...more than you'll ever know, Sara, darling."
Growing up in Kentucky, I heard this thousands of times in a soft, southern drawl. I am named after my paternal grandmother, Sara Evelyn Gott Cohron. I know few people so unadulterated, so full of wholesome love and affection. She died just a month before our wedding day, in the summer of 1994, but her pure and loving spirit abides in my heart. The beauty of the Communion of Saints is that I am still getting to know her quiet, steadfast person. She is praying for me. I know this. I know that many of the soft, sweet promptings that I feel, as a wife and mother and sister in Christ, come from the love poured in to me by my grandmother Sara. Lord, open my lips and my mouth will proclaim your praise!
This morning, as I was reflecting on a book of daily spiritual meditations (I try to take some time every morning to ask God "in" to my day, hopefully listening to one or two things that I know He has planned for me for the day.) I was deeply aware, for a minute or two, of the refreshing love God is always sending our way. He is so meek and humble of heart. His servants are meek and humble of heart.
This is so sweet. I am also praying and reading alot about our need to completely experience the Father's blessing, through the one saving act of His Son on the Holy Cross. I know that sounds like remedial Christianity. It is. As I have been going around the house doing my work, I have been humming and singing the words of the good thief, the thief who "stole Heaven." We pray:
Jesus, remember me, when You come in to Your Kingdom.
Jesus, remember me, when You come in to Your Kingdom!
As I mentioned in a recent post, lately God has been asking me to become more aware of the various charisms He gives to us, the members of the Body of Christ. Thanks be to God and his priests, there is an Awakening going on in my soul. This may sound corny. I do not care. I am, and always have been, a bit of a country girl. In the Kentucky of the 1930's, one of the delights of my grandmother Sara's youth was to feed the chickens on her family farm. Here in suburban Georgia, last month, at a recent parish mission, the priest talked about "entering the atmosphere of God's Kingdom," and he evoked an image in me of the recent movie I had seen earlier this summer with my husband and my son, "Apollo 13," with actor Tom Hanks.
In the movie, the astronauts do not make their lunar landing, as planned. They do, however, leave the atmosphere of their home planet, Earth. They circle the moon and view the Earth from afar. This has happened to me with the terrible sufferings of what has happened in Regnum Christi and the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ. Sufferings shoot us out of ourselves, making us so vulnerable. So often, it can make us bitter; and, we may choose to leave our "homeland," which is God's Love and Mercy, for a long time.
Thanks be to God, this did not happen to me. I asked, and asked, and asked again for Mary to "hold me." I asked the Blessed Mother to pray to Jesus, her Divine Son, Who will refuse nothing she asks. I asked her to ask Him to tell me what I need to stay the course and live out the Father's Holy Will for my life. In a nutshell, the answer was the Holy Spirit.
So, I do not know everything. I do know that I am loved and blessed beyond my wildest imaginings. That is so good. On that, I can hang my hat. On that, I can call it a new day, a day in which I am open and ready to love others as God loves. When I fail, I jump in to Mary's lap, which is mysteriously the Seat of Wisdom.
I answered my grandmother's blessing this morning during my prayer time. I told her, "I am just starting to know what 'more than you'll ever know' is..." I am just starting to know.
May Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.
