THE SHORTEST MONTH IN THE YEAR

I came across my Mother’s diary today. I should say “one of her diaries” because she filled in several a year, not, as you can imagine, for dates and happenings, but to write in her favourite sayings.

She gathered these from all over the  place, favourite cuttings from newspapers, words of wisdom from current stars of radio, screen or stage, snatches of poetry remembered from childhood, quotations from her favourite playwrights, authors or even from people she knew.

To read one of her diaries, was to take a trip back in time, to see her again, in the mind’s eye, bent over this little book when the day’s work was done.  She loved it, and to read what she once wrote down so lovingly in days gone by, brought her close.

In my mind, I could hear her soft Irish voice as she read out bits to us, see her face crease up with laughter at some absurdity that she had captured when quoting from the words of some star of radio or television. I looked at her writing – no computers then – and I was filled with love and yes, wonder.  How did she manage to write all that? It was not an orderly account of anything, just random jottings that came to her as she sat by the fire in the evenings. But to read it now, brought back all the life, the vibrancy, the colour that was my mother.

To have had a mother like her was a gift I can never repay.  She was intelligent, funny, wise, sensitive and energetic with a mind that, like Autolycus in Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale”, made her “a snapper up of unconsidered trifles.”  She had an eye for kindness, for wisdom, for absurdity and for what I can only call faith. She never learned theology as such, but her love of the Scriptures shone out from her, and she always said to us, “Remember this saying: ‘Prayer is the golden chain that binds us to the feet of God’" -  I think that is Tennyson. She loved him. Prayer for her was just talking to God, inviting Our Lady to sit opposite her in a chair, and then having a loving conversation together.  Our Lady was her best friend. So often I see my mother’s hands slipping the beads through her fingers – she said all the mysteries of the Rosary each day.

And like the mother in “The Boree Log” every prayer she said was answered. You remember that old lady who came from Ireland to Australia in the beginning of the 20^th century? She prayed for “every hurted hand, and every hurted heart” (or words to that effect!) and everything came right. So did my mother’s prayers.

But I started this blog by calling it “The Shortest Month in the Year.”  That is, I think, February.  My mother loved February because it was the brink month, when Spring was waiting to burst out in all its splendour.

I once said to her “I hate November and February, they are so dull!” and she was so cross with me. “Never say any day or month is horrible, it is God’s gift to you," she replied. 

“No matter what it looks like, try to see the goodness in each day, and the promise in each month,” was her advice.  I couldn’t see it at the time, but now I can.  We have bad floods and terrible weather at the moment in many parts of this country, and throughout the world.  We can be tempted to be despairing, but, as my mother pointed out, there will be better times if we keep our hopes up.

History has largely proved her right.

February was one of my mother’s favourite months.  She loved the tiny lengthening
of the evenings, calling it “a cock’s step” of added light.  She could smell the earth quickening, and see, in her mind’s eye, the riot of Spring flowers that were soon to grace her little patch of garden.

February, for her was “brink month, young month, which unlocks the gate to Spring. It is always on the brink of something wonderful.”  That is what I am reading in her diary just now. It was her philosophy. She believed that the shortest month of our year was indeed the threshold of “something wonderful.”  She died on the 15^th February, just as the flowers were beginning to poke up cautious green stalks through the as yet, unwarmed earth.  She knew she too was on the brink of something wonderful. That year, her Spring was with God, and I know she would have exclaimed with delight at the unbelievable colours of Heaven, and the “something wonderful” was life with him in his eternal Springtime.

“I will plant,” she said to me,   “Stocks, phlox, cosmos, nemesia, Sweet William, daffodils, wallflowers and pinks this February.  They will be lovely!”

Have a good brink month.  God bless each of you and may “something wonderful” be yours.

 

The healing power of God

February 11th is the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  That was the date of the first apparition to Bernadette in that little market town at the foot of the Pyrenees  in 1858. It is now renowned for its pilgrimages and for its many healings, not all of them, of course, physical ones.  It is a place of prayer, of much love and of a tangible presence of the compassionate love of our God, passed on to us by his mother.

 

It is also a place which attracts people of all ages, all faiths or none, from all over the world. And it began with a young girl who suffered from asthma seeing "a beautiful lady" perched high up on a rock beside the nearby river Gave. That smiling lady, who so attracted little Bernadette and her companions on that raw day in February a hundred and fifty five years ago, was the Mother of God.  The rest, as they say, is history.

In this Year of Faith, the anniversary of that momentous meeting, draws all of us into that loving embrace of God.  Lourdes is about  living our faith. Like all shrines, particularly those dedicated to the Mother of God, it calls us to express our faith in pilgrimage, to share with others our belief in the healing and loving response of God to the needs of our beautiful, but fragmented world.   As one young pilgrim once said while kneeling at the grotto: "This place is awesome!"  That just about describes it.

Yet it started in simplicity, and, in spite of the somewhat tatty shops that have sprung up around the shrine, it remains simple, loving and awesome.  We cannot all go to Lourdes on pilgrimage, but we can all partake in its blessings.  On Monday, let's  pray fervently to  this "beautiful lady" of the Pyrenees, and ask her to heal us of the smallness of our minds, our greed, our attachment to money and success. If those things are taken singly, they are manageable, but, taken as a whole, they can be great blocks to our spiritual life.  Our Lady knows this, and she so wants to reach out to us with that gentle love that is so evident in Lourdes itself.

Another thing we need to ask her to heal within us are the memories of long ago traumas, rejections, absence of love, injustices and  the  painful relationships in the past, which cause residual anger and depression. She will do it, there is nothing more sure. But we have to believe that a transformation can take place.  Ask her for help.  She is, after all   "health of the sick, refuge of sinners, comforter of the afflicted" as her litany points out.  We sing fervently enough the words which snake around the grotto on Summer evenings in Lourdes:

"For poor, sick, afflicted thy mercy we crave and comfort the dying thou light of the grave! Ave, Ave, Ave Maria... " 

She loves to hear words like that, as we place all our hope in her who is the mediatrix of all graces.   Have a good remembrance day on Monday!

The 12th February used to be the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  In our Congregation this feast has special significance as it was the day when we became officially a Religious Congregation way back in 1872.  Our Founder, Mother Magdalen Taylor, made her Vows for life on that day, so we too hold it in great veneration, and offer our lives once again for the Church and the world.  Pray for us won't you, and we will remember you too.  We shall meet in that loving heart of Mary in our prayer. 

 

We'll talk again on Valentine's Day!! Until then, take care.