Praying for You While I'm on Retreat; In Your Kindness, Please Pray for Us!

Our Lady's Lamp will be shining brightly
as my annual Ignatian retreat begins.

I'm leaving today for my annual five day silent retreat with Fr. James Buckley (FSSP) using the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. This particular retreat will have three generations of Kreitzer women attending, since I will be there with my daughter and her daughter, our oldest grandchild.

What a blessing! And what a memory! We plan to get a photo with Fr. Buckley together. I imagine this may be the first time he has a retreat with three generations from the same family.

My daughter has attended several times over the past 15 years with me, but this will be a first time for the third generation.

Sunday Meditation: "Fear is Useless; What's Needed is Trust..."

Our Lady's Lamp reminds us of God's love for his people!
"Blessed is the man whose hope is the Lord."  Jeremiah 17:7

...and a double serving of hope which is implied in the word trust. After all, if we are in need and turn to someone don't we hope that they will assist or guide us? Sometimes they don't. But whom can we count on to NEVER fail us?

Certainly putting our trust in fallible men is foolish even when we need to depend on them for help. With men, we need to follow Reagan's advice, "Trust but verify." Not so with the Lord. His love never fails.

Every day when I say my morning prayers I make an act of hope. "O my God, relying on Your almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope in the forgiveness of sins, the help of Your grace, and life everlasting through the merits of Your Son Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer."

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.