tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39467161753349219452024-03-15T20:09:44.506-05:00Day by Day with MaríaGod speaks to us in all things... walk with me... together let us find God in the every day of lifeMaría Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.comBlogger545125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-14417680847737433222021-07-29T15:47:00.000-05:002021-07-29T15:47:02.479-05:00why I need saints in my life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3f3X3jD3olqOLOowD6EmimYLE3C4HIlrVBlQzas7WiGyFkJUgDWpp-V6DYK92bA_a3HnmbHiszThW2YY3_xyvQ8pweVJ3hhN9CEcXh5Ao3fCUDqajDwn-S_1qha-6sFaO8BHcF1mGauG/s4592/DSC05045.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4592" data-original-width="3056" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3f3X3jD3olqOLOowD6EmimYLE3C4HIlrVBlQzas7WiGyFkJUgDWpp-V6DYK92bA_a3HnmbHiszThW2YY3_xyvQ8pweVJ3hhN9CEcXh5Ao3fCUDqajDwn-S_1qha-6sFaO8BHcF1mGauG/w426-h640/DSC05045.jpeg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFO-MP9iwyatw5pAfBA4catUHxoww7sFaEsvatrt8M1el7-PpjN0U_FYsVw93EJcPOivZTvwlD_SbQqnD2vnqAKW-JyRRht0Ot2gX77Z-NiLJsnQC_F7iPiiBHCIs5Zol8BKeCtldvn2A7/s1558/IMG_5362.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1558" data-original-width="1242" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFO-MP9iwyatw5pAfBA4catUHxoww7sFaEsvatrt8M1el7-PpjN0U_FYsVw93EJcPOivZTvwlD_SbQqnD2vnqAKW-JyRRht0Ot2gX77Z-NiLJsnQC_F7iPiiBHCIs5Zol8BKeCtldvn2A7/w510-h640/IMG_5362.jpeg" width="510" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFZfsXMdEd_Xhv62HXnaDA8eBMoQkmVPELpfVImgB4EV4D3W1sR3GM5FVA8XPMThP-8L7WsldcH6Y4pqbkTQ88FdAqVP9lUcNR9tV6kKoN48pz7dFbG06KSV0Kz_9x9dllZZ7JQW4_MRR/s2048/IMG_7944.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1531" data-original-width="2048" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEFZfsXMdEd_Xhv62HXnaDA8eBMoQkmVPELpfVImgB4EV4D3W1sR3GM5FVA8XPMThP-8L7WsldcH6Y4pqbkTQ88FdAqVP9lUcNR9tV6kKoN48pz7dFbG06KSV0Kz_9x9dllZZ7JQW4_MRR/w640-h478/IMG_7944.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgucnNUgA3JKXkTBpjyBELojCXp5u9Yq35mWOgOC0UIM2TwTKHmH248uFow2P_VjpfQuXlC7x2bSeg7O7WuBX_mLGh5yrj0gN9s9EcWyDqa8H7iPOOqUZSJNSToPkN9ovsdv6MN2fzwIy4-/s2048/IMG_7947.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1148" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgucnNUgA3JKXkTBpjyBELojCXp5u9Yq35mWOgOC0UIM2TwTKHmH248uFow2P_VjpfQuXlC7x2bSeg7O7WuBX_mLGh5yrj0gN9s9EcWyDqa8H7iPOOqUZSJNSToPkN9ovsdv6MN2fzwIy4-/w358-h640/IMG_7947.jpeg" width="358" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">As I look over the course of my life, it’s unmistakable how I’ve been blessed by the example and presence of people I can only describe as holy. These every day saints have graced my spirit and shaped my life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">There’s my grandmother Josefita, offering prayers for the needy nightly as she prayed the rosary. Kneeling in front of her life-size statue of St. Ann and Mary, I could hear her soft voice down the hall, <i>“Dios te salve María, llena eres de gracia, el Señor es contigo…”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">My heart carries tenderly my friend Pat who walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage with me. Although she died of brain cancer eight years ago, there are many “Pat-isms” that I remember regularly. Perhaps dearest of all, I miss hearing the way she proclaimed “amen” with her whole being every time she received the Eucharist. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">But there are other holy people whom I have never met who have been lights in my faith journey. Declared saints by the universal Church, these holy ones are also members of my go-to “Saints Posse.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">For example, Teresa of Ávila and her well-known phrase, “<i>Solo Dios basta</i>, God alone suffices,” part of a poem that has been with me since my youth:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things pass away, God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">Praying with Pat in the visitor’s room at Teresa’s Carmel, the place where Teresa and John of the Cross prayed together, remains one of those heaven-on-earth pivotal moments of my life. Yes, <i>solo Dios basta</i>!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">Perhaps the most surprising member of my personal Saint Posse is Blessed Stanley Rother, the subject of one of my biographies. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">That a priest from Okarche, Oklahoma, martyred in Guatemala, could bond with a refugee mother of four and grandmother of 13 from Pinar del Río, Cuba, is truly God’s sense of humor!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;">Blessed Stan was martyred in his rectory in Santiago Atitlán 40 years ago this July 28, a servant of Love who chose to remain with his suffering parishioners during Guatemala’s civil war. But it’s how America’s first martyr lived his life that inspires me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 28px;">If anyone can model a call to holiness in the midst of our very ordinary lives it is the farmer from Okarche who humbly served his people as a parish priest. And he would tell us that it all begins with our willingness to say, “yes,” to whatever – and whomever -- God places in front of us. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 28px;">I need saints. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 28px;">They connect me to others<i>, </i>across time and geography—and constantly remind me that I’m not alone. I have a cloud of witnesses that, like me, long for God. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 28px;">And t</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 28px;">heir passionate pleading on my behalf is akin to the mother I met years ago whose son was on death row. When the Governor of Texas refused to see her in person to hear her plea for a stay of his execution, she set up a tent across the street from the Governor’s mansion and invited the local press, the bishop, and anyone who would listen, to join her in prayer and in peaceful demonstration. Who doesn’t need this sort of passionate intercession?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 28px;">Saints understand just how difficult it can be to seek holiness, to live for God. They are saints because they never gave up trying, and they show me the way.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">+ + +</span></b><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">This column was first published in the </span><a href="https://www.liguorian.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7d181e; font-family: Palatino;">July-August issue of Liguorian Magazine</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">, as the regular column, </span><a href="https://www.liguorian.org/category/s6-columns/c47-just-live-it/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7d181e; font-family: Palatino;">“Just Live It</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">”</span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ODpUG-7qxP53d-J60SWXzS8ZiCMG0zWksjki_Oin6rY0uXT6UhP-5YH1_6tM94CWVBRi7mCkJrt7DhuEAB4LmRRxVWegJhFUxcxYFBe3UiUJpw90peJd3GC2xZ64_bSY-q1dr2gPCkiy/s1015/churches2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1015" data-original-width="864" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2ODpUG-7qxP53d-J60SWXzS8ZiCMG0zWksjki_Oin6rY0uXT6UhP-5YH1_6tM94CWVBRi7mCkJrt7DhuEAB4LmRRxVWegJhFUxcxYFBe3UiUJpw90peJd3GC2xZ64_bSY-q1dr2gPCkiy/w544-h640/churches2.jpeg" width="544" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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font-family: Palatino;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></o:p></p>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-35867644226153098952021-05-13T15:30:00.001-05:002021-05-13T15:30:00.199-05:00as you might have heard, it's the year of St. Joseph!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_exyhfm5gHYffP4N3AAJg3IOMpGiURXTOmywXAaxE5xz4M8fbG-3P1bZrt8S57ViJHRZy_mWpH74fagoYUf70ypWibxuzk6X_8RRSLIS3clCxcxOxVSjp0UMbzvFxRVuc-wta_rH8R6Pm/s320/photo+copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="246" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_exyhfm5gHYffP4N3AAJg3IOMpGiURXTOmywXAaxE5xz4M8fbG-3P1bZrt8S57ViJHRZy_mWpH74fagoYUf70ypWibxuzk6X_8RRSLIS3clCxcxOxVSjp0UMbzvFxRVuc-wta_rH8R6Pm/w493-h640/photo+copy.JPG" width="493" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagitih9s5P87PccIOCbMosM_p54XCZrKr_X0aG-M-ueZLt7UgNDEzGXaIZ7Kdj8onP-c_SzYlgkQMt9mvq14SOvQNbn6GD7aaVZIgDQPuUc28zx59tNczOk-UcarAeQHgVt93qE8cfvK2/s2048/IMG_1740.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagitih9s5P87PccIOCbMosM_p54XCZrKr_X0aG-M-ueZLt7UgNDEzGXaIZ7Kdj8onP-c_SzYlgkQMt9mvq14SOvQNbn6GD7aaVZIgDQPuUc28zx59tNczOk-UcarAeQHgVt93qE8cfvK2/w480-h640/IMG_1740.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="223" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLpLmjrekX3uhNRkTuASC87UzdvGpfp0rkJuTtVLAfw4hsuQGdyvWLRR9GOKJ1KxEyzqbDVuSUSsKWlI4XFemKituLHbvGLeFaVyOBiXxyAv5-jzq9woqhgABhkUP4EeIIa0yzUp5rYKd6/w446-h640/Holy+family+Icon.jpg" width="446" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99zvRz3vxPlpoXuZwrcvk0zuKTFUwi860HguoOY_YsXSnj_0y1HtfeJWQpmedbnRJsFC5gVDF_FLCGuU1o5P-lt98zdQJoA_TYr74iT_E_upsL4_qsm8INegVlp3kyIECdWmGJx6wu0wG/s2048/IMG_4947.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99zvRz3vxPlpoXuZwrcvk0zuKTFUwi860HguoOY_YsXSnj_0y1HtfeJWQpmedbnRJsFC5gVDF_FLCGuU1o5P-lt98zdQJoA_TYr74iT_E_upsL4_qsm8INegVlp3kyIECdWmGJx6wu0wG/w480-h640/IMG_4947.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><u><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">IMPORTANT NOTE:<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">The platform that I’ve been using for the past nine years – Blogger – is doing away with the “follow by email” widget that allows you (if you’re interested!) to receive my Day by Day with Maria Blog as an email. The bottom line is that, come July, <b>you will NOT be receiving my blog as an email whenever I have a new post.</b> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">I am pondering what options I have available, but so far nothing stands out. The most likely scenario is that I have to change sites… so, stay tuned, and I will keep you posted! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">Repeat after me… <b>Change is good change is good change is good change is good change is good…</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">+ + +<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">"To other saints the Lord seems to have given grace to succor us in some of our necessities but of this glorious saint my experience is that <b>he succors us in them all and that the Lord wishes to teach us that as He was Himself subject to him on earth</b> (for, being His guardian and being called His father, he could command Him) just <b>so in Heaven He still does all that he asks</b>. This has also been the experience of other persons whom I have advised to commend themselves to him; and even to-day there are many who have great devotion to him through having newly experienced this truth."</span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">~St.Teresa of Avila on her devotion to St. Joseph</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">When my son and his wife had their first baby, one of my closest friends enjoyed referring to them as <i>my</i> holy family. “<i>How is your holy family</i>?” “<i>When will you see your holy family again</i>?” When they had twins a couple of years later, she switched to calling them my holy trinity of grandkids. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Rather than detracting from the theological significance of these concepts, using these meaningful faith labels to describe my personal family brought the ideas to life in a unique way for me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">My son’s family certainly was – and remains – a symbol of all “holy families,” ordinary mothers and fathers striving to live holy lives as they put into practice their faith within the quotidian and ordinary work of our lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: Palatino;">In </span><i><span style="color: #373737; font-family: Palatino;">Patris corde</span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: Palatino;"> (With a Father’s Heart), an apostolic letter which Pope Francis wrote against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Holy Father emphasized that our shared experience of the pandemic has helped us see more clearly the importance of “ordinary” people who, though far from the limelight, exercise patience, perseverance, faithfulness, and offer daily hope to those around them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #373737; font-family: Palatino;">In this way, said Pope Francis, they resemble Saint Joseph, “the man who goes unnoticed, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Palatino;">a daily, discreet and hidden presence – an intercessor, a support and a guide in times of trouble. Saint Joseph reminds us that those who appear hidden or in the shadows can play an incomparable role in the history of salvation. A word of recognition and of gratitude is due to them all.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">I find especially profound the images where St. Joseph is depicted actively taking care of his family: The flight into Egypt; walking to Bethlehem; Teaching Jesus carpentry. There is one illustration, in particular, that I place prominently over my mantle every Christmas season. It depicts Mary in the background, enjoying much-needed rest after giving birth, and Joseph holding newborn Jesus in his arms, lovingly gazing at him. These are moments in the life of the holy family that I can connect with, instances where a mother and father quietly and faithfully live out their parenting vocation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">In his reflection about Joseph of Nazareth and “the mission entrusted to him by God’s providence,” Joseph was for Jesus “</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Palatino;">the earthly shadow of the heavenly Father,” </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Pope Francis concluded. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Palatino;">“He watched over him and protected him, never leaving him to go his own way.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Palatino;">To serve in the shadows, while becoming earthly shadows of God for our families, this is the call for each of us, whatever our season of life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Palatino;">And in this we grow in trust, like Joseph, whose every Gospel story concludes with: he gets up, takes Jesus and his mother, and does what God commanded of him.</span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">St. Joseph, please pray for us, that we, too, may get up, <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">serve our loved ones, and do the will of the Father.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">+ + +</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">This column was first published in the </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><a href="https://www.liguorian.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7d181e;">May 2021 issue of Liguorian Magazine</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">, as the regular column, </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><a href="https://www.liguorian.org/category/s6-columns/c47-just-live-it/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #7d181e;">“Just Live It</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Palatino;">”</span></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAFiHeljRtP4MuH-dHDQrKKdGZcgkSBx7O9BfSdE9VqpRguLEyDKrMozeA-9OomnT3_hUT7zs_tcmLt-gY2atNo4iP-t6knJAggO9aD8PzIc23k7NMXFdY1rVhGq144GE1ghQqiWOlB-oW/s301/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="301" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAFiHeljRtP4MuH-dHDQrKKdGZcgkSBx7O9BfSdE9VqpRguLEyDKrMozeA-9OomnT3_hUT7zs_tcmLt-gY2atNo4iP-t6knJAggO9aD8PzIc23k7NMXFdY1rVhGq144GE1ghQqiWOlB-oW/w640-h357/images.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInOV5oO3ycuriEL7W5sNN1ZODoYdaPngr8PjCyZA6eKn9uh1aV2hpVNmj_nHDwIcRQi3C0vSUxPp5JWuwDFlJr1KaNqmAnGLa1wYpP1DLCxhpTHLmnqYbUmuVYn_ELxxjA1ddK5Vbsved/s1600/IMG_1474.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1334" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInOV5oO3ycuriEL7W5sNN1ZODoYdaPngr8PjCyZA6eKn9uh1aV2hpVNmj_nHDwIcRQi3C0vSUxPp5JWuwDFlJr1KaNqmAnGLa1wYpP1DLCxhpTHLmnqYbUmuVYn_ELxxjA1ddK5Vbsved/w534-h640/IMG_1474.jpg" width="534" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtKQsapJtHozcZGP21NNOfu6KYy-PY-1WfX7U2hK-ZciJOrIr7nlIeEw6PYjzjQSjyGnG3GQSs4kUvuKiOMbCY7msjJLI1CPADiaeAN8lNLcfHnXCZmPVjZ0ns1gAYJ7yDHb80uSzj2oT/s320/nazareth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTtKQsapJtHozcZGP21NNOfu6KYy-PY-1WfX7U2hK-ZciJOrIr7nlIeEw6PYjzjQSjyGnG3GQSs4kUvuKiOMbCY7msjJLI1CPADiaeAN8lNLcfHnXCZmPVjZ0ns1gAYJ7yDHb80uSzj2oT/w480-h640/nazareth.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh829UlIs68iTySIvlik8NayevetjkrCNkTHCK2i8R3VuUo4cm_4YM8hNGLw-1CXVltD63KaEYo9Pv0Z9BTIJiQVT2Zj-ShPsSFOEise3PP8VyjuuXUo3cgnAgFtCKJa5cbAGsipuS50tsY/s2048/FullSizeRender.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1240" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh829UlIs68iTySIvlik8NayevetjkrCNkTHCK2i8R3VuUo4cm_4YM8hNGLw-1CXVltD63KaEYo9Pv0Z9BTIJiQVT2Zj-ShPsSFOEise3PP8VyjuuXUo3cgnAgFtCKJa5cbAGsipuS50tsY/w388-h640/FullSizeRender.jpeg" width="388" /></a></div><br />María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-37423500347413341492021-05-05T06:00:00.041-05:002021-05-05T06:00:00.195-05:00we are an Easter people<div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpvvkr6QmMT1_kxjsfQkZsqDuXogM7zAW26E2CNBoR6WoXbUFT3KWOuSy1kCCmz2P3of5PdM49BPfoqIFHOfeLKMHKD5lzS8RJdcAPmXqO2nYG4k0xt2F1r9wlDnVmuSLFHZfwfzAYl7jy/s320/atmary%2527shouse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpvvkr6QmMT1_kxjsfQkZsqDuXogM7zAW26E2CNBoR6WoXbUFT3KWOuSy1kCCmz2P3of5PdM49BPfoqIFHOfeLKMHKD5lzS8RJdcAPmXqO2nYG4k0xt2F1r9wlDnVmuSLFHZfwfzAYl7jy/w400-h300/atmary%2527shouse.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; text-align: left;"> </span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">Years ago, I traveled to Turkey on assignment with an interfaith group of Catholic and Muslim faith leaders. Not only did we visit historical and Biblical sites throughout the country, we were also invited into family homes where we broke bread and shared faith with one another. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">For me, their open, loving, generous hospitality was truly humbling. And disarming! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">The questions we normally have about those we label as “Other” were being asked. But this time, they were being asked of me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2016/03/as-in-camino-so-in-life.html" target="_blank">I was the “Other.”