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Monday, November 8, 2010

Our Lady's Lamp

I love Flannery O'Conner's work because she uses the sun and moon as Eucharistic images. In It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey offers to lasso the moon and give it to Mary. What should she do with it, she asks? "You can eat it," George responds and the light will come out of her hair and her fingers.

Capra was a Catholic and whenever I see that scene in the movie I wonder if he was using the moon as an image of the Eucharist. Eat it and you will become a bearer of the light, reflecting it to the world.



The moon is called Our Lady's lamp. Mary reflects the light of the world, her Son Jesus, like the moon reflects the light of nature's sun. And how beautiful it is! How many gifts God gives us! Let us never forget to say thank you. And if you haven't gone out to look at the night sky lately, Be sure to do it often.

The stars are brilliant in northern Virginia tonight with a little sliver of moon that looks like a smile in the night sky. Thank you, Lord, for the constant reminders of your love for us.

2 comments:

  1. How beautiful! I am a Flannery O'Conner fan too. Have you read her collected letters, they are in a book called The Habit of Being. She was quite a character and you really get to meet her in this book.

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  2. Thanks for reminding me of that beautiful book, Michele. I pulled it out and browsed a few of her letters. Here's an excerpt that made me smile about a disagreement with a publisher about one of her novels.

    "The criticism is vague and really tells me nothing except that they don't like it. I feel the objections they raise are connected with its virtues, and the thought of working with them specifically to correct these lacks they mention is repulsive to me. The letter is addressed to a slightly dim-witted Camp Fire Girl, and I cannot look with composure on getting a lifetime of others like them."

    Sounds like the publisher just didn't like her style which is certainly unique and, some would call, strange. I love her for it!

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