This Land is Your Land! Pray for her and your local community!

Woodstock, VA historic courthouse

Does it make you angry to see the evil global elitists doing everything they can to destroy not only our country, but all the sovereign nations of the world? Love of your homeland is a virtue.  According to St. Thomas Aquinas it is man's nature to be  a “civic and social animal.” (ST, I-II, 72.4) Society begins in the family, the basic building block of every community. If the family is moral and strong, a nation will be moral and strong. That's why communist philosophy always strikes at the family. Orwell showed that masterfully in 1984 where children were encouraged to spy on their parents and report them for violations against Big Brother. 

I love our little community of Woodstock here in the Shenandoah Valley. It's much easier to relate to our small town than the community we fled in Fairfax County. We noticed the difference from our earliest days. I'll repeat a story I've told before. 

A few weeks after moving here I mailed a package from the town post office. It had our return address on the label, but no name. Unfortunately, I forgot my glasses on the counter. At home awhile later I was searching for my glasses when the phone rang. It was the clerk at the post office asking if I'd left my glasses. She had looked up my name from the address. After hanging up, I turned to my husband and said, "We've moved to a place that has real people." And, sure enough, that's what we've found about living in this precious little town. If I were designing a brochure for Woodstock, I would be sure to include the motto, "Real people live here!"

What made me think about Woodstock today has to do with a business in town.

Several years ago a new age shop, The Crystal Cat, put out their shingle in a little strip mall in town. The shop shared a wall with one of my favorite thrift stores. A large, attractive banner featuring a cat hung out front. Talking to the cashier at the thrift store, I was alarmed to hear her praising the shop and having no problem whatsoever with what they do. She was middle aged, but I thought of the many young people (Massanutten Military Academy is almost next door) who could be scandalized  by the pagan message and might visit out of curiosity. Did they sell ouija boards among their incense, crystals and books about new age philosophy?

I never went into the shop but I did do several things. When it was closed, Larry and I went over and prayed the rosary. I inserted a St. Benedict medal in the crack between the top of the door and the brickwork.  It protruded slightly but I doubted anyone would ever notice.  They didn't. It's still there. I also buried one behind the shop near their back door. Then I sprinkled holy water and blessed salt in both the front and back. 

The shop remained and whenever we drove by we prayed the St. Michael prayer. 

Yesterday, when Larry came home from the gym, he told me The Crystal Cat was gone. I've been thanking St. Benedict for his intercession. May something good, or at least neutral move into that space.

Larry and I love Woodstock! We've participated in the Life Chain almost every year since we moved here in 2002. We've prayed the rosary in front of the court house on a number of occasions with other Catholics. I've taken rosary walks around town with a friend. Larry and I occasionally drive around town praying the rosary and sprinkling holy water. We pause to pray at various locations: the hospital, the post office, the shopping mall, the local school, the women's shelter, the police department, etc. We pray for everyone who lives here, especially those who are in danger of hell. 

And we also pray for Camp Kreitzer that it will always be a place of peace and a respite from the cares of the world. I often make a circuit of the perimeter sprinkling holy water. We ask St. Michael the Archangel and St. Joseph to be the guardians of this little spot on planet earth.

The philosophy of a community develops from the philosophy of its individual citizens. The holier the individuals, the holier its families, the holier the community. May we all be the yeast that raises a community to the heights of goodness through the grace of God.

Let's all pray this Lent for our little corners of the world. May God give us peace and joy starting at home.

May Jesus Christ be praised!