</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">Why are there different Christian religions? Do all Christian families go to church? What do Christians believe? How do they practice their faith? As they asked question after question, genuinely desiring to understand a culture and a faith radically different from theirs, I could see and tangibly grasp our common humanity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">I was also struck by how easily we separate ourselves from what we don’t understand—or are ignorant about. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">A different language. A different tradition. A different history. A different faith. A different experience, and of course, a different political view. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">We easily slip into an “us” versus “them” mentality and ignore our shared reality. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">Truth is, we all live what we know. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">We all die, eventually. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">We are all, literally, in this together. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">And I understood that <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2012/11/self-love-is-hard-to-find.html" target="_blank">I share a common vision with believers</a> who are devoted, committed and faithful to their own faith experience, no matter what their religion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">For example, their call to prayer--their commitment to stop and pray throughout the day, made me look for ways that I could incorporate prayers into my own daily routine. Saying the angelus at noon. Contemplating the Divine Mercy chaplet at 3. Praying the Liturgy of the Hours Night Prayer as a family every night. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">I was genuinely surprised by their <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2014/10/mother-help-our-faith.html" target="_blank">love, admiration and respect for Mother Mary</a>, and this has given me much to ponder. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">In Ephesus, <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2014/10/mother-help-our-faith.html">Mary’s house is a pilgrimage site</a> for Muslims and Christians alike. It is holy ground, a place where we all gather to honor the mother of Jesus. How can *I* grow in my relationship with Mary of Nazareth? Can I incorporate and share with my family a holy reverence for the mother of our Lord?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">One of the main concerns of the parents that we met was how to pass on their faith to their children, and what kind of world they will inherit from us. Like me, these parents ultimately pray and hope that their children have a vibrant, personal and intimate relationship with the God who created us. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">As we discern what it means to live what Pope Francis calls, “the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity,” the challenge remains not to lose who we are and what we believe as Catholics-- under the guise of unity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">Instead, we are asked to live our own faith fully, to strive to become saints. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;">For Catholic Christians, this means being Easter people, who believe our faith transforms all, even death. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b>+ + +<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><u>Note:</u></b> An edited version of this post was published in <a href="https://www.liguorian.org/category/s6-columns/c47-just-live-it/" target="_blank">the “Just Live It” column</a> of the April edition <a href="https://www.liguorian.org" target="_blank">of Liguorian Magazine</a>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0WbNPhldtX4UX8wAZ80e4DAixv_FvQ3nO1PattOBKj9pXKbyivxcspVzXcFYWXINieoAbV47L53RMHdAaKLq7DIH5yon1XDMtCLUIvMfhg5kldszOyiDQuZrqnpjF_Zq0n8HG5q9cp-j/s2048/IMG_4925.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0WbNPhldtX4UX8wAZ80e4DAixv_FvQ3nO1PattOBKj9pXKbyivxcspVzXcFYWXINieoAbV47L53RMHdAaKLq7DIH5yon1XDMtCLUIvMfhg5kldszOyiDQuZrqnpjF_Zq0n8HG5q9cp-j/w480-h640/IMG_4925.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVZf6YmZj-i26BjxIRNfuJcI_-_9Bf9MWAxoUBXOpFRbW1YdMpdDkohCfNYJdpAV_MFyxJHVS9v-S20AiY43BXJZSFq3IDkGktf9yj7x3riDl0uzevv8Ynf5XdIJC-CYeeUSUexCLOvEm2/s1118/IMG_4926.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="1118" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVZf6YmZj-i26BjxIRNfuJcI_-_9Bf9MWAxoUBXOpFRbW1YdMpdDkohCfNYJdpAV_MFyxJHVS9v-S20AiY43BXJZSFq3IDkGktf9yj7x3riDl0uzevv8Ynf5XdIJC-CYeeUSUexCLOvEm2/w400-h219/IMG_4926.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkkwLPGO5vofAU0vBdgQnZyRDevObvbIpf1Bzbg0bwJnEmhqKWPGLDuHcsk0Z-Un7hhDLuSC2L33TMXmSZ8ITmhEaGPKqmyBxxn76ABel_2cK-C07WcXjnFJbBPFr-iVKVUGcoMcWHjju2/s2048/IMG_4933.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkkwLPGO5vofAU0vBdgQnZyRDevObvbIpf1Bzbg0bwJnEmhqKWPGLDuHcsk0Z-Un7hhDLuSC2L33TMXmSZ8ITmhEaGPKqmyBxxn76ABel_2cK-C07WcXjnFJbBPFr-iVKVUGcoMcWHjju2/w480-h640/IMG_4933.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlW4xBFv_rfS-H8uo8OLf-guOs6-BRTQFzO-cf18OmJf27X4WmLz3IZGCQ3AhI7-gm1cHh7mAbBnzOEserEriCAr0NKRk3Od8UMXTsiKkjQYh8eAv0nNAxQCwImqf9ELwJOpffuh0GdS6p/s2048/IMG_4934.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1123" data-original-width="2048" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlW4xBFv_rfS-H8uo8OLf-guOs6-BRTQFzO-cf18OmJf27X4WmLz3IZGCQ3AhI7-gm1cHh7mAbBnzOEserEriCAr0NKRk3Od8UMXTsiKkjQYh8eAv0nNAxQCwImqf9ELwJOpffuh0GdS6p/w400-h219/IMG_4934.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 21.466665267944336px;"><br /></span><p></p><br />María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-18899972291285622882021-05-03T17:16:00.000-05:002021-05-03T17:16:19.176-05:00God is always calling<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghAIjUmEUccCsphZKA4UcFENd6d-I7KH0NBK6g-8coGb1YO-gUnEYC5I3a8M3yM7QujKMQyxWkVmJZW08C3qAmYxnpDo_ezDSPKWysY9jUGQaTn0oarPH9weucJiC2FVVgeYWHGL_GCh6r/s2048/IMG_2759.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1997" data-original-width="2048" height="624" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghAIjUmEUccCsphZKA4UcFENd6d-I7KH0NBK6g-8coGb1YO-gUnEYC5I3a8M3yM7QujKMQyxWkVmJZW08C3qAmYxnpDo_ezDSPKWysY9jUGQaTn0oarPH9weucJiC2FVVgeYWHGL_GCh6r/w640-h624/IMG_2759.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMUK85nwq1Llc-UnaA2fsLnWiCtGx-Ja54-FFJTWPMuNkzQ_R0wJm459D-aKWzRhzOfwiYKSlE2mDMdhGtbFjFCzFrbfyToPmav4U_wgPPOI9UqPqoWfUT3MQsSMg0ToH92IN3zRCagr7/s2048/IMG_7045.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMUK85nwq1Llc-UnaA2fsLnWiCtGx-Ja54-FFJTWPMuNkzQ_R0wJm459D-aKWzRhzOfwiYKSlE2mDMdhGtbFjFCzFrbfyToPmav4U_wgPPOI9UqPqoWfUT3MQsSMg0ToH92IN3zRCagr7/w480-h640/IMG_7045.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/04/signs-and-symbols.html" target="_blank">Michael and I were college sweethearts</a>, and married right after graduation. We also began expanding our family straightway. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">As the youngest in my family of origin and with little experience around babies, I tackled parenting <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/04/one-thing-i-ask.html" target="_blank">as I would another college class</a>. I researched every subject, from nutrition, sleep habits, growth charts, spirituality, to education and social development. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">It seemed reasonable that someday I would stop feeling deficient and inexperienced as a parent and, at the very least, grow in confidence.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">Looking back, I chuckle at my youthful idealism and naivety. At 60, I’m still waiting for that clarity in how to be a confident parent to my now-adult children! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">What I received, however, through God’s abundant grace, was a profound understanding of the truths that were right in front of me, foundations that continue to color my life today -- as a wife, mother, and now grandmother, to my growing Tribe. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">First and above all, I cannot do it alone. In those early years, I was blessed to not only have grandparents to assist and support me, but also a reliable community of faith-filled women with whom I shared values and faith, and a desire to serve God in our quotidian lives. In them, I recognized and experienced what my friend wisely labeled, God-in-the-skin.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">I also learned that I could not give to my four children what I didn’t have myself. In essence, I could not teach them the importance of prayer if I was not living a prayer-full life. I could not pass on the importance of service and love of neighbor, if they did not see us living those values daily. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">It’s like the flight attendant says, place the oxygen mask on yourself before putting it on your child. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">The most important lesson was quite simple. No matter how much I loved them or how much time or effort I put into my parenting, I would inevitably make mistakes. I would – and did – royally mess up. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;">Thankfully, God does not expect me to be perfect, only to be faithful. Whether in parenting or living, when I pursue my efforts with God at my side, I can be confident that God’s grace will transform everything through forgiveness, mercy and redemption. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b>+ + +<o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><b><u>Note:</u></b> An edited version of this post was published in the <a href="https://www.liguorian.org/category/s6-columns/c47-just-live-it/" target="_blank">“Just Live It”</a> column of the March edition of <a href="https://www.liguorian.org" target="_blank">Liguorian Magazine</a>. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_gQgdp-HSVbUbndRlTKvmIAquFe3dGaQtDWtWjCVuC4Y1_9ozy3g_5DtbgyfALG-REwyGrv_JEqbNczk5wz0augtsVj5FujjzDEdUSgUpP8JkM45AQ-K9IKOy3vHK0iGtImrFPxQZeZI/s2048/IMG_2955.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_gQgdp-HSVbUbndRlTKvmIAquFe3dGaQtDWtWjCVuC4Y1_9ozy3g_5DtbgyfALG-REwyGrv_JEqbNczk5wz0augtsVj5FujjzDEdUSgUpP8JkM45AQ-K9IKOy3vHK0iGtImrFPxQZeZI/w480-h640/IMG_2955.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in;"><br /></p>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-52415687441926921792021-02-18T16:30:00.003-06:002021-02-18T16:41:44.746-06:00because we need a patron saint of the anxious<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUB63kYRZx1lI-Kta8trN34RPdS3V-Vv1AsQF-uzOKpT7wNtiKBQHbKuJzw58dQQzBDOd1Tl0rCkAzDFpVKMGAmsGDQ095CpWBGEF-X6V3jAfD_aUeCNU9GTBsTUyzbEgMzSFZGK7s-Dt7/s2048/IMG_4501.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1381" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUB63kYRZx1lI-Kta8trN34RPdS3V-Vv1AsQF-uzOKpT7wNtiKBQHbKuJzw58dQQzBDOd1Tl0rCkAzDFpVKMGAmsGDQ095CpWBGEF-X6V3jAfD_aUeCNU9GTBsTUyzbEgMzSFZGK7s-Dt7/w432-h640/IMG_4501.jpeg" width="432" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV-RAYbfJquHcBQZOumGIEf09U-L5jQreinqBzb5V_uUr9d-ud16rW2WcXecGMpMEUITJ7KxAY3XA_ClJXsDIzMIM_avomzS-i67OkHs9-DS8WWf31blG9ljmcJkLeto-Ba3gYNn3M8IxG/s2048/FullSizeRender-1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1343" data-original-width="2048" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV-RAYbfJquHcBQZOumGIEf09U-L5jQreinqBzb5V_uUr9d-ud16rW2WcXecGMpMEUITJ7KxAY3XA_ClJXsDIzMIM_avomzS-i67OkHs9-DS8WWf31blG9ljmcJkLeto-Ba3gYNn3M8IxG/w640-h421/FullSizeRender-1.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEaqnYS_cRUNyMenj5S45LJ9SToYwEog6wRvEuLMYyWy1EdgJ8SU_yuHUKgaTh7jAMKFezog8aDRY1ycGBHAYXl6SUFL54U5TDp-iBQPB0I1KHisz0djdDV3hyphenhyphen2U63t980k-yFDimbnRKk/s2048/FullSizeRender.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1613" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEaqnYS_cRUNyMenj5S45LJ9SToYwEog6wRvEuLMYyWy1EdgJ8SU_yuHUKgaTh7jAMKFezog8aDRY1ycGBHAYXl6SUFL54U5TDp-iBQPB0I1KHisz0djdDV3hyphenhyphen2U63t980k-yFDimbnRKk/w504-h640/FullSizeRender.jpeg" width="504" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">When our middle daughter was in college, she spent Spring semester of her junior year studying at Queen Mary University in London, and we visited her. It was a charmed trip with many unforgettable moments. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">A highlight for me was traveling to the coastal region of Norfolk and visiting the Church of St. Julian in Norwich, made famous by its history with Catholic mystic Julian of Norwich. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Although we don’t know exact dates, Julian was born in December of 1342, and likely lived until 1430. At the age of 30, as Julian describes, “God sent me a bodily sickness” so grave that she expected to die. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">A priest brought her a crucifix, and Julian looked at Jesus and was healed. That’s when she experienced sixteen “showings,” messages from God. She spoke candidly with Christ on the cross, even asking Him questions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">These intimate, direct conversations with the Lord are Dame Julian’s greatest gift. In her best-known conversation, Christ told her, “All shall be well, and all shall be well. And thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Julian’s revelations took place during the span of a few hours, but it took her 40 or more years to ponder and write, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Julian-Norwich-Showings-Classics-Spirituality/dp/0809120917/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=julian+of+norwich&qid=1613686500&sr=8-10" target="_blank"><b><i>Revelations of Divine Love</i></b>. </a>For the final 25 years of her long life, Julian became a hermit, living in a cell attached to the Church of St. Julian--and most likely taking the name of Julian from that saint. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Dame Julian, as she was called in her time, received frequent visitors seeking spiritual instruction, “for the anchoress was an expert in such things and could give good advice,” Margery Kempe explained in her autobiography. As Pope Benedict XVI observed, Julian “had become a mother to many.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">She is fittingly hailed as “patron saint of the anxious” by author Hannah Matis. “If we can bring ourselves to believe her… we can become more aware of the quiet, insidious extent of our habitual anxieties and how they have unconsciously affected our understanding of Christ. Julian challenges us to ask ourselves how much good of God are we really prepared to believe.”</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Julian’s words comfort me, but also persistently provoke me. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The confident trust she professes in God and in God’s movement in life’s details, is not romantic optimism or positivity. Hers is a confidence grounded in reality, as life truly is. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">It is an affirmation that, yes, all things <b><i>will</i></b> be well—not because they will turn out as I want them to, but because no matter what comes next, God is with me. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><b><i>All</i></b> is grace. God transfigures all, converts all, even suffering and anxiety, into grace and goodness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Julian’s confident trust that “all shall be well” is grounded on acknowledging God and God’s care for us, in our particular reality. She reminds me that this God of Love speaks to us, reveals Himself to us, precisely in the most intimate, quotidian details of my life. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">+ + +<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">This column was first published in the <a href="https://www.liguorian.org" target="_blank">February 2021 issue of Liguorian Magazine</a>, as the regular column, <a href="https://www.liguorian.org/category/s6-columns/c47-just-live-it/" target="_blank">“Just Live It</a>”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeCLRSLcyB_LY4TqEmGUIneb7f38BtCgIxWBBaaN_c8GQgoEqw6KzKUkhdYfHqB4LH5FC95r4oWFk3fCHT61ymLEl3E8LgCT7HXK64XTpE6NobxtNhnmpD1VcWG4RQg-R6wA6oSJWzbPP6/s2048/candles.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1363" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeCLRSLcyB_LY4TqEmGUIneb7f38BtCgIxWBBaaN_c8GQgoEqw6KzKUkhdYfHqB4LH5FC95r4oWFk3fCHT61ymLEl3E8LgCT7HXK64XTpE6NobxtNhnmpD1VcWG4RQg-R6wA6oSJWzbPP6/w640-h426/candles.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">+ + +<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Notes on the icons / images above – image 1: Lady Julian of Norwich, icon by Anna Dimascio; image 2: This quote from Dame Julian has been taped to my bathroom mirror for years!; image 3: Dame Julian and Margery Kemp, icon by Brother Leon of Walsingham</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri Light", sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p></div>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-1446321406720481302021-02-16T23:03:00.002-06:002021-02-16T23:03:39.422-06:00you are cordially invited to a Dinner Party with the Saints<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DLDAfi0_CN7CjrA2Jxp19cASGKJKLFcbQ-oeYMGNJR9M95Z0FCXplRrF6qvXSOv4cLQMoqMYQOR12H6GUS373D4sv1UnN4ehvgEXpZQnikcWYcdOekg98GfHBQzf9F2XARp4GT6zXo-5/s804/cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="516" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DLDAfi0_CN7CjrA2Jxp19cASGKJKLFcbQ-oeYMGNJR9M95Z0FCXplRrF6qvXSOv4cLQMoqMYQOR12H6GUS373D4sv1UnN4ehvgEXpZQnikcWYcdOekg98GfHBQzf9F2XARp4GT6zXo-5/w410-h640/cover.png" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I have long admired Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, her talent, quest for innovation, and expert knowledge -- as a writer, author, history buff, editor, archeology lover. But she has outdone herself in this latest book, <a href="https://paracletepress.com/collections/new-releases/products/dinner-party-with-the-saints" target="_blank">“Dinner Party with the Saints.”</a> <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">Wow, what a creative endeavor! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">In this <a href="https://paracletepress.com/collections/new-releases/products/dinner-party-with-the-saints" target="_blank">imaginative book</a>, Woodeene gathers 16 holy women and men around a dinner table, as they wait in heaven together for the arrival of the One special guest. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">The group of saints — from St. Josephine Margaret Bakhita and St. John the Baptist, to St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Andrew Kim Taegon— is as varied and intriguing as the premise of the book!