Posts

The Nighttime Mysteries

Image
Like much of the population over 50 in this country, I don't sleep well. So in the middle of the night as I lay awake, either never having fallen asleep or having woken up, I often say the Rosary. The Rosary is a Catholic prayer that takes about 20 minutes or so to pray. It is divided into five decades, with ten Hail Mary's and one Our Father and one Glory Be prayed for each decade.  While praying the Rosary, we focus on different mysteries of the faith for specific days of the week. Sundays and Wednesdays are the Glorious Mysteries (Resurrection of Jesus, Ascension of Jesus, Descent of the Holy Spirit, Assumption of Mary, and Coronation of Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth), Monday and Saturday are the Joyful Mysteries (Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Presentation, Finding Jesus in the Temple), Tuesday and Friday are the Sorrowful Mysteries (Agony in the Garden, Scourging at the Pillar, Crowning with Thorns, Jesus Carries His Cross, Crucifixion and Death of Jesus), and Thurs...
Post a Comment
Read more

2025 Year In Review

Image
  Here is the Christmas card and letter we sent out. Late, but back in the day, the Christmas season went until Candlemas, on February 2. Here's to old traditions!
Post a Comment
Read more

Some Old Acquaintances Will Never Be Forgotten

Image
It's December 31, 2025 and I am typing these words in the library of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Immaculate Conception Convent on Heading Avenue in West Peoria, Illinois. The year is ending, and not to put too fine a point on it, so in the not distant future is the convent. For the past few years, the Catholic sisters have been moving to (don't laugh) Lutheran Hillside Village in Peoria, a lovely retirement community with apartments, assisted living, and nursing home care.  The reason for this move is that the convent at over 55,000 square feet, situated on five acres, is too large for the 20 some remaining sisters. It won't surprise you to learn that over the past few decades, the number of sisters in the order has been declining, as it has for Catholic orders across the United States. Religious life, especially for women, is not a common choice anymore. I won't go into the reasons for decline in this post, but want to acknowledge how sad it is for those of us wh...
Post a Comment
Read more

Springsteen

Image
Bruce Springsteen reminds me of November. There is something stark yet rich about his music. It's rock n' roll underlaid by longing and sometimes a tinge of sadness. There is gratitude in his embodiment and celebration of the moments and events of life.  So gratefully, I've started a subscription to Sirius Radio, an early Christmas present from my husband John. Sirius has an E Street Band Channel (20) and I've been listening to it almost exclusively since my subscription began.  I would call myself a slightly above average Springsteen fan. I caught the magic, as so many people do, when I saw him live. I became a fan at the L.A. Sports Arena sometime in August 1981 on the River tour. Before that I mainly knew Bruce as the guy who improbably was on the cover of Time and Newsweek at the same time. In high school, my tastes ran more toward America and the Eagles. One of my tennis-playing friends told me those were too mellow and even though Bruce wasn't played much on t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Does anyone know where the love of God goes?

Image
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, immortalized by the song from Gordon Lightfoot, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." It's a haunting song with the haunting verse, "Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?" Certainly in extreme life and death situations like this, we can feel abandoned by God.  There are other circumstances where one may wonder "where the love of God goes." Poverty, for one. I've been thinking about poverty, or more to the point, people who are poor, a lot this past week. On Friday, I participated in a Poverty Exercise at the Dream Center in Peoria. The approximately 50 participants were divided into families of 3-5 and given a task of items to accomplish, mainly surrounding paying bills. I was a disabled father-in-law, who was reduced to making suggestions and watching helplessly as my daughter and son-in-law scrambled to cover bills with no...
1 comment
Read more

Franklin's Home

Image
Franklin enjoying some coconut. I'm in the Dominican Republic with my husband John. He comes here frequently for Haitian Hearts work. I join him every two years or so to see in person some of the work we do.  Yesterday we traveled about two hours from Santo Domingo, the capital, to the home of one of John's patients, 13-year-old Franklin, who has a big heart problem. Ten years ago or longer, Franklin got strep throat, which developed into rheumatic fever, which has severely damaged the mitral valve in his heart. I will talk more about Franklin in a future post. John wanted to examine Franklin in his home (you learn a lot about a patient when you see him in his home environment). A driver took us through the city of Santo Domingo out into the country, to the little settlement where Franklin and his family live. Fortunately for us, yesterday was a national holiday, Constitution Day, so while there was traffic, it wasn't nearly as heavy as a typical Monday. Perhaps traffic acc...
Post a Comment
Read more

July 31: St. Ignatius of Loyola & Lydia Moss Bradley

Image
At the top of my list of people from history who I would like to meet are St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and developer of the Spiritual Exercises, and Lydia Moss Bradley, founder of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Besides being on my list, they have something else in common: July 31st. Lydia was born July 31, 1816 and St. Ignatius was born to eternal life (i.e. died) on July 31, 1556. Today is his Feast Day.  The story of Ignatius's life is very compelling. Born in Spain, he was a soldier and lady's man, when he was seriously injured by a cannonball during a battle with the French. While he was recovering, he read the books available to him. He noticed that when he read adventure stories, he enjoyed them while he was reading them but afterwards, he felt empty. But when he read about Jesus and the saints, he felt uplifted afterwards. This was the beginning of his conversion, which led him to commit his life to Jesus and go on a rigorous pilgrimage through...
Post a Comment
Read more