Pilgrimage Day 1

Praise the Lord for a sweet lil pilgrimage to Rome, Assisi and Lourdes at the beginning of June! I’m most grateful for the people God put with me on the trip – especially a group of Texans who kept it real with me throughout the journey. More about them later…now here’s Day 1.

I began my Italy/ France pilgrimage in Rome with Mass at St. Mary Major Church. I looked at the mosaic angels on the ceiling and thought of things that fly. I remembered the airplane that took me overseas and the stuffed toy cockatoo I made for a friend’s baby.

I thought about how much love and money was poured into those beautiful mosaic beings flocked in the heavens and I thought about the perseverance of artists so devoted to their craft and its impact on  generations that they persisted without the assurance they’d see the finished masterpiece. That’s way more perseverance than it took to create little Clarence the Cockatoo, though he’s filled great love.

And I thought of God who has a whole legion of angels fighting/flighting for me—a work of art more precious than any statue or fresco in Italy. God, grant me the perseverance to see myself as a work of art flyin high with your love in my life!

The Memorare reminds me to fly to Mary, who begs all the graces I need from her Son in the work of art in my soul.

“Remember O most Gracious Virgin Mary that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided.”

God give me the grace to fly to you again and again as you continue to clean out of my heart all that holds me back from soaring into the sunset of your resurrection. And when I die, let my soul fly to you with the swiftness of an angel or cockatoo, of the same genus perhaps as the dove which St. Benedict watched leave his sister St. Scholastic’s body when she died.

I was also grateful for Sunday Mass that day, which I didn’t think we’d have due to the arrival time, and for a young Texan woman who became my friend. She was the same age my sister would have been if she were alive and she was born on St. Anthony’s feast day -- because St. Anthony is the man and he loves me.

Thank you God for simple lovin and flyin friends in Rome.