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">Each chapter includes a short bio, favorite saint quote, legends and miracles surrounding the saint, prayers, and explanations of the historical time and culture when they lived. Here’s a <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/supadu-imgix/paracletepress-us/pdfs/excerpts/EX-9781640604193.pdf" target="_blank">sample chapter, about St. Peter</a>! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">But wait, that’s not all! Each saint’s story also includes a uniquely appropriate dinner recipe, courtesy of Woodeene's partner, classically-trained chef Celia Murphy. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">Seriously, what a creative combination. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">I especially love the humorous interaction between the saints, such Josephine Bakhita and Augustine bonding over both being from the African continent. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">Want to know more <a href="http://woodeene.com" target="_blank">about Woodeene? Click here</a>!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">And to learn more about <a href="https://celiamurphy.com/home" target="_blank">recipe creator Celia Murphy? Click here</a>!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;">And of course, here's where you can <a href="https://paracletepress.com/collections/new-releases/products/dinner-party-with-the-saints" target="_blank">get the book, Paraclete Press</a>. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: start;"> <o:p></o:p></p></div><p><br /></p>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-89906337164574109392021-01-05T17:22:00.006-06:002021-01-10T20:37:24.903-06:00our common journey: all are refugees<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKt3OcAIw0NO-R9i3311EPkAxk6fgAqth5oyVGGMnUpeFLG6vM3G3a1gnnDGJQqTBQqRfNMfcnm-viK3xICk6NJ1w38cRpovkXAe0vdhtJ-kNyQyrbgZo9ooFXDr3rE2qibbmjy3eKRW49/s2048/IMG_3933.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKt3OcAIw0NO-R9i3311EPkAxk6fgAqth5oyVGGMnUpeFLG6vM3G3a1gnnDGJQqTBQqRfNMfcnm-viK3xICk6NJ1w38cRpovkXAe0vdhtJ-kNyQyrbgZo9ooFXDr3rE2qibbmjy3eKRW49/w640-h480/IMG_3933.HEIC" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5y8COmH6ZBLlTUtIdQOifYyzWg33Ri-0XqD5AVcoKg7j3SVO6ZkXCyMD74DFGZWT2_xUq8FCTfR8-OdCLXlqCRkKG1Liz3-5oAe4CfWBIfvbnSNP2U1yhKNDSmvRdEJDBMiFPDry12tmR/s2048/IMG_3922.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5y8COmH6ZBLlTUtIdQOifYyzWg33Ri-0XqD5AVcoKg7j3SVO6ZkXCyMD74DFGZWT2_xUq8FCTfR8-OdCLXlqCRkKG1Liz3-5oAe4CfWBIfvbnSNP2U1yhKNDSmvRdEJDBMiFPDry12tmR/w640-h480/IMG_3922.heic" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnF0sKoZJEPOrpMMmBIwhaQGisP4a70ha8J79pVeSo0PKVG6HK4UB25Q1gIHs2nKmsjeySwgtxvxVxj8HkzAJ0Lr2wtUdXGmBEIpLHJoAJW-zmVwK5Rc73NhxSkeJPTcZ3Cl6kOG5ij3J/s2048/IMG_3926.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnF0sKoZJEPOrpMMmBIwhaQGisP4a70ha8J79pVeSo0PKVG6HK4UB25Q1gIHs2nKmsjeySwgtxvxVxj8HkzAJ0Lr2wtUdXGmBEIpLHJoAJW-zmVwK5Rc73NhxSkeJPTcZ3Cl6kOG5ij3J/w640-h480/IMG_3926.HEIC" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAsGbqPi97fs90kt8QgWutGYQDGw50SHcg04X5oNghAA5bteUYWR400HDiu39kBnCHMRvQlrgki5fFhfXpQCt_f2CvFD_yXX8xu2G42bdh6DJLmeOi7Jegq4b4J5BH-iMWaLwaxYHS1rO5/s2048/IMG_3916.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAsGbqPi97fs90kt8QgWutGYQDGw50SHcg04X5oNghAA5bteUYWR400HDiu39kBnCHMRvQlrgki5fFhfXpQCt_f2CvFD_yXX8xu2G42bdh6DJLmeOi7Jegq4b4J5BH-iMWaLwaxYHS1rO5/w640-h480/IMG_3916.HEIC" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/01/los-tres-santos-reyes.html" target="_blank">Epiphany, when we remember the wise men</a> who knelt before the Son of God to pay Him homage, will always be a personal favorite.</span><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On January 5, <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/01/los-tres-santos-reyes.html" target="_blank">Epiphany’s eve -- exactly 59 years ago</a>, my parents, my brother and I left our home town of Pinar del Río for the capital city of Habana. There, our family of four boarded a plane toward an unknown, mysterious and invisible future, becoming refugees in a new land. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On that day, like the wise men who followed only the star, my parents chose to do the inconceivable, to leave the only place we had ever known, with nothing but our faith and hope in God's promises. I was 17 months old, the youngest of María de Jesús and Ignacio's children.</span><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHfbS9RYKocDF8eeN1vVkNUy71vKPTRXGbtHJmZVJlnjmwKjlB0C6-IqBgARbKfyR4j3bj5P0-v5QrAiiHAycTvEFzIB7iKtIcBbEvbArilsKKu48_0otZ_X1GjIICEcSzJAWlZC5zTx47/s640/IMG_2074.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHfbS9RYKocDF8eeN1vVkNUy71vKPTRXGbtHJmZVJlnjmwKjlB0C6-IqBgARbKfyR4j3bj5P0-v5QrAiiHAycTvEFzIB7iKtIcBbEvbArilsKKu48_0otZ_X1GjIICEcSzJAWlZC5zTx47/s320/IMG_2074.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My official passport photo for leaving Cuba</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When I look at my granddaughter now, roughly the same age I was when I walked out on that tarmac, I am blown away by the truth that certain life-altering experiences - like becoming a refugee - are etched deeply in our souls, shaping who we are. These moments may not live in my conscious memories, but they changed me forever. Emotions transcend memory.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />My parent's anxiety, fear, determination as they walked us from airport official to official, clinging to each other and to each of us. The cruelty of the officer at the airport who ripped a doll from my arms. The passengers’ tension after hours of waiting on the runway, fearful that someone else would be taken off the plane. And the peace that surpasses understanding, as my father, who was aptly named after the brave Ignatius of Loyola, quietly began to recite, </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i>"El Señor es mi pastor, nada me falta... the Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want."</i></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br />The events that led to my parent's decision to risk everything and leave family and home evolved quickly. Fidel Castro had closed the churches and the Catholic schools where both my parents worked. And he had collected religious men, women, priests, brothers, sisters, whom my parents considered friends, family and mentors, and literally shipped them off the island on a boat, destination unknown.<br /><br />My own dad had been picked up on his way home one day and taken to the local jail for interrogation, accused of speaking out in the local Catholic newspaper, condemning how the Church and its people were being treated. Providentially, in the chaos of an evolving, disorganized revolution, my father was miraculously let go in the middle of the night and sent home.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Not long after the wise men venerated baby Jesus, Scripture tells us that an angel came to Joseph and told him to leave everything behind and take Mary and the baby to a foreign land—refugees, like me.<br /><br />My parents' courage and faith is genuinely a parable, much like the parables Jesus used to proclaim Truth to His disciples, and now to us.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Surely with much fear and trepidation, they chose to believe in the promise we pray every morning in the Canticle of Zechariah:</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /><i>This was the oath he swore to our father [Ignacio]:<br />to set us free from the hands of our enemies,<br />free to worship him without fear,<br />holy and righteous in his sight<br />all the days of our life.<br /><br /></i></span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Although there are many in the world who will, most of us will not be faced by such stark choices this coming year. But a pandemic has made us experience profound emotions: fear and anxiety; exiled from our normal, refugees separated from family, work, and everything familiar. We are still struggling with abandonment, isolation, distress, letting go of the known for something new and incomprehensible.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There really is only one choice before us, choose Life. Follow the star. Believe in the promise, the oath, God made with each of us.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b> + + +</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">[NOTE: I am excited to begin a new journey this month as columnist for <a href="https://www.liguorian.org/all-are-refugees-going-home/" target="_blank">Liguorian Magazine'</a>s regular column, "Just live it"! <a href="https://www.liguorian.org/all-are-refugees-going-home/" target="_blank">Clickhere</a> for the printed, edited version of <b>this</b> column, y ¡<i><b>feliz día de los tres Santos Reyes! </b></i></span><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-family: ".Apple Color Emoji UI"; font-size: 48px;">✨</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDLzMERvHbdvEwzFq6V0xAP2ou4uHyAzD_Yk1EZJcWjWyYjSacAFn0rTYvxi-J7L3x65r4-G1dznWI1tAa4YH84-sJUw5kCQE64uHH3gIO1XKGSzwmmnfT4vhmgiF7CbfNBiIH5eceqV8/s2048/IMG_3919.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDLzMERvHbdvEwzFq6V0xAP2ou4uHyAzD_Yk1EZJcWjWyYjSacAFn0rTYvxi-J7L3x65r4-G1dznWI1tAa4YH84-sJUw5kCQE64uHH3gIO1XKGSzwmmnfT4vhmgiF7CbfNBiIH5eceqV8/w640-h480/IMG_3919.HEIC" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_Z3w-Y-2pnH7UH8iPz2Qe_0Pgl479c7AZtt18YEKQko-YsZ3S4ayp09i7HQ3V5zpqxBu_ovu3Z9-W8Zg4sOLhCdXfHDLmqYepubTJKDqBD49BDBHfKUJg3OucisdrFEqYXQYnws6RgON/s2048/IMG_3927.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_Z3w-Y-2pnH7UH8iPz2Qe_0Pgl479c7AZtt18YEKQko-YsZ3S4ayp09i7HQ3V5zpqxBu_ovu3Z9-W8Zg4sOLhCdXfHDLmqYepubTJKDqBD49BDBHfKUJg3OucisdrFEqYXQYnws6RgON/w640-h480/IMG_3927.HEIC" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLmdZqyI_0dYRLDPUANvfOJJ_PHD8TyyOvm9Qe1Ib0CduGh8I4iHjllvctcIuA7yR3T-YiwV49eAT8HMztwfH1zMbrlV9X_EvGtcZ7y2VfVSiOaPc2uhyphenhyphenubB0UONdrAQ0Y9ZEd0HhQh_M/s2048/IMG_3917.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbLmdZqyI_0dYRLDPUANvfOJJ_PHD8TyyOvm9Qe1Ib0CduGh8I4iHjllvctcIuA7yR3T-YiwV49eAT8HMztwfH1zMbrlV9X_EvGtcZ7y2VfVSiOaPc2uhyphenhyphenubB0UONdrAQ0Y9ZEd0HhQh_M/w640-h480/IMG_3917.HEIC" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNgwtwviXTeBWCx8SfGDfJ4Lve48TwxU2LzGfOmomHFsHLApAisEuGaZgrk5roH4Pp9HrvYXaBp2kIF-qZC1iKdhDeRGBh98DlmgF_6OTL99HdQHw6AaMUiXEiRD3_TChRx2LwvDWgZJD/s1600/IMG_6075.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNgwtwviXTeBWCx8SfGDfJ4Lve48TwxU2LzGfOmomHFsHLApAisEuGaZgrk5roH4Pp9HrvYXaBp2kIF-qZC1iKdhDeRGBh98DlmgF_6OTL99HdQHw6AaMUiXEiRD3_TChRx2LwvDWgZJD/w640-h480/IMG_6075.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-55358993655667867352020-11-21T18:03:00.004-06:002020-11-21T18:03:53.801-06:00an Advent like no other<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_gyZSnN1FjqUqXQDhvvLrsDrok9NwMBjnZjJ0VAKvv94IP-xjhCQiGwQwW8QrG0rCYIIgFH_j1U3y0ARBeVo6YKWU-BLK9N-iSzt6vJKKZtyAHueQ5wCOnYh1AF56tQAcN4qScqiHc22t/s2048/IMG_2990.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_gyZSnN1FjqUqXQDhvvLrsDrok9NwMBjnZjJ0VAKvv94IP-xjhCQiGwQwW8QrG0rCYIIgFH_j1U3y0ARBeVo6YKWU-BLK9N-iSzt6vJKKZtyAHueQ5wCOnYh1AF56tQAcN4qScqiHc22t/w480-h640/IMG_2990.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0CUiSRdpaJ3y6fwNMxUmltwQjzy7dAkDSLxxdn0ZzxyEoSAPXyiNJ8xjvVy8jGglgh3DHJG5vHVGBAhYr1iICEmzjoXOhWHJayxN_28Qnbwanl0TH1O8FTdFBW3oQpq2yDgbSbrKgJLvE/s2048/IMG_2565.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1716" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0CUiSRdpaJ3y6fwNMxUmltwQjzy7dAkDSLxxdn0ZzxyEoSAPXyiNJ8xjvVy8jGglgh3DHJG5vHVGBAhYr1iICEmzjoXOhWHJayxN_28Qnbwanl0TH1O8FTdFBW3oQpq2yDgbSbrKgJLvE/w536-h640/IMG_2565.jpeg" width="536" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_kVcjZsg-pfRrLRz4F_QWPjhF_X961-TpZ1hWPpbFao1d1XYM-EcRaA6s4KVUT2eXrwOkTHAO_JFHAzNmObkg7JmLzNj0FPnxKRIE1biGOokHyWIDeylceaoKeXH9v5SEUw1rLqHKNfp3/s2048/IMG_2546.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYpuXUHxNyERILnB8Flp0Cgpw_dzkkDEqVnv4PkjMRmzD3wsmK0DvJbrexIPqgVQH1WHx9mGrKtaFoWeHFWvdjbBJqDTISzqmBjoMt277KFawMxwGbbIsCCrN7E3YsPHZTxWZxT3Pz3eYg/s2048/IMG_2564.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1707" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYpuXUHxNyERILnB8Flp0Cgpw_dzkkDEqVnv4PkjMRmzD3wsmK0DvJbrexIPqgVQH1WHx9mGrKtaFoWeHFWvdjbBJqDTISzqmBjoMt277KFawMxwGbbIsCCrN7E3YsPHZTxWZxT3Pz3eYg/w534-h640/IMG_2564.jpeg" width="534" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibjRpolpHGB1dqS1c9PljAmdpL7zTSAbGzy8cet1x7sab4kpBdvm2PrvqaYrCL4HxFwXsXYyhadwy1eT1-vlXePgKL1SrWJTAW6187v9iqlRJ5UvP0VwA16H_yl4O_rG2dsjX_go2vNSAI/s2048/IMG_2561.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1490" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibjRpolpHGB1dqS1c9PljAmdpL7zTSAbGzy8cet1x7sab4kpBdvm2PrvqaYrCL4HxFwXsXYyhadwy1eT1-vlXePgKL1SrWJTAW6187v9iqlRJ5UvP0VwA16H_yl4O_rG2dsjX_go2vNSAI/w466-h640/IMG_2561.jpeg" width="466" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">[<b><u>Note</u></b>: these holy women are all part of my saint posse, </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">the ones I call on and depend on to walk with me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">They are all found at Clear Creek Abbey in Eastern Oklahoma]</div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">It’s been a long time… I’ve missed chatting with you all. I’ll write more about the past few months soon, but today, let me put in a plug for ADVENT…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">There is so much about the season of Advent that I have always loved. Waiting. Anticipation. Grace. Beautiful feast days. Incarnation. We are the only religion who make this bold radical claim. The son of God became flesh, like us, within a human mother. And He entered the world as a humble, fragile baby.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">In the midst of this bizarre pandemic year, where nothing is familiar and everything feels unsteady, where the future is a mystery and it is impossible to predict or prepare for what comes next… I invite you to be still. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">Talk walks outside. Sit and feel the sun on your face. Break the usual habits and find space, time, silence to just be. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">To this end, <b>I want to suggest two resources that you don’t want to miss!</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">I pray with the beautiful Magnificat Magazine daily. And this year, as they have in the past, the generous folks at Magnificat have sent me several FREE Advent apps to give away to my readers. Interested? Just leave me a message here, or email me directly: <a href="mailto:mymaria@me.com">mymaria@me.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">In the past few years, I have written biographies about three modern saints, and each one enriched and transformed my life in a very personal way. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">I humbly suggest, for your Advent reading… or as a gift for a friend, the stories of these amazing holy people:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Nyirumbe-Sewing-Uganda-People/dp/0814644635/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=scaperlanda&qid=1606001516&sr=8-6" target="_blank"><u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Rosemary Nyirumbe: Sewing Hope in Uganda</u> (Liturgical Press)</a><u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="324" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejbEzd5gOjF2Y8BtVIcShUzmu0gbS0ig61bwYtqSGGkVqOUPOLGh32mNuDkOm_zr33llDucvxn999NDmx3m1NqlQw1MlVJQSDumdsZie7oF9itrlCM01S2GJFOGdJbbT3f5OGu6D89Ts0/w416-h640/51yW8BrfjlL._SX322_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="416" /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">Sister Rosemary is a Sister of the Sacred Heart of Jesus ministering, to this day, in a special way to the women and children of her homeland in northern Uganda. Read her story. It will enrich your heart! In Sister Rosemary's own words, “Love is the key!” <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Nyirumbe-Sewing-Uganda-People/dp/0814644635/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=scaperlanda&qid=1606001516&sr=8-6" target="_blank">[click here]</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Who-Didnt-Run-Oklahoma/dp/1681924560/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=scaperlanda&qid=1606002857&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run: Blessed Stanley Rother, Martyr from Oklahoma</u> (Our Sunday Visitor)</a><u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9PN-wXqr1aCZckwQ2H-QMOpJHwdGkfNVZomVLb0z4Jj8U3yxJSTPa2w4a5dC2SmkVpMBH5XjPdeVoEA0PIMvbLIq5zcKct15bJcIzPYUB62NIV9buxnz7d26ufCSEATTuDA-r2jmJ89ho/s499/41PnGv5FcvL._SX302_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="304" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9PN-wXqr1aCZckwQ2H-QMOpJHwdGkfNVZomVLb0z4Jj8U3yxJSTPa2w4a5dC2SmkVpMBH5XjPdeVoEA0PIMvbLIq5zcKct15bJcIzPYUB62NIV9buxnz7d26ufCSEATTuDA-r2jmJ89ho/w390-h640/41PnGv5FcvL._SX302_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="390" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">Father Stanley Rother, a priest from my home Archdiocese of Oklahoma City is the first American martyr. He was killed in 1981 at the Oklahoma mission to Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. But the gem of Blessed Stan is not how he died, but how he lived. We are all called to be saints, and he can show us the way through the ordinary living of our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigP1GxbyuWNOhqmw4TilNRC_X3JQiOigwxM4v8xozGCb96z6tIsnKWEwwqo8mRJ2vB4kboKS9kNynyqqwt-xC-VqGgYtFee1sHy7Y1dCgw2mhNzTt0W6JYM5kco6CrrC1OYXsYKeXAFy2o/s2048/DA1D8458-7445-4FEA-91A7-23A1A1EBD2E2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigP1GxbyuWNOhqmw4TilNRC_X3JQiOigwxM4v8xozGCb96z6tIsnKWEwwqo8mRJ2vB4kboKS9kNynyqqwt-xC-VqGgYtFee1sHy7Y1dCgw2mhNzTt0W6JYM5kco6CrrC1OYXsYKeXAFy2o/w640-h640/DA1D8458-7445-4FEA-91A7-23A1A1EBD2E2.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><b>This book is available in Spanish and in English now!