Author: Maria Johnson

las mañanitas

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a little lame with the translation, but you get the picture 🙂

These are the songs that King David sang.
Today because it is the day of your saint, we sing them to you.

Wake up my dear, wake up, see that the day has dawned
the birds sing, the moon has set.

How lovely is the morning in which I come to greet you
we all come with joy and pleasure to congratulate you.

The day you were born all the flowers bloomed
and in the baptismal font sang the nightingales.

The dawn has come, the light of the day is given to us.
Get up with the morning and see that it has dawned.

in which I ponder adverbs

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A friend of mine gave me a poster at the beginning of Advent that has a list of adverbs on it.

That’s all, just adverbs.

It’s a pretty funny thing. I mean, what do adverbs have to do with Advent? I think if you reflect on these words in light of our yearning for the coming of Christ, you might just get it.

I’ve been pondering the words myself, so I added a few of my own, and created what we boring old English teachers call a Concrete Poem.

You probably call it a Wordle.

What adverbs would you add?

JOY!

joy

So I have this friend who sees my happy mood today and swoops into my office all secretive and stuff, grabs a scrap of paper off my desk and writes —

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…and then disappears. Of course, I had to look it up. She was right.

She is clothed with strength and dignity,

and laughs at the days to come.

Proverbs 31:25

it’s a flannery kinda morning

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When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God’s business.
Flannery O’Connor

it’s been ages since I make a rosary

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I found this loop of twine and dug around and found a crucifix, so I made a rosary today. I’m way out of practice because I had to untie the knot for the crucifix three times before I finally got it right.

Ok, I didn’t so much get it right as get it to a place that didn’t make me want to untie the whole thing again.

I used to make rosaries all the time, and then an extraordinary thing happened and I started praying rosaries all the time. I still make the random rosary, but a touch of arthritis is making pulling the twine a little difficult. The prayer, however, is as comfortable in my hands as ever.

I wonder, do you have a favorite prayer or devotion?

advent, light, and confession

Thanks to Facebook friends Elizabeth Scalia and Tom Clowe posting two unrelated links to things they had read or seen, I ended up with quite a fruitful morning of prayer and reflection. I thought I’d pass them along since that seems to be the real gift of the internet although we’d all like to believe it’s really this.

It seems that confession is a hot topic this week, and I suppose, it should be. I was talking briefly to the gang on Catholic Weekend about it and the opportunity it brings us during Advent, and then I ran across Elizabeth’s recommendation for this beautiful reflection by Heather King, and I was undone by the beauty of it, and the simple simple truth, that what we want is to go home…to be home.

Like many people, I resist[ed] confession, and could list a multitude of rational reasons for it. Upon reflection, they are not rational at all, but mere rationalizations. Discomfort, shame, pride, inconvenience, ignorance, anger, shyness, shame, did I say shame?

In the midst of all the misunderstanding about this sacrament is the fear of rebuke. We are, after all, confessing our failings. Let me put that out there more accurately, our sins. I already feel pretty crappy about the fact that a confession doesn’t go by where I don’t confess some of the same things. Over and over and over again. At some point the priest is going to ask me to knock it off already. Maybe in a stern voice to shake me up a little and make me see the error of my ways.

Who wants that?

Well. I do. I want it very much. And I want the penance that goes with it.

But Tom’s post of this lovely video inspired by Newman’s poem, Pillar of the Cloud, reminded me of a different confession. One that I surmise was a good confession but yielded, not an intense penance, but a parting gift of this poem, straight from the priest’s own prayer book. He didn’t direct me to reflect on it or even read it. He just looked at me kindly and gave it to me. I guess we both left it up to Jesus to do His work in my heart.

I can’t come across this poem or the hymn without revisiting that day and the overwhelming sense of having been heard. Understood.

Loved.

I understood, in a different way, in a way meaningful to me, what Heather meant by “a complete and utter miracle.”

sometimes I win, and sometimes I win BIG!

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One of my favorite resources on-line is Lisa Hendey’s CatholicMom.com. I met Lisa many years ago at the first Catholic New Media Celebration in Atlanta. She was moderating the blogging panel and I thought, wow, is this woman really as nice as she seems to be?

Yes, she is.

Rumors of her diva-like qualities, rumors, I confess, perpetuated on Catholic Weekend and totally undeserved. She’s a peach. A pussycat. A sweetheart. A delightful…well, you get the picture.

Every once in a while she’ll have a contest over on her website.  All you have to do is post a comment on a blogpost and voila! Through the magic of very complex algorithms that only Stephen Hawking or Data can understand, she draws a winner.

Cue this whimsical (and a little quirky, I’m not gonna lie) bobble-head of Mother Teresa!!!

I won this neat little kitschy conversation starter, and knew I had to share it with you. I think I’ll carry her around with me for a while, but I have this crazy idea that she could be a fun little Flat Stanley project, only, not flat, bobble-headed.

Whadya think? I’d be happy to send it to anyone wanting a picture with her. The catch is, you have to send me a picture, and you have to mail it to the next person requesting her bobble-headed grandeur. I’ll post the pictures here.

Oh, and you should commit to praying a rosary for the person who sent it to you. I mean, it is Mother Teresa, after all.

Discuss!