7 Quick Takes living color!

Check out the collection of other 7 Quick Takes Friday posts, hosted at Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog, Conversion Diary

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Had my Sunday morning coffee interrupted by this little ole hawk hanging around our yard. Color me surprised.

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Last Saturday, September 8, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the Blessed Mother’s appearance to some young men off the coast of Cuba. I write about this story of Our Lady of Charity and why it’s meaningful to me at Patheos. And then, another personal story related to it, here. I guess I’m just a writing machine this week 🙂

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I got up early today, hopeful that I would have this post done before 9:00 AM, a kind of snapshot of my morning.

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But I’m old (see the bran?)

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And got distracted, I mean, inspired (see the journal? I got an idea for a scene in a story I’m working on)

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So I went for a long walk to clear my mind.

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And ended up here. That’s always a good thing.

Charity Unites Us

On September 8th Cubans everywhere celebrated the 400th anniversary of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, patroness of Cuba and, in a special way, advocate for all who feel displaced, far from home, or living in exile.

Caridad, as she is affectionately known, wants nothing more than to gather her children together and bring them to her son, Jesus. It seems such a simple desire—corrupted now in popular culture with the ironic “Can’t we all just get along.”

But Charity’s message is clear. It is first a message of Love. She holds the Child Jesus in her arms, close to her heart, and we are reminded that she is mother to us all because she is mother to the One.

read more at Patheos

Hey there! I’m over at Patheos today! How fun is that? I hope you follow the link to read the rest, and then stick around to see the other insightful, interesting, and yes, even funny stuff that’s over there. There’s a little something for everyone.

this love unites us

Yesterday, my grandmother, Emilia, would have been 100 years old. I remember when she passed away. The news came from Cuba to the eldest child, my Tia Libe, who couldn’t get a hold of my mother and called me to deliver the news.It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

This morning my dad forwarded an email from my Tio Emilio, a bishop in the diocese where the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity is situated. No doubt he has been very busy this past week in preparation for the celebrations surrounding this Jubilee year, the 400th anniversary of Our Lady’s appearance to the Cuban people.

No doubt he has been reflecting on the story of our Blessed Mother. No doubt the memory of his own beloved mother, my grandmother, was tugging at his heartstrings.

He sent a message to his sisters, my mother and aunts in the U.S., and by extension to his nieces and nephews — a message I’ll relate here, in abbreviated form because of its intimacy and beauty.

Tio Emi celebrated a private Mass last night for all of us on the centenary celebration of Emilia’s birth, noting that this makes it a jubilee year for the family as well. He noted some similarities in our family history to Mary’s experience, a story of two mothers, our spiritual mother and our family matriarch…

They both came across the ocean with a child in arms, and established a home to stay with us on our journeys.

One was from Nazareth, the other from Mutiloa.

One with Joseph, the other with Daniel.

One in exile because of Herod, the other in exile because of Franco.

Because of that, they called one Child the Nazarene, and the others they called Gallegos.

Then he lit two candles for Daniel and Emilia, because through them, love also unites us as a family, a beautiful allusion to the theme of this year’s Jubilee, Charity unites us. I was moved by the gesture and his relating of that story… this piece of my story… a story to pass on to my children, because it speaks to the greatest gift within our family, not in a literal comparison to the story of salvation, but to the human condition of it.

  • That we learn love and sacrifice within the family.  
  • That we are first loved by God, and we love because we know love.

It’s kind of a conundrum, this cycle of love, but our family story seems to be wrapped around this mantle of love, even as generations have moved from exile to exile. We are never alone, have never been alone, even in our deepest loneliness and separation. And we can look forward to the glorious happy day when we are all reunited before the Author of this story.

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