Today is a holy day of remembrance. Many days we remember these women, but today we do it with the Church in a formal way.
We have all been affected in different ways by the martyrdom of these ASCs depending on how well we knew them. But the brutality of their deaths when we knew of their generous willingness to serve is hard, a kind of suffering and loss that we can’t really be prepared for.
It might be a good day to allow ourselves the time and energy to be “with” the millions of citizens of this world who continue to suffer in these kind of brutal wars where life is cheap and families are torn apart. Our reality seldom makes us face these very difficult situations, so we have to work through our hearts and spirits to stay “in touch” with those who suffer.
I hope this time of the changing season is bringing you many blessings, blessing of encounter with the God who creates us anew each day and invites us into the process of living his creation well.
Thank you to all who remembered my birthday this week. I was born on my parents first wedding anniversary. When I was with my Mom on Sunday my nephew called her and I knew he would not be tuned into her anniversary, so I told him it was her 71rst wedding anniversary. As I handed her the phone my Mom said it’s 61, not 71! I told her it was 71 and I could see her mind calculating the dates. Her first words to my nephew were “no wonder I feel so old, I am old!” I noticed it was hard to get any sympathy for my age……most of you still see me as “young”.
All members of the Leadership Team were together yesterday for an all-day meeting. It was the first time in about a month that we have all been together and we had a good day. There is a lot of good work being done among us. All seems to be going well. We talked about how to share it with you and we’ll be doing that in the near future.
Blessings to each of you!