</b> Please, help me spread his amazing story! [<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Who-Didnt-Run-Oklahoma/dp/1681926113/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=scaperlanda&qid=1606002857&sr=8-5" target="_blank">click here for Spanish</a>] [<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Who-Didnt-Run-Oklahoma/dp/1681924560/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=scaperlanda&qid=1606002857&sr=8-1" target="_blank">click here for English</a>]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Edith-Stein-Legacy-Teresa-Benedicta/dp/1622824644/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=scaperlanda&qid=1606002857&sr=8-2" target="_blank"><i style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Edith Stein, the Life and Legacy of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross </i>(Sophia Institute Press)</a><i style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJax-2aU0LLdCEWLfzu_K9k9DZtoD9z3Sk5KYEzP2qxfwU5BNEG4LHFxfnKbGli1PvuRuXzJQi0QT2ZBV3mF88Fdz1wnMQ3W0fDmAWTosoqX6uLPAb7KApzgftO_8TvEIZd0sMUnXcRiY/s499/51qtv46QRQL._SX321_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="323" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJax-2aU0LLdCEWLfzu_K9k9DZtoD9z3Sk5KYEzP2qxfwU5BNEG4LHFxfnKbGli1PvuRuXzJQi0QT2ZBV3mF88Fdz1wnMQ3W0fDmAWTosoqX6uLPAb7KApzgftO_8TvEIZd0sMUnXcRiY/w414-h640/51qtv46QRQL._SX321_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px; margin-left: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">Perhaps you have heard about this brilliant, prolific, gifted woman philosopher. But I fell in love with her heart, through her letters written to friends, colleagues and family, as she shared with them her own conversion story. Always seeking the God, she could not see, she finally felt Him deep inside. I’ll give you a hint, she read the biography of Teresa of Avila, put it down and said, “This is Truth!” [<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Edith-Stein-Legacy-Teresa-Benedicta/dp/1622824644/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=scaperlanda&qid=1606002857&sr=8-2" target="_blank">click here</a>]<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">Whatever you decide to do for your Advent, just pick one thing. Please join me! And I’d love to hear about it once you decide!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">Blessings to each of you from the Heartland. I am thankful for YOU!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFCwgOliY27PL18D2o83lrhGosO8c2aNUkQvmT1xXTahZRdlCZKMa-N0dP8YwFDVpfeRShNXoJLt_6lltlr8H_f9gMs0pJ37-iV_cSLvK8tUepX0jpktThcCAJ0GyzAJmMQrnjqlK0fUX_/s640/IMG_2082.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="640" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFCwgOliY27PL18D2o83lrhGosO8c2aNUkQvmT1xXTahZRdlCZKMa-N0dP8YwFDVpfeRShNXoJLt_6lltlr8H_f9gMs0pJ37-iV_cSLvK8tUepX0jpktThcCAJ0GyzAJmMQrnjqlK0fUX_/w640-h392/IMG_2082.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> </span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-41903459896720169472020-08-11T18:08:00.000-05:002020-08-11T18:08:34.410-05:00on this my birthday week<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlE4D3ojtPbHFINxE9YYUAYk7KOyKFS0SbCj-foHLCz-vnuhJwP7pZBzXSou65r7QvIqsQ_-etg-EiRcde9jMHRFi9J_mMG3mY6TwoR0n2fkqd1IweutjInLcxiZ1wq-jqwN1K-6cVTqW/s2048/IMG_2247.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1956" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqlE4D3ojtPbHFINxE9YYUAYk7KOyKFS0SbCj-foHLCz-vnuhJwP7pZBzXSou65r7QvIqsQ_-etg-EiRcde9jMHRFi9J_mMG3mY6TwoR0n2fkqd1IweutjInLcxiZ1wq-jqwN1K-6cVTqW/s640/IMG_2247.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY0L94EfHykJAD4cd1hLQjd6UiNfa1Z2WnOtM0-52xOk-L_oPNy1h-LejKCRuLgwAxkhxWhQivkqyTE8EBjWxqVDhwOAfITMlRbia_kvsb1G57iuXoHfBv5-BGhuxmmSg2Zs9u6cAq23AI/s2048/IMG_2230.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Md6E40QOwQA7zm5sw0rf93N34hWKlTPSBgCO4wPheLOYalltVziC92jPOMypH9lJNZwWjEEDuopN4yQuqdPRGBZiix-DtLR9yzdiaEhdikH3_cSXlb_JEEVVsjEzDW2zHqBVq6eUx9kn/s4032/IMG_2229.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Md6E40QOwQA7zm5sw0rf93N34hWKlTPSBgCO4wPheLOYalltVziC92jPOMypH9lJNZwWjEEDuopN4yQuqdPRGBZiix-DtLR9yzdiaEhdikH3_cSXlb_JEEVVsjEzDW2zHqBVq6eUx9kn/s640/IMG_2229.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1hkUEf165SEP-XT5a7fN0DG2BLtJZ-n4SO6zeU8Q5PyQc0hn5EHsBhKCqDIfviqEflp4zFA4-jk6309xPZK1q1KuqtKNL27Wi_nx4N1PJSrMSF5B4q_iYBigGaBXOMizDnSgJfAn5JfXB/s4032/IMG_2238.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1hkUEf165SEP-XT5a7fN0DG2BLtJZ-n4SO6zeU8Q5PyQc0hn5EHsBhKCqDIfviqEflp4zFA4-jk6309xPZK1q1KuqtKNL27Wi_nx4N1PJSrMSF5B4q_iYBigGaBXOMizDnSgJfAn5JfXB/s640/IMG_2238.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">This is my birthday week. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">And it’s not just any birthday, it’s one of those birthdays that is attached to a superlative -- a banner, landmark,<span> </span>milestone birthday.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">On August 13, a birth day I share with Fidel Castro (although THAT deserves its own separate headline!), </span><b><i><a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2020/07/of-hearts-and-memories-and-homes-and.html" target="_blank">I will turn 60. </a></i></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">I was sharing my thoughts on this with my remarkable 89-year-old mom, who as usual, had an insightful suggestion. Instead of rolling my <span> </span>eyes <span> </span>and moaning about the idea of being 60, she said, take the time to write down a list of my blessings. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><b><i>“¡Ya verás que tu lista de bendiciones va a ser mucho más larga que tus años!”<o:p></o:p></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">So here is my list. And <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2020/07/of-hearts-and-memories-and-homes-and.html" target="_blank">because 60 is such a HUGE number,</a> I have tried to keep each to </span><b><i>one</i></b> word—with a few exceptions. Also, I decided that listing the 22 members of my Tribe individually would be, well, cheating. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">My SIXTY blessings, in no specific order: <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->My faith<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Culture<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Cuba<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Caribbean<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Music<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Being woman<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Mother Mary<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Parents<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Refugee / immigrant<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Health<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Family together<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">12.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Heart<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">13.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Humor<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">14.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Michael<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">15.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Intuition<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">16.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Saints<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">17.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->touch<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">18.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Color<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">19.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Perspective<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">20.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Nature<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">21.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Walking<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">22.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Camino de Santiago<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">23.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Singing<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">24.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Old friends<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">25.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->beauty<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">26.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Technology<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">27.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->service<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">28.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->brother<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">29.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Writing<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">30.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Prayer<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">31.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Silence<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">32.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->My Grands<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">33.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->My Awesome Foursome<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">34.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Motherhood<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">35.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Playfulness<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">36.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Dancing<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">37.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Grandmothering<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">38.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Creating<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">39.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Traveling<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">40.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Home<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">41.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->My body, as is<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">42.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Women in my life<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">43.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Food<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">44.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Desire to be real<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">45.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->cooking<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">46.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->flowers/planting<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">47.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->art<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">48.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->hugs<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">49.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->poetry<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">50.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->ocean/beach<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">51.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->sunshine<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">52.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->moon<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">53.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->photos/images<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">54.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->holy examples<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">55.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->laughter<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">56.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->washing machines<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">57.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->animal companions<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">58.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->breath<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">59.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->surprises<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 115%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">60.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->being alive to celebrate 60!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">Mami was right, of course. <span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18.399999618530273px; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The correct title should not be, “My 60 blessings,” but rather, “Sixty of my blessings”! </span><span style="font-family: "Apple Color Emoji"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 73.5999984741211px;"><span style="font-size: small;">❤</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh7noD_XdvuOBsrRPUMkVpRYslepZ7Kb9wTu1U-0XwrG_TDca5s8pdtddJfFllbvg9SB7WBz_3tMfb7t-OXp4pqBMbDKOrJtJlB1LN9FBfr9yEGWfGi2MWJfDHsqUBDo42A_qQdaZtt_rZ/s2048/IMG_2243.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1715" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh7noD_XdvuOBsrRPUMkVpRYslepZ7Kb9wTu1U-0XwrG_TDca5s8pdtddJfFllbvg9SB7WBz_3tMfb7t-OXp4pqBMbDKOrJtJlB1LN9FBfr9yEGWfGi2MWJfDHsqUBDo42A_qQdaZtt_rZ/s640/IMG_2243.jpeg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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</style>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-7568565037095581402020-07-31T17:33:00.005-05:002020-08-01T22:41:13.359-05:00of hearts and memories and home and peach trees and turning 60<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqF4e3fNKtXB8P9dGckYaOHOobOO4lg6Z7kf1VSnSVdqS7NlMBK8nBSLAG18BGUDDHnhtimrq8o2A5acTvytBG8KVoc7lFRYV8x7XvbVyXo5i_QasylsnQ07IqqsADhkWAOPRqGAjLZciO/s2048/IMG_2115.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqF4e3fNKtXB8P9dGckYaOHOobOO4lg6Z7kf1VSnSVdqS7NlMBK8nBSLAG18BGUDDHnhtimrq8o2A5acTvytBG8KVoc7lFRYV8x7XvbVyXo5i_QasylsnQ07IqqsADhkWAOPRqGAjLZciO/s640/IMG_2115.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgamqCtz0bj07l0PJcVuhLy6mLLjovrZBrU0Cqmsb0a1M_cI6Tefe9gyDRFWnMyYOyIinW4oN12YBBFycHapAs9_i5l2TcNLOkfBijdJodFOI_XWHRY3WBcSDs0IouFKdkxKF9vAzpfjYqg/s4032/IMG_2111+2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgamqCtz0bj07l0PJcVuhLy6mLLjovrZBrU0Cqmsb0a1M_cI6Tefe9gyDRFWnMyYOyIinW4oN12YBBFycHapAs9_i5l2TcNLOkfBijdJodFOI_XWHRY3WBcSDs0IouFKdkxKF9vAzpfjYqg/s640/IMG_2111+2.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Three years ago, my family surprised me with fruit trees for my birthday – a pear, a plum, and a peach tree. As is always true in life, I had no clue then how much my life was getting ready to change or how different my daily landscape would become.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Fast forward to last Spring, the months when all my energy became focused on <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-strength-in-all-my-crosses.html" target="_blank">going to heart rehab -- and on the reality of moving</a> and finding a new house in Oklahoma City.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">As I look back on it now, it’s downright humorous to see how the two became one!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">For the past year and a bit, I have felt an undeniable parallel connection between the house we lovingly called Casa Scap and my body. It may sound ridiculous, but as I’ve struggled and stumbled over the physical changes and reality of a heart condition and my aging body, I have also fought and cried over the changes and the letting go of that old but familiar home of 23 years.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">I know it’s just a house. And I know we will make new memories in the new house. Believe me, I know. <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2019/12/as-for-me-and-my-house.html" target="_blank">That Waverly Ct house was the 23<sup>rd</sup> house</a> I have lived in! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">It’s not just about the memories, or the stories, or the Sacraments that we have celebrated there – from First Communions and weddings, to baby showers for my Grands. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">It’s not just about my wrinkles, or the sagging, or the new scars and meds – or the fact that I’ll be turning SIXTY in a couple of weeks.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">It’s about ALL of it. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Saying goodbye to our Norman home reminds me – no, REFLECTS and visualizes for me, how my role as a mother has changed, how different my life as a grandmother is now, and how precious is the life we have left, both as a couple and as individuals. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">The last time I walked through <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2019/12/as-for-me-and-my-house.html" target="_blank">our Waverly Court house</a> a few days ago, my eyes watered as I could see with my heart’s eyes the many beautiful moments we experienced there. I consciously and deliberately offered prayers of thanksgiving for the walls and rooms that allowed us to welcome and love the dozens, or rather hundreds, of young people over the years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And I brought home, to our new house, a bag full of pears and peaches. I laughed out loud when I saw that the fruit trees were loaded with peaches and pears – for the first time, ever! </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Oh, God’s sense of humor…<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strike style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="801" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ctIlqlNllr3mQOEh0xnvCqod0y8mlSllubG07EgMFrh4AYmIAhGR6K83Be0jOWlrdfJuJqvd0CpJEacI-_MYOEOMEdLjB9qmFYtBmeVqKLirwb847hCLBx9P40-0n7U1mvxzUJoXTJRT/w600-h801/IMG_2116.jpeg" width="600" /></strike></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; 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margin: 0in;"><br /></p>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-89048223136687280892020-07-27T23:49:00.001-05:002020-07-27T23:49:37.647-05:00Padre Apla's: santo subito! or at least muy pronto <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><i></i></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxxqQsA6LSIxdgzKT_XLLliqGn-lmfziFYBMLoe15hQ75ihzo5Kv5SFpc2KeHqBIhwX5fygpDtkk4JobLk42Ij4vFCfpxGKVWJoAkr3oBWhTEk_chmCB_6Q2vyKcyYa2B2eqkU0QcZpQQ/s1153/IMG_4093.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1153" data-original-width="1153" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxxqQsA6LSIxdgzKT_XLLliqGn-lmfziFYBMLoe15hQ75ihzo5Kv5SFpc2KeHqBIhwX5fygpDtkk4JobLk42Ij4vFCfpxGKVWJoAkr3oBWhTEk_chmCB_6Q2vyKcyYa2B2eqkU0QcZpQQ/w500-h500/IMG_4093.jpg" width="500" /></a></i></b></div><b><i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">“The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Pray for us that we may be a sign of the love of Christ for</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">our people, that <b>our presence among them will fortify them</b> to</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">endure these sufferings in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom.”