Category: Daily Thoughts

Over a number years I have visited the Blue Army Shrine in Washington, NJ and passed by the life size statue of St Padre Pio, the Capuchin monk who was officially proclaimed a saint by Pope John Paul 11 now St John Paul The Great. I stopped and looked but never felt any spiritual connection with this Franciscan who lived at the San Giovanni Monastery and had the stigmata, the wounds of Christ. For many years he was both maligned and revered by the Vatican, many Catholics and others. I believed he was authentic but paid little attention to him.

Then a few weeks ago I received a book, Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry, written by Diane Allen who included true stories of numerous people she interviewed who had experienced spiritual, physical, and financial help and also many who received personal guidance in their relationships and vocational choices from this humble friar.

Miraculous incidents of bi-location, healings, conversions, etc. are included. The most impressive revelation in this book for me is his profound love of God and people. He was known for the gift of reading souls and the tremendous number of confessions he heard. He could be severe in some cases, but he meant it for the salvation of the person’s soul.

In the modern world where the tangible, scientific, and intellectual are valued most– purely things of human understanding– we can surely profit from the mystical, miraculous, and yet the truly human saint. Perhaps you might take a closer look at this Spiritual Father.

Sunrise

I rushed to see the sunrise
As it appeared through barren branches
Each rising like prints on fingers
Its own alone
This one ushers in the first spring-like day
The night’s rain dampening the earth
Songs of unseen friends of flight surround me.
I may not see another sunrise
And for certain not one the same
The orb with glorious rays
I cannot bear to see directly
Still its light reveals itself in everything and everyone
I do not rush to leave
My place here in the sun.

April 5, 2017

I looked for Him in the sunrise and in the glory of the night, the stars and moon, the canopy of lights. Still my soul searched on and would not be stilled, tossing in the hours before the dawn. And when I rose exhausted from the lack of rest, I looked again for Him and asked, “Where are you, Lord?”
I cried until the waters of my sorrows ceased, and none were left.  No more could I seek or cry or ask, and it was then in the stillness of my distress He whispered, “I am here inside your heart.”

1Kings 19: 11-13  “… the Lord was not in the wind…the Lord was not in the earthquake…the Lord was not in the fire…there was a tiny whispering sound…and Elijah hid his face in his cloak…”

New American Bible: St. Joseph Edition

“There is a time for everything under heaven…”  Ecclesiastics 3

From the beginning of my life until I left rural northeast PA after college, I spent a great deal of time with my grandparents.  In June 1943 my mother brought me directly from the hospital to live on her parents’ farm because Daddy was overseas, a soldier in WWII.  After three years he came home and only then did we leave the farmhouse.  My bond with my grandparents continued to be strong and after Grandpa had a stroke, I stayed with them summers and on weekends during the school year.

In one way I believe this proved to be beneficial in allowing me hours alone to ponder and also write down my thoughts expressed in poems and stories and such.

At the age of eight, I wrote a speech about being the first woman president of the United States and proudly read it to group of relatives.  My main premise was giving everything to everyone.  Sound familiar?  My politics soon changed—influenced by my staunch Republican grandmother.

The point of this meandering is a time factor.  Not that I stopped writing entirely but that I never returned to the early place of quiet hours pursuing the creative ideas flowing from my being and taking pen to paper.

Now is my season once again of “a time to write.”