I've mentioned this artist before (and I will keep doing it until everyone I know has at least given her music a try), but if you want to be blessed and uplifted and refreshed and energized, LISTEN TO AUDREY ASSAD. This song is appropriate, because it's mid-April, and we are still sitting under three solid feet of snow. So try not to laugh when this video begins with the "Spring" quotation from Shelley. He obviously had never heard of Saskatchewan.

On a somber (and more hopeful) note, the song and video remind me of death and resurrection. I'm thinking of the men, boys and Dayna who "woke up in April" to eternal life, and to the broken hearts they left behind. I am praying for every one of you.  #BroncosStrong.


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From our Killer Headlines files

And my adjective is meant as a sad and tragic irony. I read this article, but I didn't really need to, because the headline says it all.

Deputy Who Didn't Enter Parkland School Defends Himself 

Well, yes, that's rather self-evident, isn't it? He didn't go in because he needed to defend himself, not the kids and staff who died.

Protocol, orders, yadda yadda. Law enforcement is hard; heroism even harder. My nephew and brother are city police officers who have faced danger and threats and death and the whole nine yards. Serve and protect. May God have mercy on those who died, and those who have to live with grief and shame.
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It's not a raging wildfire.

Not physically, anyway. Metaphorically, maybe...

It's a Saskatchewan sunset. 

As some of you know (since at least half of DOH readers are related to me by blood or marriage), my mom died two month ago today, on the feast of All Souls', Nov. 2, 2016. (I'm still processing, so that is partly why blogging has been weird and sporadic.)  

The next day, November 3, my husband and three youngest daughters travelled home to the farm where I grew up, to be with my dad and to prepare for Mom's funeral. As we drove along, I was awed by a spectacular, blazing sunset. Photos cannot do it justice, especially when you are taking snaps through a car window, using a smartphone camera, and travelling 100 kph. 

The view changed moment to moment, not only as the sun sank beneath the horizon, but as the pink wispy clouds seemed to drift (or be drawn?) higher and higher toward heaven and the darkening sky. Little snapshots such as these cannot adequately convey the sensation of looking up at the immensity and grandeur of the sky, and how relatively small I felt by comparison.

The wispy clouds reminded me of doves or angels in flight.

As I contemplated the sunset, the words of the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr came to mind. Which seemed kind of appropriate on numerous levels. The poet was a young WWII pilot (he died at age 19). Mom was buried on Remembrance Day, Nov. 11, the day we honour our war dead.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

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A piece of my past just died.

Suddenly I feel so old. And pretty sad. Music legend David Bowie has died. Pretty shocking. He just released his final album (last Friday, on his 69th birthday). I didn't even know he was sick. Truly one of a kind. Rest in peace, Starman. Check ignition, and may God's love be with you.

O my God, this is so beautiful

I am not one to use OMG as an interjection. My subject heading is a prayer, but it is also an invitation to you. My heart is very full. I have lost my sister-in-law Joanne to cancer. Please pray for her husband and sons.

Do yourself a favour and go pray the Office of Readings. The opening hymn alone will lift your soul, but not as much as the sermon below.

The priest in my home town gave two very beautiful homilies, at Joanne's vigil prayers and the next day at her funeral. Of the many wise and inspiring and true things he said, this one has stayed with me the longest: "Joanne enriched our lives."

Riches: how most of us hanker after them. Coincidentally (or not) our family was recently in Banff, the lovely national park in Alberta (pics to follow at some point). We hiked the mountain trails and saw much beauty. We also toured some very ritzy hotels, and I think it left some of our kids feeling kind of wistful, as they saw how the "rich" live. Well, kids, there's more to life than soaking it up in a swimming pool in the mountains and dining at a five-star restaurant and buying souvenirs (original art, gems, so forth) worth $20,000, but it all looks rather dreamy to teenagers who get told every so often in daily life, "We can't afford that."

After Father's comment (actually, during the Communion meditation hymn) at the funeral, I realized: Love is the only wealth. If you do not love, you give nothing. If you are not loved, you have nothing. Love is the only wealth. 

Of course, I have always known this. But sometimes you just need to be hit between the eyes and stabbed through the heart with the profundity of this truth.

The best news is, we are all rich beyond measure, because we are all loved, deeply and passionately, by God.

And then today, I read this sermon on Love in the Office of Readings.

From a sermon by Saint Bernard, abbot

I love because I love, I love that I may love

Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.

The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?

Rightly then does she give up all other feelings and give herself wholly to love alone; in giving love back, all she can do is to respond to love. And when she has poured out her whole being in love, what is that in comparison with the unceasing torrent of that original source? Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and Bridegroom, creature and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one might as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.

What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate love, her confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in love with him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists. Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a greater love?

Joanne loved like that. Her face literally glowed with the love of Christ. She enriched our lives. She died a wealthy woman. If I can attain half her holiness and joy, my life will not have been lived in vain. Pray for us, Jo. 

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So sad: good-bye, Gilbert Blythe

Jonathan Crombie has died.  Thank you for sharing your art with the world. May God rest your soul.

He lived long, he prospered, now may he rest in peace.

I agree.

May God have mercy on his soul. We prayed for many years for his conversion.
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A sweetheart to the end

Rest in peace, Annette.

"They sing too loud and they move too much."

No, not Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Beyonce, or Nicki Minaj... The Andrews Sisters. 

That's what savvy entertainment types told the girls' mom-promoter in the early days before the sisters hit the big time. They would go on to become the best-selling girl group of all time. Patty, the last surviving Andrews sister, died yesterday at the age of 94. 

A toast to you, ladies.


h/t CMR

1) He taught other people how to love. 2) He is now among the Saints.

In all our years on earth, let us hope we may accomplish that much.
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Lest we forget

If you need to be reminded about what really matters

...and don't we all, from time to time? Then visit Mommy Life and view these tributes to the late Catholic mom-of-12 and blogger Barbara Curtis. They are both very touching. Be forewarned and have a box of kleenex handy.

This one is a video made by her children.

This one is a tribute written by her husband. Question for contemplation: if I died suddenly, what would my husband write or say about me? What would my children say? Getting offline and going to be with them now.
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All Souls Day

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. 

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. 

Amen.

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Farewell, Andy

Thanks to YouTube, we'll always be able to enjoy your mellow vocal stylings.

What light by yonder winder shines?

Rest in Peace, Andy. You gave us many laughs over the years. Here's one of my favourites (Shakespeare will never be the same again).


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Ray Bradbury died yesterday at the age of 91. God rest his soul.

The first spring day that's warm and dry enough for the wearing of sneakers still makes me think of Douglas Spaulding in Dandelion Wine. Streamlined silver cars remind me of the beetles in Fahrenheit 451. Stories about advancing automation call to mind the house in "There Will Come Soft Rains". I regularly check for unexpected changes in my bank balance  - and  Mr. B.'s heartbeat - because of "Marionettes, Inc."

And I still judge all science fiction and fantasy by whether it
energizes my imagination the way The Martian Chronicles did when I was twelve. Thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for the worlds you created for us.

I hope he's happy because he's finally going home.

Godspeed, Eduard Khil.
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Swerve to smell de soup.

Rest in peace, Jim Unger. Your cartoons were "nuts sing on de roof" .

 Here's a touching farewell sentiment which has become something of a catch phrase with some of my siblings and me.
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