</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">~Father Stanley Rother, <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">from his Christmas letter to Oklahoma Catholics, <o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">months before his martyrdom</span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">+ + + +<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Speaking to a plaza full of people in front of the Parroquia de Santiago Apóstol at the 35<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Blessed Stanley Rother’s martyrdom, </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Monseñor Gonzalo de Villa y Vásquez, S.J.,</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> then-Bishop of Sololá y Chimaltenango (now Archbishop-elect of Santiago de Guatemala) repeated over and over the word <b><i>pronto</i></b> at every reference he made regarding Father Rother's canonization. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">He is honored and remembered, but above all, he is their priest, Padre Apla’s, the shepherd who didn’t run away from danger, who stood faithfully and lovingly with his suffering people. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[Hablando sobre Padre Apla’s]… su martirio se inscribe literalmente en las palabras de Jesús… dar la vida por sus amigos, por su pueblo, por aquellos a quienes se les confió su cuidado… </span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[Asi como el año pasado honramos a Monseñor Oscar Romero como martir]… hoy, igualmente, aquí en Atitlán en el recuerdo aparecide la vida y la memoria de Stanley Rother, Apla’s… pedimos a Dios que <b><u>pronto</u></b> llegue el día en que la iglesia reconozca oficialmente su martirio… <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[al regresar a Atitlán] podemos decir que Apla’s humanamente selló su muerte trágica. Con ojos de fé… sabemos y proclamamos que esa muerte trágica y cruel abrió para el la vida eternal…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">por eso hoy celebramos con alegría esta misa, y por ello damos gracias a Dios por el recuerdo y el ejemplo de este sacerdote ejemplar… y pedimos para que <b><u>pronto</u></b> no solo lo recordemos, sino que lo tengamos como intercessor.</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">¡Que así sea!</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">+ + +</span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[Speaking about Father Stanley’s death]… his martyrdom is a literal manifestation of Jesus’ words… to give his life for his friends, for his people, those who were entrusted to his care. </span></i></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[Referring to Oscar Romero’s canonization last year] … today, in the same way, here in Atitlán, we honor and recall the life and memory of Stanley Rother, Apla’s… we petition to God that the day will </span></i></b><b><u><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">soon</span></u></b><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> arrive when the universal Church officially recognizes Father Stanley’s martyrdom. </span></i></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[With his return to Atitlán] we can say that in human terms Father Stanley sealed his tragic death. With eyes of faith we know and proclaim that his tragic and heartbreaking death opened for him the doors to eternal life.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">That is why today we celebrate with joy this Mass, and why we give thanks to God for the example and the memory of this exemplary priest… and we ask that </span></i></b><b><u><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">soon</span></u></b><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> we can not only remember him, but also have him as intercessor on our behalf.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">May it be so!<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">[my un-official translation of Archbishop Gonzalo de Villa y Vásquez’ homily]<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">July 28, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Padre Francisco – Padre Apla’s -- Father Stanley Francis Rother: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">the young parish priest who <b>put aside his fears, courageously agreeing to serve</b> the People of God in Oklahoma’s mission in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Father Stanley, the man who struggled to pass Latin and learn Spanish, yet succeded in learning the challenging Mayan language of his Tz’utujil parishioners.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Father Stanley, the farmer from Okarche, Oklahoma, <b>who believed plowing the fields standing </b>next to his Tz’utujil <b>farmers was part of his vocation as a minister of God’s love</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Father Stanley, the shepherd who chose to face death rather than abandon his flock—<b>the shepherd who didn’t run.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">And, finally, Father Stanley Rother, already the first martyr from the United States, and the first priest from the U.S. to be declared a Blessed. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">Yes, may we not only remember this exemplary priest, but may we also be able to have him as saint and intercessor on our behalf – and may it happen, ¡<b><i>muy pronto!<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></i></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">+ + +</span></b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><sub><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px;"><font size="3">Want to learn more about Blessed Stanley Rother? </font></span></sub></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><sub><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; line-height: 32px;"><font size="3">Check out <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Who-Didnt-Run-Oklahoma/dp/1681924560/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-wc-p13n1_0?cv_ct_cx=Rother&dchild=1&keywords=Rother&pd_rd_i=1681924560&pd_rd_r=4a212b48-b2a2-48bd-a867-ace5010e7511&pd_rd_w=e5njX&pd_rd_wg=BHuom&pf_rd_p=13bf9bc7-d68d-44c3-9d2e-647020f56802&pf_rd_r=XVHEKTMM9RHNDN7EYJFM&psc=1&qid=1595911272&sr=1-1-791c2399-d602-4248-afbb-8a79de2d236f" target="_blank">my biography of our Oklahoma martyr</a>, and SOON, available <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Who-Didnt-Run-Oklahoma/dp/1681926113/ref=sr_1_13?dchild=1&keywords=Scaperlanda&qid=1595911432&s=books&sr=1-13" target="_blank">also in Spanish</a>! </font></span></sub></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><sub><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span></sub></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><sub></sub></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxmZ3O9YrRWe6Ym0C2hwz5pUNiTN0G473gZS23Ludo9N0ilrPIN2zcHXgvAvnI3FdVy4A0HhbvGzzgRD9Lq_mS-g69kCcF4-7cn-Q6EgR1BJXev5fbfV0G588P6qXYMBH4y21PdEdfuSN/s640/IMG_0077.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="427" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxmZ3O9YrRWe6Ym0C2hwz5pUNiTN0G473gZS23Ludo9N0ilrPIN2zcHXgvAvnI3FdVy4A0HhbvGzzgRD9Lq_mS-g69kCcF4-7cn-Q6EgR1BJXev5fbfV0G588P6qXYMBH4y21PdEdfuSN/w335-h500/IMG_0077.JPG" width="335" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">+ + +</span></b></div></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 32px;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><sub><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></sub></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></p>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-35793656011174629912020-07-07T21:36:00.002-05:002020-07-07T21:47:55.621-05:00remembering Pat, on the 7th anniversary of her death... <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="color: white; font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><br /> In verdant pastures he gives me repose;<br />Beside restful waters he leads me;<br /> he refreshes my soul.<br /> He guides me in right paths<br /> for his name’s sake.<br />Even though I walk in the dark valley<br /> I fear no evil; for you are at my side<br />With your rod and your staff<br /> that give me courage.<br /> Only goodness and kindness follow me<br /> all the days of my life;<br />And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord<br /> for years to come.<br /> ~Psalm 23</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">I will never be able to hear Psalm 23 and not visualize my dear <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-end-is-where-we-start-from.html" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">Pat Stankus</a> in my heart’s memory. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">As part of her preparation for our <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/06/my-camino-10-years-later-lessons-from.html" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">Camino de Santiago pilgrimage</a>, Pat memorized all the words of the Psalm in order to use it as a prayer mantra as we walked. And by the end of our 350+ miles of walking together, I, too, had internalized the words that we proclaimed out loud together—usually on physically challenging days, or when walking uphill!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">It’s been exactly seven years since <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-end-is-where-we-start-from.html" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">Pat completed this earthly pilgrimage</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">I miss her. I miss being able to call her to get her opinion on a decision, or being able to share pictures or stories of our grandchildren over email. I miss her spiritual insights, and hearing about the novels and non-fiction books she had just read (and then mailed to me, along with a note telling me what she loved about it).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">I miss how she waited for me on her front swing, anticipating whenever I was coming over to visit. I miss her surprise cards and just-because gifts. I miss her sweet, generous heart and the way she made me feel loved, unique, and truly myself. <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/08/seeing-invisible-and-two-notes.html" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">I miss hearing the way she said "Amen!" with her whole being </a><b><i>every single time</i></b> she received the Eucharist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">And I am still caught off guard by emotions and tears, as I was the other at prayer, when reading out loud Isaiah 25: 6-10. It was the exact Scripture that I proclaimed at Pat’s funeral Mass.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">I will forever associate Pat with the story and the image of <a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/turkey/" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">Saint Nicholas, the fourth century bishop of Myra</a> (modern day Demre, Turkey), who was known for his generosity to the needy and for his acts of surprise gift-giving. Pat loved Saint Nicholas as a special friend and, clearly, her mentor in generous giving! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/06/my-camino-10-years-later-lessons-from.html" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">On the Camino</a>, whenever we encountered San Nicolás, which was often, Pat and I made a point of lighting a candle and saying a prayer together for our families and for all who are in need. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">But no memory stands out more than celebrating Mass together at the <a href="http://www.spain.info/en_US/que-quieres/ciudades-pueblos/otros-destinos/portomarin.html" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">12th century church of San Nicolás</a> in the Camino town of Portomarín, Spain. I can still see Pat smiling, with the joy and genuine giddiness of a little girl!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3946716175334921945#editor/target=post;postID=2435285421479186305;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=1;src=postname" style="color: #954f72;" target="_blank">St. Nicolas of Myra, pray for us.</a><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "palatino"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;">St. Patricia Elaine of Austin, pray for us.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-83258883873944854162020-06-25T22:57:00.005-05:002020-06-25T22:57:55.649-05:00because God always opens the door, always<br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">Before Pat and I began walking our Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, we spent several days in the well-preserved medieval city of Ávila, home to <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2012/11/recordando-teresa-la-peregrina.html"><span style="color: #b87209;">our beloved Santa Teresa</span></a> de Jesús.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">For lodging, we had arranged to stay at the <i><a href="http://www.clarisasavila.org/"><span style="color: #b87209;">Convento Santa María de Jesús</span></a></i>, located on a hill right outside the famous walled city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">Not actually running a hotel for tourists, <a href="http://www.clarisasavila.org/como-vivimos/"><span style="color: #b87209;">the Franciscan nuns (<b><i>las Clarisas</i></b>)</span></a> at the convent agreed to let us stay in the Convent's guest rooms after I explained that Pat and I were pilgrims, headed to Pamplona, where we would begin walking <b><i>el Camino de Santiago</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">From the train station, a taxi dropped us in front of what appeared to be the main entrance to the convent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">First timidly, then forcefully, <b>we knocked on the wooden door and waited</b>. And knocked and waited, several times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">No answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">Hungover from jetlag and not thinking very clearly, I searched the massive door with black iron nails for something obvious that could announce our presence. A doorbell, a bell, a knocker. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">There was nothing but the door handle that we kept trying to twist open, without success.</span></b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">We set our backpacks down against a wall with a beautiful carved image of St. Francis and St. Clare. And Pat and I took turns knocking on the door and walking up and down the front of the building, even peeking into the windows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">Nothing</span></b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get in!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">I decided to walk the entire street block looking for a different entrance to the building. When that didn’t work, I walked down the hill to a paint store that had its door open, and I asked the clerk behind the counter if he could tell me how to get into the convent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">The man looked puzzled by my question</span></b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">, then generously offered me the store’s phone to call the convent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">“<i>The door isn’t locked</i>,” said the confused nun who answered the phone. “<i>It’s not locked</i>,” she repeated slowly, “<b><i>Just open the door.</i>”</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">I walked back to the intimidating, massive, wooden door, and stood in front of it for a moment. And this time, instead of knocking or reaching for the handle--I gave it a slight push.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">The door was heavy, but it was, indeed, unlocked!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">All we had to do to go inside was to <i>move forward </i>and <i>go</i> through the open door.</span></b><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Palatino; font-size: 14pt;">Lesson number one...as in the Camino, so in life…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-3680547358637568282020-06-22T23:13:00.001-05:002020-06-22T23:13:46.998-05:00you and me together will be, forever you'll see...<div class="separator" data-original-attrs="{"style":""}" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The month of June </span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino;">will always be a special time for me to remember and ponder<b> my pilgrimage journey across northern Spain with my dear friend Pat on the <i>Camino de Santiago</i>.</b></span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It’s hard to believe, but this summer marks 17 years since we walked the Camino.</span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino;">For weeks that felt like years</span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino;">, Pat and I walked the 1,000-year-old path… stepping beyond the blisters, the pain, the exhaustion, the heat, the blisters, the swollen knees, and did I mention blisters?—<b><a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">and </span></a><a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">we did it together</span></a>.</b></span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;">I don’t want to take away from the many friends – and even my husband – who have walked part or all of the Camino by themselves. But I believe that, just<b> as it is true in life, there’s a level of surrender to the Camino</b> that can only be experienced when you commit yourself to walking it with another person. </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;">Perhaps that's why Jesus sent out his disciples two by two.</span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;">When you are <a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">walking with someone day in and day out </span></a>for weeks, it doesn’t matter how close you are or how much you like each other. Sharing<b> the Camino with another is inevitably both, a beautiful encounter, </b>and a downright grueling challenge!</span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">Pat and I were no exception.</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;">When she hurt, <b>I hurt</b>. When she needed a break, <b>I took a break</b>. When I felt discouraged and pissy, <b>she stood by me discouraged and pissy</b>. <a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">When walking with blisters made me cry</span></a>, <b>she cried with me</b>. When the heat overwhelmed her, <b>we both stopped walking.</b></span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">Looking back at that month of June and what we accomplished</span></a> together, <b>it was no coincidence that Pat and I would arrive in Santiago and kneel at the altar together on the beautiful feast of Corpus Christi.</b></span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;">Like the oneness we experienced as <a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">we held up and encouraged each other day by day</span></a>, every time Pat and I received the Eucharist together —something we were blessed to do almost every day of our Camino pilgrimage — <b>we also became one in and with Him who was, is, and always will be our strength and our Lord.</b></span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;">In a very real way, the Eucharist was <b><a href="about://"><span style="color: blue;">our food for the journey</span></a></b>—and what held us together. </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;">Like the Camino itself, the Sunday that Pat and I walked into the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral together was <b>one of the most Eucharistic experiences of my life</b>, one that has become even more significant now that Pat completed her earthly pilgrimage and is waiting for me at the Heavenly Banquet.</span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" data-original-attrs="{"style":""}" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Pat's tombstone, with the final Camino shell pointing down<br /><div>
