Friday, 30 October 2009

  • Being Holy

    *This was originally written for intomylens for her series on Halloween and the Holy Days. You will find it there as well as here today. Just for blue, I have added the prayer in latin coz I know she digs that)

    By the time October has reached its dissolution, the cold and the wet will have found its way to this end of Texas.
    This is a place where Summer does not flaunt her good-byes, she simply leaves. There is no spectacular display of cross-dressing trees nor have they tossed any bright swirling confetti in the yards or down the street as a requiem.
    Things here turn brown.
    Die.
    Fall.
    And the rain and cold slither in.

    It is one of my favourite times of year.

    We are Irish-the whole lot of us-and the grasp of death and rebirth are sewn into the fiber of our being. We do not need a calendar to know when things end or where they begin.

    We know. 

    Our heritage tells us it's a time souls and spirits come a little closer to earth and the Church that my family has belonged to for generation upon generation, acknowledges that; as best they can,  in All Saints Day (Nov 1) and All Souls Day (Nov 2). It is a time of remembering and giving thanks and asking for blessings upon the upcoming year.

    Precisely it is a time to honour Saints of the Church, but in our family-and most any other, if we are honest- it is our beloved, deceased family and friends are the ones we think of. 

    Holy Days of Opportunity.
     
    No matter how noble, illustrious or long-suffering,  what Saint of the Church could compare with the memory of a beloved grandmother patiently teaching a curious child the magic of flour, sugar and eggs in a drafty kitchen? The grandfather who conjured a fish from the dancing water with only a pale line and wiggly worm? The elderly neighbor who painstakingly taught tonedeaf and stubborn children piano or let them play on her lawn even though the park was right down the street?

    Those are our Saints.

    Those are days that Love rises in the cold wet and reaches beyond the dark and the dirt and goes straight to the ear of God.  Psalms and blessings are sung, candles are lit and sadness and joy are offered up to beseech our Lord and God.

    "Gloria Patri, et Filio et
    Spriitui Sancto, Sicut erat in principio,
    et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.
    Amen"

    Be a blessing to someone.

    These are your Holy Days of Opportunity.

    Be remembered.

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