Time Out for Refreshing the Soul

I didn't use the computer much today. Instead I met with a group of women friends for lunch. We are all serious orthodox Catholics engaged in a wide range of apostolates: Catholic education, pro-life, working to get moral politicians elected, etc. Between lunch and desert we stopped to pray the rosary for our country, the election of our Virginia ticket next November, and for our individual prayer needs.

Listening to the lovely voices of these women praying together filled my heart with joy. During our visit, we shared information about each others families, talked about politics, religion, and books, and, not surprisingly, my own latest project: bee-keeping. We laughed a lot. One of my friends commented that we should only agree to discuss gay marriage at the insane asylum because that's where the discussion belongs. Amen!

We decided at the end of our afternoon, as we were all hugging and saying good-bye, that we need to do this on a regular basis, maybe once every few months. In a world hell-bent on suicide, where sanity seems to have fled the scene, those who love God need to meet and rejoice in our common embrace of Christ and His Church. What a refreshing and delightful respite this was, dare I say, a little preview of the joy of heaven?

Yes, we will meet again for fellowship and prayer and bring others into our blessed circle. True joy dispels the darkness. Evil hates it and flees from it. If you are feeling surrounded by evil, smile and repeat the name of Jesus. If you don't know Him, if you don't believe God even exists, ask Him to show you. God never leaves us alone in the dark and He reads our hearts. If we are sincerely seeking Him, we will find Him. And how can anyone, on finding Him not react the way the woman who swept her house looking for her lost coin reacted - with celebration. As Scripture says, "Rejoice in the Lord always."

That's what we did this afternoon and it was a joy to behold. Praise God for good friends!

And to top the day off, on the way home, as if to confirm the joy of the day and His promise to be always with us, we saw a brilliant rainbow arcing across the entire sky. We didn't need the pot of gold at its end to feel rich!