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María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-19424854464027327172020-04-17T18:40:00.002-05:002020-04-17T18:40:39.478-05:00#WeRemember: the 25th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>When I first arrived at the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, to report </b>on the Oklahoma City bombing for Catholic News Service, police lines and makeshift shelters had already been drawn by emergency crews.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Budding spring gardens downtown had instantly succumbed to military tents, hastily erected to serve as temporary morgue, as ATF/FBI evidence gathering sites, and as a canteen for rescue workers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Law enforcement and fully armed military personnel lined the streets, carefully eyeing every approaching person. Breathing masks, bloodied bandages, and much broken glass testified to the human carnage that had taken place there just a few hours earlier. Thick grey dust covered everything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Overhead, helicopters circled the downtown perimeter, accusingly pointing a flood light at the streets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The sounds of sirens, voices, and motors blended with the humming of drilling equipment at the site—where workers used lighted cranes to cautiously proceed with rescue operations around the clock.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Northwest of the building, a block-long square area had instantaneously become an international media center, camera crews mixing with fallen debris, van food vendors, and smashed up cars demolished by the blast. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Reporters talked on mobile phones to frantic editors; photographers pointed their high-powered telephoto lenses at rescue operations on the site; and television crews staked out their live, on-the-spot, reporting areas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">When I first saw the building, I stood speechless before the sight of human evil.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">"It's worse than the most horrible Friday the 13th movie you can imagine… You can't walk out of this theatre," 25-year-old Steve Mavros told me as he sat on the sidewalk. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mavros and his trained dog Bucephalos, members of the Oklahoma Canine Search and Rescue out of Tulsa, were some of the first deployed to the site to identify the location of victims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">"We would have a hit—a human find—but only find a piece of a body,” described Mavros, silently petting Bucephalos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On that fateful spring morning, 168 people died—19 of them children, in addition to three babies still in utero. Hundreds of survivors were maimed, injured, forever scarred.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the first few weeks after the bombing, Oklahoma City held its breath. Functions were canceled. Businesses silently closed. Professors discharged classes. Students attended prayer services. A week after the bombing, a tire shop owner declared, “businness is just dead. No one is going anywhere.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Several days after the around-the-clock coverage, a local sportscaster, faced with the nightly litany of scores, verbalized everybody’s feelings when he spontaneously admitted, “I’m sorry. I just can’t do scores tonight. It just seems meaningless.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It is important that we remember April 19, 1995. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember the lives of those who died, not only where they died. Remember the victims' families. Remember those who survived, and those still struggling to heal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember the tireless rescue workers who risked their lives in the still-trembling building to find survivors, and eventually, to bring the dead home. Remember how they would silently bow their heads in impromptu prayer before leaving the bomb site.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember TV and radio journalists openly sharing their faith on the air; volunteers serving food to weary teary-eyed firefighters; ‘Thank you for your work of love’ scribbled on a boarded up window near the site.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember how there was no looting in that wrecked downtown, and how crime was virtually non-existent for several days in this city of 500,000. “Pray” silently proclaimed on billboards throughout the city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Remember how the money turned in after the blast from the Federal Employees Credit Union vault housed in the Murrah building <b><i>exceeded</i></b> the money originally held in that vault. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We must always remember— remember that the stories of human goodness, generosity, and compassion overwhelmed and conquered one despicable act of evil. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtepnkd5KoqMWI4U4D5Nfsl1gYSsWO6yVOifLcOD5fGDyFjmeHLyi5zspcrirXuzR69U_G12BF2rFM5eeKI87KJQhg_GYOesllapr36vZCe70-lrrU5AoGWODUoGpt8s1wtxpz3h_reQ-/s1600/41SQRZB1FML._SX310_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="caret-color: rgb(83, 83, 83); clear: left; float: left; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="312" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtepnkd5KoqMWI4U4D5Nfsl1gYSsWO6yVOifLcOD5fGDyFjmeHLyi5zspcrirXuzR69U_G12BF2rFM5eeKI87KJQhg_GYOesllapr36vZCe70-lrrU5AoGWODUoGpt8s1wtxpz3h_reQ-/s400/41SQRZB1FML._SX310_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="250" /></a><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(83, 83, 83); color: #535353; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; text-align: right;"></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(83, 83, 83); color: #535353; font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; text-align: right;">Want to hear more stories of HOPE? Check out my first book — </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Their-Faith-Has-Touched-Us/dp/158051023X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=their+faith+has+touched+us&qid=1587166189&sr=8-1" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(83, 83, 83); color: #535353; text-align: right;">"</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #a85f0c;">Their Faith Has Touched Us: The Legacies of Three Young Oklahoma City Bombing Victim</span></a><span style="color: #a85f0c;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(168, 95, 12);">s"</span></span></span> </blockquote>
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<br />María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-75801130438288211292020-04-04T14:42:00.002-05:002020-04-04T14:42:26.594-05:00the Lent we never asked for<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much like an unwelcome diagnosis, or a sudden accident or unexpected death, who could have predicted how Lent of 2020 burst in and suddenly transformed our lives forever.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In truth, we have all experienced personal moments like this before. Events that stop us in our tracks and almost always force us to our knees. With one phone call, or medical diagnosis, or accident, or the birth of a baby— life as we know it is changed forever.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But seldom do we experience those moments together, as a community. Here in Oklahoma, the bombing of the Murrah building — 25 years ago this April 19 — was such an event. Everyone was affected, changed, transformed. It is not an exaggeration to say that the fabric of our identity as a city and a state was shaped and changed forever that morning. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now here we are, facing an unthinkable and unimaginable crisis as a <b><i>global</i></b> community. It is truly beyond <i>my</i> ability to ingest, let alone comprehend. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And yes, it is Lent. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year at this time, my Lent was a struggle to accept the newly revealed diagnosis of being a heart patient. I didn’t want it. I didn’t ask for it. And it was not the Lenten journey I would have chosen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So forgive me for sounding — and being — selfish when I say, I am truly grateful to have company in this year’s challenging Lenten and Holy Week journey! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me explain. I am not saying that I wish suffering or hardship or darkness upon anyone. But I am genuinely thankful <b><i>to be reminded </i></b>that we walk together on this earthly journey, with all the bumps and unforeseen things that we are and will encounter.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The devil wants to tell us that our suffering and our pain is unique, that no one else feels what we feel, and that no one can understand what we are going through, how difficult life can be.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don’t believe him. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are <b><i>all</i></b> uncomfortable. We are <b><i>all</i></b> in unfamiliar and uncharted territory. We are <b><i>all</i></b> struggling, experiencing dis-ease, out of our comfort zone. We are <b><i>all</i></b>, in our very specific, personal situations, on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a pilgrimage we didn’t choose. True! May it be a good reminder that <b>God is here</b> and in control.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From my porch in Oklahoma City, I will be praying for you and your Holy Week!<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85); font-family: ".Apple Color Emoji UI";"><span style="font-size: x-small;">❤️</span></span></div>
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María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-40581735867893255932020-01-15T17:09:00.001-06:002020-01-15T17:09:25.722-06:00my strength in all my crosses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“My HEART is ready, O God; </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I will sing, sing your praise.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">~psalm 108</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>May the eyes of our HEARTS be enlightened, that we may know what is the hope that belongs to God’s call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones.”</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>~Ephesians 1:18</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“How long must I bear grief in my soul,</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">this sorrow in my HEART day and night?…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As for me, I trust in your merciful love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let my HEART rejoice in your saving help;</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Let me sing to the Lord for his goodness to me…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">~psalm 13</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>“I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>who even at night directs my HEART…</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i></i></b></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>And so my HEART rejoices, my soul is glad;</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b><i>even my body shall rest in safety.”</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>psalm 16</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard our HEARTS in Christ Jesus our Lord.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">~Philippians 4:7</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i>“</i><b><i>You, then, shall be my strength, O my God! You shall be my guide, my director, my counselor, my patience, my knowledge, my peace, my justice, and my prudence. i will have recourse to you in my temptations, in my dryness, in my repugnances, in my weariness, in my fears; or rather I will no longer fear either the illusions or the tricks of the demon, nor my own weakness, my indiscretions, nor even my mistrust of myself. For you must be my strength in all my crosses.”</i><br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>~Saint Claude</b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: #424242;"><b> de </b></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b>la Colombière</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the past several months — or rather, more than likely since my first angioplasty this past year, I have felt understandably off-balance. Even as my body recovered and got used to the new meds, my emotions have been all over the planet — and my spirit has felt, for lack of a better word, unsettled. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Like a walk through dense, deep fog, everything has been just a little out of focus. And the peace that I have been yearning for has felt just out of reach. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Fearful. Anxious. Unsure of myself. And on top of it all, a thick dose of guilt about everything I have been feeling. How am I not overwhelmed with gratefulness? Why am I not jumping to the sky with joy? I did not have a heart attack. we caught things before “the widowmaker” stopped my heart, before anything irreversible happened. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">In other words, why am I not, well, completely overwhelmed by courage, hope, thanksgiving, and life?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The root of the word COURAGE is <i>COR</i>, the Latin word for <b><i>HEART</i></b>. So, in the word’s earliest form, the word COURAGE literally meant, “to speak one’s mind by telling all that is in one’s HEART.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">If I am to tell all of what’s in my HEART, I must begin by acknowledging that learning this past year that I have a heart condition, makes me feel vulnerable, and often, extremely fragile. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yet any doubts that I have and that I acknowledge about myself, my ability to handle things, or more importantly, about my faith, does not make me unworthy, unfaithful, or lacking. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It makes me open and real and seeking. And that is where God is. I am not alone.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">That is my <i>COR</i>, my heart, the source of my COURAGE.</span></div>
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María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-59533683131307285172019-12-03T17:23:00.001-06:002019-12-03T17:23:22.425-06:00as for me and my house...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="s1">I love the crazy chaos of our full house, when all 22 of us share space, beds, and break bread under one roof. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Of course, with that many people and that much going on, the Texas-sized <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/12/open-up-your-life.html">serving of goodness also includes</a> side-dishes of: mess and chaos; arguing; hurt feelings; mis-understandings; <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/02/dont-scream-stop-your-anxiety-fueled.html">anxiety</a>; unending piles of dirty dishes; lack of sleep… </span></div>
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<span class="s1">But ultimately, none of that is what I remember.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">When everyone is here, we seem to move like a wave through the house, from room to room, ultimately retreating back into the ocean that is our large living room. That’s where we gather to pray together, where we have our Christmas toast, where we play games, and where the kids drag us to read books—or to read books to us!</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This house has felt so much of our life, embraced so many visitors, experienced so many changes in the pulsating heart that is my Tribe.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s as if the house itself holds our family frame together.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The summer my father died, for example, our oldest daughter wrote a beautiful piece that I thought captured brilliantly the relationship between this house and our family. It began like this:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>My parents have this magical house. At first it seems like your typical fairly large suburban home, with two living rooms, a too-small kitchen, a separate dining room, and a few bedrooms. If you go upstairs, you immediately see a bathroom, a laundry closet, and three bedroom doors—but then you round the corner and see down a long hallway a fourth bedroom door. </i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><i>The house is bigger than you thought: a four-bedroom house with a surplus of shared living spaces. But then you keep exploring, and you realize that one of the bedroom doors opens to two rooms and a second upstairs bathroom… </i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><i>While we have had about thirty people sleep there on New Year’s Eves past, the house can sleep seven couples with privacy, or four couples, three babies, one child, and one single adult. This is what we did </i><a href="http://ascapbidd.blogspot.com/2014/05/abba-abuelo.html"><span class="s2"><i>last week</i></span></a><i>, sharing in each other’s grief. </i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><i>The mornings were slow, with parents groggily and babies happily arising from bed. Every morning someone made coffee; most mornings someone else went on a Starbuck’s run for lattes and cappuccinos. Midday could find us all in and out of the kitchen, warming food that people brought by…</i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><i>In the afternoons, people would take turns disappearing: to walk, to nap, to try to nap, to cry, to read. The house, along with the babies, would sleep. In the evenings we came back together, around the table, to nourish our bodies and, in the latter part of the week, to share stories of the wake, the funeral, and Abba himself… </i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><i>The women ate too many sweets while the men drank beer. We talked and joked. It began to feel like Christmas, when we were gathered around the table after the babies were in bed.</i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><i>But then we were stung again when we remembered that Abba wasn’t sitting contentedly next to Nana, his eyes laughing, as he did at Christmas…<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1"><i><b>[to read Anamaría’s whole piece,</b> click here: <a href="http://ascapbidd.blogspot.com/2014/05/grief.html" target="_blank">Accidental Discoveries</a>]</i></span></blockquote>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">I have lived in 23 houses—but in <b><i>this</i></b> one, by far, for the longest.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Yes, of course, it is just a house. And I know in my head that the memories, and certainly the people, will go with us when we move soon to our next home.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But it’s going to be difficult for my heart to leave this one.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s1">+ + +</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span class="s1">“Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span class="s1">Take to heart these words which I command you today.</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span class="s1">Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span class="s1">Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead.</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span class="s1">Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.”</span><br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<i style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="s1">~Deuteronomy 6: 5-9</span></i></div>
