Miracles and angels...

This is a detail of the angel that sits below Our Lady of Guadalupe supporting her, supposedly reflecting the face of Juan Diego, or at least his resemblance. In this very short entry, I am simply announcing that I have happily received funding for the Life Icon Project.  We all need our angels, and God has sent one to me to support this effort and undertaking.  I am deeply grateful, and although I do not yet know where she will end up when complete, that becomes an intrinsic part of the wonder of the unfolding of process--of approaching the unknown in faith.  St. Bernard's has declined having her in its arms, and so time will tell. I am fully encouraged that she will have her perfect home, so now I wait as the icon board is being made by my neighbor, a master carpenter.  I am gathering supplies, and will soon return to elaborate on the journey that has just begun.  My heart is full.

    

Patience and perseverence

And so it goes.  The beauty and immediacy of the project have been on hold.  I must wait.  The time is incubating to move forward, but the door has yet to be opened.
I have now spoken to Father Dan, who has given me hope, although as with all things it must be approached the right way.  The statue that is currently in the location that I am proposing was gifted, and would need to find a rightful new and worthy place to be housed.  Or as Father Paul had suggested, perhaps we could also find another spot for the icon.  I am fully convinced that Our Lady wants to be in the specific spot I have proposed in the main church.  Most other places are transitory spaces, which people walk through and would not necessarily stop to meditate with an icon, or at least to allow her to speak in her radiance to the heart.  So it goes.  I will try to remain open and not lose hope.
So within these parameters awaits a desire to become, to incarnate, to make flesh with line and color and brush. I will be patient, but I am accountable for carrying through that which was placed on my heart.

And I meditate upon the fields of St. Joseph's Abbey--a Trappist monastery in Spencer, Mass., where I recently had a most beautiful weekend retreat of silence and prayerful meditation. There was a sense of spiritual cleansing even in the trees.  The soil too giving praise to God.  And the monks singing in Gregorian Chant the Beauty of the Lord.  Be still.  Wait.  Pray.