you see it in itself is the defacto debate.
Where to begin?
Style--beautiful prose. There are images that are poetic. I love short chapters.
Plot--A teenager saves a girl's life. He is kidnapped and kept captive but saved by his best friend. While captive, he is befriended and falls in love with another captive. The rest of the novel is a search for this captive girl.
Theme--The effects of traumas on people and their relationships with others.
Setting--Mostly Missouri but all over the USA.
Characters--Patch, boy who was born with one eye.
Saint, Patch's best friend.
Nix, Police chief
Sammy--Humorous foil in the story.
Norma--Saint's Grandmother
Tooms--doctor in the town
Misty--Patch's crush
Grace-illusive captive
Eli Aaron--bad guy
The book begins with two young teens. Patch is often bullied because he's poor, skinny, has a patch on an eye, and his mother is a druggie. Saint's parents have died and she lives with her grandmother. Saint is a beekeeper and a generous person who befriends Patch and feeds him when she can.
Patch saves Misty from being abducted. Misty lives. And. Patch is gone!!!!! They find his patch on the ground, but no sign of him. Misty confides to Saint that even though her abductor was wearing a mask, she recognized the eyes of Dr. Tooms.
After the townspeople give up looking for Patch, Saint never does. She also keeps a wary eye on Dr. Tooms.
Meanwhile, a girl is missing.
One day, Saint brings in some film to be developed and talks to the clerk. He tells her to stay away from the photographer, Eli Aaron. He's creepy. Saints scopes Aaron out and becomes convinced that Eli Aaron kidnaps girls and maybe Patch.
Saint goes to Eli Aaron's on a pretense and snoops around looking for evidence. Somehow, the house catches on fire and Police Chief Nix finds Saint and they find Patch. Eli Aaron escaped.
Patch tells them about a girl named Grace, who was kept down the basement with him. They don't know whether to believe him or not.
More girls are missing. Dr. Tooms is arrested and sentenced to life.
Life goes on. Misty and Patch become an item. Saint has a boyfriend, Jimmy. Patch takes over his mother's house cleaning jobs to earn money. One time, while cleaning Sammy's art gallery, Sammy takes an interest in Patch. It turns out that Patch is a talented artist. He paints Grace. He paints all the places, Grace talks about. He also paints all the missing girls. He and Sammy spread the portraits to help find the girls. Organizations spring up to look for the girls. If Patch sells a portrait, he donates the money to an organization that looks for missing girls.
Patch quits school at sixteen and works in mines. His muscles fill out. He grows taller. In fact, he is very handsome, and his patch makes him look interesting and exotic. It's an asset.
The night of Misty's prom, her father secretly has a talk with Patch. He pays him a substantial amount of money to break off the relationship. Patch takes it because he knew that he and Misty came from different worlds and would never be a good match. With the money, Patch buys his mother's house and now their landlord will never bother them, again.
Misty is devasted that Patch dropped her. But it is the end, for now.
Patch takes off, working here and there, to get by, while he searches for his Grace.
Saint takes a job working for the police with Chief Nix. She still keeps tabs on what's going on with Patch.
Misty is going to Harvard. For kicks, she takes a job in a bar. Patch, working as a lobsterman, goes into that very bar. Misty and Patch reconnect. Patch moves on but has left Misty pregnant.
When Patch needs money and he doesn't have a job, he robs banks. Patch gives the money to organizations looking for missing girls. Saint who is working for the FBI now, captures him and Patch is sent to prison.
Saint marries Jimmy. Jimmy turns out to be a bad husband. He doesn't like Saint working for the FBI. When Saint becomes pregnant she doesn't know what to do. She considers abortion, and the reader is led to believe that she did kill the baby. She gives it up for adoption and gets a divorce. There is mention, here and there, in the story, of anti-abortion protestors.
When Patch comes out of prison, he goes home. One day, he sees Misty with a young girl and knows instantly that this girl is his own daughter. Her name is Charlotte. Misty has cancer.
When Misty dies, Patch becomes her caretaker. But when Patch meets Jimmy, Saint's "ex", Patch punches him out, for the way he treated Saint. Jimmy hits his head and dies. Patch is in prison again.
While Patch is in prison, he hears a fellow prison describe his hometown, and it sounds exactly where Grace lived. When Patch asked the inmate what the name of the town was, he was shocked to hear, "Grace, Alabama." Patch instantaneously knew that was where Grace was. He had to see it.
The rest of the story would be a spoiler. Sorry.
There's no such thing as failure. You just find out what works and what doesn't. Move on. In the Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah, Dr. Julia Cates is publicly demonized because one of her patients shot up a school. Meanwhile, her sister, Ellie, has need of her. A "wolf child" has emerged from the woods. A little girl seems to have been brought up by wolves. She doesn't speak. She's feral.
Julia emersed herself in helping this child. The love interest is another doctor, Max. He has his own history. The two doctors help the little girl. Actually, the entire town helps her. It's a small town and they conspire against the media--they agree what to say and do.
Unfortunately, the girl's father turns up. It's a nightmare. Who will get custody?
The story is fascinating and interesting. I enjoyed the love story and the family dynamics. Parenthood is examined, as well as the relationship between sisters. Of course, the good overshadows the bad, as all Kristen Hannah's books prove.
The Great Passion by James Runcie is a book of historical fiction. The setting is the composer Bach's era--18th century. The major character is Stefan Silbermann. His father sent him to school in Leipzig, for music. The Silbermann family makes organs, so Stefan knows how to play keyboard instruments and quite a bit about organs.
The story begins with the news that Johann Sebastian Bach has died. Stefan reminisces--that's the story. It is a good story. I read it like I read War and Peace. I skipped the war and read the story. In The Great Passion, there is music galore. I am not a music person. I didn't know what they were talking about. But I thoroughly enjoyed the story.
Since this is the 18th century, schools are places of terror. Since Stefan was singled out by Bach, who taught at the school, as someone with promising talent, he was bullied. In fact, he ran away from school. Bach, who had a household of children, had Stefan live with him. What's one more?
Stefan had a crush on Bach's wife, Anna Magdalena, who had a beautiful voice, but in those days, women weren't allowed to sing in church. She and Stefan made beautiful music together. Stefan also made good friends with Bach's oldest daughter, Catharina.
Bach was a demanding teacher, when it came to music, but a loving father and wise. He saved Stefan's school career. I guess you can say, Bach made Stefan the man he became.
Did you ever wonder why a simple carpenter was called Rabbi? A rabbi is a teacher, a master in spiritual things. And it wasn't just H...