</i></blockquote>
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</style>María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-85521448055589343952019-12-01T17:49:00.002-06:002019-12-01T17:49:58.604-06:00I confess... I miss anxiety<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s just one word. </div>
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But I <i>still</i> notice it, almost every time. </div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I miss “</span><b style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>anxiety</i></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.”</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It's been eight years now since the <a href="http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/" style="color: #b87209; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">new English translation of the Roman Missal</a> was implemented in Catholic parishes across the country on the first Sunday of Advent--back in 2011.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At <a href="http://saintmarknorman.org/" style="color: #b87209; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">our own parish</a>, we were well prepared for the changes by <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/06/oklahoma-weather-and-becoming-eucharist.html" style="color: #b87209; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">our pastor, </a>who arranged very <a href="http://saintmarknorman.org/index.php?homily&action=view_news&news_id=121" style="color: #b87209; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">helpful homilies, over several weeks</a>, and <b>even started using the new language two months early! It was his way of helping us to focus on Advent-- </b>and not on whether we were getting the words “right.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the time, as we worked on the transition as a community, I found it very helpful to keep in mind the responses we say at Mass in Spanish. The 2011 English translation parallels those Spanish responses much better than the previous one ever did.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Yet there is one point at Mass that still stalls me.</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Right after we say the Our Father, <a href="http://catholic-resources.org/ChurchDocs/Mass.htm" style="color: #b87209; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">the celebrant’s prayer that leads </a>to the Sign of Peace, currently says:</div>
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<i>Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil, </i><i>graciously grant peace in our days, </i><i>that, by the help of your mercy, </i><i>we may be always free from sin </i><i>and safe from all distress, </i><i>as we await the blessed hope </i><i>and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.</i></blockquote>
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<b>But prior to Advent 2011, the prayer was:</b></div>
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<i>Deliver us, Lord, from every evil,</i><br /><i>and grant us peace in our day.</i><br /><b style="font-style: italic;">In your mercy keep us free from sin</b><br /><b>and protect us from all anxiety</b><br /><i>as we wait in joyful hope</i><br /><i>for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.</i> </blockquote>
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Protect us from ALL ANXIETY.</div>
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There is nothing wrong with distress. <b>But I genuinely miss begging God, as a community, to protect us from <i>anxiety, all anxiety.</i></b></div>
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<b>+ <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>+ <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>+</b></div>
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<b></b><br /></div>
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<b>NOTE:</b></div>
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I have two free Advent Apps from MAGNIFICAT to give away!! </div>
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Please leave a blog message or private message me if you’d like one!! </div>
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First come first serve.</div>
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Happy first day of Advent! </div>
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María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-6161362003283520612019-09-30T14:25:00.001-05:002019-09-30T14:25:59.778-05:00remembering Santa María la Real<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">capilla de Eunate, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Camino de Santiago, España</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><b>My friend Pat & I walked out</b> from the small tree-covered hill and stepped suddenly into a landscape of lined crops and dust fields. Next to a busy highway to our right, we recognized what had to be <b>the famous chapel at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Saint_Mary_of_Eunate" target="_blank">Eunate,</a></b> whose Basque name means “the Hundred Doorways.” </span><br />
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<span class="s1">Described by guide books as <b>“one of the jewels” of the pilgrimage route</b> to Santiago de Compostela, the chapel actually required a 4 to 5 kilometer walking detour <i><b>off</b></i> the main route on <b><i><a href="http://www.americanpilgrims.com/camino/history.html" target="_blank">el Camino de Santiago</a></i></b>. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I might have been the first one in our family to walk the Camino, but since that summer (16 years ago!), Michael has walked it, as well as two of my adult children and their spouses! </span><br />
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<span class="s1">The other night, several of us stayed up telling stories and remembering special moments in our Camino, </span><b>like the morning Pat and I encountered the Shepherd (see <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2012/11/nine-years-ago-my-friend-pat-and-i.html" target="_blank">here</a>), and our 23-mile-day (see <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2013/01/not-everyday-can-be-23-mile-day.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</b>. </div>
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<span class="s1">Looking back on the morning we visited Eunate, I remain <b>grateful that the decision </b>whether or not to detour came on the <b><i>second</i></b> day of our pilgrimage walk from Pamplona. In all honesty, if we had to make the same decision a week later, I know I would have been tempted to ignore the guidebooks and obsessed solely about the extra number of kilometers that it would add to our walking day!</span></div>
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From the woman living next door to the church, its unofficial caretaker, I learned that <b>the origins of the small octagonal church are obscure. Its unusual shape suggests a link with the <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14493a.htm" target="_blank">Knights Templar</a>, </b>whose churches often resembled the octagonal structure of <a href="http://www.3disrael.com/jerusalem/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulcher.cfm" target="_blank">the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem</a>.<br />
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<b>Graves marked with scallop shells (the sign of the pilgrims) </b>have been discovered between the church and its surrounding arched cloister, suggesting that Eunate was once a major funerary chapel for pilgrims who <i><b>died</b></i> along the Camino de Santiago. </div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>I was immediately drawn to the <b>chapel’s simple and spartan interior</b>. Floor to ceiling pillar buttresses stretched upward, as if reaching for heaven, and small marble windows let in only a gentle, soft light, making it breathtakingly serene. </span><br />
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<span class="s1"><b>Only one image stood in the entire church</b>, a mid-size statue of Mary that, I learned (several walking days later) in Najera, was known as <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Mar%C3%ADa_la_Real_of_N%C3%A1jera" target="_blank">Santa María la Real</a>. </b></span></div>
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<b>She was, indeed, royally dressed</b>, with a gold dress and a gold crown on both hers and Jesus’ heads.<br />
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Perhaps it was the way her left arm lovingly encircled the child on her lap. But <b>there was something completely disarming in this Mary’s smile</b> that instantly won me over.<br />
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Without words, with only a slight but captivating smile, she told me how much she loved her son.<br />
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She might be the queen of heaven, but clearly, <b>Santa María la Real was a mother first. </b><br />
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María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-8840049189681791972019-09-25T14:54:00.000-05:002019-09-25T14:54:13.997-05:00my dear friend... a letter for you, from God<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">Come to me, all you who labor </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">and are burdened,</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #008061; font-family: arial;"><b> </b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;">and I will give you rest"</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">my dear friend [insert your name here],</span></b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">Yes, come for rest. But <i><b>stay</b></i> for rest, too.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">Stop all feverish haste and be calm and untroubled.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">Come unto Me, not only for petitions to be granted but <b>for nearness to Me</b>.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><b>Be sure</b> of My Help, <b>be conscious of My Presence</b>, and <b><i>wait</i></b> until My Rest fills your soul.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><b>Rest knows no fear.</b> Rest knows no want. Rest is strong, sure. The rest of soft glades and peaceful flowing rivers, of strong, immovable hills.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><b>Rest, and all you need to gain this rest is to come</b> to Me. <b><i>So come!</i></b> [all emphasis mine]</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">~from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/God-Calling-Inspirational-Library-Russell/dp/1557481105/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=God+Calling&qid=1569437264&s=gateway&sr=8-1" target="_blank">God Calling</a>, A. J. Russell</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">daily devotional, entry for today,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">September 25</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><b>+ + +</b></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">When I look over my recent posts here, it is obvious that for the past several months, my energy and time has gone elsewhere! I am sorry for the radio silence.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">As re-charging as writing is to me -- and it is truly a graced avenue that God uses to fill and renew me! -- I have been in one of those moments in life where only silence and stillness could fill up the in-between times, those critical moments <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-posture-of-prayer.html" target="_blank">when we ponder what we are living</a>. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">And there has been so much going on! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">Merely since my week-long silent retreat in early July, there has been so much... Completing my cardiac rehab (woo hoo!); trips to connect with and celebrate milestones with family; a new Grand born!; pilgrimage to Guatemala <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2017/07/remembering-father-stanley-rother-martyr.html" target="_blank">for Blessed Stanley Rother's feast day</a>; many doctor visits; a special visitor from Cuba; buying a new home (more on that later!); making time with the Grands -- you get the idea. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">I find that the older I get, the deeper I feel things and the easier it is to recognize how important, how life-altering each of our life moments really is--wether huge or quotidian, every-day life. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">Yet there is no substitute for time, for be-ing with God in stillness and silence. That is the one way, the only way, to really ingest this life as a grace and blessing from God. </span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><u>NOTE:</u></b> all photos from our pilgrimage to Guatemala, and to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Who-Didnt-Run-Oklahoma/dp/1681924560/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=blessed+stanley+rother&qid=1569440859&s=gateway&sr=8-2" target="_blank">Santiago Atitlán</a>, where Blessed Stanley Rother was martyred. Want to know more about the first U.S. martyr? Check out my book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Who-Didnt-Run-Oklahoma/dp/1681924560/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=blessed+stanley+rother&qid=1569440859&s=gateway&sr=8-2" target="_blank">"The Shepherd Who Didn't Run: Blessed Stanley Rother, Martyr from Oklahoma" </a>(OSV Books). </blockquote>
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<br />María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-26897429092053332982019-08-31T23:30:00.000-05:002019-08-31T23:30:04.545-05:00Our Lady of Charity Blog Novena, día #2<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-cL-1IQFC3JIthGw2ZsATesGVKlKConytEJEjzdFuD8GSoeMifth8vEC9G8Ro1bJfW3pwtiKeC63pcKzEg-XJIj-lq7KJAOe6AJFT6bq9XxutaBNLr8RBeL9ZZ7FAm2rDet7lfUX74GAd/s640/El+Cobre011.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="508" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;">Print depicting the apparition, Cuban Heritage Collection, </span></div>
<div style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;">Richter Library, University of Miami</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6amsBwuFjW3tqoICaD6BDLRZo_W1AoD44BqTDUqykBivPoOGifJMuMyUjWEq85TGmVQIANa2ApEOQGmHPWeKaNLZ-m6TsCMYtkXW7esuxPHgKTGeGCO_NaaNDg5lZ7CkqPyh6EG6EUP72/s1600/Our_Lady_of_Charity_Blog_Tour_800x800+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6amsBwuFjW3tqoICaD6BDLRZo_W1AoD44BqTDUqykBivPoOGifJMuMyUjWEq85TGmVQIANa2ApEOQGmHPWeKaNLZ-m6TsCMYtkXW7esuxPHgKTGeGCO_NaaNDg5lZ7CkqPyh6EG6EUP72/s640/Our_Lady_of_Charity_Blog_Tour_800x800+%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Today I am delighted to introduce you to a talented author with a great name, María Morera Johnson, who has a new book, <a href="https://www.avemariapress.com/product/1-59471-901-2/Our-Lady-of-Charity/" target="_blank">"<i>Our Lady of Charity: How a Cuban Devotion to Mary Helped me Grow in Faith and Love"</i> (Ave Maria Press)</a>.<br />
<br />
It is not too late for you to join this special Blog Novena in honor of Cachita, Nuestra Señora de la Caridad of el Cobre, patron of my birth island, Cuba.<br />
<br />
Please pray with us... <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
<b>+ + +</b></blockquote>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Day Two </b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Prayers</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;">Holy name of Mary! O most loving mother, seal with your
name our petitions, giving us the comfort that your son, Jesus, will lovingly
grant them in accordance to His Will.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;">O beloved Virgen
Mary, my Mother, I consecrate myself to you today: my eyes, my ears, my tongue,
my heart, in other words, my whole being. I am yours, Oh Mother of Mercy, guard
me and defend me as your son/daughter. Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Ask for
your petition here</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: small;">REMEMBER, O most
gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy
protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided.
Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother;
to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the
Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.
Amen.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b>+ + +</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #b87209;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594719012?pf_rd_p=1cac67ce-697a-47be-b2f5-9ae91aab54f2&pf_rd_r=PXBKNAHSHAKNBRMWJGQD" target="_blank"><i>Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre</i></a></span>, patron of Cuba, may not be as well known in American
culture as Our Lady of Guadalupe. But one can find Our Lady of Charity’s image
in churches around the world.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wherever Cuban refugees have resettled, they have brought with
them their devotion to l<i>a Caridad</i>.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">She is in a side chapel at the pre-eminent Marian shrine in the
United States, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
in Washington, D.C.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">She stands to the right of the altar at the open-air of <a href="http://standrewbytheseacctx.org/parish-life/about"><span style="color: #b87209;">St. Andrew by the Sea Catholic Church</span></a> in
North Padre Island, Texas.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">An image of La Cachita, Cuba's beloved patron, was even <a href="http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/08/28/la_cachita_finds_a_home_in_the_vatican_gardens/1105392"><span style="color: #b87209;">given a place of honor a few years ago in the Vatican
gardens.</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">And in Miami, just south of the downtown skyscrapers, there is a
beautiful shrine built in her honor by Cuban refugees 50 years ago.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">“<i>La Virgen de la Caridad</i> is the most profound symbol
of the Cuban nation,” said Bishop Felipe de Jesús Estévez of St. Augustine, FL.
“The British have their queen, the Cubans have la Caridad. Even before
Jamestown, <i>El Cobre</i> kept this gracious statue.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> a personal reflection on what she means to me, </span><a href="http://www.uscatholic.org/church/2011/09/island-queen-reflection-our-lady-charity" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #b87209;">drop by here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> or read my article from a few
years ago, </span><a href="http://www.kofc.org/un/en/columbia/detail/458998.html" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #b87209;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>But above all, don't miss this new book,</b> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594719012?pf_rd_p=1cac67ce-697a-47be-b2f5-9ae91aab54f2&pf_rd_r=PXBKNAHSHAKNBRMWJGQD" target="_blank"><i>"Our Lady of Charity: How a Cuban Devotion to Mary Helped me Grow in Faith and Love,"</i></a> by the <i>other</i> María, my gifted tocaya!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px; text-align: justify;"><i>"This is our most valuable treasure (Cobre), this is our greatest wealth and the best legacy we can give: to learn like Mary to leave home and set out on the path of visitation. And to learn to pray with Mary, for her prayer is one of remembrance and gratitude; it is the canticle of the People of God on their pilgrimage through history. It is the living reminder that God passes through our midst... he has come the aid of his servant, even as promised to our forebears and their children for ever."</i></span></blockquote>
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Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre, </div>
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Our Lady of Charity of el Cobre, Cuba (2015)</div>
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<br />María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-46550068024757514192019-08-07T22:24:00.001-05:002019-08-07T22:24:16.927-05:00who says Aggies and Longhorns can't be friends?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i>“You saw how the Lord, your God, carried you, as a man carries his child, all along your journey until you arrived at this place.”<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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~Deut 1:31<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Sometimes our travel takes us to the places of our dreams, and sometimes it serves to remind us of who we are and where we came from. Our family excursions have rarely taken us to exotic places, but they have reconnected us with people we adore and given us new relationships to cherish. The every day holy is real, we just have to open our eyes to appreciate it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Whatever road life has paved for you, consider this: Forget about the destination and focus on the journey. Wherever you go, do it with intention and purpose. Travel with a heart anxious for accompaniment. And remember that the drive is always sweeter when Jesus is riding shotgun with you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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~Kathryn Whitaker<o:p></o:p></div>
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God has a tremendous sense of humor. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When I first saw the title, then the book cover – with the beautifully edged cowboy boots, I was intrigued by Kathryn Whitaker’s book, “Live Big, Love Bigger: Getting Real With BBQ, Sweet Tea, and a Whole Lotta Jesus.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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I mean, what is there not to like? Texas, boots, BBQ, love and Jesus!<o:p></o:p></div>
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I immediately signed up to follow her on Instagram, then found her on Facebook under @TeamWhitaker<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then when I received a copy of the book, courtesy of Ave Maria Press, and browsed through the chapter titles, I smiled thinking how much my Texas-loving daughter would enjoy reading this book.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Even when I randomly opened a chapter and began reading, I chuckled, enjoying the author’s great sense of humor, and thought about several people who’d enjoy getting their hands on this one. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So then I opened another chapter, and another one, then another one. Well, you get the picture. I loved reading this book! And I think that you will, too.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let’s be honest, who can’t relate to the sentence, “Sometimes, you want to tell God to shove it.”</div>
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I don’t know Kathryn Whitaker, but I know we could be good friends. She is genuine, funny, insightful, intuitive, a great storyteller, honest – and did I mention humorous?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Setting aside the facts that Kathryn Whitaker and I have one major thing NOT in common (I don’t particularly enjoy Dr. Pepper) – as well as one irrevocably major distinction (I am a displaced Texas Longhorn living in central Oklahoma, and she is a displaced Texas Aggie living in Austin), after reading this book, I know that I’ve found a faith-sister.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And needless to say, we are in two very different phases of our life journey. Aka, I am <b>much</b>, <b><i>much</i></b>older. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But our desire to live a whole-hearted life for Jesus is identical. The yearning to live a life with purpose and intention is the same. And the only difference in our love and prayers for our family, for our children and husbands, is that I have one more generational layer of prayer devotion – praying for my amazing Grands! <o:p></o:p></div>
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Let me tell you a story. So an Aggie living in Austin and a Longhorn living in Oklahoma walk into a bar…<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>+ + +<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><i>“This life was meant for living, so I encourage you to set fear aside and love bigger. Can I get a </i>hell yes<i>? Let’s say it a little louder for the folks in the back, shall we?”<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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~Kathryn Whitaker<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-46124554160685626522019-06-22T13:14:00.001-05:002019-06-22T13:14:58.109-05:00Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe's ministry of presence
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;"><i><b>A sad nun
is a bad nun. . . . I am more afraid of one unhappy sister than a crowd of evil
spirits. . . . What would happen if we hid what little sense of humor we had?
Let each of us humbly use this to cheer others.</b></i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; text-align: right;"> ~Teresa of
Ávila</span></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">At this
time last year, I had my head down as I ran towards a finish
line, completing <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Nyirumbe-Sewing-Uganda-People/dp/0814644635/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZEWPN4HL9UYF&keywords=rosemary+nyirumbe+sewing+hope+in+uganda&qid=1561226444&s=gateway&sprefix=rosemary+nyi%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1" target="_blank">a full draft of my latest book</a> – a biography of the
amazing Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe, a sister of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
community who lives and works in Gulu, Uganda. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
biography – <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/4463" target="_blank"><i>Rosemary Nyirumbe: Sewing Hope in Uganda</i></a> -- is part of the
Liturgical Press series, People of God. You can check out <a href="https://litpress.org/people-of-god" target="_blank">their other titles here.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">It is difficult to express <span style="color: black;">just
what a pleasure it has been to write about Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe, to be <a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2018/06/if-youre-wondering-what-my-next-book-is.html" target="_blank">the author who has the privilege of introducing this formidable woman</a> to readers in
the U.S.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">A woman of deep faith, Sister Rosemary is
grounded in the Eucharist, and deeply devoted to Mother Mary. But as she likes
to say, don’t dismiss her struggle because she is a nun! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Sister Rosemary is a genuine disciple of
Jesus Christ who chooses to grapple daily with what it means to live out her
vocation—especially reaching out to the broken and bleeding and needy, the
living Body of Christ whom she sees in the women and orphans in northern
Uganda. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">It is her ministry of presence, above
all, that makes her example so powerful and meaningful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">To give you a taste of my book, here’s a
brief sample from its beginning:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Our four-wheeling Toyota Land
Cruiser snakes and curves in the twilight, struggling to miss as many potholes
as possible. But some dirt holes are simply so large that they bring our
vehicle to a complete stop before our skilled driver can finally, slowly, move
us forward. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Fast or slow, red dirt rises around
us like a thick fog, restraining our vision and overpowering our sense of
smell. Shockingly, neither the darkness nor the dirt, not even our speed,
impedes pedestrians of all ages from sharing the road with us. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">I watch a line of three women, one
behind the other, carrying five-gallon yellow containers of water on their heads.
Even as our car slides past them, the women continue, seemingly unaffected,
determined, skillfully maneuvering their own steps around both the fast-moving
vehicles and potholes. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">We are in northern Uganda, in what
is colloquially known as West Nile, a mere stone’s throw away from the South
Sudan border. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">I’m sharing the back seat of the
four-wheel-drive vehicle with Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe, who nudges me, then
raises her hand to point to the sign rushing past us, announcing our
destination: Moyo. It’s no wonder that she warned me as we got in the car, “The
road to Moyo is like going to Calvary! But Moyo . . . Moyo is paradise!” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Much like the way that New York City
locals describe distance in time, not miles, Sister Rosemary’s eyes smile as
she turns and whispers to me, “Only twenty more minutes,” which in non-Uganda
time really means at least another half hour, although not quite an hour. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">No matter. She continues fidgeting
with the beads of her rosary with her left hand…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">The landscape surrounding us is
anything but an urban metropolis. It smells humid, and it is eerily silent. The
car headlights bounce light into the growing darkness, occasionally revealing a
goat in the bush or a group of barefooted children herding a cow with a stick
on their way home for supper. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">We are slowly climbing up, with
mahogany trees and luscious bush showing off their beauty to either side of us.
<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">In modern African history, northern
Uganda is infamously known for its violent stories. Idi Amin carried out mass
executions of its native Acholi and Lango Christian tribes as well as other
ethnic groups, a tragedy followed by years of tribal “bush wars.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Soon afterward, for decades that persisted
into the early 2000s, the region sheltered the violent guerrillas of warlord
Joseph Rao Kony and his militia, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), as it moved
across the borders of Sudan, Congo, and back. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;"><a href="https://blog.franciscanmedia.org/sam/the-remarkable-sister-rosemary-nyirumbe" target="_blank">Hearing the stories of Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe’s life</a> makes the history of northern Uganda seem
simultaneously otherworldly and intensely relevant. Her story is, in fact,
intricately woven with the tragic, extreme, yet ultimately hopeful history of
this region in central Africa. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Best known as the driving force who
saved hundreds of children from abduction during the bloody wars that have
devastated northern Uganda and Sudan for decades, Sister Rosemary walks with a
sense and force of purpose and, always, with joy. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">No small task for a woman who not
only lived through these often brutal moments in her country’s history, but who
also stood up to the evil before her, time and time again—all in the name of
what she calls the gospel of presence, healing, and forgiveness. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">She was born in Paidha,
approximately one hundred miles—but four and a half hours by car—southwest of
Moyo. For almost twenty years, she has lived and worked at St. Monica’s Girls
Tailoring Centre rescuing and teaching marketable skills to women and children
who suffered first when they were abducted, and then again when they were
forced to join the violent, gruesome world of Kony’s militia. The one place
that has always welcomed them back from the bush is St. Monica’s in Gulu… <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Rome Reports described her in 2017
as “the Mother Teresa of Africa.” But, she will interrupt to say, grinning,
“None of these things make me taller than what I am! I’m level headed because I
don’t see these things as lifting me to be someone different.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">Although active abductions of
children in northern Uganda ended in 2006, even now the girls are continuing to
escape from their bush captivity. And Sister Rosemary passionately describes
story after horrifying story of what these children have lived through and why
they need us. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt;">You can
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rosemary-Nyirumbe-Sewing-Uganda-People/dp/0814644635/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ZEWPN4HL9UYF&keywords=rosemary+nyirumbe+sewing+hope+in+uganda&qid=1561226444&s=gateway&sprefix=rosemary+nyi%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1" target="_blank">order my book here</a> and <a href="https://litpress.org/Products/4463/Rosemary-Nyirumbe" target="_blank">here!</a> And see an article I wrote about her for <a href="https://blog.franciscanmedia.org/sam/the-remarkable-sister-rosemary-nyirumbe" target="_blank">St. Anthony Messenger magazine here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3946716175334921945.post-24297849782419469662019-06-14T15:01:00.002-05:002019-06-14T15:04:14.975-05:00the many colors of grief, part 2<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); clear: both; font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: center; text-size-adjust: auto;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">I will be here</span></i></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">I will be strong</span></i></i></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"></span></i>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">I'll face my fears</span></i></span></i></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">When the night is long</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">And still go on</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">I will be brave</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">I will be bold</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Follow my faith</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">To a higher road</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">And I'm not there yet</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">But I will be</span></i></div>
<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<div style="background: white; line-height: 19.5pt; margin: 12pt 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">~Wynona Judd, chorus of “I will be”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" style="background: white; line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">+<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>+<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>+<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background: white; line-height: 19.5pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Getting it all out doesn't
mean we need to be victims. It doesn't mean we need to revel in our misery,
finding status in our martyrdom. It doesn't mean we won't go on to set
boundaries. It doesn't mean we won't take care of ourselves.</span></b></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sometimes, getting
it all out is an essential part of taking care of ourselves. We reach a point
of surrender so we can move forward.</span></b><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> ~<a href="https://www.hazelden.org/store/item/1271?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=todays-gift" target="_blank">Melody Beattie, from “The Language of Letting Go</a>”</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">+<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>+<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>+<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">I tend to be incredibly
hard and impatient with myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><a href="https://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2018/05/15-years-after-my-camino-walking.html" target="_blank">My wise friend Pat</a> once
advised me to treat myself with the same patience, mercy, and understanding that
I treated the people around me—especially when they were walking through a
difficult situation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">So, <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-many-colors-of-grief-part-1.html" target="_blank">as I mentioned last time</a>, I have been deliberately giving myself time and space to find my way<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-- and find my grounding and Peace – as I
mourn and move forward in the new life of being a heart patient.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">I’m not going to lie. <a href="http://daybydaywithmaria.blogspot.com/2019/04/resting-in-love-which-began-it-all.html" target="_blank">It has been a lot to take in</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">I dislike (aka. hate) the
many colors of bruises that decorate various parts of my body each day, with no
recollection about how I got them! I <b><i>really</i></b> dislike trying to figure out the
side effects of my new meds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">As I was saying to my
mother in law earlier today, I have days when I’m good, and I have days when
I’m teary, and I have days when I’m pissed off, and I have days when I am <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">so <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">full</i></b>
of gratitude that I can’t help but be teary, again! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">But that sounds like
living life, doesn’t it? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Today, it is okay to just
say that I may not "be" where I want to be, that I’m not there yet – but I will be!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "georgia";">NOTE:<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Here’s a song that
reflects my current colors of grief, as well as all its lyrics -- words that have
strengthened my heart this week!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VS5Y0zIEtPE/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VS5Y0zIEtPE?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p> Video of </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Wynonna+Judd&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgVuLSz9U3MCxPMjc0XcTKE16Zl5-Xl6jgVZqSAgAaTXe2HQAAAA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp5t3Rod_iAhVWHTQIHTW6BOIQMTAAegQICxAF" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12pt;">Wynonna Judd</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
"I will be"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";"> Been caught in a downpour
of a rain of stones</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">
Felt like an exile in the world I had known</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 10pt;">So I sought the shelter of my own soul</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">
And stayed inside</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">I found no comfort in
placing blame</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">I saw the hope that lay just beyond the pain</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">The past is a prison and I won't wear those chains</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">And I won't hide, oh no</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">I will be here</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
I will be strong</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
I'll face my fears</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
When the night is long</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
And still go on</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
I will be brave</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
I will be bold</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
Follow my faith</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
To a higher road</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
And I'm not there yet</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">
But I will be</span><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "georgia";">I could choose to keep my
feet upon the beaten path</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Never cross the open field for the one snake in the grass</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">But I'd rather risk my heart then never get the chance</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia";">To find my way, to find my way</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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ps. photos of permanent Chihuly exhibit at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.okcmoa.com/" target="_blank">Oklahoma City Museum of Art</a></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->María Ruiz Scaperlandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07049343562098542784noreply@blogger.com1